Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1874 — Marketing for Sunday. [ARTICLE]

Marketing for Sunday.

You know what a popular place a barber shop is Saturday night. If you are not a woman* you have often contemplated the row of sad-eyed men sitting around the room rubbing theii grizzly chins, picking up day,before-yesterdtv.v's paper from the table and meekly laying it down again to fool the next comer; making desultory efforts to talk polities, ami discuss the third term; glaring at the bland-looking man who rises when the barber says “ next,” and trying so await their turn with an amount of patient resignation that would discount the martyrs. Last Saturday night two men, strangers to each other, who had whiled away a happy hour in purchasing provisions tor Sabbath use, plunged into ** Fatty’s’ tonsorial palace, set their baskets down, placed tlteir respective hats upon them and sadly waited for their turn. It came at last and they Climbed into the chairs, were duly scraped and departed. One of these gentlemen was Rev. Jasper Caulfield, pastor of a South liill church, lie was very weary, for he had spent the afternoon in making pastoral calls, and in addition to the regular marketing in his basket there were numerous presents from his appreciative and friendly parishioners to Mrs. Caulfield and the children and a variety of religious literature for distribution in the Sabbath-school. He was resting after his long walk in his study chair, while his affectionate wife and the laughing children crowded around to unpack the basket. Weary as ltev. Mr. Caulfield was their spirited exclamations attracted his languid attention and roused him to a passing interest in what was going on. “ What is in this bottle, dear?” Mrs. Caulfield asked, drawing-a cheerful-look-ing, fiat bottle from the cavernous basket. “It is some tomato catsup Mrs. Pilkington sent you,‘love,” Mr. Caulfield replied, without lifting his’liead from its resting place against the tidy. “ What a funny bottle,” said Master Timothy Caulfield. “It’s just like old Mike’s that he keeps under the woodpile.” “Oh-h-li-h!” screamed little Deborah Caulfield, “ what a pretty picture book! Oh, pa, look! A little album!” . “ Oh, what funny photographs!” chorused the other little Caulfields. “Oh, what nice little blocks!” shrieked young Ebeuezer Caulfield; “look at the little hlae.k dots on them!”-. —______ “ Why, Jasper,” said the wondering tones of the wife, “ what are all these things?”

Mr. Caulfield raised his head from the chair and gazed upon the scene before him until his eyes came out on his cheek bones and looked at each other over the bridge of his nose and his hair stood up on end until it frightened the young Caulfields into convulsions and Mrs. Caulfield went off in a fit of hysterics. There, before the minister’s eyes, in the very sanctity of his study, stood his wife 'w ith a big fiat Pike’s Peak whisky bottle in her hands ; one of his children was playing with a set of dice, another was looking at a deck of cards; there were tobacco pipes on the carpet and another bottle of whisky in the basket, with a dozen lifmons, a bottle of bitters, a’lot of cigars, a can of oysters; some of the children were looking at five dime novels, the “ Black Crook Songster,” “ The Old Bowery Book of Jokes,” “ Tricks and traps of Gamblers,” a couple of little boxes marked “ Trix,” and a lot of miscellaneous literature and liquids that the horrified minister did not stop to inventory. “Am I mad?” he exclaimed, “or has some designing son of Belial played a terrible practical joke upon me?” At that critical moment the stupid servant girl threw open the study door and ushered in MrvCaulfield’s two senior deacons, who were always expected Saturday night and never stood on ceremony. They stopped at the door, appalled by the servant girl’s shriek as she stopped and threw her hands wildly into tlie air.. Then the deacons pressed forward, but paused on seeing the children howling with fright at their father’s wild appearance, Mrs. Caulfield lying on the sofa and laughing and sobbing by turns, with a quart bottle of whisky clutched in her hand, and Mr. Caulfield making frantic efforts to gather up a deck of cards and plunge them into the basket. The elder deacon said something about fearing they were intruding and they solemnly retired, regardless of Mr. Caulfield's pleadings to stay and he would explain all. They went to the houses of other deacons and told them that they had never witnessed such orgies as they had just left in Brother Caulfield’s study. It was terrible, they said. And there wasn't a member of the church slept a wink that night.

Meantime, Fatty's otner customer had gone home with his basket. His name was Jim Sikesy and he roomed with some young fellows away out on \V£st Hill, about two miles from Tatty’s, The boys had made it up during the week to have a night of it Saturday night, so as to have Sunday to sober off on, and they played auction-pitch to see who the festival should be on, and Jim Sikesy was “ stuck.” He was dreadfully tired when he got to the room and it was pretty late, and the boys were dry and hungry, and just froze for a smoke, and mighty glad to see Jim come. He threw himself down on a lounge and took a square rest while the boys unloaded the basket on the table. “What in thunder!” said one, in a voice of emphasized amazement. ■•‘Well, suffering Moses!" shouted another. “ What lay have you been up tot” » “Great Peter!” roaredahother. “What can We do with-. * Baxter’s Saints' Rest,’ I'd like to know!" “Jim,” yelled another, “what-under the sun do you want with all this red flannel?” '-“■'■■T '“T" “And a bottle of catsup?” said the first speaker. “And these Sunday-school papers?” “And this tract, ‘Death in the Cigar?”’ ft "“And two pocket Testaments?” “And two balls of yarn, and the Report of the Ladies’ Benevolent Sewing Society?” v “Or this bundle of temperance tracts

and Trask’s anti-tobacco resolutions and pamphlet s ?” “And how in thunder can we coolt a cabbage and a joint of as big as a horse?” “ And what do we want with a half a peck of Irish potatoes?” “ Or a sack of table salt, arid a package of yeast cake?” *“ Aw-w! Sh’up yer heads,” growled Mr. Sikesy, from his recumbent position. “ What are you givin’ us?” They insisted that he should get up and look at the table, and when he did so wratli flashed from his eyes and denunciations fell.from his lips. He pulled on his coat and told them to paca up the basket again, but before they could do so their landlady came into the room for the weekly ducats, and she went away arid told all over the neighborhood what nice young gentlemen she had for her boarders, and how they had organized a Bible class and benevolent society in their rooriis, and she wouldn’t have them leave her house, no, not for the world. In half an hour t wo men met m Fatty’s. One w as a haggard, pale-faced preacher, bowed to the very earth in humiliation and distress-, The- other was the maddest man that ever swore the gas out in Fatty's. They mutually explained and exchanged baskets, and it wasn’t until the thirsty Sikesy was far beyond recall that the minister discovered that they had, in__-tlm-utmfusion of the moment,neglected to re-exchange hats, and he paced slowly homeward, wearing a high, white liat w ith a broad black band reaching nearly to the down, looking like the veriest gambiC'P'that ever threw threecard monte. And what the termination of his misfortunes may be Heaven only knows. —Burlington Hawk-Eye.