While the most of our traveling men, our commercial tourists, are nice
Christian gentlemen, there is occasionally one that is as full of the
old Nick as an egg at this time of year is full of malaria. There was
one of them stopped at a country town a few nights ago where there was a
church fair. He is a blonde, good-natured looking, serious talking chap,
and having stopped at that town every month for a dozen years, everybody
knows him. He always chips in towards a collection, a wake or a rooster
fight, and the town swears by him.
He attended the fair, and a jolly little sister of the church, a married
lady, took him by the hand and led him through green fields, where the
girls sold him ten cent chances in saw dust dolls, and beside still
waters, where a girl sold him sweetened water with a sour stomach, for
lemonade, from Rebecca's well. The sister finally stood beside him while
the deacon was reading off numbers. They were drawing a quilt, and as
the numbers were drawn all were anxious to know who drew it. Finally,
after several numbers were drawn it was announced by the deacon that
number fifteen drew the quilt, and the little sister turned to the
traveling man and said, “My! that is my number. I have drawn it. What
shall I do?” “Hold up your ticket and shout keno,” said he.
The little deaconess did not stop to think that there might be guile
lurking in the traveling man, but being full of joy at drawing the
quilt, and ice cream because the traveling man bought it, she rushed
into the crowd towards the deacon, holding her number, and shouted so
they could hear it all over the house, “_Keno!_”
If a bank had burst in the building there couldn't have been so much
astonishment. The deacon turned pale and looked at the poor little
sister as though she had fallen from grace, and all the church people
looked sadly at her, while the worldly minded people snickered. The
little woman saw that she had got her foot into something, and she
blushed and backed out, and asked the traveling man what keno meant. He
said he didn't know exactly, but he had always seen people, when they
won anything at that game, yell “keno.” She isn't exactly clear yet
what keno is, but she says she has sworn off on taking advice from pious
looking traveling men. They call her “Little Keno” now.