The Editor's Leisure Hour.

Clutha Leader, Volume XII, Issue 596, 18 December 1885, Page 3

The Editor's Leisure Hour.

They Won't Stand It. 1 Yes, I come in after a hired man,' said the old farmer as he skipped Kis root-beer on the market yesterday ; ' but I've got disgusted and shan't try very hard to find one.' ' What's the matter with hired men?' 'Too high-toned .and important. Why, I had one last spring who rigged up an umbrella over the plough so as not to get tanned, and he refused to eat with the family because we stuck our knives in our mouths ! At the end of the week he quit. Said that labor was ennobling and so forth, but the landscape in the vicinity offended his taste.' 'Yes.' ' Waal, I took another, and he put on cuffs and polished up his boots before going to work, and he quit at the end of a fortnight because we didn't have a pianner in the house. Why, that chap never got up till seven o'clock, and he insisted on going to the village to get shaved and perfumed up every other evening. The third- one quit me yesterday. He wanted stained glass in his bedroom witider. He wanted me to buy a guitar. He wanted to paint all the roofs red, and put pea -green on the corn -cribs. He suggested a hog pen with a parlor to it, and he spent two days of my time trying to arrange a way for the windmill to milk the. cows. I found him writing poetry in the cornfield, and because I spoke up sharply he quit the job, polished up his boots, and sent for a coupay to bring him to the city.' * * * He wag Retained. ' I have had trouble with one of my neighbors,' said a farmer the other day, after he had climbed the three flights of stairs to interview a Griswold-street lawyer. ' Exactly, sir, I suppose it is your misfortune to live neighbor to a mean man V ' His cattle got into my field last spring.' ' Did, eh 1 Well we can take him for damages, and you are sure of your case. How many head, and what shall we put the damages at f ' Well, you see I got mad about it and turned my hogs into his 'tater patch.' 'Aw ! Can he prove it V ' Oh, I owned it right up, and we agreed to call matters square.' * TJmph 1 Perhaps, however^ we can make out that you were temporarily insane and not in condition to make bargains.' ' Oh, it isn't that, sir. Three days; ago one of my horses was killed.' 'Exactly.' .' The beast ran against my neighbor's, barbed wire fence.' ' I see. The fence was a dangerous; obstruction. Your horse was in the highway t 'No sir. He was in my neighbour's field and tried to jump out.'

'Urn!' . , * Can you take the case and make anything of it f ' H-a-r-d-ly. Hold "on I I ' -won't agree to secure you any damages for your horse, but I'll fix it so that he can't recover anything for his fence. That leaves you with a horse hide worth two dollars and the proud consciousness of having stood up for your rghts like an American. ' The fanner laid down a five-dollar bill and the lawyer was retained. * * * Exaggeration; * I'm most dead ! It is as hot a 8 fire, and I've been more than a dofeen miles after that colt !' Andrew threw himself at full length on the louuge, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. 'Where did you go,' inquired the father. , ' I went over to Brigg's corner and back by the bridge.' ■* That is little less than a mile and a half. Is it .so very warm, Andy 1 It seems quiet cool here.' ' No, not so dreadful, I suppose, if I'd take it moderate ; but I ran like lightning, and got heated up.' * You started about five o'clock, my son, and now it lacks a quater to six/ said his father, consulting his Watch. 'Yes, sir, just three-quaters of an hour,' answered Andrew, innocently. *' Does it take lightning forty-five minutes to go a mile and a half V . ' I didn't mean exactly that, father, but I ran all the way because I expected the whole town would be here to night to see my -velocipede,' explained Andrew, reluctantly. I ' Whom do you expect, Andy t 1 wasn't aware that such a crowd was tobe here. What will you do with them all V 1 Jim, Eddy and Tim told me they'd be round after school ; and I wouldn't wonder if Ike came to ; that's all.' ' The population of the town is 5000, and you expect three persons. Well, as you are very sick, I- am glad no more are coming. .You couldn't play with them at all.' ' Sick !' cried Andrew, springing to his feet ; ' who says I'm sick f 'Why, Andrew, you said, you wera almost dead. Doesn't that mean very sick? ' You are so particular, father, about my talking. I don't mean- exactly what I say, of course. I wasn't nearly dead, to be sure ; but I did some running. There were more than fifty dogs after me, and I don't care much for dogs;' ' Quite a band of them % Where did they all come from V ' There was Mr Wheeler's sheep-dog, and Rush's store-dog, and two or three more ; and they made for me, and so I ran as fast as I could.' 1 Five, at the most, are not fifty, Andrew.' 'There looked to be fifty, any way,* answered Andrew, somewhat impatiently. ' Carter's ten acre lot was full of dogs just making. for me.' ' Ten acres of dogs would be a great many thousands Have you any idea how many V Andrew did not like to calculate, for it occurred to him what a small space ten or fifteen thousand sheep would occupy when camping, and ten acres of dogs would be past calculation. * But,' his father continued, ' I know of no better way to break you of the foolish habit of exaggeration than to tell the children of the trouble you had in going after the colt. ' You ran like lightning, encountered ten acres of dogs, which would be hundreds of thousands, travelled more than a dozen miles to get one aiid a-half miles in a straight line, expected to find five thousand people here to examine your new velocipede, and when you reached home you were nearly dead I' ' Please don't, father ; the boys and girls will all laugh themselves to death _; and I won't exaggerate again if I live to be as old as Methuselah !' 'Laugh themselves to death at a simple story like this ? I hope not, but rather hope it will set them to watching their- own manners of telling stories, so as to be. sure they do not greatly overstate things. Habit, my son, grows with years, and becomes in time so deeply rooted that it will be impossible for you, when you become a man, to relate plain unvarnished facts unless you check the foolish haJbifc in which you indulge every day of stretching simple incidents into tibe most " marvellous tales.' — Christian Neighbor.