Human Nature

January

• A sad mishap befell the Misses Ida Reynolds, Mamie Hensley, and Maggie Hartzell up in Greeley, the other day. They were just getting ready to go home and had climbed into the carriage when Dolphus B. suddenly "clucked" to the horses when there were three feminine shrieks, and three feminine forms went tumbling to mother earth and into the soft and yielding mud. Our informant tells us that when these ladies appeared at the home of Mr. Seth Hartzell, they presented a sad plight.

February

• Many suffered the loss of nice house plants Sunday night. "Jack Frost" broke into homes that night where he had never been before and it did not seem to be so cold, either.
• A few evenings ago after the busy cares of the day were over and the boys had gathered at Frank Gault and Co's large store to keep warm and tell a few stories for pastime, they were suddenly interrupted by the antics of a large hound that had been quietly napping by the fire. By the continued snapping and snarling, everyone present, without any delay said the dog was mad or had hydrophobia. Charlie Breniman, our courageous mayor was soon safely stowed away on the top shelf by the side of a bolt of calico. Frank Gault was on top of a pile of clothing that reached near the top of the ceiling while all others presently found safe refuge. Peter Christensen came to the scene from his jewelry store with revolver in hand, and soon the dog was dead, and the boys slid down from their places of safety, feeling much relieved. The dog was placed in the back alley. A traveling man who was present continued the story he had been telling, but the boys in their moments of excitement had lost their relish for good stories.
• Jake Hill killed a jack rabbit a few days ago by shooting it with a rifle while it was running. Jake thinks he is a fine marksman.

March

• Sleigh bells are among us again making merry.
• Charley Houston has decided that walking is too slow a mode of transportation and has invested in an elegant new bicycle of the latest design. Now watch Charley ride!

April

• It was a handsome sight Sunday morning to see the little girls in their white costumes going to and from the different churches in the snow storm.
• Quite a sport was had two or three days last week; a gentleman and his wife were canvassing the town telling fortunes. Some were more fortunate who did not have their told.
• A dispatch going over the wires Monday from the weather bureau said that we were yet to have three weeks of this kind of weather. It is to be hoped that that dispatch has been snow bound somewhere and late in reaching us and that we have had the "three weeks."
• It was a handsome sight Sunday morning to see the little girls in their white costumes going to and from the different churches in the snow storm.
• Quite a sport was had two or three days last week; a gentleman and his wife were canvassing the town telling fortunes. Some were more fortunate who did not have their told.
• A dispatch going over the wires Monday from the weather bureau said that we were yet to have three weeks of this kind of weather. It is to be hoped that that dispatch has been snow bound somewhere and late in reaching us and that we have had the "three weeks."
• The season has arrived when we are all cleaning up around our homes, but in so doing do not let us be content to pile up the old refuse and garbage in the back alley to lay during the hot days of spring and summer. Those potatoes and turnips and cabbage and other vegetables from our cellars should be carted to the outskirts of the town to some dumping ground instead of being thrown into the streets as we have already seen. Let us all with one accord remove all old ash pile and other unsightly accumulations and make our town free from all that is unsightly and make all fresh and pure and clean and in keeping with spring.
• Everybody is making garden.
• A young man who had smoked 1200 packages of cigarettes wrote to the manufacturers to know what they would give him for the 1200 pictures which were in the packages. The answer of the manufacturers was right to the point: "Smoke 1200 more packages and we will send you a coffin."
• He drifted into Exira at sundown last Monday and registered at Hotel Henry as "Edward Lee, His Royal Highness, the King of the Knights of the Tomato Can Brigade." Lee started from Minneapolis, Minnesota, last September to walk 5000 miles, earn $500 and get a wife inside of one year. He is not allowed to beg or borrow and has a book in which is stamped the date he is at a town. Postmaster E. D. Powell stamped April 17, 1899, in his book and he faded away in the distance, headed toward Audubon. We copied the following score from his "logbook:" Miles traveled, 1499; days on the road, 105; been asked the news, 67 times; didn't know, 3, lied rest of the time; bitten by dogs, 47, pants torn by dogs, 7; changed my religion, 19; changed politics, 4; been asked to drink, 97; drank, 97; attended church, 0; escorted girls home from church, 37; proposed to, 28; promised to marry, 13; expect some trouble with 1; kicked out of house, 29; cash on hand, 17 cents.
• Our first hot sunshine came Monday and you could almost see the grass grow. Our pretty groves are very inviting; to look one might think that mother earth had purchased a new green carpet. The trees have taken on their decoration and it is a rest to the human eye from the snow we have been enduring for so many months.

