Judge — September 8, 1906 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A CITY CHAP’S AFTER-VACATION COUNTRY CONFESSICNS. [ SPENT my vacation at Bogville - on -the- Hudson. They told me it was on “the Hudson, but the place was so con- tinuously damp and wet that I was led to believe that the Hudson was on Bogville—at least most of the time. Everything about the place looked “shady” except the trees, It was a place where the boarders were con- tinually in touch with nature and the propri- etor was continually in “touch” with the boarders, At refreshing Bog- ville I seemed to be a boy again. But this idle dream was broken every Saturday night when I was forced to hand over a man’s-size board. From my back window I got a good look at the surrounding coun- try—when the wash wasn't hung out on the line. I looked out the first night I arrived. It was dusk. The follow- ing morning I discovered that what I mistook for a fork in the roads the night before was nothing more than a pair of pants nanging on the line. How musical it was to hear the wind sough- ing through the trees, to hear the brooks babbling over the rocks, and to see the cows cowering in the meadows, swish- ing their tails like a lot of cricket-bats ! What a delight it was to ramble out in the dewy morn and watch the chipmunkeys playing basket-ball with nuts and a-squirrelishing a cast- off straw hat! I used to stand for hours watching | the farm-hands either cutting hay or cutting stacks of cards, And the old breakfast-bell! How it moved-me! And if-I didn’t move lively enough how I used to get left in the scramble! And what a breakfast! One got a poached egg, another got a fried egg, while others got boiled eggs. I usually got impatient. I never gave the waitress a tip, and she compelled me to sit there and count the eggs as she dished them out. My mouth watered so much that my tongue floated, At last she would say to me, «Shall T turn over your egg?” I would answer, ++ Yes; turn it over to the police— it’s bad.” And those flannel-cakes! Made out of pure flannel shirts, size eighteen. One morning the bees forgot to stop at the house, and we ran out of honey. So they put mucilage on the table, and that morn- ing everybody was stuck on the flannel-cakes, One stuck on the inside of my chest, and every time I coughed I could hear it flap. ps What joy it was to start out in the morning with a rod and reel and a large basket—and come home again. If there ever was any fish in that stream they got drowned. ‘And what an elegant room they anchored me into! Because I paid the lowest board I got the highest room. If they had put me any higher 1 would have imagined myself in an air-ship. But oh, how that room was ventilated! Everywhere you looked there was.an opening “| would slide down the lightning-rod and amble cross lots until breakfast time and let bulls chase me.”* near | cov Id come to upsetting the lamp.”” ** As | chased the moths and millers around the room with a da:np towel'l tried to see how to let in fresh air. Perhaps some were to let the fresh air out again. My bed was so close to the roof I had to retire horizontally. That's straight. No sooner had I landed on my back than I knew I was up against it; and as I lay there at night I almost got cross-eyed trying to look out of all the holes at the same time, and I always imagined myself sleeping under a mosquito-netting. It was the best open-work roof Thad ever bunked in. And every night, before I retired, I used to exercise—that is, I played hide-and-seek with moths, millers and mice. The millers and moths always insisted on hiding somewhere in the vicinity of the kerosene lamp, and as I chased them around the room with a damp towel I tried to see how near I could come to upset- My nocturnal exercise was always a cue for the propri- ting the lamp. etor to stand belcw with pails of water and the proprietress to stand with the insurance papers and the skirt she was married in, Then I would get into my pajamas, only to discover that a few bees or wasps had gotten in ahead of me. And they invariably insisted on holding’a stingfest on my potted calf—and I will heartily agree with any naturalist who will come out and say that a bee or wasp is made up of the following ingredients : 782/100 parts tabasco sauce 118/100 parts cayenne pepper 99/1000 parts ginger 1/1000 kindness But these tribulations were all forgotten when I closed my dreary eye- lids and slept soundly all through the night until three o'clock in the At that late hour all the roosters in the county and outside of it insisted on giving their respective college- yells. And that» feather- bed they made’ me sleep upon! I was taken up with it the first night, and the next morning I seemed to be taking it up with me, for I was: feathers from head.to foot and back again. I never saw anything moult so successfully. Feathers stuck out all over‘ on my goose-flesh, and -at first. I thought I had slept in my duck suit by mistake. On getting up I would slip on my clothes, after slipping on a few banana-skins that the previous boarders had unthinkingly left behind = them. Then: I would slide down the lightning- rod and amble eross-ots untilspteakfast’ time’ anid” let bulls chase me. ‘And ‘those nights! : g. -“: Fireflies with safety= lamps in their hip-pockets ! And not &-mosquito anywhere outside the house—they were all inside. And everybody, had some sort of mal- odorous ointmeat smeared or sprinkled over them to keep the pesky things away. Those odors would keep anything away but the health department. 3 And what a refreshing old swimmin’-bole! Every time yor: got torough swim- ming in the creek you had to take a bath in order to get a look at yourself. The water was so dirty even the fish couldn't see, and con- tinually bumped their heads against the rocks with such force that they floated to the top. And ants and bugs! They had the finest collec- tion of insects in that part (Continued on, third advertising page following.) morning. “From my back window I got a good took ai the surrounding country.” comicbooks.com