Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1891 — CUTTING DOWN THE BOY. [ARTICLE]

CUTTING DOWN THE BOY.

A School Marin Who Could Chop a Tree Down and Whip a Boy. Detroit Free Press. I was driving along a highway in Woods County, Ohio, with a man who was selling machines to farmers and about 2 o’clock in the afternoon we came along to a district school house. The schoolma’am and about 20 scholars stood under an elm tree, about 40 feet high, near the house, and in the topmost branches of the tree was a boy about 14 years old. “Anything wrong here?” asked mv friend, as we halted before the door, Rudd Hawkins says he won t and the teacher says he must,” called a ■little girl. 1 The teacher herself then came for- j ward. She was a plain looking girl of about 20, with a mouth showm'g great firmness, and, with some em barrassment, she explained: “It s the terror of the school. He refuses to mind, and I started to whip him. He broke away and ran out and'climbed the tree. I’ve been up about 20 feet, but had to give it up and come down.” “Yer can’t conquer me!” shouted the boy. ” “Budd, I order you to come down!” “I won’t!” “I have sent for an axe, and here it comes, ” she said, as she turned to us. 4 ‘He’ll come down with the tree if not before.” We offered to use the axe, but she declined the offer with thanks, and, stepping to the tree she swung the implement around and buried the blade in the wood. ‘‘You dasn’t!” shouted Budd fromthe top. “I'll do it or resign,” she answered as she struck several blows. At the end of three minutes the tree began 4a totter and Budd to yell in alarm a few seconds later it fell with a crash. I thought the boy was badly hurt, if not killed, and was relieved when the school-ma’am sprang forward, yanked him out of tne branches, and while applying a gad with one hand she pulled him in to the school-house with the other saying: “Now, Budd Hawkins, you've got to do some of the awfullest begging ever heard of in the State of Ohio, or I won’t leave enough hide on you for a flea to bite!” He was hard at it when we drove on. ____________ Ornithologists tell us that when feeding the stride of the ostrich is from twenty to twenty-two inches: when walking but not feeding, twen-ty-six inches, and when terrified, from eleven and one-half to fourteen feet, or at the rate <4 about twenty five miles an hour.