When Mr. and Mrs. Hayes returned to Washington from the far west their
Ohio friends got up a surprise party for them. They had just retired for
the night, rather early on account of fatigue, when the door bell rung
violently. Mr. Hayes put on his pants, and throwing one suspender over
his shoulder and holding on to it with his hands, he went to the door
and asked who was there. On being answered that John Sherman was there,
Mr. Hayes supposed there was something important, and he opened the
door.
Mr. Sherman came in with a market basket of sandwiches, followed by
about a hundred ladies and gentlemen, loaded down with articles usually
taken to surprise parties. Mr. Hayes was taken entirely by surprise, and
as he buttoned his trousers and tucked in his night shirt behind he said
he hoped they would excuse him for a moment till he went up stairs and
put on a collar and some stockings, and called Mrs. Hayes, who was in
bed.
Matt Carpenter said never mind; he would call Mrs. Hayes, and he gave a
hop, skip and jump and went up stairs three at a time, followed by Mr.
Hayes, who was shivering from the contact of his bare feet with the oil
cloth in the hall.
“What is the trouble, Rutherford?” said Mrs. Hayes, as Mr. Carpenter
rushed into the room.
“Get up and dress yourself, you are surrounded, and escape is
impossible.”
Mrs. Hayes screamed as she saw the bold buccaneer, pulled the bed
clothes over her head and said, “We are lost.”
At this point Hayes, who had got on a pair of woolen stockings, and was
buttoning on a paper collar, said: “I say, Matt, of course this is all
right, and I don't want you to be offended, but won't you just step out
into the hall so Mrs. Hayes can get her clothes on.”
“Why, to be sure,” said Matt, as he got up out of a rocking chair, on
which there were three skirts, a red petticoat, an emancipation corset,
and a pair of striped stockings with long suspenders arranged to button
on the waist, “of course I will go out, but you need not mind me. I am
near sighted.”
Matt went down stairs with the crowd, and when he was gone Mrs. Hayes
got her head out from under the clothes and wanted to know what the
trouble was, and if they could not fly.
Hayes told her not to be alarmed, as it was only one of those d--d
surprise parties. He said there were two hundred hungry people down
stairs, with baskets of sandwiches and pickles, and the chances were
that they would eat up everything there was in the house, and mash
crumbs and cold tongue into the carpet.
Mrs. Hayes got up and sent Rutherford into the linen closet after a
clean white skirt, and he returned with a night gown and had to be sent
back. While she was taking her hair down out of the curl papers, and
putting bandoline over her ears, she gave Mr. Hayes her opinion of
surprise parties. She said that little shrimp, Alexander Stephens, would
sit on the piano keys, and knock his boot heels against the piano case,
and that Dave Davis would fall over the music rack, and sit down in her
best rocking chair and break it.
Just then she touched her nose with a curling iron that she had heated
in a gas jet, and screamed and woke Mr. Hayes up, and he wanted to know
what was the matter. She rolled over in bed, felt of her nose to see
if it was there, and told Mr. Hayes she had been dreaming there was a
surprise party came to the house.
He said: “My dear, I trust there is no such fate in store for us. You
are nervous. Try a little of that crab apple cider, and lay on your
face, and see if you can't go to sleep.”