Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1881 — Robust Imaginations. From the Carson City Appeal. [ARTICLE]

Robust Imaginations. From the Carson City Appeal.

Yesterday afternoon, when the lawyers In Justice Carey’s court were waiting for the verdict in a petty larceny case, Attorney Soderberg related an incident of his early childhood in Minnesota, illustrative of the peculiar customs in vogue in that state. “I knew an old farmer there who owned ten acres of timber land './here millions of pigeons came each roost. They devastated the wheat fields, and the old coon used to catch the birds in nets and thrash them out on the barn floor. Each bird had three ounces of wheat in his crop, and it was a bad year for ‘Old Thompson’ when he couldn’t ship 1,000 bushels of wheat to market at 2.00 a bushel, and it ranked A No. 1 when it reached the Chicago elevator. If there had been a few millions more of pigeons he would have come pretty near getting a corner on the Minnesota wheat crop.” “I know a planter dawn in Alabama,” said Klttrell, “who was fully as sharp as that. He trained an alligator to work up and down the river and catch the little pioaninnies that played along the bask. The alligator would take the little kids in his Jaws and swini back to the plantation. It was a dull day that he couldn’t corral three or four. The planter raised ’em carefully, and when they got big sold ’em In &ew Orleans at prices ranging from $3,000 to SIO,OOO apiece. He was rolling in wealth when Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation was issued, and after that the alligator never did any more work. The man is now barely keeping body and soul together in Washington, clerking in one of the government bureaus at SB,OOO a year.”

Judge Cary evinced the greatest interest ili these weird tales, and edged up to the group. “These are‘curious yarns, gentlemen, but I believe them all.* I had a dog once, back in Nebraska, that I kept to herd lumber.” “Beg pardon, iudge; did you say the dog herded lumber?” “Yes, sir, cottonwood boards. We always keep a dog to bring the lumber in at night.” Everybody now paid the closest attention, as they knew the boss was at work. “It was this way. Cottonwo d Wards warp like thunder in the sun. A board would begin to hump its back up about 9 in the morning, and in hair an hour it would turu over. By 11 it would warp the other way with the heat, • and make another flop. Each time it moved it turned a couple of feet, always following the sun toward the west. The first summer I lived in Brownville over 10,000 feet of lumber skipped out to the hills the day before I had advertised a house raisin’. I went to the county seat to attend a lawsuit, and when 1 got back there wasn’t a stick of timber left. It had strayed away into the uplands. An ordinary board would olimb a t»o mile hill during a hot week, and when it struck the timber it would keep wormin’ in and out among the trees like a garter snake. Every farmer in tbe state bad to keep shepherd dogs to follow his lumber around tho country, keep it together, and show wnere it was in the morning. We didn’t need any flumes there for lumber. We sawed It east of the plaoe we wanted to use it, and let it warp itself to its destination,and with men and dogs to head it off at the right time, we never lost a stick. Well, here comes the jury,” continued the judge. “The wit' nesses lied, so I guess they will disagree.”