Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1883 — Jimmy Brown and the Ice Cream Party. [ARTICLE]

Jimmy Brown and the Ice Cream Party.

Thera was pretty nearly a whole week that I kept out of trouble, but it didn't last. Boys are bom to fly upward like the spark* that trouble, and yesterday I was “up to mischief again,” as Sue said, though I never had the least idea of doing any mischief. How should an innocent boy, who might easily have been an orphan had things happened m that way, k now all about cooking and chemistry and snch, I should like to know. It was really Sue’s fait. Nothing would do but she must have a party, and of course she must have ice-crr am. Now the ice-cream that our cake-shop man makes isn’t good enough for her, so she got father to buy an ice-cream freezer, and she said she would make the icecream herself. I was to help her, and she sent me to the store to order some salt I asked her what she wanted of salt, and she said you couldn’t freeze ice-cream without plenty of salt, and that it was almost as necessary os ice. I went to the store and ordered the salt, and then had a game or two of ball with the boys, and didn’t get home till late in the afternoon. There was Sue freezing the ice-cream, and suffering dreadfully, so she said. She had to go and dress right away, and she told me to keep turning the ice-cream freezer until it froze, “and don’t run off and leave me to do everything again, you good-for-noth-ing boy ; I wonder how you can do it.*' I turned that freezer for ever so lon£, but nothing would freeze, so I made up my mind that it wanted more salt. I didn’t want to disturb anybody, so I quietly went into the kitchen and got the salt-cellar and emptied it into the ice-cream. It began to freeze right away; but I tasted it and it- was awful salt, so Igotthe jug of golden syrup and poured about a pint into the ice-cream, and when it was done it was a beautiful straw color. But there was au awful scene when the party tried to eat that ice-cream. Sue handed it round and said to everybody: “This is my icecream, and you must be sure to like it.” The first one that she gave it to was Dr. Porter. He is dreadfully fond of icecream, and he smiled such a big smile, and said he was sure it was it delightful, and took a whole spoonful. Then he jumped up as if something had bit liim, and went out of the door in two jumps, and we didn’t see him again. Then three more men tasted their ice-cream, and jumped up and ran after the doctor, and two girls said, “ Oh, my ! ” and held their handkerchiefs over their faces, and turned just as pale. And then everybody else put their ice-cream down on the table, and said thank you, they guessed they wouldn’t take any. The party was regularly spoiled, and when I tasted the ice-cream I didn’t wonder. It was worse than the best kind of strong medicine. Sue was in a dreadful state of mind, and when the party had gone home—all but one man, who lay under the apple tree all night and groaned like he was dying, only we thought it was the cats—she made me tell her all about the salt ai d the golden syrup. She wouldn’'believe that I had tried to do my best aid didn’t mean any harm. .Father took iier part, and said I ought to eat some of the ice-cream since I made it; bn fc I said I’d rather go upstairs with So I went. Some of these days people will begin to understand that they are just waisting and' throwing away a boy who always tries to do his best, and perhaps they’ll be sorry when it is too late.— Harper's Young People.