The news & observer., 1905-11-05

made a couple of quick jumps, and
grabbed a limb of hickory tree, and
was pulling himself up and repeating
prayers, when the leading dog reached
up his nose and smelled pas shoes
when the intelligent animal gave a
bark and q yell to the other dogs. as
much as to say: That's the Identical
cuss. Eat him alive"
He grabbed about double hand
full of the cloth of pas clothes right
below where his suspeLders button on
and held on, and shook pa real hard
but the cloth was tough and didn't
tear. Pa suddenly seemed to be en-
doWed with Superhuman strength, for
he drew himself up on the limb and
raised the dog from the ground, and
all the pack came around the tree
and set up howl that scared pa so
the perspiration rolled off him, and he
had a chill so he shook like the ague.
Pa yelled to the planter who was
holding up the fat lady, and said:
Here, Mr.. Confederate, / am not a
Union prisoner, and 1 want you to
unlock your dogs jaws, and free me,
cause l can't hold up a 90-pound dog
by my suspenders much longer. If
this is Southern hospitality, [ don't
want to be entertained no more" The
planter leaned the fat lady against a
tree and went to pas tree, and took
| the dog by the hind legs and pulled
him off.
The planter yelled to the negroes to
come down and help handle the dogs,
but just then the boy who started the
dogs on the trail, at my request, came
Iup Whistling, with a dog wlap in his
hand, and all the dogs surrounded
| him, and he made them lay down and
| roll over All of the scared people
came down from their perches in the
| trees, and surrounded +he boy and
| the dogs, and the dogs painted and
| lollcd, as though they had peen hav-
| ing a nice run for their money. The
old planter asked his boy how the
dogs had happened to get loose, and
that fool boy told the whole thns
how l had asked him to let the pack
run, and how I had put anise seed
in the shoes of pa, the giant and the
fat lady. Then you ought to have seen
what they did to me. The planter said
they usually had a lynching when the
dogs made a run, but that was impos-
sible in this case, so he suggested thai
they make me run the gantlet. I didn't
know what running the gantlet was
but after. pa had told me he should
disoWn me from that moment I said
II was willing to run any gantlet, st
lthey all cut switches. and formed in
two lines, and let me run down be-
tween them. / thought it would be
fun, but [ started and every last man
gave me a cut across the end of my
hack with hickory switch, l yelled
murder, and run between the giant
legs and tackled him like football
toppled him over against the next
man, and that man hit the giant in the
stomach, and everybody began to fight
land the festivities broke up.
| / went to the house with the boy
and the dogs, and we set IL dogs or
"a mess of cats, and treed everything
alive on the plantation. Finally the
whole crowd came back to the house
land had another lunch, with mint
Ijulep. and champagne, and then
everybody was hugging some one, and
Icrying on each others neck, and
swearing that the war was over, and
that the North and the South were
one and inseparable, and the two to-
gether could whip the whole world
Pa somehow saw double. I was
standing alone, smarting from the
switching I got when pa came up tC
me and said: 81 want you two boys
to understand that I don't want any
more experiments played on me.
can take a joke as we'll as anybody
but when you set a hundred dogs on
my trail, I am no gentleman, see?
Now we will go back to the show"