﻿Hiawatha, Kansas

By T-BONE SLIM

There ought to be, editor, you can see it yourself, a law to curb this here now indiscriminal honking of auto horns making a vary nightmare of our days . . . Why it’s getting so that a man, with one leather ear, can’t tell whether it’s a truck squeezing out from an alley or a “Shiverlay” (shove or lea	ve it) groaning for ice cream in front of the drugstore, by God; with the result that many Innocent victims dive heads foremost Into sighclone cellars and barber poles or rush for the hospital thinking they been hit, killed, or, at least, convinced they are better than half dead—so realistic are the delusions of today and indicate truthfully the poverty of ignorance as understood apart from the wealth of knowledge. Ahem! did I get away from my subject?

Youth must be served—must have its fling:
Farmers are hiring the young knowing them to be strangers to good wages; and the young, inexperienced in the higher learning and dignity of daily toil, rush into the furnace of harvest, reckless of the singe inherent thereto.
The principle, is to quote one J. Christ, “The old and spavined will be with you always.” (Cheer, brothers, cheer!)

It is given me to understand “hobos have quit riding the Kock Island R. R.”—This, if true, is a sad blow to that dilapidated line insofar as it destroys the confidence of ticket buyers, who reason: if it isn’t safe for bums it isn’t safe for others.
On the other hand I hear the Missouri Pathetic is gonna pad all the truss rods (on all its old fashioned box cars) so that the poverty stricken populace may travel In comfort if not style—a step in ye right direction.

Kansas is longingly looking toward Ireland for a potato market—at least she has a faraway look in her soulful eye. (eggs) —
No doubt distance lends rapture and all that, but if she lookt closer she would find a market for spuds right in Kansas—right on the platter in every restaurant—Just shovel two spoonfuls of the life-giving potato to each plate, instead of one as at present.
That, would double the market straining the arm of the “disher-up” of those precious, muddy pearls of the soil.
Anent the passing-up of experienced hands in favor of the milk fed variety, let me offer a little encouragement to the despairing, old harvesters:
Use your reason! The farmer, as deprived as he is, is doing you a favor by passing you by. Only yesterday one took out two young men, too late for breakfast, worked them all day and paid ‘em off too early for supper—they walked in (nine miles) all steamed up—with three bucks apiece. You don’t want that to happen to you, do you, hah?
Only today one of ‘em didn’t need, a hay hand in the morning (there was I waiting) he didn’t need one at one o’clock. No. But two o’clock, mistaking me for two other fellows on account of my simplified looks, he approached me and wanted me to work the balance of the afternoon.
Mustering up the last remaining spark of intelligence, I started to wonder when and where was I to board—eat? Breakfast was gone! Dinner was flown! Will supper come?
A deadly fear gripped my soul and I sobbed, “No, no John, I cannot do it. I swore on my grandmother’s grave I would never lift a fork against new mown hay. I would be faithless to s trust and deceiver of deepest dye, if I did so.”
Thus it is, old timer, whey they pass you by, they are favoring you—so, why mourn?
You don’t want a bunch of those irresponsible farmers hiring you for long walks—just sit still—you’re old—why should you want to act as a butt for a joke of those joyous, cackling imbeciles—let the young have its fling.
Be patient!
By and by a farmer will come in whose voice doesn’t sound like a door hinge in distress; he knows what he’ll pay; how many minutes you’ll work—he’s a good guesser and you’ll not walk back—his joking days are over.
Should he not come in, you can make up your mind there isn’t a single decent farmer in that district and that the [rest of the text is missing].