Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1883-12-05
The Festive Drummers.
[From the Boston Post.I


It was cruel job that several men,
bers of the fraternity of commercial mis-
sionaries, commonly called drummers.
put up on brother exhorter. He had
been sent south for three months, and
therefore, missed his usual trip up north
and the boys got notice of his death
inserted in paper and sent it to all his
customers. Then they spread the re.
port that his ghost continued to travel
the route he did in the flesh, and had
called upon several old customers.
There's good deal of superstition left
among the up. county merchants vet, and
the report made some of them nervous.
OF course Nickerson, the missionary,
had heard nothing of this. It was about
dusk of one of the damp, gloomy, driz-
Fly, wet days of last week that a country
merchant named Oorbin, who does bust
ness in small New Hampshire town,
was at his desk. 1t was q dull day;
there was nobody but Corbin in the
store. He had not Lighted the lamps,
and in the cleaning the place, festooned
on one side with cardinal hose and cheap
shawls, and on the other, the hardware
side, with hand-saws, etc., had quite a
his desk at the back end of the store.
Nickerson entered very quietly and I'M
perceived, and, when Corbin looked up,
there stood the drummer, directly in
front of him. Corbin always had held
a strong faith in ghosts and did not for
moment doubt that one stood before
him. With howl of fear he hurled the
ink-stand at the astonished missionary
and then bolted under the counter, The
missionary coUldn't understand it. Heidi
notknow that he had offended Corbin, but
he was indignant at being covered with
ink, and resolved on having an explana-
ton. So over the counter he went,
grabbed the trembling Corbin and
hauled him out. ''What the Gophet did
you do it for?" demanded Nickerson.
"Oh, forgive me, y pleaded Corbin. st
was SO surprised at seeing you" "Hang
you! Is that the way you act when you
are surprised ?" "Ye-yes, sir. !"
"What do you want? Why have you
come here?" $50 sell you a bill of
goods, of course. Get up here and look
at my samples. Light a light" eye
yes" Corbin turned to light match,
and just then Nickerson went out to
get his samples from his wagon, and
when Corbin got the lamp Lighted he
looked about and no Nickerson was to
be seen. Then he was sure it was a
ghost, and he went and locked all the
doors and crawled into the wood box
and pulled the lid down, and Nickerson
tried the door, found it was locked, con-
Guided chat Corbin was drunk or crazy,
got into his wagon and drove off. Corbin
stayed in the box about an hour, till a
number of townsmen and Corbin's wife
broke in to hunt him up, and then he
told his story, and opinion was divided
as to whether he had seen a ghost or
was drunk. Since then Nickerson has
met with one or two other milder sug-
gestions that he is a ghost and has come
to understand the affair, and has writ
ten Corhin an explanation. But Cor
bin has not made it public in town, and
sticks to ais ghost story. He feels that
he can't afford to be laughed at and pay
the drinks for the whole community,
THE entire leaf of Methodist hymn
book was found in the spiral of a conch