Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1883 — A RACE FOR A KISS. [ARTICLE]

A RACE FOR A KISS.

How a Honey Laker Waa Cured of Taking Colic Medicine, Virginia Chronicle. A batter peddler from Honey Lake relates with great glee how a neighbor of his waa cured of too frequently tipping the gin bottle. This neighbor married a young; handsome and spirited lady, and for a month or two all went well in the house and about the farm; then the husband fell baok into his old tricks. The wife remonstrated, and for a time the husband reformed. Presently, however, she became satisfied that the “bottle tipping” waa again going on. When she spoke to her husband about the matter he swore that the “aroma” she detected was that of a colio medicine he was taking, he having developed a most intractrable colic, for the relief of whioh he had brought home and paraded a bottle of medicine. The wife waa confident that there was kept somewhere about the premises a considerable store of a very different kind of medicine. She kept her own counsel and at the same time strict watoh. In a day or two she discovered, under a manger in the bam the secret hoard. She said nothing of the discovery to her hubband.

Soon after the husband had business at A neighbor's, some two miles away. On his return home he was somewhat surprised at seeing a note pinned upon his front door. Hastily advancing, he read as follows : Bun—You will find the key of the house where you kept your oolic medicine. I have taken Kitty and gone home to my mother. Father and brother Bob will come to-morrow for the trunk in which I have plaoed my things. Nblijb. The husband rushed to the barn. Ata glance he saw that Kitty, his wife’s mare, and the side saddle were gone. Darting to the manger he hauled out his corpulent demijohn of gin, and suspended from its neck found the key of the house. Securing the key he sent the demijohn whizzing and crashing against a post of the barn. Bounding forth, he ran to and mounted the horse he had left standing in front of his house. Away he dashed. It was ten miles to the house of his father-in-law, and he was determined to overtake his wife before she oould reach it, or kill the horse in the attempt. .

Said the butter man: “Now, I see’d Ben's wife oome over the hill, half a mile south of my house, on her little mare, Kitty, and begin to perform some queer ablutions. After she’d got over the brow o’ the hill she paced up and down the read for a time; then she rid up and looked over the brow of the hill agin. So she kept doing, and once or twice she got off and led Kitty up to the top of the hill “I was puzzled a* to whether she was waitin’ for somebody or had lost somehing while on the way to her father’s plaoe, some four miles beyond my house. I was just about to walk out that way when I see’d her t heel Kitty round from the brow o’ the hill and begin to ply her whip.

“In half a'minute she was flyin’ past my place like a wild woman. I stood at my front gate by the roadside, ready to holler ont at her to know what was up, but bless yon she never looked to’ards me. Her eyes seemed sot in her head, her face was pale, and at every jump she let into Kitty with her whip. I swar her riding skirt fairly cracked as she bounded past me! “Jist then I heard a tremendous clatter behind me. Turnin' about, I seed Ben a-oomin’ over the pitch of the hill on his big black horse, Idee a wild Commanohe. He was ridin with loose reins, loanin' away for’ard, and diggin’ his big spurs into his horse like he’d rip his insides out. “He passed by with his ha’r and coattails sailin’ back in the wind, and never turning his head right nor left. I thought I seed murder in his eye. I tell you a million thoughts ran through my brain in a second All the stories I ever heerd about jealous husbands and insane husbands went through my head in a lump, and I do believe if Td had my gun in my hand Td have taken a wing shot at him on suspicion. “I seed look back onoe, and then lay the whip on Kitty hott’m ever. Ben was goin’ like the wind I knowed Nell was heade.l ftv her father’s, and I *o®d

plain as day that Ben would get her ’fore she was safe landed, . “At last he was upon her. It was then neck and neck tor a time, with Ben reachin’ out for Kitty’s bridle. At last he got it, and the two horses gradually slowed up till they finally stopped. I mounted my gate poet all of a tremble, expectin’ to see somethin’ dreadful happen. “They stopped in the road talkin’ nigh onto half an hour; then I seed Ben lean over and Nall lean over, till thar two heads come together. “What the mischief f ’ says L “kissin, instead of killin’. Well, that 9Qrt of fracas gits me.” “After the head bumpin’ the pair turned about and oame slowly joggin’ along baok. “As they passed me, I called out to Ben to know what in the livin’ jingo it all meant Ben began to stammer somethin’, ’bout half of which never got out through his big beard, when Nell sings out to me: 'Only a race for a kiss;’ and givin* Kitty a cut that made her bound ten feet, she called out to Ben, ‘dome on! A race to the top of the lull for another, and away they both went. “That was five years age, and I never knowed the true moanin' of that wild, ha-rum-scarum ride till about three months ago, when the story 'bout the *oolio medicine leaked oat among the wimmen folks. For a good while after the ride, howsumever, I remember one of the neighbor men wonderin' what had come over Ben that he had shut down on his gin all so sudden, and wouldn’t so muoh as take a glass o' Oregon older. “To this day, no doubt, Ben thinks he had a desperate chase after Nell, and a narrer escape o’ her gettin’ into the home den 'long with her big brother, her father and his mother-in-law; and IVe never said a word to turn'bout how she fooled ’long under the brow of the hilL”