Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1888 — The Boys and the Bee-Gum. [ARTICLE]

The Boys and the Bee-Gum.

One of our most popular preacherstells a “rich one” on some of the boys who “wore the gray,” “one of whom he was which:” While quartered in North Mississippi they attempted to open ne’gotiations with a stingy farmer for the purchase of a bee-gum. He refused to sell the honey, whereupon the boys informed him in a chivalrous and soldierly way that they were going to have the bee-gum anyway, but preferred to pay for it. He still refused and defied them to show their heads about the premises at night. The boys, bent on having the honey despite the threats of the old “tight-fist,” went back in the night, and following the direction of their leader, took the heaviest gum they could find in the yard, having to carry it “turn about" and wade a creek before they reached the distributing point, and just as they were huddling around in breathless suspense, anxiously awaiting with watery mouths their midnight repast on Samson’s favorite dish, what was their chagrin on the one hand and suppressed laughter on the other, as one of their number “struck a light” and they beheld before them a large gum of ashes, which they had mistaken for a bee-gum. Walker County (Ga.\ News. -—-■ -i...* , ■ ■ ■ ■ 11— a