Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1896-04-30
WAY DOWN IN OLD MISSOURI.
SHERIFF DYER STOPS AT A FIRST
CLASS HOTEL.

tice as it is.
Sheriff VIM. Dyer and Grover New
nan Of Lancaster, left Lancaster two
weeks ago for the ''sunny south, !" Mr..
Dyer to look after business in south
ern Missouri and Mr. Newman to
permanently locate at St. Louis. Our
sheriff has just returned and on being
asked this morning by the HERALD
reporter to give our readers some pen
pictures of his trip he said:
sYou should have been along with
me and you could have got enough to
have filled the paper Not being in
the writing business myself you will
have to do the pen act yourself and |
will tell you few thing that we saw.
INV destination was Gayoso.
county seat of Pemiscot county, sit
uated in the extreme southeast corner
Of Missouri Arriving at Kenneth.
twenty miles from Gayoso. we found
that the st. Louis and Southwestern
railroad had stopped running. It
was to 90 into the hands of receiver,
papers had been made out in Missouri
and were waiting to be served on the
railroad officials; but as the said Off
cials had gone with all their rolling
stock over into Arkansas they could
not be got at; so were forced to walk
the whole twenty miles. 1t is a flat
country and there was water on both
sides of the track. We met man
showing handcar on which was box
to my questions ne said he had frogs
in the box and was taking them IS
miles to Kenneth to market.
Arriving at Gayoso hungry and
weary we found it to be county seat
city of 1877 population. The court
house, situated in the center of the
city, was small wooden structure
erected ON brick piers and hogs wal
lowed underneath it in the mud while
all the ground around it and the adj
jacent streets had been thoroughly
plowed up by the shouts of long, lean
porkers. While there, petition was
presented to the city council praying
them to pass an ordinance to prevent
hogs running at large; but the coun-
ell laid it on the table for month
and informed the progressive petit
tioner--who must have been a North
erner-- that they didn't want to do
anything rash and would go and see
what the owners Of the hoes thought
about it.
1--WE went to the leading hotel in the
city and ordered dinner of very fat
woman who was about So years old.
Her hands and face were dirty and
the dress she wore had not been wash
ed since she put it on several year ago.
When we sat down to eat everything
was dirty except the potatoes and
they were clean, because having been
boiled with the skins on the dirt
could not get through into them.
The old lady sat down opposite US
while we dineo. She took from her
pocket box and from behind her ear
little stick paddle with which she
scooped snuff from the box and rub
bed it around her mouth while her
eyes rolled heavenward in delightful
ecstacy. Her daughter, fat Young
lady weighing probably 1S5 pounds,
came into the dining room with her
face blackened with pot-black. Com
ing up behind her mother she took
the paddle from behind the old lady s
ear, dipped it in the box which had
remained sitting on the table and rub
bed snuff around in her mouth as the
mother had done; then the old lady
noticed that her face was black and
asked her what was the matter and
she began to laugh and dance. Come
to find out the whole family was
drunk. The old man lay on a bed
drunk with his boots on, and his son
was drunk out in the barn.
Corn was up and was being plow-
ed out there with single-shovel plows.
Also they were blowing old land with
one mule hitched to a 12-inch pillow,
and planting cotton seed. l watched
them Dplant cotton. They used a
homemade roller like barrel without
the bulge which is hollow with holes
bored into it about the size Of your
finger and five inches apart. As it
rolls. the seed which looks like white
beans-drops through the holes and