The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-08-14
OF SUGAR RIV.
Err
His Life There Was Riddled With Rid

| His Life There Was Riddled With Rid
dies, SO He Gave 1t Up.
The schoolmaster was sitting on the
rail of the bridge over Sugar river as |
ploughed through the sand with my
wheel. He was clicking his heels to-
gether, while mosquitoes and other in
sects of the heavy bottoms circled in
the hot morning air. Sugar river flows
through banks and over Shiny masses
Of mud. 1t has source in Dane coun-
ty, Wis. and branch in Green county
known as the Little Sugar The dark
waters have no romantic aspect; the
bottom lands which the river once
wasted are melancholy. The school
master looked as dismal as the stream,
over which the crows were hideously
crying. l said to him:
This would be a fit place for trag
edy."
He paid no attention to my remark,
but commented:
You should have taken the Harrison
road if you wished to avoid the sand.
You will have three miles more of sand
to Shirland." Then a pause, and then
abruptly:
go to bed?"
Il thought Sugar River had affected
his brain, so declined to answer the an
cient conundrum. He smiled and threw
a chip into the murky waters, where
catfish fatten to the weight of twenty
five pounds.
MY school has just ended" he said
i've been teaching in these parts the
last term. You don't know children
country children or any children? I
thought not. or you would have pushed
me into the river when l asked you
that conundrum I had many children
in my school, and they had many ques-
tions-so many questions. The one I
gave you was one of them. They were
to present me with an album to-day be-
cause 7 am leaving to try to get work in
the city. | ran away from them,
was afraid of more questions. Could
you, sir, retain your right mind if you
were suddenly asked by an imp of six
years:
eff cheese comes after meat what
comes after cheese?
"Of course, since | see that you are q
city man, you know that mouse comes
after cheese, but I didn't. l protested
that I did not know and could not
guess, but the question haunted me day
and night until / satisfied the class that
I wanted the answer from it. And then
their ridiculous laughter. AS soon as
they were over laughing a boy who
once lived in Beloit asked me:
"'Why is a fool like needle?
"'Why?' I asked. eager to be over
with it.
because he has an eye, but no
head
Personal application of that joke
was made to me at>once"
Il am patient" continued the school
master. shying a stone at his satchel,
which stood by the roadway, but such
idiotic questions from children 7 was
trying to educate drove me nearly wild.
Life in the country is not very bright
for most of the people. I have often
thought that was their own fault, for
there is a wealth of natural and other
history about them wholly ignored.
The people of the country live too near
the soil and too far away from the sky.
For instance, sir, why should catfish
attain the enormous size that it does in
this Insignificant stream of mud? Is
Sugar River an offshoot of the once
mighty Fox, a marvellous stream in an
1ient times, or is it a decaying branch |
# the once powerful stream that |
and southwark to the Gulf of Mexico? |