Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1901 — Picked Up Around Town [ARTICLE]

Picked Up Around Town

A woman whom we know is never real happy because she is continually worrying for fear some of her friends will get sick. * There is a man in this town who is so mean folks are anxious to have him go into business so he will find out how unpopular he is. * * • We met a man the other day- who said his wile did not object to him having a good time, nut she did get awfully mad if he paid any attention to any of the girls. What kind of a woman is she, anyhow? % * We heard of a man the other day who had always been rather weak and sickly. His frierris expected him to die before he'*Sjggkto be grown up. Then they thottjjgc sure he would not live to be middle aged. Finally, they decided that it was clear out of the question to think of his reaching fifty, and the other ay he celebrated his golden wedding. Beware of the invalid. We heard of a girl near here who wears shoes that are at least two sizes too small. But we do not believe it, so we merely relate the story to show what strange things folks will tell. You may believe it or not, just as you like. Her envious neighbors say she wears her shoes so tight that she can hardly walk till she has worn them awhile. When she starts from home she minces along like a Chinese belle in Pekin. By the time sh» gets up town she is used to the agonv and torture, and she gets along pretty well. * * * It is the rule of railroads that to ship a corpse, one must buy a full fare ticket and then the body is shipped in the baggage car. That is to say, the friends buy the ticket. Not even a railroad company expects the corpse to buy its own ticket. A funeral party got on at a country station where they were selling excursion tickets, and the man buying the ticket, being a saving man, bought a round trip ticket for himself and in order that he might do justas well by the corpse, he bought a round trip ticket for the corpse. We did not learn wheather he used the return ticket for the corpse or not.

An old Darkey was in a saloon in a southern town, He was pretty well “hooked up” as the boys say. He had abont as big a load as he could carry and was quoting Scripture freely. He told the barkeep about the story of Daniel, who was alone in the wilderness and how the ravens brought him food. He said, “If the ravens hadn’t done brought the prophet Daniel stuff to eat, he would have stahved, sah.” And the old barkeep was a florid faced, bald headed old sinner who didn’t know Daniel from John L. Sullivan, and does not know yet whether the Darkey was right or wrong. A loafer in the saloon told a story about a man having been tracked to a henhouse in town and the colored gentleman changed the subject immediately and wanted to talk still more about the prophets and things. * * The train was speeding towards Indianapolis. Two young men came into the car that was full of Bleeping passengers, about midnight. It is not a very cheerful prospect at best. Bill was about to sit down by a window. His pard admonished him thus: “Don’t set down by one of them winders.” And he did not “set down,” but said he would go to the smoker. The young, husky fellow had on his store clothes because he had been on a trip. There was a big package marked with the business and location of some firm in Peoria. They talked abont “Peory.” He also wore a celluloid collar and a pair of double knit yarn mittens, knit of three kinds of yarn, like mother used to make. He kept them on, so his hands wouldn’t get cold. He surveyed the crowd awhile and then concluded to go into another car. When we got off he was snoring away like a good fellow, evidently dreaming of the boss time he had in “Peory,” and he still had on his double knit mittens that mother made. Whether Bill “set down by one of them winders” we can not say.