The Humors of Falconbridge: A Collection of Humorous and Every Day ScenesFalconbridge
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The Humors of Falconbridge: A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes
Falconbridge
American wit and humor
In rushing hot weather, when the bricks and mortar, the stagnated,
oven-like air of the crowded city threatens to bake, parboil, or give
the "citizens" the yellow fever, then we are very apt to think of plain
Aunt Polly, rough-hewed Uncle John, and the bullet-headed, uncombed,
smock-frocked cousins, nephews, and nieces, at their rural homes, amid
the fragrant meadows and umbrageous woods; the cool, silver streams and
murmuring brooks of the glorious country. Then, the poetic sunbeams and
moonshine of fancy bring to the eye and heart all or a part of the
glories and beauties, uses and purposes in which God has invested the
ruraldom.
Now, our country friends are mostly desirous, candidly so, to have their
city friends come and see them--not merely pop visits, but bring your
whole family, and stay a month! This they may do, and will do, and can
afford it, as it is more convenient to one's pocket-book, on a farm, to
_quarter_ a platoon of your friends than to perform the same operation
in the city, where it is apt to give your purse the tick-dollar-owe in
no time.
It was not long since, during the prevalence of a hot summer, that Mrs.
Triangle one morning said to her stewing husband, who was in no wise
troubled with a surplus of the circulating medium--
"Triangle, it's on-possible for us to keep the children well and quiet
through this dreadful hot weather. We must go into the country. The
Joneses and Pigwigginses and Macwackinses, and--and--everybody has gone
out into the country, and we must go, too; why can't we?"
"Why can't we?" mechanically echoed Triangle, who just then was deeply
absorbed in a problem as to whether or not, considering the prices of
coal, potatoes, house-rents, leather, and "dry goods," he would fetch up
in prison or the poor-house first! It was a momentous question, and to
his wife's proposal of a fresh detail of domestic expense, Triangle
responded--
"Why can't we?"
"Yes, that's what I'd like to know--why can't _we_?"
"We _can't_, Mrs. Triangle," decidedly answered her lord and master.
Now Mrs. T., being but a woman, very naturally went on to give Mr. T. a
Caudle lecture half an hour long, winding up with one of those
time-honored perquisites of the female sex--a good cry.
Poor Triangle put on his hat and marched down to his bake-oven of an
"office," to plan business and smoke his cigar. Triangle came home to
tea, and saw at a glance that something must be done. Mrs. Triangle was
to be "compromised," or far hotter than even the hot, hot weather would
be his domicile for the balance of the season. Triangle thought it over,
as he nibbled his toast and sipped his hot Souchong.
"My dear," said he, pushing aside his cup, and tilting himself upon the
"hind legs" of his chair--"business is very dull, the weather is
intolerable, I know you and the children would be much benefitted by a
trip into the country--why can't we go?"
"Why can't we?--that's what I'd like to know!" was the ready response of
Mrs. T.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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