Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 184, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1916 — Their Foolishness [ARTICLE]

Their Foolishness

“Goody, goody, goody!” said the small boy flattening his nose against the window. “Snow! Now I can get out my sled!" “Kin I go, too?” anxiously begged the small girl. “And kin I go Bkating when you go, Buddy?” “Aw, you’re only a girl, Susie," reminded the small boy unkindly. "But I’U see!" "H’m!’’ said the small boy’s father. “The kids don’t have the winters we bad when I was a boyl” "I should say the didn’t!” fervently agreed the father of the small girL “Wow!” "It’s a shame too,’’ pursued Buddy’s father, lighting another cigar. “The mild weather lessens the Joys of childhood, and all that! I remember distinctly the huge falls of snow we used to have, and how I’d trudge along the newly shoveled off sidewalk with she snowbanks towering way above my head on either side.” "Uh-huh,” interrupted Susie’s parent “Do you know what I can remember most clearly is helping shovel off these selfsame walks! ‘Oscar,’ ipy dad would say as he reached for his woolen muffler, ‘put on your high overshoes and warm clothes and come on out! There are, 397 miles of walks and paths to be cleared off!’ I believe be gave the figure as something slightly lower, but according to my recollection my estimate is nearer correct! Snow is peculiar stuff. The first shovelful seems full of feathers and the one hundredth is loaded with pig iron.’’ "Oh, it wasn’t as bad as all that!" protested Buddy’s father. “I remember playing that we were going swimming and seeing wbo-oeuld dive farthest thru the bigest snow bank. It was great.” “Oh, yes,” said Susie's papa, “I remember that distinctly. I was in the crowd on that occasion, and the snowbank in question was at the bottom of the hill from, our plfece. The incident ! s firmly implanted in my memory be cause • I got such an all fired licking when I reached home and you got another! Don’t say you’ve forgotten it! My legs were soaked to my hips, there was a plaster of snow across my shrinking chest Inside my apparel, and snow in my ears, nose and hair. My fond mother, as she disrobed me, began with feminine exclamations of surprise, which rapidly degenerated Into those of alarm and wrath, her emotions culminating as I have above stated. She said she had to do something to start my circulation and ward off pneumonia as well as teach me better, and a licking was the only thing she could think of that filled all requirements oi the bill. At 12, sho stated, I should have known better!” “Oh, well,” 'said Buddy’s father. In eome confusion. “I do remember that now! They were rather severe on us, I think —just boyish high spirits! But the joy of waking to find a world all white and sparkling ” “Oooogy, ooogy!” shuddered Susie’s papa. “Shall I ever forget, if I live to be a hundred the sensation of crawling out of bed on a morning like that? With no steam heat invented and the base burner in the sitting room below gone out in the night? Or the wholesome pleasure of smashing; the ice in the water pitcher and incidentally .racking the pitcher, when it came t> washing my face? Honest, how many times those winter mornings did you go unwashed? I’d plow thru hip high snow to school, and not know for hours after I got there whether I had any toes or hot!” “It was wholesome and healthy for us!” declared Buddy’s father. “I don’t see why you are such a kill joy! I’d Lfc glad if my son could have the pleasure of those good old fashioned winters, and it would do Susie good too, to be hardened and “ "Good heavens, what’s the trouble?’' both fathers asked in chorus as their Offspring tumbled yelling into the room. "Buddy, he—he put snow d-down my neck!” chattered Susie. "And w-w-washed my f-face In snow, he did!” > “Aw, she tumbled me in a snowbankfirst and got me all covered and ” “Go upstairs this minute!” roared Buddy’s parent. "And get on dry clothes —don’t you know any better than to give little girls pneumonia by putting snow on them? Til attend to you later!” “I’ll take Susie home at once!” said her alarmed parent. “If she should get a chill—and youll be well punished for what you did to Buddy!” The two parents stared helpless at each other. "You’d think children would have at least a scrap of sense.’’ said Buddy's father. "The idea of their acting so!" “I don’t see where they get their foolishness!” commented Susie’s papa. "We never acted that way when we were boys!” ~ Most Unfortunate. An old darky appealing to a lady for aid told her that by the Dayton flood be had lost everything he had in the world, including his wife and six children. "Why,” said the lady. “I have seen you before and "I have helped you. Were you not the colored man who told me you had lost your wife ‘and six children by the sinking of the Titanic?’’ "Yeth, ma’am,” replied the darky, “dat was me. Most unfort’nit man dal eber was. Can’t keep a fiunly nohew.”