The Anaconda standard., 1899-01-29
POP DRAPER.s wooDgn LEG.

POP oRAPER's WOODEN LEG.
Solved the Mystery of Haunted House
in the Maine Woods.
| A special correspondent of the New
! York Sun from Milford, Me-, says: So
long as dead hare will bring cents
in the Bangor market and a spool of
! copper wire capable of making six
| snares can be purchased for IL cents,
| no backwoods family has reason to go
| hungry. This season rabbits have been
| SO plentiful and easy to get that several
| men have quit work in the pulp mills
and gone to the woods to coin money
!! in an easy way. 1t is a poor hunter
who cannot snare and shoot Is rabbits
a day, while rs and even 40 are not an
unusual number. The little animals
are hung aloft out of the reach Of foxes
and allowed to freeze. and when a sled
| load is shared the rabbits are taken to
market and exchanged for cash.
The Draper family, CONSISTING of AL
bert Draper a veteran of the civil war,
and his three groWn-up sons, who have
been occupying an abandoned and
tumbledown farm house on the edee of
Sunk Haze meadows, had a remark
able adventure last week, in which
dead rabbits. live spooks and several
| other natural and supernatural mani
festations figured conspicuously. The
house had four square rooms on the
! first floor. In the center was gigantic
stone chimney, topped out with brick
and provided with four fireplaces,
capable of taking a stick of cord wood
without cutting. One of these rooms
| was heated and used as a living and
sleeping apartment for the Drapers,
while the rest of the building was con-
verted into refrigerator for freezing
dead rabbits. AS their father was old
and wore a steel-pointed wooden leg
as a memento of Gettysburg the boys
left him about the place to do the
house work while they went forth to
slay rabbits.
At the end of the first days work the
boys brought in So rabbits, which hey
hung up in the open rooms to freeze.
During supper the old man told them
about some strange noises he had heard
in the chimney while they We're away.
He said the sounds were like those
made by a peevish fat hog when he is
aroused from sleep or like the moan
ings OF man who is suffering from a
mince-pie nightmare.
Chimney swallows" said Bert, the
| Oldest. Harry, the second son, thought
1t was due to bats, and the irreverent
William suggested that the noises were
probably the result of too much Bangor
"split" whiskey which the old man had
taken to cheer his lonesome hours. 1t
was finally decided that the strange
manifestations were caused by draugnss
among the cracks of the great chimney.
An hour after the fireplace had been
piled high with hackmatack logs and all
had gone to bed, the old man poksd
Bert in the ribs with the brad of his
wooden leg and said:
"Hark! Dye hear that? Dye call thet
air chimbly sWallers?" They were all
awake In a moment and went to quar-.
4 q nd p<r1vSv ,1&Ay ~
the sounds which every one heard plain
ly Bert took the rabbit hound Jeff by
the collar, dragged him to the room or
the opposite side of the chimney AMI
yelled: "Sic him!' but as soon as his
grip was released jeff bolted through q
window. taking glass and sash along.
and remained outside all night, howling
with cold and terror. Meantime the
noises in the chimney had subsidized, aud
all went to sleep.
The next morning six of the rabbits
were gone from the pole upon which
they had been left to freeze, and JEFF
got sound beating for stealing them,
which warmed him up and made hlnl
feel real comfortable. During the next
day and night no sounds of distressing
nature were heard in the chimney, bur
on the second morning, when nine rab-
bits were missed from the cold storage
room, jeff received whipping that he
will remember for the rest of his life,
and the entire stock of frozen meat was
put upon shelves in a closet and locked
up. After this the chimney emitted
grunts and growls at odd intervals,
though they generally ceased as soon
as the family began to wrangle about
what caused them.
For week the boys shot and shared
rabbits, and the old man kept house,
while jeff, having become lean and red
eyed from much running and beating,
fitted through the house like an ami
mated shadow, carefully avoiding the
room where the rabbits had been stored
and preferring to stay out in the cold
sooner than investigate the chimney.
The old man grew more cheerful every
day, and the boys began to plan how
they should spend the rabbit money
when they were paid off.
The tragedy came one Sunday after
noon when the veteran was alone in the
great house. He had filled the fireplace
with dry pitch pine stumps, which
sizzled and roared up the chimney, and
heated the room until the white frost
melted and ran down the window
panes. The chimney had been un-
usually noisy all day, and after the
pine wood had made the stones and
lime glow with red heat the old man
fancied he heard the steps of some
creature moving about in the opposite
room. He limped across the front en-
try and, throwing the door open, came
face to face against young bear that
snarled and made a pass at him. The
old man, having no weapon but heavy
cane, struck the bear across the head
and leaped back to the front stairs,
climbing from the lower step to the
top of the post which supported he
baluster rail. The bear rose On his
launches and waddled forward With
his mouth open and his tongue hanging
out. AS he placed his forepaws on the
baluster post and reached up to bite.
the old man leaped in the air and came
down with his full weight, driving iiis
steel-clad leg two feet into the open
mouth of his enemy. They rolled about
on the hall floor for few moments un-
It'll the veteran could unstrap his wood
en- leg, when he hoped on one foot to
the warm living room and began to in
spect his scratches and mend his
clothes.
After dark the boys found their faith
er lying on the bed in a dead faint
from fright and lnSS of hlo06 In the