The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1894-12-05
A Character Sketch.
TuaA1oo. s. c.. De!

A Character Sketch.
TuaALoo, s. G., Dec. 8, 1894.
Editors Intelligencer Not every neigh
borhood can parade unique character,
but South Union can. Tom Honea was
born at this place thirty-eight years ago
and has made his impress here and in
some other places. Tom is SUI generiS, q
veritable yar0 dUis. He has been really
handsome but under hard work and
harder knocks he is aging some, and
when I asked him the secret of his pre-
mature gray hairs, he said, "It must a.
been high livin' an bad skeers." He is
humorous without trying to be so, and
his waggish sayings bubble and sparkle
like fountain. His comely Uranium is
full of horse sense of two kinds, and
could he have had any schooling in his
youth he would have made his mark in
other lines than the tricks and vernacu-
lar of the Court House bcneyard. Very
early in life he gave promise of the stuff
that was in him. In war times, when he
was about eight years old his father
worked in gun factory here, and Tom
often made excursions with the teamsters
for the sake of the ride and to be with the
horses. On one occasion one of the hor-
ses became ungovernable and Tom,
springing from the wagon, rushed to the
side of the refractory animal and fairly
dazed the driver, himself an adept, with
the highly impregnated observation.
"Why, she's the --est hussy I ever
seed"
Tom is q dangerous customer in a
"hoss" swap, and his victims are strewn
all the way from Anderson to Carnes-
Vile, and from Walhalla to Hartwell.
Some years ago he appeared in Westmin-
ster one day mounted on a well-kept
Texas pony. A guileless store-keeper
who "nad the money" took afancy to the
brute, getting the idea. into his head
somehow that he was dickering for
young Hambletonian, and Tom, humor-
ing his victims ha!lucination, literally
wiped up the earth with him. The store
keeper was not long in learning to dis
criminate between E[ambletonians and
Texas scrubs, and wanted to rue back.
In the parley over the matter Tom prom
ised to do 80, 'if you can find man in
my settlement who will believe word
I say" The original trade stood.
&c in 20 hnrco. r.
per's vocabulary, and it is refreshing to
hear him dilate upon the fine traits of
the particular plug he may possess. He
will trade for anything, and occasionally
rounds up with steer on his hands, to
which he gives the name of its former
owner. One day when lived under the
hills next the river, got him to haul me
some firewood, and as 1 went home that
afternoon, I found the last half-mile Of
road strewn with poles which, with the
torn up ground, admonished me that
there had been a runaway. When I
asked about it Tom said, "Well, you see
Lawrence got his steer from our
good postmaster-"he thest got 30 OBJ
stropertous I couldn't do nothing with
him." and I learned that Tom had had
to turn the gentleman loose to keep from
being run over.
My hero's talents are by no means cir
cumscribed, for in the old days he could
make by moonlight an article of corn
juice that rivalled the celebrated product
of the Georgia Gum-logger, and although
he used to get more or less entangled in
the meshes of the law, he always sue
ceeded in escaping punishment For
years he has been a familiar figure among
the crowds that periodically swarm about
the United States Court at Greenville, and
he always manages 10 make more out Of
his presence there than the government
does, and he remarked last Summer, that
being witness in a whiskey case is
about the only chance poor man has to
get money in the Summer time. While
over there at Court last Summer he was
taken suddenly and alarmingly i'll, and
it took two doctors part of an afternoon
and nearly all night to bring him around.
When he got home, woebegone and at
tenuated, he was heard to say that sit
thest won't do for fellow to pour town
Ticker in on top of Fluridy watermil-
lion." But Tom doesn't drink as much
as he used to, in fact, he considers that he
has been leading life of sobriety for
some time. These hard times affect him,
however, as they do everybody else, and
he told me the other day that recently
when he had sought the repose of his
couch after hard day of practical en-
deavor to keep his, his wife's, and their
five children's heads above water, he fell
to contrasting his present with his past,
and in racking his brain in the rather
hopeless task Of evolving some scheme
that would lead him out of the tangled
wilderness of debt and scarcity. He said
the only conclusion he could reach was
that he should 80 to drinking again, for
"when I follered drinkin' I always had
good boss, good cloze and pocket full
of money, and with bottle in my pocket,
I thest went chargin'."
Let no man infer that Tom is brawler.
I do not believe there is spark of vici-
BUSINESS in his composition, but if there is
fellow around spelling tor fight Tom
will accommodate him. OF course, in
the life he has led he has had more or
less fighting to do, but it seems he always
went about it as matter of business and
not con amore. Some years ago he
escaped term in the penitentiary for
carving fellow-citizen with knife by
whipping man who picked a quarrel
with the carved fellow-citizen. All the
parties were at Court at Walhalla ready
to 60 to trial. At night as the party
principals and witnesses-lay scattered
over large floor the quarrel sprung up
and Tom, sober as judge and with the