Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1886 — Dime-Novel Versatility. [ARTICLE]

Dime-Novel Versatility.

One of the finest qualities, in “BedHanded Ralph” or any other wild Western hero who whacks bulls, scalps Indians, writes poetry; and goes play actin’ on the stage, is his ability to drop slang and adopt fine talk when he shifts from the commonplace to the “pathetic.” “Waugh!” says the scout, patting old Killsure as he cuts another notch on the stock, “thar’s another blank blanked greaser wiped out, an’ thar’s anotherun agoin’ to foiler him right soon. Dod rot my eternal feelins es I ain’t goin’ to toiler this/ hyar trail till it ends in a pool o’ blood. Fur I wasn’t alius just this way, but when the dog-blamed skunks run away weth the gal I cottoned to, the purest, loveliest being that ever robed her womanhood with the beauty of the angels, I wrote her name across me heart, and with a pen of iron burned R-r-revenge above it! And the sighing night winds wandering with complaining cadences through the swaying’ pines, the murmuring streams that go singing down in the sunless shadows of the mighty canon, and th'e storms that shriek and

roar through forest and ravine, ever and also sing to me ths one unchanging theme, Amite and Revenge. Waugh!” —Burdette. '