Humorous stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
As the evening lamp is now lighted, I produce some good book or pamphlet
like "The Greatest Thing in the World," and read from it, occasionally
cuffing a child in order to keep everything calm and reposeful. At 9
o'clock the cat is expelled and the eight-day clock is wound up for the
week. Gazing up at the bright cold stars after kicking forth the cat, I
realize that another Sabbath has been filed away in the great big brawny
bosom of the past, and with a little remorseful sigh and an incipient
sob when I think that I am not making a better record, I drive a fence
nail in over the door latch and seek my library which, on being properly
approached, opens and becomes a beautiful couch.
A FLYER IN DIRT
VIII
I have just returned from a visit to my property at Minneapolis, and can
not refrain from referring to its marvelous growth. The distance between
it and the business center of the city has also grown a good deal since
I last saw it. This is the property which I purchased some three years
ago of a real good man. His name is Pansley--Flinton Pansley. He has
done business in most all the towns of the Northwest. Perhaps a further
word or two about this pious gentleman will not be amiss. Entering a
place quietly and even meekly, with a letter to the local pastor, he
would begin reaching out his little social tendrils by sighing over the
lost and undone condition of mankind. After regretting the state in
which he had found God's vineyard, he would rent a store and sell goods
at a sacrifice, but when the sacrifice was being offered up, a close
observer would discover that Mr. Pansley was not in it.
In this way he would build up quite a trade, only sparing a little time
each day in which to retire to his closet and sob over the altogether
godless condition in which he had found man. He would then make an
assignment.
Pardon me for again referring to the matter, but I do so utterly without
malice, and in connection with the unparalleled growth of my property
here. So if the gentle and rather attractive reader will excuse a bad
pen, and some plain stationery, as my own crested writing-paper is in my
trunk, which is now in the possession of a well-known hotel man whose
name is suppressed on account of his family, I shall refer again briefly
to the property and the circumstances surrounding its purchase. I had
intended to put a good fence around it ere this, but with these peculiar
circumstances surrounding it, I feel that it is safe from intrusion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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