St. Landry democrat., 1883-08-25
CRYING.
A Lecture by John Spicer.

A Lecture by John spicer.
[ know what crying means, but it is
so funny to talk about that I do not
| know how to tell what it is, very well,
but l will tell as well as l can. When
water comes into your eyes, and your
face FUCKERS itself up, and you make
noises with your mouth and nose,
make a bowling kind of noise, and
sometimes you make squealing kind,
and sometimes you only smile with
| your nose. | know good many rea-
sons why people cry. l do not mean
grown-up people, / mean boys and
girls. You cry when you get hurt, and
| when you have to do things you do not
want to, and when you can not do what
you want to, and when you can not have
what you want, and when anybody
| plaques you. | do not know what
| makes the water come into your eyes
when you get hurt, or when you have
to do what you do not want to, or can
not do what you want to, or can not
have what you want, or anybody
plaques you, and my father does not
know; but it comes there, and comes
without your trying to make it come,
and my father thinks this is quite
curious; and no matter how far off the
hurt is from your eyes, if it is on the
end of your little finger, or of your little
toe, the cry-water does not come there.
it comes to your eyes. Cry-water is
called tears. When more cry-water
comes into your eyes than they can
hold, then it runs over, and runs down
your face in little ro.nd drops, and
these are tear-drops. Sometimes they
run down so fast you have to take your
handkerchief, if you have one in your
When [ was little fellow l cried a good
deal and my father used to say: sGet
bottle, quick! A bottle to catch the
tears! Johnny's tears are running
away! They'll get lost! Geta bottle!'
Ii tears get into your mouth they taste
salt. Once when it was my bedtime
and cried to stay up longer, my
brother told me there was too much
salt in my tears, and said if would cry
some fresh water tears he would ask
my mother to let me stay up till her
bedtime, and I took piece of tear on
the tip end of my finger, and touched it
to my tongue, and it was salt, every
time tried.
Boys and girls cry more than grown
up people, and small boys and girls cry
more than large ones, and babies cry
more than anybody. The ones who are
crying do not know how funny their
faces look and what bad noises come
out of their mouths. If they knew,
maybe they would stop. The best way
to stop is to shut your teeth tight to-
gether and your lips tight together. If
that does not stop it, then take hold of
your nose, hard, with your pocket
handkerchief; but if that is lost then
take hold with your thumb and finger,
but keep your lips and teeth shut, too.
The best time to stop it is just before it
comes; just when it is beginning. A
fellow told me he had tried it, and
stopped it every time by doing all these
things.
NY brother made this verse when |
was a little fellow:
"Whatis it to cry?
lis to have q wet eye,
And to sob and to sigh,
With your face all awry.
And to lift your voice high,
So that no one who hears you will want to
come nigh.
Some cry with a lEOit! 1UOus 1UOu!
And some with a 1Ci! at! 1Uf!
And some with a squealy, wealy, wealy,
Like piggywiggywigs in stye-i! IL
When was little fellow they used
to call me Fretter-and-G roWler, because
I cried SO much, and my grandma used
TO tell me stories to try to cure me of
crying. I will tell you two of them:
When grandma was child there was
another child lived in the next house.
He was boy and his name was Jerry.
He cried so much that when the people
about there heard any strange noise
they would say: 9 What's that noise?
Jerry crying?" No matter if it was
cow mooing, or a cat squalling,
or a dog bowling, they would
say: "What's s.. that noise? Jerry
cryingp'' He cried when he was being
dressed, and when he had his face and
hands washed; cried for things to cat
that he mustn't have, and cried to 20 to
places, and for what he wanted, if he
couldn't have it; cried if he fell down;
cried if the boys laughed at him, and if
they just touched him without hurting
him hardly any, he would cry about it.
And if the boys called him cry-baby,
he would cry because they called him
cry-baby. His real name was jeremiah,
and when the boys found that out they
used to say: