Omaha daily bee., 1895-11-24
MORE SCARED THAN HURT
Thrilling Episode in the Career of Mis-
souri, Editor.
THE STAFF ARMED FOR THE FRAcAs
Peaceful DenOuement of what Prom
Used to he nm Editorial RRstle
ana ROut-1he Preacher
Fled.

II don't want any notoriety about this,
exclaimed retired country editor to the
Chicago Chronicle man. 81 am here on pri.
vate business, but 1 will tell you Of the in
cdent about which l spoke to the hotel clerk
call it an incident because the original feat
to wipe up the floor with my body failed; not
because | was a better man than the man
who called, but because l was sort of scrub
diplomat.
II was editor and publisher OF a weekly
newspaper in the country town of border
county out in Missouri at the time of the in
cident There is a general idea, or used to
be, that the country editor had to get licked
or lick his assailants about four times year.
There was a good deal Of moonshine about
that. My recollection Is that the average
country editor was a peaceable man, and
there were not many occasions when the
people got up riot On account Of anything
he wrote. 1t has become a sort Of fad TO
make the country editor ludicrous. But
have noticed a tendency on the part of en-
lghtened newspapers to blue pencil the jokes
which their funny men write about country
editors. Still, there were times when the
monotonous routine of the country editor S
life felt the undulating motion which earth
quakes produce. will tell you about one.
MARRIED IN A CORNFIELD.
"The country editor has no city editor or
exchange editor or reporter or any other at
tachment known to city readers. He Is the
whole thing He has got to get his news at
the corner drug store or at the posoffce
while he is waiting with the town for the
mail to be distributed. Then between the
times in which he is helping to print some
auction bills and run off his own paper he
writes l had been, over to the drug store,
where ! heard some news. In a remote por-
tion of the county there lived a farmer who
had a daughter. Sherwas quoted as being
fair to look upon Hndn belle on the creek
that meandered through her fathers acres.
You will notice that said meandered 1t
was a trhe fine haired, that word was, In
those days, but / remember that used II in
the article. The girl eloped with one of the
neighbor's boys IL was in the corn season.
The corn In the fields was higher than a
mans head. The fellow who eloped with the
girl met her in the cornfeld, where he had a
preacher concealed. land the wedding took
place right there amid the rustling Of the
blades and the nodding OF the tassels. Then
the groom and his bride mounted one horse
and rode awav In doing SO they rode down
a good deal Of maturing corn, let the fence
down where they derailed 1t and disappeared.
1.-THE preacher went TO the house Of the
farmer and put up for the night. That was
usual with country preachers. Just bsfore
retiring the preacher called for the family
bible, as was the custom with preachers In
those days, and read one of the psalms Of
David. That over, he and the farmer and his
wife knelt for prayers. and just about where
he would have usually cut 1t or he put in a
postscript requesting God to use his in1u-
ence in assisting the father and mother Of
that household to bear with resignation and
fortitude the loss Of their daughter by mar
riage with the son Of Neighbor - up the
creek, which marriage said the praying
minister, i hereunto witness and subscribe
nv name, this - day OF -
INTERRUPTING A PRAYER.
"My informant at the drug store said the
preacher never got to the amen of his prayer.
The farmer was up as II he had been hit by
a hornet and going over to the chair on
which the minister had his head bowed he
kicked the chair over and let the minister
sprawl on the floor. The good wife tried to
act as peace commissioner, but the old man