Sunbury American

The Deacon And His Calf.

Last Sunday, just as one of our straightest deacons was getting ready to shake the lines over his horses' back, and say 'gee up,' his wife happened to remember that the calf hadn't been fed. The deacon looked at his Sunday clothes, and observed that he did not deem it incumbent upon him to suffer for the negligence of others; to which the deaconess replied that such language in the presence of the children, on a Sunday morning, and from a pillar of the church, was enough to shake one's belief in the professions that had been made by some one she could name. The deacon handed the lines to his eldest boy, and climbed over the wheel, without saying a word. He went around to the front door, and took the door key from under the mat, came around to the back door, and as he was trying to put the key in the hole, the key slipped from his hand and slid down into the mud. Finally he got into the kitchen and started for the barn yard with the milk. He set the pail down and called to the calf, but the beast whisked its tail in the air, and bellowed at him. Then he captured the animal and pulled it along by the ears and jammed its head into the pail, but the calf gave a spring, sending the milk in a cloud of spray over the deacon's shirt front. In trying to recapture the beast the deacon dropped his hymn book out of his pocket, and before he could rescue it the calf stepped both feet on it and tore the cover off. The deacon got mad. He took a hop-pole and belabored the calf. One end of the pole struck the shed, and bounding up, knocked the deacon's plug hat off. It rolled directly under the calf, who set his foot through the tile, and then went tearing around the yard with his tail in the air, and that hat fastened just above the knuckle joint. The deacon went into the house, and as he unbuckled his shirt-collar, he called out, 'Maria, you go to church, and if anybody asks after me, tell them I stayed at home to feed the calf!'