THE FUNNY HALF-HOUR.

Woodville Examiner, Volume 3, Issue 281, 3 September 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE FUNNY HALF-HOUR.

By Silas Snell.

THE WINTER MORNING’S SORROWS

Now the frosty morning and the long chilly night are upon us, stand by for chilblains, rheumatics, and cold in the head ; prepare to battle with the biting gale, and feel your way through the unhealthy fog. Now'is the season of the year when the thermometer sinks so low that its medical adviser despairs of it ever becoming its old self again, and firewood, out of sheer perversity, rises to a fever heat, climbs, in fact, to such a height that it gets light-headed. Corns and bunions are attracting a deal of attention just now; they give the sedate house-father more trouble than a family of nine. About the beginning of this month, corns take upon themselves new duties with unseemly presumption ; they set up to foretell the weather, and when rain is anticipated the wide awake tumor apprises its owner of the approaching storm ; but he doesn’t receive it kindly; he would rather be taken unawares, and swamped in a new deluge, than that his corns should go out of their way to warn him; they make such a stir over trifles.

It is n6t nice to have our guinea hat ruined in a shower, but we relish it better than we do having a pedal member rendered useless for the day by a meddlesome corn. The corn is pretty good at this business ; it doesn’t make many mistakes ; but it will never become a popular weather prophet—never till it procures new premises.

Hot drinks and hand-made fur are quite fashionable again. Coming home from the lodge at a late hour is even more dangerous than it was in the summer months, and the elderly gentleman who essays to reach hia home roof when the frost is on the pavement, and the fog hides the treacherous gutter, is generally, a little later on, driven

to the hospital in a cab and admitted for repairs. These are the mornings when the maid servant lies dormant, and hears not the seductive voice of the master as he pleads through the keyhole. He beseeches her to be up- and doing, and graphically pictures the enormous amount of health, wealth and wisdom which early risers inevitably acquire. He tells her of the bracing air of morn, which will add lustre to her eyes, color to her cheeks, and so render the conquest of the butcher boy sure as death. He speaks of the rising sun, the twitting sparrows, and the lowly daisy awakening to greet the light. He howls for toast and coffee, and endeavors to entice her into going down to let in the milk—but what’s the good 1 He might as well do it himself at once; she is sleeping, and nothing less than a fire next door, or an earthquake, can stir her.

These are the mornings when the heavy small boy hears his fond mother call up the stairs a kindly warning ; he will be late for school, says she. She says it seven, perhaps a hundred times, but ’tis only when she climbs up with a waist belt, and an expression of fierce resolve, that he displays animation. Then he sulkily dresses himself, and goes out to clean his boots, and snivel, and freeze, and be the miserablest little wretch living. Stacks of health, wealth and wisdom might go to waste for all he cares; he doesn’t want to get up early in the winter to garner in those blessings anyhow. The gentle married man, who has slept through the melting summer nights under an avalanche of blankets, now resigns, those comforting coverings entirely to the missus, and wiles away the long, cold hours under the shade of an old coat. He enjoys the privilege of being first to bed till the warm months again set in ; and when his natural heat has pervaded the downy couch, and he is beginning to feel comfortable, she to whom he is wed warms her feet at the grate, and joins him only to turn out again presently to satisfy herself that she has fast-

ened the back gate. In two hours, she will be rolled in the clothes, sleeping in a pleasant glow, and the miserable man will be groping round after the door mat and the window blinds.

Before we had a son old enough to rise and encourage the morning fire to blaze, wc used to do it ourselves. The missus said we had better, and we like to oblige her in little things. So we can let you know what a winter’s morning is capable of. Arrayed in some airy garments, we slid downstairs quite cheerful like, till we struck a table secreted in the gloom, and drove our toes back abashed, which made us sad. Opening the door, the familiar blood-curdling wind attacked us, making our teeth chatter in a foreign tongue, and blighting us like a frail hot-house flower. Ten to one a paling was off the fence, and a legion of the neighbor’s poultry foraging about the garden, and scattering it around. Everything was white with frost, and the bricks and other missiles with which we used to urge the hens to leave our property stung us like nettles. Then we would procure the baldheaded hammer and the untrustworthy wire nail, and proceed to patch up the fence. We know now that it is a mad freak to go punching nails with an aged tool on frosty mornings. After battering our fingers out of all semblance, we went to gather together kindling wood. The axe had been out all night, of course, and an axe-handle, with an over-coat of hoar-frost, is the last thing for a shivering, refrigerated sinner to deal with, A man doesn’t know what sorrow is till he is numbed and blue with cold, and has to splint kindling with a frosted axe. Under circumstances like this, we could excuse his fine head of hair if it did turn white in a single hour ; it is provocation enough to make hia raven locks turn green. When, after much profanity and cajoling, the wood was induced to burn in a fitful, half-hearted way, we took .the family kettle out to the water tap, only to discover that the aqueous fluid had struck, or stuck, or something. It wouldn’t run; it wouldn’t even walk; the

affair waa frozen. We rubbed and chafed it, and wrapped it in blankets, and forced brandy between its clenched teeth, and endeavored, by all means in our power, to restore animation, but, not until we built a fire round the pipe, did the water run again. We got the kettle boiling all serene before it tipped over, and drowned the fire, and scalded the cat, and flooded the room with water and cinders. Then—then we began again.