Judge — July 3, 1915 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

ULY'S the time of torrid heat, when people sigh for snow and sleet and large white polar bears; when man forgets the pious tules he learned at distant Sunday schools and lifts his voice and swears. The dovelike man, who's meek and mild and timid asa little child when springtime makes him glad, doth like a Flanders trooper yawp and walks a mile to whip a cop when summer makes him mad. July heats up the blood of men and makes them sav- ages again, as in the granite age; and when the wife beholds her hub smash all the pictures with a club, she understands his rage. She says, ‘‘His conduct may seem rude, because his faculties are stewed by heat that never quits; and any man who's been Julyed, who has been roasted, baked and fried, is bound to throw some fits." . No matter how a fellow acts when heat comes down in cata- racts, some sympathy he gains; the people say of him, ** Poor guy! Another victim of July! The sun has broiled his brains!"’ But if a man is truly wise, he is as fond of hot Julys as others are of Junes; the man who howls about the heat does all his think- ing with his feet, and he is full of prunes. You're thinking of yourself alone; the pangs and troubles of your own are all that fill your mind. Yet others suffer worse than you; why don’t you watch the others stew and leave your griefs behind? There’s naught more soothing here below than seeing others plunged in woe, than hearing others swear; it makes you ten years younger, friend, to see a groaning neighbor bend beneath his load of care. I sit and watch my neighbor rise and claw his beard and swat the flies and blawst the bloody heat; I watch him mop his stream- ing brow and throw a grindstone at his frau, and life seems full and sweet. I hear him utter rancid words when wasps and bees and kindred birds have stung him two or three, and o'er my sad, world-wearied soul a peace profound begins to roll, like moonlight o’er the sea. I say to all your groaning, ‘‘Fudge!’’ I sit and read the latest JupGe and have a corking time; I drink my crimson lemonade and bask in comfort in the shade and find July sublime. Under the Stars HE QUIET stars were looking down upon Alexander Mayhem and Hal, the Absinthe King, as they prepared their evening meal; Alex was breaking a biscuit in twain, and Hal was detach- ing a portion of bologna sausage. Hal, the Absinthe King, benignly handed the detached portion to Alex. The shadows of the huge water tank made the motion scarcely discernible. Far and away stretched the softly shimmer- ing lines of steel rails. Over in the woods a bird was singing itself to sleep. Out of the distant dark flashed a headlight. ‘Freight?’ queried Alex. ‘Freight nothing!"’ said Hal. ‘Hear the thin hum? Shucks! She'll go by us at fifty per."” Alex clutched his bologna. The weird scream of the flier’s whistle at a crossing half a mile away died. Hal sank his teeth into his supper and leaned resignedly back against the water tank. He had taken two bites when the flier blazed by. The roar echoed and re-echoed in the woods. Now all was still save the sound of Alex finishing his repast. There under the quiet stars he turned pensively to Hal. ‘‘Pardner,"’ he asked, ‘how long you ben on th’ road?’’ **Seventeenth season." The Absinthe King knotted his hand. kerchief loosely around his neck, pulled a wisp of straw from his luxuriant whiskers and heaved adeep sigh. Alexander Mayhem struck a match to light his stub. How wan were his features and how debilitated coat! He was not wearing his collar! **Pardner, seventeen year is some little time."’ **Ain’t never seen snow,"’ the Absinthe King moodily declared, “*South?’’ “With the birds."” (The one over in the woods twittered a faint good-night. ) “*Pardner, what wuz th’ cause o’ you hittin’ th’ road? Ain't never asked you before. Don't mean no intrusion."” “’'Sall right, Alex. What wuz th’ cause? Woman."" Alex puffed on his stub—very gently, that it might be conserved to its uttermost. ‘‘Woman, eh? H-m. Same here, pard!'* Queried Hal: ‘*Trun you down?" **Yep,’’ said Alex. ‘‘Married a guy with money, I understand, She blew it for him, too. Put him down and out years ago. Druv him from home with the fine point of her tongue when his simo- leons wuz done flashin’."”_ “‘H-m,"’ said Hal, the Absinthe King. ‘‘D’ you rightly re- member th’ lady's maiden name?"’ “‘Logan,’’ said Alex softly. The Absinthe King straight- ened his back against the water tank. ‘‘First name Gertie?” he asked, in a strange voice. “Yep."" “I'm the guy that married her."’ The quiet stars looked down upon two silent figures, which were braced as stiffly against the water tank as though the chains of memory bound them there. —Fred Ladd. That homely little red-haired girl you hadn't seen in ten years comichooks.coun