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Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2073, 27 May 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Three Very Old Stories-—At a reception to Rev. Dr. Seward, in New Britain, Conn., recently, reminsoenoes were in order. It was said that Dr. Seward insisted, when appointed pastor in 1836, that he should not be called upon for more than two public services each Sunday; that one member of the church shortly afterward prayed that (he pastor would receive grace to preach in the morning and afternoon, and, “ if his strength held out he might continue in the evening." Dr. Seward told of receiving a bushel of turnips onoe for marrying a couple, and some years later the bridegroom appeared and passed out £2 10s. saying—- “ My wife has turned out so well (hat I feel justified in this expenditure." A man once came into a church late, and started, with squeaky boots, to walk the whole length ol a ride gallery, when an exchange pastor stopped suddenly in his prayer, opened bis eyes, and, pointing a long finger at the disturber, said,— "You sit down right where you are 1” He then went on and finished his prayer.

Useful Dogs-—The British Government has decided to remit the tax on dogs employed on the south coast of devon. These animals perform the novel work of catching hold of a rope thrown from fiehemen’s boats. They bring it ashore, and the people who are waiting there are able to haul in the boat through the surf. The rooky coast prevents fishermen from pulling the boat ashore without the dogs, who have to be trained to the work, which is extremely risky. The world, if over it is to be reformed by men and through men, can only be eo by the personal intercourse of living men, living epistles, not dead ones. Love, meekness, kindness, forbearance, and unselfishness, manifested in human souls uttering themselves by word, look, and deed can alone regenerate men. The True Story of Jin.

We had laid up that night on the Platts River. Mr. Colby, the Sheriff, of Atapahe County, bad oome down to Chuff's ranch in search of jurors, and, seeing a party of Eastern tourists camped near by, had wdked over to make our acquaintance. He was so fresh and breezy and withal, so genial and gentlemanly, be had such an air of being master of the situation and himself that we were jail of ns glad when he accepted our commissary’s invitation to remain and sup with us. After tea we gaily assembled around the roaring camp fire, and for awhile wit and laughter winged the happy time. But, as the twilight deepened, the gusty talk blew over, silence fell upon ns with the night, Our shepherd, tor cnee unmindful of the tender lambs be had led forth into the wilderness, was seated astride a waggon tongue, pensively greasing his boots. The commissary had folded the map of Colorado, and, dumb as a door nail, had slid himself down from the bumpy log, on which he had bean for oome time a restless sufferer. Even Philomel, the ■onl and genius of out party, had, for a season, turned the key upon wit and song. Gracefully throned on her hand-trunk, aha watched, in eilenoe, the bright and happy sparks that danced a carmagnole as they roee, light-footed, from the orange flames. All was quiet upon the Platte; the tongues of the waggons were not more silent than ours. The Sheriff of Atapboe was the first to break the spell. “ I started in to tell yon,” he said, “ the true story of Jim while we were at supper, but I struck a snag in the shape of aflapjack and didn't get on with it.” u It’s not too late for it yet," eaid the commissary. "Well," continued Mr. Colby, “twenty yean ago I was stopping at Hard-np, Cal., trying to dig my fortune out of a mine there. In the town was a one-horse lawyer named Smith Johnson, who was about the biggest sot in all the diggin’s round. And Smith had a son named Jim—a red-haired, freckledfees little 10-year old scamp who was the terror of all the ben roosts and gardens in the town. The way I won Jim's heart was this. I bad a water-melon patch that was, if yon'll forgive the figure, the apple of my eye. One evening I walked forth into my garden to view it, and what should I see In tbs middle of it but that skeesies, Jim, letting into one of my watermelons as lively as a mole. Up I came in the rear and gathered up Jim by the waist band, whereat, finding bis little game was blocked, be commenced to wriggle and bowk

“ • Let me go,' (kid be. ‘ I won’t some ben no more. Phcue let me go, Mr. Colby.’