May

• It's all right to call the girls of the senior class the "sweet girl graduates of 99," but there is some doubt as to whether or not it will be all right next year to say "The sweet girl graduates of naughty naught."
• We have been somewhat puzzled this spring about what to do about getting in shape for warm weather. We will get ready at night to put on summer underclothes, after sweltering all day, but find in the morning we need an overcoat. We have even had our undershirt half over our head when a chill would go scooting up our back and we'd settle back into winter harness again. It is housecleaning time now and we are kept on the jump, so we would not fear to make the change while at home. It is when hostilities are over and we cool off that little danger of catching cold comes in. We have decided not to put on any gauze just yet, anyway.
• "Sport" the family dog of Frank Gault met death by an unknown route Tuesday of this week. A more faithful and true friend could not be found than "Sport" and the family can't help by mourn the loss.

June

• A couple of men with a couple of bears and a couple of horns afforded amusements for our people for a couple of hours a couple of days ago.
• Last Monday morning we had a lively runaway that might have proved more serious. George Dimmick was driving a race horse hitched to a cart and Perry Hensley was riding his father's saddle horse and passed Mr. Dimmick in the road at West Town. The Dimmick animal thinking it was a race, made a start, succeeded in throwing his driver out and away they came for East Town. Perry was too small to hold his horse, so he could do nothing but hang on which he did. They ran wicked; by each other trying to outdo the other. The Hensley horse was stopped at the Park corner, and the horse and cart took a southern direction and was not caught til it had reached to Kommes farm about one mile south of town. Fortunately no one was hurt, and no great damage done. Perry is to be congratulated on not losing his head, but remained quite cool and stuck like a tick. He is a lad about 8 years old.

 

The jolly Fourth is coming - jest another week to wait -

And we'll all be in Exira to help 'em celebrate,

For unless it's raining sawlogs, you can just jot it down

There's goin' to be a lively time in old Exira town.

 

Pa says it's cool and shady there, THE ONLY place to go,

And ma allows to visit with jest everyone, you know,

And Charlie thinks that she'll be there, the girl he tries to spark,

I'll chum with Billy Bowman, and you bet we'll have a lark.

 

There'll be a great procession, a headed by the band,

And crackers popping all around, and the flags and streamers grand

And people crowding everywhere, and speaking in the park,

And racing all the afternoon, and fireworks when it's dark.

 

There'll be gum and cream and candy and lemonade and pop,

And Billy knows a feller that's goin' to keep a shop,

There's a dozen different races, so that each can have a chance

And when the day is over there'll be all the night to dance.

 

They say the s'loons will be shut and dasn't sell a drap

But Uncle Ike he knows a place a keg will be on tap,

And Pa allowed he's have a sup - and Ma said, Sech a sup!"

But beer's a thing that spoils, you now, unless you drink it up.

 

Them Spaniards want a mouthful and our teacher Roxie Rhodes

She says our flag is floating in the very antipodes

And the 'Merican eagle's screaming o'er thrones and globes elate

So you see it's something special, and you know we'll celebrate!

July

• The kissing bug had made his entrance into Exira. Henry Bush captured one at the residence of Otto Witthauer out in Woodlawn Park, Wednesday, and after his little life was squeezed out, they had him in a little box on exhibition. As we gazed at his cold remains we were fully convinced that we wanted no osculation with him.

August

• We hear one of our citizens who raises chickens complain that they have neighbors with an adhesive touch and that their biddies are constantly being gobbled.
• Two friends met in a battle array at Ed. Cotton's store Monday afternoon and after glaring at each other over a table of crockery, they proceeded to engage in a "fisticuff." Neighbors dragged them apart and finally they went their separate ways, gritting all the back teeth they had
• Women in politics are about as graceful as hens in swimming.
• Electricity has displaced the mule on street car lines, canal tow paths and in mines. At this rate, the mule will soon be as useless as the dude.
• Henry Kephart, who has been employed in one of our barber shops for sometime, departed suddenly last week as a result of "a still small voice" that whispered he had better depart in order to avoid trouble that he had brought on by his own hellis(h) deeds. Young Kephart was what some people termed smooth, but those who are a judge of human nature could easily see that he possessed a dangerous and damaging character to the young associates he mingled with, and sin and sorrow and shame are the traces he leaves behind. He left before the clutches of the law could get him in its grasp. It's the same old story of weakness of our race. Youth and beauty and purity have been marred by his vile and villainous hand.

