Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1874 — PHUNNYGRAMS. [ARTICLE]

PHUNNYGRAMS.

—A little six-year-old maiden in Norwich, Conn., was reprimanded by her father for something, and, being indignant thereat, went out and tied crape on the front door, remarking: “ Now every one will wonder as they go by who is dead in our house.” —A couple of Potomac loafers were yesterday at the Detroit & Milwaukee depot to see a friend off, and he said to one of them: “ Then you won’t be down to see the dog-fight?” “ No, I guess not,” replied the man, mournfully. “ The old woman won’t live over half a day, and if I don’t kinder stop around the house folks will talk about it. I’d like to be there and bet on the yaller dog, but I’ve got to hang around here till the old lady’s laid up!”— Detroit Free Prest. —A Manchester (N. H.) lady has lately narrowly escaped having two husbands to care for. She had grown tired of being alone in the world and had accepted the proposal of a steady mechanic to become his wife. The wedding was appointed for Thanksgiving Eve, friends were invited and a clergyman secured, and the ceremony was about to begin when the door opened and in walked a former husband of the lady who years ago disappeared from the knowledge of his young wife and has since been “ sailing the wide seas over” in search of her. The wedding was postponed. —Two boys were standing before a cigar store, when one asked the other, “Have you got three cents?” “Yes.” “Well, I have got two cents; give me your three cents and I will buy a fivecenter.” “All right,” says No. 2, handing out his money. No. 1 enters the store, procures the cigar, lights it and puffs with a good deal of satisfaction. “ Come, now, give U3a pull,” says No. 2, “ I furnished more than half the money.” “ I know that,” says the smoker; “but then I’m the President, and you being only a stockholder, you can spit.” —A handsome young Englishman, making a call at a house in Washington where there resided some of the loveliest young ladies, suddenly discovered that he had come out without his purse. The prettiest of the ladies said, “ ShaH I lend you a dollar?” “ Would you?” was the reply. The dollar was produced from the most charming porte*monnaie, and the beautiful American lady said, laughingly, “ I must have interest, you know, when you return it.” The handsome Englishman called next day, repaid the dollar, and, placing a couple of exquisitely cut bottles of perfume on the table, added, “ and there is the interest, two cents.” —An old man up in Connecticut had a poor, cranky bit of a wife, who regularly once a week got up in the night and invited the family to see her die. She gave Sway her things, spoke her last words, mad,e her peace with heaven, and then about eight o’clock in the morning she got up in the usual way and disappointed everybody by going at her household duties as if nothing had happened. The old man got sick of it finally, and went out and got a coffin, a real nice Cashmere shroud, a wreath of immortelles with “Fa/ewell, Mary Ann” worked in, and a handful of silverplated screws. Laying the screw-driver beside the collection, he invited her to just holler die once more. “Do it,” said he, “and in you go, and this farewell business is over.” Mary Ann is at this moment baking buckwheat cakes for a large and admiring family while they dry apples in the coffin up in the garret. —A West Hill minister picked up a frozen wasp on the sidewalk yesterday, and with a view to advancing the interests of science be carried It in the house and held it by the tail while he its ears over a lamp-chimney. His object was to see if wasps froze to death or merely lay dormant during the winter. He is of the opinion that they merely lie dormant and the-dormantest kind at that, and when they revive he says the tail thaws out first, for while this one’s head, right over the tamp, was so stiff and cold it could no# work, its probe worked with such inconceivable rapidity that the minister couldn’t gasp fast enough to keep up with it. He threw the vicious thing down the lamp-chim-ney, and said he didn’t want to have any more trtifck with a dormant wasp, at which his wife burst into tears and asked how he, a minister of the Gospel, could use such language, right before the children, too ßurlington