Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 195, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1914 — Youth Becomes a Huck Finn to Dodge Onion Bed [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Youth Becomes a Huck Finn to Dodge Onion Bed

CHICAGO. —Huckleberry Finn is alive again. Right now Huck Finn is in danger of resuming the name of John Sopracki. Huck, or John, ran away the other day from his home at 8300 Mackinac avenue, South Chicago, and

started on his career of adventure. He knew his mother wanted him to weed onions, so hej started the story that he had been drowned. Anthony Zabocki, thirteen years old, of 3325 Buffalo avenue, ran through the streets of South Chicago with tears in his eyes and told John’s parents of the tragedy which had followed a Bwim in the Calumet river. He was a reincarnation of Tom Sawyer.

“Johnny’s drownded,” he cried, and John, hidden behind a fence near by, smiled in glee. Having started parents and police on a hunt for the body, John started on his adventures. He slept in alleys, curling up in empty barrels, and for food stole bananas from the carts of fruit peddlers. When the police failed to find John’s clothing or any trace of the body they became suspicious. They wahted to question Tony, and Policeman Albert Hickland of the South Chicago police went to the Zabocki home. Tony couldn’t be found. The policeman at last went into the woodshed and heard sounds coming from under the floor. Hickland was rather large for the Bpace, but succeeded in dragging Tony into the yard. And right there Huck Finn became plain John. Tony confessed that his friend wanted to take a vacation and had asked him to spread the tale of bis drowning.