A TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2995, 20 September 1878, Page 3

A TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT.

An elderly lady, plainly dressed, created a tremendous excitement on Broad street yesterday afternoon. She! was coming up the street, and when; between the bridge and Pine street she stopped suddenly, extended her arms and, spread her fingers to their utmost tension, while her. eyeballs started from their sockets, and her whole expression was one of intense terror or agony. Then she uttered a subdued scream and rushed frantically for the door of a well-known store. The. storekeeper sprang to his, feet and met her near the door, in time to save her from falling to the floor, when, with terror depicted in h*r face and a superhuman energy of voice, she appealed to him to save her. By" this time forty; men and nineteen little boys had rushed to the rescue and blocked the door of the store. Still the woman "was kicking! and screaming, while the now thoroughly' terrified storekeeper was making desperate efforts to maintain his perpendicular position while struggling under the heavy; load of the huge and half-reclining form which pressed so heavily against him. At length a little curly, snary branch of grape-vine, from which the rasins had been picked dropped from under her clothing. The woman. saw it. She instantly stopped kicking and screaming, and straightening herself up to her full height, gave one look of unutterable astonishment and disgust at the., harmless little bramble, shot out of the store and darted up the street, drawing her veil closely about her face. Iho roar which followed her was equal to that of a field battery; and turning his head over her shoulders she fired back with, "I thought it was a rat." —Nevada City (Cal.) Transcript.