The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1899-04-07
"HUNGRY AS A BEAR"
Rating Every thing. Never 10 He HIM
self Eaten Except by Man.

Rating Every thug. Never 10 He Him.
self Eaten Except by Man.
In this happy land no famine comes
| nigh the Sierra bean says John Muir in
the Atlaatic. AL the year round his
bseNd IL sure. for some Of the thousand
Minds that he likes are always in season
| ana accessible. ranged on the shelves of
the mountain like stores in a pantry.
From one to the other, from climate to
climate, up and down he climbs, feasting
OH each in turn. enjoying as great variety
as il he Travelled to far-off countries north
| nnd south. To him almost everything is
food except granite. Every tree helps
to feed him, and every bush and herb,
with fruits and flowers, leaves and bark,
and almost everything living or dead
within reach. animals and insects-badg-
ers., gophers, ground squirrels. lizards,
snakes, etc. and ants. bees, wasps, old
and young, together with their eggs and
larvae, and their moss, grass and paper
nests, Craunched and hashed down all
go to his marvellous stomach and vanish
as if cast into a FIRE. What digestion! A
sheep or wounded deer or a pig he eats
warm about as quickly as boy eats q
a month old, it is still welcomed with ire
mendous relish. After so gross meal
as this, perhaps the next will be straw
berries and clover, or raspberrics with
mushrooms ami nuts, or puckery acorns
aud chokecherries. And, as il fearing
that anything eatable in all his domin-
ions should escape being eaten, he breaks
con, etc.; and if still hungry he eats the
mountaineer's bed; but when he has had
full meal Of more tempting dainties he
usually leaves it undisturbed, though he
has been known to drag it up through
hole in the roof, carry it to the foot Of a
tree and lie down on it to enjoy a siesta.
Eating everything, never is he himself
an enemy to be aret. "Bar meat"
said hunter, from whom I was seeking
information; bar meat Is the best meat
in the mountains, their skins make the
best beds and their grease the best but
ter. Biscuit shortened with bur grease
goes as far rs beans; man will walk oil
day on couple of them biscuit"
Didn't Want More than His Share.
Mr.. Garland's death has recalled to
many minds incidents Of his long career
IN Washington, SOME OF them humorous
anu some pathetic, says the Pittsburg
Dispatch. The story of the trick played
on him in the Senate by group Of col
leagues, who offered him cubes of Brown
Windsor soap under the pretense that
they were caramels. and were dismayed
to see him eat them with apparent relish,
has been told too many times to bear re-
peating. But there is less hackneyed
"reminiscences of his return to Washington
after the campaign of 1880, a convert, Mt
least temporarily, to teetotalism. He
had always been up to- that time a free
liver, and had touched glasses with his
brother senators with no restraint be-
yond his own distaste for excuses.
When he suddenly declined the prof
fered hospitality of their sideboards, they
were astonished, and asked him a thou
sand questions to draw out the reason.
He consented at last to explain. Gen
tlemen," said he, II have simply stopped.
We had pretty hot canvass in Arkan-
sas this summer, and l stumped most of
the state. l saw everywhere the graves
Of good fellows who used to share my
convivialities, while others. reduced to
sorry wrecks. were still moving about
the streets. Figuring the thing up rough
ly, and dividing the total of the whisky
consumed in Arkansas. so as to get an
average, l found that had already
drunk about barrel and half of
whisky more than l was entitled to.
This set me to thinking. If drink any
MORE said to myself, I shall be drink
ing some other fellows whisky OF
course, 1 didn't want to do that, so l
inst STONED -