Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1886-10-13

weights and a lot of brass chain. The
major said it was a cuckoo clock, and
said the man who sold it guaranteed
that every half hour a cuckoo would ap-
pear at the cottage window, sing sweet
", and vanish. and he thought it'Would
be just the thing to hang in the hall.
So he got the %stepladder and drove a
nail near the ceiling, got the cottage in
position, set the hands, and started the
pendulum. The pendulum wigwagged
Several times solemnly and stopped.
The major started it again, but to no
purpose, and finally, after two hours
tlnkering, gave it up, and we all went
to bed to be up bright and early for
Luray. About 1870 Dick, who had
been at the club, came in, and in CROP
ing along the hall accidentally moved
the weights. and in some mysterious
way started the machinery. In twenty
minutes, just in the middle of pro-
found silence, we were aroused by this:
"Br-r-r-r-r-r-click! Whoopoo-o-o-o!
-br-r-r-r-click" -.
Dick thought the baby next door had
collie again, and Bunny was afraid it
was burglars. The major came into
my room with a revolver and wanted to
know if I had heard any one yell mur-
der, and we could both hear muf1ed
conversation proceeding from the serv-
ants room in the basement Then we
leaned over the banisters and listened,
and concluded it was a false alarm and
went to bed again, but just as. con-
seriousness poised to take her flight the
thing broke loose again, thus:
''Ber-r-zit! Whoop-oo! buzz ooploo!
ging! uku! xxz-z-z hoo! TIT whewplew!
clang! tootoo! Xxx kim! Kookloo! sizzz!
bloobloo!-whist!" and then the thing
shut up with a vicious snap which SEEM
ed to be intended to convey the impress
sion that there was more coming by
and by. There was commotion in the
household. Bunny screamed and Dick
came out with a. Trantor, the major
turned a handspring out of bed and
went down stairs nine at a time, and
distant sounds of 'slamming shutters
gave hints of q general uprising amoeg
The neighbors. OF course this time the
major had his suspicious, and after
finding all the doors and windows Sc
curely fastened, and ascertaining that
there was no maniacal cat conce:l lied in
the cellar, concluded that something
was wrong with the chronological cot
tage, and after sitting up for half an
hour caught the clock in the act. 1t
was too high on the wall to read h, and
the %stepladder was out in the back yard,
10 Dick reached up and whackcd the
pendulum with his cane and succeeded
in unshipping it, with the satisfactory
result that the machinery ran six times
as fast as before, and the cuckoo got
devilish and whooped every fiva min
utes, and it was 2 o'clock before the
weight ran down to where the major
could grab it, and put us out of misery.
Bunny called down and begged the
major not to be too harsh with thu, clock,
but the major had his dander up, and
jerked out about three yards of chain
and six wheels, and said that when a
piece of mechanism got to be as immoral
as that clock it wasn't entitled to mercy.
Then the night Waterman, who gen.
orally sleeps on our front steps in fine
weather, rang the bell and wanted to
know if the house was afire, u I'D the
doctor came in from next door to- see if
any one had been taken suddenly i'll, so
it was nearly daylight before we tIgot to
sleep.-M y. Times.