The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1886-03-20
BOTH JONAHS.
The Fate of One of Them in q
Logging Camp. co.

Logging Camp. co.
Before Wolf River camp was in win
ter quarters the majority of the men
had reached the conclusion that a fellow
named Serenus Smith, who was put
ting in his first year as a logger, was a
Jonah. Every body recognized his pc
culiarities, and when Menominee Ken
drick said he was a Jonah the }epithet
was fixed upon him, and as a Jonah he
has since been known.
Regarding this rs a joke to begin
with, the men finally came to look
upon Smith as a mysterious character,
and at length some one with a smatter-
ing of Biblical learning suggested that
the only thing to do with a Jonah was
to throw him overt GARD. From that
time Smith lost caste rapidly.
"There amt no good in him. Me-
nominee said half a dozen times a day.
"He's a Jonah, and he ought to be run
out. There's something unhealthy
about him, and I never yet knew any
good to come from II of those fellers.
We had Jonah up on the Flambeau
two years ago, and we had to get rid of
him, and I'll miss my guess if we don't
find it necessary to shove this n be-
fore long"
Little by little the few intimates of
Smith fell away, and he presently was
as completely isolated as though he
lived in these wastes alone. Nobody
would eat, sleep, or work with him,
and at night or on Sundays in all the
convivialities and amusements of the
camp he was left out. The treatment
which he was receiving began to tell
on him after awhile, and as he grew
more and more sinister in appearance
the conviction of the men that there
was something uncanny about him
strengthened prodigiously.
One Sunday just before the holidays,
when he had tried unsuccessfully to
scrape an acquaintance with several of
the men, he at length cornered one Of
them, Jack Humphrey, and asked him
what was the matter.
Il don't knows any things the
matter" said Jack, trying to move
off.
We'll, something ais you men or
me, which is it?" insisted Smith.
"It's you, then," said Jack.
"You're a Jonah, and that's all there
is to it,"
Beyond that Jack would saynothing,
but Smith, continuing his interrogato-
ries from man to man, heard from
every one of them the unanimous de-
cision of the camp that had been ar
rived at. The intolerable loneliness of
Smiths position made him well nigh
desperate, and IL is believed that he
would have left the camp had not a
new arrival of men brought n indi-
vidual of whom he could make a com
panion. The two were then together
all the time, and a confidence was cs-
tablished between them which at last
some of the men came to admire and
then to envy. Jonah, as Smith was
then called. was gayer, brighter, and
apparently healthier than ever. He
whistled, sang and laughed. His eyes
grew bright and his cheeks red. He
made renewed attempts to render him
self agreeable to his associates, and if he
failed to convince them that he had
been misjudged he found consolation
and companionship with Hitchcock,
his new friend. All hands remarked
the change that had come over Jonah,
and nearly all were willing to admit
that they might have been mistaken.
Things ran along in this way until
the other day, when Hitchcock revealed
his identity to Hendrick and a
few others. He had come into the
camp in the disguise Of a lum-
herman, but he was a detective
who wanted the man called Jonah for
q murder committed three years ago in
Kentucky. He had gained Smiths
confidence, and had heard from his
own lips a complete story OF his crime,
the last and most important confession
having been made ON Sunday. The
two men had talked freely of their past
lives, and the detective, in order to
draw out his associate, had related the
details of some pretended crimes in
which he had been engaged. Jonah's
~long-enforced silence and his desire for
companionship got tie best Of him and
be, too, confessed. He gave every de-
tail of the crime, revealed some things.
which had never been understood,
showed how he had been led into the
plot, and vowed that if he lived long
enough and was able to do SO he would
make such reparation rs was possible.
Tn f,nt I'm hod ol,o,Jy ;nolo,od one i