THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



15 



Strode's Stuff. 



How to Reach Me. 



Say, boys, the new office is O. K. 



I've got a private office all fitted up and 

 hereafter when you come to see me you will 

 be expected to do about as follows: You 

 come in the door and are met by the office 

 boy ; a very nice appearing boy, but I 'm 

 not much acquainted with him yet. He is 

 rather a severe young man, a great stickler 

 for form, and I am still standing in awe 

 of him, but that will probably wear away. 



You say to this young man : ' ' Good 

 morning, is ilr. Strode in?" Now mind, 

 you don't call out: "Say, is Strode about?" 

 All of those ancient forms are obsolete — • 

 played out. Nothing goes but ' ' ilr. ' ' Tlic 

 young man replies : "I will see. ' ' 



Then he comes in and asks me if I am 

 in. I tell him that I am. Then he gues 

 back to you and says: "Your card, 

 please. ' ' Yes, you will be expected to have 

 a card. 



Of course if you haven 't any printed or 

 have forgotten them and left thenf in your 

 other pants, you will, on stating your name 

 and business, be ushered into my august 

 presence. And then you will find the same 

 old Strode at the desk. Aside from hav- 

 ing grown slightly older I haven't changed 

 a bit. My wife says X get homelier. Y^ou 

 who have seen me will scarcely believe that 

 it is possible, only getting older, but 

 otherwise unehmged. "tt'e '11 shut the door, 

 so that the dignified young man can 't see 

 us, and we '11 have a time. You bet your 

 life we will. 



My Opinion of Webster. 



And a reference library! Say, I've got 

 enough books to fortify Port Arthur. You 

 can't lose me on anything — not a siugie 

 thing. I even know who it was that struck 

 Billy Patterson. I am a regular bureau of 

 information. This library contains the best 

 thoughts of the best minds on every sub- 

 ject, and I am going to read all of them 

 — when I get time. Then I'll know a lot, 

 and if you behave yourselves I '11 tell you 

 all about it. 



Last summer my boy had what the doc- 

 tor called "ptomaine poisoning." I want- 

 ed to tell you all about it at the time — 

 and moralize over it and so on. But I didn 't 

 know how to spell it, and the stenographer 

 didn 't know, and Kimball didn 't, and I 

 was ashamed to ask the doctor. I think the 

 boy took an unfair advantage in having such 

 a cussed disease that his father couldn't s 'e'.! 

 it. He had eaten too much canned salmon. 

 When I was a boy Aunt Mary would have 

 given me a dose of castor oil, and Uncle 

 John would have given me a good licking, 

 and I wouldn 't have done it again. But the 

 doctor said it was ptomaine poisoning, and 

 it 's surprising what a bill he got out of it. 

 Oh, yes, the boy got well a long time ago ; 

 he is naturally a hearty, tough chunk of a 

 lad, and he got well in spite of the doctor 

 and the horrible disease he had. 



But I eouldn 't spell it, nor could any of 

 my friends spell it, nor could I find any 

 reference to it in any of the books about the 

 office. There was nothing about it in the 

 Hoff-Hoo book, nor in Nelse Cladding's po- 

 lite treatise on saws, and all the dictionary I 

 had was a small vest pocket affair issued by 

 the Sehlitz Brewing Company. I got it when 

 we were in Jlilwaukee attending the meeting 

 of the National Association, the time that Ed 

 Taenzer — — but there, I mustn 't give things 

 away. These books may have told all about 

 it if I had given them a fair show, but I 

 was looking for the word in the "t's. '' Nov.- 

 I ask you honestly where would you have 

 looked for it? It is called "tomain. " I 

 reckon tacking that "p" on in front was 

 Webster 's idea. We have a Webster 's Un- 

 abridged now, and the entire office is run by 

 it. Just between you and me though, I 

 don 't think much of it. What do I care for 

 Webster? I understand lie is dead, has been 

 dead some time I am informed, and it isn 't 

 Daniel Webster at all, it 's Noah. Shall 

 Noah dictate to me how I shall spell? No 

 sir! — No old mossback like that! I tell you 

 I will spell as I durned please. I have a 

 wild, free way of spelling that is good 

 enough for me. 



The New Office. 



