Judge — March 28, 1914 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

I SAID, “I'll have to quit this thing of using cuss words all the time. It is a foolish trick, by jing! and it's first cousin toacrime, It’s like all other habits punk; a man acquires it ere he knows, and then hands out his verbal junk, offensive to the ears and nose.’’ “You're right, my dear,’’ my wife exclaimed. ‘Your line of language scares the cat. You cuss all day, and I'll be blamed if I can see the sense in that. Sometimes when visitors are here your elocution jolts me hard; it’s painful to the cul- tured ear, your shedding language by the yard. I'll be so glad that I could shout if you will can your brimstone plays. Stick to your vow and cut it out, and I’ll be happy all my days. And now,”’ said wife, whose words of gold can but encourage and inspire, ‘‘I think the house is getting cold; I wish you'd fix the furnace fire.’’ I went forthwith, for her dear sake, without a protest or a frown; and then I started in to shake about a ton of ashes down. If you have round a furnace toiled, you know the task is sad and weird; it always leaves me torn and soiled, with quarts of clinkers in my beard. 1 wrestled there till I was black—aye, blacker than the ace of spades; I wrestled till I broke my back and fractured both my shoulder blades. Then I reared up on end and talked for half an hour on timely themes; the house on its foundations rocked, and I could hear the neighbors’ screams. I used all words which are dis- graced, I surely called a spade a spade, until my wife came down in haste and hit me with a hand grenade, It’s just my luck, so help me, Bob! When I adopt some noble plan, I go right up against a job that sets me back where I began. Ah, vainly, vainly we desire to wear bright halos o’er our brows! The evil genii all conspire to knock the props from worthy vows. One day I said, ‘‘I fear I’m cross and peevish with the wife and boys, and I must seem a total loss where [ should be the fount of joys. Hereafter I shall smile and sing and be a sun- beam in my shack, and to the inmates rapture bring or split my coat right up the back. I'll chortle like the katydids’’— Then I went home, with beaming smile, to find wife’s aunt, with seven kids, had come to visit for a while. Then all the sun- shine in my heart gave place to darkness, deep and dense; I went outdoors to hide my smart, and kicked ten pickets from the fence. . A COUNTER-IRRITANT Fred—So you didn’t feel the earthquake a few cays ago? Ned—No. I was riding in a taxi. A Dire Calamity OLDING a glass of clear honey in his right hand, father observed impressively, “It cost the little bees many a weary trip to fill this with sweetness from the flowers.’’ Little Laura, who had been listening closely, exclaimed with great earnestness, “‘Wouldn’t it have been too bad if one of them had dropped the glass!’’ The Burden “I simply must have a raise,’’ said the bookkeeper. ‘You can see how it is, sir. I have too much on my mind.” “You do need a haircut,”” said the boss magnanimously. “‘Have it done and charge it to the office.” An Echo of the Street Louise—She says her husband is in clover. Laura—Dear me! I always thought it was wheat. Not a gentle spring,