The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1884-12-18
NlcoDEMus DODGE.

One of Mark Twain's Old Sketches, Which
is Good Enough to Read Again.
When was boy in a printing office
In Missouri, q loose-jointed, long-leg-
ged, tow-headed, jean-clad, countrified
cub of about sixteen lounged III 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 distant fly from crew
ice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and
said, with composure:
"Who's the boss?'
s'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 tain t likely?n
''Wen, / don't know. Would you like
to learn it?n
'.P'aps so; pa he can't run me no mo-,
SO want to git show somers if I can,
faint no difference what Tn strong
and hearty, and | won't turn my back
on no kind of work, hard or soft. .
'.Do you think you would like to learn
the printing busiuess?'
well, / don't rely keer darn what
| do learn, SOS git chance fur to
make my way. ! just as soon learn
printin's anything"
"Can you readP'
Eyes, middl'in'.n
s'Write?''
'.Wen, I've seed people could lay ovet
me thar.
'sCipherp'
Not good enough to keep store, l
don't reckon; but at twelve times twelve
I amt no SLOUGH. Tother side of that
| is what gifts me-
"Where's your homeP"
'I'm from old Shelby"
whats your fathers religious de.
nomination."
Him? O, he's blacksmith
mo, mol don't mean his trade.
What's his religious denominationPn
80, | didn't understand you befo'.
He is Freemason.' .
mo, no-you don't get my meaning
yet. What [ mean is, does he belong
to any church,"
''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'ssthe pizenest kind of
Freewill Baptist for forty years.
There amt no pizener ones what he is.
If they said diffrunt they wouldn't say
itwhar wur-not much they wouldn't. -
whats your religion?a
"Well, boss, you've kind o got me
thar"
"Nhas is yeur nanae?''
| s'Nicodemus Dodge
81 think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus;
wen give you trial anyway"
| ''All right
"When would you like to beginp'
| sNow"
/ 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 the end of our establishment,
which was furthest from the street, was
deserted garden, painless and thickly
| grown up with blooming villainous
s'jimpson' weed and its common friend,
/ the stately sunfiower. In the midst OF
this mournful spot was a decayed and
| aged little frame house with but one
room, one window andno ceiling; it had
been smoke-house a generation before.
Nicodemus was given this lonely and
| ghostly den as bed-chamber.
One day, while Nicodemus was swim.
ming, Tom Elroy tied his clothes. Mic
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-bin
| pinned between his shoulders. The
joker spent the remainder of the night
after church in 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.
1 O0tolO very ioliS tIAu0 ndu eIdpS6u
the village smarties began to feel an UNI
comfortable consciousness of not having
made very shining success out of theiI
attempts on the simpleton from old
Shelby. Experiments grew scarce and
chary. Now the young doctor came to
the rescue. There was delight and ap.
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 emily 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 dollars had gone promptly fol-
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 1890 in the
evening. About Nicodemus' usual bed.
time midnight-the village iokers
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