THE PARLOUS BBDROOM.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4483, 18 May 1883, Page 2

THE PARLOUS BBDROOM.

" On sundry occasions," said the Jester, " I have been sentenced to pass one night in solitary confinement in the modern chamber of horrors known as the spare room." The passengers all groaned in horrible chorus, and closing the car win* d>ws moved a little to the store. " Yes," said the till, thin passenger, "it is on the first floor next to the roof, and the cold, steel-blue starlight glitters in through the dormer window, and sometimes between the shingles" "And you can reach out of bed with your hands," said. the man on t'te wood-box, " and scrape enough frost off the wall to make a snowball as big as a turnip." They won't let you bare alight," the sad passenger said; " the old man says there is a heap of lumber in the room, and they're afraid you'll set fire to something." *• As you grope your ray* less way across the room," said the Jester, " you bump your head against all manner of things you don't know the name of; bund es and bunches of things, and weeds, and 'yarbs' hinging up to dry, sift withered leaves down your back every time* you strike a bunch, and this makes it mighty comfortable for you while you sleep. And about half way across the room to the bed you black your eye and knock yourself down with an ear of corn, hard as flint, and 22in. long—took the first premium at the county fair eight years before, and the old man's bad it hanging from the rafter e*er since." "And if you sit up right suddenly in tlie night," said the sad pas* senger, "you run a scythe in your eye that hangs over the head~board." " The sheets are not so thick as tin plates." said the tall thin passenger, " but they are a great deal colder," " And no matter how long or short you are," said the Jester, "the blankets are always about 6in or 8i». shorter than you are. And if you tuck them around your neck and under your chin, your feet stick out all night." " And in that house," said Endymion, " they eat breakfast in the night, every time. You hear the old man about 2 o'clock in the night shouting to the family to get up and eat. You think there is a fire somewhere, and you want to run and jump into it, so you make a rush for the stairway, walk out of the dormer window, slide down the snowy roof, and land down among the cattle." " It's all right, though, said the brakesman, " for the cattle toss you right back through the window again, and you go down stairs all right. When you find the alarm is only for breakfast, you say you believe you'd like to wash your face and hands before you eat. ' All right,' they tell you, 'you'll find the trough by the well, over in the 20 acre piece, down by the timber.' That's a mile and a half away, and the snow knee deep. The first man who performs his ablutions breaks the path for the rest of the family." " i"ou find the towel," said the cross passenger, " about 6ft. long, leaning up against the smoke house. You bang it againt the corner of the house^ a few times to make some brakes in it so that you can fold it up and carry it under your arm like • piece of bark. You start away, but you come back and say you'd like a piece of soap. *AH right.' They give you a gallon of soap in a stone jar 2ft. high. You say you prefer toilet soap, and they give you a bar 3ft long and as hard as an axehelve." But here the whistle blew long and {loud, and the passengers hurried away to an hotel full of solid comfort.— Curdette. . „