Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1909-01-15
wULFF'S EYRE.
BY BENZ. F. WULFT, OF STOCK (
TON, CAL, A FORMER GREENE Il
COUNTY, MISS. RESIDENT. <

vious little girl, and whose name
was Virginia Green; but who is now
Mrs. Virginia Hillman, a well-known
resident of your county, who enjoys |
the association of large family of
her own. Virginia was pupil when
the writer was sehool-master in that
district. The teacher boarded at Tin
ner Green S. Well the way that Vir-
ginia learned the deaf and dumb al
phabet and applied this knowledge
in tapping conversation carried on in
this way between the teacher and
an older sister, showed Virginia an
apt pupil. She actually surprised her
teacher, Yes, worse than that, she
actually astonlshsd him. Then that
smile she wore-when she saw his
eyes grow round, as Dickens would
say, with establishment.
These. cold nights remind me OF our
old possum hunts, and recalls
i took him home an dres d him off
An hung him dat night in the frost,
Oh cyarve dat possum. ~
p Lay sweet taters in de pan :,
De sweetest satin in de Lans
~. Cyarye him to the bone
There was another thing that rang
out beautifully of cold night in the
old piney woods. That was the mig.
ger holler - We never hear such
things here. | have often thought |
should tune up little and let go a
'nigger holler, but did not. | was
afraid to do it. | believe a man would
forever lose his breath if he tried it.
Now this may appear an exaggera-
ton. | guess ID is. But noises of all
kinds here in the open air, have a
way of stopping SO suddenly. There
are no reVerberationS. There would
be nothing to Niger holler" here,
but a CHASTITY failure You fire gun
and the noise stops so suddenly you
think for a moment you have incipi-
ent appoplexy. That must be the
reason the birds here keep quiet.
They are afraid of appoplexy. The
noisiest bird I have seen here is the
quail. He pipes out, sit right down,
sit right down., A thing he never
does himself. Every time l have
seen any of these feathery denizens
of the mountains, they we're either
whirring away on wing, or Logging it
Through the bush as if his Satanic
majesty were after them. Perhaps
they took me for that Plutonian Au-
tocrat. Some times my wife says |
look like him.
Well, California may abbreviate
her sounds, but when a Soptherner
comes out here he surprises the ma
tives by the immensity of his prop
ositions, which arise from said South
erners unabbreviated vision. For
instance, he may suggest that he
will take a little walk before break
fast and go out to the hills which he
points out, aud return. He says this
innOcently enough, but it has mark
ed effect on the Californian. He drops
bis under jaw and his eyes bulge out,
and he looks at the man from Dixie
as if he did not know whether to
brain him with something or run.
Those hills are perhaps twenty miles
away A little jaunt of forty miles
before breakfast is TOO much for the
Californian
However, this deception in distance
to the stranger, applies only to out
door and distant views. never heard
of any one reaching out to scratch his
wifs's nose, thinking it was his own.
| never knew man TO mistake the
top button on his pants for his collar
button, but I have known them to
miscaleulate distances out of doors.
[ hayeidone it myself. Yes sir, have
walked so far under this far seeing
delusion, that | had to hire .a,mau to
take me back in buggy. During the
fall season after the. first rainsy this
long distance vision is most pronoun-
ced, but it is always a mystery 90
the stranger. ~ a 7fan
California too, is the land of the
mirage. In places so dry that no
Mississippian could possibly conceive
the restitution of moisture, one can
see water and the shadow of the
bushes reflected in this ghostly IL
guild. 1t is understood that the great
San Joaquin valley was at one time
an arm of the seas. l think so myself
and these miragic displays are but
the ghosts of the departed waters.
This water usually appears at some
little distance something like half
mile; but in the western part of
Fresno County, have seen the wa
ter appears to be only one hundred
yards away. The town of Mendoza in
that county, was sixteen miles from
where | hibernated one winter in
sort of nightmare. Now | have seen
that town about eight o'clock in the
morning without leave or license,
march right up to within four or five
miles of me, out there on the plains,
stay there for time and then disap-
pear. While the mirage was on, one