Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1881 — “Hornets.” [ARTICLE]

“Hornets.”

DatiStt Tras Fib There is an old woman on Catherine street who delighted to find a case that all the doctors have failed to cure and then go to work with herbs and toots and strange things and try to effect at least an improvement. A few days ago she got hold of a girl with a stiff neck, and she offered an old negro named Uncle Tom Kelly fifty , cents to go to the woods and bring her a hornet’s nest. This was to be steeped in vinegar and applied to the neck. The old man spent several days along the Holden road, and yeste refay morning he secured his prize and brought it home in a basket. When he reached the Central Market he had a few little purchases to make, and after getting some tea at a grocery lie placed his basket on a barrel near the stove and went out to look for a beef bone.

It was a dull day for trade. The grocer sat by the stove rubbing his bald head. His clerk stood at the desk balancing accounts, and three or four men lounged around talking about the new party that is about to be founded on the ruins of the Democracy. It was a serene hour. One hundred and fifty hornets had gone to roost in that nest for the winter. The Snlal atmosphere began to limber em up. One old veteran opened his eyes, rubbed his legs and said it was the shortest winter he had ever known in all his hornet days. A second shook off his lethargy and seconded the motion, and r in five minutes the whole nest was alive and its owners were ready to sail out and investigate. You don’t have to hit a hornet with the broad side of an ax to make him mad. He’s mad all over all the time, and he doeen’t care a picayune whether he tackles a humming bird or an elephant, The grocer was telling one of the men that he and General Grant were boys together, when he gave a sudden start of surprise.. This was followed by several other starts. Then he jumped over a barrel of sugar and yelled like a Pawnee. Some smiled, thinking he was after a tunny climax, but it was only a minute before a solemn old farmer jumped three feet high and came down to roll over a job lot of wash-boards. Then the clerk ducked his h**nd and rushed for the door. He didn’t get there. One of the other men who had been looking up and down to see whitt could be the matter, felt suddenly called upon to go home. He was going at the rate of fusty miles an hour, when he collided with the clerk and they rolled oil the floor. There was no use to tell the people in that store to move on. They couldn’t tarry, to save ’em. They all felt that the rent was too high, and they must vacate the premises. A yell over by the cheese-box was answered by a war-whoop from the show-case. A how l from the kerosene barrel near the hack door was unswered by wild gestures around the show window. The crowd went out together. Uncle Tom was just coming in with his beef lione. When a large body meets a smaller one the larger Inaly knocks it into the middle of next week. The old man laid around in the slush until everybody had stepped on him all they wanted to, and then he sat up and asked: “Hev'dev got de Hall all put out yit?” / . -j. Some of the hornets sailed out doors to fall liy the wayside, ami others waited uround on top of barrels and baskets aild jars to be slaughtered. It was half an hour before the last one was disposed of, and then Uncle Tom wulkeu in, picked up the nest and said: r “Mebbe dis will cure de stillness in dat, gal’9 neck jist de same, but I tell you I’ze got s banged an’ bumped an’ sot down oti till it will take a hull medical college all winter long to git me so I kin jump off a street kyar!”