Judge — November 14, 1908 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

HE “JEST WANTED TO KNOW.” E SAT in front of meona Union Pacific Railroad train, a long, lank, black-haired man with a complexion of a pea-green tint that sug- gested close intimacy with the ‘* fever-and- ager?’ districts of old Missouri, Presently he turned toward me and asked with a nasal drawl, ‘* Goin’ fer?’’ “To Ogden, Utah. That's quite a fer piece. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. in as that? xpectin’ to locate I jest wanted to know. Live in this part o’ the country?"" 0 -in Chicago.” You don't say! Chicager's quite a,lively town. I was thar the year o’ the World's Fair. Tuk in the fair an’ the town in four Great show. What do you foller fer a livin'?”” lam a writer.” I reckoned you done somethin’ of that sort or was a , mebbe, It's easy enough to see that you don't make a livin’ with your muscle. You know I kin usually size a man up from lookin’ at him. Make writin’ pay pretty well?"’ “TL manage to keep out of the poorhou “In luck, bydad! You git a reg'lar sal’ry or go it on your own Fam'ly man?” “L got a second wife an’ ‘leven o’ what some folks call a pore man’s blessin’s—six by my fust wife an’ five by the second. Then che had five when I married her, makin’ sixteen in all, Makes con- sid’able of a fam'ly. Six of ‘em air earnin’ now, so I begin to feel a good deal out 0’ the woods. "Bout forty-five, ain't you? “* Forty-six.” “+1 jest wanted to know. Come blamed nigh hittin’ I kin guess within two years of a person's age nine times out o’ ten, It’s a sort of a gift. Wimmen on the shady side o’ forty hadn't better ask me their ages if they don’t want to be told the truth. Same way when it comes to guessin’ folks’ weight. I bet you a purty I kin guess within five pounds o’ your weight, ‘speshly if you stand up an’ let me sort o’ pinch your arms an’ : F) a didn’t I? Not having any “ purty "’ to b I declined this wager. Then the man who" jest wanted to know" said, * Native o’ this part o’ the coun- try 2" “* No—Massachusetts. "* “Yank, eh? I'd ‘a’ said you was a downeaster. Same as I reckon you would o’ sized me up as a middle west- erner, I reckon. First time you been out West?"" **No,"* ‘Like the West as well as the 7" & Re * Hardly.”” +O" course you couldn't be ex- d to, I've been East as fer as Michigan, an’ I wouldn't 's dern fer Kalamazoo, when compared to St. Joe, Missoury, asa place to live, I reckon it's sort of in the blood to be stuck on the State you was born in. You keep ‘ house or board?”” y fon “T keep house.’* Ss “ Jest wanted to know. The only fit way to live is to housekeep. ‘Then you have what you want to cat an’ pee Kalamaze give a tinl MUCH IN Son— Da I get a salary of ten per now, father.” thot's no salary at all have it cooked any way you want it cooked—that is, if your wife knows how to cook it. My wife is what you might call a good averidge cook. I’ve seen worse an’ I've seen better. Her pies can’t be beat, but she don't hit it off ev’ry time when it comes to sal’ratus biscuits. Your wife do her own cookin’?”” oN “Keep hired help, I reckon? Well, that’s somethin’ I ain't ever been bothered with. I should think a hired girl would eat an’ waste more than she earns. How many in fam'ly?”” “Four.” “‘An’ you keep a hired girl jest fer four 0’ ye? Wife an in- “1 jest wanted to know. Must have a sort of a soft snap of it with a hired girl an’ only four in fam'ly. Got a hull house or one o° these things they call a flat?”’ “+A house."* “That's what I'd want fer my fam'ly. third cousin o' mine when I was on to the World's F in’ he lived in one o” them flat things, an’ I didn’t take to it. My cousin lived on the fourth floor 0’ this department house, as he called it, an’ when the fam'ly on the first floor fried inyuns or b'iled cabbidge, all the other three fam'lies got the benefit of it. I didn’t mind that so turrible much, for I ruther like the smell of inyuns an’ cabbidge. Sort 0’ whets the appytite. But some don’t like ‘em, Anyhow, I didn’t take to the flat idee nor to city life. I had a cooped-up feelin’ all the time I was there. Goin’ to stay long in Ogden’ Not very."” Jest wanted to know. No."” “You write fer the papers?” Some. “‘Turrible lot o' lies goes into the papers, ain't they? Some folks will have a lot to answer fer in the day o’ jedgment. O° course I don’t mean nothin’ pussonal. You don’t chaw terbacker?”” I stayed with a forty- Expectin’ to write a piece abont th “No.” I'm clean out, an’ I was thinkin’ mebbe I could git a chaw off'n you, Don’t smoke either?” You miss a sight of enjoyment, by dad! Don't booze none “«T jest wanted to know. Queer how some folks is constituted an’ others ain't. Guess I'll strike that man down by the door fer a chaw o’ terbacker. I think I see him take a chaw a while ago. Play poker?”” “No,"” “TL should think time would hang mighty blamed heavy on your hands some days, What in thunder do you do fer rick-reation?”” “Oh, different things.’” “Jest wanted to know. I ain’t one to poke my nose in other people’s affairs, but 0’ course it's natchrel to ask a question or two in order to git acquainted when you air travelin’.. My name’s Simpkins — Azariah Andrew Simpkins. Glad to have you come an’ see me any time you come to St. Joe. I live out in the aidge o’ the town. Most any one kin tell you whar Az Simpkins lives. I must go an’ strike that man fer a chaw o’ terbacker, or I'll be to git so nervous I can’t set git nervous?” ** 1 jest wanted to know.”* 2. b. HARBOUR. THE STRIPED POLE. Aretic explorer—* I'm going to make another dash for the pole.” Friend" 1 made one myself, to- day, but the other fellow got into the Omer sa barber shop first.”” HE silver-tongued orator of the Platte—** Send me a dollar.”” Ww. J. B. A NAME Me wages is thor.” comicbooks.com