The Newtown bee., 1880-12-15
Hornets,

There is an old woman on Catharine street who delights to find a case that all the doctors have failed to cure and then 20 to work with herbs and roots and strange things and try to effect at least an improvement. A few days ago she got hold of girl with a stiff neck, and si e offered an old negro named Uncle Tom Kelly fifty cents to go to the woods and bring her hornets nest This was to be stecped in vinegar and applied to the neck. The old man spent several days along the Holden road, and one morning he secured his prize and brought it home in basket. When he reached Central market he had few little purchases to make, and after getting some tea at grocery he placed his basket on barrel near the stove and went out to look for beef bone.
 It was dull day for trade. The grocer sat by the stove rubbing his bald head His clerk stood at the desk bal ancing accounts, and three or four men lounged around. It wa3 serene hour. One hundred and fifty hornets had gone to roost in that nest for the winter. The genial atmosphere began to Timber them up. One old veteran opened his eyes, rubbed his legs and said it was the shortest winter he had ever known in all his hornet days. A second shook of his lethargy and seconded the motion, and in five minutes the whole nest was alive and its owners were ready to sail out and investigate. You don't have | to hit hornet with the broadside of an ax to make him mad. He's mad all over all the time, and he doesn't care a picayune whether he tackles a hum- ming-bird or an elephant.
 The grocer was telling one of the men | that hp onh General Grant were hnVs together, when fe gave sudden start oi surprise. This was followed by several othe: starts. Then he jumped over q barrel of sugar and yelled like Pawnee
 Some smiled, thinking he was after a | funny climax, but it was only minute before a solemn old farmer jumped about three feet high and came down to rol
 over job lot of washboards. Then
 the clerk ducked his head and made {
 rush for the door. He didn't get there One of the other men who had beer
 looking up and down to see what could
 be the matter, felt suddenly called upor
 to go home. He was going at the rat
 of forty miles an hour when be collidet
 with the clerk and they rolled on tn
 fioor There was no use to tell tn
 people in that store to move on. The,
 couldn't tarry, to save 'em. They al ! felt that the rent was too high. and tha
 they must vacate tie premises. A yel over by the cheese-box was answere'
 by & war-whoop from the show case
 A howl from the kerosene barrel nea , the back door was answered by vii gestures around the show-window.
 The crowd went out together. Uncl
 Tom was just coming in with his be-
 bone. When larger body meets smaller one the larger body knocks into the middle of next week. The ol
 man laid around in the slush until every body had stepped on him all they wante to, and then he set up and asked: ''Hey dey got de iah all put o' yitp"
 Some of the hornets sailed out of doc . to fall by the wayside, and others wait' . around on top of barrels and baske 2 2 and jars to be slaughtered It was hs d an hour before the last ore was dispos, z of, and then Uncle Tom walked
 picked up the nest, and said:
 "Mebbe dis will cure de stiffness B dat gals neck, jest de same, but f "a you I'ze got banged, an bumped, $ l. sot down on till will take a hullmedis le college all winter long to get me so l ! l- jump off a street kyar. Detroit F'
 Press.