St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1882-09-30

way.
S"All right"
"When would roa like to begin?"
"Now."
So within ten minutes after we
had first glimpsed this nondeselipt.
he WAS one of us, with his coat off
and hard at it?
Beyond the end of our establish
ment which was furthest fiom the
street was u deserted garden. path
less and thickly grown up with
blooming and villarnous "iimrson'
weed and It's common friend, the
stately sunAower. In the midst D,
this mournful spot WAS AN aged and
decayed little frame house. with but
one room, one window and no cell
ing; it la Il been smoke-house u
generation before. Me. ..demus war
given this lonely and ghostly den
us bed chamber.
The village snarties recognized a
treasure in Nicodemus right away
il butt to play jokes on. 1t was
easy to St. that he WAS inconceiva-
bly, green aud confding. George
Jones had the hoLor of perpetratinp
the first joke on him; he gave him
Il cigar with II ire cracker Ia it, and
uinked to the CT wd To come. The
thing exploded resertly and swept
away the bulk OF Nicodemus's brows
ANA eye-lashes. He simply said:
Il consider these kind of see
.'yays dangersome," and seemed to
suspect nothing. The nrxt evening
he wa,laid George and poured
bucket of ice water over him.
Que day, while Nicodemus was
swimming, Ton McElroy tied his
clothes. Nicodemus made bon
fire of Tom clothes, by way of re-
faliafinn.
A third joke was played on Nico-
iemns day or two luter. H..
walked mp the middle aisle of the
village church Sunday night with
staring handbill pinned between
his shoulders. The joker spent the
remain'ler of the night III cellar
of deserted house. and Nicode-
mns sat on the cellar door till to-
ward breakfast time, to make sure
that the prisoner remembered that
if any noise was made rough trent
ment would bn the consequence.
The cellar had two feet of stagi,ant
water in it, and was bottomed with
six inches of mud.
Before very long time had
elapsed the village smarties began
to feel an uncomfortable conscious
usss of not having made a very
shining success out of theil at
tempts upon the simpleton from
Old Shelby" Experiments grew
scarce and eharrv. Now the ynung
doctor came to the rescue. There
was delight and applause when he
proposed to scare Nicodemus tn
death. and explained how he was
going to do it. He had a noble
new skeleton-the skeleton of the
late aid only local celebrity, jimmy
Finn, the village drunkard-u
grizzly piece of property which he
had bonght of jimmy Finn himself
at auction tor $50. under great
competition. when Jimmy lay very
sick in the tam. ard Il fortnight be-
fore his death. The $40 had gone
promptly for whisky. and bad con-
siderably hurried up the change of
ownership in the skeleton.
The doctor put Jimmy Finn's
skeleton in Nicodemus' bed.
This was done about $50 in the
evening. About Nicodemus's usual
bedtime - midnight the yil!age
jokers came creeping stealthIly
through the ''iimpsou" weeds and
sunhowers toward the lonely frame
lien. They reached the window
nd peeped i'll. There sat the loug-
egged | anper or his bed, i'll IL very
brief shirt. and nothing more. He
was dal CLING fis legs contentedly
back and forth. aud wheezing the
music oI "Campton Races" out of u
puper-covered comb, which he was
pressing against his month. By
his side lay new jcwsharp, q new
top, u sol,d India rubber. bail, Il
handful O! panied marbles, five
pounds O. store" Candy. and II
weli-gn' we'd ginger bread as big
and as hi TX i.s volume of sh eet
music. Ha had sold the skeleton
To tr.ysling quack for So, and
Eas eniuyInp the rs.IlIt.