Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1878 — Transcript's Rice. [ARTICLE]

Transcript's Rice.

When John Sanscript went down town last Saturday, his wife asked him to bring back with him a small quantity of rice. . “How much will you have?” asked the grocer, when John called for the succulent berry.- “ Well. I guess ten pounds ’IJ do,” said John. “ I’ll get enough to last the old woman several weeks, he added, somewhat doubtingly. The grocer hesitated, looking quizzical, and tina-lly weighed out ten pounds of rice. “This is a new kind of rice, Mr. Sanscript,” he said, as he put a string around the papek* “It swells three times as much as Louisiana rice, which you had better tell your wife.” “ All right,” said John, as he turned to greet a friend. Two minutes later he had forgotten the reminder of the careful grocer. When he got home John found the house deserted, but a humming fire was roaring in the kitchen stove, and he knew Mrs. S. had just stepped into the next house to exchange gossip with Mrs. Mulvaney. ’ ; ■' . ’ “ I’ll just put this rice to boil,” soliloquized John. “It’ll please the

dame to see me ho thoughtful, and maybe she’ll get me a good supper.” An ordinary iron i»ot with several pints of water in it sal on the stove. “ I'll l>et six cents Maria putthia verv pot on the lire for the purpose of boiling the fruit.” He tore a hole in the paper package, and emptied the ten pounds of rice into the vessel. “Thnt’s pretty full; but the rice has plenty of room to jump about. I’ll just step over to the meat-store and buy a porter-house steak.” As John approached the house on his return with the mpat, he began to sniff the air. “ I Hmell something burning. Wonder if that blamed rice had water enough in it.” He hurried into the kitchen, and what a sight was spread before his eyes? The stove was covered with rice. The sides of the pot were full of rice. Rice was dripping down on tho floor. The cat was sitting under the table licking rice from its back. Tho maggotygrains of rice were chasing each other over the pot’s rim, and for every one that dropped into the stove, twentymore seemed to rise up and take its place. "Heavens! what a pickle!” cried John. “ I’ll have to use the other pot” . __ "But the other pors capacity'" watThbF enough. For every tinful of the rice John dipped out of one pot into the other, two tinfuls of rice scented to jump to the surface. In less than a minute both pots were slipping streams of slippery grains upon the stove. "Curse it, I’ll fix it,” wheezed the desperate man, getting out the washboiler and slamming it on the stove. Then he began to dip again. First out of one pot, then out of the other, into the wash-boiler. It was like bailing out the sea—the more rice he took out of the pots the faster the infernal grains seemed to slide down on the stove. “ Shades of Demetrius, preserve me!” This exclamation was drowned out by the discovery that the boiler was full and also running over. Then SansCript surrendered. He wiped his moistened brow with the dish-towel, and sat down to gather his breath. Meanwhile the rice continued to swell and make room for the lower grains, until the stove and floor were covered an inch thick. At last the lire in the stove was extinguished, but still the rice kept creeping and swelling. When Mrs. Sanscript finished her chat with Mrs. Mulvaney and returned to her kitchen she found a wretched man trying to lift from the stove a wash-boiler full of rice, which refnsed to quit boiling over. Poor John is suffering for his ignorance. He has had nothing since then to eat but rice, and Mrs. Sanscript swears by her back hair that she’ll cook him nothing but rice till the ten pounds are consumed, which, the victim has calculated, will be some time the last of next March.—Ctncinnati Enquirer.