The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-10-07
The QUEER MAINE JUMPERS
THEY IRE OF MIXED FRENCH
BLOOD.
The Peculiar Infirmity Which Af1Icts
Them.

The Peculiar Infirmity Which AmIcts
Many years ago, twenty / suppose, !
read in one of the scientific journals a
short article which, while it held my
attention for few minutes, I finally
set down as one of those pleasant fic-
tons known to us in latter days as d
fake" l had Travelled quite extern
sively throughout the country, and had
seen many strange people. l was we'll
aware that this broad land of ours
could produce a congress of curious
races that, to use the old circus express
sion, was ''alone worth the price of adj
mission" I had seen the poor white
trash" of the sout beast, the seal hunter
of the northwest, and the man of action
of the west, who had so trained the
body that thought and action were as
one, especially when at the end of a
Winchester or Colt. But man who
thought after action was a little too
much for me, and l dismissed the sub
ject with silent tribute to the audaci-
ty of the man who could invent, and to
the stupidity of the editor who would
print, such Munchausen tales.
About twelve years ago I felt called
upon to leave the city for a time-no,
not for "our cities F" or our boroughs'
good" | accepted position with a
celebrated electrical company to erect a
number of plants for them in New
England, and the middle of January
found me in the little town of King
man, on the Mattawamkeag river, east
~ern Main. The town? Well, the town
consisted of a big tannery, com
pany store, half a dozen dwelling
houses, and combination hotel and
boarding house, that gave all the sea-
son afforded and the best room in the
house for four dollars per week.
judgment upon me that / ever should.
have refused with scorn four different
kinds of pie and hot doughnuts for
breakfast and New England baked
beans at every meal
My work was to set up plant in the
tannery. The day after l arrived saw
the railroad Observation-Disclosures feet of
snow on the level; the mercury hunting
the bulb Of the thermometer at thirty
three degrees below zero in the lanyard
among the salt watts; six hundred feet
of four O's copper cable missing, and
making tour of the United States by
freight; and on the depot platform
stood an engine belonging to a job four
hundred miles away, shipped here by
my firms most careful office boy
month before, to save me all delay, !
spent half day at the telegraph office,
and then found myself at the company
store with, as Ed, the storkeeeper,
said, plenty of nothing to do and all
the time there was to do it in" / took
a reserved seat on barrel of Boston
crackers, and proceeded to size up the
situation. Much too cold for me to
stir about outside; not much inside but
checkers and Sancho Pede, overhung
by a depressing cloud of tobacco
smoke; plenty to eat, nothing to drink
except Jamaica ginger, which was a
little too lively for my unseasoned con-
stitution--the last jug of contraband
lWhiskey in town hal been captured by
an unfeeling constable a day or so be-
fore by arrival. Maine is prohibition
state, you know. Altogether, I began
to consider myself much misused, and
fell to contemplating group of natives
around the big box-stove pausng now
and then to decorate the sides with to-
bacco juice.
Suddenly the storekeeper struck
parlor match on the underside of the |
counter, and in the twinkle of an eye | |
was having as much fun as 1 ever had !
at a circus in boyhood days, and 1t t
flashed upon me that the man who
wrote the article of long years ago
knew decidedly what he was talking
about, and kept we'll within truthful I
bounds. AS that parlor match took fire [
with a sharp rasping crackle, four of .
the six men dashed in four different di-
rections. The first, backing away from
the stove, was caught back of the knees
by barrel of pork lying on it's side just
to the rear of him, and gracefully land
ed on the back of his neck AS he went
over he grasped his neighbor by the
skirt of his big bearskin coat pulling
MIN over on top of him. third
spr1nging to one side, tripped over
box and plunged about ten feet, direct
~ at the writer, who promptly caught
him with no gentle grasp, thereby saw
ing at least one round of pie and pork
and beans to the uses for which they
had been laid in, and, incidentally,
much pain in the gastric regions while
the fourth smiled sadly from the seat
he had taken in an open barrel half
filled with apples, each and every one
suffering frantically, % d. d-o-o-n-
IT,"
The two remaining members of the
party laughingly assisted their fallen
comrades in their feet, while the store
Keeper, to calm their rufied feelings,
gravely assured them that he only
sought to light his cigar when he struck
the match, and that he would stand
treat. While the treat has nothing to
10 with our story, it is worth recording
FOR It's own sake. One takes a couple [
IF "bolivars," as they are called, white, I
lat, circular Jumps of peppermint can {
1y, about two inches in diameter and +
half an inch thick with two broad red
stripes running diagonally across them. i
Another Joined the writer in mild eli {
gar, about six inches long, as bic i
around as blue pencil and retailing at
.Wo cents each. One took half plug
If tobacco-they sell half plugs up {
heir. The remainder of the company |
Ook what Is known in that country as