Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1875 — A Country School Episode. [ARTICLE]

A Country School Episode.

There was a melancholy occasion at a country school-house near Columbus, Ohio, a few days ago. The school-house is located near the line of a railroad, and a slight collision chanced to occur between two freight trains, in which one car loaded with whiskey was badly wrecked, and several barrels of the liquor tossed out beside the track in a damagad condition. During the nooning the pupils of the school went down to investigate ths character of the accident, and discovered the whiskey. They were boys and girls together, and some of the boys proposed that they taste the liquor that was wasting, which suggestion was taken up as a good joke and was complied with. The day was cold and the spirits produced no effect so all the pupils drank of it several times just for fun, and then returned to the school-house. In the warm school room the heat produced the usual effect upon those carrying much whiskeyin the stomach, and the school became singularly restless. Suddenly one boy was taken awfully sick. - The schoolma’am asked him what ailed him, and he said he was ill, which fact he made painfully apparent by doing what the whale did with Jonah, only he distributed bread and butter and things over the floor instead of prophets. The schoolma’am was fuH of sympathy, and was doing what she could for the afflicted youth, when another boy was taken even worse. He seemed to have no object in life save to get his boot heels up out of his mouth, and the indications were that he would succeed. Then two of the girls' began to cry, and a lot -of other girls did the same thing, and the appearance of bread and butter on the floor was enlivened by the addition of the sweatmeats school girls love. By this time every boy in the house was struggling for a supremacy as a producer, and the floor was a sight to Jietrold! Only one little fellow was in conditioiWo tell what the scholars did at SHRut when he told of it a great light dawned upon the mind of the troubled schoolma’am. A fleet-footed messenger was dispatched for.aid, and wagons soon came and carried the limp and exhausted pupils to their several homes. The day will be long remembered in the neighborhood as one when the rising generation was in pain and disgtace.