The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-03-12


hot Summers got here in airnest.
must hoe that fve-acre patch of corn to-
morrow. And the skeeters has got
round as thick as hasty-pudding! Never
see the beat of 'em so airly in the year"
There wasn't nothin' for me to do but
to make the best of it and get ready for
our expected visitor. didn't cook up
much, because Gustavus warn't no eater,
and 1 put off the soap bling, and Jere-
miah he postponed the hog business, as
Lily Ann sed, sign die. DIr. Dc We're
arrived Monday afternoon. Lily Ann
had spent the whole forenoon in getting
ready for him, and she had combed her
hair so that her head looked as large as
half-bushel basket, and she was
powdered as white as the statoo of
General Jackson in the public liberty at
Allenville.
Mr.. Dc We're was tall and lank and
drab. He looked as if he had been born
tired, and hadn't got rested, and he put
me in mind of that old green calico dress
of mine that didn't wash we'll, and
the color of it all kinder run into one
luther and gin it home-sick look all
over.
He couldn't seem to talk plain, and he
wore gold-bowed eyeglasses that kept
continerly falling off his nose and kept
him busy the heft of the time a-resculng
,em from destructiOn
din't say nothing about eating till
supper time, seeing as De We're want no
eater to speak of, but good land! when
he had got filled up my table looked as
if full grown cyclone had swept acrost
it, an throwed all the vittles into the ad-
Joining township! No appetite, indeed
A boa constructor couldn't have eat any
more. No, not even if he had sot up
nights, and put in eating hours. Lily
Ann was as happy a critter as ever you
see, and she and Mr.. De We're talked al
together in words of six syllables; and
they sung some operate music and
scared our dog Towser so that he quit
the house and didn't come back for a
week; and the two cats that was asleep
in the clothes basket in the wood shed
fuzzed up the hair on their backs and
tails as they listened, and then they give
one terrible war cry and whisked out of
that basket in a jiffy and scootcd under
the wood shed, and nothing could in
duce them to come out. De We're and
Lily Ann walked together by the brook
down in the calves pasture, and they sot
out on the piazzy nights and stared at the
moon, and he harncssed up the old mare
to take ride, and he put the breechlng
on over her head and the breast plate on
over her tail, and then Jeremiah he came
to the rescue and sot her agoing right
end foremost.
Our hired man, Jonas Bangs, he
hitchcd up the oxen and went down to
our 'tothcr farm after load of medder
hay, and as soon as Gustavus see him
getting ready he was bent to go.
"It will be SO sweetly pastoral to ride
on the new mown hay" sed he, feeling
of the spot where he expected his mus.
tache would be sometime in the vast and
onsartin' future-f'quite like poem"
"I dunno's you'd better risk it, sed
jeremiah, "them air cattle is kinder orn-
cry critters, and they hain't been used
for quite 3 spell-and Jonas hain't over
and above kcerful!"
BIT De We're and Lily Ann they
wouldn't hear to nothing, and they
mounted into the cart and went of. He
held her perrysol over her head with one
hand aud clung for dear life to the rail
Of the cart with 'tother. And Jonas he
iabbed the brad in the end of his goad
into the oxen and sot 'em off in a canter.
1 was busy frying doughnuts, and after
that team had been gone about long
enough to get back I heerd an awful
rumble, and I forgot all about my billing
hot fat on the stove, and rushed to the
door with lump of dough in my hand,
and good gracious! there was them oxen
tearing down the hill at the back of our
barn on the dead run, and Mr. De We're
and Lizy Ann bouncing about on the top
of the load of hay and yelling like Wild
critters. His hat was gone, his eye
glasses bobbed out behind him, and his
long hair strcamcd back like banner in
the breeze.
Rite down the hill went them oxen
rite through a board fence that was
round the cabbage patch, straight into
into a swamp that lays a-tween our
farm and Deacon Bridges. There the
cart stuck fast and come to such sud-
den standstill that it upset, and De We're
and Lily Ann upset with it. sec 'em
bounce up into the air like two injy
rubber balls, and jest that mint I heerd
IN awful swish and sizzlc from the
kitchen, and I rushed back to find my
doughnut fat all afrc and the room so
full of smoke that you couldn't see acrost
it. l ketched the tongs and throwed
the klttlc out doors, and jeremiah he
came in from the barn with two horse
blankets and il buffalo. and we made out
to save the house.
Jonas had got round and fshcd Lily
Ann and her admircr out of the water,
and the noighbors come manfully to the
spot and helped git out the oxen.
My soul and body! You'd ought to
have seen Dc We're! He was spectacle,
and no mistake! We washed his head
out in the watering trough, and put him
into some ovcralls of Jeremiah's, and
gin him rum sweat to keep the cold
from striking to his throat, but the pore
crittcr was so far gone that be couldn't
eat nothing for supper.
AS for Lily Ann, she took her bed and