DAN'L AND DAD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXXI, Issue 10236, 3 January 1894, Page 6

DAN'L AND DAD.

(Detroit Free Frees.) It waa at a steamboat landing on the Arkansas river, below Little Rook. There was an excited crowd in front of a warehouse at the landing, and several passengers went ashore to find out what had happened, A young man about twentyfour years of age soi.med to be a sort of boss around there, and we appealed to him for information. Pushing his bat over a little more on his right ear, end squirting a jet of tobacco-juice at the left eye of the nearest dog, he replied: “ Gentlemen, I kin tell tell ye all about it< Do ye want to see the corpse ? ” “Then some one is dead.” “ Dead as a coon-track, and it’s my old dad at that! ” “ Been a row here ? ”

« Not a bit of it. Dad jest made a fule of hisself. He’s in thar’ waitin’ fur a cart to take hisself home to be laid out and buried.” “Never seed nutbin’ to ekal it in all my bo’n days! ” said a man in the crowd. “ I was right yere, or I wouldn’t hev sniggered to it, no how,” added a second. “ It was jest this way, strangers,” continued the son as ho picked a sliver off a pine box and began to whittle at it with a spring-back jackknife.- “Dad an’ me comes down yera this mawnin’ to look around fur nien to pick cotton. Dad waa powerful frisky all the way down, an’he sez to me, sez he: “ ‘ Dan’l, I kin out-walk, out-run, outshute, out-holler and out-lick anythin’ on top of this yera airth’s surface, and I’ll bet our farm agin a drink of Pine Bluff whisky on it!’

“ I sees dad was purly chucky, and I sez to him, ssz I: " * Dad, you’s top of the heap around yere, and nobody kin deny, but doan’ you goand meet up with no fight in town. Wo’s ortec cotton pickers, we is, and we doan’ want no fussiu’nor nutbin.’ “ And with that dad jumps fo’ feet high and cracks his heels together and whoops out that he’s b’ar-trapa, pizen, powder and catamount, all biled down into one, and that he’s dangerous if anybody goes to pick up his hind foot.” “ Yaas, and I hears him holler when he’s a mile away,” said one of the crowd. ■ “ Of co’ee you did,” replied Dan’l, "of co’se. Dad was powerful on the holler. He’d holler a b’ar out’n a tree half a nsile away. When we got down yere thar waa a feller from Sb Louis with a patent lungtester masheea a-standin’ right yere. Thar’s the piece of it agin the fence, while the feller hisself is ten miles away and still runnin’.”

“But ’twasn’t his fault,” protested a man on mule back.

“ I ain’t Bayin’ as *twas,” placidly answered Dan’i. “ I’m a-sayin’ as dad got mixed up and made a fule of hisself. No sooner had he sob eyes on the masheen than he cracks his heels together and crows like a rooster, and sez to me, sez he:

“ * Dan’J, Ikin blow the in’ards rightout of the hull blamed State of Arkansaw if I kin gat a brace for my feet, and I’m agoin’ to try it.’ “I tried to shy him off, but dad waa powerful sot in his ways, and he crows some more an’.hollers:

“ ‘ Whoop! Whoopee ! Lemma stand up to that yere mouthpiece, and all ot you’na who want to save yar h’ar had better stand on yer heads! Stand back and gimme room to nwell up and blow!’ “ ‘Whoop ! Whoopee ! Lemme get hold of . them ’ere handles, and all yens who don’t want to tip over when the airth cornea up had better hang to the fences !. Dan’l, stand back an’ gimme room/ ” “ Yas, I heard him say them remarks,” put in one of the crowd. “ So’d I,” added half a dozen others. “ Of co’se he said ’em,” continned Dsn’l, "of co’se. Nobody’s denying that he said ’em. Dad jest figgered on blowin’ up ole Arkaneaw jest as easy as liftin’ off the kiver of a pail. He spit on bis hands, braced hia feet, an’ when ho blowed into that ar’ mouthpiece I felt this hull county sorter rise up and shah’ herself.” “ So’d I! ” codied out seven or eight voices in chorus.

“ Dad, he had a powerful good thing of it, when there was a rip and a smash, the masbeen flew to pieces and the airth sunk back with a chugg, which made us d'zzy.” “ Then your father had broken a bloodvessel or something of the sort ?” I queried. “Skarcely, stranger skercely. Dad wan’t no man to atop at one blood-vesseh He jest busted hiaself all to pieces, and was agone afore we could reach him. I might say he sorb o’ ruu. together and caked. Ho was six feet high when ho blowed into that artube, and how you can’t make him over four feet ton, aa he lies in thar on a board. Jest pulled.hia knees up aa’ hia shoulders down, and I reckon his lungs would hold his galluses if thar was buttons on ’em. The man who owned; the'masheen wasn’t to' blame—of 'co’se' he wasn’t—hue' when he seed the calamity he started fur tittle Eock on the jump, and he was jumpin’ when ha turned the co’ner of the hill up thar! Dad’s in yere, stranger. Come and take a look. Mighty good man, dad was, but a leetle too coltish when he had about fo’ drinks of apple-jack under his shirt bosom. Crowd back thar, boys, and make room! Doan’ act like you never dun met up with a calamitous spectacle befo’!”