You Should Worry Says John HenryHobart, George V. (George Vere)
General
You Should Worry Says John Henry
Hobart, George V. (George Vere)
Humorous stories; Short stories, American
Ten minutes after friend wife had been given the camera she had me set
up as a statue all over Uncle Peter's lawn, and she was snapping at me
like a Spitz doggie at a peddler.
I sat for two hundred and nineteen pictures that forenoon and I posed
for every hero in history, from William the Conqueror down to Doctor
Cook, with both feet in a slushy little snowbank representing
nearly-the-North-pole.
[Illustration]
But when she tried to coax me to climb up on a limb of a tree and stay
there till she got a picture of me looking like an owl I swore softly in
three languages, fell over the back fence, and ran for my life.
When I rubbershoed it back that afternoon friend wife was busy
developing her crimes.
The proper and up-to-date caper in connection with taking snap-shots
these days is to buy a developing outfit and upset the household from
pit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures of every dearly beloved
friend that crosses your pathway.
Friend wife selected a spare room on the top floor of Uncle Peter's home
where she could await developments.
A half hour later ghostly noises began to come from that room and
mysterious whisperings fell out of the window and bumped over the lawn.
When I reached the front door I found that the gardener had left, the
waitress was leaving, and the cook was telephoning for a policeman.
"Where is Mrs. Henry?" I asked Mary, the cook.
"She is still developing," said Mary.
"What has she developed?" I inquired.
"Up to the present time she has developed your Uncle's temper and she
has developed your Aunt's appetite, and a couple of bill collectors
developed a pain in the neck when she took their pictures, and, if
things go on in this way, I think this will soon develop into a foolish
house!" said Mary, the cook.
A half hour later, while I was hiding behind the pianola in the living
room, not daring to breathe above a whisper for fear I would get my
picture taken again, friend wife rushed in exclaiming, "Oh, joy! Oh,
joy! John, I have developed two pictures!"
I wish you could have seen the expression on Peaches' face.
In order to develop the films a picturesque assortment of drugs and
chemicals have to be used.
Well, friend wife had used them.
A silent little stream of wood alcohol was trickling down over her left
ear into her Psyche knot, and on the end of her nose about six grains of
extract of potash was sending out signals of distress to some spirits of
turpentine which was burning on the top of her right eyebrow.
Something dark and lingering like iodine had given her chin the
double-cross and her apron looked like the remnants of a porous plaster.
Her right hand had red, white, green, purple, and magenta marks all over
it, and her left hand looked like the Fourth of July.
"John!" she yelled; "here it is! My goodness, I am so excited! See what
a fine picture of you I took!"
She handed me the picture, but all I could see was a woodshed with the
door wide open.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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