Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1902 — Our Man About Town [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Our Man About Town

• - Discourses on Many Subjects and Relates Sundry and Other Incidents.

TUTR. Hicks, who has quit preaching to make almanacs, is quite a big man. His pictures of cyclones are warranted to empty a room in sixteen seconds, and his prophetic utterances in times of doubt will cure the drouth in winter time. But with all his hay rack load of genius he can’t furnish flap jaok comparisons with the Local Prognosticatar who has just handed in the following foreoast for the month of December. Eddittor:—Deer sur. This here month is liable to be mild and I want yer readders to kno it, if they live in the South states, but up in the northwest it is goin to be as cold as an old mades smile at Xmas and ye don't ftirgitt it. Thee middle Beotions of the Unitted states ul be treated ’bout as uzul. Thee month will enter with pleasant dreams over the Suthern states an’ a storm ul come up lickuty Kalabelazar over the P'clfio Coast States. Ist to 3rd it ul be as pleasant az a shampoo on an August afternoon. 4th to 6th cloudy. 7ch to 10th a great big storm ul form over the lower Mississippi Valley an go a galloperdin northeast oausiu rain and snow and oold weather. 11th to 13th she’ll come up simllur. 14th and 16th a storm ’nil form over the Gulf ov Mexioero and came tumblin’ up the Atlantic coast—prodigons like causin, rain over thee South Lantic an’ rampagenous snow over the New England pumpkin buskers, an’ the Hoosiers of the Middle states. 17th to 18th cold wave. 19th to 21st colder wave. 22th a most thunderin’ cold snap followed by sleighin’ weather up north. 26th to 31st cloudy, followed by snow and more of them cold waves. There won’t be no green graveyards this Xmas, not less your uncle is a bigger liar an all the weather buros put together. V

A telephone in one’s residence is sometimes an annoyance, as a certain well known citizen of Rensselaer can affirm. One night this week he was awakened by his daughter pounding vigorously on the door and informing him that the ~ telephone bell had awakened her and that some one wanted to speak with him over the wire on important business. Shiver: lng with cold, he snatched a pair of dippers and a blanket and grumbled his way downstairs 'to the phone where he helped to carry on this dialogue: “Hello! who is it wants me?—Hello! “Is this Mr. ?” ‘‘Yes, what do you want?” “What time is it?” “What in goodness”—then glancing at the clook, “A quarter after two. And its cold here. What’s your business?” “I’m not keeping you up, am I?” “Well, I might be in bed. But if your business is important—” “Ah-its—well”— “What? Hello! Hel—lo—o—” “Well, it’s not important exaotly,

but, you see, I’ve never spoken to you before, and I was thinking about it, and as I was feeling kind of lonesome, I thought I might chat with—” And now there is one resident who declares he will have his phone taken out. *** A N exohange remarks that the man who wrestles with the cow and learns the calves to suck, who casts the corn before the swine is now in greatest luck: for butter’s on the upward grade, veal’s higher than a kite, pork is climbing up the scale and beef is out of sight; the eggs he gathers every day from his Poland ohioken coop are almost worth their weight in gold and we are in the sonp. His corn brings him a fancy price, it’s raising every day, and he rakes in a bag of cash for half a load of hay. The farmer’s in the saddle and when he comes to town, the rest of us by rights should go away back and sit down. ■ 4 f* *** A genuine Kentucky Oolonel registered at the Makeever house Monday and in the course of a conversation criticised the town as follows: “I never struck such infamously adulterated likkah in my whole oareah sah, as they serve in Rensselaer,” said the Oolonel. “Ratsbane and things in it, eh?” “No, sah. Watah, sahl” V ITIHERE’S a girl in Rensselaer so religious that she will not allow her “steady” to squeeze her hand unless she places it in a bible and then she calls it a “holy squeeze.” She won’t go out on Sunday for fear she might hear the wind working through the branches of the trees. The sbme girl is so strict that Bhe Is straight laced, and she refhses to wear open work hose. V A Jasper county Nimrod says, “It Is not generally known that an orange hit in the exact center by a rifle ball will vanish from sight. Such however, is the fact. Shooting it through the center scatters it in such infinitesimal pieces that it is at once lost to sight.” Possibly he means that nobody could ever hit the exact center of an orange, or maybe he fancies that this office cannot tell the difference between “agreatbigdarnedJie” and “areasonableyarn.” At any rate he will have to show us. V A fond Rensselaer papa owns a very cute young miss of some five summers. The other morning he stooped to caress a tiny pink-and-white toot that had escaped from the bed covers. “That’s the prettiest foot in the world,” he remarked very confidently. “There isn’t another in all the world as perfect.” “Oh, yeth there ith, papa,” was the quick-retort of her ladyship. “Here it ith.” And she thrust out her other foot with a very triumphant air.

The Country Town Knocker. Nearly every oountry town has a oitizen in its population who is a knocker, or in other words, a person who is always ready and willing to give others advioe in regard as how to manage their business. It matters not the nature of your business, this knooker can be relied upon to inform your friends that if he had been running affairs he would have done so and so, and that he did not think you were just exaotly what you ought to be for he had been hearing a good deal of talk lately. If you have a horse for sale or trade this knocker can tell any prospective buyer or trader that your horse is blemished and he knows it, but he don’t care to say Where the blemishes are because it is none of his business. He will always be able to tell next morning after the dance exaotly who went home with who. He will lose sight of no ohance to gain a private interview with married women to inform them of the imaginary mismovements of their husbands. If there is a newspaper published in the vioinity he will not subscribe but will borrow his neighbor’s paper and after reading it will find fault with the editorials, the people who advetsise and the way the editor holds his head or the clothes he wears. If the property of any person is mentioned in his hearing he will say that it runs in his mind that it was heavily mortgaged sometime ago. When he goes to Church he will say the sermon was very good but. — This merchant and that merchant always treated him alright but he had heard some people say. If you state in his presenoe that Mrs. Jones makes good butter you will hear him say, “You should have heard what a man who used to work there told me.” This knocker will find fault with either the committee or the program of every entertainment held in the town. You will hear this knooker when speaking of Mr. Goodman, say that if ever there was an honest man in the world he is one. Why he doesn’t see what the town would do without him. “He is a leader in church and is good to the poor, but a friend of mine who lives in Chicago told me that he had met Mr. Goodman when he was buying goods in the city, and that he was having.a hot time.” The knocker can tell just who was near a saloon on a legal holiday and is the oause of so many people being summoned before a grand juiy to testify in cases that they know nothing of. Does this hit anybody in your town?