Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1883 — An Amusing Mistake. [ARTICLE]

An Amusing Mistake.

In the days when the peculiar dialect of which Whittier has given a ■ specimen in “Floyd Ireson’s Ride” was the common speech of Marblehead, Mass., it used to be said that a well-dressed stranger could not enter that town without being stoned by the boys. The aprocryphal custoAi—for the report was doubtless a slander on that patriotic town—is a good illustration of the excitement which clothes that are common in one part of the country create in another section, where they are unknown. A young man had an amusing illustration of this fact while tramping last summer through one of the “back towns” of Maine. The roads were muddy, and he had on a pair of rubbers, bought at the village store, that were two sizes too large for his feet. It began to rain very hard, and to escape it he ran into the yard of the nearest house, reaching the front door just as it was opened by a hospitable old lady, who asked him to come in. As he stepped inside, one of the rubbers slipped off, and showed a canvas shoe, known as a “base-ball shoe.” The canvas and the facings were both dark-brown, which were faded and begrimed with dust. Hastily glancing at the rubberless foot, she fairly shrieked in astonishment: “Goodness gracious, young man! Hain’t yer got nothin’ on but them stockin’s?”