MRS. COOLEY'S REMEDY

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 137, 10 June 1911, Page 15

MRS. COOLEY'S REMEDY

(Cy MAX ADELKU.) My neighbour Cooley suffered a good deal last winter from rheumatism in his breast, and his wife w-.us badly frightened about ii for tear it should cud in consumption. Cooley couid not be induced to try any re medy lor the trouble, aud Mrs Cooley was nearly worried to death about it.

At last she determined to try strategy. She made up a dry mustard plaster, and one night while he was asleep she sewed it upon the inside of his undershirt so that it would just about cover the rheumatic place.

Cooley dressed himself in the morning, wholly unsuspicious of the presence of the plaster, aud went downstairs. At the breakfast table, while lie was talking to his wife, he suddenly stopped, looked cross-eyed, and a spasm of pain passed over his face. Then he took up the thread of the conversation again, and went on. lie was iv the midst of an explanation of the political situation in Ohio, when all at once he ceased again, grew red in the face, aud exclaimed: "I wonder what in the No, it can't lie anything wrong." Mts Cooley asked what was the matter, and Cooley said: , "Oh, it's that iDferna] old rheumatism again; come hack awful. But I never felt it exactly the same way before. Kinder stings mc." Mrs Cooley said she was sorry. Then Mr Cooley began agaiu, and was j*ust showing her how the ravages of the grasshoppers in the West and the potato bug in the East would affect tbe political result next fall by making the people discontented, and so likely to strike at the party in power, when he suddenly dropped the subject, and jumping up, he said: "Thunder and lightning! what's that? Ouch! Oh, Moses! I feel's if I had a shovel full of hot coal inside my undershirt." "Must be that rheumatism getting worse,' said Mrs Cooley sympathetically. "Good gracious, no! It's something worse than rheumatism. Feels like tire burning into my skin. Ouch! Ow-woiv-wow! It's awful! 1 can't stand it another minute.' I believe it's cholera or something, and I'm going to die!" "Do try to he calm. Mr Cooley." "Calm! How can a man be calm with a volcano boiling over under his shirt? Get out of the way, quick, while I go upstairs and undress. Murdei'-i'-r-r-r, but it hurts! Let mc get out, quick!"

Then he rushed up to the bedroom aud stripped off his clothes. His chest was the colour of a boiled lobster, but he couldn't for the life of him tell what was the matter. Then his eye rested upon something white on his shirt. Mc picked up the garment and examined It. Ten minutes later he came slowly downstairs with a dry mustard plaster in his hand, while thunder clothed his brow. Going up to Mrs Cooley he shook the plaster under her nose, and said in a suppressed voice: "Did rou put that thing in my clothes?" "I did it for the best, John," she said. "1 thought " "Oh, never mind what you thought, you crooked-nosed, chuckle-headod idiot! Never miud what you thought! You've taken the ■bark clean off my bosom, so I'm as raw as a sirloin steak, and I'll probably never be well again as long as I live! That lets you out! You play any more tricks like that on mc, and I'll chuck you in the coal bin. and keep you there till you starve to death! Now. mind mc." Then he slammed the door and went out. Mrs Cooley doesn't know to this day exactly what effect the grasshoppers are going to have on the fall elections.