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“Jim” Parker Is Happy
SELLS BITS OF HIS CLOTHING FOR SOUVENIRS AND FEELS
RICH.
Buffalo, Sept. 10.—“Jim” Parker,
the stalwart colored waiter who sprang upon Czolgosz and prevented
him from shooting the President more than twice, is a little the
happiest man at the exposition. “Reckon ah’ll have to go into de
show business,” said he yesterday to a Tribune reporter. Parker,
as is pretty generally known now, was immediately behind the assassin
and threw himself upon him. His weight of 250 pounds crushed Czolgosz
to the floor, and he was quickly disarmed.
Parker at once became a marked man.
The Midway lost its attractiveness to thousands of visitors until
they had seen “that man Parker.” Parker works in a restaurant on
the grounds, and has a fondness for clothes of striking pattern.
A visitor at the exposition hunted him up to-day, and, after shaking
hands with him, said: “I say, Parker, give us something to remember
you by.” Parker was fishing around in his pockets for something
that would answer for a memento, when his new friend said: “What’s
the matter with one of those big smoked pearl and gold vest buttons?
I’m from Cheboygan, Mich., and I’m kind of stuck on them buttons.
I’ll give you 25 cents for one.” Parker out with his penknife and
cut off the button, which the man from Cheboygan was soon showing
to his friends.
In a few minutes another man came
around for a button and raised the bid to 50 cents. Less than half
an hour elapsed before a third man in quest of a button turned up.
Parker borrowed some pins and stuck himself together, and before
night came had sold the remainder of his waistcoat buttons at $1
apiece. “Well, if I can’t get a button I’ll buy a piece of the vest,”
said an eager man too late to get a button. “Ah’ll go ye,” said
Parker, who took off his vest and cut out of it a piece three inches
square. Parker straightway had the same remarkable success selling
souvenir pieces of his waistcoat as had attended his button sale,
and before 6 o’clock the garment was all gone.
“Hang it all,” said a man who came
too late to get a piece of the waistcoat. “What’ll you take for
one of them shoes you’re wearing? I’ve kind of got my mind set on
having a souvenir off of you, an’ I’ll give you $3 for one of your
shoes, or $5 for the pair. Remember, though,” said the man, “I don’t
pay for any but the real thing. Don’t try to ring in any sample
shoes on me, understand. I want the pair of shoes you wore when
you fell all over that blasted Sloblots or whatever his name is.”
“I done sell ’im dem shoes,” said
Parker. “Ah’m goin’ t’ sell all my old duds for souvenirs. Folks
keep a-comin’ and sayin’, ‘Is you de coon wot struck Shellgoose?’
an’ den dey want somethin’ fur t’ remember me by. I don’ see no
way out er it, ’cept t’ go on de road wid a show, like Peter Jackson
and George Dixon and Jim Jeffreys.”
“No,” said Parker to a man who whispered
confidentially into his ear. “Ah’m all outer buttons an’ vests,
but I’ll sell a piece o’ dis year necktie for a dollah.”
After the transaction was completed,
Parker winked and said, “Everything seems jes’ a-comin’ my way.
I ain’t got much of my ’riginal cloze lef’, but ah’ve got $37 in
col’ cash, an’ I guess ah’m a wahm baby widout cloze.”
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