25 Cento
a Year
15 Cents
in Clubs
of Five
or More.
When yon
get hold cl
something
good, pso
it around
Send in a
big club.
THIS PAPER, IN SPITE OF ITS NAME. DOES NOT BELIEVE IN KILLING PEOPLE.
VOLUME 7
BOOMER NORTH CAROLINA, JANUARY, 1917.
NUMBER 8
"j tf IT O tl
11 MjAumHMiill
i k, m mm a - m. m c b m - m
The Tale of a Stamp.
I'm a stamp,
A postage stamp,
A two-center.
Don't want to brag,
But I never was licked,
Etcept once
By a gentleman, too.
He put me onto a good thing.
It was an envelope,
Perfumed, pink, and square.
I've been stuck on the envelope
Ever since
Be dropped us,
The envelope and me,
Through a slot in a dark box.
We were rescued by a mail-clerk
Here's the pity.
Be hit me an awful smash
with a hammer.
It left my face black and blue.
Then I went on a long journey. .
Of two days,
And when we arrived,
The pink envelope and me,
We were presented
To a perfect peach of a girl
With the stunningest
Pair of blue eyes
That ever blinked.
Say, she's a dream I
Well,
She mutilated the pink envelope
And tore one corner of me on
With a hair pin.
Then she read what was inside
The Pink envelope.
I never saw a girl blush
So beautifully.
I would be stuck on her
If I could.
She placed the writing back
Iri the pink envelope,
Then she kissed me.
Oh, you baby doll!
Ber lips were ripe as cherries,
And warm as the summer sun.
We,
The pink envelope and me,
Are now nestling snugly
In her bosom.
We can hear her heart throb.
When it goes fastest
She takes us out
And kisses me.
Oh, say, this is great!
I'm glad I'm a stamp
A two-center.
Setting and Hatching.
Getting ready to print The
Fool-Killer is sorter like raising
eliickens only different. An old
hen sets three weeks before she
hatches, but this tomfoolery
which you are reading has to be
hatched before it can set. 'I do
the hatching, and then I turn
over what I have hatched to the
type-setter and he sets it up. The
setting was about to get ahead of
the hatching just new, and that's
why I hatched tSiis piece.
A SERMON ON TIME.
Yes, this is a sermon on time,
but you have to pay cash in ad
vance for it. I never credit out
my sermons, not even when they
are sermons on time. The cash-in-advance
plan is better. And so
now is the time to subscribe, as
the poet says.
Does anybody know exactly
what, sort of a looking thing Time
is, anyhow? I have lost a good
deal of sleep studying over this
problem, and I ain't got it fixed
yet.
Time, as we understand it, is
divided into three parts Past,
Present, and Future. The past is
that portion of Time that has done
drawn its pay and gone home.
But I don't know where it lives.
A long way off, perhaps. And
no doubt it has quit the job for
good, and never will come back.
The Future is that portion of
Time that has bought its ticket
and started, but ain't got here
yet. The Future is coming to
ward us all the time, but it don't
all come together. And it won't
all get here at once. If it did,
we would have more Time on our
hands than we could use. And
Time is like wheat dough in hot
weather if it ain't properly used
at the proper time it sours and
goes to waste. So you see if all
the Future came to us in one pile
and we couldn't use it till it sour
ed, then we would be in a wusser
fix than Hiram was when his
gallus broke.
But coming right down to bras3
tacks, as Paul remarked in his
letter to the Methodist Confer
ence, it is the Present that most
concerns us. And what is the
Present? I will give a brand-new
fifty-cent automobile to any man
who will give me a satisfactory
answer to that question. How
big a chunk of Time is the Pre
sent? Go ahead and give me its
length, breadth and thickness.
And tell me how fast it travels
past any given point. The hired
man waiting for dinner to come
says Time travels in an ox-cart
and stops to rest its team every
few steps. But the fellow with a
note coming, due and nothing to
pay it with is very sure Time
rides in a 1917 Model Overland
and is the most reckless driver on
the road. Which is right? How
does Tftme travel? Qr does it
travel at all ? Maybe it stands per
fectly still and we do the moving
ourselves. Which would make
Time's apparent speed to every
man depend on his own speed.
