Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1891 — LITTLE BOYS AND GIRLS. [ARTICLE]

LITTLE BOYS AND GIRLS.

A Sure Way to KtU Them. The guides who make their living by piloting parties through the unknown regions of the Maine woods are a jolly, good-natured set of men with a knack for story telling that the following anecdote illustrates: “Frost Bunker, of the Dead River region, is a guide who, it is said, is a successful rival to Janies A. Smith, of Phillips—a Rangely guide—in story telling. Frost is intimately acquainted with ‘John Smith,’ who is well known in all parts of the country. He says he was with John on a hunting trip once on a time, when they came upon a man who had Ared at an owl perched in a big tree about a dozen times without success. As they approached the stranger offered John a $5 bill if he would secure the owl. John cocked his rifle and walked around the tree. The owl turned his head in the same direction as far as John walked. John kept on going around the tree, the owl turning his head all the while. Just as John completed the tenth circuit the owl’s head was twisted off and he fell to the ground dead. John said small owls couldn’t be killed that way because their feet would fly up in turning.” Old Jack. My father was a farmer, and lived about three miles from the city of L., New York, says a writer in the Rural Home. He had a bright sorrel horse named Jack we raised from a colt. He was a very handsome hurse and had a great deal of spirit, but never had any bad tricks. His right hind foot was white, and he had a white star in his forehead. His eyes were prominent and always kind, while his whole expression indicated unusual intelligence. Jack was an animal that would attract attention anywhere. A few days after having been shod one time, he began to limp, and not being able to discover any cause he was turned loose in the barn-yard where it would be softer for his feet. Suddenly he was missed. The gate, which had been fastened on each side by a wooden peg, was open, the inside peg lying on the ground. I could see Jack’s footsteps leading toward the city. Harnessing another horse I was soon following, but was, as I learned, over two hours behind him. On reaching the city I drove through the main street and at the further end there beheld Jack, standing in front of our family grocery store, with his head up to the post, quietly kicking flies and wearing a very dejected air. As I came up he greeted the horse I drove, it being his mate, and quietly submitted to the halter that I imposed. The groceryman came out and said he knew the horse, and that he had been standing there for some time. It occurred to me to take him to the blacksmith, whose shop is not far away, and see if he could discover the cause of his lameness. As I drove up the blacksmith met me at the door and said that about two hours before Jack crowded his way into the shop where he was attending to other horses. That he drove him out three times, but he kept coming in again. He Anally procured a whip that he had used, and then Jack went off down the street, limping considerably as he trotted off.

I said that was why I bought him —relating the circumstances, and asked him to pull off the shoe he had put on a few days before. He did so, and from one of the nail-holes came a large quantity of pus. He had driven one of the nails crookedly, and it had gone into the tender part of the hoof, hence the trouble. I told the blacksmith if Jack ever came there again to treat him more considerately, and I never took another horse to that shop again. Poor old Jack! After my father died and the farm was sold, he was sold, too, and the family went to the city to live. I did not hear from Jack for several years, until one of the neighbors one day said they saw him hitched with another horse towing a boat on the Erie Canal. I knew then he must be near his end, for this is about the hardest work a horse can do, and they are soon used up. All along the canal can be seen horses the boatman have turned out to die, The canal was only about half a mile from my father’s farm, a crossroad leading direct, and Jack had uften been there after the sand and

gravel that is obtained from a large pit on the bank. The next I heard about Jack was from the man who purchased the old farm. He said that on going out to the barn one cold, rainy morning late in the autumn he was surprised to And a horse lying down at the barnyard gate, which opens from the road and is kept securely locked. At Arst he thought it was one of his own, but a closer examination soon satisAed him on this point. It was a very old sorrel horse, terribly poor, and had evidently been subjected to hard usage. He touched the animal with his foot, but it did not move—it was dead. The neighbors, he said, told him what horse it was. Poor old Jack had come home to die!