The St. Cloud journal. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1866-1876, 1872-03-21
MRAk TWAHI's SPEECH AT THE
ALDINE DINNER.

e0' OIL" tAose VINO nave Deen talk ing
70 each other and did not hear it ap-
P'aud louder than anybody else, AMI if
l only had speech prepared for this
occasion would take genuine delight
IN delivering it. But 1 got the noti-
6cstion to be present at this dinner
this evening, st half past eleven o'clock
this morning, or pay what l owed to
the Aldine establishment, and I had
to leave half an hour after that in or
der to make the trip, SO 1 had no op-
portunity Of preparing speech, and
am not Of those gcniuses who can make
speech impromptu. l have made a
great many happy tnepromptu speech
es, but had time to prepare them.
Now, it is singular, and suppose that,
bat for circumstance that happened,
when l was fourteen years of age, I
might have rushed blindly into real
'"epromptu speeches, and injured N.Y.
self . good deal This circumstance,
which happened when I was fourteen
years of age has always protected me
against any thing Of that kind, and it
has led me to think a good deal.
Now, I don't think good deal, gen.
orally daughter ]-of what may proba.
bly, be the moving springs of human ac-
ton. put that in merely because it is
good expression. Laughter. Now
the thing that made the deepest i'm
preston on my mind and has lasted
until this moment, was matter in it.
self essentially trivial. 1t occurred
when I was boy, and it has protected
me up to this time against making a
speech when I hadn't speech prepar.
ed. It was a remark made by
friend. he said: II could have ketch-
ed them cats if I had had on a good
ready" [Laugh.er.l Now at first
glance that don't appear to convey an
idea, but it does, and the meat of it is
this: don't do anything hurriedly,
don't do thing unless you are prepar-
ed to do it ; therefore, until this mo-
ment, I never have made speech un-
less had that speech all set down and
ready. The incident is Of no conse-
quence to you at all, and yet I never
made speech in my life unless I
tried to inculcate moral [laughter];
unless [ tried to convey instruction,
and if I chn make you better than you
are laughter it is not for NE to say
there is room for it though I suppose
there is laughter] If I make you
wiser than you are, or if l can protect
you in after life as I have been protect
ed, let me do it here even if I perish on
the spot. [Laughser]. Now this thing
; occurred in this wise. As trivial ss it
is, it is matter to be treasured, I think,
and remembered. When I was four.
teen, as remarked before, { was liv-
ing with my parents, who we're very
poor and oorrespondingly honest. We
had youth living with US by tho
name Of jim Wolfe. He was An e1-
cellent fellow, seventeen years old, aud
very difident. He and I slept togeth-
er and one very bitter winters night a
cousin Mary Of mine-she's married
now, and gone llanghter]-gave what
they called a candy.pulling in those
days in the West, and they took the
saucers Of hot candy outsidestbe house
into the snow, under 4 sort Of old
bower that came out from the caves
, it was sort Of an ell then, all covered
with vines-to cool this hot candy in
snow, and they were ali sitting around
there. In the meantime We hadgone
, to bed We were not invited to attend
this party ; We wero too young. All
these young ladies and gentlemen as
= sembled there, and Jim and [ were in
bed. There were about four inches Of
snow on the roof Of this ell, and ou1
! window looked out on to it, and it wse
frozen hard. A couple of tom cats
+ we're assembled on the chimney in The
middle Of this eli, and they we're growl
2 ing at fearful rate, and switching
their tails about and goiag on, and VT
t couldn't sleep at all: Finally jim
said, "For twocen IS I'd go out ant
snake them cats off that chimney" SC
= l SAID. "Of course you would )" we'll
o he said, "Well 1 would; have {
mighty good notion to do it" says l.
q "Of course you have; certainly yo'
. have, you have great notion to do it.
, 1 hoped he might try it, but I wa
afraid he wouldn't. Finally I did &c
, his ambition up, and he raised the win
dow and climbed out on that icy roof
q with nothing on but his socks and q
e very short shirt. [Laughter.] h
f went climbing along On all fours en- th,
, roof towards this chimney where the
cats were. In the meantime thes
r young ladies and gentlemen were en-
joying themselves down under tn
caves, and when Jim got almost to thu
chimney he made q pass at the cats ant
k his heels few up and be shot down ant
, crashed through thoss vines, and lit il
the midst of the ladies and gentlemen
y and sat down in those hot saucers q
candy laughter and there was gen
D eral stampede, OF course, and he CAM
o up stairs dropping pieces of Chin
ware and candy all the way up, ane