Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1898-11-03

Pdili one didn't even blush. bit
continued sitting there and looking out
OF the opposite window with one of
those wonder if Willy will bring me
nome some gum looks that you SO
orten see upon the faces Of our young
lady companions in this world Of muc.1
misery and little money. Then the
men begun to laugh at us.
"She did not look 1t but she must
have weighed $50 pounds, and she sat
mostly on my favorite knee for the
length of Water street. Then my best
girl got upon the car. She had just ar
rived from home to surprise me. I;
was surprise, but it was as much on
her part as upon NINE Well. you fell
lows can keep guessing what she said
to me when we got off that car There
were all the elements to make UP a
domestic tragedy. and it came near
occurring. but I am happy to say that
Alice and I are not out.
''Oh, what is the matter now? Num-
Der is calling for the corporal. I'll be
back in minute to hear that little
yarn Sergeant Purnell has got upon his
mind
Il once knew man. said the sergeant
after the visitor had been LEI by Post No
l. by the corporal, who was transformed
in day, in a minute, in fact, from the
| LATEST IF no
driving and energetic. That was my old
friend Rufus stogginby, who formerly
lived in Gardiner.
Mr.. Stogginby had in his front yard
just one small tree, and he liked to ger
out and sit in the shade of it. The only
trouble was that the shadow the tree
cast was so small that to keep in 1t as it
shifted with the sun he had to keep NOV
ing his chair. To do away with this he
built around the tree a revolving plat
form, whose movement was adjusted to
that of the sun. Thereafter, when he had
once placed his chair in the shadow he
never had to move it.
For years Mr.. Stogginby found great
comfort in the revolving platform, and
from a sort of attachment he had formed
for it he continued to use it even after
the growth of the tree had made it no
longer essential to it's purpose, but finally
something happened that made him give
it up.
at seems that the spring that Mr.. Stog-
ginby had put in to move the machine of
the platform was very powerful made
that way so that it wouldn't be necessary
to wind it very often only about once i'll
three months. In some way, one day,
when it had just been wound, the spring
got loose, and started in to expend in
about three minutes the power that had
been stored up for three months use, and
Mr.. Stogginby. who had just settled
down comfortably in his chair on the
platform, suddenly found himself wfirl
ing round and round with great velocity.
He had built around the platform a rail
ing to lean his chair against and to give
the platform kind of a finish and he
awas now by the action of centrifugal
force thrown up against this railing and
held there. In about a minute, however,
| section of the railing gave way and
| Mr. Stogginby went sailing through the
air He was thrown toward his house,
| and with such force that he smashed
| through window and went clean across
| the room to land in the fireplace on the
| other side.
Mr.. Stogginby suffered no serious i'll
| jury from his mishap, but the remark
able Transformation in him which I have
described was by everybody attributed to
Fit He had before been lazy; he now be-
| came man of energy and action. 1t
| seemed as though he must have been all
| his life under some sort of brake, wait
| ing for just the right touch to release it;
and nobody doubted that this had come
| from some jar received in his fight"
Second relief, fall in was the order
issued, and soon Corporal Nelson and his
men were taking the places of the tired
ones who had been out two hours, and