{"id":7968,"date":"2022-02-23T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspaperhistory.com\/?p=7968"},"modified":"2022-02-23T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T06:00:00","slug":"the-conversion-of-silas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/the-conversion-of-silas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Conversion of Silas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From <\/em>The Topeka State Journal, February 23, 1914<\/em><\/a>. By Roy K. Moulton.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of all the fossels in our town,
\u00a0 \u00a0 Si Haskins was the boss.
He said the autymobile never
\u00a0 \u00a0 Would replace the hoss.
He always used to sneer and snort
\u00a0 \u00a0 Whenever one went by,
And when he’d see one busted down,
\u00a0 \u00a0 He’d laugh until he’d cry.
He said the owners all were fools
\u00a0 \u00a0 To go and spend their dough
For them gol ding contrivances
\u00a0 \u00a0 That never seemed to go.
Them devil wagons got his goat,
\u00a0 \u00a0 He’d never fall for one.
Of all the gol-dum foolishness,
\u00a0 \u00a0 Gas wagons took the bun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day a nephew died and left
    An old one-lung machine
A-standing out in old Si’s barn.
    Si got some gasoline
And poured it in the gosh durned thing
    To see if it would start.
He cranked her up and thought he’d try
    To drive the old gas cart.
He drove it down the road all right,
    Forgettin’ all his care,
And rode around till almost night
    And visited everywhere.
Next morning bright and early he
    Was poundin’ down the street.
He scared the hosses right and left
    And knocked folks off their feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week from then he bought a car.
    It was of high hoss power.
He didn’t take time off to eat,
    But drove it every hour.
He raced with everybody who
    Showed up within a mile
He said you might as well be dead
    As not to be in style.
His whiskers blew out in the breeze,
    As down the road he flew.
He said: \u201cI’ll show those gol ding boobs
    A fancy trick or tew.\u201d
He spent all of his waking hours
    In showing them new tricks.
Four cylinders became too tame,
    And so he bought a six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He’s been arrested nineteen times
    For speedin\u2019, so they say.
He got his whiskers all shaved off,
    For they got in his way.
He talks of touring cars all day
    And dreams of them at night,
And nowadays whene\u2019er he sees
    A piece of horseflesh pass
He sort of chuckles, sneering like,
    And hollers out: \u201cNo class.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The Topeka State Journal, February 23, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton. Of all the fossels in our town,\u00a0 \u00a0 Si Haskins was the boss.He said the autymobile never\u00a0 \u00a0 Would replace the hoss.He always used to sneer and snort\u00a0 \u00a0 Whenever one went by,And when he’d see one busted down,\u00a0 \u00a0 He’d laugh until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,21],"tags":[267],"class_list":["post-7968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-the-topeka-state-journal","tag-roy-k-moulton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}