Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1894 — PETE RAINES. [ARTICLE]

PETE RAINES.

New York Sun.- —" •. . ' ■_ “I never knew any one but Pete Raines that had ever been to Louisiana,” said Slote Bondell, of Gibson county, Tenn., “and I never heard him say a word against it, but from the way he acted w’hen he cam e back to Tennessee from there, I can’t say that I gathered the idea that Louisiana held out many inducements for folks to go there and stay. That is, if the district Pete Raines went to was any fair sample of the way things strike visitors in Louisiana. That district was Tangipahoa parish. I saw Pete when he started for Tangipahoa parish and I saw him just after he got back. That’s why I can’t get up and shout much when I hear folks brag about Louisiana, although Pete never said a word. There was good reason for that, though. “Now, I s’pose that when I rise to remark that West Tennessee is the garden" spot of all creation some folks TF snicker and maybe snort. But tihev wouldn’t if they knew how ’shamed they’d be if they could ever strike luck enough to be turned loose in Gibson county once. Especially’ around where Humboldt is. Zacariah Raines lives there and so does William Erastus Raines, his cousin. The only reason I say - that William Erastus Raines lives there, too, is that if he didn’t live there we would not have to call William Zacariah Raines ‘Bill Zach’ Raines to distinguish him from William Erastus. Then you might say, though, that if William Zachariah Raines didn’t live there we wouldn’t have to call William Erastus Raines ‘Bill Raz’ Raines to distinguish himflfrom Bill Zach. But let that pass. Bill Raz ain’t got anything to do with this story, anyhow.

“One day, two years or so ago, Zach said to Plunk—Plunk was a nigger that worked for Bill Zach, and a good one lie was, too: “ ‘Plunk,’ said Bill Zach, ‘there ain’t no kind o’use. We got to do Something with Pete. The better I treat him the worse he acts. He won’t plow, and he won’t do nothin’ that ain’t cussedness. Kicked the bay mare in‘the belly this morning, and she won’t be worth a picayune for a week. Chased the old woman from the cow yard clear to the house and into the house, and followed her half way up the kitchen stairs. There ain’t any living with Pete any longer. Something's got to be done. Guess I’ll send him ’long with you flown into Louisiana.’ ' “ ‘Golly!’ said Plunk. ‘Who’ll fotch me back ag’in, den? Pete he kill me, sure! Dead nigger can’t walk back from ’Weesyannah!’ “But Bill Zach had made up his mind, and the mule had to go with Plunk, dead nigger or no dead nigger. “Guess I forgot to say before that Pete Raines was a mule. And a slick one, too. Bill Zach raised him. Be was eight years old when all this happened, and I'll bet his ears were .a foot and a half long. His tail wasn’t as long as his ears but it had a tuft on it like a cannon swab. Pete was flit as a seal, and his hide glistened like a nigger's face in a green cornfield. But Pete wasn’t reliable. He had a way of kicking and biting and lighting on the spur of the momen t. and without provocation, that made him practically the boss of things around Bill Zach’s place, and he knew it. Bill Zach bought a place a couple of years ago down in Tangipahoa parish, Louisiana, to which he intended to send. Plunk <lown to work; and so he thought he'd get rid of Pete in a merciful sort of wav by sending him down there too, although it might be that he’d get rid of Plunk at the same time.

“They slipped Pete on the railroad, and he went away tickled to death. He had it in his mind that he was going into a wider field to spread his cussedness in, and he fairly yelled with delight in his car when the train pulled out. It is eighty miles from Humboldt to Tangipahoa parish by rail. When they unloaded Pete down there he i-aine out smiling. He thought he bad it in for that country and would make his mark. But he hadn't looked around much before dejection seemed to seize him. Plunk had never seen Pete that way, and he got scared. Plunk was more uneasy still when Pete went listlessly to the plough and dragged it all day r without once lifting his ears orchis heels. “I bet dis whole plantation 'gin a alligator what ain't kotched yit,’ said Plunk, ’dat dey’s a varthquake wuckip’ in dat moot and dat when it busts it'll h'ist dis nigger clean to de udder side ob Jurdan!’ “But it wasn’t so. The mule got lown in the dumps worse and worse ■very day and Plunk went to the .‘ield after him one day, and there was no mule to be seen. Plunk runted all over that country for three days, but couldn’t find any trace of Pete. Then Plunk sent word to Bill Zach that the mule had gone off somewhere jmd died. And Bill Zach was glad. About three weeks after that Bill Zach was startled out of his sleep at 3:30 in the morning by a noise that awakened memories. He listened. The rfoise broke out again. It rattled the windows, it echoed among the hills. It wailed, it yooped, it heshawed . “ ‘Pete, by the living jumper! yelled Bill Zach, jumping out of bed and hurrying to the door A mule was leaning wearily again -t the front fence. He was thin and scraggy, his eyes were hollow and his ears

half way to his knees, like a yellow hound's. When this mule saw Bill Zach at the door he lifted up his voice and actually wept. It was Pete, back from Louisiana. It is 500 miles from Tangipahoa parish to Humboldt by the road, and so you may know what Pete must have thought of Louisiana to take his overburdened heart with him, so to speak, and pull out for Tennessee on the hoof. Pete was as slick as ever he was in a few days and started in to be pretty near as sassv and cussed as ever, but Bill Zach said one day’ to his wife when Pete was near: “‘lam going to send Pete back to Tangipahoa parish, Susan.’ “Pete droppeckhisearsand walked away, and ever since then he has been the best mule in the whole of Gibson county, and Bill Zach won’t take a thousand dollars for him.”