Repository: UIHistories Project: Illio - 1896 [PAGE 191]

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ILLINOIS.

D e c e m b e r : Wednesdav, 1WJ5. I>i:uv SIR (lot h e i r all right. How're the folks at home? Why ! it's lively here. Just as soon as I stepped o i l ' t h e train, about nine fellows grabbed me, yelling something about clubs and board, and kept pulling and jerking me 'round till I got mad and vanked loose. Then I lammed a fellow over the head with mv earpetsack, peeled my coat and yelled o u t , ' ' l e a n lick your whole dad-binged crowd, clubs and boards and all, by (iosh !" I usually never swear, but I was mad clean through. That sware word scared Yin, and they got real polite, and one little red-headed fellow asked me to go with him to eat, and I did. I've eat t h e r e every since with seventeen o t h e r fellows. T h e y ' r e quite nice, but I d o n ' t believe they go to Sunday School, for when a fellow is late they hook his pie and cranberries and then tell falsehoods a b o u t it. Got through my examinations b e t t e r ' n lots of the other fellows, and they cheated, too—had rolls of paper with rubber 'round them. One fellow d r o p p e d his and it unrolled about two feet; he said after class his horse bucked. I thought that was queer to say, for I d i d n ' t see no horse a n y w h e r e . The school buildings is big. The biggest one is about the size of the tater patch, back of t h e old cow-shed, I reckon, and about 5 rods high. (Say, Andy, the old cow-shed makes me t h i n k . Did you take those sparrow-heads down to old Sam Ellarses and get that money?) Well, I'm getting purty well at home here now, though some of the fellows d o n ' t know me yet. I went up to one nice looking fellow with a mustache and spectacles and said, " H u l l o , had your e x a m s ? " and as he looked rather chilly I hurried up and said, " O, you don't know me ; well, I ' m Si Jones, from Pesotum, out near Lem P u t n a m ' s place." H e turned and looked at me sort of funny and t h e n said, " Well, of all the n e r v e , " . and walked away. H e seemed mad about something, but I saw him stop and point me out to another fellow and say something and laugh, so I guess he must have liked me after all. I was coming along the hall the other day, when a big fellow asked me if I had seen picks or the old horse in the library. I d i d n ' t know what kind of things picks was and d i d n ' t see any kind of horse there, so I told him " n o " and followed him to see what he was after, but he didn't get anything; only went and talked with two big mean-looking fellows about tackling and sluggin' and foot ball. I've been out watching foot ball several times. Holy Smoke ! how they do fight! About thirty fellows mix up together and scrap like everything over a airfilled ball about t h e size of a little pumpkin, and then different fellows grab it and try to run and other fellows throw them down and jump on them until they get enough, and then they yell •• d o n e . " My, but it's lots of fun watching. There's one fellow; he looks awful mean and ugly when he runs, and after he is knocked down he keeps on crawlin' till all the rest get down on his head—that's Pix. 229