The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-01-14
JOHN HENRY ALL RIGHT AGAIN.
An Idyl of Jimtown and the Neighbor-
hood.

"
An IdyI of Jimtown and the Neighbour
hood.
John Henry is around again. Poor fell
low, he had a hard time of it for a week or
two after his poetry and literary society
busted. Couldn't lay nor set, and his
mother had an awful time trying to bal
ance between the two-so they say-and
get him in easy positions. After he was
able to be out the boys bothered him q
good deal, too, wantin' him to write poetry
for them on subjects John Henry felt
beneath him to write on. But when he'd
60 down to the grocery he was safe from
the bows. O'Tooi-OhToors the grocery
mans name-is John Henry's friend, and
when O'TOOl is anybody's friend, he is
his friend ali over.
0Tooi made the bows shut up about
that poetry business. He allows them to
set around his store and spit, and trade
lies. but they must do it to suit him or out
they 90, head foremost, or any other way
foremost that comes the handiest for him
10 levy on. You see O'TOOl's father vas
born in Dublin, and his mother in Cork,
and he hisself in Ireland, and that ac-
counts for that last statement of mine.
O'Tool told John Henry to chirk up and
not be so mountaineering wasn't the
first teller that had got left on his poetry;
poetry was poor business any
way. You had to live about
two hundred years, or rather l
should say, YOU had to be
lead about two hundred years. before the
people awOke up to the merits OF your
poetry. O'TOol says, Now, Mr.. Sai ders.
you've got genius, and you write a book, y
and told him also, that a book was what
took now DAYS. Something new, some
thing unique that was what editors and
readers wanted. \ Teller a-slidin' down a
gas-pipe hole and exp orin' the interior OF
the earth: or a-goin 10 the moon to git him
a wife; or a~-sailin' away into the heart of
Africa and a-tindin' out something that
solomon forgot to record"
These were the kind of books folks
wanted, and he'd fix him up a desk III
the corner OF the grocery to write on and
find him ink and paper" and maybe what
John Henry had forgot he could remem-
Der. 0'Tool also give him some directions
over the book told him to have "a girl a.
fOOlin' round in every page a girl with
blue eyes and waller hair; a regular high
falutin' girl, and also to chuck in a thous-
and or two Injuns, and have a Yankee and
an Irishman in it and a Dutchman if he
thought he could handle him, but no
niggers"-O'Tool amt stuck On "niggers''
and be sure to have a detective, a
awful goOd-lookin' one, too; one that
wOuldknock the the waddin' out of any
thing that's come along in that line lately.
And so John Henry went TO work TO fix
it up accordin' to OTool. Some OF the
bows has been a sayin' around here that
the reason O'ToOl sticks so close to John
Henry is because he thinks John Henry
is a-golng 10 be famous some day and
maybe he'll have the chance to write his
biography.
But don't believe that, 1 think O'Tool
means well in all things by John Henry.
O'Tool does all ne can to keep the boys as
quiet as possible while John Henry's a
writin'. But one night Bill Cracker was
e~xplarnin' the Mckinley bill and he hit
oat too far and upset John Henrv's ink.
Tt took ten men to hold O'Tool, while his
wife, (she heard the noise clear in the
house and came in 10 see what was the
matter convinced him that Bill didn't do
it a purpose.
O'ToOl don't keep much in his grocery
IA coffee. tobacco, and two or three
kinds of bitters for the stoma his sake
things folks Just has to have. But one
day a drummer Teller come along and
coaxed 0'Tool 10 take a small line OF cali
COS. Now O'Tool don't know any more
about calico than a calf knows of the old
buc. wheat notes, and so be told the drum.
mer to jist send him what he thought was
the best. The consequence is that every
drafted piece of calico fades except one
bolt Of black calico, and there amt no
body in mournen around here now, and
there was no sale for that. O'TOol has
had a fuss with every woman in town,
and came pretty near partin' a man and
his mother-in-law over that calico. And
don't yau forget it, there's more than q
cussin' laid up for that drummer if ever
he comes back here.
One day Mary Ann come in the grocery
to get her a calico dress. John Henry
was a settin' there writin', and ne neve!
noticed her, nor her him. She asked fol
eighteen yards of a kind of a pokeberry-
pink calico that was a iayin' OF the shelf
1t takes eighteen yards to make Mary Ann
even a plain wrapper, and then it has Il
be faced with something else.
Now, John Henry knows hat if there
is one thing above another that Mary Ann
hates and despises, it's fadey calico. and
so he spoke up kind of shsky-like-"Don't
buy that, Mary Ann. Nav got a dress of
that and il fades-it fades like" Johu
Henry was never good at SMILES, and he
gave it up with a groan.
But O'Tool is good at them, and he
leaned over the counter and said, low
like, 50 John Heary wouldn't hear, at
fades, Mary Ann, just like yer love
for John Henry did, without any
provoke TO make il fade. | tell you
Mary Ann" he continued, "some day,
when it is too late, you will regret
that you didn't stick to John Henry wher
he was down. That boy is goin' to be ia
nous; he's a writin' a book there hat
bet will shake the world. I'd be ready Il
stake money that it'll De put on the boardl
In less than a month after it comes out.
whats on the boards mean? / dom
understand, Mary Ann said s%cornfully.
"0h, theatres. ministries. 'Unce Tom'l
Cabin East L~ynne'-that's bein' on the
boards" OTool answered loftily.
Mary Ann understood that, for "Unclt
Toms Cabin" often comes TO Jimtown.
ttNaII Il Anntf uoRf a., koor IL ~ - "a