Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 169, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1915 — SEEING LIFE with JOHN HENRY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SEEING LIFE with JOHN HENRY

by George V.Hobart

John Henry Gets a Present

SAY! did you ever dream you were going to get a wonderful Christmas gift from a rich relation and wake up in the icehouse? Friend wife and I are not mercenary, but we did have a hunch that Uncle Peter would slip us an onyx clock with which we could hide the knotholes in our phoney mantelpiece, or an amethyst ash tray which we could use as a bathtub for the canary; but nothing doing! It was a sad blow to us that Christmas morning, because the old boy is upholstered with coin- He owns all the eagles on the gold pieces. He has pet names for them and keeps them cooped up like a flock of chickens. And all he sent us was a book,wortfl sixty cents net, written by a pretzel pen pusher named Helfenhelfen. I wanted to throw it out the window at a taxi driver engaged in exercising his engine for the benefit of those in the neighborhood who were sleeping late on Christmas morning, but Peaches had her shoes and stockings off and was wading through the flrst chapter. The book, she informed me, was a series of essays on reincarnation. Can you tie that for a Christmas present from a man to whom money comes crying like a child and begs to be put to sleep in his safety-deposit vaults? Reincarnation is a long, loose-look-ing word, and to a perfect stranger it haß a slightly suspicious sound, but its bark is worse than its bite. After reading about half a gallon of Helfenhelfen’s theories, Peaches began to bite her nails and make faces like a highbrow. “The idea of a person having been somebody else in a previous existence is interesting, isn’t it, John?” she gurgled. "I wonder who I was?” “You appeared first as the Queen of Sheba,” I told her; “and after chasing King Solomon up a sycamore tree you disappeared for several centuries and then you slipped into history’s moving pictures as Cleopatra, and I’ve a doggone good mind -to divorce? you for the way you carried on with Marc Antony.” “Oh, tush!” giggled Peaches. “Have some sense. Who do you think Hep Hardy was?” # “Hep!” I said, "why Hep originally was a katydid or a tree toad, probably both. Later on he appeared as a dancing dervish and made weekly pilgrimages to Mecca to fill himself and the goatskin with grape. Then he dropped out for several hundred years to get a new set of watertight compartments and finally reappeared as Joe Morgan in 'Ten Nights in a Barroom’ and he’s been playing that ever since.” “I don’t see why you can’t take this seriously," she pouted. "Herr Helfenhelfen’s book is very wonderful.” “So Js a Swiss cheese sandwich,” I ventured. “Did you ever stop to think how wonderful those holes are in a

Swiss cheese? How did they get there? You don’t find them in aCamembert, do you?” Peaches put up the storm signals and burned me with a baleful glance. “It’s easy enough to make fun of something you can’t do yourself," she snapped. We were on the verge of our first quarrel and all on account of an old German dope peddler, but it was up to me not to hoist the white flag If we were to live happily ever after. "Why, little bright eyes,” I said; “that’s the easiest thing I do. Writing essays on reincarnation is where I live. I can put old Oscar Sauer•kraut to sleep because I have the punch in every paragraph. Where’S my fountain pen? I’ll show you!” "Indeed!” was all she said as she flounced out of the room. So it was up to me to make good as an essayist or forever lose the title of Captain. So I dashed off the following globules of thought, left them on the center table where she’d be sure to find them, and moseyed into the kitchen to

see what surprises lay hiding in the ice chest. First Essay. David kept his boot heel on the neck of the fallen Goliath and laughed pleasantly. "Are you all in?” David inquired, after a pause. “I refuse to speak until you take your spurs out of my face,” replied the giant. ■ - David at once showed his obliging nature. "We shall meet again,” Goliath replied hoarsely. “Not if I see you flrst!” said David. . “I will take good care that you don’t," chuckled the expiring giant. “How?” was David’s interrogation. “It will be in the far, far future," said the giant. “You will then be one of the Common People walking in the streets.” “And you?” David asked. “I will be a chauffeur on a smoke wagon, and what I will do to you will be a pitiful shame,” responded the giant. Then with a bitter laugh the triumphant Goliath turned over and pushed his mortal coil off the shufflet(oard. Second Essay. The ghost of Julius Caesar looked threateningly at Brutus, the Stabbist Brutus sneered. “You,” he said; “to the mines!” Not one of Caesar’s muscles quivered.

