The Benton weekly record., 1880-10-01
Selected Story.
FIGHTING JOE.
BY ARTHUR WooD.

'NhO and what was he?',
was standing in the churcllyard Of
small town on the borders of South .ta
: fordsl1i1e one bright Sunday morning i
April. / was {: stranger III that part
the country, and was passing through til
place in the course of long walk from til
larger adjacent town, to which my bHsi
ness had taken me the day before. Th
extensive mining operations of the las
twelve or fifteen years had altered the lii
tie unpretending village materially; am
though the quaint old church and som
long low buildings, suggestive of farm
and homesteads, still retained an air 0
rustic simplicity, they were being gradual
~ obscured and the place itself. sophistica
TED by the formal roWs of plain and ugly
tenements, built expressly for the mining
population, which each year was becoming
more and more numerous.
[ had amused myself BY decipllerine
some Of the inscriptions OH the gi.ayestoneI
t-We1l-nigh oblitcrated BY the weather.
stains and the moss that time had suffered
to find root-lold in the llo1lows Of tile let.
terlng-When man, presumably miner,
III the Sunday clothes peculiar to his class
carrying q little child of two or three
/ years, and followed by another somewhat
/ Older, seated himself on A flat stone. and
i opened a conversation.
A ciyilly-spoken fellow enough, though
with the unconth accent Of the county. {
readily accepted the invitation lle offered.
and we chatted pleasantly, He had known
the place many years, he told me, ave,
long before it had grown into tht,town it
now WAS, when It Was nothing bus num-
bic village, and when the Ions grass or
#ipenlng corn bowed its head to tie Wiiia
on the spot where the unsightly engine
house and tall red chimney now stood,
and where the heaps Of Stag and cinder
marked the busy life Of the toilers in the
earth below.
The handsome marble monument, he
told me, denoted the last rcsting-place Of
the late rector, and this broad, massive
piece Of granite was the tomb OF d certain
local squire, popularity know us esquire
Jack, " who, ii seemed, WAS much given to
horseracing, cooking, and such kindred
sports, and who, being sad, ''ne'er-do-
we'll, thoughtless, reckless fellow, but
withal good-natured and easy-going, was,
as such gentry not unfrequently are, the
most popular member Of his family.
AS my new acquaintance pointed out
these objects and others which hethought
suppose, would interest me. he had risen
from his seat, and we had strolled leisure
y through the churchyard. It was in
corner, and rather il a hollow, that, before
a humble mound Of green turf, and deeked
with the pretty spring flowers, carefully
planted in the form Of a cross, we both, as
Of one accord, paused. It had not any
gravestone, but only a piece OF wood sup
ported by two short uprights. On this
were roughiy-caryed, as il done with
pocket-knife, these two words 'sFighting
Joe.''
''That is a strange inscription to put ov-
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