The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1906-10-12

morning, before you had aired out the
place. Your ears must have burned
when We were talking about you.
If you want to get an idea of Ma
pies, at its worst, go down into your
cellar and round up all the Goldfish,
onions, kraut, limberger cheese, kerO-
sene, rotten potatoes, and everything
that is dead, put it all in a bushel
basket, and just before the health Of
ficers come to pull your place get
down on your knees, and put your
head down in the basket, and let some
one sit On your head all the forenoon,
and you will have just such half day
as dad and had in the poor quarter
of Naples, and it will not cost you half
as much as it did us, unless. after
you have enjoyed yourself in your eel
lar with your head in the basket, you
decide to have a run of sickness and
hire doctor who will charge you the
price of trip to Europe.
Well, sir, Naples is a dandy, in its
clean part. The bay of Naples is a
dead ringer for Milwaukee bay, in
shape and beauty, but Milwaukee lacks
Vesuvius AMI Pompeii, for suburbs
and she lacks the customary highway
men to hold you up. Every man, WON,
an and child we have met makes a
living out of the tourists, and nobody
that have seen works at any other
business.
We woke up the first morning and
dad looked out the window and saw
Vesuvius belching forth flame, and
lava, and stone fences, and wanted to
turn in a fire alarm. but told him
that that fire had been raging ever
since the Christian era, and was not
one of these incendiary barn burnings
but he opened the window and yelled
fire, and the porters and chamber
maids came running to our room, with
buckets of water, and wanted to know
where the fire was Dad pointed Out
Of the window towards Vesuvius ant
said: Some hired girl has been start
Ing fire with kerosene, in that shan
ty on the knoll out there, and thu
whole ranch will burn If you dom
turn out the fire department, you gost
blasted lazy devils. Get a move on
and help carry out the furniture"
Well, they Gained dad, and then
had to go to work and post dad III
on the geography he had forgotten
and finally he remembered seeing
picture of volcano or burning noun
tain in his geography SO years ago, bu
he told me he never believed there wa
volcano in the world, but that h,
always thought they put those picture
IN biographies to make them sell
How man can attain the prominenc,
and position in the business world tba
dad has, and not know any more thai
he does. is what beats me.
OF course you know, having kent
grocery since the war, and having ha,
opportunities to study history, by III,
pictures on the soap boxes and insur
ance calendars, that Nero the Roma,
tyrant, after Rome was burned Will
he fiddled for dance in a barn on
so accustomed to. fire and brimston
that he retired to Naples and toucbe,
or Eesuvius. just so he could look q
it. But Vesuvius about 1000 years az,
got to burning way down in its bow
els, and the fire got beyond control
and | suppose now the fire is ava
down in the center of the earth, an,
you know when you get down in tn
earth below the crust, on which W
live and raise potatoes, everything /
melted, like iron in a foundry, an
Vesuvius is the spigot through whicl
the fluid comes to the surface. 70,
see, don't you?
Just imagine that this earth is
barrel of beer, which you can under