Puck — July 16, 1879 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

294 OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. IN THE CounTry, and I forget the date. O Puck! (Doesn't this strike you as an improvement upon the conventional form of opening a letter? Doesn't it sort of give you a fair warning that I am about to unburden several horrible bales upon you? I own up to having sto—adapted the idea from the dear girls, who invariably affect this ejaculatory salutation when one meets another in the street, and is all impa- tience to tell her that she has found out that stuck-up thing, Marianne Jonesy, has had dresses made by a seamstress in 11th Avenue, and not by Madame Phinekutsky, the Union Square modiste, as she had given them reason to believe. And don't let the particularly intelligent compositor who sets up this stickfull put in any of his fancy touches on that first letter. If you think it not safe to tempt him, draw your pencil through the “‘O” and substitute the customary ‘ Dear.” You see he might smuggle in a period after the ‘“‘O”, and then everybody would think your first name was Obadiah, or Oscar — Oscar Puck, wouldn’t that sound queer ?) It has been raining now four days in succes- sion—but not steadily. Not a square honest rain that knows what it has to do, and settles down to business, and never lets up until it’s finished. I can respect such a cataclysm, how- ever much it may inconvenience me, but where shall I find epithets strong enough to charac- terize this nasty, exasperating, intermittent rain? “(In a Thesaurus.” Thanks, thanks, but please don’t interrupt! It is coming down now like a Grand Aggre- gation of Untamed Cataracts. In about an hour, perhaps, it will slow up, begin to drop on it, as it were, and gradually clear off, Then the sky will smile through its tears (you have heard this met-afore—likewise this pun), and a strong preparation of sunshine will dry up the imita- tion dewdrops on grass and flowers. And do you know what I will do then? I will look everywhere, overhead, east, west, north and south, and even behind the barn, and find not even an apology for a threatening cloud anywhere, Then I will kick off my slippers and pull on my double-soled tramping brogans, and venture out. This is quite possible here, for the rain soaks into the sandy soil, and the roads are walkable immediately after the se- verest storm. I don’t know where all the water goes to, but I am of the opinion that, if all the world resembled this particular portion of the State of Connecticut in soil and climate, the devil would be drowned out in less than no time. Iwill brush along through the clover-fields, and over the hillocks dotted with daisies, until I am far from shelter, when suddenly a bilious hue will overspread the face of the sky, and I shall be drenched with as little mercy as Captain Williams would show the poor wretch who chanced to be taken with an epileptic fit in his precinct. I know that this will happen if I venture out—I foresee and prophesy it; yet when the raindrops shall have ceased, and the sky is innocent of clouds, I will persuade my- self that an end of all this wetness has come at last. 1 will lay my plans accordingly, and then the rain will come, as hereinbefore foresha- dowed, and lay them for me. There can be no doubt about it, what this place really needs is a new climate, one more regular in its habits. If the villagers were the least bit enterprising, they’d club together and buy’ one. it must be excessively trying to a person of nervous temperament to be hanged by the neck until dead, but I doubt if it be more painful Taseau I, than the experience of the man, who, lazily stretched at full length upon the shady lawn, and dreaming of nothing in particular, feels something crawl up his feg. Just watch him! With one agile turn he is in a sitting posture. The insect seems to be creeping up both sides of his leg at once, and has almost reached his knee before he can put his finger on it. He feels several thousand claws clinging to his flesh, and his mind reverts to bales of scorpions and tarantulas. He secures the animal between his fingers and a fold of his trousers, What shall he do with it? He dare not crush it, because —because—well, because no fellow ever brings more than one change of underclothing with him when he goes into the country for a week or two, and the washerwoman has just carried away the other set. He tries to reach it from below with the hand that is disengaged, but he cannot insert his fingers under his snug-fitting clothes. To get at it from above is equally out of the question, because there are ladies upon the piazza who are already interested; so he tightens his grip upon the unidentified monster, and thus, bent nearly double, shuffles into the house, stumbles to his room, and—there, now, he has closed the door! (When next I’ll see you, Puckie, I'll tell you what I did and how I did it, when I was alone with my fears and the bug. Remind me. You can’t expect me to give myself away too badly to everybody, even if it does fill up the column.) 1 am anything but an epicure. I can relish ris de veau 4 la financiére, yet an insinuating swiss-cheese and brown-bread sandwich is quite as much to my liking; but if there is one thing Ido particularly dote upon, it is a poached egg. A poached egg sans reproche, mind you, for I am not one of those who take their eggs, as they do their religions, upon faith. Somehow, I never can take kindly to one whose yolk exposes three colors—an outer ring of deep red, an inner circle of yellow, and a central spot of green. I cannot accept such a one as the Correct Ki-bosh in eggs. I may be ultra-particular, but I never eat one in a restaurant unless the proprie- tor is willing to sign an affidavit that he saw the egg laid, and of his own knowledge, aud not from “information and belief,” knows it to be in its early infancy, and not yet to have reached the period of addlescence; and as they are sel- dom prepared to do this, I rarely taste my favorite dish, I once found an eating-house boss who was willing, even eager, to take the oath, but all the same was the alleged oeg passé. I afterwards learned that the fellow had been in earlier days a reporter for the Zelegram, But if 1 cannot often gratify my longing for this delicious dish, I can solace myself with anticipations of the summer tirae, when I can, figuratively, roll in eggs. As I doze at my desk in the winter time, a central figure in my dreams, along with the rustling of leaves, the singing of birds, and the babbling of shady brooks, is that of a plump hen laying eggs for me by the dozen in a barrel chuck-full of straw. My first breakfast when I reached here, con- sisted of a glass of milk and three poached What beauties they were! _ Here they nestled, side by side, blood-red yolk set in snowy white, and firm as door-knobs. I covered a square-inch of toast with a corresponding sec- tion of one egg, and, poising the tempting morsel on my fork, gloated over it with eager eyes. The delicious ruby mass, done to a nicety, hung trembling on the crispy edge, but did not drop. I closed my mouth upon it. Ye gods! I'd give a trade-dollar to see a picture of myself at that moment! ‘The egg was musty! Let it go no further! Keep it dark! 5 I was lounging about the station the next day when the 3:30 train from New York arrived, and I saw a box hurled from the baggage-car to the platform. It looked like a case of cham- pagne, and I drew near to note the name of the luxurious individual, that I might seek an introduction. It was marked with the legend “ Eccos—HANDLE WITH CaRk,” and the address —you have guessed already. I am not vain, Puck, but I want to call your attention to the fact that I have written all this without working in a single one of the thousand practicable puns upon the word “egg.” If I should happen to be drowned, or struck by lightning, or carried off by some girl, before I reach the city again, you will have at least one good word to say for me—won't you? M. W. B. . FACT! Notice a woman when she receives a tele- ram. How it does scare her! She trembles Fike a dish of jelly, and imagines all sorts of things. Her husband has fallen down the hatchway at his warehouse. Her Johnny has gone out sailing and is drowned. Heer sister Maria has been scalded to death, Nothing short of a fatal accident quite fills the bill of her imagination. When she finally summons courage to tear open the envelope, she finds a message from her husband warning her that he will bring a customer home to dinner, and she immediately calls the children together, and instructs them not to ask twice for raspberries, as there's just enough to go round, and give the visitor a few extra,