Thursday, August 30, 1900
While Mr. Baxter’s team was coming from Millboro Thursday, they came across two large rattlesnakes on the new boulevard, crossing the road. The team became frightened and backed over the road into the creek. Mr. Baxter, after quieting his horses, killed both snakes.
– – –
The crop of huckleberries at Mt. Seeall in the Hills was something wonderful. Two years ago, the woods were burned, and the black huckleberry seems to be superseded by a blue variety that is regarded by some as a great improvement for size and flavor. Up to a week or more since, it was estimated a hundred bushels had been gathered, yet the visible supply not appreciably diminished.
– – –
Hugh P. McLaughlin on Browns Creek and others seem to be considerably annoyed by their lambs coming up missing. Someone has good eating at other people’s expense
– – –
Some western newspapermen are great prevaricators. In writing of a cyclone, one of them said, “ it blew all the staves out of a whiskey barrel and left nothing but the bunghole, changed the day of the week, turned a well inside out and a cellar upside down, moved the township line, blew a mortgage off a farm, the crack out of a fence and the wind out of a politician.”
DUNMORE
Wanted in our town: A big hotel, a livery stable and a good doctor.
K. D. Swecker and Cliff Noel made the run from Ronceverte one day last week in 9 hours on their wheels.
Mrs. J. L. McLaughlin killed two large rattlesnakes in her yard last week. One was nearly in the house.
E. O. Moore says he is very charitable to the poor, also to the widows and orphans. He has wool carded to make them socks.
C. B. Swecker has just received two wagon loads of Old Hickory Rustic Chairs and Rockers. They are the best in the world. Also, a fine line of burial outfits, coffins, and caskets, etc.
SHOOTING AFFRAY
Last Sunday Clinton Mann and Porter Mann, brothers, were walking down the grade opposite the Levels when they met two Italian laborers, Carlos Nickola and George Raffi. The Italians had been to the tunnel and were evidently full of whiskey. They spoke to the Mann brothers in broken English, inviting them to take a drink, they think. They refused and were passing by when Nickola drew a pistol, shooting Porter Mann in the back, the bullet lodging in his body inflicting a dangerous and possible fatal wound.
Clinton Mann then, with almost incredible swiftness, got stones and though the Italians fired on him a number of times, he caused them to run.
The Italians were arrested Monday afternoon, being found in the icehouse at Wash Spencer’s where they boarded.
They were given a preliminary hearing, at which the prisoners denied having any pistols though some of their witnesses who were in a hearing distance stated that a number of shots were fired. They were committed to jail at this place Tuesday
FOLKLORE GLEANINGS
Our pioneer ancestors were people of excellent ideas and some of their best philosophy appears in laconic expressions.
An old Pocahontas philosopher seemed fond of giving this advice 75 years ago, which he had picked up somewhere even if he had not formulated it himself.
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
Those who have been put to inconvenience by book borrowers, to say nothing about newspaper beats, appreciate the pith of some homely rhymes that frequently were written on the first blank leaf or pasted on the cover.
Do not steal this book, my honest friend,
Or I fear the gallows will be your end.
God will say in the Judgment Day,
Where is that book you stole away?
You will say, I do not know,
And the Judge will say, Go down below.
From what we can learn about the pioneer babies, their parents were not very happy over children who could talk before learning to walk and run, being so very smart. In these times of mental precocity such children would be greatly admired as giving promise of becoming men and women able to keep up with the progressiveness of the outgoing and incoming centuries. Among the old people there was this melancholy vaticination concerning such children as we would be proud of and happy over nowadays.
The child that talks before it goes,
Will have sorrow, pain and woes.
There is a mystic significance attached to this that does not appear on the surface. Its deeper meaning was this: that if people let their ideas get too far ahead of what they may be able to perform, and get into places they are not fit for, sorrow, pain and woe will be their portion sooner or later.
SPORTSMEN’S FINDS
Party of Afton, Ill. sportsmen were cruising up the Illinois River last spring on a hunting trip when one dropped a deer’s foot horn handle Bowie knife overboard in 20 feet of water. The loser visiting Gratton, a local fisherman’s headquarters, in the early summer was surprised to see a resident complacently whittling a stick with his knife. He proceeded to claim it and identified it as his property by the initials graven on the handle. Well, pardner, responded the present holder, I s’pose you may be telling the truth, but I cut this here carver outta the pouch of a 40-pound catfish that I took in my net in May, and I reckon it ought to be worth a reward. The reward was paid, and the Alton man carries his knife again, claiming that ever since its recovery it has added virtues as a mascot. – Forest and Steam
BIRTH
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Curry, a ten-pound boy.
