Words of Wisdom for Bachelors

1906

Candy catches more girls than poetry.

Half the time a girl gets engaged just for practice.

A man could be very fond of his sister if she were somebody else's.

There is money in most any occupation except the one you are in.

A man can keep a fair share of his popularity by not running for office.

It's very improper to do an improper thing you are going to get caught at.

A very rich widow can get very stout without any one daring to call her fat.

If a man did the things he tells his sons to do he would think he was a milk-sop.

What a woman likes about spooning in the moonlight is the way it doesn't hurt her complexion.

It takes a widow an awful long time to learn what she knew before her husband died.

You will always find that when a girl will admit her shoe pinches her it's over the instep.

A woman would be much crosser than she is if she weren't so busy trying to keep her husband from getting cross.

When a man tries to build a chicken house himself to save money it's a sign he is going to be broke for the next three years.

If a woman can't think of anything else to be miserable about she will go away from home so as to worry over the children.

Babies have very strong constitutions not to have spasms over every new language the women folk discover to talk to them.

A girl seems to have an awful easy time making a man think he wants to marry her, when she is the one that is doing the wanting.

There is hardly anything that tickles a woman so much as to have you remember her boy's name when you just happened to guess it. — From "Reflections of a Bachelor," in the New York Press.

The Wogglebug Story — Witches and Hobgoblins

Wisconsin, 1905

Bachelor Brothers Move Away to Avoid Witches and Hobgoblins

Christian and William Born, who live in Lebanon on the Woodland R.F.D. road next to J. B. Schneider, have been busy for some time past in building a sort of a Noah's ark on wheels, and there has been considerable speculation by their neighbors as to whether the outfit would turn out to be an automobile or a flying machine. Nothing would have surprised their friends, however, as the boys have long been regarded as foolish.

Last week Thursday they loaded up their deep sea going cab with a number of trunks and boxes, and started on a pilgrimage, leaving everything on the place as though they intended returning that day. Their shepherd dog was left as custodian over the eighty acre farm and about thirty head of stock, besides a large number of chicks.

When they did not return that day nor the next the neighbors went over and cared for the stock and notified the chairman of the town, Herman Witte, of the case. He started a deputy sheriff after the boys, and he overtook the outfit at Troy Center Tuesday evening. They said they were en route to the sunny south in obedience to a command from the spirit of their dead father, who has also ordered the construction of their portable house. The deputy invited them to return by rail with him to Juneau to meet a number of his friends, members of the medical profession and they readily assented, as their team needed a rest anyway. So they are now in Juneau, where they were examined as to their sanity.

The boys' father died some years ago, and they have been living with their mother on the farm, neither of them being married, although they are both over forty-five years of age. They have been having a strenuous time with the witches and hobgoblins the past year. Somebody bewitched three of their best milkers at a time when milk was high, while another witch cast a spell over their chickens when the egg market was around thirty cents. All this they were up against for years and withstood manfully, but when the Wogglebug told them that their farm was heavily encumbered and would soon be foreclosed upon by a number of witches, they gave up in despair and at this time their father's spirit appeared and billed them for a trip to Missouri.

The neighbors say that Mrs. Born has been mentally unsound for years, and that the boys have always been very eccentric and extremely superstitious.

Their team and wagon passed through the village this afternoon being driven back to Lebanon, and its odd appearance attracted lots of attention. — Neosho Standard.