The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1897-06-17
STEPHEN GIZZBUNKLER.


OId-Time Resident of StOrkviIle Cen
ter-RemarISnbIe Experience.
4 doubt if any man ever had a more
singular experience" said Col. Calliper,
than once befell to the lot of my old
friend, Stephen Gizzbunkler, who for
nerly lived in Storllville Center, Vt.
Mr.. Gizz0unkler, like most of us, had
his peculiarities, the most conspicuous,
perhaps, being his habit of always car
rying an umbrella. No matter what the
weather nor what the signs might be,
ne never went out without an umbrella;
he knew it would be sure to rain if he
did. Where he got that impression |
don't know. He may have been.out
some time in his youthful days in his
best clothes without an umbrella when
it came on to rain.
Some years ago when they began
making the curious and costly eXpeH-
ments in the arid regions of the far
west, firing explosives from balloons,
and one thing and another, to produce
rain, Mr.. Gizzbunkler, standing one day;
with his umbrella under his arm, In the
StorkviIle Centre post office, perusing,
the newspaper which he had just taken
from the mail, said:
why do they waste all this
money in mere experiments when they
could get rain with certainty and at
far less cost? Why don't they send for
meY :
"'What could you do?' asked a neigh
|
Dor who was standing near.
Why, I could go out without my
umbrella said Mr.. Gizzbunkler, and,
amazing as it may seem, it is not the
less certainly fact that he wrote to the
mayor of town near which some of
| these experiments had been conducted
| offering to go there and produce rain
| for his expenses. 1t shows the con-
| Stunning desire for rain on the part of
he people and their readiness to take
any chances to get it, that they imme-
| liately sent for Mr.. Gizzbunkler a
draft for the money to come on with
without even asking him how he was
going to produce rain.
when Mr.. Gizzbunkler arrived at
he town he was met at the railroad sta
ion by delegation of citizens who es-
,ortcd him to the hotel; later he was
waited on officially by the rain commit
lee of the town council, who, in the
presence of the reception committee
md a large number of other interested
,itizens, asked Mr.. Gizzbunkler his
| )lanS.
They had some queer people in this
town at one time or another, but Mr..
,iizzbunlller appeared to them to be
the most useless person they had ever
mad there, At first they thought they
would kill him at cnce; that there
would at least be some slight saving in
shipping him back as freight; but
stephen was so obviously a well-mean,
ing man that finally they thought they
would give him Il trial, which they did
On the following day.
1T was a day on which any other man
in the world would have left his um-
orella at home, anyway. Stephen
| siizz1unkler was about to leave his at
bone for the first time in many festrs,
and he was equally confident of what
would happen. He had been a little
shaken personally, by the attitude Of
the people after his simple plan had
been unfolded; but his confidence in
/ The success of his plan was quite un-
broken. lie laid his umbrella careful.
| ~ across the foot Of the bed in his
room at the hotel, looked at it almost
; 1 i
the committee.
"They walked, Stephen ahead, the
rain committee and the reception COM
mittee next, and then after them the
people, along the dusty road.
Did it rain? No, no, no, 1t seemed
to stephen, and it seemed to the people,
| too, that the corn shriveled up as he
passed, and that the last blades of grass
withered
They gave him one more trial the
! next day, with the same result, and
then they took him back to the railroad
station. They had taken him away
from the station in a carriage; they
carried him back on rail; but this
| was a matter of detail that almost es-
capped Stephens attention at the time,
50 glad was he to get back at all.
"On the day after Mr.. Gizzbunkler's
| return to Storkville Centre he went out
without an umbrella; he had had a
great experience, and he had been
somewhat impressed by it. Possibly
! he had been mistaken all these years
and he thought he would see But that
lay there came a storm that swept
away every bridge in the county, and
which washed away, too, whatever i'm
preston the extraordinary experiences
in the arid regions had made upon the
mind of Mr.. Stephen Gizzbunkler.
"Thereafter until he died Mr.. Gizz-
bunker carried an umbrella always, as
firm as ever in the belief that it would
rain if he went out without one."-N.
T. Sun.
Drummers' Experiences.
First Drummer-On the Atlantic &