Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1879 — Inte ligent Young man. [ARTICLE]

Inte ligent Young man.

Hawkeye. A young man gets on the train and seats himself opposite me. He wears flame colored kids and a poodle dog. Now, I do not object to a man wearing any kind of color of kids, but, love of the angels, how I do hate a poodle dog. The young man holds the poodle in his lap, smooths out the blue ribbon around his neck, placidly strokes his own whiskers, and languidly stares at me. As I look at them I notice how much they look alike. Father and son, perhaps. As I think the thought, the dog snarls and barks an indignant denial. Presently the young man, with a painful effort opens the conversation by saying: “What’s news?” I tell him the elections have all gone one way. He says: “Haw.” And presently he adds: “Who’s ’lected?” I tell him Cornell is elected in New York.

“Ya-as,” he says. “I’ve been in Noo Yawk. Cornell,’’ he added, brightening up, “Cornell; he’s a college or something ’f that sort, ain’t he?” I explain to him„as well as I can the difference between Alonzo B and the university at Ithaca. The young man looks painfully astonished upon learning that they are not the same man. “Who run ’gainst him?” he asks. “Robinson.” “Ah, ya-as,” he says. “Know him. Runs a circus. Funniest thing *f the kind you ever saw. Tent all striped, like—like—like bed-tick, you know.” Then he paused and rested hifnself, and presently said: “Wha’ you writin?” I told him I was getting up a little work for the paper that honored itself by securing, at an immense annual out-lay, my valuable, though erratic service. “Wha’s its name?” the young man asked feebly, at the same time fondling the dog. “The Hawkeye,” I told him, “for sale by all newsdealers, and only $2 a year In ad vance. The best paper in America and the finest avertising medium in the West; devoted to—” “Ah, ya-as,” he said, brightening up, “and you’re th’ feller they sail ‘Hawkeye?’ ” I admitted that sometimes people who didn’t know any other name called me that “Oh, ya-as,” he said. “I know you.” I flushed and bowed, and he went on. “I know you. Heard of you often. Beeu you play once. You’re th* Injun Cbief in Buffalo Bill’s party ain’t you?” Then he leaned oaek, exhausted. And I Well I felt about as tired as he did.

R J. B.