Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1893 — USEFULNESS OF NATURE. [ARTICLE]

USEFULNESS OF NATURE.

When a Man Can Handle Her She "Will Work for Him. Indianapolis Journal. The man with’ the ginger beard was watching his neighbor labor“They didnt dig ’em that way out in Colorado where I lived,” said he. The neighbor, who was a hired man, dropped his patent digger, looked around to see if his employer was visible, found he was not. and took a seat on the ground ready to listen. “How did! you work it?” he asked. “By steam ?” “Steam!” said the man with the ginger beard. “Naw. Done it by lightning. ” “Lightning?” “Yas. You see, in the part of the State I was in they is no metals of any kind in the ground and no trees. I’ve often watched the lightning cavortin’around in the heavens fer a hour at a time, jist achin’ fer somethin’ to strike at, but not hein’ able to do so, ’cause they was nothin’ it could take a start at —no attraction, you see. Well, one day I was sweatin' away, just like you would be if the boss was around now, when a old feller that lived there before I come, come along and says he’d show me a scheme to save all that work. You can bet I was willin’, so he sends me to the house fer a bag o’ tenpenny nails, and he plants a nail in every place I had marked fer a hole. ‘They is a storm coinin’, says he ‘and if I ain’t mistaken she, is a-goin’ to do the job in one whirl.’ I didn’t say nothin’, fer, honest, I thought he wuz crazy, an’ I 'lowed I’d better humor him;

“After he got the nails all planted he dragged me away to a safe distance an’ told me to watch her work. Pretty soon the storm com§ along, with more thunder an’ lightnin’ in it than you will see here in a month o’ Sundays Djreckly it got over them nails. Then —biff! —blam! It went to pluggin’ away at them there nails stuck in the ground, the most delighted lightnin’ you ever see to git somethin’ to shoot at. An ev’ry time she hit there was the neatest post-hole dug out you ever see. I did has to trim a few of ’em up with a spade, but as a general thing, they was as neat as a body would want to look at.. Natur’is mighty useful if you know how to handle her.” The hired man- said “Gosh!” and resumed work in the automatic manner of one in a dream.