The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1885-10-01
GIRLS WHO TALK SLANG.
Sweet Girl Graduates Add Picturesquenes
to their Mother Tongue.

"a girl who will say gosh is past
praying for
1t was somewhat irrevercnt re-
mark, l grant. The speaker was lean
ing against the window easement, with
his eyes fixed on the outline of the dis
tant White Hills. We had been watch
ing cloud effects and exchanging art
ideas.
''Eh?" queried l, my eye following
his, while | wondered what possible
suggestion of such vulgarity he could
find in that glowing sky. He repeated
bis remark.
"And who has said it?" I asked.
1.-The infant; she's on the platform
under the window. She's giving her
views of life. She's sufficiently opti-
mistic, l hope. She thinks she's going
to have an awful good time this Sum-
mer only she wishes Jim were here to
spoon.
20, now. my dear boy. She didn't
say that" exclaimed, fairly blushing
for the girl, who had forgotten, if she
ever knew how, to blush for herself.
Fact, Auntie. Say. did you ever
talk slang when you were girl? Did
you say mash and 'swell?'"
Il should hope not; nor your mother,
either"
We had dubbed the individual in
question 1.-The Infant" because he had
CHANGED to hear her, on the day of her
arrival, pouring out her soul to dear
old Madam Snow. who was sitting in
her invalid chair under the naples.
''I'm only a child" she said, throw
ing herself down on the grass with a
ludicrous affectation of infantile SIM
plicity.
She wore Mother Hubbard gowns
usually, and one day, overcome with a
fit of giggling, she jumped up from the
table and fled precipitately from the
dining-room, stuffing the skirt of her
Mother Hubbard into her mouth.
Merry creature" remarked our
landlady, who, as in duty bound, look
ed leniently on the freaks of boarder
who brought So per week into the fami-
" exchequer. ''She knows little as yet
of the cares of life"
''And less of its propricties," added
Miss Martin, severely.
The infant was 10, and was grad
nate of a somewhat famous young
ladies' school.
.'Wcll, young folks must be young
folks" remarked dear old Madam
Snow, who, like Providence. beamed
alike on the Just and the unjust.
Say, Miss Martin, shall you skip to-
day?" cried the infant at this point in
the conversation, thrusting her head
out of the hall door.
"Skipr' calculated Miss Martin,
whose years and weight would render
such feat we'll nigh impossible.
30, go down to the village, mean, ;"
explained the infant. Here's letter
for mamma; take it-do-thats a
brick''
mo, shall neither skip nor go to
the village. So think you will have
to take your letter yourself"
Eyes, stree, bob-ali right" and
the head was withdrawn as the infant
rushed upstairs for her "tile,'' leaving
Miss Martin too petrificd to speak.
Is this fancy sketch am writing?
Not at all. You who have heard the
talk of young girls on the horse cars,
the steam cars and on the streets know
that it is not.
This is the way these graduates of a
we'll known, somewhat famous, girls
school talked.
How is it possible, often asked my
self. for these girls to have gone
through the curriculum of thorough
" good school, to have been trained in
English literature, to have had daily
the society of refined teachers, and to
have come out at last with vocabula-
ry fit only for BulingsgateP
And then remembered, / sadly re-
membered, that once, when waiting in
the hall of a certain university for q
friend, student came by, a woman,
and this is what she was saying to her
companion:
ats my birthday to day, and I'm
going to buy cents worth of peanuts
and going home to have a regular
tcarI' And she was theological
student, too! o, Temporal! O, Na0yes!
A recent writer in the North Ameri-
can ReUiew treats the subject, .'Is Our
Civilization Perishable2' and when one
hears from the lips Of young girls vol
leys Of slang. oneis inclined to think
that tho process of decomposition has
already begun. The tabled tootls that
dropped from the lips of the wrctchcd
child in the well-known fairy tale wore
not moro loathsome than is most of
this slang. - Francis a. Humphrey IN
f9tii0(Iel4,LkiG Press.