Mollie and the Unwiseman Read online

  III. In the House of the Unwiseman.In which Mollie reads some strange rules.

  A few]

  days later Mollie and Whistlebinkie were strolling together through themeadows when most unexpectedly they came upon the little red house ofthe Unwiseman.

  "Why, I thought this house was under the willow tree," said Mollie.

  "Sotwuz," whistled Whistlebinkie through his hat.

  "What are you trying to say, Whistlebinkie?" asked Mollie.

  "So--it--was," replied Whistlebinkie. "He must have moved it."

  "But this isn't half as nice a place for it as the old one," saidMollie. "There isn't any shade here at all. Let's knock at the door, andsee if he is at home. Maybe he will tell us why he has moved again."

  Mollie tapped gently on the door, but received no response. Then shetried the knob, but the door was fastened.

  "Nobody's home, I guess," she said.

  "The back door is open," cried Whistlebinkie, running around to the rearof the house. "Come around this way, Mollie, and we can get in."

  So around Mollie went, and sure enough there was the kitchen doorstanding wide open. A chicken was being grilled on the fire, and threeeggs were in the pot boiling away so actively that they wouldundoubtedly have been broken had they not been boiling so long thatthey had become as hard as rocks.

  "Isn't he the foolishest old man that ever was," said Mollie, as shecaught sight of the chicken and the eggs. "That chicken will be burnedto a crisp, and the eggs won't be fit to eat."

  "I don't understand him at all," said Whistlebinkie. "Look at thisnotice to burglars he has pinned upon the wall."

  Mollie looked and saw the following, printed in very awkward letters,hanging where Whistlebinkie had indicated:

  NOTISS TO BURGYLERS.

  If you have come to robb mi house you'd better save yourselfs the trouble. My silver spoons are all made of led, and my diamonds are only window glass. If you must steel something steel the boyled eggs, because I don't like boyled eggs anyhow. Also plese if you get overcome with remoss for having robbed a poor old man like me and want to give yourselfs upp to the poleese, you can ring up the poleese over the tellyfone in Miss Mollie Wisslebinkie's house up on Broadway.

  Yoors trooly, THE UNWISEMAN.

  P. S. If you here me coming while you are robbing me plese run, because I'm afraid of burgylers, and doo not want to mete enny.

  N. G. If you can't rede my handwriting you'd better get someboddy who can to tell you what I have ritten, because it is very important. Wishing you a plesant time I am egen as I sed befour

  Yoors tooly, THE UNWISEMAN.

  "What nonsense," said Mollie, as she read this extraordinary production."As if the burglars would pay any attention to a notice like that."

  "It might make 'em laugh so they'd have fits; and thenthey couldn't burgle."]

  "Oh, they might!" said Whistlebinkie. "It might make 'em laugh so they'dhave fits, and then they couldn't burgle. But what is that other placardhe has pinned on the wall?"

  "That," said Mollie, as she investigated the second placard, "thatseems to be a lot of rules for the kitchen. He's a queer old man forplacards, isn't he?"

  "Indeed he is," said Whistlebinkie. "What do the rules say?"

  "I'll get 'em down," said Mollie, mounting a chair and removing thesecond placard from the wall. Then she and Whistlebinkie read thefollowing words:

  KITCHING RULES.

  1. No cook under two years of age unaccompanied by nurse or parent aloud in this kitching.

  3. Boyled eggs must never be cooked in the frying pan, and when fried eggs are ordered the cook must remember not to scramble them. This rule is printed ahed of number too, because it is more important than it.

  2. Butcher boys are warned not to sit on the ranje while the fiyer is going because all the heat in the fiyer is needed for cooking. Butcher boys who violate this rule will be charged for the cole consumed in burning them.

  "The fiyer must not be allowed to go out withoutsomeboddy with it."]

  7. The fiyer must not be aloud to go out without some boddy with it, be cause fiyers are dangerous and might set the house on fiyer. Any cook which lets the house burn down through voilating this rule will have the value of the house subtracted from her next month's wages, with interest at forety persent from the date of the fiyer.

  11. Brekfist must be reddy at all hours, and shall consist of boyled eggs or something else.

  4. Wages will be pade according to work done on the following skale:

  For cooking one egg one hour 1 cent. " " " leg of lamb one week 3 " " " pann cakes per duzzen 2 " " " gravey, per kwart 1 " " stooing proons per hundred 2 "

  In making up bills against me cooks must add the figewers right, and substract from the whole the following charges:

  For rent of kitchchen per day 10 cents. For use of pans and kittles 15 " For cole, per nugget 3 " Matches, kindeling and gas per day 20 " Food consoomed in tasting 30 " Sundries 50 "

  13. These rules must be obayed.

  Yoors Trooly, THE UNWISEMAN.

  P. S. Ennyboddy violating these rules will be scolded. Yoors Tooly,

  THE UNWISEMAN.

  Whistlebinkie was rolling on the floor convulsed with laughter by thetime Mollie finished reading these rules. He knew enough abouthouse-keeping to know how delightful they were, and if the Unwisemancould have seen him he would doubtless have been very much pleased athis appreciation.

  "The funny part of it all is, though," said Mollie, "that the poor oldman doesn't keep a cook at all, but does all his own housework."

  "Let's see what kind of a dining-room he has got," said Whistlebinkie,recovering from his convulsion. "I wonder which way it is."

