Judge — September 7, 1907 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CONGRESSMAN CUSHMAN’S PLUG HAT. (CONGRESSMAN. FRANCIS W. CUSH- MAN, the tall statesman from Wash- ington state, entered the house cloak-room at Washington one day, and was hanging his slouch hat on its accustomed peg, when a brother member from Pennsylvania en- tered and gave his silk tile tenderly into the keeping of the cloak-room porter. The Keystone statesman asked, “Cushman, you never wear a plug hat, do you?” A very peculiar and quizzical expres- sion crept over Cushman’s thin face—it would have been called a blush if he had been a girl—as he replied, “Say, nobody has been talking to you about that, have they?” He was assured that the subject had never been discussed before. They sat down before the open fire, and Cushman drew his chair up close and looked around to be sure that no one was listening, and said, “Now, you see, I have worn a slouch hat for more than thirty years—in fact, never wore anything else. I suppose that some time or other every fellow who wears a slouch hat has a kind of secret long- ing—a gnawing in his ‘innards,’ so to speak—to own a plug hat. I admit that I had that disease. Every time I would see a fine, round, plump, well-dressed fellow with a shiny plug hat on I felt an inward longing to have one of ‘em myself—like David Harum wanted that full-dress suit. Of course I knew that a plug hat wouldn't suit my pe- culiar style of beauty any better than a full-dress shirt would suit a Siwash Indian. But I wanted one. After my election to congress of course I continued to wear my good old slouch hat. But I still had a hankering to become the proud and fond owner of a plug—but there didn’t seem to be any decent excuse for my getting one. «You know, before I came to congress, I had never attended a White House reception—nor much of anything else except a ‘taffy- pulling.’ But my constituents are a game lot of people. I knew they wanted their representative to do the proper thing ; and that was what Texpected to do—just as fast as I found out what the proper thing was. Well, just a short time before I was due to make my de-butt at my first White House reception I overheard an old congressman telling another green one like myself that it was the proper thing to wear a silk hat to a White House reception. That was the excuse that I had been wait- ing for for years. I determined to have one instanter. Within ten minutes I walked into a shop on Pennsylvania Avenue where they fur- nish halters and head-stalls for male animals. “Of course I didn’t care to have the clerk in that hat-store know that I had never owned a silk hat, so I just remarked to him, rather careless like, that I guessed I was about «ue to have another plug hat. He looked at me and said, ‘What block?’ I said, ‘Huh?’ If he had been a Chinaman I would have come just as near understanding. 1 imagine that he suspected that I was not a genuine expert in plug hats. But he laid out an assortment. Say, they looked fine—that is, when he tried them on himself. But when I tried them on I must confess that the effect was a trifle peculiar—made me look somewhere about half-way between a hay-barrack and a liberty-pole. The clerk said that, as I was a tall man, I ought to have an extra tall hat. You know Thad figured it out just the other way; but my informa- tion on the subject was not sufficient for me to get into an argument with him. So I took the tallest hat in the bunch —seven plunks. **T took that box tenderly under my arm and carried it home. I did not dare to try to wear it without practice. When I got that box home and took that hat out and stood it up on the centre-table, I really think it was the swellest- looking thing I ever saw. It was so slick that you could Congressman Cushman. looking at it, But when I put it on my troubles began. You know that I had been used to wearing a soft slouch hat that a bronco couldn't buck off your head. But this new stiff thing would skate around over the top of my head like a stove-lid. When I walked around the room with it on Ihad to perform much like an acrobat balancing a pole on his nose. But I practiced with it, and after I had held two or three dress-rehearsals I felt that I could keep under it all right—that is, if nobody disturbed me and I had plenty of room. “+ Finally the great night of that White House recep- are intimal and clean, HEALTHY HAIR is the result of the intelligent, painstaking care of the scalp with Packer's fairly see yourself in it—and I almost forgot about the price | I ar S Oo ap Pure as the Pines Not cleanses the but i vee oe Guadon ieee es intimately concerned with the growth tality of the hair. y scalp, and lustrous hair. For a third of a century " Packer's" has recognized B- ‘The Packer Mfg. Co., New York City. tion came, and I proceeded to array myself in my dress-suit and that plug hat. Say! I felt like a circus band-wagon looks. I made for a street-car. I afterward wished I had hired an express-wagon. You know, I am quite tall, and I can just about go through the door of a street-car without stooping—that is, I mean when I have my slouch hat on. I stepped up on the platform of that car, carefully balancing that treasure on top of the spot where I am supposed to do my think- ing; then I tried to step through the door. The hat struck the top of the door and was knocked off. I made a backward lunge after it, hop- ing to get it on the * fly,’ or on the ‘first bounce.’ But it lit on a boy's head and bounced off, hit the motor-box, bounced again, hit the floor, and then took a final bounce into the street. Finally I overtook it out in the street. «+ After that car got out of sight I carefully smoothed out the rough places on that hat with a pocket-comb and a bunch of keys, and then walked over to the White House. That was in the old days at the White House, you know, before they had built on that ‘summer kitch- en’ on the east side, out toward the ‘cistern.’ So I went right in in front—butted right into the main corral. That front door is about twelve feet high, but I «ducked ’ as I went through, so as to be sure to get that hat under all right. There wasn’t any place to put wraps in those days. You simply handed your togs to a porter, and he put them where as few people would walk over them as possible. That wast teeny: ens EASILY EARNED. “My! what a swell hat! What did you pay for It?" “Oh, | got it for a mere song.” colored gentleman certainly made a bad selection when he picked out a place that night to leave my new hat. I am inclined to think that the main line of march of about cight thousand people must have passed directly over it. After the President had been presented to me I came back looking for that hat. Say, it was a sight! I could take the rim in one hand and the crown in the other and work it back and forth like Uncle Tom's old accordion. «And that's the rea- son,” said Cushman as he rose, ** you always find me wearing a slouch hat. No more plug hat for me, thank you.” FEET OUT. SHE HAD CURIOUS HABITS. When a person has to keep the feet out from under cover during the coldest nights in winter because of the heat and prickly sensation, it is time that coffee, which causes the trouble, be left off. There is no end to the nervous condi- tions that coffee will produce. It shows in one way in one person and in another way in another. In this case the lady lived in South Dakota. She says: “IT have had to lie awake half the night with my feet and limbs out of the bed on the coldest nights, and felt afraid to sleep for fear of catching cold. 1 had been troubled for years with twitching and jerking of the lower limbs, and for most of the time I have been unable to go to church or to lectures because ot that awful feeling that I must keep on the move. “When it was brought to my attention that coffee caused so many nervous dis- eases, I concluded to drop coffee and take Postum Food’ Coffee to see if my trouble was caused by coffee-drinking. “LT only drank one cup of coffee for breakfast, but that was enough to do the business for me. When I quit it my trou- bles disappeared in an almost miraculous way. Now I have no more of the jerk- ing and twitching and can sleep with any amount of bedding over me and sleep all night, in sound, peaceful rest. “Postum Food Coffee is absolutely worth its weight in gold to me.” ‘+ There's a Reason.” Read the little health classic, “The Road to Wellvill packages. as the ideal soap for comicbooks.com