Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1910-05-12
Why Life Was a
Burden to Him
By Max Adeler
By Max Adeler

.s.s.s
Some time ago Cooley caught a
young man who was just about to
jump from the wharf into the river.
AS he seized him, he saw that it was
Jim Kelley, and he said:
why, Jim, what are you trying to
do?"
81 reckon it's for the BEST" said
Jim. Perhaps I'd better not do it,
after all. Why, l was going to com
nit suicide"
"Suicide!" exclaimed Cooley. Why,
what on earth's the matter with you?
Are you crazy, or drunk, or poor?"
'No."
''In love, maybe. and disappointed?'
mo"
well, what's troubling you?'
well, I'll tell you," said Mr.. Kelley.
1T doesn't seem so much now, but
it bothered me awfully while ago.
Why, you see, I was sitting in my
room up in the boarding house there,
and I got to thinking. / thought what
if was to fall in love sometime with
a red-haired girl, and was to marry
her, and what If she should give birth
to twins with the same kind of hair.
And s'pose those twins should grow
up, one named Isaac and the other
Jacob, and s'pose Jacob should want
to go to sea. for sailor and we let
him go, and he should get wrecked
on the Cannibal islands, and the can.
nfbals should take fancy to him and
adopt him as an idol, and set him up
in a temple.
"And s'pose, after while, he should
gradually kinder get into their ways
Of living and should, become canni
bal himself. And s'pose Isaac :, he
should marry and raise family OF
children, and one of his boys should
go to sea and should be cast ashore
on the island where his Uncle Jacot
was acting as idol, and those canni
balls should kill him, and cook him
and offer some of him to Jacob, and
Jacob should eat him and want more
And then s'pose the government,
should rout out those savages, an6
send Jacob home, and he should have
acquired such taste for Isaac's chill
dren that he would get to nibbling al
the rest of them, and Isaac should
ketch him at it, and suspect him ant
accuse him; and Jacob should theI
kill that other red-headed twin an(
eat him, and then eat all the children
and finally eat his mother and me
and then start out to swallow hi
aunts and uncles, and other relations
until he cleaned up the family?
'It was so awful that couldn'
bear to think of it, and so / though
would just block that heathens lit
tie game by drowning myself befor,
| the thing went any farther"
"But why din't you block it by re
solving to marry some other woman? 2
asked Cooley "You needn't marry
red-haired woman unless you wan
to-
"That's so,'' replied Mr.. Kelley re
flectively. Il never thought of that
But s'pose was to marry anothe,
woman, how do know she wouldn'
have son who would get up and be
come a prize-fighter, and would ge
up fights for the championship ant
of course I'd have to bet all my none.
on my own boy, and he'd be licked
and I'd lose and be brought down tt
poverty in my old age, while he'd b.
SO grieved that he'd murder somebod,
to get the money back for me again
and I'd happen to be elected sheriff
just before he was tried and convict
ed, and it'd become my duty t,
hang him! Hang my own child
Think of that, will you? I don't thinl
could stand it. I believe I'll commi
suicide, anyway, if you'll leave m,
alone"
| Then Cooley led him away, and rec
commended him to remain single an,
to let his fancy have play in writin,
stories for the papers. But Kelle,
seemed bent on counting an awfu
doom, and he proposed on the follow
ing Monday to Butterwick's oldes
daughter, although she has red hail
She refused him, and he told Coole
the next day that he was cleared III
on the Isaac and Jacob business, any
how, and he thought maybe he Nigh
stave off the other calamity by keer
ing out of politics and deciding neve
to run for sheriff.
A Prodigy.