Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1885 — Will a Southern Man Lie? [ARTICLE]

Will a Southern Man Lie?

John Locker lives in Fayette County, this State, at present, but he was raised in North Carolina, where he spent most of his life. He is about sixty years of age and is bearded like a Russian bear, with scarcely a silver thread discernible. His eyes are small and black, and when he talks to you he gives you the impression that he susspects you are doubting his word, and wants to beat the liver out of you for it. His stories of experience in “Caroline,” however, are not all as tough as the one following, which, by the way, he swears is as true as the Bible. “We farmers,” said he, “used to hev rough times down in Caroline. Everything’s improved, nowerdays. That ar set o’ gears on the boss”—pointing to a harnessed animal hitched to a wagon—“aint wrought on a hait by the weather — ’specially es you keep ’em wc'l greased. I’ve seed the time when a hull set o’ gears wuz made up of a big wooden collar an’ a pair o’ old raw-hide traces, that wuz as stretchy in wet weather ez the seventh commandment. I recollec’ one time we run out o’ wood an’ I druv to a piece o’timber "fer a load. The best I could afford in the way of a team them days wuz a mule an’ a iourwheeled cart—with raw-hide traces ’sted o’ shalves. Wai, I hadn’t more’n got to the woods when it began to rain like fury; an’ hit jes’kep’pouring down the hull time I wuz loadin’. When I got through I mounted the mule an’ started home. I noticed on the way that the load ’peared to be gettin’ heavier an’ heavier, tell we fetched up at the woodshed, which wuz a pull o’ about a quarter mile. When we got thar’ the mule wuz well nigh fagged out, an’ he bed to brace hisselt to keep from droppin’ back on his handies. “When we pulled up at the cabin it hed quit rainin’ an’ the sun wuz out bright an’ warm. I jumped back to unload. Now you may guess how amazin’ supprised I wuz to find no wood or wagon behind us—-but I seed the traces wuz pulled out tight as fiddle-strings, an’ reached back along the track to the timber line, wliar’ I lost sight o’ the durn things.

“While I stud thar’ lookin’ like a fool—jes’ es you’re lookin’ now—l act’ally seed thet wagon with the wood on it come creepin outen the timber, follerin’ the raw-hide traces es they drawed up in the sun. You see, the rain had slackened ’em, an’ sure es I’m here, they hed an’ stretched, an’ 1 b’lieve in my soul the load didn’t start tell the inule got to the cabin an’ braced hisself.” “Did the wagon come up all right?” “Oh, yes; but the work o’ dryin’ an’ contractin’ the traces wuz slow, an’ es I hadn’t haltered the mule to a stump I reckon he’d a give back. Ez it wuz, the load pulled up in about fifteen mim utes, an’ stopped in a couple o’ yards o’ the mule’s heels. When I ontied the beast he staggered around tell I thought he’d faint, but he didn’t. “Now, es you don’t credit this story, I kin take you back to Caroline an’ show you the very identical piece o’ timber —tho’ the cabin’s been tore down twenty year or more, an’ the mule turned up his huffs a short time after I lef the State.”— lndianapolis Herald.