FROM THE LIPS OF ANANIAS.
Reading edition
While Kipling Makes the Merits of "Unwreckable" and "Impeccable" Lies the Subject of Song, Others Continue to Prefer the Medium of Story.
RUDYARD KIPLING'S LYRIC TO LIES.
Heading of Chapter VII of "The Naulahka," by Rudyard Kipling and Walcott Balestier. Copyright, 1892, Macmillan & Co.
There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay, When the artist's hand is potting it, There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay, When the poet's hand is blotting it, There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the line At the Royal Arcade—my; But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheese When it comes to a well made Lie, To a quite unwreckable Lie, To a most impeccable Lie! To a water-tight, fire-proof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock, steel-faced Lie! Not a private hansom Lie, But a fair and brougham Lie, Not a little place in Tooting, but a country house with shooting and a ring-fence, deer-park Lie.
SOME SNAKE STORIES.
When a boy, in the early days in the lead mines of Wisconsin, I often met pioneers and heard them tell strange stories about hoop-snakes. In one particular they all agreed—the snakes, in pairs, about the 15th of May would come rolling up from Illinois. Then they would disappear, and not be seen again until August. During that month strange sights might be seen on lonely stretches of prairie—hundreds of them playfully chasing one another.
They were a green snake—the males about six and the females five feet long. About four inches from the ends of their tails grew a hard, curved horn, from two to four inches in length.
They were considered the most dangerous snakes in the Northwest.
Wo betide the living thing that crossed their path as they rolled noiselessly over the prairie. I heard an old hunter say he once stood by a lone tree on the prairie and saw a hoop-snake come rolling toward the tree. As it drew near he held his gun right across its path.
When near enough, the snake let go of its tail and struck the metal barrel of the gun, knocking it out of his hand and making it ring like a bell. The snake then stuck its tail into its mouth and went rolling away.
The hunter soon noticed that the gun-barrel began to swell. He watched the gun until it swelled so big it scared him, and in terror he fled over the prairie and never went near the spot again. Years afterward miners prospecting for mineral found an old cannon shaped like a musket-barrel. It was the old gun, grown to be a foot in diameter.—Correspondence in Chicago Inter-Ocean.
DISCRIMINATING SPARROWS.
An Atchison man planted lettuce, but as fast as it came through the ground the English sparrows ate it off.
He finally got a few small flags and stuck them in the lettuce-bed, and not a sparrow will consent to touch that lettuce as long as Old Glory floats over it.—Atchison (Kansas) Globe.
A GUN'S SELF-SACRIFICE.
Not long ago an ex-Governor of Michigan, a Cleveland capitalist, and several friends were in the big woods near Turtle Lake, guided by Sam Sampson, a famous hunter and trapper. Sam possesses a gun with a barrel five feet long, but once, according to his story, he had a still longer one.
"It was a wonderful gun," he said to the ex-Governor. "I could kill a b'ar as fur off as I could see 'im, an' that gun was as knowing as a man. If it hadn't been fur that, it would never ha' busted!"
"How did you break it?" asked one of the hunters.
"I strained it t' death," said the old guide soberly. "I was out hunting one day when I seen a buck and seven does a-standin' close onto me. I pulled up old Beetle—that's what I called th' gun—and was jest goin' t' let go when I heard an awful funny noise over my head.
"I looked up 'n' there was more'n ten million wild geese a-sailin' over me. There I was in a predicament. I wanted th' geese 'n' I wanted th' deer.
"At last I aimed at th' geese an' let sliver. Beetle must ha' knowed I wanted both, fur that was th' end of the old gun. The strain on her was too much, an' both barrels busted.
"Th' shot in one of 'em killed the buck, th' shot in th' other killed ten geese, and when Beetle died she kicked so hard I was knocked into a crick. But when I come out my bootlegs was full o' fish. I ain't never seen another sech gun as Beetle."—Lippincott's Magazine.
A POWERFUL SALVE.
A man in Nebraska has invented a new powerful double-acting salve which shows powers never before exhibited by salves of any kind.
The inventor accidentally cut off the tail of a tame wolf, and, immediately applying some of the salve to the stump, a new tail grew out. Then picking up the old tail, he applied some of the salve to the raw end of that, and a wolf grew out; but he was a wild wolf, and had to be shot.—Chicago Tribune.
HOW THE PACK WAS PACKED.
A red-faced man was holding the attention of a little group with some wonderful recitals.
"The most exciting chase I ever had," he said, "happened a few years ago in Russia. One night, when sleighing about ten miles from my destination, I discovered to my intense horror that I was being followed by a pack of wolves. I fired blindly into the pack, killing one of the brutes, and to my delight saw the others stop to devour it. After doing this, however, they still came on. I kept on repeating the dose, with the same result, and each occasion gave me an opportunity to whip up my horses. Finally there was only one wolf left, yet on it came, with its fierce eyes glaring in anticipation of a good, hot supper."
Here the man who had been sitting in the corner burst forth into a fit of laughter.
"Why, man," said he, "by your way of reckoning, that last wolf must have had the rest of the pack inside him."
"Ah!" said the red-faced man, without a tremor, "now I remember it did wobble a bit."—Philadelphia Public Ledger.
A TALL TREE YARN.
Scott Cummins, the poet of Winchester, Woods County, was a cow-puncher in the Northwest many years ago. His outfit came to Snake River one day with three thousand cattle. Cummins, with a poet's license, relates what happened:
"The river was too dangerous for swimming, but after following the bank a short distance the foreman found a giant redwood tree that had fallen across the river. Fortunately the tree was hollow, and, making a chute, they had no trouble in driving the cattle through the log to the other side.
"As the cattle had not been counted for several days, one of the cowboys was stationed to count them as they emerged from the log. The count fell short some three hundred head, but about that time a distant lowing was heard.
"Their surprise may be imagined when on looking about they found that the cattle had wandered off into a hollow limb."—Kansas City Star.
REMARKABLE ECHOES.
President Murphy, of the Chicago National League Club, told at a baseball dinner a remarkable echo story.
"There was a man," he began, "who had a country home in the Catskills. He was showing a visitor over his grounds one day, and coming to a hilly place, he said:
"'There's a remarkable echo here. If you stand under that rock and shout, the echo answers four distinct times, with an interval of several minutes between each answer.'
"But the visitor was not at all impressed. He said, with a laugh:
"'You ought to hear the echo at my place in Sunapee. Before getting into bed at night I stick my head out of the window and shout, "Time to get up, William!" and the echo wakes me at seven o'clock sharp the next morning.'"—Detroit Free Press.
Alas, it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.—Longfellow.