The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-08-20

He was a grand old fellow, with his
bluff and eccentric ways his keen
insight into the innermost recesSes of
your soul, and the brief flashes in his
conversational moods that brought you
back to fifty years ago, when men had
simple tastes and sweet faced women
spun at their whiTring wheels, in the
calm of secluded homes.
Old Uncle Tom" as he had come
to be Familiarity known, through an
intimate association with the young
men and women with whom he had
been surrounded in the large news
paper office where he wOve his fresh
ening nature touches, his calm judg-
ment of the world and men into senti-
ment which Frightened its pages and
made you better for the reading, was
one of natures own
Why that prudent dame had ever
allowed him to stray into the grind
and the blind of a round of duties on
a metropolitan paper was a mystery
hard TO solve.
He secuted, vehemently, and in his
own quaint way, the overtureS of man,
who in his declared rank artificiality
of the day had filed his offices with
implements which he considered an
insult to the days and the ways that
had gone. and a time when men had
depended upon themselves alone in
the accomplishment Of their ends.
The typewriter he considered an
abomination, which he utterly refused
to accept.
Adding machines were a source OF
unending and scathing reproach on
his part. and a mechanical stand in
which reposed the office copy of
'Webster's Unabridged" proved the
last straw in the preservation OF the
old mans patience.
One day he strolled away. Not be-
lieving in the Inauguration of train
service as a mode of latter day loco
motion, he had walked far into the
depths of the cool wooded homes OF
the birds and the flowers he loved
with a passion untamed, when the last
rays of the setting sun warned him OF
duties which waited in town, and Of
the nights work before him.
The night breezes sighed through
the splendid pines. and a tiny feather
ed creature perched its head know
ingly from an adjoining bough, then
flew straight to the hand of the man
whom instinct had already taught it to
trust
A fierce, throbbing, restless resolve
had burned itself into the heart of the
primitive man as he stood in his own
domain, and before he could Withstand
the witchery of it all, he had laid him
self down on the earth which he low
ed, and with nature caressing and
grooming him softly to sleep, he sighed
in his dreamy contentment-
The boss" had grown restless and
apprehensive- Had Uncle Tom"
gone off on another of his particular
.periodicS," he wondered, and. if so,
when would he be likely to return
The beauty of the old mans style,
the strength of his unworldly logic,
and the real value of the stuff" that
he submitted had caused him before
this to extend considerable latitude in
instances like the present
Finally the postman brought a let
ter. He frightened. 1t was in the
peculiar old school hand of Uncle
Tim" 1t read:
After having visited the country
once more. and slept a whole night
out under the trees, I feel that | am
utterly and forever incapacitated for
further duty on a metropolitan news
paper, where men think on machines,
and you have to be fuIl-fedged
union mechanic to get into the dictiOn-
airy
1 lie DOSS Sl2upU WIFI the regret
that he felt. but a light, half tender,
and misunderstanding, shone in his
eyes.
with apologies to George AdeD
Once upon a time there were two
men. One was a Wise Guy with a
EOOd stock of Bluff always on hand,
and the other one Squinted and wore
huge Bald Spots on the top of his
Head.
The Squint was caused by working
Overtime under the office light. for he
was an Ambitious Cuss and wanted to
be one of the Sinners.
The Wise One took life easy He
generally knew a Good Thing when
he saw it, and Held On. A Good
Thing with him didn't make a noise
like Hard Work. and he rolled along
like the successful Tin Horn that he
was.
Yes. Agnes. he had a Dead Game
Lead ripe CinCh on life, and he ran
with the Upper Crust
When the man with the bald spots
was making a Home Run up a desert
ed Short Cut on his way home TO his
wife, after a grind at the office down
town. the Man Who Knew a Good