Mr Fortner's marital claims Author:Richard Malcolm Johnston Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: An Adventure of Mr. Joel Bozzle. ND my opinion is, that if the people £ that made the law about hangin' of people had a had any ideas of the thing I saw in t... more »own to-day, and from whut people told me about it, they'd of provided somethin' else besides a rope fer the executin' o' the law." This declaration was made one night to the wife of his bosom by Mr. Joel Bozzle, after a remarkable experience had by him on that day at the county seat. A dweller in the lower, piney woods district, a poor man, but an industrious and reasonably thrifty one, he seldom went to town. But this year his region had its candidate for the Legislature, and all the neighbors felt that it behooved them to repair to the courthouse on election day so as to make as strong an impression as possible in his behalf. So Mr. Bozzle rode twelve miles to the town, entering it peacefully, even modestly, hitched his horse at the very lowest end of one of the racks in the public square, and then looked around him. The long ride, he felt, had imparted to him a thirst. Not wholly ignorant of interesting places, he sighted out first the grocery of Mr. Nicholas Harbuckle and, but neither too rapidly nor very slowly, made his way thither. Quite a number of other voters were already there preparing themselves for the responsibilities that the day had devolved upon them. Mr. Bozzle stood for several moments at one end of the counter and patiently waited to catch the eye of one of the bar-tenders. When he had succeeded, he said, in a low, respectful tone, that if it was entirely convenient he would like to have a drink. Contemporarily with the remark, like any other honorable man would have done, he laid his thrip upon the counter. When the decanterwas brought, he poured what he thought was fair, added a not unreasonable q...« less