_ 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." _