St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1896-01-11
"THE CYCLOPEEDY.n
BY EUGENE FIELD.

Hayin' lived next door to the Hobart
place f'r 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 Jedge Baker,
and he's so plaguey old nd SO powerful
feeble that he don't know nothin'.
1t seems that in the spring Nv '47--
the year that Cy Watson's oldest boy
wuz drowned in West river there come
along book agent sellin' volyumes
md tracks FIR the diffusion Nv know1-
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
talker ez ever heerd, barrin' Lawyer
Conkey, md everybody allowed ti:at
when Conkey wuz round he talked 90
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, nd 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 a 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 FIR a cyclopeedy. Mr.. Higgins
here says they're invalerable In a fam
lily, and that we orter have 'em, bein'
as how we're likely to have the family
pime by!"
"Lor's sakes, Leander, how you talkl !"
seq Hattie, blushin' all over, ez brides
alters does to heern tell uv sich things.
Waal, to make along story short,
Leander bargained with Mr.. Higgins
for, a set Nv them cyclopeedies, nd he
signed his name to a long printed paper
that showed how he agreed to take a
cyclopeedy oncet in SO often, which
wuz to be as often ez new one uv the
volyumes wuz printed. A cyclopeedy
isn't printed all at oncet, because that
'sesu1d make it cost too much; conse-
ke4 Fly the man that gets it up has it
struh, along fur apart, SO as to hit
folks Gteafeet every year or two, and
gin'rally Sa,out harvest time. So Lee
aeder kind nv liked the idee, and he
=. Sed the printed paper nd made his
,,s.avit to it before Judge Warner.
The fust volyume Of the cyclopeedy
stood on shelf in the old, seckretary
in the settin' room about four months
before they had any use f'r it. One
night Squire Turner's son come over
to visit Leander nd Hattie, and they got
to talkin' about apples, nd the sort uV
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 a happy idee struck
Leander, and sez he: wen leave it
to the cyclopeedy, b'goshl Which
ever one the cyclopeedy sez is the best
will settle itl''
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-
ander, kind of indignant like.
Is 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 APP
pies" 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 nd hunted
all through it f'r Apples, but all he
could find wuz "Apple - See Pomolo-
ogy."
elbow in thunder kin I see Pomolo-
gy," sez Leander, when there amt no
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