A Loaded Clothesline.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 114, 9 April 1884, Page 2

A Loaded Clothesline.

Lately, somebody has been burgling our chicken-coop, and pa loaded an old musket with, rocic salt, and said lie would fill the: fellow with rock salt if he caught ; hnn, .and,. while they wece talking up stairs, ma heard a rooi>te.r squawk, and" she Went to the stairway and told pa there was sometody m <the hen-hbhse. n Ea jumped up and told some visitors to follow him.and iliey would-see a man running down the alley, full of isaU^-andihe- rushed out \*ith the^iißj.and the crowd followed him. P-a is shorter than the rest, and he passed under the.first wire clothes<line.intKe yard allright,and was going for thehen-house on a jump, when his neck caught the second wire clothesline just; sis the visitors caught their necks under the other wire. You know how a wire* .^hit^ng a ; man on the throat, will set him back, head over appetke. -Well, sir, I was looking out, ; the^jback window, and I wouldn't,bo positive, but I think they all>turned double, back, somersaults, and struck on. their t .ears. Anyway, pa did, and the gun must have" been cooked, or it struck ; the hahimer on a stone, 'for it : went ; off, and it was pointed towards the house, and three of the visitors,; got salted;; suppose when yog : shoot a man with salt, it smarts like. .when you get coined beef, brine on your; chapped hands. They all yelled, a.nd.pa seemed to have been knocked .silly, some way, for he .pranced around -and seemed,, "to : think he had killed them. He swore at the wire clothes line, and then"! "missed pa. and heard a .splash like when you throw a cat m the'river, and then I thongh€ of the: cist«na, k and I went down and we took pa by the collar and pulled bim'outi ©,• be^'wa's 5 |awful damp. No sir; it < was- no r duel at all, but a naxJdent, and I didn ? t have anything; to do with if.;. <;^7/ ; i