Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1878 — Col. Slewther’s Funeral. [ARTICLE]

Col. Slewther’s Funeral.

“800-00-00-oom! BOOM!” I knew Col. Slewther’s laboratory would go up some day, and it did. He was always fooling in there with some kind of explosive compound, trying to work out new fulminating powders, extra-strong varieties of nitroglycerine, and so forth. And so nobody m the neighborhood was much surprised on that Saturday morning when the explosion occurred, and the shed was blown into ten million pieces. The, painful thing about it none of the fragments es Col. Slewther could be found. His widow had not even a shred of "Mm to weep over; and there seemed to be no chance for a funeral. However, on Sunday morning, Mrs. Slewther’s hired girl picked up a freshlooking bone in the front yard, and she suggested to her mistress that it might possibly be a portion of the late Colonel’s framework. The widow took kindly to the idea. Her aunt and her clergyman asserted that it bore a very suspicious resemblance to a roast-beef bone, but Mrs. Slewther was obstinate. She sent for Toombs, the undertaker, and made all the arrangements for a funeral, the bone to represent the lamented Colonel. Mrs. Slewther cried all the way to the cemetery and all the way back. On the following day the hired girl came in with another bone, evidently a piece of the leg-bone, which she said had fallen in the back yard. Upon examining it, Mrs. Slewther declared she recognized it as a bit of the Colonel, although her aunt and the minister both urged that it might possibly have come from the butcher’s. And so Mr. Toombs was sent for hurriedly, and arrangements were made for further obsequies. They 3ay that the anguish of Mrs. Slewther, in the carriage, as they went to and from the burying-ground, was simply agonizing. It was only by strenuous exertion and-continued use of the smell-ing-salts that her aunt kept her from going into convulsions. But when she got home she became calmer, and her aunt felt that she was more resigned. That was on Friday. On the next Monday, washday, the hired girl came in with still another bone which she

saW had just fallen on the roof of the smoke-house. Mrs. Slewther’s aunt scoffed at the idea that it had belonged to the Colonel; she said it had evidently come out of a piece of corned beef. But Mrs. Slewther said something whispered to her heart that this was an atom of the Colonel, and she thought it safe always to trust the instincts of affection. So Toombs was summoned, and he rang the front door-bell with a chuckle. It seemed to him likely that Col. Slewther’s funeral would afford him a permanent income. Perhaps he might pass it on to his children. The ceremony was not so heart-rend-ing as those that preceded it. Mrs. Slewther sat back in the carriage and cried, and her aunt had the cork out of the smelling-bottle, but the widow had only a few hysterical symptoms. On the way home a man sat ona fence as the procession passed, with Ins hat over his eyes. He said to a person standing near him: “Whose funeral is that?” “A man named Slewther. Blown up. This is the third funeral. They find a bit of him every day.” That night Mrs. Slewther was awakened by the noise of a terrific rumpus in the back yard. She flew to the window and threw up the sash. She herd a familiar voice saying: “Take that, and that, and that, you old coffin-hammering slouch! I’ll teach yoirto come around here palming off your cow-bones as the remains of a decent man! Take that and that, you funeral outcast!” Mrs. Slewther put on her wrapper and rushed down stairs. “Is that you, Wilberforce, darling?” she asked, almost in a shriek. “Certainly it is,” said the Colonel. “You see I’m not dead at all. I was called away unexpectedly to Baltimore the very day the explosion occurred, and I forgot to telegraph to you. Here I am, safe and well.” “And who is that other man?” “That? Why, that’s Toombs. Toombs, the undertaker. He’s been tossing bones over in the yard for two weeks past, and bribing the servant-girl to take them to you. I watched for him to-night, and caught him putting the jaw-bone of a sheep on the crotch of the apple tree, and so I thumped him!” < - - - I will draw a veil over the scene that followed when the happy pair entered the house and rejoiced over each other. Toombs’ bills are unpaid, and' he thinks maybe he had better not sue for them. —Max Adder, in N. Y. Weekly.

—A well-known note shaver of Providence, R. 1., was informed the other day thata ceTtam'Ttirlroad com-' puny, in consideration of the low price of silver, was selling quarter dollars at twelve and thirteen cents apiece. He at once rushed off to the company’s office and was told that the report was true, and that they would be glad to dispose of quarters at that rate in quantities of S6O and SI,OOO. So he telegraphed to Boston for SI,OOO and put in SSO of his own, intent upon a grand speculation. Suddenly it flashed across his mind that twelve and thirteen make twenty-five. A Colorado man who was caught in a snow-slide and carried a mile and a half likens the sensation to a man being shot from aeannon along with a barrel of flour. . : _ The Turkish wav is the sure Afty. Put a man in a bag sud tie the mouth and hn tam*t help hnt drown if heaved into the water, —Detroit Free Press. t