Weekly Trinity journal., 1874-01-24
UP IN A BALLOON. BOYS.

"Well, boys, I'll tell you how twas"
said old Jim Sawyer, and he lazily shift
ed his quid and rid his mouth at the same
time of half pint of tobacco juice. "It
was in the Summer of '5s, and brother
Joe had been down to York and seen
one of them ere balloons go up, and
when he arrove hum he was purity much
all balloon. He didn't think of nuthin'
else. Twas balloon in the mornin',
twas balloon at noon time, twas balloon
in the evenin'. He gabbled all day about
balloons and dreamed all night about the
same. But by-and-by | noticed all of
suddint that Joe was CROWN kinder Gu
rious like, didn't seem to have no appe-
tite, and was restless and Uneasy Of nights.
Somethih's in the wind, thought l, and
so jist kept an eye on Joe, and made
up my mind that sooner or later I'd find
out what allied Joe Sawyer. Well, boys,
one night, about II l should judge,
heern Joe get softly out o. bed and jest
as softly creep up loft to an old garrett
way what none of the family scarcely
went into, and which was seldom used.
Ha, ha, my boy says |, that's yer
game, is it : and so l crawled softly up
after him, and, honor bright, boys what,
dye s'pose l saw. Well, teacup my but
tons if Joe Sawyer hadn't got the dern-
dest biggest balloon that was ever built,
ranged all around that ere room. 1t was
on the floor, and onto the beams, and all
over the garret. And there Joe sot and
looked at it, and grinned at it, and laugh
ed TO himself, and punched himself and
made a cussed ass of himself generally.
Well, boys, l got mad to see that cuss
goin' on there, so jest hove in there,
too. Say 1, Joe, what in thunder re
doin' on?' Says he, Jim, that's mine,
an I'm goin, up Coin up says 1.
Yes said he, 'goin' up
"Well, the thing got about that Joe
Sawyer was goin' up in a balloon, and
folks begun to come over and try to talk
Joe out of the notion, but all he had to
say was I'm goin' up Go up Joe
would, and go up he did, you bet. The
day was set, everythin' was ready, Joe
got out his balloon and filled her full of
camphene gas which he made himself.
l s'pose there was as much as ten thous-
and people cum down to see the balloon
and Joe 60 up. When all was ready the
band struck up, the boys let go, and
away went Joe and the balloon, up, up,
up, till you couldn't see anythin' but q
little black speck. Then, boys, there was
bang, faint sound kinder like a crash
and about minute after bit of a speck,
as though somethin' was comm down,
appeared away up about mile high. /
tell you, boys, that made my hair raise,
and it made the people all look blue, for
every one knowed it was poor Joe. And
so it was. Well, down it came for more
than mile, and when he struck he bur-
led himself clean up to his arm-pits in
the hard limestone rock on which he hit.
1t was lucky for Joe that he struck feet
first"
" For heavens sake, didn't it kill him?"
asked one OF Jim Sawyer's listeners.
"Kill him? No, it didn't kill him /;
but it drove his legs eight inches up into
his body. But, boys, Joe alters said that
if he had been mile further up it would
have jammed his heels clear through his
chin"
And then old jim Sawyer slowly raised
his slouched hat, took therefrom a red
cotton handkerchief and pensively, mcdi-
tatively and moderately wiped the per-
spiration from his bald pate.