The People's vindicator. [volume] (Natchitoches, La.) 1874-1883, 1881-01-01
Warming Up Z Hornets Nest.

THERE Is an old woman on Catherine
Street who delights to find case that
all the doctors have failed to cure and
then 90 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 q girl with stiff neck,
and she offered an old negro named Un-
Gle Tom Kelly fifty cents to 60 to the
woods and bring her q hornets nest.
This was to be stepped in vinegar and APP
piled to the neck. The old man spent
several days along the Holden Road, land
Yesterday morning he secured his prize
and brought it home in a basket. When
he reached the Central Market he had a
few purchases to make, and after getting
some tea at grocery he placed his has.
ket on barrel near the stove and went
out to look for a beef bone.
1t was q dull day for trade. The
grocer sat by the stove rubbing his bald
head. His clerks stood at the desk bal
ancing accounts, and three or four men
lounged around talking politics. 1t was
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 bis legs
and said it was the shortest winter he
had ever known in all his hornet day s.
A second shook off the lethargy and
seconded the motion, and in five min
utes the whole nest was alive and its
owners were ready to sail out and inves.
tigate. You don't have to hit u hornet
with the broad side of an Ak to make
him mad. He's mad all over all the
time, and he doesn't care picayune
whether he tackles humming-bird or an
elephant.
The grocer was telling one of the
men that he and Gen. Grant were boys
together, when he gave a sudden start
of surprise. This was followed by sew
eral other starts. Then he jumped over
a barrel of sugar and yelled like Paw
nee. Some smiled, thinking he was
after funny climax, but it was only
minute before solemn old farmer
jumped three feet high and came down
to roll over job lot Of wash. boards.
Then the clerk ducked his head and
made rush for the door. He didn't
get there. One OF the other men who
had been looking up and down to see
what could be the matter, felt suddenly
called upon to 60 home. He was going
at the rate of forty miles an hour when
he collided with the clerk and they rolled
on the floor. There was no use to tell
the people in that store to move on.
They couldn't tarry, to save 'em. They
all felt that the rent was too high, and
that they must vacate the premises. A
yell over by the cheese-box was answer
ed by war-whoop from the showcase.
A howl from the kerosene barrel near
the back door was answered by wild
gestures around the show window.
The crowd went out together. Uncle
Tom was just coming in with his beef
bone. When large body meets
smaller one the larger body knocks it
into the middle Of next week. The old
man laid around in the slush until
everybody had stepped on him all they
wanted to, and then he sat up and asked:
"Hev dey got de fab all put out yit?"
Some of the hornets sailed out doors
to fall by the wayside, and others waited
around on top of barrels and baskets
and jars to be slaughtered. 1t was half
an hour before the last one was disposed
OF, and then Uncle Tom walked in,
picked up the nest, and said:
"Mebbe dis will cure de stiffness in
dat gals neck, jist de same, bat tell
you l'ze got banged. an bumped, an
sot down on till it will take 4 hull medi-
cal college all winter long to GIT me SO I
kin jump off street kyar!"--DetroI
Free Press.