The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1902-01-28
Bill Ar]p'S Letter.

and Jack and the Bean Vine" and
'Cinderella' have tc be told over and
over again to the little ones before they
&c to bed. There are two little ones
that l have to put to sleep many a night
reppating the sane old stories. But the
Baron Munchausen" type of lies passed
away. although it went through many
editions and | have seen nothing like it
until recently, when | received a little
book called. TN Something of a Liar
Myself published in London ami New
York and manufactured by Baron De-
Wore, of Edgefeld, S. c. ! think he is a
lineal descendant of Munchausen and has
improved upon his great ancestor. 1t
seems that he fell in with a dwarf IN
Kansas City, whose name wan Ran This
Ran had lived nine years on the banks
Of the Amazon river and told Baron Dc
Nore how the ammonia OF that region
produced forests of great trees that were
two or three thousand feet high and big
round in proportion. He says 1t TOOK
him eleven days and six hours and thirty
nine minutes to walk around one OF
them. Ran says the ammonia dWarfed
him. 1t enlarged his head and length
enod his feet. but shrunk up MS shanks
and neck. He wore a No. 10 hat and Nc.
COli6i- III 1ttL 10 S1C ND
and fattened like a ducks bill and his
legs about the size of a hoe handle. His
feet grew long on purpose. for the soil
vas SO soft an ordinary foot would have
sunk down in it. Everybody knows him
in Kansas City and it is dangerous to
doubt or dispute his stories. Ran says
that some of those trees arc awfully
crooked and one day he came across one
that had fallen down from old age. 1t
was hollow from the butt to the top and
was $4,000 feet long and one of it's big
limbs had stuck in the ground and he
noticed that millions Of bees were going
IL and coming out of the hole in it. So
he got help and cut into it to get the
honey and suddenly the limb broke and
the crooked tree commenced rolling and
the honey commenced pouring out. The
tree was so crooked it could not stop
rolling and 1t got faster and faster with
lis own momentum and crushed down the
forest for so miles and rolled over towns
and villages and crushed the people and
the honey marked its way in q stream
big enough to turn a saw mill, and the
tree finally got to the sea and rolled IN.
Then he tells about sitting on a log one
day to rest and after a while the long
began to tremble and rise up in the
middle and suddenly bowed up in a
spasmodic motion like one of the meas
uring worms or like the loop that Schley
made at Santiago and threw him 80 feet
in the air and he found out it was a
snake and the snake opened its mouth
wide for him to fall into it when he
came down. and he did fall in, all but
his right arm, and with that he opened
his big knife with his teeth and cut
the snakes head off and crawled out.
Well, it is strange that we like to
read these lies and how we become fas-
how he got out Of the scrape that he got
into. But still the world is full of lies
and if we nave got to read them, it is
best to read these Whoppers that Baron
Nunchausen and Baron DeVore tell us.
This dwarf Ran has a sur name of
Isoalm, which letters. the Baron says,
stand for I'm somewhat of a liar my
self That is the title of the little red
book and at first ] took it as a reflection
OH my character that the book was sent
to me. 1t was an inSinuation and so l
have given it to a friend who has more
reputation in that line than | have and
is proud Of it. All this, of course, IS
for the children and maybe will keep
them from sitting on any old rusty log
in the woods. There is no harm in a lie
that is told As a lie. Until Baron DcNorc
came forth Edgar Poe was the most re-
fined ard plausible liar this century has
ever produced. His "Goldbug' and his
murder in the Rue MOrguc have never
been euualed. BILL ARP