Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1872-09-19
SELECTED READING.
Fight With An Alligator.

A few years since, circumstances over
which l had DO controP-this, [ believe
is popular way of putting it-had re-
duccd me from affluence to poverty. /
was but twenty-four years of age, strong
of heart and OF limb and SO, instead Of
idling away my life at home, I resolved
to omigrate to South America, where an
old friend of my fathers was likely to aid
me in the restoration Of my fallen for
tunes. / reached Buenos Ayres in due
.eason, and soon after found myself at the
cstaazio OF Don Miguel Ramon. Of
Cerrado. near the city Of ST. Jago de los
CAballos. Don Miguel was very
wealthy man, growing cotton and coffee,
tobacco and corn, as well as other South
American productions but deriving, in
patriarchal fashion, the greater part Of
bissincome from his focks and herds. I'm
fortunately, he was a widower, with only
one child. boy. now of some FIVE years
of age, and of whom his father was
dotingly fond Here [ was frankly and
generously welcomed, and, what with
riding my hosts horses. shooting among
his rice fields, aiding him in his accounts
and giving little Charlie lessons in French
and English, l passed my time mos,
agreeably. .I
was returning from half built sugar
mill one day, perhaps month after my
first arrival at the hacienda. at about four
o'clock in the afternoon. | had left the
ding y complexioned mazons slipping their
chocolate. aud had received the foreman s
solemn assurance that fresh course of
blocks properly cemented should be laid
before he permitted his gang to give over
work. l was riding homeward, then,
thinking of many things-of the old days
at home !; Of friends and school-fellows
that | should perhaps never see again is
the flesh; Of,
'Wha. was that ? A cry of paih?' Yes,
a cry, certainly of pain or terror the
shrill, appealing cry of child's agoniz-
ed voice; and | started and wheeled my
horse towards the quarter from which the
sounds seemed to come. The cry was
repeated, more feebly than before; and as
had now no doubt as to the direction
whence the call for help proceeded, I
dashed across revine, and scrambling
up the steep bank opposite, came in
sight Of the cham Of lagoons, connected
with the mighty Rio Plata bya small
river, which skirted the plantations Of
rice and tobacco. and on the banks Of
which I had shot many snipe and
famingo. Here, at the edge of cane
bordered creek that ran up from the
nearest lagoon into the broken ground,
where the hillocks we're gay with purple
rhododendrons and the wild geraniums,
beheld sight that chilled my blood
with horror.
Close to the margin of the water, knee
deep in the flowers and tall Pampas
grass, just where the white and yellow
pond lilies mingled with the rich colored
blossoms of the lowered prairie, was
child-httle Charlie-Don MiguePs
hope and heir--the one tie to life and its
affections. l knew the bare little golden
i cad of once. But the boy stood,
rooted to the ground, transfxed oy terror
crouching down, his blue eyes. dilatsd
by mortal fear, fixed on something huge,
ehapeless, unclean. that drew nearer yet,
a grim and monstrous thing, that had
more the aspect of large log. glistening
with Shiny mud. than of anything else
What is the ugly thing that has crawled
out from the creek, fringed with bushes
of the laurel-roso, ard that is clumsily
climbing the bank with awkward hurry
of its ungainly claw-tipped feet -? An
alligator. by Heaven! for | see the slant
lug sunlight glsten on its scaly bOck and
the formidable jaws open and display the
curved row Of cleaning white teeth, as,
with its cruel rod eye fixed upon its prey,
it approached tho shot where stood the