Judge — February 6, 1915 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

NTER would be a dull and debilitating period if it were not for winter sports. Pessimists declare that the frosted-ear solstice is no proper time for light-hearted exercise and competition. This is a great mis- take. Winter has summer backed with bashfulness when it comes to athletic feats. It is true that only a few million Americans indulge in bowling, basketball, skating, billiards and nose wrecking with six-ounce gloves during the chilblain season. But these don’t count, any- way. There are a dozen other competitions in which our country enters each winter with intense devotion. Eating buckwheat cakes is a very popular win- ter sport and develops great skill. A Vermont citizen in good training can eat buckwheat cakes faster than his wife, the hired girl and a second cousin can bake them. Beating the plumber is a fascinating sport for cold Sundays. No man who has chased a frost- bitten water pipe between floors needs to look with envy upon the wealthy who go north to hunt polar bears. One old cat with the sidewalk is played by mil- lions after every ice storm. The pedestrian’s feet throw him into the air, and if the sidewalk catches him he is out—for repairs. In the summer the owner of an automobile has to race it to get any excitement out of it, but in the winter the same man can get two hours of exercise, exhilarating danger and deep, passionate emotion on acold night before he can start at all. In this game the automobile tries to dodge the crank handle when the engine back-fires. If he succeeds, he has the laugh on the car. If he doesn’t, the nearest doctor wins $25. The most absorbing winter sport of the present season is modern dancing. In this game the man selects a partner and advances to the middle of the floor, leading her between thumb and forefinger. He then asks her if she knows the fox trot, hesi- tation, kitchen sink, lame duck, Houston hop or chandelier glide, carefully scoring her replies on his card. She then as him if he knows the walse canter, the shinbone slide, the predigested polka, the ghost slip with reverse English aad the fifth movement of the Scarborough scoot, carefully cco. By this time the music}has ended, and the cor: highest percentage wins. ving his replies, testant with the From a Sinner’s Diary SYMPTOMS of foot and mouth disease are smacking and I'm afraid brother and the wee one HE drooling, you know. have got it. A liar can’t begin to st A preacher told me that when I wanted to spat, | always struck at his religion, (It would take a better marksman than Iam to hit it.) You'll pay for your good times, anyway. You might’s well have ‘em. The wee one is working a green vine with red yarn on her new table spr I know by sticking her fe art the riots a truther can. woman who is having a spell of going barefoot, hoping plumb onte the ‘d person of Mother Earth to cure her corns and rheumatism. You'd laugh to see her. I know an ask-and-ye-shall-receive brother who prayed, “Oh, Lord, send me a barrel of flour and a barrel of sugar and a barrel of salt and a barrel of pepper— Hold on! That's too much pepper!"* A woman sent me a kewpie for my birth: I'm getting pretty old for ‘em and never cared for ‘em, even in season; so when the wee one reached after it with such a chirp-warble-flutter in her throat, I made out adoption papers at once and handed it over. A wedding party is just going by—one that will cost me a dol- lar when the ‘‘showers’’ begin to gather. Brother says he'll give back the spoons the groom gave him. (Murder! They'll be spoony enough without!) But it costs me good money—the few who feel they have to invite me, and the fewer I feel I can't dodge. Kiss—an explosion of glory, on the crest of which you're caught up in the skies, —Lynctte Freemire. LITTLE TRAGEDIES OF LIFE When your guests put you off at the last moment.