Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1909 — HALF TRUE TALES OF STREET AND TOWN, [ARTICLE]

HALF TRUE TALES OF STREET AND TOWN,

Stories by the Way. Man that is born of woman is small potatoes and few in a hill. He riseth up today and flourisheth like a ragweed and, tomorrow or next day the undertaker hath him. He goeth forth ip the morning warbling like a lark and is knocked out in one round and two seconds. In the midst of life he is in debt, and the tax -collector pursueth him wherever he goeth. » The banister of life is full of splinters and he slideth down with considerable rapidity. He cometh home at eventide and meeteth a wheelbarrow in hjs path. It riseth up and smiteth him to the earth and falleth upon him anprunneth one of its legs into his ear. In the gentle spring time he putteth on his summer clothes and a blizzard striketh him far from home and fllleth him with cuss words and rheumatism. He buys a watch dog and when he cometh home from the club the watch dog teeth him and sits near him until rosy morn. He goeth to the race course and betteth his money on the brown mare and the bay gelding with the blaze face wins. He marrieth a red header heiress and the next day the parent ancestor goeth under with a crash and great liabilities and cometh home to live with his beloved son-in-law. Secretary Wilson of the department of agriculture was discussing, apropos of Decoration day, the work to which the soldier turned to the end of the civil war. “Many soldiers,” he said, “turned to farming. Some of our best fruit farms were started by old soldiers, who, finding their business gone at the war’s end, adopted a country life’s perforce. | “They made ingenious farmers. Here is an example. An lowa man employed a hoy to guard his strawberry patch from birds The berries —fancy fruit as big as peaches—kept disappearing and the man suspected the boy of eating them. “So one morning he came down to the patch, looked it over, and then said: “ ‘I know you don’t touch these berries, my lad, but Zeke says you do. Today I’ll test you—just to convince Zeke.’ “He took out a lump of chalk and pretended to chalk the boy’s lips; but really it was only his fingers he rubbed over them. “ ’Now,’ he said, ‘when I come down here this afternoon, we’ll see who’s right about you, Zeke or I.’ “And with pretended carelessness he tossed the chalk on the ground. On his return, some hours later, it was plain he was right. The boy’s lips were chalked with a white, stiff layer half an inch thick.” Very Witty. An intoxicated husband came into his house one night as the clock struck three. His wife, waiting for him, asked the eause of his staying out so late. He said: “It isn’t late,” and looking at his watch, told her it was only a quarttr of twelve. In a harsh tone she replie/T “ttV three o’clock.” His reply was: “Well, isn’t three a quarter of twelve?” The Waiter’s Order. Henry Ward Beecher delighted in telling what he experienced when he went into a Bowery restaurant on one occasion, and heard the water give such orders to the cook as “Ham and “Slops and Sinkers,” etc. "Watch me confound the waiter with an order which I believe he won’t abbreviate,” remarked Beecher, at length, as the waiter approached, then he said: “Give us poached eggs on toast, for two with the polks broken.” The waiter, who was equal to the emergency, walked to the end of the room, “Adam and Eve on a raft,” he yelled. Then he added: “Wreck ’em!” “Wby do you call that grafting politican “Corkscrew?” \ “Because, although he’s crooked he has a good pull.”