Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1891-08-19
4 SOciGble Bug.

m0lecule, but much more sudden. race
it on its back and look at it through a
microscope and you will see what looks
like a small soft-shell crab. 1t has six
legs with horns on them, eight tails for
which it has no earthly use, and pair of
small eyes that denote mean disposition.
There is defiant look about its features
which indicates that it doesn't care what
people say about it. In Europe the CHG
ger is called the harvest flea, because it
comes at the time when grain is being
cut. When a harvest hand lies down un-
der tree to take his incoming the CHG
ger is very careful to see that he doesn't
sleep too long. 1t is found in great abun-
dance ON blackberry bushes, but it
thrives best at camp-meeting The CHG
ger prefers dry surroundings, but don't
refuse to attend Baptist camp-meeting.
1t is found in the Mississippi valley,
but at no point does it thrive so we'll as at
the Acton camp-meeting gronnd near In
dianapolis. Some old veteran chiggers
have been going there and subsisting on
the same ministers for years, but their
morals are as bad as ever, despite the ex-
cellence of their food The chigger
makes no address of welcome, but bur-
rows in the first ankle it encounters and
modestly hides itself from human gaze.
Pretty soon the man on whom it is
boarding will become restless and find it
hard to concentrate his thoughts. If he
has never been afflicted with chiggers be-
fore, he will scratch himself until part Of
his pelt comes off, but if he is an old
timer he will get magnifying glass and
a needle and go on chigger hunt. He
can't tell by feeling where to look, because
one small chigger will afilict man until
the remotest suburbs of his body are in a
state of painful turmoil, but he will see
red blotches here and there, which indi-
cate where the chiggers have taken out
claims and begun work. 1t requires con-
siderable skill to remove chigger from
your person without hurting its feelings,
and the parting is always a painful one
to you.
A well-known pastor remarked the
other day that he considered two-year
old bicycle means of grace, for it must
needs have taught its rider lessons in pa
tience and forbearance to subdue it, but
he went down to Acton and the chiggers
gave him ten years schooling in forbear-
ance the first night he was there. Gen
orally speaking, the chigger doesn't sing.
The blue-bottle fly will 90 around blowing
about what he intends to do, the humble
bee is all brag and bluster, and the mos
quito goes on his bloody errand singing
merrily the while, but the chigger sneaks
upon you, and the first suspicion you
have of his presence is when he has sunk
a driven well in you and consumed more
of your life current than you really
ought to spare.
1t is the lady chigger that does all the
damage. The man of the family stays al
home on the blackberry bush and lives Oh
a vegetable diet while his wife is away
getting the family disIiked. There seems
to be some malice peculiar TO her sex il
her deviltry, for she attacks man more
fercely than woman. The best antidote
for chiggers is grease, and it is customary
every evening for campers to pour oil OF
their troubled legs before retiring
Whiskey will not cure the chigger's bite
but may give the animal taste for alco
holic stimulents that it can never over
come. If the chigger once tastes human
blood it will never eat anything else, anC
it will proudly starve before it will g
back to the plain, simple diet Of it
youth.
"Oi hear that rich ovid uncle Of
yoor'n are dead and buried, Tarrance.
Gle are, Moiles."
"And what the devil soort Nv a vii
wer that he med, Oh doan' know The
ovid amanhaun, shure Oi always thought
he we're cracked, but the oidee Of layyin
instroocshuns to hev twenty-five t0usanC
dollars buried wild him And you were
execootrix, Tarrance p
Faith, that Oh was.