Well, there was no use arguing, and finally by helping him do his chores we got the bill all paid but a dollar and a half, and then he began his persecutions. He called us a baldheaded old catamaran. He would follow us into a saloon, when some one treated, and take our glass of beer, and say he would give us credit on account. He would catch our dog and propose to cut a piece of his tail off, and give us credit at so much an inch.
He would meet us coming out of church, and right before folks he would ask us to go down to the brewery and play pedro. He would say he would come up to our house for dinner some time, and everything wicked. One day we stopped at his store to enjoy his society, and eat crackers and cheese—for be it known we never took offence at him, in fact we sort of liked the old cuss—when he told us to take a seat and talk it over.
We sat down on a cracker box that had bees wax on it, and after a heated discussion on finances, found that we had melted about two pounds of wax on our trousers, and Smith insisted on charging it up to us. This was the last hair, and when he called us a diabolical, hot-headed guthoogen our warm southern blood began to boil. We seized a codfish that had been hanging in front of the store until it had become as hard and sharp as a cleaver, and we struck him.
The sharp edge of the codfish struck him on the second joint of the forefinger, and cut the finger off as clean as it could have been done with a razor.
He said that settled it, and he gave us a receipt in full, and ever afterwards we were firm friends.
One thing he insists on, even now, and that is in telling people who ask him how he lost his finger, that he wore it off rubbing out seven-up marks on a table while playing pedro.
He is now trying to lead a different life, being city clerk of La Crosse, but this article will remind him of old times, and he can remember with what an air of injured innocence we wiped the blood off that codfish and hung it up for a sign, and how Smith sold it the next day to Frank Hatch for a liver pad. No, thank you, we don't drink.
CAMP MEETING IN THE DARK OF THE MOON.
A Dartford man, who has been attending a camp meeting at that place, inquires of the Brandon Times why it is that camp meetings are always held when the moon does not shine. The Times man gives it up, and refers the question to The Sun. We give it up.