AN AWKWARD SCRAPE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 154, 29 June 1872, Page 4

AN AWKWARD SCRAPE.

A New Orleans correspondent of the Philadelphia Press tells the following funny stories of the sporting adventures of Joe. Jefferson and Edwin Adams in the Bayou Teche : —

Speaking of Teche, Joe Jefferson, the actor, has a plantation about fourteen miles frdm New Iberia, "which he uses as a winter gunning and fishing retreat. Joe owns a whole island called Orange Grove, but he plants only enough to keep those in his employ. The waters abound in fish and oysters, and wild geese and ducks swarm the bayou. Mr. Jefierson and his wife are now sojourning at this retreat, and have for their guests James H. Wallack and Charles Pope, both actors. Edwin Adams and his wife stopped there two weeks, but an engagement at Columbus, Ohio, compelled them to leave last week.

These actors, when they get together ruralising, have a heap of fun among themselves. About a week before Ned Adams left the Teche, Jefferson and be made a bullock out of canvas, for the purpose of stalking wild geese, which are very shy of human beings. Semi-wild cattle roam over portions of these Teche plantations, and those who go among them on foot are obliged to be very careful to keep from being gored. Men on horseback are never disturbed by the cattle. The dummy bullock made by Jefferson was arranged for two, and after its completion, Joe took the front half position, and Ned Adams the rear, with their guns in their hands, ready to shoot geese as they arrived within range. The two actors took up the line of march across the prairie from the house at a slow and lumbering gait toward the water, where he wild geese were sporting and feeding. The catttle they passed through sniffed something unusual and began to act ugly, but the actors were brave, and did not. mind the fat bullocks. Presently the old bull — the patriarch of the herd, and a crusty old bull at that, a regular Arcadian —observed the queer object drawing nigh, ■with head lowered, as though for battle. This was a little too much for the old cock of the walk, who was monarch of all he surveyed, and he sniffed a fight or danger from the approaching gunners. The bull began to paw the earth, and then to bellow, and throw the dirt over his head with his fore feet. "Joe," said Ned, " what's the matter with that bull ? " Joe said, "He — he — is preparing for a charge." The bull began to advance at a rapid pace, and when within half-a-dozen rods, out jumped Joe and Ned from the dummy, and like the wind they scampered across the prairie into a small bayou, and out of it again, both covered with black mud from head to foot. The oldbull stopped at the canvas, and after tossing it in the air with his horns, and smelling the shot-guns, he again made for the fugitives, who just escaped his horns by pitching through the mud and water.

The old bull roared with atiger, running along the edge of the bayou, hunting a bridge to cross after the agents. As soon as Joe and Ned were sure of their escape, they embraced the flask ; but it didn't count, aa the play says.

Next day Mr. Adams, in no way daunted by the previous day's mishap, sent the colored boys out for the dummy, which they planted in. the awamp alongside of the bayou. Underneath the canvas they

placed a tin wash-tub to enable them to sit dry, and thus keep out the mud. Alter the completion of their arrangements, the sportsmen took their position in the tub, but the wild geese would not come within range, and like crows around a cornfield, they kept just far enough away to be out; of danger. Ned Adams, fiua'lly becomingtired and thirsty from waiting and watching, reached over to Jefferson's side of the tub for the flask, when ovw went the tub, and both in a minute were head over heels in mud and water. They finally crawled out to the shore the muddiest men ever seen in the Teche country.