The crook-neck squash in the Northwest is a great success this season. And what can be more beautiful, as it calmly lies in its bower of green vines in the crisp and golden haze of autumn, than the cute little crook-neck squash, with yellow, warty skin, all cuddled up together in the cool morning, like the discarded wife of an old Mormon elder—his first attempt in the matrimonial line, so to speak, ere he had gained wisdom by experience.
The full-dress, low-neck-and-short-sleeve summer squash will be worn as usual this fall, with trimmings of salt and pepper in front and revers of butter down the back.
N.B.—It will not be used much as an outside wrap, but will be worn mostly inside.
Hop-poles in some parts of Wisconsin are entirely killed. I suppose that continued dry weather in the early summer did it.
Hop-lice, however, are looking well. Many of our best hop-breeders thought that when the hop-pole began to wither and die, the hop-louse could not survive the intense dry heat; but hop-lice have never looked better in this State than they do this fall.
I can remember very well when Wisconsin had to send to Ohio for hop-lice. Now she could almost supply Ohio and still have enough to fill her own coffers.
I do not know that hop-lice are kept in coffers, and I may be wrong in speaking thus freely of these two subjects, never having seen either a hop-louse or a coffer, but I feel that the public must certainly and naturally expect me to say something on these subjects. Fruit in the Northwest this season is not a great success. Aside from the cranberry and choke-cherry, the fruit yield in the northern district is light. The early dwarf crab, with or without, worms, as desired—but mostly with—is unusually poor this fall. They make good cider. This cider when put into a brandy flask that has not been drained too dry, and allowed to stand until Christmas, puts a great deal of expression into a country dance. I have tried it once myself, so that I could write it up for your valuable paper.
People who were present at that dance, and who saw me frolic around there like a thing of life, say that it was well worth the price of admission. Stone fence always flies right to the weakest spot. So it goes right to my head and makes me eccentric.
The violin virtuoso who “fiddled,” “called off” and acted as justice of the peace that evening, said that I threw aside all reserve and entered with great zest into the dance, and seemed to enjoy it much better than those who danced in the same set with me. Since that, the very sight of a common crab apple makes my head reel. I learned afterward that this cider had frozen, so that the alleged cider which we drank that night was the clear, old-fashioned brandy, which of course would not freeze.
We should strive, however, to lead such lives that we will never be ashamed to look a cider barrel square in the bung.
Literary Freaks
People who write for a livelihood get some queer propositions from those who have crude ideas about the operation of the literary machine. There is a prevailing idea among those who have never dabbled in literature very much, that the divine afflatus works a good deal like a corn sheller. This is erroneous.
To put a bushel of words into the hopper and have them come out a poem or a sermon, is a more complicated process than it would seem to the casual observer.
I can hardly be called literary, though I admit that my tastes lie in that direction, and yet I have had some singular experiences in that line. For instance, last year I received flattering overtures from three young men who wanted me to write speeches for them to deliver on the Fourth of July. They could do it themselves, but hadn’t the time. If I would write the speeches they would be willing to revise them. They seemed to think it would be a good idea to write the speeches a little longer than necessary and then the poorer parts of the effort could be cut out. Various prices were set on these efforts, from a dollar to “the kindest regards.” People who have squeezed through one of our adult winters in this latitude, subsisting on kind regards, will please communicate with the writer, stating how they like it.
One gentleman, who was in the confectionery business, wanted a lot of “humorous notices wrote for to put into conversation candy.” It was a big temptation to write something that would be in every lady’s mouth, but I refrained. Writing gum drop epitaphs may properly belong to the domain of literature, but I doubt it. Surely I do not want to be haughty and above my business, but it seems to me that this is irrelevant.
Another man wanted me to write a “piece for his boy to speak,” and if I would do so, I could come to his house some Saturday night and stay over Sunday. He said that the boy was “a perfect little case to carry on and folks didn’t know whether he would develop into a condemb fool or a youmerist.” So he wanted a piece of one of them tomfoolery kind for the little cuss to speak the last day of school.
A coal dealer who had risen to affluence by selling coal to the poor by apothecaries’ weight, wrote to ask me for a design to be used as a family crest and a motto to emblazon on his arms. I told him I had run out of crests, but that “weight for the wagon, we’ll all take a ride,” would be a good motto; or he might use the following: “The fuel and his money are soon parted.” He might emblazon this on his arms, or tattoo it on any other part of his system where he thought it would be becoming to his complexion. I never heard from him again, and I do not know whether he was offended or not.
Two young men in Massachusetts wrote me a letter in which they said they “had a good thing on mother.” They wanted it written up in a facetious vein. They said that their father had been on the coast a few weeks before, engaged in the eeling industry. Being a good man, but partially full, he had mingled himself in the flowing tide and got drowned. Finally, after several days’ search, the neighbors came in sadly and told the old lady thai they had found all that was mortal of James, and there were two eels in the remains. They asked for further instructions as to deceased. The old lady swabbed out her weeping eyes, braced herself against the sink and told the men to “bring in the eels and set him again.”
The boys thought that if this could be properly written up, “it would be a mighty good joke on mother.” I was greatly shocked when I received this letter. It seemed to me heartless for young men to speak lightly of their widowed mother’s great woe. I wrote them how I felt about it, and rebuked them severely for treating their mother’s grief so lightly. Also for trying to impose upon me with an old chestnut.
A Father’s Advice to His Son
My dear Henry.—Your pensive favor of the 20th inst., asking for more means with which to persecute your studies, and also a young man from Ohio, is at hand and carefully noted.
I would not be ashamed to have you show the foregoing sentence to your teacher, if it could be worked, in a quiet way, so as not to look egotistic on my part. I think myself that it is pretty fair for a man that never had any advantages.
But, Henry, why will you insist on fighting the young man from Ohio? It is not only rude and wrong, but you invariably get licked. There’s where the enormity of the thing comes in.
It was this young man from Ohio, named Williams, that you hazed last year, or at least that’s what I gether from a letter sent me by your warden. He maintains that you started in to mix Mr. Williams up with the campus in some way, and that in some way Mr. Williams resented it and got his fangs tangled up in the bridge of your nose.
You never wrote this to me or to your mother, but I know how busy you are with your studies, and I hope you won’t ever neglect your books just to write to us.
Your warden, or whoever he is, said that Mr. Williams also hung a hand-painted marine view over your eye and put an extra eyelid on one of your ears.
I wish that, if you get time, you would write us about it, because, if there’s anything I can do for you in the arnica line, I would be pleased to do so.
The president also says that in the scuffle you and Mr. Williams swapped belts as follows, to-wit: That Williams snatched off the belt of your little Norfolk jacket, and then gave you one in the eye.
From this I gether that the old prez, as you faseshusly call him, is an youmorist. He is not a very good penman, however; though, so far, his words have all been spelled correct.
I