The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1909-02-10

1000 times to vast audiences, and Pres
tdent Roosevelt said of it only two
weeks ago, If l had nothing else to
10 l should like to sit and hear it over
and over again for a hundred consecu-
tive nights
Ever since l was old enough to eat
pudding and milk I have contended
that every human being born on this
earth was born to fill a certain niche
and that there are always plenty Of
inches lying around loose. The longer
l live the stronger grows my opinion
that this is 80. The only trouble is to
find your particular niche and find your
mark on it.
IF I should ask this cultivated and
expansive audience who Shakespeare
was it would feel insulted. All the
world knows of him. He was the first
man in the world to sling the English
language into such shape that a fellow
could go to the grocery and make the
grocer understand that he wanted two
pounds of sugar instead Of a bar Of
soap. Shakespeare was a long time in
finding his niche. He tried farming
and poultry and gardening before he
struck his gait, but when he finally
did he had the sense to stick to it and
make a success. Literature was his
niche, and he filed it up to the neck.
He also filled US up to the neck with
proper English. Until his time the
husband who got up in the morning
and found his collar button gone
couldn't boiler for his wife and do JUS
tice to the occasion. He had to stand
and jump up and down and express
himself in a conglomeration Of Ian
guages, the only word of which the lis
tening neighbors could catch on to was
dammit
Napoleon was also a long time in
finding his niche. He sloshed around
and tried his hand at half a dozen
things and then struck the right one
and began to make the splinters fly. If
the old man could have had his way
he would have made the boy a cob
bier. Can you imagine the great Bona
parte pegging away at shoes or put
ting on cement patches? He came
along to his niche one day, found that
it fitted him, and he went to work lick
ing the whole world. His was a fight
ing niche. AS a farmer be couldn't
have raised enough buckwheat to get
up a a S of the scratches. AS a poet
he couldn't have earned his salt. AS q
politician there are 10000 men in this
country today who could have side
tracked him as easy as grease. Some
thing told him this. and he stuck to
his niche.
Conserving Diogenes.
II shall not ask you who Diogenes
was. You never met him, but you
have read all about him over and over.
Never was there a denser child, never
a bigger lunkhead Of a youth, never
a greater doughhead of a young man.
It was said of him that he didn't know
enough to pound sand. Up to twenty
five he hung around between his ia
TIERS house and the idiot asylum, and
he was an object Of pity to all. He
married a woman that tried to whack
some into his noddle with the
~broomstick, but it was a failure, and
she returned to her father. I'm a-tell-
ing you that Diogenes didn't amount
to molasses when his niche finally
came gliding by and he fell into It, He
started out at being a philosopher.
The world had had any philoso-
ply up to that time. and It took to 1t
like a Don to q cornfield.
"Diogenes, without straining his back
at all. went around n day with
q lighted lantern. When asked why
he did it he had a chance to reply
that he was looking for an honest
man. That tickled the public, and