Apple Sauce.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 674, 7 October 1876, Page 5 (Supplement)

Apple Sauce.

An extremely 'down east lankee, with a waggon load of ' apple sauce,' was driving through a village, not a thousand miles from Boston, when he saw, dandling in the wind, on a post before a tailor's shop, a new overcoat, seductively suspended on a skewer in the shoulders. He drove up to the door, alighted, and went in. ' Be you the boss ?' he asked of a pale-faced man, who was making the diagrams with chalk and rule on a piece of flimsy snuff-coloured cloth. ' I be,' said Snip. 'Yea; wol, you've got a family, I'expect ? You've got some children, haven't you ? I seed a thin boy a whittlin' out door, that looked like you, and I'xpect like as not as you have children.' ' Four on' em ; that was Jerothner, my second, that you see,' was the explanatory reply. ' Yes ; wol, neow, don't yeou want a first-rate bav'l of apple sauce ? I'vo sold six bar'ls this morning and 1 ain't got but one left. I'll take it out in dicker. I want to git an overcoat ; if you've a mind to let me have that coat thot hangs at the door, if it will fit me, I'd give you a bar'l of apple sauce for it.' The Schneider, after a little chaffering, consented, and the coat was brought in and tried on. He said the fit was a miracle. 'It might ha' growed onto him,' so snug did it ' set,' and ho verified this phrase by twisting his neck half off that he might look at his back in the glass standing in the dark: at the back of the shop, and reflecting nothing but what was passing in front. The ' bar'l ' was ' dumped,' and the buyer drove off', proud as a turky cock, in his new coat. He alighted at a store to do an ' arrand' for a neighbour, where he encountered a townsman. * Hello !' exclaimed the latter, ' how slick you do look! Where did you get so much new coat ?' The wearer made no reply, but, turning roand with an air, asked, ' How does she net ? Ain't she a beauty ? And all I gin fort was a bar'l of apple sauce.' ' A ' be-a-uty !' exclaimed the other ; ' why, I never saw anything so wrinkly ! Pull it down ; now let go of it. It don't make no odds, not a bit. It i?oes right back again ; it puckers dreadfully between tho shoulders.' ' Puckers, does it ?' said the chopfallen and mortified buyer; but bis face brightened almost to a glow as lie added, 'Puckers, eh? Wai, if his mouth don't pucker a darned sights worse' than this overcoat ever can when he tastes o' that apple sauce, I'll lose my guess! His children won't steal none on't more than once, though it's better a'ter you get down a little ; there's considerable lot of shavin's long about out the middle of it'

Obientax Pbovbrb3 :—: — It ii easy to mount a little donkey. — Two captains in one ship will surely sink her. — The fox ends by getting into the furrier's shop. — The nightingale was shut up in a golden cage, but she still cried, ' My homo, my homo,' — Knife-wounds heal, but not those produced by a word. — The heart is a crystal place ; once broken, it can never bo mended. — With patience, sour grapes becomo sweetmeats, nnd mulberry leaves turn to satin. — At sight of a glow worm, the timid cry 'Fire.' — A fly is nothing, but it spoili the appetite. — The applo and pomegranate trees disputed which was fairer, when the thistle exclaimed, 'Brethren, let us not quarrol. 1