Year: 1876

A family named Smith has recently
moved to Germantown Mr..
Browns boy, on Saturday, leaned over
the fence and gave to our reporter his
impression of Mr.. Smiths boy, lad II
years old:


"Yes, me and him are right well ac-
quainted now; he knows mOre'n | do,
and he's had more experience. Bill
says his father used to be rObber
(Smith, by the way, is deacon in the
Presbyterian Church, and a very excel
lent lawyer), and that he has ten million
dollars in Gold buried in his cellar, along
with a whole lot of human bones, peO-
pie he's killed. And he says his father
is a cOniurer; and that he makes all
the earthquakes that happen anywhere
in the world. The old manlt come
home at night, after there's been an
earthquake, all covered with sweat, and
so tired he kin hardly stand. Bill says
it's such hard work.


ssAnd Bill tole me that once when a
man came around there trying to sell
lightning rods, his father got mad and
ct him right up, and he takes bites out
of every body he comes acrOst. That's
what Bill tells me. That's all | know
about it. And he told me that once he
used to have q dog, one of these little
kind of dogs, and he was flying his kite,
and, Just for fun, he tied the kite-string
onto his dogs tail. And then the wind
struck her and his dog went a-bOOmin'
down the street, with his hind legs in
the air, for about q mile, when the kite
of a sudden begun to 90 up, and in
about a minute the dog was - miles
high, and commanding a view of Cali
fornia, and Egypt, and Oshkosh, l think
Bill said. He came down any how,
know, in Brazil, and Bill said he swum
home all the way in the Atlantic Ocean,
and when he landed his legs were all
nibbed off by sharks.


81 wish father'd buy me dog, SOS
| could send him up that way. But |
never have no luck. Bill said that
where they used to live he went out on
the roof, one day, to fly his kite, and he
sat on top of the chimbly to give her
plenty of room, and, while he was sit
ting there thinking about nothing, the
old man put keg of powder down be-
low on the fireplace to clean the SCOT
out of the chimbly. And when he
touched her off Bill was blOwed over
agin the Baptist church steeple, and he
landed on the weather-cOck, with his
pants torn, and they couldn't get him
down for three days, so he hung there
going round and round with the wind,
and he lived by eating the crows that
came and sat on him, because they
thought he was sheet-iron, and put up
there on purpose.


"He's had more fun than enough.
He was telling me, the other day, about
a sausage -stuffer his brother invented.
1t was kind of machine that works
with a treadle; and Bill said the way
they did in the fall was to fix it on the
hogs back, and connect the treadle
with a string, and then the hOg'd work
the treadle and keep on running it up
and down until the machine cut the hog
all up fine and showed the meat into the
skins. Bill said his brother called it
Every hog its own stuffer,' and it
worked splendid. But L do know.
Pears to mes if there couldn't be no
machine like that. But, anyway, Bill
said so.


"And he told me about an uncle of
his out in Australia, who was ct by Il
big oyster once, and when he got in
side he STAYED there until he'd ct the
oyster. Then he split the shells open
and took one for boat, and he sailed
along until he met sea-serpent, and
he killed it and drawed off its skin, and
when he got home he sold it to an en-
CINE company for hose for $4,000, to
put out fires with. Bill said that was
actually so, because he could show me
a man who used to belong to the en-
CINE company. wish father'd let me
90 out to find a sea-serpent like that;
but he don't let me have no chance to
distinguish myself.


Bill was saying, only yesterday, that
the Indians caught him once and drove
IL railroad spikes through his stomach,
and cut off his scalp, and never hurt
him bit. He said ne got away by the
daughter of the chief shaking him out
of the wigwam, and lending him q
horse. Bill says she was in love with
him and when asked him to let me
see the holes where they drove in those
spikes, he said he darsn't take off his
clothes or he'd bleed to death. He said
his own father didn't know it, because
Bill was afraid it might worry the old
man.


Sand Bill told me they wasn't going
to get him to go to Sunday-schOol. He
saws his father has brass idol that he
keeps in the garret, and Bill says he's
made up his mind to be a pagan, and
begin to go naked, and carry toma-
hawk, and bow and arrow, as soon as
warm weather comes. And to prove it
to me, he says his father has the town
all underlaid with nitro-glycerine, and


as soon as he gets ready he's going to
blow the old thing out, and bust her
up, let her rip and demolish her. He


said so down at the dam, and tole me not


to tell any body, but l thought ther'd


be no harm in mentioning it to you.


sand now believe must be going.


I hear Bill a whistling. Maybe he's


got something else to tell me. ."-Pbttd-


delphiG Bulletin,