The organization of the “Cosmos” Club, of Chicago women, for the purpose
of discussing “æsthetic” business, ancient poetry and pottery ware,
calls to mind the attempt to organize such a club here in Milwaukee.
Our people here are too utterly full of business and domestic affairs
to take to the “æsthetic” very generally, and the lady from Boston
who tried to get up a class in the new wrinkle went away considerably
disgusted. She called about fifty of our splendidest ladies together at
the residence of one of them, and told them what the ladies of
Eastern cities were doing in the study of higher arts. She elaborated
considerably on the study of Norwegian literature, ceramics, bric-a-brac
and so forth, and asked for an expression of the ladies present. One
lady said she was willing to go into anything that would tend to elevate
the tone of society, and make women better qualified for helpmates to
their husbands, but she didn't want any Norwegian literature in hers.
She said her husband ran for an office once and the whole gang of
Norwegian voters went back on him and he was everlastingly scooped.
The Boston lady held up her hands in holy horror, and was going to
explain to the speaker how she was off her base, when another lady got
up and said she wanted to take the full course or nothing. She wanted
to be posted in ancient literature and ceramics. She had studied ceramics
some already, and had got a good deal of information. She had found that
in case of whooping cough, goose oil rubbed on the throat and lungs was
just as good as it was in case of croup, and she felt that with a good
teacher any lady would learn much that would be of incalculable value,
and she, for one, was going for the whole hog or none.
The Boston lady saved herself from fainting by fanning herself
vigorously, and was about to show the two ladies that they had a wrong
idea of æsthetics, when a lady from the West Side, who had just been
married, got up and said she felt that we were all too ignorant of
æsthetics, and they should take every opportunity to become better
informed. She said when she first went to keeping house she couldn't
tell baking powder that had alum in it from the pure article, and she
had nearly ruined her husband's stomach before she learned anything.
And speaking of bric-a-brac, she felt that every lady should learn to
economize, by occasionally serving a picked up dinner, of bric-a-brac
that would otherwise be wasted.
The Boston lady found she could not speak understandingly, so she
left-her chair and went around to the different groups of ladies, who
were talking earnestly, to get them interested. The first group of four
that she broke in on were talking of the best way to renovate seal-skin
cloaks that had been moth eaten. One lady said that she had tried all
the æsthetic insect powder that was advertised in the papers, and the
moths would fairly get fat on it, and beg for more; but last spring she
found out that moths were afraid of whisky.
Her husband worked in a wholesale whisky store, and his garments became
saturated with the perfume, and you couldn't hire a moth to go near him.
So she got an empty whisky barrel and put in all her furs, and the moths
never touched a thing. But she said the moths had a high old time all
summer. They would get together in squads and go to the barrel and smell
at the bung-hole, and lock arms and sashay around the room, staggering
just as though there was an election, and about eleven o'clock they
would walk up to a red spot in the carpet and take a lunch, just like
men going to a saloon.
She said there was one drawback to the whisky barrel, as it gave her
away when she first went out in company after taking her clothes out of
the barrel. She wore her seal-skin cloak to the Good Templars' Lodge,
the first night after taking it out, and they were going to turn her out
of the Lodge on the ground that she had violated her obligation.
“You may talk about your Scandinavian literature,” said she, turning
to the Boston lady, “but when it comes to keeping moths out of furs, an
empty whisky barrel knocks the everlasting socks off of anything I ever
tried.”
The Boston lady put on her æsthetic hat, and was about to take her
leave, satisfied that she had struck the wrong crowd, when a sweet
little woman, with pouting lips, called her aside. The Boston lady
thought she had found at last one congenial soul, and she said:
“What is it, my dear?”
The little lady hesitated a moment, and with a tear in her eye she
asked:
“Madam, can you tell me what is good for worms? Fido has acted for a
week as though he was ill, and----”
That settled it. The Boston lady went away, and has never been heard of
since.
*****
“A young fellow and his girl went out sleighing yesterday, and the
lad returned with a frozen ear. There is nothing very startling in the
simple fact of a frozen ear, but the idea is that it was the ear next to
the girl that he was foolish enough to let freeze.”
A girl that will go out sleigh-riding with a young man and allow his
ears to freeze, is no gentleman (“lady”??), and ought to be arrested.
Why, here in Milwaukee, on the coldest days, we have seen a young man
out riding with a girl, and his ears were so hot they would fairly
“sis,” and there was not a man driving on the avenue but would have
changed places with the young man, and allowed his ears to cool. Girls
cannot sit too close during this weather. The climate is rigorous.