PADUTCH-LIFE-L Archives

From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: 47-Helping Grover Move
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 11:19:35 -0400

HELPING GROVER MOVE

Last Saturday Old Grover [Cleveland] relocated back to
Uncle Sam's homestead [The White House]. I and Polly were
invited to assist at this event. I and Billy Bixler came with a team
of oxen, and Polly rode with Sam Schnitzler. They hauled a load of
Grover's cabinets, wooden crates, cooking stove, chimney pipes,
and a grindstone. The grindstone was brand new. Grover just
bought it to grind the ax that General Bissel used for beheading
roosters. In just a few weeks he'll begin. He's got a big job ahead
of him. There are about eighteen thousand Republican office
roosters that already have their heads hanging on the block. Johnny
Wannymaker really fed those roosters well during the last four
years and you can imagine how fat they've grown.

We left the White House just a little after midday. Even
though we were really starving we were nothing in comparison to
the Democratic roosters who were standing around the corncrib,
clucking, crowing and fighting for something to eat. They really
looked pitiful. Some had lost their tail feathers and had frozen their
rooster combs. For four years they'd been living off the rotten
apples from orchard trees, and no one ever thought so many could
survive such a harsh winter.

Finally we got the cooking stove all set up, and the women
began to prepare dinner. By three o'clock we were sitting at the
table. Later that afternoon Grover told I and Polly that we had
done our share of the work and that we were both free to see the
town if we wished it.

We both started off, and it wasn't till then that I realized how
big a town Washington was. The houses are built on top of each
other, and the people were all dressed up as if it were always
Sunday. At first I said, "How-de-do" to everyone, but towards the
end they came so thick that I almost twisted my head off. Not one
of them would have thanked me for giving them the time of day.
This angered me, and I told Polly they could all go to the
devil--we'd start for home.

On the way back we passed a park. It was full of trees,
plants, and fountains. Suddenly I saw something that left me
astonished. Yaw, you can believe me or not, but right in the middle
of the trees stood a woman--without even a stitch of clothing.
Yaw, she was as naked as on the day she was born. When Polly
saw her, she was about to pass out. I suggested that we ought to
go and help her put on her clothes, but Polly said, "Gottlieb, you
stay here. A married man has no business in a place like this." She
went alone to help the woman find her clothes, but soon she
returned and told me I could come because the woman was made
from marble and couldn't even speak.

When we returned, everything was prepared for the
Noggeration Ball. And were they ever stylish! The woman wore
their full dresses and they were dragging their trains along the floor
like a skunk its tail. Polly wasn't wearing a “full dress” and refused
to dance. I was relaxed until the band began playing the old
Ferginny Reel after which my feet couldn't stay still any longer, and
I jumped up. That's where I made my first mistake. The first thing
I knew I got all tangled up in some woman's long dress train and
fell hard on my back to the floor. The other gentlemen who were
dancing began to laugh over me, but I hob se bleztich nows
g'fuddered un sell hut se ga-distered.

Grover told us we'd better go get some rest so that we'd feel
better to get an early start for home the next morning. I took the
hint. He wanted to get rid of us, and it didn't take long for him to
drop the hint.

The next morning when Grover bid us farewell I told him that
whatever happened I wouldn't leave him sticking, and that if he
couldn't find anyone to fill any cabinet-level positions, I'd be willing
to come just as quickly as he could call me. Every day now I'm
looking for a letter, and when I get called then good-bye to Rabbit
Mountain.

* * *

Note: This collection of Boonastiel stories was written by H. A.
Harter in the original Penna-Dutch dialect and were published in the
Keystone Gazette, Bellefonte, PA, between 1894 and 1904. They
were translated and transcribed by Bob James of Alaska and they
are being posted to this PADUTCH-LIFE mailing list with his
permission.

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• 47-Helping Grover Move by "Vee L. Housman" <>