Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1875-09-02
A TREMENDOUS BATTLE.
MIR. and Mrs. McStinger's Con-
1lict with the Rocking Chair,

Old McStlDger was going to bed lit
tie wavy the other night, and not
wishing to disturb Mrs. McStinger,
who has a tongue like rat-tail file, he
thought il just as well not to turn on
the gas. He got on very well until he
reached the door of the chamber where
his patient wife lay sleeping. Here he
paused moment balancing on his
heels like pole on a juggler's nose.
Then he made dash for it, in order to
make bee line across the floor.
Mrs. McStinger, with her usual eX-
emplary fortitude, had placed the
rocking-chair with such gifted skill
that no man could come into the room
without running over it; so the first
thing he knew, McStinger stubbed his
toe-nail off against the rocker, which
knocked the seat against the crazy
bone of his knee and made one of the
long arms prod him in the stomach.
simultaneously fell over the chair
back before he could get up from the
floor, a5 he stood on all-fOurs. The en-
gagement was now fully opened
When man begins falling over rock
ing-chairs in dark room, he ought al
ways to have three days rations and
forty rounds.
Before McStinger could get up
straight his knee came down on one of
the long rockers behind, and the back
of the chair came Down on his head
with a whack that laid him out fiat on
the floor, and before he could move
the chair kicked him three times in
the tenderest part of his ribs with the
sharp end of its rocker. This made him
perfectly furious, and he scrambled up
and made q blind rush at the chair,
determined to blow up the enemy's
works. He ran square against the
back, and it rocked forward with him,
turning complete somersault over the
handles, throwing McStinger half way
across the room and landing on top of
him, digging into his abdomen like a
BULBS horns, as he lay spread out on the
under side. 1t would have been good
thing for McStinger if he had lain still
then and let the chair have its own way.
Itlay on its back with the long points
of the rockers embracing his abdomen,
and didn't seem to want to do anything
active just then. But McStinger
couldn't make up his mind to give it
up yet. He rolled over sideways and
upset the chair. 1t fell with crash on
its side, giving him furious dig in
| the liver, which made him straighten
out his legs spasmodically, barking one
shin from the instep to the knee on
the rocker which hung in the air, and
getting the chair on its feet again,
where it stood rocking backward and
forward like wary old ram making
feints of bucking its adversary, in order
to throw him off his guard. The blow
! in the side nearly finished McStinger,
and while lying there rubbing his
wind back again, he wasjust beginning
toretiect whether his honor required
him proceed any further in the affair,
when Mrs. McStinger suddenly began
screaming all the names in the crimes
act, under the impression that the
Charley Ross abductors were trying to
commit burglary, bigamy, robbery
and everything else.
Up to this time she had been speech
less with terror. and had lain there
trembling, shedding perspiration and
accUmulating shrieking power, until
she had gained the screaming capacity
of camel-back engine. She had Just
reached her third SfOrzandO fo1tissimo
accoterando, when old McStinger sue
ceeded in getting to his feet once mere
and became dimly visible to Mrs. Nc
Stinger. With one last wild parting
shrek she sprang from the bed and
made dash for the door, near which
the rocking chair still stood, menacing
the whole universe with butting mo
ton. Mrs. McStinger had no time for
Investigation just then, and she pitched
into and over the rocking-chair and
clear on down stairs, the chair after
her, turning over and over, and kick
ing Mrs. McStinger every bump, until
they both landed in the hall below,
where the chair broke all to atoms.
This ended the fight.
II wives will learn from this sad
story not to leave rocking-chairs stand
ing around the middle Of the room for
their poor husbands to fall over, we
shall not have written in vain.