Judge — April 4, 1914 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

MJO-DAY one of my old, yard-wide, won’t- wash neighbors had a birth- day party. I bought him a ten-cent handker- chief with a border of life-size red sawbucks. I know well that I twenty-five-cent, all-white one would be | too nice for him to ever trumpet into. } Handkerchiefs were not juggled by ‘the commoners in the good old trusty days when he ran wild among the flowers. I was there once when he wanted one to tie around his neck when he hulled clover, and he produced one—he knows where he keeps ’em—older than I am. So old that whe: very white dot used to be in the blue there was a hole instead, while I have all the white dots I ever had. I am probably inflated till I'm due for a puncture, but I can see a vision of me lying in adry irrigating ditch by an or- ange tree, dictating to a secretary I have in mind, who sits in what shade there is, jabbing me now and then with a thorn to keep the humor flowing. I'm so fat I’m wheezy—in the vision—for I’m no longer obliged to eat out of crates and paper bags. Lala! It’s truffles and snails and woodpecker tongues served on orchids! If I'd swim at all, it would be in con- densed milk. I have a new skirt that I have been keeping till it got out of style, and yes- terday I had ma juggle it a little for me. From a Sinner’s Diary I wanted it fixed like the rest, so I'd know which end up it went. We had a noisy debate, and she carried. The belt is to be hung on pickerel hooks just below my arm pits. I always thought I'd like to be in a little earthquake; one that would rattle me around, and one that would make the chimney open like a mouth and spit a brick out at me like a tooth, as Mark Twain tells about. Every time I buy a Denver apple I wish it might tell me where it grew and what it had seen. Most likely it danced on the Western slope—over where the rivers go the other way and the sun came over the mountains instead of go- ingover. Where maybe acres of smudge pots played incu- bator and saved it from the north wind while it wore its pink dress yet. I know an old black hypo- crite that whenever we come together his wife says, ‘Well, Nette, I'll move on. I know you and Jim don’t want me here.’’ And I answer, “Thanks. Maybe I can do as much for you some time.” we slap each other, Jim and I, and both a Mee—What's dat yoh got up thar, Rastus ? INGENIOUS Ragus—sAb done put up dat mirror to make dat balky crittah think he’s only pullin’ half de load INTROSPECTIVE His qwife—But, dear, tell me why you want my photograph taken in this costume? Her hubby—So that in three years you will look at it and say what I would like to say right now. talk at once and believe every lie the other tells, till‘the floor damager says “Tune up!’’ so many times he begins to sound real savage. Man—makes a muss. Woman—cleans it up. Why look down on an onion weeder when you'll raise onions and eat ’em? A woman wants to give me grammar lessons; so I told her to sail in, it would do her so much good and would- n’t hurt me any. But I’m telling you: just to experiment, I asked her how to spell paralyzed. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and struck into an incantation about ‘‘two infinitudes mak- ing one digression when a past parti- ciple ended with a suffolk,’ and said it was ‘‘i-zed.’’ Alas and alack! I fear she’ll tinker at me till I’m neither one nor the other. Such Is Tradition “Isabel has been married four times and complains that her latest husband is the worst of the lot. Won't stay home of nights.’” “Well, the last match always goes out."” Lynette Freemire. comicbooks.com