THE AXE STORY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 523, 26 April 1872, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE AXE STORY.

The London Fan tells the following in a capital American vein of humori~ Wal, I reckon about the idlest chap I ever knowed was a chap they called Long George, down to Red Pine. He had a bit of ground allotted him that was timbered. I "was running a post at th at time on a*pony between the mines and the post-office, and so I passed his location every now and then, and noticing that he was always sot on a log doing nothing, I hiilrd him, and asked him why he didn’t begin to clear his patch. Wal, ho said, he had’nt nary an axe, but that an cld mate of his had got thenext lotand he reckoned he’d loan him his when he came. Time went on, aud he still sot doing nothing about throe months more; I asked if his mate had come. He said Pete had arrove about a month ago, but as Pete had|his own clearing to do he had made up his mind not to ask for the loan of the ate till it was done. Next spring when I come by, I asked if Pete hadn’t done his clearing yet, and he said with a mournful shake of the head that he guessed he had for a bit, for he had took ill. So I said, I reckoned he could have the axe now, but he said he didn’t want to bother Pete while he wasn’t well. That autumn when I passed again 1 asked how Pete was, aud be said he was pretty well about now, for they buried him about a month ago. “ How about that axe?” said I. He up and said as Pete had left it him but he wouldn’t go sloshing round about a trifle like that while the widow was just in the first bust of her bereavement. The following summer when I saw him he was sitting on the log. “ Been for that axe yet 7” said I “ \Yal, 1 guess," said he, “ the widder’s married again, aud I ain’t been introduced to the new boss yet, and he mightn’t like my going for the axe just now.” About the beginning of winter as I was returning from the mines, 1 overtook a little party going East, and fell into conversation with ’em ! and one woman said to me as we were parting—“ Say, stranger, when you go back to the mines next time will you just stop at Long George’s--I forgot to tell him as the axe my last old man left him is lying at Jem Brown’s store.” So n'xttime I passed I told the crittur. He said he’d go aud fetch it in a day or two, but, b'ess you, when I passed again there he was on the log. “Wal,” says I, “whar’s that axe?” “Why, at Jem Brown’s,” says he. •* Thought you’d been to fetch it, says I. “So I did,” says he, “ but ye sec as Jem Brown has had the trouble of keeping it for me, I felt it only proper to make him some return - -so—wal we drank that axe between us.” I larfed some; aud the next time I passed I brought him a young oak sapling and planted it. Says 1, “That’ll be just the sixe for an axehelve by the time you’ve got a head for it.” “ Thank ye, stranger,” says he quite satisfied; and it’s my belief he’s a-setting there still, watching the darned thing grow.