Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1874 — “Catching a Bob.” [ARTICLE]

“Catching a Bob.”

Yesterday afternoon when » Mm. Blaine, of Fifth street, asked the doctor j if her boy Samuel would live, the doctor I looked very serious and replied: “He may, and if he does he will know more than ever before.” Samuel is aged thirteen, and since the ; snow came he has been engaged In ; “ catching a bob,” as the boys call it j when they jump on a farmer’s sleigh, j He was over on Fourth street yesterday when a farmer's team came along with a hay-rack,, and Samuel took a seat on the “binder.” He rode a short distance and then let go and stepped into the coils of a rope dragging behind, and before he knew what was up he was dragging along through the slush. He gave an awful yell as he realized his situation, but the farmer lost his hearing years ago, and, sat on his seat as stiff as a Oar' cliff giant, while the horses ambled along at an even pace. “Whoop! Hay! Say, you! Ob! murder!” yelled Samuel, as the slush ran up his pantaloons and his back was raked on the knobby street, but the farmer was thinking of home, sweet home, and he didn’t reply. “You, there! Whoop! Hi! Ho! Grashus and blazqs!” roared Samuel, as he slid on his back and side and felt his coat going over his bead. The farmer drove up Fourth to Labrosse, and then went west, and tbere wasn’t a hub or pond of water that Samuel Blame didn’t find. Sometimes he was on his back, and then he would glide for a while t’other side up, and he kept up a yelling which made people run to the windows. Some hoys observed his situation, hut they thought it was a new kind of way to “ catch a bob,” and they yelled: “Bully for Samuel Blaine!” “ Say! I’m being drawed to death—stop yer hosses!” shouted Sam; hut the farmer was thinking of a grave on the hill side, and he never turned his head. A man stopped on the walk and yelled: “Say! you’ve got a boy there!” but the farmer nodded his head and kept on. Finally, as he turned into Eighth street and headed for Michigan avenue, he looked around. Seeing Samuel coming up behind, rolling over and over, he thought the boy was trying to catch on, and he put the “ bud” to his horses and went three blocks further and drew up at a grocery. When they discovered the boy’s situation they said it would take forty pounds of glue to tnend him up, and one man advised killing him at once so as to save Mrs. Blaine a doctor bill, hut wiser counsel prevailed and they carried him home. His mother couldn’t recognize him at first; she said they couldn’t pass that mud and slush bedraggled form off on her as her beloved Samuel; hut when finally convinced that it was he she dug the snow out of his ears and wailed: “Oh! Samuel, why did you try to catch a boh?” —Detroit Free Press.