Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1898-12-21
Hoods SarsapariIIa
Hoods Pills easy in eiiect. . cents it..1
STEPHEN 6lZZBUNKLER.
An old Time Resident of StorkvIIIe Center
 nnd ILL. RrmnrkahIe Ennrrience.

STEPHEN SIZZBUNKUER. AH old Time Resident of StorkvIIIe Center and His Remarkable Experience.
 "I doubt if any man ever had a more singular experience, said Colonel Calliper, than once fell to the lot of my old friend, stephen Gizzbunkler, who formerly lived iD Storkville Center, Vt. MT. Gizz- | bunker, like most of us, had his pc fuliarities, the most conspicuous, ! perhaps, being his habit of always carrying an umbrella. No matter what the weather or what the signs might be, he never went out without an umbrella. He knew II would be sure to rain if he did. Where he got this impression l don't know. He may have been out some time in his youthful days in his best clothes without an umbrella when 1t came on to rain.
 Some years ago, when they be gan making the curious and costly experiments in the arid regions of | the far west, firing explosives from balloons, and one thing and another, to produce rain, Mir. Gizzbunkler, standing one day with his umbrella ! under his arm, in the Storkville Center pOstofice, perusing the news paper 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 a far less costi Why don't they send for mel
 What could you dor asked 6 neighbor who was standing near.
 Why, I could go out withOp: my umbrella, said MT Gizzbunklel, and, amazing Gs it may seem, it is not the less certainly a fact that be wrote to the mayor of a town near which some of these experiments had beer conducted offering to go there and produce rain for his ex. l penses. It shows the consuming de sire for rain on the part of the people, and their readiness to take any chances to get it, that they i'm mediately sent MT. Gizzbunkler draft for the money to come OIL with, without even asking him how he was going to produce the rain.
 When Mir. Gizzbunkler arrived at the town, he was met at the rail road station by a delegation of cit. zens, who escorted him to the hotel Later he was waited on officially by the rain committee of the town council, who, in the presence of the reception committee and a large number of other interested citizens, asked MT. Gizzbunkler his plans.
 'They had had some queer people in this town at one time and an other, but Mir Gizzbunkler appeared to them to be the most useless per son they had ever had there. At first they thought they would kill him at once, that there would at least be some slight saving in ship ping him back as freight; but Ste phen was so obviously a well mean ing man that finally they thought they would give him trial, which they did on the following day.
 Tt was a day on which any other Man in the world would have left his umbrella at home, anyway. Ste phen GizZbUnkler was about to leave his at home for the first time in many years, and he was equally confident of what would happen. He had been a little shaken, person ally, by the attitude of the people after his simple plan had been un: folded, hut his confidence in the success of his plan was quite un broken. He laid his umbrella care fully across the foot of the bed iE his room at the hotel, looked at it almost lovingly and then went down to meet the committee.
 "They walked, Stephen ahead, the rain committee and the recep- ton committee next and after them the people, along the dusty road.
 Did it raini No, no, no. Ii seemed to Stephen, and it seemed to the people, too, that the corn ehriveled up as be passed and that the last blades of grass withered. "They gave him one more trial the next day, with the same results, and then they took him back to the railroad station. They had taken aim away from the stati"n in car Fiage; they carried him back on 8 rail, but this was mattcS of detail that almost escaped Stephens at teEtion at the time, so glad was be to get back at all.
 "On the day after Mir GiZsbunk ler's return to Storkville Center he went out without an umbrella. He
 had had a great experience, and he had been somewhat impressed by i it. Possibly he had been mistaken
 all these years, and he thought he
 would see. But that day there came storm that swept away every bridge in the county, and whi';h washed away, too, whatever in pression the extraordinary expert . ences in the arid regions had made upon the mind of Mir. Stephen Gizz , bunker.
 Thereafter, until he died, Mir.
 0t.1 bunker carried an umbrella al.
 ways, as firm as ever in the belief
 that it would rain if he went out q without one. "-New York Sun.