Brutus used a short, sharp laugh. “You,” he said; “on your way!” Caesar never batted an eyelash. Brutus pointed to the rear. “Go way back,” he said, “and use your laziness.” Caesar pulled his toga up over his cold shoulder. Brutus laughed again, and it was the saucy, triumphant laugh of the man who dodges in front of a woman and grabs a seat on the elevated railroad. “The next time we meet you will not do me as you did me at the base of Pompey’s statue,” said the ghost of Caesar, speaking for the first time since we began this essay. “We will not meet again because I refuse to associate with you,” said Brutus. Caesar smiled, but it was without mirth, and as cold as the notice of suspension on the door of a bank. “Yes, we will meet again," said Caesar. “Where?” said Brutus. “In the far, far future,” said the ghost of Caesar shrlekingly. “You will be born into the world again by that time, and in your new personality you will be one of the Common People, and you will burn gas.” “And you?” inquired Brutus. “I will be the spirit which puts the wheels in- the gas meter, and may heaven have mercy on your pocketbook!” shrieked the ghost of Caesar. Brutus took a fit, and used it for

many minutes, but the ghost kept on shrieking in the Latin tongue. Third Essay. Napoleon stood weeping and wailing and gnashing his eyebrows on the battlefield of Waterloo. He was waiting for the moving; picture man to get his photograph. The victorious Wellington made his appearance, laughing loudly in his sleeve. * "Back, Nap! Back to the Boulevard des Dago!” commanded Wellington. v Napoleon put bis chin on his wishbone and spoke no word. “You," said Wellington; “you to the Champs Eliza! This IS my victory, mid you must leave the battlefield—it is time to close up far the night” "We Will meet again, milord,” answered Napoleon. "Avec beau temps lsi bong swat!” “What does that mean?” asked Wellington. “It means that the next time we meet I will do the swatting;” answered Napoleon bitterly. P- r ; ; v* •„ .

“And when will that be?** inquired] Wellington, laughing loudly. “In the far, far future,” replied the little Corporal. “You will then be one of the Common People.” “And what will you be?” Wellington asked. “I shall be spirit of the High Cost of Living and I shall gnaw at your pocketbook until your appetite becomes a burden unbearable. Bon soir, mes.enfants, du spitzbuben!”* Then the little corporal called a cab and left Wellington flat on the battlefield. When I came back from the kitchen. I found Peaches in the front room hugging Helfenhelfen to her heart and laughing her yellow head off. "Like it?” I asked, swelling up with the pride of authorship. “Look!” she spluttered between laughs. “Look, John! Isn’t Uncle Peter a dear old fox! He wanted us to read this book and find thj real Christmas present. Look here, on page 173 he has neatly attached a thin little check for a thousand dollars! Isn’t he a darling?” “It’s worth that to read 173 pages of Helfenhelfen,” I squawked, to cover my confusion. Some Uncle, that old boy, and I take back anything I may have said about

him in those dark moments before Helfenhelfen came across with the cush. After we sat there for two hours spending the money, I asked Peaches how my homemade essays stacked up with the German importations. “What essays?” she inquired blankly. “Why, I left them here on the table," I said. “Oh, that!” she cooed. “I thought that was a letter of apology so I threw it in the wastebasket without reading it, because an apology wasn't necessary.” Isn’t she the limit in Imported chiffon, I ask you?

“Are You All In?” David Inquired, After a Pause.”

“Look, John! Isn't Uncle Peter a Dear Old Fox?”