Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1902-04-19


night. as the usual crowd sat around
the stove in the postoffice waiting for
the mail, Ebenezer spoke up and said:
Boys, whoever stole Ezra Taylors
hog must have had to drive il a mile
and half in the dark and rain. Then
he had TO kill and scald it and cut it
up and salt the meat"
"Of course he did," replies three or
four in chorus.
"Weu, does any man here believe
that Sam Hopkins ever went to all
that trouble? Not by a jugful. He
was too burned lazy for that, as we all
know. You couldn't have hired him to
drive a hog a mile for a five dollar
BILL
How did he get the fresh pork?"
asks Moses Turner.
Dunno. He said he found II in the
road. YOU remember. Sam might have
got up enough ambition to carry home
a hundred pounds of meat he'd STUN
bled over in the road. It's always been
nv opinion that we hustled Sam n lee
tie too hard
"Can anything be done about 1t now %
asks Aaron Scott as he bitches around
on the head of q barrel in n conscience
stricken way.
Cant say" replies Ebenezer, "but
I'm going to think it over. If Sam
Hopkins didn't steal that hog. and
don't see how any one can believe he
did, the governor ought TO pardon him
out of prison. l don't say we'd have
the band out to meet him and kill any
fatted calf. but it would ease some OF
our consciences a leetle."
That was the beginning. and the
thing grew right along. When folks
came to take Sans laziness into ac-
count, they began to believe that there
was something queer about the case.
and after time n public meeting was
called to get the popular sentiment
Ebenezer Holdfast was made chair
man. and he had n speech all ready.
He'd been hunting up his figures. and
he had 'cm to hurl at the meeting. He
went clear back to the days of the Ro-
man empire and proved that no man
too lazy to wash his face once a
month or TO cut his toe nails once in
six had ever been convicted of steal
ing q hog and working all night to
hide the meat. Nobody who had lost
fresh pork on the highway had come
forward to say so. but maybe he had
dropped dead of heart disease or for
gotten the circumstance.
Ebenezer was followed by Marrow
fat johnson. who had made up his
mind TO say something. whether it hit
the case or not. He went over one of
his Fourth of July orations and got
the audience to whooping, and then he
wrunS in part of funeral address and
got 'em to crying. and nobody noticed
that he left Sam Hopkins out OF the
matter altogether. When be hadn't
place. Levi was on the jury that found
Sam guilty. and he was free to say
that the fresh pork had received more
attention than Sans chronic laziness.
He had been experimenting little.
He had tried to drive hog a mile and
n half on n dark and rainy night, and
he had made Il miserable failure of il.
At the end o, twenty rods the hog had
turned and bolted. and after two hours
Of hard work things were where they
started from. 1t had seemed conclusive
enough on the trial that Sam must |
have stolen that hog. but it didn't look |
that way now. IL petition went TO
the governor. 1t should bear the name |
OF Levi Goodheart as one or the sign
srs.
Adiniron White was the only one
who spoke in opposition 10 q pardon. |
He had known Sam Hopkins all his life
and knew that he was once run over |
by load of hay because he was too
lazy to step aside, but he contendedl !