Connecticut western news., 1912-04-18
JOKE ON JIMMY LAHEY.
When the ''Indian" Pursued Him and
 His Precious Heifer.

When the ''Indian" Pursued Him and
 His Precious Heifer.
 Older residents of Canaan will recall the episode of Jimmy Lahey being pur- sued by the "Indian" at Pete Hicks farm, (the old VanDeusen place near Dutcher's Bridge) The cumstance, which created general laugh at Jimmy's expense, was reported in The News of Dec. I, 1880, as follows:
 Of course everybody knows Jimmy Lahey, the eccentric Irishman who labors under the delusion that everybody but himself is crazy. This delusion affords the boys-and shocking to say, the men, too-oPPortunity for all manner of sport at Jimmy's expense, and he is the victim of jokes and tricks too numerous to me l. tion. The latest is the terrible fright he was given by the Indian who invariably turns up in the neighborhood of Pete Hicks place near Dutcher's Bridge.
 It appears that Jimmy went to Hicks farm after a heifer which he had been summering there, and when he got ready to start for home somebody told him that an Indian had been prowling around for some time back, and he was enioined to be on his guard. In the meantime one of the men employed about the place ar rayed himself in the Indian suit which figured SO prominently in one of the Ca naan Dramatic Company's performances two years ago, and which has furnished so much amusement since then, and stationed himself near the road where
 Jimmy would have to pass with his heifer
 Jimmy started, giving no heed to the warning, which he considered nothing more than the usual crazy rawlings, and when short distance from the house his attention was attracted to the hideous object dressed in rec, which he at first took for sCareCrow; but when the scare crow laid eyes on Jimmy and the heifer -as Jimmy expressed it in his vOlubl, story of the exciting events, in the sane tum, last Friday:
 "He Shprang for me wid the shpeed av race-harsc, and shook a big bowie knife wid a harrible shcrame," where upon Jimmy wheeled about and "bate the heifer wid a club," and ran her back into the barn, while he, himself, ran fran tically into Hicks house and beseeched the inmates to bolt the doors and win dows.
 According to the frightened mans de SCrlpuOn, the nOrrlDle monster was al least eight feet high, and it would re- quire 1.-two hundred men, wid guns" to capture him.
 The Indian prowled around the house for short time after Jimmy's return, threw bowie-knife at Pete Hicks, and finally withdrew, when Jimmy, with fear and trembling, made a second attempt to get his heifer home. Again the mon- ster pursued and shot at him, and the spectacle is described by an eye witness, as ludicrous in the extreme-Jimmy be- laboring the heifer Justify with club, and running for dear life, with an expres- sion of mortal terror depicted on his countenance, and the Indian in hot pur- suit, yelling bloody murder and bran dishing large knife.
 At Boinay's Jimmy stopped in his mad flight, for help, repairs and-cider. The story, to be fully appreciated, should be heard from Jimmy's own lips. He em- phatically declares that he "never had such fright in all me bor-r-n daysp and devoutly declares that "it was only be the blessin' av God that I escaped wid me life" He said he couldn't rest until he had notified the town authorities of the rampages of the terrible monster.