The Springfield herald., 1909-11-12

His His Teeth Bit Until

The most permanently uncomfort-
able man in Betzville Is Rocco Mack
intosh. and 1t Is all due to his two ma
lures, which he inherited from his
parents. From his mother. who was
Rosa Gallucci. he inherited the hot
blooded nature OF Italy. and from his
father, Sandy Macintosh, he inner
tied the cautious nature Of Scot.
and while both these natures are ex-
cellent, they do not mix we'll, and in
Rocco Macintosh they did not mix
at all. They remained at all times
distinctly separate, like the streaks
of fat and lean in a piece Of bacon.
Three weeks ago last Wednesday
Rocco woke with his hot Italian ma
ture in the saddle. SO to speak. and an
overpowering desire came upon him
to write Black Hand letter, SO he sat
| down and began to write one. but
when he was about half through his
| cautious Scotch nature warned him
that he was doing very dangerous
thing. and that II he was discovered
he might be taken to court and made
not to write Black Hand letter, his
sisted that he write the letter. So,
| to placate both his natures he wrote
the letter and addressed 1t to himself.
Then he took the letter to the post
office and mailed 1t.
When his Macintosh nature re-
ceived the letter the next morning he
was very much excited. Never be-
fore had he received a threatening let
ter, and it made him properly angry
but he swore that, no matter what
happened, he would not put 800
under stone, as the letter command
ed him to do. Instead he went out
and borrowed shotgun from Uncle
Ashdod Clute. so as to be ready for
the worst.
Along about four o'clock that after
noon his Italian nature took hold of
him and he sat down and wrote a
threatening letter to himself, ten times
worse than the first. and mailed it to
himself.
When he received this letter the
next morning his Scotch blood fair
ly boiled He was SO angry he could
hardly hold his pen while he was
writing another Black Hand letter to
himself that afternoon, but he was
wise enough to take every precaution,
and before he went to bed he barri-
caded the house by pushing all the fur
niture against the doors. Even then
he was SO excited he could not sleep,
| and several times in the night he
arose and wrote Black Hand letters
| to himself.
Il ha Il -,
such a state of fear that he only ven
tured from the house once day, and
that was to mail to himself the let
ters he had written, but the letters
kept getting more and more threaten
ing, and they all mentioned last
Wednesday as the last day of grace.
If the s1OO was not put under the fiat
stone at the crossroads by noon that
day ample vengeance would be taken
on him.
Everyone in Betzville noticed the
change that had come over Rocco
Macintosh, but no one suspected what
his trouble was, and Wednesday morn
ing dawned upon placid scene. The
fiat stone at the cross roads was as
fat as ever, and the cross roads
crossed as usual, but Rocco Mackin.
tosh was twice as cross as the roads
About ten minutes after IL he put
on his hat. and he instantly knew
he was going to the cross roads to see
whether the 500 had been put under
the stone as he had advised himself to
do. When he saw himself take a
dagger in his hand he knew he must
be prepared for the worst. and that
he had a cruel Italian nature to deal
with. So he took his shotgun in the
other hand and sailed forth. bound
at all costs, to protect himself.
But hardly had he stepped outside
the door than he weakened. What
after all, was 500 as compared with
his life? He went back into the
house and took ten ten-dollar bills from
his sock, and went out again. He