Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1898 — Upper or Under. [ARTICLE]

Upper or Under.

Whistling in a public conveyance is an offense against good manners, but a Chicago journal reports an Instance which really seems to have been excusable, as it was excused. The rest of the passengers were reading the morning news, but one man gazed with unseeing eyes out of the window and whistled softly, the tune being broken now and again by a smile that crossed his hirsute lips. The young girl directly opposite thought him handsome, and ascribed his preoccupied air to romantic reasons; and the older woman who sat with her glanced sharply across from time to time, wondering what the young man meant by rudely whistling in a public conveyance. But the looks of youth and age were alike lost on him, and, after awhile, he turned his face towards the light and sang with such, hearty untunefulness that his spectacled neighbor felt bound to remonstrate. “Young man,” she said, “have you hired this car for your own use?” He stared at her blankly a minute, and then flushed to the roots of his hair. “Was—was I singing?” he asked. “You were making a horrible noise,” she replied. Then he laughed, a hearty, honest guffaw, and leaned forward confidentially. “The joke’s on me,” he said. “To tell the truth, my baby has just cut a tooth, and—and I was thinking how cunning the little chap looked when he grinned.” The angry light in the woman’s eyes faded, and a smile touched the corners of her mouth as she beamed on the young father and said, with deep interest, “Upper or under?”