Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1910 — GANDERBONE'S FORECAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GANDERBONE'S FORECAST

FOR FEBRUARY. (Copyright 1909 by C. H. Reith. My dears, do you know That a short time ago Two dear little children Named Ted and Pinchot Were stolen away On a bright autumn day, And would have been dodo Had Taft had his way. Their captors had planned When they got them In hand To dash for the nearest Tall cut in the land, And there in the trees To desert them to freeze And to die of starvation And grief, if you please. And when they were dead The robins so red Were to cover them up From the toot to the head With leaves of the wood, And to sing when they could, “Pbor babes in the forest, Now will they be good?” But look far and wide, Never forest was spied, Nor any place left Where the babes might have died; For the forests of yore They would never see more, And they heartily wished They had saved three or four. Which occasioned a halt. And with verbal assault They openly said It was Ballinger’s fault; So they cussed him some more, And they bitterly swore, And the babes were put back Just as good as before.

But that’s, enough of Ballinger, or for him or lornist; the groundhog will awake again upon the 2d inst. He’ll pinch himself a time or two, roll over on his bed, engage in calisthenics- till He’s sure he isn’t dead, recall the day’s significance with never-falling humor, and come out to compare his girth with that of the consumer. And side by side before his hole these two will reminisce, and each will tell the other what his weight, if any, is. They’ll feel of one another’s ribs, tell stories, laugh and prattle, jump up and down to see whose bones will make the drier rattle, and then, with standing* back to back and no small bit of unction, they’ll ascertain If they can throw a shadow in conjunction. The which the country will await with trembling and misgiving, for if they can, we’ll have to think of how to keep on living another 30 days and nights, frostbit and tem-pest-shaken, and paying an admission fee to see a piece of bacon. But let us all be reassured And have the heart to sing: We don’t believe a dozen such Could hope to show a thing; Or forty of them half and half In solid phalanx there, Unless they counted One-two-three, And filled themselves with air. Our Mr. Taft should be ashamed to be so fat and sleek with everything so high we can’t eat meat but once a week. He ought to be too big, a map in other ways than his to keep so buxom when he sees how tMn the country is. A sympathetic president in such a time of test would ask for nothing but to take pot luck with all the rest. He’d eat his hard and simple crust, his prunes and better cake, and join the country in the stand we’ve taken as to steak./ It doee«seem like hard-heartedness for one in such a place to feed himself on terrapin and set us such a pace. He ought to live on hominy and grow so thin and gaunt that anyone with seeing him would think he was in want. It would become him very well to say, "I live on rice,” and prove it when he wrapped his coat around hie body twice. We’d all stand up and honor him, alike with us bereft, and cheer him with what little strength the’ most of us have Ipft.

St. Valentine will open up Hte moving picture show And run a nickelodeon For seven days or so. He’ll show us Algernon the Dude, And Little Wit the Dunce, And bore us terribly again With those unwitting stunts. And maybe this time we shall rise, Ate we should do, by gum, And put thia whole infernal brand Of humor on the bum. We never did khow what It meant, if anything at all, or who it was that started it, or why we had to fall for such a cuetom. Oft we think the way that we behave must make the good Bt. Valentine turn over in his grave. It is a shame to break his sleep, which elhfr were quite serene, and keep

him spinning just as if there were a belt between that ancient and respected tomb of him a long time dead and alt the wheels there are In some fool picture. maker’s head. At any rate, this country will by hook >or crook survive and hail the blessed day that saw George Washington arrive. As time proceeds we more and more appreciate his make, and wonder if his coming here was not a great mitsake. We can’t help thinking that he was supposed to go to Mars, or possibly to one of the still older, riper dtars. A man who will not tell a He is not like one of us, and we’ll bet a dollar he was billed to go to Utanus or somewhere else where one of us had been to them as queer and unlike everyone as George has been among us here. But be it as it haply will, It soon shall come about That Lent will hurry up to help The poor meat striker out, And Halley’s comet will assume The aspect of a gorgon And see what it can do to save Us all from Mr. Morgan. If that won’t make him loose his grip it will be time to wonder If Mr. Morgan, too, is not a planetary blunder, and if he should not have been born where others such as he are and no one is so far advanced in ethics yet as we are. However, from the 17th we shall be under Pisces, the symbol of the Fish, and the significance of this is that persons born beneath the sign, though not quite Washington, will not be liars like we are, but only little ones. The moon will fill the 22d, and the last week will be quiet unless we have a suffagrette or anti-tar-iff riot. The trusts’ big aviation meet will see the month out right, and beef at 30 cents a pound will win the prize for height. And then the welcome Spring will come, The Winter go a-scooting, And March come in like one of what T. Roosevelt is shooting.