The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-11-01
Pineville's Meanest Man

Jake Dlddlesbee sat upright upon the
old wooden store box, with Indignation
loudly pronounced in the rightly or
his backbone and the scorn on his To-
oacco stained lip, says the New York
Herald.
And do you mean to tell me Toe
CoHdrty' ne inquired, with belittIing
emphasis on every word, that that's
the story of the meanest man Won ever
knew? Why, that's no story: least
WISE not worthy of the corn hills and
potato rows of Pineville. Let me tell
you story that is a story-the chron-
lcle OF the meanest man that ever han
aled hoe or scratched the eyes out
of patch of Irish potatoes-and the
mans no other than your own old enc
my, Conarty-your old enemy, Hub
bard McPeel."
The old rogue" exclaimed a dozen
IN chorus. We always took him for a
rascal"
Yes, but this story has to do only
with his meanness, and not his RI
roguery, mind you. And, we'll, to go
on and get at him quick. Hubbard,
somehow, couple of weeks ago learn
ed that some inventor or discoverer or
scientist don't know which 1t was
myself-had found that gold could be
made out of the salt water of the sea.
Nothing but the water of the trimming
ocean, mind that.
Well, says Hubbard to himself.
amt tears salt water? And can't /
make the gold out of my own weep
in's?'
And so to crying takes he. Such
weeping and wailing you never saw. l
thought he'd fill the whole of Coon
Hollow, where he lives, with the flood
of his tear water
He cried for his wife, that's dead
now twenty years. think she'd been
glad to have died sooner.
He cried for his children that might
have been if his wife had lived longer.
HE cried for his old pet moody COW,
which he didn't buy from Pete Mat
thews because he thought she ought
to have been cheaper with the horns
off.
He cried because his pet pullet
couldn't lay twin eggs instead of sin
giles day by day.
He cried harder than ever and wept
more copiously than ever because he
couldn't cry twice as hard as he was
crying over the loss of his neighbor.
Paddy Malone.
He cried more persistently when he
found Paddy din't remember him in his
will.
He wept for his uncles and his
aunts.
He wept for joys that were gone
and in dread of sorrows to come, and
he secured the country wide for rea-
sons for tears.
And all the while he was collecting
his salt tears, in the hope of getting
a supply on hand large enough to make
him rich when he would turn in his
store to the man who makes gold out
of the salt water of the sea-
by this time he had become known
all over this END of the village as a
fool and a crank, as well as a mar
of miserly meanness. But Nature was
just waiting to even UP with him fol
his destruction OF her gifts.
Before long his eyes, from so much
weeping, began to show signs of rheuM
and his sight became DINNER and dim
mer.
Somehow he got into correspondence
with the fellow that makes the gold
from the sea water, and then Hubbard
found out what country town fool he
was. He dumped out his little bottle
of tears. and--ha! ha! hat
Go on, Jake" urged the corner
grocery contingent. dangling their legs
restlessly for the finish of the story.
well II took every red cent Hub
bard had to get that pair Of gold-rim-
med specs you see him going around
with-thats all the gold he got for his
salt water taargi"