Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-05-20

do you swear never to reveal anything
you see or hear this night, and never let
your wife get hold of your thumb and tell
it to her in your dreams?"
"You can hang me out on a clothes pin
to dry, if do" says [.
Then they punched me in the ribs, ex-
amined my teeth, made me roll out my
tongue, and then they all groaned again.
Said eff you don't feel well, rve got
small bottle here, which 1 Will take out of
bond and which is forty-fve rods proof,
and
The fat man took this bottle away from
me and was told to remain silent.
AS l was thinking that if [ ever lived to
again crawl INTO the shelter of my humble
home, that / would never more come down
town after supper, and never fight Mrs.
Slocum again about having night key,
the chief cook exclaimed in tones resem-
bling the dragging of key of nails across
the head of bass drum:
Remove all the habiliments from his
outer-wall, and harness him up in the gar
ments of Jubillum.''
This was done, while one foot was left in
its naked infancy and the other showed into
an old brogan, tied with tow strings, which
have since learned was thrown out of the
ark by the mariner Noah when he flew his
last dove.
[ was then conducted to the door of the
inner sanhedrim, while the chief-cook
whispered over his shoulder to one of the
fellows to trot out the company's goat, and
another tried to blindfold me.
mo you don't, Mr.. Mason" said 1, CPL
never play blind buff game with any
thing that has got horns, and don't be-
lieye a word in that kind of exercise.
Stand back or I'll knock you into the mid
die of next -"
They said that when George Washington
and the Washburn family were made Ma
sons they had to travel in on this same
road, and that it was merely emblematic
of the commonality of the order and the
equalization of grade On the Masonic high
way.
Having Gained my nerves with philoso-
ply, they then pitched into me physically,
and had to submit to being curtained.
The goat was led in.
L could hear him stamping his hoofs on
the floor and flashing the furniture about
with his headlight.
1 felt the falls OF Minnehaha streaking
down my back, and that had urgent bust
ness to do to pay an assessment to the
Board of Public Works, etc, that evening
outside, but it was no use to protest or ap-
ply for furlough.
Three or four of them then seized me
and pitched me on the creatures back. who
had been watered with Plantation bitter=
to develop his natural deviltry.
Then they told me very encouraginglv,
to mold on to the horns for dear life and
look out for cyclones.
l have been in good many scrapes.
1 have been in an election fight.
l have rode Dan Rice's pet mule.
[ have been pitched out car window III
q railway collision.
have gone up in steamboat explosion
and met other fellows going up when [ was
coming down.
And I have been picked up off the high
way with broken shafts, broken wheels and
other busted harness things.
But this little goat excursion went
lengths ahead of them all; put them en-.
tirely in the shade.
He seemed to have no body, but to be all
hoofs, wings and horns.
He elevated me to the ceiling, wiped OF
the walls with my best Sunday clothes.
caromed me against the chairs and tables
and brought me to pocket on the top of
the stove.
He was as fiery as a red-hot comet from
its nucleus to the end of it's tail, and though
1 hung on like grim death, he played me
about as lively as a farmers fail IN front
and back summersaults and antelope leaps
and springs.
Just As [ was about to sRccumb and utter
''now I lay me down to Sleep" the band
age fell from my eyes, streak OF dynamite
flame shot up the chimney and
was in lodge of Masons.
The initiated ali crowded around me
and seemed to be playing "button, button,
whose got the BUTTON but looking as
grave as brood of owls after a poor
nights catch of mice.
The fat fellow of the auntie-roem was
standing in a corner finishing up my bot
tie, and between pulls yelling wildly for
"more light
Order was restored and l was led to a
Big desk and asked to "put up or shut up
by the chief engineer who sat behind it
with Gen. Israel Putnam's hat on his head.
Striking the desk with a stone-cutter's CAV
Ell, after his subjects had made him the
proper obeisance he thus addressed me:
jackson Slocum: You have nobly pass
en- from labor to refreshment and are now
one of US. You have worked your passage
as a stowaway of earth into the home port
of sublime institution that dates from the
hieroglyphics of the pyramids, and when
the sphinx first faced the river Nile with
its mysterious eyes. Your constitution is
Tewksbary tanned and waterproof to all
atmospheric influence. You can defy
whisky in bond and out of bond, and the
myrmdoms of the law when there is no ex-
cuse for a policeman's giving you chase.
Once Mason always Mason. Get.''
And l was a Mason.
JACKSON SLoCUM, F. & A. NJ.
Struggling criticisms.