TOUGH YARNS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3266, 20 December 1881, Page 4

TOUGH YARNS.

While -waiting for a jury, Judge Cary, of Arkansas, after listening to somo tough dofstories, said : " These are curious yarns, gentlemen, but I believe them all. 1 had a dog once, back in Nebraska, that I kept to Lord lumber." " Beg pardon, judge : but did you say the dog herded lumber ?" " Yes, sir ; cottonwood boards. We always kept a dog there to bring the lumber in at night." Everybody now paid the closest attention, as they knew that the boss ■was at work. "It was this way: cottonboardfl wai'p lite thnmhii in the [mm, A

board would begin to hump its back up about nine in the morning, and in half an hour it would turn over. By eleven it would warp the other way with the heat, and make another flop. Each time it turned it moved a couple of feet, always following the sun towards the west. The first summer I lived in Erownville, over ten thousand feet of lurnbei* skipped out to the hills the day before I advertised house raisin. I went to the country scat to attend a lawsuit, and when I got back there wasn't a stick of timber left. It had strayed away into the uplands. An ordinary board would climb a two-mile hill during a hot week, and when it struck the timber it would keep wormin' in and out among the trees like la garter snako. Every farmer in the State had to keep shepherd dogs to follow his lumber around the country, hold it together, and show where it was in the morning. Wo didn't need any flumes there for lumber. Wo sawed it east of the place where we wanted to use it, and let it warp itself to its destination ; with men and dogs to head it off at the right time, we never lost a stick. Well, here comes the ■'ViVy!" continued the judge. witness lied, so I guess they will disagree !"