Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1888 — Keen Observation. [ARTICLE]

Keen Observation.

k man is never so much impressed with his wife’s poWer of discernment as when he goes home drunk anfi, attempts to play sober. As a rule, the man has only taken one drink. He doesn’t understand why one drink should make him drunk, but after a while he acknowledges that he did take two drinks, but the last one was so small that he had forgotten it. When Mr. Harvey Blades, a wellknown official of Arkansas, went home, he had reached that close observing stage of intoxication when a man stops and minutely examines the most unimportant objects and makes wise comments. In this state of drunkenness, a man takes notice of every household article. Every chair demands a certain amountj’of attention. After sitting down with studied gravity, Mr. Harvey Blades noticed a feather lying on the floor. He debated for a while whether or not it would be an illustration of sobriety to remove it, and remembering that he had often seen his wife pick feathers from the carpet after having jammed the pillows in making the b®d, he arose, took up the feather, examined it a moment, raised a window and threw it out. This performance did not entirely satisfy him, for in his mind there Lurked a suspicion that his wife might fancy'him to be drunk. In looking around for another test he discovered the water-bucket. He knew that to bring fresh water, beyond a doubt, would settle the question of his sobriety, so he took up the bucket and went out to the well. Feeling around and not finding the “moss-covered bucket,” but deciding that it must be at the bottom of the well, he began to turn the windlass. For fifteen minutes he turned the crank. “Deepest well I ever saw,” he mused, and continued to grind. After awhile his wife came out and said: “Harvey, what in the name of common sense are you doing?” “Try’n to draw bucket water. Deepest well I ever saw. Grindin* for hour, bucket not up yet." “Why, don’t you know that we had the well cleaned out, and that the bucket has been taken off? Come on away. You are as drunk as a fool.” “Keenes’ observation I ever saw,* said the gentleman to himself. “Nezer saw thing like Traveler.

Lives In • Tree. Wbßiington is the paradise of cranks, all the curious characters in the country seem to have congregated here. My latest discovery is a man who lives in a tree. He is an SI,BOO clerk in the Pension Office, and his name is A. B. Hayward. He is a blackwhiskered, pleasant-looking, one-armed bachelor of about forty years. His aerial habitation is situated just outside of the boundary limits, between the Fourteenth and Sixteenth street roads, within a quarter of a mile of Joaquin Miller’s cabin. It consists of a tent-like house built upon a pine platform fastened between two big oak trees. This platform is perhaps twentyfive feet square, and it is fastened to the trees as far up from the ground as I the first story of a business building. It is certainly higher than any ceiling in America. Upon this platform a wall pf pine boards about eight feet high is built in the form of a hollow square, and from the top of this a tent roof of two thicknesses of canvas rises in wedge shape. The canvas is of the best quality, and I notice the Government stamp is on one of the sides of the roof. The entrance is on the west, and before it is a wide platform where it? owner can come out and sit in V.a warm summer evenings, and on wb ch are now sitting a rocking-chair and a water-bucket. This platform is re; • ’ ■ 1 by a ladder twenty feet long, but v.:<y light. Mr. Hayward takes it off to a farm-house near by when be goes to work, and returning he brings it again to his tent, and in the tent he his friends. Its interior is comfortably furnished, and it is heated with a little oil stove. There is a carpet on the floor, rocking-chairs are scattered about the room, and there is a book-shelf and * writing-table. Pictures are fastened upon the walls, and tbe wnole makes very comfortable quarters.— Washing* ■ ton Cor, Clevc 'and Leader,