Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1886-03-31
Tall South Carolina Stories.


here tonight, but you just ought to
90 down to South Carolina and hear
them spin 'em; why, they take all the
breath from a man. Just after Sher-
man went through they used to tell
big war tales about burnings, and
skirmishing, and so on, but they've
quit that now, and all the lies are
very peaceable ones. When | was
down there two years ago, one night
/ was at Florence, and the fellows
were all waiting for the Columbia ex-
press, and the way they did spin the
yarns to kill time was caution"
"Uncle Bill" said one of the group,
"if you don't mind, tell us one of
those stories"
"Well," said the old man, who in
fact loved % draw the long bow, 81
don't care if / do. In the first place
you must know that down there the
people amt particular about the dol
lars as they are up here; Charles
ton man would rather work for fifty
cents a day, and have his joke,
than get dollar in dry way. AS
| was going on to say, we were at
Florence, and there was one in that
crowd that could out lie all the rest
of us put together. He was telling
about Kershaw county cows; they
were so big that one of them supplied
a whole township. They milked with
q steam mixer, and ran it in big
stone tank, and then every man in
the neighborhood could connect his
house with it, just like your house is
with the water works. Folks down
there don't drink much whiskey-
they drink milk and water more than
one-third of the time. But that story
was nothing to the story of the Sump-
ter snakes. Down about Salterstown
they killed one, and he was so big
that the niggers cut him up in rings
just like they would a watermelon,
cleaned out the hide, sat it up on end,
built a roof over it, and they had a
house so close that cold couldn't get
in.
"And talking about cold, that re-
minds me; they have pretty cold
weather down there sometimes. About
six years ago blizzard came along
one night and blew all the fire out of
a farmhouse chimney; the old man
waited until the wind went down, and
he built it up again with light wood
knots. After while the wind came
roaring along again, and rushing
down the chimney. The wind went
down and the fire went up, and they
had tussle and they tussled and
tussled, when all of sudden there
came big lump of fire down on the
hearth, frozen like q rock. The
farmer picked it up, and put it on the
shelf, and thawed it out the next
to build another fire with.
The fellow said an Edgefield editor
was responsible for this lie.
"The cold down there doesn't keep
potatoes from growing, though. They
have a breed of potato in South Caro-
lima that grows so big that they don't
plant but one sprout; that makes one
potato, which is large enough to last
q family all winter. They never dig
'em; just scrape the dirt off the top,
cut off as much as they want, and
cover it up again. They never can
bring those sort of potatoes to West
The reason is they grow
SO big and so fast that they burst the
railroad cars open and fall out on the
track and obstruct passage for hours.
Mules are worn out things to lie about,
but l don't care, they have kicking
mules down there, too (; and one thing
funny about South Carolina mules is,
they never die; only one was ever
known to die in that whole country,
and a butcher at Camden killed him
and sold him for beef. A Colonel
bought a shank, and made some soup
out of it, but the first mouthful he
.ook-the soup, mind you, not the
'hank-projected him out of a two.
story window, and he did not come to
himself in three days.
"There is grocer at Mayesvilles,
who bought a lot Of hams-got 'em
,heap-and they were actually SO
strong that one night they got up,
inbarred the door, went to the depot,
md captured the mail train and rode
o Timmonsville without paying any
are. Some folks said they had skip
'ers in 'em; but they didn't, although
hey skipped around right lively.
"The trains down there run pretty
ast, too. Just to give you an exam
'le: One morning the Atlantic Coast
line train was crossing the Wateree
River trestle when she struck broken
all and jumped the track. 1t hap
'cned that the telegraph wires were
N the same side to which it jumped,