Them was the good old days, in Davenport, Scott County Iowa . r an axe-carryin member of thewoodmen degree team. Steeplejack Oscar Wiley would stand on his head on asmokestack and holler like a kickapoo when he was stewed,and people expected to see him get killed, Oscar wasnt inno hurry, though, for he waited patiently about to let natureand Barleycorn take the regular course. Smokey Reese blowed a cornet when he drilled down thestreet with his chimney-sweep makeup, high cone-shapedskimmer, rope and tackle. He couldgo through a chimney like a swallow,and chimney-soot had a fat chancewhen Smoke
Them was the good old days, in Davenport, Scott County Iowa . r an axe-carryin member of thewoodmen degree team. Steeplejack Oscar Wiley would stand on his head on asmokestack and holler like a kickapoo when he was stewed,and people expected to see him get killed, Oscar wasnt inno hurry, though, for he waited patiently about to let natureand Barleycorn take the regular course. Smokey Reese blowed a cornet when he drilled down thestreet with his chimney-sweep makeup, high cone-shapedskimmer, rope and tackle. He couldgo through a chimney like a swallow,and chimney-soot had a fat chancewhen Smokey got on its trail. George Bagley, express messengeron the Rock Island road, wanted to getrich quick, so he stepped off the trainwith a hundred thousand dollars ingreenbacks in a gunny sack, walked upto Kelloggs barn at Sixteenth andIowa, and cached it under the hay. Thats gettin it fast,sport. The train stopped for a half hour in them days andGeorge had plenty time to get back and take his place beforethe train pulled out. When that stack of long-green was. 204 THEM WAS THE GOOD OLD DAYS checked up missin, George was put through the third degree,but he had an alibi as long as a hopheads dream. A weeklater, when everybody was talkin about the great robberymystery, George weakened, coughed up, steered the railwaydicks to the plant, and then done his stretch at the big said havin so much jack worried him, and he couldntsleep nights. Ralph Cram passed Kelloggs barn twice aday in them times, but he never even stopped to take a feelof that gunnysack with the hundred grand under the hay. Although they wasnt no art school in the old days, sport,we had some fine animal painters that aint never been rekan-ized by the elight of this burg. Mebbe it aint too late togive credit to one buddin young artist that painted a zebraby moonlight one evenin, without evertakin any art lessons, except helpinJoe Hines paint a corncrib out on Jer-sey Ridge road. When Captain Lon Bryson wasag
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookidthemwasgoodo, bookyear1922
