Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1899-07-20
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
4 A SinnemahOning Boy /
Observation-Disclosures
'ATTOW many boys do you s'pose


way, "who would go out when they
were only IL years old, get lost in the
snow in the depths of the highest an(
widest hills that frown down on the
Sinnemahone headwaters, lie there fol
a week or more, and then turn up al
their own home fireside again, fetching
with them 90 wolves and four bears, two
of the bears live, at that? How many
l2-year-old-boys are there nowadays
Mackinaw, who could and would dc
that?"
Jest as many nowadays, Sinnema'
hone, as there ever was any time" said
the man in the red, blue, purple, yellow
green and pink Mackinaw jacket,
Jest exactly as many, and that amt q
consarned one!"
but don't you gather from my re-
marks, Mackinaw," said the man from
over Sinnemahoning way, chat there
must have been at least one boy of that
kind, some timer"
~ gether from your remarks that
you're goin' to say there was setch boy
some time," replied the man in the
variegated jacket, land you mowt geth-
err from my remarks that that amt
goin' to be no reason why l should
change EN-"
Meaning" said the Sinnemahoning
citizen, that you have doubt of my
veracity?"
"Webster's dictionary couldn't sot
the meanin' down higher to the. proper
notch, Sinnemahone," replied the man
of the many-hued garment, positively
and emphatically.
Then it will undoubtedly grieve you
to know, Macllinaw," said the man
from over Sinnemahoning way, re-
proachfully, that in anticipating what
am going to say you are notrehecting
on my veracity at all. You are casting
doubt not on the word of me, Mackinaw,
but on that of my late remarkable IA
Their, Reuben Pettibone! 1t will IN
doubtedly grieve you to know that,
Macllinaw"
'Not durn bitl" CALCULATED the man
in the red, blue, purple, yellow, green
and pink Macknaw jacket, reducing
the size of his plug of tobacco by COM
modious and vicious bite.
Then l will melt you by an example
of juvenile endurance, combined with
flial regard and unselfshness, without
parallel" said the Sinnemahoning
narrator. "Or, if 1 cannot melt you, 1
will shame you. If cannot touch you,
will make you feel that you must go
out behind the barn and kick yourself
for having had it in your heart to cast
a shadow on the word of Reuben Petit
bone, to dab a splotch on the luster of
his memory-a memory that, wherever
the waters of his own beloved SHINE
malone rush or murmur, shines as
bright as a new milk pan in the MONDAY
sun! And what am going to tell you,
on the word of that remarkable man,
occurred when Reuben Pettibone was
vet three months shy of IL years old.
Mark it we'll, Mackinaw, and prepare to
commune with yourselfin self-accusing
words of bitterness.
'There was a shadow on the house OF
Pettibone at that interesting period of
nv remarkable fathers career. 1t took
the form of a mortgage on Grandfather
Shadrack Petitioners clearing to the
amount of $500. The mortgage was on
the eve of falling due, and, as GRANDPA
Their Pettibone hadn't the money to pay
it, the prospects were that the ancestral
acres would soon pass to alien hands;
hence the shadow on the house OF Petit
bone, throwing Grandfather Shadrack
Pettibone into the depths of gloom, and
as my remarkable father sententlously
expressed it, into the all-pervading
DEPTHS The gloom and the dumps
we're so oppressive that Reuben Petit
bone, child of nature that he was, spent
most of his time in the woods to keep
his spirits up. One day in the winter
time he shouldered his gun and sought
the hills, the widest and the highest
hills that lifted their tops here and
there about the clearings of Pettibone
and others, that lay along the headwa-
tiers. Reuben Pettibone's intention and
expectation was to strike the trail or
den of some wolves, and he tramped and
tramped, and wandered and wandered,
without having met with sight or
sound of wolf; and then suddenly snow
began falling.
at snowed,' my remarkable father
used to say, in relating, after his Wig
orous style, this adventure of his youth,
1T showed as if the snow was being
dumped out of more than $4,000 four
horse park wagons!'
But the brave child Reuben fought
his way homeward through the storm.
He hadn't fought his way far before
he discovered that he had lost it, and
he had no more idea of where he was
going than if he had been tramping
across country on the moon. While
he was founderfng about he ran uE
against a ledge of rocks, and at the
foot of the ledge he saw hole, an
opening protected from the snow by
overhanging rocks. Into that opening
he crept without delay. The interior
was pitchy dark, but Reuben detected
sense of pleasing roominess within
the bosom of that wall of stone. The
opening by which he had entered was
not more than two feet wide, and con-
sequently little light cleaned through
from the outside, but by and by he
became used to the darkness, and then
he discovered that he was not the soil
tary occupant of that sheltering cleft
OFF to one side of the cavern he de-
tected bear, and at the other side lay
another. They were both snoozing
away in their winter sleep.
al knew there wasn't much danger
of the bears waking up for few weeks
yet, unless something unusual should
come along to disturb them,' Reuben
Pettibone used to say, so 1 stretched
myself down between 'em to take
MN ,,,vce1f until the snow Quit dump.