The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1880-08-20
NICODEMuS DODGE.

N1CUDEMUS DUUGE.
From a Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain
When l was boy in printing office
in Missouri, a loose jointed, long legged,
tow-headed, jeans-clad, countritied cub
of about sixteen lounged in one day, and
without removing his hands from the
depths of his trowsers pockets or taking
oil his faded ruin of SLOUGH hat, whose
broken brim hung limp and ragged
about his eyes and ears like bug. eaten
cabbage leaf, stared indifferently around,
then leaned his hip against the editors
table, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed
at a distant fly from a crevice in his up
per teeth, laid him low, and said with
composure,
"Whar's the boss ~
81 am the boss said the editor,
following this curious bit of architect
ure wonderingly along up TO its clock
face with his eye.
Don't want anybody fur to learn the
business, faint likely -
"Well, don't know. Would you like
to learn it ~
"Pap's so po' he can't run me no mo,
so l want to git a show somers if kin,
faint no diffunce what I'm strong and
hearty, and don turn my back on no
kind of work, hard nur Soft
DO you think you would like TO learn
the printing business?"
well, | don't rely k'yer 4 durn what
do learn, SOS l git chance fur to
make my way. I'd jist as soon learn
print'n IS anything"
"Can you read 2"
"Yes-middlin''
Write -
"Well I've seed people could lay over
me thar
Cipher %
Mot good enough to keep store, /
don't reckon, but up as fur as twelve
times-twelve amt no SLOUGH. Tother
side of that is what gifts me-"
"Where is your home -
I'm FIN old Shelby"
Whats your fathers religious denom-
ination 90
Him o, he's blacksmith
"No-no-I don't mean his trade
What's his religious denomination 81
"O-I didn't understand you befo'
| He's t'reemaSon."
"No-no, you don't get my meaning yet.
What mean is, does he belong to any
| church ?"
Moo you're talkin'! Couldn't make
out what you was tryin' to git through
! yO' head no way. B'long to a church!
| Why boss he's ben the piZenest kind of
a Free-will Baptis' for forty year. They
amt no piZener ones m what he is.
Mighty good man, pap is. Everybody
says that. II they said any diffrunt they
wouldn't say it whar wuz-not much
they wouldn't"
'What is your own religion ~
"Well, boss, you've kind o. got me,
thar-and yit you hain't got me so
mighty much, nuther. | thenk t if a
Teller he'ps another teller when he's in
trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no
mean things, nur moth n he ain no bust
ness to do, and don't spell the Savior's
name with little G, he amt runnin' no
Iesk-he's about as saift as ifhe belonged
to church"
''But suppose he did spell it with a
little g-what then?"
"Well, if he done it a-purpose, l reck-
on he wouldn't stand no chance-he
0uglttn't to have no chance, anyway, Pm
most rotten certain bout that
"What is your Names"
'NicOdemus Dodge
81 think maybe you'll do, Nico-
demus. Well give you a trial,
anyway"
| 'All right
when would you like to begin ~
'How"
So within ten minutes after we had first
glimpsed this nondescript he was one of
| US, and with his coat off and hard at
it.
Beyond that end of our establishment
which was furthest from the street, was
deserted garden, painless and thickly
grown with the bloomy and villanous
| '.jimpson' weed and its common friend
the stately sunf1ower. In the midst of
this mournful spot was a decayed and
aged little frame house with but one
room, one window and no ceiling-it
had been smoke house generation be-
fore. Nicodemus was given this lonely
and ghostly den as a bed chamber.
The village smarties recognized a
treasure in Nicodemus, right away-a
butt to play jokes on. 1t was easy to see
that he was inconceIvably green and con-
fiding. George Jones had the glory of
perpetrating the first joke on him; he
gave him cigar with a firecracker IN il
and winked to the crowd to come; the
thing exploded presently and swept away
the bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows and
eyelashes. He simply SAID
81 consider them kind of seeg'yars
dangersome," and seemed to suspect
nothing. The next evening Nicodemus
waylaid George and poured bucket OF
ice water over him
One day, while Nicodemus was in
swimming, Tom McElroy ''tiedn his
clothes Nicodemus made bonfire OF
Toms by way of retaliation.
A third joke was played upon Mic.
odemus day or two later-he walked
up the middle aisle of the village church,
Sunday night with q staring hand bill
. pinned between his shoulders. The
joker spent the remainder of the night
after church in the cellar of a deserted
house, and Nicodemus sat on the cellar
door till towards breakfast time TO make
sure that the prisoner remembered that
if any noise was made, some rough treat
ment would be the consequence. The
cellar had two feet Of stagnant water in
it and was bottomed with six inches OF
soft mud.
Before a very long time had elapsed
the village smartics began to feel an un-
comfortable consciousness of not having
made ii very shining success out of their
attempts on the simpleton "old Shelby
Experimenters grew scarce and chary.
Now the young doctor came to the res
cue. There was delight and applause
when he proposed TO scare Nicodemus
TO death, and explained how he was go
ing to do it. He had noble new skeI-
eton-the skeleton OF the late and only
local celebrity, Jimmy Finn, the village
drankard-a grisly piece of property
| which he had bought Of Jimmy Finn
himself, at auction, for fifty dollars, un.
der great competition, when Jimmy lay
very sick in the lanyard fortnight be-
fore his death. The fifty dollars had
gone promptly for whisky, and had con.
siderably hurried up the change of own
ership in the skeleton The doctor
. would put Jimmy Firms skeleton In
. Nicodemus's bed
This was done-about haIfpast ten
in the evening About Nicodemus's
usual bedtime midnight-the village
joker came creeping stealfhily through
the iimpson weeds and sunflowers TO.
i ward the lonely frame den. They reach