Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1894 — Smelling the Bean Sauce. [ARTICLE]

Smelling the Bean Sauce.

Harper's Young People. There was in Yedo a poor man who had worked hard and long, and had saved a small sum of money. He had no strong box to keep it in; and it occured to him that if he dropped it inside an empty bean-sauce cask, no one would ever think of looking there for it. Now this bean sauce is much used by poor people; but the smell is- very strong and somewhat offensive to persons of delicate taste. Some ingenious thief, after all, did discover the hiding place, for one day the poor man- found his money missing. He went immediately to Oka, and told him of the loss, adding that he thought it must be laid to the charge of some one of his neighbors. So Oka summoned all the poor man’s neighbors for the next day, and when they had appeared in court, Oka announced: “In my opinion it is one of you that has stolen the money from the beansauce cask, and if that is so I shall be able to tell by the smell of the thief’s fingers. So let each one come up here and present his hands in turn." Just as he had said this he noticed one of the men in the back of the room suddenly put his hand : to his nose and smell it. “That man over there is the thief,” immediately exclaimed the judge, pointing to the man. Oka knew, you see, that if the thief was really among the crowd, his guilty conscience would probably suggest to him the thought, “Will my hands really, betray me?” Child—“ Undo Jonas, do you b’lieva in signs?" Rich Uncle—“ Why do you nsk?” Child —“’Cause mam mar said big oars was a sign of generosity, but you didn’t givo me nothin’ fur Christmas."