Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1905-06-09

| ing fooled" in some way during the
twenty-four hours following the mid
night of March 31st.
The form of joke or trick most in
vogue was of the nature of harmless
SELL" as, for example, that which my
mother-who was a very merry person
played upon my brother Napoleon
| and me on the morning Of my story
Instead of giving us eggs boiled in the
usual way at breakfast, she blew the
contents of the egg through small
hole at one end, then filled the shells
with salt and water, carefully cover
| ing the hole with tissue paper. Our
surprise on breaking the eggs was
complete.
But some of the pranks played on
All Fools day were less harmless.
My fathers younger brother, Jar
visor Uncle Jarve, as Policy and l
called him, perpetrated the worst one
on record. The governor of the state
had to be called in before the affair
was settled. Another young fellow
was concerned in the prank, but Uncle
JdrVe pore the DTuQL VI IT,
Uncle Jarve was then about eighteen
years old. Grandfather Adams had
sent him off to Follet's Mills with eight
bushels of corn. We raised our corn
In those days, and had to go to mill
often. The distance round by the main
road was four miles.
Uncle Jarve set off, but had not gone
far when he overlook a young fellow
of about his own age, named Alfred
Skillings, whose reputation was not of
the best.
Alfred wanted to ride, so Uncle Jarve
took him in, and they drove on to-
gether about half mile, when, as they
looked ahead, they saw old Doctor
Cambridge coming up the road in his
httle two-wheeled gig-and he was
nodding.
There's the old DOCTOR" said Uncle
Jarve. land he's asleep"
Sound asleep!" exclaimed Alfred
Turn out and keep still, Jarve. Let's
see If he will notice us"
For years and years Doctor Dan
bridge in his gig, with his little leather
trunk under the seat, had been one of
the most familiar objects on the town
| highways. He had settled at Toilets
Mills in 1910, when a student fresh
from the Medical School of Harvard
University, and had lived there all his
life.
In these early days he is said to
have been very jolly person; but we
of the younger generation knew him
as an elderly man who had passed into
the venerable period of life highly es-
teemed and respected by the entire
| community.
He used to drive one or the other
of two sorrel mares with full white
faces, looking so much alike that no
one could tell them apart. Often he
was driving day and night, with little
time for sleep. many Of his pa
tients lived six or eight miles from the
Mills.
Other doctors came and gent, but
Doctor cambridge retained most of the
medical practice there; and at the date
of my story it was common circum-
stance to meet him on the road asleep
| in his gig, the white-faced sorrel mare
trotting on quite as if she knew where
| to go. People passed him smiling, TAX
ing care to give him good share of
| the road, and saying to each other
after they were by, ''The old doctor
was up all last night guess"
In time this habit of sleeping on the
| road became so well established that
he dozed along whether he had been
broken of his rest" the night before
or not. With us boys it was con-
slant wonderment how he could sleep
in gig and not fall OUT
| Uncle Jarve turned out and stopped;
and they sat still to see the old doctor
go by. 1t was rising ground here, with
| trees and bushes beside the road; the
white-faced mare was walking slowly;
and sure enough, the old doctor was
asleep, with his little leather trunk set
snugly under the gig seat.
Alfred pointed to the trunk and
winked to Uncle Jarve; and without
| stopping to reflect much about it, I'm
Gle Jarve hoped down and took the
little trunk out behind.
Their notion was to stick it up on
a post beside the road for a joke on
the old doctor. They supposed that
he would find it when he came back
along the road, and would wonder how
it had got there
But there was no post suited to the
purpose near by; SO the two boys
drove on for quarter of mile. till
they came to the first farmhouse.
AS it CHANGED, an itinerant tin-ped-
Ter had just stopped there and gone
into the house to trade, and he had
left the little folding doors at the
rear end of his cart standing open;
the cart itself was piled high with
sacks of paper, rags and WOOL
This time Uncle Jarye winked to AL
fred, who, jumping out, slipped. the
doctors trunk into the cart behind
and pushed it under some rolls of cot
ton cloth and calico. The pedler was
indoors; no one saw the prank.
Uncle Jarve and Alfred then drove
on. chuckling, and concerned them
selves no further about the business.
Doctor Danbridge's name was on the
top of the trunk. They supposed that
the pedler, who seemed to be on his
way to the village, would carry the
trunk to the doctors house when he
arrived, and that the matter would end
there-as an April-fool joke.
But such jokes do not always come
out according to program
The pedler, whose name was Ding
ley, did not discover that he had the
trunk in his cart until he reached the
second farmhouse below the one where
the boys had put it aboard. While
overhauling his stock of calicoes at
this latter house, he came upon it, and
was naturally astonished. He drew it
partly out and looked at it attentiyely
for some moments.