Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1891 — A Dead Cat Mine. [ARTICLE]

A Dead Cat Mine.

It was the mau on whose land natural gas was first struck in the Findlay, 0., district, says the New York Sun, and he Was telling some of us about it as he waited iu the depot at 'CoTumtTuSC “Wall, you know,” he began, “my son Bill was a great hand to read. One day he laid away"a book' he had been reading and says to me: "Dad, I’ve been reading up on minerals aud I’m goin’ to find sunthin’ right here on our farm.’ " ‘Shoo, Bill,’ says 1, ‘but you won’t find nothin’ outside of the cobble stones aDd worms.’ *

‘ But he went at it and began to dig, and bore, and fool around, and leave me to hne the corn, and o e day he struck sunthin’. There come sich an infernal smell that both of us was drove to the house, and then the smell got so bad that we was drove to a neighbor's, aud we had to let tho hogs out of the pen or they would have kce ei over “ ‘Bill,’ I says, when I got where I could breathe again, -you said you’d strike sunthin’ and you have. You’Ve wasted three months t.me gittin’ down to where Christopher Columbus buried about a million tom cats and we’ve all been driv off the farm in consekence. It’s my turn now to strike sunthin’ and you kin git ready for the oilfiredest lickin’ a boy ever got. ’ j ’ “I give it to him, gentlemen, and then I went spookin’ around to find somebody who’d buy the farm at about the cost of the barn. A feller who 6eemed to have catarrh and didn't mind the smell closed up a deal with me, and I had to grin as I walked off with his money uuder my arm. I kept on grinnin’ fur about a week, and then I heard some news that stopped me aud I guess it’s three years since I’ve opened my mouth sideways. Them dead cats was worth #IOO,OOO to me, and I sold ’em for SSUO and walked around patting myself on the back for bein’ so alitired cute.” Mr. Lozier Hope—May I—l—speak to your father. Miss Cole? Miss Vera Cole—lt is useless, Mr, Hope—l can never be your wife. Mr. Lozier Hop • —Excuse me, I wish to speak to him about that #ls he borrowed of me week before la“t. I’m getting a little nervous about it