Oh the weeds! The beautiful weeds!

That everyone has and nobody needs!

Short legged people can't get about

Long legged people soon tucker out

 

Turn out your cattle, turn out your steeds,

Let 'em eat down the beautiful weeds.

Here we are buried up to our eyes

Smothered in weeds of gigantic size

 

Horse weeds, hog weeds, fennel and dock

Greet the chance passer on every block

Up through the crack of the sidewalk they come

Making the landscape look mighty bum

 

Why the duce did the Lord ever sow 'em?

Why the duce don't somebody mow 'em?

 

Thicker than flies by the thicket they go

If you "ain't got" a scythe, get out with a hoe

Crowning, blowing and scattering their seed

What the devil good is a weed!

Peter Swick

• While everyone was watching the circus Monday, some hound, sneak, dog pilfered Dr. Riley's easy riding saddle, a whip and some other articles from his barn.
• Somewhere on the busy thoroughfares of Exira next Saturday evening there will be a foot race between Jerry McClary, Bill Woodward's blacksmith, and Charley McVey of the south part of the county.
• Walter Delahoyde, the last remaining youth who went away with the Gollmar Brothers show when they were here, returned Wednesday. He says he was present when Sheriff Jones gobbled the saddle and bridle they purloined from Doctor Riley while they were here. The Sheriff overtook the show at Pleasantville below Des Moines, and after camping on their trail for a spell, he located one of the Doctor's horse blankets of which he had a mate that had a private mark on so he knew he had found the property. After watching a spell longer, he saw one of the showmen like a dog with a bone, go to a cornfield nearby and bury something. Then taking one of the proprietors of the show aside, he told him what he had seen and confronting the miscreant with the facts, he like Topsey, 'fessed to the whole thing and went and dug up the stolen goods. To avoid trouble the Gollmars gladly paid all the Sheriff's expenses and thanked their stars that they got off so lucky. That was a very neat bit of detective work on the part of the Sheriff and the Doctor has all his things back, except the whip, without any expense.

September

• Exira will have the pleasure of seeing one of the largest, latest improved and best of Edison's projecting Kinetiscopes or Waragraphs on the road, next Saturday, as the Big Black Tent, now at the Audubon County Fair, will come from there here. They come highly recommended and every man, woman and child should pay it a visit as the price of admission is within the reach of all. There is no doubt a great many Exira people visiting the Audubon fair have seen the show while they were in Audubon and all are well aware of the merits of the attraction. A few of the features are pictures of the Great Windsor Hotel fire, the Famous White Horse Fire Department of New York City, A trip to the Moon, Battle of San Juan Hill, the Famous Bull Fight that was fought to raise funds for the Spanish-American War, and a numerous lot of other subjects. We can safely say that it is one of the only shows that ever visited Audubon County that actually showed everything, every article, that their paper or bills claimed. It is well worth 50 cents to anybody to see it. A big free show is front of the tent at every performance and a show on the inside lasting two hours and fifteen minutes. Price of admission 15 cents and 25 cents; children 15 cents, adults 25 cents.
• Monday afternoon an accident occurred at West Exira that will, in all probability, leave one of our best young men a cripple for the rest of his life. Mr. Mike Martes had been at the Rothschild elevator in West town, with a load of corn and after unloading, had started to some back up town. For some cause the team started to run and when near the Hans P Hansen blacksmith shop, where the road turned east and where a number of teams were standing, and as Mike's team was heading straight for the bunch, he concluded to jump out, which he did, and must have struck upon some hard substance and the bystanders hearing him groan ran to his assistance and found his right ankle terribly shattered and the blood gushing forth in a stream. They picked up he unfortunate young man and brought him to the Will Hamler drug store where Doctor J.M. Rendleman, assisted by Doctor J,C. Newlon, dressed the wound and found the limb had sustained compound fracture of the right ankle, lacerating the tendons and integnments of the joint, causing a very serious injury. At present he is doing as well as could be expected, but it may require several weeks to repair the injury. Later in the evening, he was taken out to the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. john Martens, a mile or two south of town, where he is lying on a couch of pain while his shattered limb is healing. The horses ran to the corner of the Park, near Ed. Cotton's store, where they were stopped. The wagon was a new one and aside from spilling the box on the bridge between East and West town, was not broken.