But say, I 've only been joshing about the 

 new office. It 's fine I If you had been farm- 

 ing with an old mold-board plow and thrash- 

 ing out your wheat with a flail, and had 

 been suddenly introduced to modern meth- 

 ods with a riding plow and a steam thrash- 

 er, you could appreciate the difference. And 

 there won't be any difficulty about seeing me 

 or anybod}' else. I will get a stand-in with 

 the office boy, I think. I am getting along 

 pretty well, but I made a bad break today. 



You see everybody here hangs his over- 

 coat in a closet provided for the purpose. I 

 am used to throwing mine over a chair or 

 anything I can find, but when 1 saw every- 

 body- else hang his coat up, I soon got into 

 the habit. At lunch time today I went and 

 got the coat, put it on and buttoned it up 

 carefully, then I took the gloves out of the 

 pockets and put them on, and went out. I 

 didn't go very far. The cold air which came 

 up the elevator shaft made me realize some- 

 thing was wrong, and I put my hand to my 

 head and found I had no hat on. Then it 

 hurst upon me what I had done. ' ' Pshaw ! ' ' 

 1 said, bitterly, "what a fool i am!" And 

 rliere were several strangers standing before 

 the elevator, and one was a young lady 

 stenographer that — ■ — but there! I went in 

 the office after my hat — there was nothing 

 else to do. And that boy had his eye on 

 me — his cold, glassy, gray eye. I am afraid 

 I have queered myself for a long time to 

 come. 



Thinking Thoughts. 



I have been thinking. It 's a habit that 

 grows on a man, this habit of thinking, or 

 ma3'be I only think I am thinking. That is 



not original. There is a story to the effect 

 that Tom Eeed was standing on the streets 

 of Portland, when he saw an old billy goat 

 named Jones, coming along the street. "Here 

 comes Jones," he said, "and he thinks he i» 

 thinking. " 



That is a good point. Many men believe- 

 they are thinking deeply, when in truth their 

 minds are perfect blanks. Then the quality 

 of a man's mind has much to do with think- 

 ing. Men succeed in this world as they 

 think good and practical thoughts. Now I 

 think a lot of thoughts that don't amount to 

 much. I lie awake nights and think out some 

 scheme, and when I go round next day ami 

 present it, I can't get anyone else to take 

 the same view of it that I do. There is a 

 screw loose somewhere. 



The trouble I guess is in the quality of 

 the brain, but I am not responsible for the 

 quality of my brain. Some men have a very 

 little brain of good quality; some have a big 

 brain of poor quality, and again some have 

 a little brain of poor quality. It is not 

 necessary to tell you, having the amount of 

 brain you have, and that of good quality, 

 that the condition of the last named party is 

 hopeless. And he isn't responsible for the 

 size of his brain, nor the quality thereof. For 

 example, I should like to think the same 

 thoughts that Theodore Roosevelt thinks, but 

 I can 't reach them. When the brains were 

 handed around I had not the power to pro- 

 test or I should assuredly have done so. 



There is such a thing as mental energy 

 and mental slothfulness. A man may be 

 physically lazy and mentally very alert, and 

 vice versa. The mentally alert but physic- 

 ally lazy man will use his mental alertness 

 to escape the curse of labor and remain idle 

 under all circumstances. The world owes 

 this man much. A man of this character 

 was set to digging a well a long time ago, 

 and hauling the dirt to the surface in a 

 bucket. This was very hard work indeed 

 for a man who is physically lazy, and being 

 raenta^lly very alert he rigged up a windlass 

 to do it. Hence we have the windlass in all 

 its countless forms in modern machinery. H? 

 was set to cutting wheat with a cradle, 

 which is very tiring work indeed, and he in- 

 vented a twine binder to do the work. 



Lastly, I have been thinking more than 

 usual. It is true my thoughts do not amount 

 to much, owing probably to the inferior 

 quality of my brain, but that is neither 

 here nor there. 



. There has been a great improvement in th ' 

 tools to work with about the office. But 

 there has been no improvement in the tool 

 with which I do my thinking. I still have 

 to think with the same old tool. I was go- 

 ing to tell you what I have been thinking 

 about, but I see I haven 't time. I have had 

 some strange thoughts, and would like to tell 

 you about them. 



Maybe I will sometime, but right now I 'm 

 going to Indiana. Eeally it is necessary I 

 should go to Indiana right now. 



CH.iRLEs D. Strode. 



