Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1906-11-09
HOT TALK.

funnyists and the ground and lofty
Jokesmiths for the past forty years or
SO has appertained to the man who in
quires on a hot day, rs 1t hot enough
for you?'" observed the man with the
protruding chin and the deep, hoarse
voice.
We'll, l want that gag Cancelled,
scratched, written off, daubed out, cut
away, Topped and sent TO the boneyard
along with the Observation-Disclosures
at-the-picnic joke, the young-fellow-
who-stays-late screech and sew-a-but-
ton-on-my-shirt thing AND a whole lot
of other paSse and decrepit n G that
ought to nave been wiped ava long
before Artemus Ward and Josh Billings
cashed in.
Whats the matter with the man
who asks If it is hot enough for you,
anyhow? What's wrong about his ques-
ton? Why shouldn't he ask If it's hot
enough for you? Why should he be a
target for all these gaggists who pick a
little thing like that up and masticate
on 1t for a hundred years or SO, till
everybody who reads just the first line
knows h old thing by heart, no mat
ter in what different kind OF way it's
twisted?
IF the day is hot. why shouldn't a
man say so?
w lSIl Tic udy > COlO We pitat aDoub
it and discuss it and comment on II n
compare thermometers and brag about
how cold it is on our second-story porch
and make a whole peck of conversation
lin general about 1t, don't we?
IF we're staked to a big heap OF
snow we gnaw the blanket about that,
too, don't we, and tell each other how
high it is in drifts and on the level,
and how our suburban car butted
IL l. ,.n,Ynh fhn fo1lanf lr{ft Of III nn1 hnut
we had to shovel a path out the kitchen
way, and how we like to've lost our
lives trying to get home, n all that
sort Of gay snow polixity, don't we,
hey?
If the rain comes down pretty steady
and powerful, we're there with right
hefty stories, aren't we, abou how we
couldn't see our hands before us for 1t
out our way, and after while we drift
back to the times when the heavy rains
and melting snow in the mountains
made the floods during which skiffs
were seen on Pennsylvania avenue, and
we're Johannes-in-the-neighborhood
with all kinds and manners of spiels on
the rain question, aren't we, | ask
again?
'If there's a nifty hail storm, we
prattle no end, don't we, about the size
of the hailstones in front of our house,
and about what narrow escape ~ fox
terrier mutt had from being killed by
being hit by one of them when he fool
ishly scampered out into the yard to get
a bone, and how the rattle of the stones
on the roof sounded like the volleying
of rihes-we're there, are we not, with
an endless chain of conversational Junk
about that hail storm, are we not?
"And when we're blanketed by an UNI
usual fog, don't we get out on to the
gabfest firing line, and stake each other
to more or less fanciful stories about
the thickness of 1t out in u vicinage,
and how one OF our young ones came
near getting lost trying to get home
from the grocery, to which he'd been
sent to get a bar of soap through that
fog, and how when we struck a match
it didn't light up a quarter OF an men
Of radius and refused to more than
sputter, anyway-we converse largely
and extensively through out chapeaus
about the big fog, don't we?
'Uh-huh. All right.
'"Then what's the matter with a man
asking if it's hot enough for you? Heat
lis weather, isn't it? It's part of the
climatic game, i suppose? Then Why
should it be barred in the betting? Why
should the gaggistS have been all these
wears with the pleasant-spoken n
g~ood-natured chap who. just as a sort
iof greeting that comes natural 10 MN,
asks you if it's hot enough for you?
you don't want him to say, when he
meets you on a sizzling day, that you're
wearing a bum hat. or that your feet
are not mates, or that your trousers
need pressing, or that he hears that you
were soused the limit last night, or that
he wishes your wife I'D stop practicing
on the piano for the rest of the sum
mer-do you?
''Well, he doesn't do any OF these
things. He just up and asks you, TO be
civil and to pass the time of day, If It's
hot enough for you, and If you're not a
crouch and If you nave n thinking
mower of your w and IL you don't per-
NIT yourself to be swayed and bullied
by these gaggists that I'm talking
about, you'll just make a reply as TO
whether it's hot enough for you, like
Won would reply to any other question,
and let it go at that.
"Al of the fellows that l know VINO
ask me If it's hot enough for me are
bully decent chaps, people that / ike,
and nothing at all like the asinine pulp
nuts portrayed by the is-it-hot-enough-
for-vou iokesmiths. They're all right.
T hone that they'll be asking that ques-
tion as long as they live, and that az
ter thew die they'll-er-well, no, l don't
wish that, of ~course-but, say, on the
level now, and all Of this -xtraneo
matter aside, is it hot enough for youF