Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1881 — Pistol Practice in Arkansas. [ARTICLE]

Pistol Practice in Arkansas.

Detroit Poet. Some time since a Detroitei went to Arkansas to look up some property left by will, and in his wanderings he put up one night with a farmer who hadn’t much to brag of in the way of a house. There was only one big roof with a garret above, and when it came bedtime the Detroiter was packed awavi under the roof. White he had mer with no adventure worth recording, he knew that he was in a section where every man is expected to look out for himself. Therefore, before going to sleep, he put his revolver under his pillow and made up his mind what to do in an emergency. About midnight the emergency arrived. The Wolverine heard some one in his room,and he reasoned that robbery and murder could be the only excuse. Out came the levolver and he blazed away at a dim figure until he had fired six bulled. After the last one a voice inquired: “Stranger, have you got through shootiu’?” “Who is it, and what do you want?” demanded the traveler. “It’s me,” replied the farmer. “The old woman’s got the toothache till she can’t rest, and I come to ask ye fur a pinch of that flnecut tobacker as a remedy. I wa* just goin’ to speak wheii ye blazed away with yer popgun!” “And I might have killed you!” “Yes, about one chance in a million. Say, stranger, let me gin ye a piece of advice.” “Weil?” “Trade that pop-gun off fur a fifteen cent drink and by ye a knife. When ye hit with a knife the splinters has got to fly, but when ye begin shootin’ with sick irons as that, ye are apt to spile all the old woman’s red peppers or shoot yer own thumb oft. The fellers around here have been poppin’ away at me for three years back, and the only damage they ever did was to knock a nind button off my coat.”

Astonishing fertility is elaimed for the soil of Colorado.- A vegetable gardener, who owns twenty acres of land near Canon City, is reported by the Denver Journal to have raised 80,000 head of cabbage of the largest size upon his small tract He shipped the greater part of his crop to Kansas City, and estimates his nroflts at over 10,000.