Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1887 — LAMENT OF A HOLE. [ARTICLE]

LAMENT OF A HOLE.

| Useful in Many Ways it is Often Unappreciated and in Trouble. ; Tidbit*. - ' . I lam a hole. I-m a sociable, goodi natnred hole, and although I have been | pretty nearly everywhere, I can’t help I feeling rather dazed at having sneaked into print. But I hope you won’t think any the less of me : for that. You will find a great many worse things in orint than holes. j My importance in the world is greatly l under-estimated. People never think of me until they need me to crawl into. And when Ido offer my services I am repulsed with Bcorn. A man will dig two days to produce me when he wants a well in his garden, and yet when he finds tae right in his pocket he is not satisfied, and gfeta rid of me as soon as possible, I am a very modes,, hole, too. I always try to seclude myself from the public gaze. List summer I hid in the i surf at Atlantic City, but a big fat man, who was going to bathe fell right into me, and instead o’s apologizing as a.gentleman should, commenced to swear at me. I then squeezed myself very small and took refuge in the bottom of an ocean steamer, thinking I would be out of sight there, but 1 was found out and driven away by the ship’s carpenter. We holes lead terrible lives. All the great inventions of the world are largely indebted to holes for their utility. Cannons and rifles would be entirely useless if there were no holes to put the ammunition in, and even then would be harmless if they couldn’t make holes in what was shot at. Yet nobody ever gives us holes credit for our usefulness. On the contrary, whenever a man gets into trouble he blames it on us aud says he is “in a hole.” Although I look very innocent at the bottom of a flower pot, I am exceedingly dangerous when I start out on my travels. I once stopped over night in a tin roof to study astronomy, but it rained very hard that evening, and a man asleep in a room underneath got wet. He jumped up in a rage and actually begun blaming me, as if I, and not the rain, had wet him! A plumber came next day, and the man chuckled and thought he was rid of’me. But he soon learned differently. I ran along under the bricks as he went to his office that morning, and the mud squirted all over him at every step he took. I then hid in one of his back teeth, and he nearly went wild. The dentists couldn’t dislodge me, and the tooth had to come out. I took pity on him after that and let him alone. Well, I have an engagement at the bank to-night, as some professional friends of mine want to get into a safe deposit vault, and they will need my services and a little gunpowder to accomplish their purpose. So I must bid you good-bye. But you will always find me during the summer at the small boy’s corner of the ball ground fence.