“ ‘ Ob, yon young eoamp,' eeid I. ' I've got you now end 1 think I'll keep you. 1 find it's very safe to pnnieb three btd boye that are eo ready to be good when they’re oaugbt. Do yon know what I'm going to do with you ?' said I, giving him a final shake and lotting him op on bis pins, 1 I'm going to lend yon to jail.’ " ‘ Ob, please, Mr. Colby, give me a whippin* an' let me go.’ ‘“No, I haven’t any right to whip yon, but I’m obliged by the law to send you to jail, and I oan tell yoo a jail is an awful plane. There’s rats there I’ "‘ Ob-o,’ groaned Jim. " 1 And sometimes in the night they gnaw off yonr toes.' “ 1 Plea/f, Mr. Colby,’ whined Jim. “ ‘ And yonr nose,' said I, 1 and yon have to go to bed without any candle, and yon oan’t play poker, and they do ray that the ghosts of the people that were there before and got bong tor stealing watermelons oome baek at midnight and make a dreadful noise. Ob, I oan tell yon, it'e no fun to go to jail.’ “ Well 1 after I bad chaffed the little soamp long enough, I gave him a sermon on the moral law and let him go with nothing worse than fright, but, after that, strange to say, Ji'O and I were cheek by jowl. “ Some time after the watermelon fraoas," continued Mr. Colby, “ I was going up the guloh to Bcooptown when I raw, on the side o! the hill, the tracks of the Vigilance Committee. They were three road agents that had been tried and bung the day before and left suspended from the branch of a tree to strike terror into the heart of evil doers. Well, there wae a mob of boys round this monument of justice, and they were diverting themselves with running down the hill and swinging the luckier road agents to the breeze. Jim was just receiving the cheers of the crowd for sending bis man up to the branches, where he had lodged a minute before ha came down, when he spied me in the road and came to meet me. " 1 Ter see, Mr. Colby,' he began, in a rather deprecatory voice, ‘ I didn’t see no ass in them three thieves loaiin' on that branch without being any u# to themselves nor nobody else, to I just sot them up in business. And now I’ve come down to ask whether you’ve saw an old whisky barrel on legs about here.'" “‘ A whisky barrel ?’'' said 1. * Why, no, Jim. What do you mean " ‘ Ob, T mean the old 'un, of course. He's gettin’ most uncommon bad lately.' “ Jim,' said I, ‘ did yon never hear about honoring yonr father V ‘“Honor that old sardine I He I be I Really an' actually now that’s a good ’un. Ton’d have eommereetted out o' yer skin to have seen that old oooa last night. I come home, goin’ on to 11, when he beered somethin’ rattlin 'round, an' he riz op,and when he seed me, one leg out and one leg in, he eays, lays he, ' Jim, whar've you been ?' an’ I save, eaye I, ‘ I've been down to the Silver Tooth.' “ ‘Then,’ eays be, 1 an* what wae yon doin’ thar ?’ “* I wae playin' a little game of poker,' ■aid I. "'Did yon make anythin', Jim?' says ha. " ‘ Tee, eit,' eaye I. ' 1 won three pounds.’ Then there oome a big thaw in his voioe, an’ha eaye, eays be, (meltin' like), ‘James Madison, my eon, take that thar jug that's at the bead of this bed and step right round to old Shorty’s and git me a gallon of tust-olasa benzine,’ eays he.

“ ‘ Bat I lost it all agin, father,' says I. “ Wall, air, he rared up in bed, an’ says

"Ton little eoamp, el I catch you round to the Silver Tooth agin I'll take the hide an* hair off yer, Hain't yon got nothin’ better to do than to spend your poor old lather's last red a-gemblin’ an’ disgracin’ of yer family ?' says he, bustin’ out crying’ like as though he'd jest buried hie demijohn. At this point in hie narrative Mr. Colby, paused. “The eequeH’’ cried Philomel. " Let’s hear how Jim wound up. 11 1 left Hard-up,” resumed Mr. Colby, “ about two years after I first met Jim. Three years later I happened to be in Virginia City, and one day while there, as 1 was coming out of the barber’s shop, who should walk up but Jim himself, ‘ Why, Jim,’said 1, 1 where'd you oome from? and where’d you get all those good clothes?' “ ‘ Them clothes,’ said Jim, ‘ why 1 did a merchant tailor out o' them clothes, I charged ’em to the old man. That’s a good nn, ain’t it 7 I wouldn't have done it, though, if I hadn't oome out as a reformed individual, and it was positively necessary to get some reformed toggery.’ "How did yon get reformed, Jim7’said I

" Well, yon see, Mr. Colby, father and I come over here about two years ago, and as soon as I come I took hold of a lot of boys here who didn’t have nobody to teach ’em to be as bad as they wanted to be, an’ I thought it was a pity to see so much talent going to waste, so I organised 'em into a gang of theives. Well, sir, I can tell yon we did a pretty lively business, but one Sunday Bishop Tuttle was rnnnin’ the ’Piseopal outfit in that meetin' house over there, and I jist thought I'd go in. Now I couldn’t tell yer, to save my skin, what he said to the crowd. (Beloved brethren he called ’em), but, by jing, when I oome out I just set down on a dry goods box and I begun to turn things over in my mind, an* I says to myself: 1 The way yon are goin' on, Jim, you’ll be in the penitentiary before you’re a man; you’ll just have to torn in an’ reform.’ So I went an’ got these here clothes an’now I'm printing for my livin’ in tbs Enterprise office. Do you think, Mr. Colby, it a boy like me turned square ’round he could da any good 7” “' Jim,’ I said, 1 a boy like yon can do what he pleases.’ Well, I talked to him a long while, and when we parted the mist that had been gathering in his eyes fell down in rain. I have never seen Jim since, but last winter I read in a Nevada paper that the Hon. James Madi'tJohnson had been elected Speaker oi the House of Representatives.

A Mere Accident.—ln searching lot gold in (he mining regions, men sometimes hunt months and months before they find gold in any quantity. They find just enough to make them hope that next day, or week, or month, they will find enough to make them wealthy. Often it is the merest accident that makes the gold visible. One of the Western papers gives an account of the way in which the proprietor discovered the gold where the raining camp Esmeralda is now located. The vein is what the miners call " a blind ledgethat is, there is nothing on on the snrtaoe of the ground to lead one to think that gold was beneath the surface. One day the prospector saw a mass of decomposed quarts mingled with some dirt that bad been scratched out by ground-squirrels when digging holes in the side of the hill. He examined the quartz oaretnlly, and decided to follow the holes dog by the squirrel. He found the vein, and now a rich mining eamp is located where the rquirrels dug the holes showing the way to the gold.

Her Social Position-— The Roman woman is thought to have received much training, in (he first two centuries, through the great number of secret societies existing. The burial inscriptions show that she bora an important part in these, and even held office m some of the municipalities. Her moral character at this time, however, did not stand very high, it we may trust the historians and satirists. 5*5