Massachusetts Spy And Worcester Advertiser

Miscellany.
ROUNDABOUT STORY-TELLERS, &c.
[From the Trenton Emporium.]
"Those sedentary weavers of long tales
Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails."
Messrs Editors—
Have you any neighbors near you
who would rather go abroad and talk,
than stay at home and work; if you
have, you surely will sympathize with
me, while I describe a few of my loquacious
visitors. There are a great many
occurrences in life, which have a general
prevalence. All families partake
of more or less of them; such as sickness,
bad maids, children, scolding women, &c. &c. Now it requires great ingenuity, and I may say native talent, to
describe these generalities in a manner
that will attract attention and not tire
the ear. But alas! how many persons
attempt that for which they are inadequate.
Some folks will intrude their
dull recitals on your time, and demand
your attention to that which happened
in your own house not half an hour before.
And if they happen to have a
something new, it is generally such as a
virtuous and lively mind would detest.
Such is the scanning of a neighbor's
faults or irretrievable loss, which tend
only to censoriousness or sorrow.
There is Tabitha Wasp, who runs
into my house three or four times a day,
exclaiming, "Oh Mr. Olio, your house
is an asylum from strife and noise. I do
think our children are the worst in town. I had scarcely seated myself just
now, when that vixen of a Bob throwed
a hideous dirty kitten, which he had just
found in the street, on my Collar, and
dirtied it monstrously. If my husband
don't 'turn over a new leaf,' I will leave
the house, for no human creature can
bear such impudence." Down she squats
without asking; and spends an hour in
rattling at her husband, whom she says
stays out late at nights, instead of being
at home attending to his family.
The next is Rachel Roundabout.
Good luck deliver me from Rachel
Roundabout! for she is one of the most
tiresome talkers with whom I am pestered.
She is a woman of considerable
knowledge, but she is such a while telling the most uninteresting tale. Such a
circuitous route to come to the point.
If she wants to tell you one thing, ten to
one if she don't start on another that has
no reference to it, and lead you through
a maze as intricate as the famed Labyrinth.
If she wished to tell you she went through Bloomsbury, Morrisville, and
Bordentown, via Philadelphia, Burlington, and Bristol. She commenced the
other day with this phrase, "Mr. Olio
did you hear the news?" No, said I.
"what is it." Why, said she, "you know
Elizabeth Downs, don't you, the daughter of old Sarah Downs, the spinster,
who lived in the frame house which formerly belonged to David Timson, the
tallow chandler, whose son went to sea,
and was drowned in a storm off the coast
of South America, near where there was
so much bloodshed and strife among the
inhabitants of that war-wasted country,
striving each for what they think is
right, the royalists for their king and
the patriots for their liberty, which I
think is their 'unalienable right,' and
the right of all people; for nothing can
be more opposed to sound sense and policy, than that the many should be led
and governed by the few.—What did
you give for this child's shoes, Mr. Olio,
for I am of opinion that Mr. — charges me too high for shoes; they tell me
leather is lower than it was, and we naturally must conclude so, for there appears to be a decline in the price of all
commodities, particularly those of domestic manufacture; in truth, I conceive them too low, for the wages of laborers are so reduced that poor laboring parents are unable to give their
children any schooling, but are forced
to put them to early labor, amongst persons who are oftentimes as vicious as
they are ignorant, and are in that ignorance which is—n—well indeed, I must
go home, for I left my child asleep. Poor
creature, it had a bad night of it last
night, yesterday being a damp day, yet
warm; my maid had the thoughtlessness
to carry it into the street, and there to
stand a half an hour gaping at Miss
S——, who was washing the windows of
the house where she lately moved to,
and for which she gives a rent of 120
dollars; a great rent really for a house
of that description, and in such an unfrequented part of ——. Yes directly,
(answering her little daughter) there
my child cries. good morning Mr. Olio."
Now could any man, woman or child,
who is any thing more than a stock or a
stone, bear a daily repetition of such a
style as this, and not get out of patience.
Another of my visitors is Mrs. Lockerty,
who tells all she hears, sees, reads or
thinks, from the cackling of her old hen,
up to the death of her brother, from the
garret to the cellar, from the front door
to the back end of the garden, from the
eating of beef steaks to the taking of
a cathartic—in a word, her tongue has a
universal scope, something like one of
Swift's characters, who
"Tells every thing that you can think of.
How she cured Tommy of the chin cough;
What gave her brats and pigs the measles,
And how her doves were killed by weasels;
How Jowler howl'd: and what a fright
She had with dreams the other night."
Now Messrs. Editors, if you or Oliver
Oakwood, would put me in a genteel
way of ridding myself of such an incumbrance, as about a dozen or fifteen of
such characters as these are, you would
much oblige me; and whenever I can
spend an hour of daylight or candlelight, without having a tiresome and intruding visitor buzzing his or her uninteresting jabber in my ears, I will give
you a silent tribute of my unfeigned
gratitude. Yours,
OLIO.