THE WAY BROWN MANAGED THEM.

Dunstan Times, Issue 784, 27 April 1877, Page 4

THE WAY BROWN MANAGED THEM.

■ — o —■ ‘ Brown, I don't know how it is that your girls marry off as soon as they get old enough, while none of mine can marry.’ ‘ Oh, that’s simple enough. I many my girls off on the buckwheat straw principle.' ‘But what is that principle! I never heard of it before.’ * Well, I used to raise a good deal »f buckwheat, and it puzzled me to know how to get rid of the straw. Nothing would eat it, and it was a great bother to me. At last I thought of a plan. I stacked my buckwheat straw nicely and built a high rail fence around it. My cattle of course concluded that it was something good, and at once tore down the fence and began to eat the straw. I dogged them away and put up the fence a few times, but the more I drove them away the more anxious they became to eat the straw, and eat it they did, every bit of it. As I said, I marry my girls off on the same principle. When a young man that I don’t like begins calling on my girls, I encourage him in every way I can. 1 tell him to come often and stay as late as he pleases, and I take pains to hint to the girls that they’d belter set their caps for him. It works first-rate. He don’t make many calls, for the girls treat him as coolly as they can. But when a young fellow that I like comes around—a man that I think would suit me for a son-in law—l don’t let him make many calls before I give him to understand that he isn’t wanted around my house. I tell the gills, too, that they shall not have anything to do with him, and give them orders not to speak to him again. The plan always works firstrate. The young folks begin to pity each other; and the next thing I know is that they are engaged to be married. When I see that they are determined to marry I always give in and pretend to make the best of it. That’s the way I manage it.’