CULTURE IN MAINE.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 367, 21 May 1903, Page 3

CULTURE IN MAINE.

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I *3Ntt »«** ttme Igo to M*ine," said ifee girl, pausing to chot while'she unpacked hsr trunk, relate* ths Wow York Bun, "I tako with, me a aompleto eoHulold outfit, so as to ■nop my fingers aft laundry agents and th« like. With water, watea •verywherc on the coast of Maine, yooM think it would be eaay to got your washing done, hut it isn't. "On the island where I wai stay* fag the first weak all my things were ahipped off miles and miles away to {Portland, or Boston or Bath. The laundry agent was a most obliging bud delightful boy, a son of an AtAjnreioan ambassador or something equally imposing, and a true, thrifty jflFankas. He was . putting himself jftbrough some university by this fOleanly summer pursuit. And it was (a pursuit, if pursuit means hunting ftfor lost things. "Well, he took my things Monday, railed at the cottage in person, discussed affably the social news of the Island, partook of the ginger ale our jiost brought out and tlwi went off \tmllh our bundles under Bssarm. Saturday he brought back what there 'was. It was a very meager display. CA lot of my things didn't turn up at mil, and all the hooks had been ripped Off one of my waists, in an excess of seal, for fear they would rust. The. •gent was very sympathetic. I described the things I was shy on. It did seem funny, but he never cracked • smile; he just jotted down descriptions of the missing things in his little memorandum book and promised to look them up. "You see he went everywhere and J met him at every tack and turh. I ignored his laundry career at dances and clambakes and such places, but t am told there wese girls who tackled him boldly during the pauses of the Boston dip, or when they were tipped up on the edge of a catboat with him, or anywhere, about things trimmed with Hamburg and others ruffled and edged with torchon.

"I used to assail him on the wharf when the express boat came in. H« was really such .a very nice boy and took no end of pains. One by one my things trickled back. He would oome up to me on the wharf, bareheaded, his eyes beaming and his teeth gleaming. " 'Good morning, there's a petticoat just in, looks like yours,' he would say; or 'l've had a letter about that stock, it's been found. It willbe along in a day or two.' "Ones he came up very confidently to know if I had pink ribbon run In anything, as there was a corset cover seeking an owner and he thought I might be she, although he remembered I never sent things without taking the ribbons out! Nice as he was, though, I couldn't patronize his old laundry, so I tried various other evils.

"Speaking of the polite little laundry Agent make* me think of thfe lot of people down in Maine who work at anything during the summer to go to college ' during the other nine months. The man who ran the trunk delivery business was a senior at some university, a terror in Latin and Greek, I suppose, and he oertaialy was a wi&ard with the trunks. He didn't look at the "checks until he got to your house, and then he general" ly would And he had mixed things. I used to moralize to myself sometime* as to whether educated service is aa good as the plain straight kind. "For instance, the housemaid at the eottage where I stayed knew a lot you didn't expeet her to know, but from one to two things my hostess let drop I fancy Ida fell short in the things she was expected to know. One day at dinner one of the children asked her father the French for crumb. He couldn't teM her, although he was educated abroad. We all tried but none of us could recollect the word. After dinner Alice, the little girl, came out and asked her father if miette was not the French for crumb. " 'That's the word I was trying to think of,' he said. 'Who told you? "It seems it was Ida who knew. She got hold of Alice after dlnnor and said: 'I wanted to tell you at the table, Miss Alice, but, of eourse, I couldn't speak then.' Ida had studied French "for four years and German for three in some New England high school and had aspirations to teacfc modern languages. "The cook, we discovered, went in -for pure English. We overheard Id* one day describing a man's appear* anee to the cook.

" 'He's a short, fat man, sunburn**, and generally he wears a cap and white pants,' he said. " 'Trousers,' the cook Bald, in » really horrified tone, and Ida learned straightway that panto is a vulgar contraction, and one which the cook hated to hear anyone use. "But culture and pure English didn't hurt the eook's art. I wish yott could have tasted her lobster N«u> burg, or her blueberry cake or Her—other things," said the girl, rising and resuming her unpacking with s> smile of pleasing recollection, Hot 4p Be CsatrM, Sponger—What la that expresatoa? Between the "what" of a dilemma T Kraft—No, you don't I You want ma to say "horns," and you think that'll remind me io ask you to have oa«.— Philadelphia Becord. ■**«*&& titaaaatal Ponaa&AeltreM. ~"- Milkman—Say, you paid me la edßa» terfeit money. Citizen- Well, you're been bringing as eounterfeit atUbr-D*troi« Fr#»