Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1883 — Mississippi ’Skeeters. [ARTICLE]

Mississippi ’Skeeters.

The railroad station at Mississippi City is located among the pines, and the way the mosquitos were biting there, eien in April, was enough to keep a mule moving. After awhile we got to talking about the insects, and I asked a native of the country: “Are they thicker than this in the stimmer ?” “Thicket 1 Why, in July there’s a million to one!’* “And larger?” “Larger! Why, sir, one of the regular ’skeeters of this section could carry twenty of these on his back and still fly high r I thought I’d down him at once, and so continued: “Now, sir, answer toe truthfully. Do you believe that six of your biggest mosquitos could kill a mule if he was tied up out here?” He' looked at me in amazement for a minute, and then went to the door and beckoned in the man sitting on a box and watching the horses. When the muTi came in, the native said: “William, you remember that air roan mule o’ yours?” “I reckon.” “In perfect health, wasn’t he?” “He was.” “Cottld run like a deer, and kick like a saw-log?* “He could?” “And he waft all alone in a ten-acre lot, William?” “He was.” “And two of them mild swamp ’skeeters got arter him one morning, and run him down and killed him, and devoured both hams and sucked every drop of blood in his body? William, speak up 1” “Stranger, if they didn’t then I hope to be chewed to lags!” stud William, and he said it exactly like a man who wouldn’t have' allowed there were two ’skeeters if he hadn’t been earnestly convinced of the fact. He walked out doors, and a deep silence fell npon us two, broken only after a long interval by the native saying: “Fve alius kinder suspected that them skeeters had assistance from a hoss-fly, but I can’t prove it. I kinder think the hoss-fly held hinvdown till the murder was committed!”' — M. Quad.