But that won't do, either, for
that would make Time wait on the
motions of men, wouldn't it? Asd
yon remember Paul tells us again
hi his second letter to t&e Medical
Almanac that "Time and Tide
Wait for no man." And so I
reckon Time does travel, after all.
But how fast ? And which way ?
These are important questions
for you and me, and they are
mighty hard to answer.
As I said a few lines back, we
are dealing with the Present, and
we want to learn something about
it. If the Present moves, is it
going the way we are going, or in
the opposite direction? My no
tion is that it comes meeting us,
and sometimes it runs over us and
mashes us pretty tolerable flat, as
the poet says.
But when you get your micro
scope and examine it right plum
carefully, the Present is a mighty
little thing to have so much power
as it has. As well as I can tell,
it has considerable width from
North to South, but from East to
West it ain't thicker than tissue
paper. The Past crowds up on
one side and the Future crowds
up on the other side until the poor
little Present looks like a very
tiny speck of butter between two
big pones of bread.
We are all after the butter. And
the bread, too. But some of us
don'4-have -Time enough to get as
much as We want.
And that's all I know about
Time for this time. Maybe some
other time I will take time to tell
you more about Time.
THE LATEST DUEL.
The Fool-Killer has just receiv
ed from a correspondent the fol
lowing somewhat uncertain ac
count of a duel that was fought
in his neighborhood. Some way
or other I am half in the dark
about the result of the duel in
question, but I shall leave the de
cision to my readers:
A duel was lately fought in
Texas by Alexander Shott and
John S. Nott. Nott was shot and
Shott was not. In this case it is
better to be Shott than Nott.
There is a rumor that Nott was
not shot, but Shott avows he shot
Nott, which proved either that the
shot Shott shot shot Nott, or Nott
was not shot, or that Nott was
shot not withstanding.
Circumstantial evidence is not
always good. It may be made to
appear on trial that the shot Shott
shot shot Nott, or as accidents
with firearms are frequent, it may
be possible that the Shott shot
shot Shott himself, when the
whole affair would resolve itself
into its original elements, and
Shott would be shot and Nott
would be not. Anyway, it is hard
Lto tell who was shot.
Comfort is pleasure with the
juice squeezed out. -
A FOOL-KILLER PARABLE,
One time when I was about aa
big as a pound of soap after a
day's washing, me and another
little devil fell out and fit like
wildcats. Our mammies saw the
racket and heard the dust a-flyin
and came running to pull us off
of each other. We were both on
top, as well as I remember.
After they had got us parted
.they tried to get us to tell what
the fuss started over. I told it
my way and the other kid told it
his way, and of course neither of
us told it straight.
But my mammy believed what I
told, and the other kid's mammy,
believed what he told, and front
that they went at it, too. Ous
daddies heard our mammies quar
relling, and here they came and
joined in the fuss. Before it final
ly ended the whole neighborhood
was lined up on one side or the
other, and there was enough hide
and old clothes scattered around
there to start a tan yard and a
paper mill.,
From a strictly Bible stand
point the above yam might be
called a lie, but if you ain 't al
ready seen a. great truth in it yon
had better read it over again. The
Great War that has drenched
Europe in blood started in just as
foolish a way as that, and has
been continued with just as little
reason, so far as the people who
fight and suffer are concerned.
And when Wilson asks them to
state what they are fighting for
he is making just as silly a re
quest as if he had asked me and
that other little devil what we
were scrapping about. Naturally
each side will tell it its own way,
and nobody will tell the truth
about it. Whether you take it on
a small scale or a large scale, hu
man nature is always and every
where pretty much the same.
Here's a marriage notice that
appeared in an exchange : )
"Married at Flinstone, by Rev.
Windstone, Mr. Nehemiah Whet
stone and Miss Wilhemina Sand
stone, both of Limestone." This
is getting mighty "rocky" and
there's bound to be a " blasting'
of the "stony" hearts before
many " pebbles" appear on the
connubial bench. The grind
stone of domestic infelicity will
sharpen the axe of jealously and
discord, and sooner or later one
or the ether of this par will rest
beneath a tombstone. Then look
out for brimstone.
The man who never makes mis
takes Must forfeit much .-delight :;
Be cannot feel the sweet surprise
Of sometimes being right.