Central High School - Almanac Yearbook (Toledo, OH)

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Discouragcment from Trumbull County. BY R. M. BRINKERHOFF. N days when it's rainy and too wet to plow, The hired hand and me get a concocting how We could kick Nature out and have our own way With hot or cold weather-just as we say. When we git to talkin' it just sort o' seems l I . 5 ' mu l Like the Lord don't have time ff keep -S N tixin' up schemes um T' git the most work out th, sun and the QQ-' l And raise bigger squashes, more fruit and I more grain. it If -M I Now, here it's been rainin' fur four days this y ga f u weekg If I guess th' old rain tank has sprung a new 1 Xxx QU leak, ' Mp An' all of our crops is jest nigh drownded g 1 ' out, f But that ainlt no trouble to keep kickin' about, l If it hadn't o' come, without warninl er sign, 3 Right squat' in the middle of our thrashin, time. But look! Over yonder it's clearin' up some, And ,pears like the sunbeams is tryin' t' come Streaking straight down through them clouds overhead, J est as if Nature had heard what we said.

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ous, an' before I knew it we had got into the room, where the teecher fa dark man with glassesj wuz jest a sayin Now stoodense, this here mornin' our lesson treets of high jeene an' food, an' how to cook it. Of course Very fresh meat is not hellthy, but I know a woman who cooks clams alive. Well, sez I, that's nacheral! You wouldn't expect a woman to cook clams arter she's ded, wood ye? How stewpid ! Mr. Bloo then tuk us to another room where there wuz a little brown-eyed, black-headed forrener with glasses on, settin' at a table. He wuz jabberin' the most hethenish soundin' stuff at the skolers, with a woice thet sounded like thunder. Wunst in a while a skoler would get up an' resite somethin' about Jenny say pa? I wuz in hopes thet they'd say, H Jenny say ma, or brother, or sister, occa- shunally, but they didn't do it. Then the little forrener wood say, I never saw sech a people! Does 'hev' an' 'had' mean the same thing to you? You hey no idee of resipro'kal Verbs. But I told Mr. Bloo thet I wanted to go, and so we went. But jest as we got to the top uv the stairs, I herd a voice comin' from a room in the corner. It wuz a woman's voice an' she seemed to be resitin' a peace. Sez she, Oh, class! if there wuz anything in Heaven or on earth thet I thought I hed made kleer to you, it was this thing about Alexander Hamilton an' his Funding an' Assump- shun AX. But here you fale by the duzzin. What shall I do? Shall I get a mallett or a sledge hammer an' pound it into you ? Poor woman, sez I to Mr. Bloo, I do pity her. I told the principle thet I hed to go, an' oh how glad I wuz to git out o' that intelleckchual institooshun! Me an' Josiah included that we'd send Sairey Ann to sum skool where they teeched desent things, where they hed a woman to teech cookin', where Sairey Ann could lern English, an' not that forren Jenny say pa, an' where they sing with their voices an' not with tacks.

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When Daphne Bets. HEY say that gambling, betting, too, And fortune's wheels, and kindred things Are dangerous, and gaming brings At last bankruptcy unto you. That this is true I'll take my oath Though pokerts quite unknown to me, And craps, and all my friends agree I'm ignorance itself in both. Now Daphne oft' for Lowney's yearns And When I say, unconscious quite, I'll bet the rink will freeze tonight, She, laughing at her smartness, turns, And quick replies, I'll take the betf' Now Lowney's are the stakes you know For she would always have it so: Then straight I go and Lowney's get. Perchance, despite the recent thaw Which floods the rink's smooth surface some That night it freezes like a drum And I have won my bet-Hurrah ! But though I am victorious I know her clever, well laid snare, And well she knows that I'm aware- Now, isntt it rediculous? Then I for consolation's sake, In sympathy for her, you know, For having lost her wager so, To her my box of Lowney's take. I-Iowever strange it may appear, Although I often bet with her, And always pay without demur, I haven7t got a thing this year ! -W