Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1895 — She Understood the Trick. [ARTICLE]

She Understood the Trick.

“A short time ago,” said Deputy United States Marshal Harris, “a rancher up in the mountains of Lake County, Cal., grew tired of walking five miles over the hills to get the country paper from his mail box, so. he felled a Dig tree across the road so that the stage would be compelled to travel a longer route that led past his house. A warrant was issued for his arrest for obstructing the United States mails, and I went up to serve it. “I found the old man sitting on his back porch smoking his corncob pipe, and commenced reading the warrant: ‘The President of the United States sends greeting.’ Just then the long barrel of a muzzle-loading rifle was shoved out of the kitchen door and aimed at my head. I saw a norvous little gray-headed woman at the other end of the gun with her fingei on the trigger. I could see the bright gray eye twinkling through the buckhorn sight as she, remarked: “ ’You git, and don’t you come snoopin’ roun’ liyur agin. The President sent his greetin’s onst before when the ol’ man cut some timber on gov’ment land, and it cost him ’bout a hundred dollars an’ mighty nigh a month in jail. Then he found out the President didn’t know nothin about it. If the President wants tc be friendly with the ol’ man he’ll have to come right hyur without sendin’ no greetin’s. Git!’”