Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 290, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1910 — A Phenomenon, Indeed! [ARTICLE]

A Phenomenon, Indeed!

Four-year-old Elmer and his family had just moved to the country, and Alice in Wonderland hadn’t anything on Elmer in that land of green grass and wonderful creatures. One of the first things to bld him welcome was a friendly old hen with a very new brood of “peep’peeps.” And no Buddhist at his shrine could have been more assiduous in his devotions than was that city-bred baby to the strutting mother and her fluff balls. Now it happened that one day Elmer's father observed a cat, unattached and lanky, casting what he took to be a hungry eye at those same chickens. Looking around for a harmless but effective missile, he discovered a bag of soup beans right at big hand, and thereby hangs this tale. For a short time afterward little Elmer ran into the house with his face crimson with excitement. “Oh, mamma!” he shouted. “Look at these little eggs I found in the grass! The peep-peeps laid them!” And opening his hand, he disclosed a half dozen soup beans.