Humorous stories; Newspapers -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
"Well, now this is how it was," said Miss Clegg; "an' I'll begin 'way
back in the beginnin' so you 'll have it all straight, for it's very
needful to have it straight so as to understand just why she is so nigh
to half mad. For Mrs. Macy is n't one as gets mad easy, an' so it's well
for us as has got to live in the same town with her to well an' clearly
learn just how much it takes to use her up.
"Seems, Mrs. Lathrop, as yesterday mornin' Mrs. Macy set out to go to
town to buy her some shoes. Seems as she was goin' to take lunch with
Busby Bell's cousin Luther Stott's wife as she met at the Lupeys' in
Meadville, 'cause they only live three-quarters of an hour from town on
two changes of the electric, an' Mrs. Stott told Mrs. Lupey as any time
she or her relations got tired of shoppin' she'd be nothin' but happy
to have 'em drop in on her to rest 'cause she kept a girl an' her
husband's sister, too, so company was n't no work for her herself. Well,
Mrs. Macy was goin' to the city an' so she looked up the address an'
made up her mind to go there to lunch, an' so she wrote the address on
one side of the piece of paper as she had in her black bag an' she wrote
her shoes on the other side, for she says they're a new kind of shoes as
is warranted not to pinch you in the back, by every magazine an'
newspaper--an' _you_ know what Mrs. Macy is on bein' pinched; why, she
says she give up belts an' took to carpet slippers just for the very
reason as she could _not_ stand bein' pinched nowhere.
"Well, seems as the shoes was Kulosis shoes an' Mrs. Macy says how any
one could remember 'em off of paper _she_ can't see anyhow, an' Luther
Stott's wife lives 2164 Eleventh Avenue S.W., an' that was very
important too, for there's seven other Eleventh Avenues in the city
besides eight Eleventh Streets; seems as the new part of the city is
laid out that way so as to make it simple to them as knows where they
live anyhow.
"Well, Mrs. Macy says she put on her bonnet as happy as any one looks to
be afore they know they're goin' to be the first to have a new invention
tried on 'em an' then she locked up her house an' set off. She says she
never was great on new inventions for she's lived under a lightnin' rod
for pretty near forty years an' never come anywhere nigh to be struck
once yet, but she says she has now learned to her sorrow as bein' fooled
by a lightnin' rod man forty years ago ain't nothin' to bein' fooled by
a minister for forty years ahead, for she says she'll lose her guess if
this last foolin' don't last forty years or even longer if she lives
that long, an' make her wear her felt slippers all the forty years too.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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