Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1902 — A PARODY. [ARTICLE]

A PARODY.

I wandered to the grogshop, Tom. I stood before the bar, and , drank a glass of lemonade, and i smoked a rank cigar; the same old < kegs and jugs were there, the ones J we used to know when we were in , the roundup, Tom, some fifteen ( years ago. The barkeeper is a new * one Tom, the one who used to sell ' corrosive tanglefoot to us is stok- , ing down in H—alifax, the new i one has a plate glass front, his hair * is combed quite low, he looks just ' like the one we used to know some | fifteen years ago. Old soaks came , up and called for booze and dudelets staggered in and burned the lining from their throats with fine old Holland gin and women stood , outside the door, the faces seamed with woe, and wept just as they used to weep some fifteen years ago. I asked about our old friends, those cheerful sporty men, and some were in the poorhouse, Tom, and some were in the pen, and one —the one we liked the best—the hangman laid him low; the world is much tbe same, dear Tom, as fifteen years ago. I asked about the stately chap, whom pride marked for its own; he used to say that he could drink or let the stuff alone; he perished with the James H Jams out in the storm and snow; ah few survive who used the bowl some fifteen years ago. New crowds line up against the bar and call for crimson ink, new hands are trembling as they pour the stuff they shouldn’t drink, but still the same old watchword rings “this round’s on me you know,’’ the same old cry of doom we heard some fifteen years ago. I wandered to the church yard Tom, and there I saw the graves of those who used to drown themselves in red fermented waves; and there were women sleeping there where grass and daisies grow, who wept and died of broken hearts some fifteen years ago. And there were graves where children slept, have slept for many a year, forgetful of the woes that marked their short sad journey here; and neath a fine tall monument, in peace there licth low, the man who used to sell us booze some fifteen years ago. —Exchange,