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
nineteen 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!_"
[Illustration: "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 taking advice from pious looking traveling men.
They call her "Little Keno" now.