The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1875-09-02
MR.. POTTS STORY.
His Extrayagazlt Style Of Statistical Infia-
ton.

When WAS over on at pencadcr. the other
day, | called on the Pottse's. Mr.. Potts is lia
able to indulge in eXtral a a.ce in his eonyersl-
ton, and, as Mrs. Potts is an extremely consci-
entious woman where matters of fact are COLI
cerned, she's obliged to keep her eyes on him.
Potts was telling me about an incident that
occurred in the town few days before, and
this is the way he related it,
Potts-'You see old Bradley, over here, il
perfectly crazy oil the subject of gases and the
atmosphere, and such tlings-lbsolutely wild !;
and one day he was disputing with Green about
how high up in the air life could be sustained !;
and Bradley said an animal could live about
&c, 000, 900 miles above the earth, if
Mrs. Potts-s'Not &c, 100000, my dear, only
forty miles, he said.'
P-'Forty. was it? Thank you. Well, sir,
old Green, you Know, said that was ridiculous );
and he said that he'd bet Bradley IL couple Of
hundred thousand dollars that life couldn't be
sustained half that way up an so
Mrs. .-''William, you are wrong he only
offered to bet fifty dolars.'
P.-"Wcll, anyhow Bradley took him up
quicker'n wink, and they agreed to send up ii
cat in balloon to decide the bet. So what
does Bradley do but buy Il balloon about twice
as big as our barn, aud begin to-
Mrs. Pit was only about ten feet in d
ameter, Mr.. Adler: William forgets.''
P.-'.Begin to initiate her. When she was
filled, it took eighty men to hold her, and
Mrs. P.-'sEighty men, Mr.. Potts. Why
you know Mr.. Bradley held the balloon him
self.''
Pile did, did he? Oh, very well, what's
the odds? And when every thing was ready,
they brought out Bratlley's tom-cat and put it
in the basket and tied it in, so it couldn't jump
out, you know. There was about 100000 peo-
pie looking OH, and when they let 60 you
never heard such"
Mrs. P.-"Tllcre was not one more than two
hundred people there. [ counted them my
SELF
P-ssOli, don't bother me say you never
heard such yell as the balloon went scooting
up Tito the sky, pretty near out of sight. Brad
Icy said she went up about 900 miles and
now don't interrupt me, Henrietta, l know
what the man said-and that cat, mind you, II
bowling like Il hundred fog horns, SOS you
could a heard him from here to Peru. Well,
sir, when she was up, sO's she looked rs small
as q pin-head, something or Other burst. l
don't know how it was, but pretty soon down
came the balloon a Pickering toward tile earth
at the rate Of fifty miles a minute, and
Old ae
Mrs. P.-s'Mr. Potts, you know that the
balloon came down as gently as So
P.-.sDe hush up! Women don know any,
thing about such things. And old Bradley,
he had kind of registering thermometer fixed
- in the basket along with that cat. Some sort
of a patent machine cost thousands Of dollars,
and he was expecting to examine it and Green
had and idea he'd lift out Il dead cat, and scoop
in the stakes. When all OF sudden as She
came peltiDg down, a.tornado struck her-now
Henrietta, what in the thunder are you staring
at me i'm that way for? 1t was Il tornado
regular cyclone-anu it struck her and damned
her against the lightning rod on the Baptist
church steeplc, and there she stuck-stuck Oh
that spire about eight hundred feet up in the
air.
Mrs. P.-"You may get just as mad as you
like, but am positively certain that the stee-
pies not an inch over ninety-tve feet.''
P.-Henrietta, wish to gracious you'd go
up stairs and look after the children. Well,
about half minute after she was struck. out
stepped that tom-cat onto the weather cock,
and it began to revolye six hundred or seven
hundred times minute, the cat bowling until
you couldn't hear yourself speak. (Now Hen
rietta, you've had your put, you keep quiet)
That cat staid on that weather-cock about two
months
Mrs. P-'tMr. Potts, that's an awful story !;
it only happened last Tuesday"
z. acknowledgements mind her. And
on Sunday, the way that cat carried OH and
yowlcd, with its tail pointing due East, was SO
awful that they couldn't have church. And
Sunday afternoon the preacher told Bradley
if he didn't get that cat down he'd sue him for
$1,000, 900 damages. So Bradley gotta gunand
shot at the cat 400 times. Now you didn't
count 'cm, Henrietta, and | did, and he
banged the top of the steeple all to splinters,
and ut last fetched down the cat, shot to rags,
and in her stomach he found his thermometer.
She'd ate it on her way up, and it stood at
LOO degrees. SO old"
Mrs. P.-''No thermometer ever stood at
such figure as that"
T. Indignantly -''Oh, well, if you think
you can tell the story better than L can, why
DON'T you tell it? You're enough to worry the
life out of a man,
Then Potts Summed the door and went out,
and left. | don't know whether Bradley got
the stakes OF not.-lNad Aalcr in Neeo York
Weekly.