Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1918 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

Bill Jonah Tinkle worked for me, before the army got him, and such a slouchy youth was be, I often yearned to swat him. He walked with an ungainly >ftoop, he shambled and he shuffled, and didn't seem to care a whoop whose minds were sorely ruffled. When in repose he seemed to slump, as though his joints were failing: he had to lean against a pnmp, a building or a railing. And when he went away to drill, 1 said. “ Twill be a pity, if they have many men like B« down there near Junction City. An army made of gangling gents, swaybacked and double-jointed, will look, in France, like twenty cent* —Haig will be disappointed." I saw this lad the other day, and he was slick and sassy; I hardly knew the blooming jay, he was so clean and classy. Erect, alert, ’wellgroomed and slim, he walked with spring and vigor, as though his legs belonged to him, and not to some lay figure. The army took this reuben green, and made him an Apollo: oh, wondrous transformation scene—it beats the band all hollow! The army has magicians beat: it takes the knock-kneed sinner, the man who is all neck and feet, and makes of him a winner.