The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-11-22
NICODEMUS DODGE.
One of Mark Twain's Old Sketches, Which
is Good Enough to Read Again.

IN MISSOURI, lOOSe-JOlnted, lOng-leg-
ged, tow-headed, jean-clad, countrified
cub of about sixteen lounged in one
day, and, without removing his hands
from the depths of his trousers-pockets
or taking off his faded ruin of SLOUGH
hat, whose broken rim hung limp and
ragged about his ears like bug-eaten
cabbage leaf, stared indiferently
around, then leaned his hip against the
editors table, crossed his mighty bro
gans, aimed at a distant fly from crew
ice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and
said, with composure:
"Who's the boss?"
I'm the boss, said the editor, fol.
lowing this curious bit of architecture
wonderingly along up to its clock face
with his eye.
Don't want anybody to learn the
business ain't likelyP"
"Well, don't know. Would you like
to learn it?h
"P'aps 80; pa he can'trun me no mo-,
so want to git show somers if l can,
faint no difference what. Tn strong
and hearty, and | won't turn my back
on no kind of work, hard or soft. y
"Do you think you would like to learn
the printing business?"
''WeH, | don re ly keer a darn what
l do learn, SOS | git a chance f1~s to
make my way. | just as soon learn
printin's anything"
"Can you read?"
eyes, middl'in'."
"Write?"
"Well, I've seed people could lay over
me thar
"Cipher?'
Not good enough to keep store,
don reckon; but at twelve times twelve
| amt no SLOUGH. T'other side of that
is what gifts me-"
where's your home?"
"I'm from old Shelby"
"What's your fathers religious de-
nomination."
Him? O, he's blacksmith"
"No, MOI don't mean his trade.
What's his religious denomination"
80, I didn't understand you befo'
He is a Freemason.
mo, no-you don't get my meaning
yet. What | mean is, does he belong
TO any church?n
Now you're talking! Couldn't make
out what you was a-trying to git
through yo' head no way. Belong to a
church? Why, he's'the pizeRest kind Of
q Freewill Baptist for forty years.
There aim t no pizener ones what he is.
If they said dilrunt they wouldn't say
itwhar wur-not much they wouldn't. ="
whats your religion?"
"Well, boss, you've kind o got me
thar"
WHAT is your name?"
Incidents Dodge"
Il think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus;
we'll give You a trial anyway"
IAN right
"When would you like to begin?"
Now
So within ten minutes after we had
first glinosed this nondescript he was
one of us, and with his coat off and
hard at it,
Beyond the end of our establishment,
which was furthest from the street, was
a deserted garden, painless and thickly
grown up with blooming villainous
''iimpson" weed and its common friend,
the stately suntlower. In the midst Of
this mournful spot was decfyed and
aged little frame house with but one
room, one window and no ceiling; it had
been a smoke-house generation before.
Nicodemus was given this lonely and
ghostly den as bed-chamber.
One day, while Nicodemus was swim
,nI al
demus made a bonfire of Toms by way
of retaliation.
A third joke was played on Nicode-
mus day or two later. He walked UP
the middle aisle of the village church
Sunday night with staring hand-bill
pinned between his shoulders. The
joker spent the remainder of the night
after church in a cellar Of deserted
house, and Nicodemus sat on the cellar
door till toward breakfast time to make
sure that the prisoner remembered that
if any noise was made rough treatment
would be the consequence. The cellar
had two feet of stagnant water in ii
and was bottomed with six inches OF
mud.
Before very long time had elapsed
the village smarties began to feel an I'M
comfortable consciousness of not having
made very shining success out of their
attempts on the simpleton from old
Shelby. Experiments grew scarce and
chary. Now the young doctor came to
the rescue. There was delight and APP.
plause when he proposed to scare Nico-
demus to death, and explained
how he was going to do it. He had a
noble new skeleton-the skeleton OF
the late and only local celebrity,
Jimmie Finn, the village drunkard-a
grisly piece of property which he had
bought of Jimmie Finn himself at auc-
tition, for fifty dollars, under great COM
potion, when Jimmie lay very sick in
the lanyard fortnight before his death.
The fifty doSars had gone promptly for
whisky, and had considerably hurried
up the change of ownership in the skel-
eton. The doctor would put Jimmie
Firms skeleton in Nicodemus' bed.
This was done about 1870 in the
evening About Nicodemus' usual bed
time midnight-the village jokers
came creeping stealthily through the
jimpson weeds and sunflowers toward
the lonely frame den. They reached
the window and peeped in. There sat
the long-legged pauper on his bed, in a
worry short shirt and nothino moro He