STRAY LOCALS.
Of the six correspondents who contribute to the "Sharptown Sun," an
influential paper with a circulation of more than 500 copies, I am by
the editor considered second in merit. He told me confidentially
that, although perhaps two of my brother scribes excel me in style,
not one of them has as keen an instinct for news as I. This
indisputable excellence in newspaper work, an excellence which is
shown by my connection with the Sun for three years, induces me to
arrange some of the latter part of this history in the form of a
correspondence.
Alf Boyle was killed while resisting the officers who were sent to
arrest him.
Mrs. Boyle, refusing to change her place of abode, continued her
ministrations from her home in the wood. Sick people, needy children
and her sabbath-school class received her special attention.
Hiram B. Durgenson will not again defraud the farmers. He was
convicted of being accessory to the murder of William Boyce, an
Illinois farmer, and sentenced to the Joliet prison, where, two years
later, he died.
A watch was placed on Julia Wallace's movements. She was observed to
take water to the barn at night. Her watchers, concealing themselves
in the mow, saw her open a trap-door covered with hay and descend to
the excavation which had been made in the spring. With a lantern,
which they procured after her departure, they explored the
underground stable. At first they thought they had discovered the
recently-stolen horse, but a nearer approach showed them that this
one was light, and the one for which they were looking had been dark.
The next day, summoning a crowd, they returned to the barn. The
victim of the late theft said that in size and form this animal was
exactly like his Prince, but Prince was not of a dirty mouse color. A
peculiar whinny and a pawing of the beast for grain settled his doubt
at once. He was quite certain that the lost was found. In the stable
where a huge rubber blanket, some bottles and papers containing
chemicals, and a kettle in which some substance had been burned. The
riddle was laid before some doctors and druggists, who declared it to
be their belief that the horse had been covered with the rubber
blanket, the chemicals burned under him and his color changed by the
imprisoned smoke. A jury decided that Wallace and Ab were guilty of
horse-stealing, but Julia was allowed to go unmolested.
Nora's grief over the fate of Montcalm, though sincere, was not of
very great duration. In one of her visits to her Michigan relatives
she met Fred Loomis, whose attentions she received and whom she
subsequently wedded.
Ratke's men, who believed they had contributed to his great disaster,
which was now repaired, worked with tolerable faithfulness, but Brown
and Archer would occasionally shirk duty. The major's churn, to the
astonishment of every one except the philosopher, proved a success.
Its proceeds enabled him to repay John for the liquidation of the
mortgage, an act which, in the face of the most vehement protests, he
insisted on performing.
An evangelist came to Break o'Day, and Philetus Takum was converted.
Philetus remained a devotee of his faith, until Lyman Sparks procured
a superior breed of cochins with immense thighs and full breasts,
when he yielded to the tempter. He was one of those who received the
word on stony ground.