The philosophy of Jake Haiden (late Jacob K. Huff) : $b selected from the columns of the Reading Times, Reading, Pennsylvania : with a biographical appreciation by his friend Henry W. ShoemakerHuff, Jacob K.
Philosophy
The philosophy of Jake Haiden (late Jacob K. Huff) : $b selected from the columns of the Reading Times, Reading, Pennsylvania : with a biographical appreciation by his friend Henry W. Shoemaker
Huff, Jacob K.
American essays; Huff, Jacob K., 1851-1910
“Sure!” I exclaimed, as I caught sight of the poor twisted legs doubled
up under his body, and I reached into my pocket and handed him a couple
of coins. He reached out his hand and took my donation, and while he was
looking at them I sat down in a nearby seat. He then looked up into my
face with gratitude in his eyes and exclaimed: “Oh, thank you!” Then he
caught the arms of the seat and pulled himself into the adjoining seat
with his stout arms, looked into my face again and repeated: “Oh thank
you.”
I was interested in the boy, so I asked: “How did you become so
helplessly crippled?” “Born that way,” he replied carelessly, and then
whistled to a boy across the station room. The boy shouted back: “Hello
Joe, what luck today?” “Good!” the cripple replied, jingling several
coins in his pocket. Just then a red faced man came in through the south
door and Joe caught sight of him and called: “Hello, Charley!” Charley
didn’t turn his face our way, so the boy gave a shrill little whistle,
and the man turned toward us. “Hello, Charley! Come over here.”
The red faced man crossed the room hurriedly and Joe held out his hand,
pulled it back and removed his soiled glove, then extended the hand
again, saying: “It’s awfully muddy, and I get my gloves soiled crawling
around on the floor.”
The red faced man took Joe’s hand in his and greeted the cripple warmly,
but was called away before he could say more. While the red faced man
was talking to the man who called him away from us, I turned to Joe and
inquired: “Is he your brother?” The boy laughed and replied: “Oh, no;
he’s a showman—gave a show here last night—a good one, too—I met him up
at the opera—”
He stopped talking and whistled in a high key, like steam escaping under
high pressure. The red faced man came back to us again and the boy said,
in accusing tones: “Say, Charley, you went back on me—you weren’t as good
as your word. You promised to pass me into the show, and you didn’t show
up, so I had to cough up fifteen cents of my money.”
“Well, that’s too bad!” the man said. “I’ll just pay you back right here.”
He began to search through his pockets carefully, and finally exclaimed:
“I haven’t got a cent of change in my pockets now, but you wait here
until I buy my ticket, and I’ll have some change then. I’m going away on
the 1.50 train.”
“You’re foolin’, ain’t you, Charley? You’re goin’ away without livin’ up
to your promise, ain’t you, Charley?”
“Bet your life I ain’t Joe! I’m going to get change when the ticket
window opens and then——”
He went off to talk to his friend again at the opposite end of the room,
but every five minutes lame Joe would just whistle to him and say, “You
won’t forget, Charley!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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