Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1902 — Our Man About Town. [ARTICLE]

Our Man About Town.

V Ditcusses I Sundry i and J Other Matter*.

The lasiest man in this town walks ao fast that nobody can keep up with him. * * » The city librarian tells us that the most called for book by the girls is Mamie Oorrelli’s new one. It’s title is “Boy,” ’** A woman in this 'town says she Always wore number four shoes before she was married, and the women who know her feet say it must have been about sixteen years before she was married. She got married at eighteen. A certain Rensaelaer man who is given to staying out late came in one night last week quite early in the morning. He was unable to walk noiselessly and his wife hearing him called on' anxiously: , dear, is that you ?” "Course *tis. Was yer ‘xpecting somebody else?” One of our neighbors who always keeps a little wine in the cellar, but does not drink any as he does not like it, says that their wine always gets away and they Imagine somebody stole it. It is probably the same with everybody who keeps liquor, yet there are only a few who are as honest about It as this man. They will say somebody stole it, and stick to it. *•* A family in this towh moved out of a rented house. They had no use for the kitchen linoleum, so they left it on the floor. The tenants who followed them lived in the house a few months and then they left. Before leaving, however, they juried to sell tite linoleum which had been left there and did not belong -to them, which shows that there'are some folks yho are fanny. V One of our business men says he is fooled nearly every time he goes to the post-office. He says there will be a lot of mail in his box and he will get all expectancy, expecting an order for goods or some remittance, or a lot of things he really wants. Imagine bow he feels when he finds that it is mail sent to his wife, who is an officer in the Sunday school, and gets circulars and letters and papers and sample copies by the cart load. He kicks and . says he will get her a box for her Sunday school so he will not have to swear so much at being disappointed. As long as he is compelled to swear he does not feel that his wife has a fair chance.

At last we have located “Nubbin Ridge.” Ever since childhood we have beard of that section of country but until the past week have never been able to find it. All the residents of that vicinity either live on this side or the other side of it, or in driving through the country a persqp is informed that Nubbin Ridge is Just ahead a few miles or that we have Just passed it a few miles back. It is like hunting-for the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow; we are never able to find it. Last week, Irowevevy we run across a man right here in Rensselaer who claims to have been born or Nubbin Ridge and to have lived there until recent years. The gentleman referred to is 8. B. Jenkins, the fireman at the county heating plant. He says be would rather live there than any place on earth, for he says it is the Garden of Eden of Jasper county. He says the name of Nubbin Ridge was given to it by old Jake Burgett, some fifty years ago. He was on his way to church which was being held in the old Sandridge school house. Just north of where Blackford is now located be got off his horse to get some corn to feed. The corn was only about two feet high on the ridge and all he could find was nubbins, .and right then and there be christened the spot Nubbin Ridge and it has gone by that name ever since. Mr. Jenkins further says: “If you want a good square' meal, go to the heart of Nubbin Ridge; if you want a good wife go there also, for there is the home of some of the prettiest. girls the world ever saw. They are not afraid of work or men, and the boys are not afraid either of the girls or work, for I have seen them bunt muskrats all day and then go to church at night with their girls. They did not have to spend their money for mask to put on their handker-

chiefte, far the church was filled with the odor of the rats. How glad lam to recollect those days of childhood, which crowd upon my visions and disturb my dreams by night and dim my eyes by day with joy to think I was born on Nubbin Ridge, and was rocked in a cradle that was made of a boot box that was Imported from the city. In defense of our home and old friends on Nubbin Ridge we quote these few lines: "It is not a smiling delusion that shames, Not a folly that reason should scorn, ’Tis the voice of a heart which too loudly proclaims, That we for the belter were born, And that which the inner voice bid us believe, Can never the hope of a spirit dissolve,”