Judge — April 7, 1917 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

APIING Os, THE BABY.— _ by Poline faeston Manes “ HAT have you named the baby?” asked Aunt Susan Maria as soon as the family physician an nounced the arrival of a son and heir “He isn’t named, Aunt,” her nephew replied, and in answer to her snort of disgust at such shiftless methods, he said apolo: getically: “We talked it over, of course, but not knowing whether it would be a boy or girl, we couldn’t decide.” “Tt beats all how tarnation uncertain folks are about every- thing nowadays! Such a no account way of managing affairs Inever saw! When you do name it L suppose you'll call it some such trifling name as ‘Harry’ or ‘Jack.’ If ‘twas a girl I sup- pose the best you could do would be ‘Helen’ or ‘Sallie.’ “T tell you what! Names used to ‘mean something when | was a girl In them days boys and girls were named for some one. If folks named the new baby ‘Jonathan’ everyone knew "twas for his great uncle, or if “twas a girl and they called her ‘Emily,’ everybody knew it stood for something “Now—the baby is here L suppose it will take youwabout « month to settle on a name. ‘There was thirteen children in our nd mother never had a mite of trouble finding some- family thing to call them. She gave us all good middle names, too didn’t hold with children going through life with only one name —and she called us by our full names every time she wanted 1s, too!” ‘Thirteen children! How did your mother ever think of them all?” “ Because she had brains instead of sawdust inside her head, I guess.” “What were the names, Aunt Susan Maria?’ Tom, her nephew, inquired, to appease the old lady Melintha Quindrilla (she was the eldest) Amanda Aurilla, (you remember your Aunt Amanda, Thomas), Philena Rectina. (she died young, poor thing!) Winslow Malvin, (that was your own father), Susan Maria, (I guess you know your Aunt Susan Maria by this time!) Alonzo Rollin, (he was killed in the war), Betsia Trifenia, Tressia Diena, Louisa Orenza, John Quincy Adams, Florilla Laurett, (the smartest one of us all, and there never were no fools in our family! Jane Juley, and Lutheria Lenett. Good Yankee names, all of them! When the family could speak they confessed they had never thought of giving the new baby any of these appellations. Aunt Susan Maria looked grim. “Well, I’m glad it’s not my child! Id hate to give it a poor start by letting it have some of these common names floating around, But then ude of sins!” ins! suppose they're stylish, and style covers a mu His Curiosity “You saw that man beating his wife and did not interfere?” “No,” confessed skimpy little Mr. Meek. “But after it was over I whispered to him to please tell me how he had the courage to do such a thing?” THE VISITOR'S RECEPTION ST WAS sorter frustrated and broke of my rest last night,” I related Mr. Gap Johnson, of Rumpus Ridge, Ark., at “A neighbor that Pd always had y opinion of broke into our house. He done mighty well for a while, and was about to defunct with my best fiddle and some other things, when for some reason or ruther he stepped on one of the children that on account of the heat were scattered miscellancously around on the floor. Nacher'l enough, that child thought it was one of the others, and turned over and bit him on the leg. He jumped onto eral of the other children with the fangs of the first one still embedded in his limb, and in a minute they were all aroused and swarming up on him like a mess of hornets. The dc heered the denunciation and came pouring in at the open windows, and done their duty as they understood it, Then a section of the floor broke down and the combatterers fell through onto the hogs that were sleeping under the house, and such a rannikaboo you never listened to “ Me and wife woke up a spell before that. She ‘lowed that there must be something the matter, but I told her I reckoned it was just the children fighting among theirselves. But when they erupted through the floor I knowed in reason that there was some sort of a crisis at hand. I got up, struck a light, and dug what was left of our neighbor out of the clutches of retribu- tion with the neck of the busted fiddle in his hand, collected twice the price of the utensil from him and kicked him off’n the place. Then wife got a club and quicted the children, and the varmints, and peace agin reigned.” —-7 P. Morgan. the crossroads store. The people who are ashamed of their ancestors wou! | not like to hear the ancestors’ opinion of them AT THE MOVIES Just as the train is about to run over the heroine comicbooks.com