Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1877-01-10

quite in earnest, [ assure you. It is
pigs nature to yield to overwhelming
numbers. We have only to form line
and close down upon him in sort of
crescent, and he will give up the strug-
gle at once, as you will see."
So it WAS undertaken. Porker stood
by the fence, cycling us with deep ex-
preston of interest. We moved down
upon him; he wheeled about, snorted,
and then made q dive at us, or rather
at me, and whish he went right be-
tween my legs, so that spA awled on the
ground most ungracefully. Susan and
the servant girl ran screaming into the
house, and Jones was over the fence in
no time.
The result of it was, we sent for
Peter. It had now grown somewhat
dark, but Peter made short work of the
job. He got rope and took in his
other hand the big stick I had been
hourishing; then he went up to porker,
fetched him one tremendous blow over
the proboscis, and while poor piggy
was staggering and seeing million of
stars, slipped the rope over one of his
hind legs, and had him into the pen in
trice.
"Peter," said I, after that, "You
may come around tomorrow if you
are not engaged, and gather what's left
of the vegetables"
He did so. There was good deal
left after all. Porker's havoc was
greater in appearance than in reality.
Peter stored the cellar with abundance
among other things, with nice lot of
superior beans in the soft pods, which
lay there till they got mouldy, and
were fit for nothing but swill.
I remember as if it were but yester-
day, the morning those beans were fed
to our pig. l was going out of town to
be gone three days, on business of i'm
portance. [ saw supply of the
mouldy beans fed to the porker, and
then l departed. To say that did not
think of my pig while I was away,
would be to state an untruth. I did
think Of him. Though lost to sight he
was to memory dear.
l am seldom away from home, and
consequently | am missed when [ am
away-and my welcome on returning
is wont to be of the most afectionate
description. But on this occasion,
greatly to my surprise, Susan was not
in the front nall to greet me. I waded
through the children into the back part
Of the house, where Susan was. I fam
cied she looked at me with half
frightened air, but took her fondly
in my arms, and was about to impress
a rapturous kiss on her lips when my
eye chaEced to go out of the window,
and l suspended the kiss midway of de-
livery. The door of the pig pen stood
wide open, and there was a peculiar as
pect of desolation about it.
Where's our porker?" I asked,
postponing the kiss pro tempore.
"Our porker," said Miss Dobb, grave
ly, lis in his grave"
"Good heavens pr cried, "dead !" and
hmm ediately went out 10 look at his de-
serted abode.
I was quite calm by dinner time, and
Informed Susan that 1 was ready to hear
the particulars of the sad event.
"Well, James," she commenced, "you
know you directed those beans to be fed
him.
sob, that's it I thought it would be
laid at my door in some manner, not
withstanding the little circumstances
that [ was over two hundred miles
away Well, proceed"
$50 the girl gave him beans for din
ner, and beans for supper, and the next
morning she went out with some more,
and then heard her scream. [ went
out, and there he was-swelled up-oh,
dreadfully-twice as large as life, dear
and lying on his side and kicking his
legs family. Neighbor Jones looked
over the fence and asked what the mat
ter was"
"With bunch of Isabellas, doubt
less"
"And when we told him, he came
over to see the pig, and said pooh he
wasn't dead; that he knew what was
the matter with tho pig; bloated stom-
ach; qe could cure him. Have you
any brandyn' said he. [ told him we
had, and came into the house and got
a bottle"
"What! that S. O. P. brandy ?" ex-
claimed.
i Eyes, dear, of course"
"Good gracious !, And you gave that
fifteen dollar brandy to that miserable
two-dollar pig"
eyes, dear; but it did no good. Then
neighbor Jones bled him.
"The savage!"
"And that did no good either. So
at last we gave it up, and neighbor
Jones had his man bury it in the gar
den."
Ono dear-in Mr.. Jones' garden"
A sudden idea crossed my mind.
"Well, upon my word |" / respo1 d.
ed. 1t seems we are not even to have
the benefit of the carcass as a fertilizer
of the soil. This caps the climax"
"What do you mean, James ?"
"Why, Susan, don't you know that
dead animals enrich the soil where
they are buried, in decomposing and
supplying ammonia and phosphoric
acid and things that make the vegeta-
bles grow big?"
"James, how can you talk such
stuff?'
"5tuff Not bit of it. Jones knows
all about it. That's the way he fertil-
ICES his garden. He's got dead dog
and three dead cats buried at the foot
of mis- grape-vines-which accounts for
the superiority of the Isabellas, my