Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1909 — Humor [ARTICLE]

Humor

THE GARDENING HOBO. His Experience With a Red Vieaged, Flaming Haired Virago. As he walked along the country lane and sniffed in the keen air of the early morning the wandering hobo felt within him the stirrings of an appetite that would not be appeased by anything snort of real food, and a good deal of it at that. Devouring scenery and drinking in the salubrious morning air were all well enough in their way, but it was upon more substantial things that his hunger was now set. So, perceiving a farmhouse with a smoking chimney not far along the highway. h« approached it and rapped briskly on the kitchen door.

The door opened immediately, and a huge, red visaged, flaming haired virago confronted him just as he was about to make a pleasant remark on the subject of the early bird. “Well.” she said, “what is it?” “I don't know, ma’am,” said he, be ginning his retreat, “but it looks like a cross between a Sunday supplement and a war cloud.” “What are you looking for,” she demanded. seizing a mop that stood just inside the door—“trouble?” “No, madam,” said the tramp, hurrying a little until he was safely on the other side of the fence; “I’m lookin’ for a way out. If I’d'been lookin’ for trouble I’d ha' stayed inside there where you are.” And he made blithely up the road.— John Kendrick Bangs in Lippincott’s Magazine.