Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1917-01-17

when you can steal a shoat better than
anybody else can. Shoats is kind Of
inspiration and genius with me. Spe-
cfally this one I wouldn't take two
hundred and fifty for that ANIMAL
"'Now isten,' says 1, wiping off my
forehead. It's not so much a matter
of business with me as it is art, and
not so much art as it is philanthropy.
Being q connoisseur and disseminator
Of pigs, I wouldn't feel like I'd done
my duty to the world unless I added
that Berkshire to my collection. Not
intrinsically, but according to the eth
les of pigs as friends and coadjutors OF
mankind. I offer you $500 for the ami
mall
"'Jeff.' says this pork esthete, it
"'Seven hundred says I.
SNAKE it eight hundred says Rufe,
and I'll crush the sentiment out of
my heart
81 went under my clothes for my
money belt and counted him out forty
twentydollar gold certificates.
"I'n just take him into my own
room,' says I, and lock him up till aft
er breakfast
81 took the pig by the hind leg. He
turned on a squeal like the steam cal
Hope at the circus.
"Iet me tote him in for you,' says
Rufe, and he picks up the beast under
one arm, holding his snout with the
other hand, and packs him into my
room like a sleeping baby
"After breakfast Rufe, who had q
chronic case Of haberdashery ever
since I got his rousseau, says he be-
neves he will amble down to Misf1tz-
ky's and look over some royal purple
socks. And then I got as busy as a
one armed man with the nettle rash
pasting on wallpaper. I found an old
negro man with an express wagon to
hire, and we tied the pig in a sack and
drove down to the circus grounds.
II found George B. Tapley in little
tent with window flap open. He was
a fattish man, with an immediate eye,
in a black skullcap, with a four ounce
diamond screwed into the bosom Of his
red sweater.
"3Are you George B. Tapley?' asks.
swear II, says ue-
"'Well, I've got it, says I.
"'Designate,' says he. Are you the
guinea pigs for the Asiatic python OF
the alfalfa for the sacred buffalo?
Neither says 1. I've got Beppo,
the educated hog, in a sack in that
wagon. 1 found him roofing up the
flowers in my front yard this morning.
%oJ~ -, I>sl 10.
handy
George B. hustles out Of his tent
and asks me to follow. We got into
one of the side shows. In there was
jet black pig, with a pink ribbon
around his neck, lying on some hay
and eating carrots that a man was
feeding to him.
"'Hey, Mac calls G. B. Nothing
wrong with the worldwide this morn.
ing, is there?
"'Him? No. says the man. He's
got an appetite like a chorus girl at 1
e. M
"'How'd did you get this pipe? says
Tapley to me. Eating too many pork
chops last night?'
the ad.
"'Fake.' says he. Don't know any
thing about it. You've beheld with
your own eyes the marvellous, world
wide porcine wonder of our four foot
ed kingdom eating with preternatural
sagacity his matutinal meal, unstrayed
and unstole. Good morning.
II was beginning to see. I got in the
wagon and told Uncle Ned to drive to
the most adjacent orifce Of the nearest
alley. There I took out my pig, got
the range carefully for the other open
ing, set his sights and gave him such
kick that he went out the other end of
the alley twenty feet ahead of his
sQueaL
''Then 1 paid Uncle Ned his SO cents
and walked down to the newspaper Of
flee. I wanted to hear it in cold syl-
tables. I got the advertising man to
his window.
""To decide bet,' says I, wasn't
the man who had this ad. put in last
night short and fat, with long whisk-
ers and a club foot?'
"'He was not says the man. He
and a half inches, with cornsilk hair
and dressed like the pansies Of the con-
servatory.'
"At dinner time I went back to Mrs.
Peevy's.
"'Shall keep some soup hot for
Mr.. Tatum till he comes back? she
asks.
"1f you do, ma'am,' says I, you'll
more than exhaust for firewood all
the coal in the bosom Of the earth and
all the forests on the outside of it.
$50 there, you see," said Jefferson
Peters in conclusion, chow hard it is
ever to find a fair minded and honest
business partner
But" I began. with the freedom of
long acquaintance, "the rule should
work both ways. If you had offered