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Tuesday, November 5, 2019

FOUND AND LOST

MR. AND MRS. JACOB ZOLSKY returned this

morning from their summer cottage in a nearby Wisconsin resort.


While they did not have much to unpack,

nevertheless they were busy putting wearing apparel and other items away in the

right places.


“I must say,” Mrs. Zolsky addressed her

husband in a satisfied tone, “that you put it over in a nice way. This was the

first year that I realized what it means to have a rest.”


Her husband grinned:


“Well, something had to be done to keep the

mob away from our cottage.”


“You did it in such a way that one in a

million would not have thought about it, and it worked.”


The story behind their conversation is

this.


The Zolskys are popular in the neighborhood

where they reside. They are known for their kindness and for their cooperation

with all those who need help.


While they appreciated such recognition and

popu-larity when in town, they paid the penalty while summer-ing in their

country cottage.


Most of the week, Jacob Zolsky stayed in

town attending to his business, but he never failed to join his wife and their

three children for weekends.


But alas, instead of having a rest and

enjoying a few days with his family, he had to assume the responsibility of

helping his wife take care of the uninvited guests who “dropped in.” The

funniest thing was that most of them managed to “drop in” at the lunch hour or

at supper time.


True, Mrs. Zolsky tried her best to hire

help. But because of the labor shortage, she and her husband had to do all the

serving themselves.


Time and again, Mrs. Zolsky expressed her disappointment

to her husband.


“If some of the women would pitch in and

help a little, it would not be so hard. But they fall upon us like locusts, and

what can you do?”


Of course, they had to tolerate their

relatives and did not mind showing hospitality to some of their customers, but

they could not understand why they had to be troubled by the butcher from whom

they bought meat or by the cobbler who repaired their shoes!


Even those who were not invited to eat

naturally had to be treated with a glass of orange juice. This, too, required

work, particularly when the oranges these days have such thick skins and so

very little juice.

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