  "It must be in there to the right," said Mollie. "That is, it must ifthat sign in the passage-way means anything. Don't you see,Whistlebinkie, it says: 'This way to the dining-room,' and under it ithas 'Caution: meals must not be served in the parlor'?"

  "So it has," said Whistlebinkie, reading the sign. "Let's go in there."

  So the two little strangers walked into the dining-room, and certainlyif the kitchen was droll in the matter of placards, the dining-room wasmore so, for directly over the table and suspended from the chandelierwere these

  RULES FOR GUESTS.

  Guests will please remember to remove their hats before sitting down at the tabel.

  Soup will not be helped more than three times to any guest, no matter who.

  It is forbidding for guests to criticize the cooking, or to converse with the waiteress.

  "Guest's will kindly not make fun of the host."]

  Guest's will kindly not contradict or make fun of their host, since he is very irritable and does not like to be contradicted or made fun of. Guests will oblige their host by not asking for anything that is not on the bill of fare. In a private house like this it would be very awkward to have to serve guests with fried potatoes at a time when ice-cream or mince pie has been ordered.

  Horses and wheelbarrows are not aloud in this dining-room under any circumstances whatever.

  Neither must cows or hay scales be brought here. Guests bringing their own olives will be charged extra. Also their own assalted ammonds. Spoons, platters, and gravy boats taken from the table must be paid for at market rates for articles so taken away.

  Any guest caught violating any or all of these rules will not be aloud any dessert whatever; and a second voilition will deprive them of a forth helping to roast beef and raisins.

  Yoors Tooly, THE U
NWISEMAN.

  N. G. Any guest desiring to substitute his own rules for the above is at libbity to do so, provided he furnishes his own dining-room.

  "They're the most ridiculous rules I ever heard of," said Mollie, witha grin so broad that it made her ears uncomfortable. "The idea of havingto tell anybody not to wear a hat at the table! He might just as wellhave made a rule forbidding people to throw plates on the floor."

  "I dessay he would have, if he'd thought of it," returned Whistlebinkie."But just look at these rules for the waitress. They are worse than theothers." Then Whistlebinkie read off the rules the Unwiseman had madefor the waitress, as follows:

  RULES FOR THE WAITERESS.

  1. Iced water must never be served boiling, nor under any circumstances must ice-cream come to the tabel fried to a crisp.

  2. Waiteresses caught upsetting the roast beef on a guest's lap will be charged for the beef at the rate of $1.00 a pound, and will have to go to bed without her brekfist.

  3. All cakes, except lady-fingers, must be served in the cake basket. The lady-fingers must be served in finger bowls, whether this is what the waiteress is used to or not. This is my dining-room, and I am the one to make the rules for it.

  4. All waiteresses must wear caps. Their caps must be lace caps, and not yotting caps, tennis caps, or gun caps. The caps must be worn on the head, and not on the hands or feet. All waiteresses caught voilating this rule will not be allowed any pie for eight weeks.

  5. Meals must not be served until they are ready, and such silly jokes as putting an empty soup tureen on the table for the purpose of fooling me will be looked upon with disfavor and not laughed at.

  6. Waiteresses must never invite their friends here to take dinner with me unless I am out, and they mustn't do it then either, because this is my dining-room, and I can wear it out quick enough without any outside help.

  7. Waiteresses must not whistle while waitering on the tabel, because it isn't proper that they should. Besides, girls can't whistle, anyhow.

  8. At all meals dessert must be served at every other course. In serving a dinner this course should be followed:

  1. Pie. 2. Soup. 3. Custard. 4. Roast Beef. 5. Ice-cream. 6. Sallad. 7. Pudding. 8. Coffee. 9. More Pudding.

  9. In case there is not enough of anything to go around more will be sent for at the waiteresses' expense, because the chances are she has been tasting it, which she hadn't any business to do.

  10. To discourage waiteresses in losing spoons, and knives, and forks, any waiteress caught losing a spoon or a knife and a fork will have the price of two spoons, two knives, and two forks substracted off of her next month's wages.

  Yoors Tooly, THE UNWISEMAN.

  "Riteing rules isn't easy work."]

  N. G. All waiteresses who don't like these rules would better apply for some other place somewhere else, because I'm not going to take the trouble to get up a lot of good rules like these and then not have them obeyed. Riteing rules isn't easy work.

  "Well I declare!" said Mollie, when they had finished reading. "I don'twonder he has to live in his little old house all by himself. I don'tbelieve he'd get anybody to stay here a minute, if those rules had to beminded."

  "Oh, I don't know," said Whistlebinkie. "They all seem reasonableenough."

  "I think I'll take 'em down and show them to my mamma," said Mollie,reaching out to do as she said.

  "No, no, don't do that," said Whistlebinkie. "That wouldn't be right.They are his property, and it would never do for you to steal them."

  "That's so," said Mollie. "I guess you are right."

  "If you want to steal something why don't you do as he asked you to?"put in Whistlebinkie.

  "What did he ask me to do?"

  "Why don't you remember the notice to burglars?"

  "Oh, yes!" said Mollie, "if you must steal something,steal a boyled egg."]

  "Oh, yes!" said Mollie. "'If you must steal something steal a boyledegg.'"

  "That's it. He doesn't like boyled eggs."

  "And neither do I," said Mollie. "Particularly when they are as hard asbullets."

  And then hearing the tinkle of the tea bell at home Mollie andWhistlebinkie left the Unwiseman's house without stealing anything,which after all was the best thing to do.