October

• The Scientific American says the question of when the new century begins is very simple. The way: The 19th century closes with the year 1900. Immediately after midnight, therefore, of Dec. 31, 1900, is when the 20th century begins; in other words, it begins with the first second of the first hour of the first day of January 1901. The 20th century will open on a Tuesday and close on a Sunday. It will have the greatest number of leap years possible for a century - 24. The year 1904 will be the first one, then every four years after that to and including the year 2000. February will three times have five Sundays; 1920, 1948 and 1976. The 20th century will contain 36,525 days, which lacks but one day of being exactly 5,218 weeks. The middle day of the century will be January 1, 1951.
• While dressing for the class reception at the Dr. Riley home last week, Lester Peterman had quite a thrilling experience in his father's house. He accidentally boxed the lamp over, exploded and set things all ablaze and in Lester's frantic endeavors to put out the fire, he grabbed his father's coat which was considerably burned and Lester said, "Oh, we just had a terrible time, but finally we got the blaze put out!"
• During the storm last Saturday afternoon, a bolt of lightning singled out a good sized walnut tree that John Frost was saving till it got big and which stood close to his barn near the David's Creek bridge between East and West Exira, lit down upon it and smashed it to smithers. Nothing remains but a short piece of the stump of the tree, and that's a mass of toothpicks. Sunday morning Mr. Frank Beebe was using a splinter off of this tree as a cure for an aching tooth, but he confidently told us it only made the thing ache "Wuss and wuss."
• Burns Bowen now has one of those new buggies sold by George Henshaw. Watch for him, girls.
  

November

• Those who were out skylarking in Exira on Halloween performed about he same that they usually do, 'tho they done nothing very bad.

The Saloon

The Warning and An Appeal

The warning is this: An attempt is going to be made to re-establish the saloon in Audubon County. The plan, so it is said, is to secure signers on the day of election and the thirty days following. Saloon workers it is said will be at all the voting places in the county on election day soliciting signers for the opening of the saloon. The appeal is this: To all voters and temperance workers be on your guard. Know that the enemy is sly and vigilant. Do not sign unless you want the saloon re-established, and are willing to take the evil consequences of its re-establishment. We appeal to you to do your utmost to get all anti-saloon men out to the polls on election day. Get word to all anti-saloon people of your locality of what is going on. Get all the temperance people that work. Help to circulate the remonstrances that will be at every polling place in the county. See that the law is enforced against any solicitation of signers within the limit set by law for polling places. Call on the Anti-Saloon League for any help that you may need, and report the same when your work is done. In behalf of the Anti-Saloon League of Audubon, Iowa.

W.C. Elliot, President

J.F. Hinkhouse, Chair

E.B. Cousins, secretary

Audubon, Iowa, Nov. 1, 1899

• "Call a girl a chick and she will smile; call a woman a hen and she howls. Call a young woman a witch and she is pleased; call an old woman a witch and she is indignant. Call a girl a kitten and she rather likes it; call a woman a cat and she hates you. Women are queer. If you call a man a gay dog it will flatter him. Call him a pup, a hound, a cur and he'll try to alter the map on your face. He don't object to being called a calf or a cub; call an editor an idiot and nine times out of ten, he'll agree with you. Men are queer, too.

December

• From the carryings on at a home about a mile west of Greeley Center we suspect there is going to be a wedding soon.
• On Friday, before the snow fell on Christmas Day, Ed Young, Hiram Young, S.D. Weaver, Sherm Peppers, Clark Gray, John Dawson and Boy Beers took their teams, went into Hiram Young's cornfield, and with the help of these gentlemen, fairly made the ears fly until long after sundown: Judson Young, Sidney Weaver, William Peppers, Homer Beers and Hiram Young's hired man. That was a good deed prompted by kind hearts out of sympathy for Hiram who has been afflicted with a monster felon, came just in the nick of time and Hiram says they have placed him under lasting obligations to them.

Return to Exira 1899