The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-12-19

ING HIM AT THE STAKE"
for three months. He found out about
the Liars club at an early date and
insisted that the weekly meetings be
held at his room in the tavern.
1t was at this first meeting that the
Jericho liars discovered what poor imi-
tations they We're. They told their best
lies, and yet the stranger lying there
with a broken leg Quilted them so cas-
lily and SO handsomely that they were
discouraged. He saw it and felt sorry
for them, and at the second meeting he
offered to give them lessons. All ac-
cepted the offer, and from tina date on
for ten years the Jericho Liars club
had no rival of consequence. Every
Saturday night after the lightning rod
mar had gone limping on his way there
was q meeting at the postoffice. Good
heart Johnson was the first president,
and after him came Truthful Smith.
When the first meeting had been called
to order the president rubbed his hands
and smiled and said:
1--WE will now hear from Elder Hick-
son. If he don't mind, he will tell us a
wolf story"
The elder was a good man-none bet
ter-and he wouldn't have told a lie
outside Of the Liars club for a hun
dred bushels of potatoes. That wolf
story of his was a yarn pure and SIM
pie, but be had told it so many times
that he had come to believe it. 1t al
ways took him just twenty-eight min
utes to tell it, as he had to work in a
lot of snarIs and growls and hunt up an
ak to kill the wolf with, but nobody
ever complained. When the elder had
finished anI the audience had got
through holding its breath and SILVER
ing the president would call on Uncle
Bill Whitcomb to tell how he was rob
bed of $4,000 on a Mississippi river
steamboat and how he came into his
own again by killing two blacklegs
and wOUnding Il third.
AS a matter of fact, Uncle Bill had
never been fifty miles from home and
had never had yer 500 in his posses
sion ut once. He was also Il man of
such natural tinidity that the calves
chased him around the harnyard. His
Story was q thrilling G2r, however.
The Lightning ed man had given him
six lessons IN telling it, and some CT his
hcareY; always he'd >leir breath SO
long that they had to be thumped on
the back to help them get it again.
Then there was Z&doc Barnham,
with his story about being on board a
shin in the InG:dn ocean when Il whale
hit her Il blow with It's tai. and made
4 wrarrl OF her. He haj even
seen Tie ocean and nothing more than
the picture OF a whale, but men walk
ell three miles to hear him tell that
story. Fox The first year he frankly
admitted that it was Il yarn; 1T the enc
OF two years he asserted that 1t might
have happened; Il year later he offered
to make oath that every blessed word
OF it was true.
There were other liars and other lies,
and the club was in such a h0uriShing
condition that the people over at Dobbs
Ferry were selling their real estate al
any price they could get, when the bel
of fate was set ringing. A pew minis
ter canfe to the only church in Jericho
and it was not long before he heard OF
the Liars club. He found out what he
could and preached a sermon about 1t
The members were a little startled, but
their next meeting was just as fully at
tended as ever. When he saw that
throwing grass would not do, the Ealn
lister began to throw stones. Every
member of the club belonged to hs-
congregation, and he called them tt,
getfer one evening and said:
Brethren, I don't want to break III
any Of the social relations of the vii
siage, but the Liars club must go. An.