Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 160, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1917 — TRIPPING UP “CY" [ARTICLE]

TRIPPING UP “CY"

Job Is Done to Entire Satisfaction of His Hearers. Spinner of Yarns, Always More Remarkable Than Those Told by Others, Is Beaten at His Own Game. Sour John Marvin glanced out of the window of the shop where he was making an afternoon call, “Cy Pelton Is headed this way," he announced, “and I will make a prediction. If anyone here present ventures to speak of anything out of the ordinary that he has heard or read about, Cy will follow with something In the same line, only a little more remarkable, that he has been an eyewitness of, and he’ll be sure to place it in some place pretty far from this town. But Cy Pelton needn’t flatter himself that he ever fools me. I have sense enough to know that he always tnakes up his story as he goes along, and I live in hopes^of-seeing him-tripped up some day.” At that moment the door opened and the reputed spinner of “yarns” walked in. At his heels came Uncle Noah Briggs, the acknowledged oldest inhabitant. “I’ve just been reading an interesting piece about Abraham Lincoln," Uncle Noah began, as he accepted the easiest chair. “When he was a young man clerking in a store, someone stumped him one day to pick up a barrel of rum off the floor and hold it up to his mouth and drink out of the bnnghole; and he did It. But after he laid the barrel down again, he spit every drop of the liquor out of his mouth. That goes to show how strong Mr. Lincoln was In his arms and also how strong temperance he was.” Uncle Noah would have continued, but he made a fatal pause, and Cyrus Pelton got the floor. *T had an uncle, on my mother’s side,” he said, “that I guess was full as strong In his arms as ever Mr. Lincoln was, and even stronger in temperance. Be was blacksmith in the town of Industry. “Qne time, when I was a small boy, Hiram Quint, one of Uncle Life’s near neighbors, was building a big barn, and he had asked a lot of men to the raising. “In those <jays almost everyone drank hard cider, and thouglit nothing of it, but Uncle Life was dead set against It. When he came along that day and saw the big barrel of cider that Mr. Quint had provided for refreshment, he says, ‘Hiram, your raising would come on full as well, and some chaps here would be better off, if you would carry that cider down to the brook and dump it.’ “I saw Hiram wink at the bystanders, and says he, ‘l’m hardly strong enough. But if you are,’ says he, •you’re at liberty to do it.’ “ ‘All right,’ says Uncle Life, and he made for his blacksmith shop. In a few minutes back he came, bringing a horseshoe that he had hammered out in such a way that he could make the heel calks fit into the bunghole of the barrel as it lay there on the ground. Then, with the horseshoe as a handle, he lifted that barrel of elder as If It had been a carpetbag and carried it to the brook and emptied it.” “Now, if you will give me a chance, I should like to put in a word,” said Uncle Noah, with a show of Impatience. “It so happened that I was at the raising of Hiram Quint’s barn.” “I didn’t know that you were acquainted In the town of Industry,” said Cyrus In evident surprise. John Marvin’s eyes sparkled. “So there was such a raising,” he said. “Well, that bears out Cy’s story, so far. 1 suppose the rest of it was equally correct. Uncle Noah?’’ “No, it wasn’t,’ replied the old man emphatically; whereupon one of John Mdrvin’s rare smiles lighted up his grim features. ‘Now, I always try to be accurate," said Cyrus, hitching uneasily in his chair, “but I was only a little shaver at the time, and mebbe my recollection Is a little at fault,” , “No, -you were wrong, Cy,” said Uncle Noah firmly. “When you broke In on me, I Was about to tell the story, and tell it as ’twas. It wasn’t a barrel of cider that your uncle carried down and dumped In the brook In the wap and manner that you described it. It was two barrels of cider—one in each hand.” —Youth’s Companion.