THE TIM BUNKEK PAPERS. 89 



hardly believe I d started, until I got home. I should have 

 said, a year ago, that it would have taken six yoke of cat 

 tle, and a horse on ahead, to have drawn Tim Bunker out 

 West or down South. But lo and behold ! I ve been 

 on a journey of five thousand miles, and got back alive. 

 I ve seen the elephant from trunk to tail, and the next 

 time I go on any such fool s errand you see I shall stay at 

 home. They call it L. E. Fant, Esq., down South, and 

 think it is a joke. I did not find it any joke at all. 



The way it happened, you see, was this. Wife and I 

 have always stayed at home hardly ever venturing fur 

 ther away from Hookertown than down to your village, 

 when I had cattle to sell, or something of that sort. We 

 were a very quiet sort of people, and never had much 

 company outside of our own circle of friends, until I got to 

 writing for your paper, when the tide seemed to turn, and 

 lots of strangers began to call on us. After that account 

 of the wedding by your reporter, they come so plenty 

 that my wife said she should have to go down to Shad- 

 town, to live with Sally, in order to get rid of company. 

 You see everybody that comes to Hookertown and a 

 good many come here in summer has to look up Tim 

 Bunker, and stare at him, jest as if he was a lion. They 

 would go by, looking at our house as if it was haunted, 

 or some man had committed murder there. One fellow 

 come up here in the fall with a looking glass on three legs, 

 and said he was going to take a picture of the house for 

 some New York paper. I was called on before breakfast 

 and after breakfast, in the field, and in the barn, early and 

 late, until I was troubled to get time to attend to my own 

 business. Now this would have been very pleasant to a 

 politician, or a man born to fame, but it was mighty un 

 comfortable to plain country folks like Mrs. Bunker and 

 I. There is nothing a man pays so dear for as for his 

 honors. If he is wise, he will add another petition to the 

 Lord s prayer, &quot; deliver us from evil and from fame.&quot; I 



