The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1895-12-26
"THE CYCLOPEEDY."
BY EUGENE FIELD.

v
place FIR goin' on 30 years, calc'late
that know jest about ez much about
the case ez anybody else now on airth,
exceptin' perhaps it's OF Jcdge Baker,
and he's so plaguey old nd SO powerful
feeble that he don't know nothin'.
1t seems that in the spring NV AZ
the year that Cy Watson's oldest boy
wuz drowned in West estriver-there come
along a book agent sellin' volyumes
md tracks FIR the diffusion Nv knowl-
edge, md havin' got the recommend
of the minister md NV the select men,
he done an ALFRED big business in our
part Nv the county. His name wuz
Lemuel Higgins, md he wuz ez likely
u talker ez l ever heerd, barrin' Lawyer
Conkey, md everybody allowed that
when Conkey wuz round he talked so
fast that the town pump 'ud have to be
creased every 20 minutes.
One Nv the first NV our folks that this
Lemuel Higgins struck wuz Leander
Hobart. Leander had jest married one
NV the Peasley girls, md had moved
into the old homestead on the Plain
vile road-old Deacon Hobart havin'
give up the place to him, the other boys
havin' moved out west Qike lot O.
darned fools that they wuz!). Leander
wuz feelin' his oats jest about this
time, md nuthin' wuz too good FIR him.
Hattie" sez he, 81 guess I'll have
TO lay in few books FIR readin' in the
winter time, nd I've half notion to
subscribe f'r cyclopeedy. MIR. Higgins
Inv a1av ir,n 70
lily, and that we orter have 'em, bein'
as how we're likely to have the family
bime by!"
"Lors sakes, Leander, how you talk!"
sez Hattie, blushin' all over, ez brides
alters does to heern tell Nv sich things.
Waal, to make a long story short,
Leander bargained with Mr.. Higgins
for a set NV them cyclopeedies, md he
signed his name to long printed paper
that showed how he agreed to take a
fyclopeedy oncet in so often, which
wuz to be as often ez a new one Nv the
volyumes wuz printed. y cyclopeedy
isn't printed all at oncet, because that
would make it cost too much: conse-
kently the man that gets it up has it
strung along fur apart, so as to hit
folks oncet every year or two, and
gin'rally about harvest time. So Le-
ander kind Nv liked the dcc, and he
signed the printed paper md made his
affidavit to it before Judge Warner.
The fust volyume of the cyclopeedy
stood on shelf in the old seckretary
in the settn' room about four months
before they had any use FIR it. One
night Squire Turner's son come over
to visit Leander nd Hattie. and they got
to talkin' about apples, md the sort Nv
apples that wuz the best. Leander al
lowed that the Rhode Island greenin'
wuz the best, but Hattie and the Tur-
ner boy stuck up f'r the Roxbury rus
set, until at last happy idce struck
Leander, and sez he: "We'll leave it
to the cyclopeedy, b'gosh! Which
ever one the cyclopeedy sez is the best
will settle it,"
"But you can't find out nothin' bout
Roxbury russets nor Rhode Island
greenin's in our cyclopeedy," sez Hat
tie.
"Why not, I'd like to know?" sez Le-
snder, kind of indignant like.
"'Cause ours haint got down to the
R yet" sez Hattie. "All ours tells
about is things beginnin' with A."
"Well, hain't we talkin' about Ap-
ples?" sez Leander. You aggervate me
terrible, Hattie, by insistin' on KNOWN
what you don't know nothin' bout"
Leander went to the seckertary and
took down the cyclopeedy md hunted
all through it f'r Apples, but all he
could find wuz "Apple - See Pomolo.
ogy."
'How in thunder kin l see Pomolo-
gy," sez Leander, when there aint no
Pomology to see? Col durn a cyclic.
pedy, anyhow"
And he put the volume back onto the
the shelf md never sot eyes onto it agin.
That's the way the thing run FIR
years md years. Leander would've gin
up the plaguey bargain but he could
mt; he had signed printed paper md
had swore to it afore justice of the
peace. Higgins would have had the
law on him if he had throwed up the
trade.
The most aggervatin' feature Nv it
all wuz that a new one Nv ther cussid
cyclopeedies wuz allus sure to show up
at the wrong time-when Leander wuz
hard up or had jest been afflicted in
some way or other. His barn burnt
down nights afore the volyume con-
tainin' the letter 3 arrived, md Leander
needed all his chink to pay f'r lumber,
but Higgins sot back on that affidavit
and defied the life out Wv him.
'Never mind, Leander," sez his wife,
soothin like, "it's good book to have
in the house, anyhow, now that we've
got baby
That's So" sez Leander, "babies
does begin with B don't it?''
You see their fust baby had been
born; they named him Peaseley-
Peaseley Hobart-after Hattie's folks.
So, seein' as how it wuz payin' FIR
book that told about babies Leander
didn't begrudge that five dollars so
much after all.