Judge — August 4, 1917 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

TOURISTS BY ID Colorado’s storied hills I push myself and run up bills I don’t know how I'll pay; I see the snow on mighty peaks, and with a bunch of other freaks, I climb uphill all day. I have a sort of alpenstock, which is supposed to help me me walk, and see that I don’t skid, I have a silly pleated coat, that ought to scare a mountain goat, a feather in my lid. I have the knickerbocker pants of which my back-east tailor rants as being just the stuff; and when into the glass I gaze, I say to the surrounding jays, “I’m looking pretty tough.”” I have the dippy kind of shoes that only mountain climbers use, and using, should be shamed; and in my idiotic rig I climb up mountains fat and big, and snow peaks justly famed. When I’m at home my garb is plain; it’s inconspicuous and sane, it scares no farmers’ teams; but when one tries the tourist graft he has to lay in quite a raft of costumes that are screams. I brought along a brace of aunts, and they are wearing sawed-off pants, and man-style shirts cut low; at home they’d swoon to see a dame who wore such rigging on her frame, but here all things will go. When I have climbed a thousand hills, and crossed a thou- sand mountain rills, I sit me down to rest, and gaze around with straining eyes upon the peaks that pierce the skies, this play- ground of the west. And I remark in solemn tones, “Oh, I would give a hundred bones, to see a human gent, some hand- somely appareled bloke who doesn’t look as though he'd broke from some cheap sideshow tent. I’m weary of yon reach of snows! I’d like to see a suit of clothes from crazy trappings free; if some sane man would cut a splurge attired in broadcloth or in serge, ’twould be a boon to me. If tourist girls would ride their nags without these crazy Alpine rags, ’twould be a big relief; if I among the hills dare roam, dressed as the fellows dress at home, I’d shake off all my grief.” But one must as the Romans do, when he is with the Roman crew, or he’s an outcast jay; and so I climb the snowy peak, dressed like a batty circus freak, and hate myself all day. A BIRD WITH A PURPOSE IN LIFE HAVE never heard a judge of birds render a decision as to whether the red-headed wood-pecker is a success in life. But I know of one that deserves to succeed, and if there was any way in which I could assist this bird I would gladly commandeer a hook and ladder brigade and do so. Four summers ago the bird of which I write lit on the cupola of a church and, speaking figuratively, immediately pulled off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and set in on the seem- ingly unreasonable project of pecking a hole through the heavy, galvanized iron sheeting on the cupola. I expected the bird would throw up his job in a day or two, but he remained at the task day in and day out through all the long and unpleasant summer, and when he departed for winter quarters late in the fall I could not mufile a sigh of regret for so much splendid, honest energy wasted. The snows passed, and with next spring’s flowers appeared. my friend the wood-pecker. He seemed like a new bird and began his second summer with an energy and enthusiasm that accompanies the hope of ample reward. Then there came the third summer and with it the bird, which set immediately to the task of the summers before. And now, he is there again, well into his fourth summer, still pecking away with no hole yet for a reward I had figured it out that this bird was ambitious; that he had been brought up by honest, hard-working parents, and hatched in him was the dogged determination to accomplish whatever he undertakes. I believed this firmly the first summer and the second and the third. But now, I must admit that I am stumped on the proposition. I am taking a chance however, of surmising that there is one of two things the matter: The bird is not exactly right, all is not well in his upper story, he is mentally unbalanced over the pecking of holes in impossible things; or, else he has been led by some smooth-tongued bird to believe that the cupola is a silo filled with large fat bugs and worms. —George Bingham. Congressmen who never before upheld President Wilson are “holding him up” now. “Vp a a So egtenl¢ ‘She—Of course you will want the ring back. He—No, you may as well keep it—no other girl of my acquaintance could wear it except on her thumb! comicbooks.com