JIM SMITH'S COON DEAL.
BY GEORGE JIM SMITH lived back in the hills north of the town. He was tall, ugly and honery, but was a first-class coon hunter. He brought a "whole passel" of coons to town one day to sell, and after canvassing all the groceries with no luck, he stood on the edge of the sidewalk and looked at the coons and cussed. Jim was too "tight-hearted" to give them to anybody, and he was about ready to toss them into the wagon and drive back home, when a wise idea struck him. He chuckled, slapped his hand against his knee, and started toward the Court House with his coons. Some prominent citizens were on trial for barn-burning, and the court room in the little Kentucky town was crowded. Old Judge Moss, who occupied the bench, looked over his nose-glasses at the witnesses in all his wiseness. When the door at the main entrance opened and Jim Smith came in with his coons, the judge looked above the heads of the jurors and frowned and won dered what that fellow wanted in there with all those nasty coons. Jim paid no attention to the surroundings, but drilled on down the aisle, around the rail ings and approached his Honor from the rear. He bent over close to the judge's ear and whispered, "Jedge, I've got some mighty fine coons here, and 'lowed that you should git pickin' choice." The judge looked vexed and frowned again, but he was a politician and he knew that to refuse buying any of Jim's coons meant that he would lose ten or twelve votes in the Sassafras Ridge precinct at the next election, so he said he believed he would take two of the smallest ones. "All right, jedge; I'll carry them down to yore house right away, so you can have them fer supper." The judge could not stand the "cattish" taste of coon meat, and his wife, he knew,
BINGHAM. grew sick at the thought of them. But busi ness was business; every vote would help. Jim Smith knocked at the door of the judge's home five minutes later. Mrs. Moss threw up her hands when she saw tall, grizzly -faced Jim Smith standing there with a dozen or more coons. "Good mornin', Miss Moss. W'y, the jedge, he wanted some good coon meat, as he'd been eatin' cow and hawg so long, and tôle me to fetch the whole bunch down here fer you to clean and cook fer his supper." "I guess you are mistaken in the place. Mr. Moss doesn't want any coons." "No, I hain't mistaken. Jedge Moss? W'y, I've knowed Jedge Moss and me an' my boys have been votin' fer him ever since he first commenced runnin' fer office. I say, don't know Jedge Moss!" She stood and looked at the coons and at the man for a few seconds, and then said: "Well, what on earth does that man mean by sending all these old coons down here. He has surely gone crazy. But, if he sent them down here and wants them cleaned, bring them around here and I'll have them cleaned and cooked for him. I wouldn't eat one of the nasty things for five dollars! And if he eats them, it will be at a side table." "Yes, the jedge, he 'lowed he hadn't had any coon meat since he growed up, and he wanted you to cook a plenty so's he could git his fill of them once." Jim Smith then went through to the kitchen and piled the coons on the long table, and hurried to the Court House and again whispered to the judge. "Jedge, she looked at them and 'lowed they wus so nice that she believed she'd take them all." The judge paid him for the lot, and Jim Smith took his money and went to get drunk. He couldn't stand all that prosperity.
