Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1909 — Half True Tales of the Street and the Town. [ARTICLE]

Half True Tales of the Street and the Town.

The Engineerfs Story. He‘swung down out of the cab at the Monon depot to chat a minute with the “Man around the Square.” “Yes, we do have some queer experiences,” replied the engine .driver to a question to draw him out, “yes we have more than our share of them —but ours are mostly tragedies—nothing for your funny column. Dc you know only the other day beyond Monon a queer thing happened to me. Somehow or other it touched me in my tenderest spot—and I actually shed tears over it, too.” And the big man turned his back to hide his weakness as his eyes filled up with the thought of it. “We were hitting it off to make up a ten minutes wait at Rensselaer, when I saw suddenly about twenty rods ahead of me around the curve, a little tot not more than three years old square on the track. There was no way td save her. I got sick at my stomach, but I made the signals, reversed and applied the brakes—and then shut my eyes. I couldn’t bare to see it. As we slowed down my fireman stuck his head out of the cab to see what I’d stopped for. Then he burst out laughing and hollered over to me: ‘Jim look here!’ “I looked, and there was a big, black dog, a Newfoundland dog I should think, folding the little child in his qaouth, trotting off toward the house nearby, where they both evidently belonged. She was a kickin’ and a cryin’ and I knew she wasn’t hurt. And the dog had saved her. “The fireman, he thought it was funny and kept on laughing to see the little thing strugglin’ to get loose. It didn’t strike me that way. I confess to goodness I was cryin’ like a woman. I had a little tot of my own at home.” —x — Two men were having an argument as to their respective strength. “Why,” said the first, “every morning before breakfast I get a bucket and pull ninety gallons from the well.” “That’ nothing,” retorted the other “I get a boat every morning and pull up the river.” —x — Quarried All the Time. Among the applicants for domestic employment in the service of a Brooklyn household there once came a big, husky Irish girl yclept Annibel. “What was your reason for leaving your last place, Annabel?” asked the mistress during the course of examination. “I couldn’t stand the way the master an’ mistress used to quarrel, mum,” was the reply of Annabel. “Dear, dear.” exclaimed the lady, “Did they quarrel all the timet” "All the time, mum,” repeated Annabel; “an’, mum, whin it wasn’t me an him, it was me an’ her.” —x — Not on the Program. Two stout old Germans were enjoying their pipes and placidly listening to the strains of the summer garden orchestra. One of them in tipping his chair back stepped on a parlor match, which exploded with a bang. “Dot vas not on the program,” he said, turning to his companion. “Vat vas not?” “Vy, dot match.” “Vot match:” “Veil, I didn’t see no match; vat bound It?” “Vy, I valked on a match and it went bang, and I said it was not on de program.” The other picked up the program and read it through very carefully. “I don’t see it on the program,” he said. “Veil, I said it vas not on the program, didn’t I?” —x — Although the fight being made in the legislature for a revision of the charter of the city of New York is a vigorous one, it Is being as vigorously opposed by the professional politicians. They very naturally prefer the present loosely organized system, in which the several boroughs are operated practically as distinct cities, and touch each other only to buttle. It gives a better chance for graft The situation won from Judge Gaynor the other day the retelling of one of the stories that made Kentucky Ollle James famous. Gaynor made the direct application to the munclpal situation. “Down in my country,” said James, “there used to be a well-to-do farmer whose custom it was to turn out a drove of hogs at the beginning of every fall in an isolated patch of forest, to fatten on the mast Right on the edge of this forest pasture

lived old*Jim Hinks, whose reputation was about as bad as it could be. He never worked and he had no stock,’ but he always had flour in the bin and meat on the rafter. One fall the farmer drove a big batch of hogs down there as usual, and then he called on Jim Sinks: ‘Jim.’ said he, ‘you and me always been friends, ain’t weh?’ Jim allowed that was so. ‘You all nevah had nothin’ agin me, did"you, Jim?’ Jim said he certainly never did have nothing against him. ‘Well, Jim,’ says the farmer, ‘l’m gwine to turn out these hawgs of mine here in the woods. Now, Jim, it sometimes happens that I don’t ketch up nigh as many hawgs as I turn out. So I’m gwine ask you as a favor to look after them hawgs of mine, Jim, and see that nobuddy steal ’em. And when I ketch ’em up, after they gone git fatted up, I’m gwine give you the six fattest hawgs in the bunch.’ Jim scratched his head and protested that he didn’t like the •responsibility. But the farmer insisted, and finally Jim yielded. ‘But 1 tell you right now, Misteh Hamilton, says Jim, ‘that I’m a doin’ this Jest because you and me al’ays been good friends. For I certainly am a losin’ pork by it.’ ” A Perfect Man. There is a man who never drinks, Nor smokes, nor chews, nor swears, Who never gambles, never flirts And shuns all sinful snares— He’s paralyzed! is a man who never does A thing that is not right, Hisjwife can tell just where he is At morning, noon and night— He’s dead!