Northern Ohio journal. [volume] (Painesville, Ohio) 1872-1896, 1880-05-29
THOSE DUNNING BOYS.

~, yes! it's good soil for melons;
first-rate along this slope. Sandy, so
there's never standin' water; and we
could have 'em easy enough, but, you
see, those Dunning boys
Il should certainly think those boys
had as many legs as a centipede," said
Ruth. 81 hear of them in every gar
den in town, yet nobody ever catches
them. They seem to have more force
of character than all the village put to-
gether, for when ask why there isn't
more fruit, or why somebody doesn't
have a strawberry or some raspber-
ries, there is always the same answer,
20, you can't on account of the Dun
ming boys They look harmless, too,
and seem good-natured; but it's an abb
solute despotism, and, as good Ameri-
cans, should say the time had come
for revolt. You are an old soldier,
Hiram. Tell me the way"
Hiram chuckled as Ruth looked at
him. The two had become great
friends, and he often came down from
his old shop where he now and then
tried his former trade of cobbling, and
leaning over the garden gate, watched
her among her flower-beds, which
bloomed as no other beds m Lowgate
had ever done. Hiram had for many
years driven the Stage between Low
gate and the Springs, till rheumatism
disabled him, and now lived with his
wife in the little house back of the shoe
makers shop his son had used till sent
to the West by the hopelessness of MAX
. ing a living from it. Hiram himself
was too old for change, and indeed the
neighborhood could Ill have spared him.
Grave-digger, bell-ringer, genealogical
register for every family in the town
ship, and, above all. story-teller at
large, remembering everything that had
ever happened to anybody, and with
dry humor which played in every
wrinkle and lighted up his rath-
er melancholy brown eyes. A lit
tie dismayed at first by his free
dom. Ruth had come to find him an un-
failing source of amusement, and often
of something deeper, and to talk over
many things which puzzled or troubled
her in this new life, in which unexpect-
ed difficulties were always cropping up.
g You can't expect them boys to be
any other way" said Hiram, after
pause. g You see it was in their father
before them and it will out. Didn't 1
ever tell you about old Dunning?"
ss Never" Ruth said.
w dl, butIc Ouo SLOIy tulllk VI
just this minute that's goods any to
s theycome up. I'll Just sit down on the
steps here while you're pullin' off them
dead leaves tt cu'rus I hain't said
anythin' about him before. Old Dun
ming stood for more tom-foolery, I do
suppose, than any other ten men in the
township. You see he was lake~mad,
like good many about here, and bound
from the time he was ten years old to
getAhis Twin 4out o. the lake. Now
Champlain looks plain sailin' enough,
but you that just come down in pleas
ure-boat from Whitehall, you don't
know much about it. Up there in them
Narrers I've seen the boat draw so
much water the fish'd just be fioppin'
up an down along the banks, an not a
pint for 'em to swim in. An there s
rocks an shoals, an man has to keep
his eyes open or he'll be aground, sure
as fate.
'' Wal, old Dunning began just after
the war of '12, when good many sloops
was runnin,' an he was cabin-boy. an
he went on, first one thing an then
another, an there wasn't one captain
on that lake that didn't make up his
mind he'd as soon try a saw-horse for
cabin-boy. Somehow or 'nuther old
Dunning didn't ever get the hang of
anything but slowing away his victuals
and stealin' whatever come handy. He
couldn't see atenpenny nail lynn round
loose but what he wanted it, an he'd it
too, and all so sort of easy and nat'ral
that somehow he never got took up for
it the way other folks do. His mother
had farm just over the Canada line,
an when he couldn't sail the lake he
smuggled, an could tell you some O.
the ways if you cared to know any time.
He got married finally to French
gal, an took her home, an they
scratched along somehow, but it wasn't
till his boys was fifteen or so that he
managed somehow or other to get a
sloop of his own. That set him up,
can tell ye! An he might have made a
good ivin' if he hadn't spent so much
time gettin' aground, or lettin' his sails
blow of, or some such nonsense. They
see signals flynn an they'd all say;
sOld Cummings in another muss,' and
sometimes they'd hurry and sometimes
they wouldn't.
.sThese two boys took to stealin' just
as easy as their father. l don't know
why they shouldn't. 1t was in the
DIOOQ Ou DObu SlucS. lu0SS UOyS COulOu
read. an there wasn't man nor woman
neither that seemed to think it was any
o. their business. I don't know.
can see through knot-hole, as easy as
anybody, but hain't seen yet what the
right o. this thing is.
"Wal, the long an short of it is, Ole
Dunning an them boys got to be kind
o, pirates in a small way, an wherever
that sloop came folks was on the watch
for their gardens an hen-roosts. Mos
everybody along the shore has ducks an
geese, an it was mighty handy to gel
one or two o. these. An the queer
thing was, everybody knew, an nobody
wheedly kind o. way, an he'd go w
into the village. am sit an tell stories'
an like as not his boys were robbin' tn.
gardens of the very men that listened tt
him. Then they'd set sail and make
for the middle o. the lake, an next day
try the other side, unless they got loa(
from somewhere. will say for him h,
always carried his freight fair an
square, an as say, might made al
honest livin' if he d liked.
.sThis time pm tellin' about wal
sweet-corn time and plenty of nict
roasting ears, an Old Dunning calkila
ted to live pretty easy. He was hal
way up the lake, nigh first-rate gar
den patch he hadn't never been to, be
cause the man was pretty stuffy an hat
said he'd fog 'em all, and give them
ducEing too. if they meddled with him
It was a dark night and a pretty stif
breeze, an the sloop came along afte
nightfall an cast anchor. The boy
went ashore an filed sack with swee
corn an going back they just wruns
the necks o. two geese an took then
along. They see the wind was goin
down some, but they concluded
would be all right, so they just hoiste,
anchor an went below. First, though
they shucked the corn and picked tn
geese an threw the shucks and tn
feathers overheard, an then they lit
fire an had a royal supper; eat just lik
them Frenchers, an then got ready t
turn in. Went on deck an cast anchor
L guess we're far enough out now t.