The Prescott daily news., 1909-08-31
THE DRAGONS DAY.
By M. QUAD.

|
 Deacon Hardstone of Riverton was a good man. He was man of years and dignity He was a man always to be found on the side of law and order and charity The only thing in this world that troubled him and his good wife was the fact that they had a nephew over at Saltville who was a loud young man. Money had been left him by an aunt. and he sported. He not only sported at home. despite the protests of his widowed mother. but | he came over to Riverton and sported l there. The deacon struggled and strug- gled with him, but it did no good. He would drink cocktails. and he would speed his auto around the town and on the highways, and finally he was or hered out of the deacons house and told never to return. Then the sporty youth began to study how to get even. Now. the deacon had weakness for sweet cider. though he didn't go tell ing 1t around. When cider making time came he carted apples to the mill and had one barrel of cider made-never more The cider would retain its sweetness for about a month. When it began to get an edge on it, 1t was provided with mother" and rolled aside to become vinegar.
 Of course this little one barreled af- fair was known to the nephew. and after little thought he saw his way clear. When the apples and the barrel had been taken to the mill he was ready with his plot. Perhaps he had l the aid of the owner of the mill, but that has never been satisfactorily set tied. There are thirty-two gallons of cider in the average barrel. How many I gallons of something else went into the barrel has not yet been solved by Sher- lock Holmes. It was sufficient, no mat ter what the number
 When the deacon went after his bar rel it was ready for him, and never did a cider barrel look more innocent. It was rolled down cellar to cool and was not tapped until the afternoon of the next day. Then the deacon's wife went out to visit q neighbor, and he l put Spigot in the barrel and drew glass to drink. He had been drinking cider for twenty-three years, but never did cider taste like that before. It had peculiar taste. It had an agreeable taste. The palate just cried out for more. The deacon gave it more He was a little bit frightened when he found himself laughing, for he had not laughed for sixteen years by the al- manac. but he drew another glass and slowly slipped it and figured that he must have mixed a lot of Seek No Fur ther apples in with the pippins. At any rate, he wasn't going to seek any further for a good thing Who can tell just how many glasses of sweet cider man will drink under favorable conditions? You can't even guess at it. When Deacon Handsome ascended from the cellar his eyes were shining and his hair curling He put on his hat and walked out to the gate, won- dering why his heels were so springy, and down by the pOstoffice he saw an auto. It was the one belonging to his sporty nephew. He walked down there i to give the young man blast; but, not finding him, he was seized with a sud- den desire to take a ride all by his | lonesome. He had been shown how to start and stop the machine Before leaping in he whooped. He didn't mean to whoop. but the whoop sorter whooped itself. Then he whooped again as he started off
 The town of Riverton will never for | get that day. In fact, it is observed as q sort of holiday under the name of ''deacon's day" He put that auto at it's fastest clip and went up and down the four or five streets. He drove i everybody within doors. He immo- i lated twenty different runaways He wbooped at the corners, and he whooped | in the middle of the blocks. Sometimes i he whoopeu and swung his hat at the same time
 When this happened the machine ei- 1 ther glazed d tree or took to the side walk and cleared off the kerosene bar ] rels in front of the groceries Of 1 course it was plain that something was wrong and a hundred people would have extended help if they could, but the trouble was they couldn't
 | But they stopped the deacon at last They piled dry goods boxes on the l street and ran him into a millinery | store and captured him. He was still | whooping, but he didn't fight back when they carried him home and put him to bed. Of course there was some thing done about it. No deacon can | perform that way after so many years