Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1877-02-15
Aumuruns department, The farm and firesiae.
MIR, SMITHS BOY.

MIR. SMITHS BOY.
HIS STARTLING STATEMENT CONCERNING HIS
FAMILY.
A family named Smith has recently moved
to Germantown, and Mr.. Browns boy, on
Sunday, leaned over the fence and gave to
our reporter his impression of Mr.. Smiths
boy, a lad of about fourteen years old:
"Yes, me and him are right we'll acquaint-
ed now; he knows more than do, and he's
had more experience. Bill says his father
used to be robber (Smith, by the way, is
deacon in the Presbyterian Church, and q
very excellent 'lawyer), and that he has $lO,-
100000 in gold buried in his cellar along
with a whole lot of human bones of people
he's killed. And he says his father is con-
jurer, and he makes all the earthquakes that
happen anywhere in the world. The old
man'll come home at night, after there's been
an earthquake, all covered with sweat and so
tired he kin hardly stand Bill says it's such
hard work.
"And Bill told me that once when man
come around there trying to sell lightning
rods, his father got mad and ate him right
up, and he takes bites out of every man he
comes acrost. That's what Bill tells me.
That is all I know about it. And he told
me that once he used to have dog, one of
these little kind of dogs, and he was flying
his kite, and, just for fun, he tied the kite
string on the dogs tail. And then the wind
struck her and bis dog went a-booming down
the street, with his hind legs in the air for
about mile, when the kite Of sudden be-
gan to 20 up, and in about minute the dog
was fifteen miles high, and commanding a
view of California and Egypt, and Oshkosh,
I think Bill said. He came down anyhow, I
know, in Brazil, and Bill said he swum home
all the way in the Atlantic Ocean, and when
he landed his legs were all nibbled off by
sharks.
II wish father'd buy me dog, SOS could
send him up that way. But 1 never have no
luck. Bill said that where he used to live he
went out on the roof, one day, to fly his kite,
and he sat on top of the chimney to give him
plenty Of room, and while he was sitting there
thinking about nothing, the old man put a
keg of powder down below in the fireplace
to clean the SCOT out of the chimbly. And
when he touched her off, Bill was blown over
against the Baptist Church stseple, and he
landed on the weathercock, with his pants
torn, and they couldn't get him down for three
days, so he hung there, going round and round
with the wind, and he had to live by. eating
the crows that came and sat on him, because
they thought he was made of sheet iron, and
put there on purpose.
"He's had more fun than enough. He was
telling me the other day about sausage
suffer his brother invented. 1t was kinder
machine that worked with a treadle; and
Bill said the way they did it in the fall, was
to fix it on the hogs back and connect the
treadle with a string, and then the hog'd
work the treadle, and keep on running it up
and down until the machine cut the hog all
up fine and showed the meat into the skins.
Bill said his brother called it Every Hog
His Own Suffer- and it worked splendid.
But I don't know. Pears to mes if there
couldn't be no machine like that. But any
way Bill said so.
"And he told me of an uncle of his out in
Australia, who was ct by big oyster once,
and when be got inside be staid there until
he'd ct the oyster up. Then he split the shells
open, and took half one for boat, and he
sailed along until he met sesserpent, and
he killed it and drawed off its skin, and when
he got home he sold it to an engine company
for hose, for forty thousand dollars, to put
out fires with. Bill said that was actually so,
because he could show me man who used
to belong to the engine company. I wish
father'd let mo 60 out to find a sea-serpent
like that; but he don't let me have chance
to distinguish myself
"Bill was saying, only yesterday, that the
Indians caught him once and drove railroad
spikes through his stomach and cut off his
scalp, and never hurt him bit. He said he
got away by the daughter of the chief sneak
ing him out of the wigwam and lending him
q horse. Bill says she was in love with him,
and when I asked him to let me see the holes
where they drove in them spikes, he said he
darsn't take off his clothes or he'd bleed to
death. He said his own father didn't know
it, because Bill was afraid it might worry the
old man.
"Bill told me they wasn't going to get him
to 20 to Sunday School. He says bis father
. has brass idol that he keeps in the garret,
and Bill says he'smade up his mind to be a
pagan, and begin to 60 naked, and carry a
tomahawk and bow and arrow, as soon as
the warm weather comes. And to prove it
to me, he says his father has this town all un-
derlaid with nitro-glycerine, and as soon as ho
gets raadd he's going to blow the old thing out
and bust her up, let her rip, and demolish
her. He said so down at the dam, and told
me not to tell anybody, but I thought there'd
be no harm in mentioning it to you.
"And now, I believe must be going.
hear Bill a'whistling: Maybe he's got some
thing else to tell me"