Indiana University - Arbutus Yearbook (Bloomington, IN)

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ll HES WEI B AUBUTUS ini They buzzed around in the school where Johnny studied and tallied to each other over their tea and thin wafers about such and such an element in Ibsen, or the race problem on Mars, or the utilitarianism of consciousness. All that conversation bewildered Johnny the first time that he saw it changing hands on the campus. It dazzled him just as the fake fancy work on a circus wagon did tiie first time he saw a parade. He made up his mind to hang around the back yards of these intellectual mastodons and grab the crumbs that were swept out the back door. He resolved to stick about and get both ears crammed full. He worked hard at it, and actually became able, after lie had been in college a few years, to do the thing himself pretty well. He was making headway straight for the realm of the very, very intellectual. One day Johnny went down into a basement under a bank to get his shoes half-soled by a shoemaker who had iiis studio d(.) Mi there. As he went down the steps, his mind was op- pressed by the iiuestion of the adecjuacy of modern scientific methods of classification. He tripped, and fell down three or four stone steps. He did not hurt himself, but he was brought to realize that he possessed such a prosaic thing as a toe. He had stumped that toe, and it hurt. There is nothing theoretical about a hurting toe. Althougii tiie pain was brief, it served to jar Johnny ' s state of mind. He went down and sat in his stocking feet while the shoemaker fixed his shoes. The shoemaker said little, and he did not stop to write poetry about his joy, but Johnny could see it in his eye as he pounded tacks. Why not; he was doing his best to keep the human race from getting its feet wet? Then it was that Johnny decided to raise onions. If he could do something to get a joy-gleam like that in his own eye, it would be great. He decided that young onions were the thing. IIL .- i

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jan ' whicli he wanted (she most often narrowing it down to make his choice easy), and he told her, and she told him to get to work and get it for himself, and he did, and surely enough, he always got it. One day Mrs. God-maninia put tliis terribly iiard young onion proposition before Johnny. She iiad a way, you know, of half-way directing Johnny ' s life by the (juestions she asked him. — or able to raise beautiful, delicious, yoinig onions? Johnny scratched his head furiously. It seems to me, he ventured, that that is a ciuestion which would take some intelligence to answer correctly. A fine answer, a mighty tine answer, complimented the mother. .She ilid not always e.xact a precise yes or no reply to her interrogations. ' hat am I going to do about it, then? asked Johnny blindly. Well, the thing for you to do is to go to school and keep on going to school and keep on going to school and keep on getting more and more intelligence until you can decide which you would rather be; ' ery, ' ery intelligent or able to raise the onions. So Johnny started into school. He went t(5 school, and went to school. J3ut he could not decide. Lots of times he forgot all about the question; yet, when he remembered it again, he still could not decide. He kept climbing up higher and higher until he was away up a junior or senior or some kind of post-graduate at a college. For a long time, the young onion side of the answer had appealed to him as ridiculous, but he was not sure and did not decide. Then he began to change, and one day he made up his mind; yes, sir, in favor of the young onions. He had had his eye on some very, very intelligent persons. L HINPL- P

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Johnny took his degree and went home and cultivated onions. He proved to be an A-number-one onion raiser. He raised the most beautiful, the most delicious young onions in the county. People came fnr miles to buy his onions. Tiie thing that surprised him most was tiiat wiiat little intellect lie had acquired came in handy in tiic onion business. You do not have to be a higii brow just because you iia ' e read a lot. Johnny was not satisfied with ordinary onions. He sciiemed around to find a way to raise onions de luxe. It was only last week that Johnny had his wizard god- mamma over to an onion banquet. He liad told her tiiat he was going to spring something new in the onion line, and slie was fearfully impatient, altiiough siie was a wizard, until tiic banquet bell was rung, ' i at do you tiiink Johnny served? Odorless young onions, that is what. Young onions without an odor, raised in his own garden. Odorless onions, Johnnv Jenkweltner, inventor. Mrs. God-mamma was tickled almost to death, and Johnny was glad that he had chosen onions as his life job. They say that he is working now on onions with vari- ous flavors, like a soda fountain. By next season, he will be able to furnish you with strawberry onions or pineapple onions, and, maybe, banana onions. F Jm E X D CORPUS c. H R I s r I Y M A A At last! said Benton with genuine relief. TItc expression was called forth by the final attainment of the cathedral square after a half-hour ' s pull up tiie long hill from the quay. The South American sun beat down pitilessly, and Benton and Dingley had felt their flesh cooking beneath the khaki. L DIAJ