The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1883-12-25
CHRISTMAS TRICKS.
"reminiscences Of Franks of School
Boys-Tit for Tat.

The usual run oil boys In America is &C
custOmed to playing all kinds OF annoying
pranks upon sleeping citizens on holidays.
These boys certainly must think there is
some fun In their mischief, or they would
not be guilty Of it, but they never stop to
count the cost of their exuberance. When
We were boy, We were a genuine, simon
pure good boy, who never tried TO hurt any,
body and never were guilty of playing any
Christmas tricks We were always at
prayers In the morning while attending col
lege, and never did any hazinp, bat Christ
mas is now so near us, and we feel an old
spirit of reckless disregard for other peo-
pies comfort and convenience creeping up
Ou- spine, SO We feel il necessary to confess
few items of mischief, of which we have
been guilty, In order to set the people
watching for Us, and TO have them prevent
our getting into mischief hereafter. None
of these were Christmas tricks, however
they al happened in November and the
early part OF December. We never were so
mean and unkiDd as to perpetrste Christ
mas tricks
When we and some forty other boys
took President Willard's lone boss shay"
to the pinnacle of his barn and carried up
ashes in buckets until we had il full, it
was about the first of November, so that
cannot be called Christmas trick.
1t was two weeks before Christmas when
Ben DisiDger Dragged that he could skate
faster anu endure longer than any other
boy in the preparatory department of
Heidelberg college, and when we got a
gang of those props together we clsndes-
timely plotted to run Ben into hole in the
ice that covered the Sandusky river, where
the ice men had cut il away to keep Sens-
ca county peoples butter and beer cool du-
ring the approaching summer, and il was
tive weeks before Christmas, lacking about
fifteen minutes, when Ben came out of
that hole, swearing vengeance against our
gang, and went home To- DRY himself
:. Ii was not later than the middle: of De-
cember when we suggested TO about dozen
of our school mates that we would have
coed excuse for being late at chapel In the
morning, il by some accident the bell
should get full of water and freeze up, and
when We all steslthily left our rooms at
midnight, dressed in our night gowns, some
of us, however, wearing nothing more than
shirt and JOYFUL smile of anticipation,
and vending our way to the garrett by the
light of dark lantern, then turned the
bell upside down and tied it with bed
cord, ana poured pail of water into it,
while our bare legs glistened in the lamp
light and our teeth chartered as We shiy-
cred. We were astride the trestle that
supported the bell; and when the other boys
started down the ladder, and our hand
slipped and unfsstened the cord that held
the bell, and poured the water all over the
boys below, and rang the bell, and aroused
the sleeping faculty, and called out tre FIRE
department, it was not yet Christmas. 1t
was not vet Christmas, either, when the
boys were trailed TO their respective rooms
by the wet streaks made by the water that
dripped from their scanty apparel aud
brought up and publicly reprimanded
in chapel, and sadly We make the con-
fession, it was more than a week before
Christmas when those boys took US out into
the campus and gave us a sound threshing
because we failed 90 get wet and escaped lhe
reprimand in the chapel.
When some Of the boys emptied their
slop-pails down stairs and laughed at the
girls when they started down the stairs with
gay song and tripping merrily in the
early morning, and concluded their journey
by a prolonged and bumptious slide, aid
the bells on the various churches in the
city were not yet Ginning forth the glad
tidings of peace On earth and good will to
men, then we laid off our coat and thumped
those hilarious young bruisers until they
were glad to apologize TO the girls, and the
venerable form Of Santa Claus had not yet