Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1882-03-16
Snoring In Il Foreign Tongue.
Bill Nye's Boomerang.

Snoring In Foreign Tongue.
Bill Nye's Boomerang.
otis funny how careless they get
about giant powder after they get used
to it," said W0odtick Williams the other
day to Boomerang man.
cts mighty harmless looking stuff,
and you wouldn't think it if you didn't
know what it was, that it would blow a
explosive Nebraska butter.
~ know when I was sinking on the
Feverish Hornet, and had a cabin up in
Slippery Ellum Gulch, at first we was
powerful careful about our giant pow
der and kept it in hole in the side Of
the hill, but after we got more familiar
with it we got to keeping it in the cabin,
and in about to weeks we used to sit on
the box when we played Black Marian
or Pedro.
CATER this we found out that this
kind of groceries worked better if it
was kept kind of warm, and we used
to put the little cakes of joint powder
under the mattress nights so they'd be
kind of warm in the morning to blast
with.
owe had a Polander on the night
shift of the Feverish Hornet that the
boys called Neuralgia Phlaskowhiski.
He was the worst man to swear nights
and snore days that ever saw. When
he used to go down in the shaft and
swear a few times in the dialect of his
| fatherland, the other men had to come
to the surface for fresh air. He gener-
q lIu FIJI hn mvo.tol o,,I -
jaw got cramped on an imported COB OF
profanity, and then he would quit q
| a while. We called his style to swear
the Anglo-Kosciusko swear. 1t gener-
ally Jared the foot wall and shattered
| the vein matter SO that we had to tim
Der up little after he got through.
ellis snore was about as blood-curdl-
ing as his unique style of swear. He
used to snore in his own native tongue.
Of course, the force of habit is stronger
on man when he is asleep. That's
why he never tried to snore in English
"When he seemed to be getting the
most comfort out of his slumbers and
had his mouth open so as you could
throw Magnolia ham against his liver,
and snored so as to get in all the double
f's and as and rs and Polish dipthongs
and other funny business, it made the
floor of the cabin creak, and the cook
stove would fall down and the clock
used to stop, and stock in the Feverish
Hornet would go down to ten cents a
share.
"Well, Neuralgia Phalaskowhikiski,
working on the night-shift as he did,
had to do his heavy sleeping during the
day, while the rest of us was to work in
the shaft. The dayshift consists of my
self and a man named Marco Bozzaris
Smith, and the night-shift was compos-
ed of a picked crew, consisting of Neu-
ralgia PhilaskOWski and q man from
Zion that we called Anonymous, be-
cause we never knew what his name
was.
anonymous slept iii tent, because
he said he was a little nervous and fd-
getty-ike and couldn't sleep in a boiler
factory. So he pitched his tent about a
mile down the gulch, where the sound
of Neuralgia's snores was partially dead
ened.
"About 2 o'clock p. m. one pleasant
July day there was a loud crash in
Slippery Elm Gulch that agitated the
country for four miles around, and fill
ed the air with fragm ents Of bed-clothes,
and cooking utensils. We went down
to the cabin, but it wasn't there.
"The conclusion of Neuralgia Phalas-
kowhiski's snore had set off the giant
powder concealed about his bed, and
distributed the whole dog-gone ranch
over the surrounding scene.
"We postponed the funeral for two
weeks, and asked the prospectors of the
State to bring in such fragments of de-
ceased as might be found. Atthe hour
appointed, the mourners gathered
around a baking powder can containing
all that was mortal of Neural gia.
death had worked a wondrous
change in the expression of the features
of the remains. Very few could recog-
nize the deceased.
Mr.. "Phalaskowhiski had always been
cursed with a fear that be would be
buried alive, and Mario Rozzaris Smith
suggested that the remains should lie
in state for week or two, but the rest
felt so positive about his death that the
ceremonies were allowed to go on.
This little episode seemed to us like
solemn warning, anu after that we kept
our giant powder under the mattress of
a man who didn't snore in a foreign
language.
''The good old Anglo-Saxon snore is
good enough for the everyday hum
drum of life: When the language of
this country isn't good enough to snore
with in mining camp, it's time to ad-
journ."