Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1879 — How Sanscript Recalled Recollections of Fifty Years Ago. [ARTICLE]

How Sanscript Recalled Recollections of Fifty Years Ago.

The .boys were coasting down Syca-more-street Hill, last evening, when John Sanscript and his wife came along. They had been up on Baltimore street visiting, and were on their way home. •‘Just see them boys,” said John, as he braced up. at the intersection of Mulberry street. “It really reminds me of the days when I was a lad. Do you know, Jane, that I used to coast down hill on a sled that way?” “Did you, John?” “Why, yes; but that’s fifty years ago!” Sanscript scratched his head contemplatively, and then muttered, sotto vocet “Durn my grand-daddy’s buttons, If 1 don’t try it!” - “ Try what, dear?” anxiously asked Mrs. S. “ I’m going to coast just once, to revive recollections of fifty years ago.” “Now, John, if I were you ” “But you are not me, so don’t interfere. Here, sonny (to a lad just puffed up the hill with his sled); here, sonny, lUI give you a quarter to let me slide down Ou your sled once.” The bargain was eagerly nailed and clinched. “Bekeerful, oldman,” urged the boy, as Sanscript squatted rather awkwardly on the sled; “be keerful, I say, and don’t let her flunk one way or ’tother till she brings up, or you’llgit mashed.” “Never mind, younker,” assured John; “I’ve been here afore—some years afore, but” But what will never be known, for just then the sled, of its own accord, started down hill, and even John himself has not since been able to recall what he was about to observe. The surprise at the sled’s unexpected movement was general. “ Look out,” yelled the boy. “Oh, John,” screamed Mrs. San-

script; “ Whoa, there!” yelled John. But the sled wouldn’t whoa. It seemed to have set off down that hill to beat its best time. John had chance only to clutch hold of both sides and hold his breath for fear the wind would blow off the top of his head. The only thought he had time to foster was that the boy must have greased the sled’s runners as a practical joke. And if this was coasting, he had never coasted, if his recollection served him right. Two-thirds the way down the. hill the sled struck an ice hummock, and immediately his course was changed to a parabolic curve. Whack! bang! crash! clink! The bringing up was awfully Sudden and uncertain. Sanscript and the sled disappeared as abruptly as a shootingstar. The latter lay shivered to atoms against a lamp-post, and Sanscript lay shivering in the grocery cellar opposite. When the off-runner of the sled collided with the lamp-post and stopped the vehicle, Sanscript rose like a cir-cus-leaper and went right on turning twenty somersaults to the second. He went through the grocery window as the circus-leaper goes through a paper hoop. All the gingerbread horses and candy apples and other Christmas luxuries were disarranged, of course. Sanscript’s body struck a Western Reserve cheese on the counter, scattering the skippers in consternation. The old skipper bounded five feet at an obtuse angle, touching again for a second at the top step of the cellar stairs in the rear of the store, and then, continuing like a diver into the Plutonic depths below, he went feet foremost through the head of a hogshead, filled with something soft. At first he was uncertain whether the contents were Orleans molasses or melted glucose. Before he had time to investigate, the grocer and the two policemen came down. The unhappy old boy was lifted but of his sweet pickle and hauled off to the station-house on a charge of malicious destruction of property. The grocer appeared soon after, and compromised by John paying the following bill: Window sash■■■■■■fW 00 Crushed cheese- 12 00 Hogshead molasses , 7c Chnstmas goods 1 1° Totall7l 86 ZThentheboycamoinwithabill of $5 for his sled, to say nothing of the loss of a suit of clothes, a surgeon’s bill for plastering sundry skinned surfaces, and the bill of a hackman who conveyed the fainting wife home. In the cooler moments of afterthought, Sanscript reckoned it up and discovered that it had cost him $109.78 to recall recollections of fifty years ago, and required but one minute and five seconds of old Father Time ,in which to do the recollecting.— Cincinnati Enquirer. i An extremely rare fish, a singular specimen of the spineous shark, never before seem in American waters, has been found at Providence, Mass. It Is about eight feet long, with a thick body, a skin comparatively smooth, large numbers of short, bony thorns protruding from all parts, ana but one row of teeth on each jaw, while its nose is flat and round. This shark is seen on the east coast of Europe and Africa and in the Mediterranean Sea, but rarely. A Pennsylvania girl waited a whole year before bringing suit for damages against a man who Kissed her without warning, and the crushing verdict of one cent damages took ner breath “JOne touch of Nature,” observed tha inebriate, as the ground rose andetruck j him, — Danielson Ville Sentinel. - ’