322 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



HE WAS AN ANIMATED PHONOGRAPH. 



By this I do not mean to imply that his remarks 

 were not original, he probably made his own rec- 

 ords and then ground them out. At any rate he 

 talked a blue streak in a monotonous tone. He 

 was talking when I got aboard the boat at Wheel- 

 ing, W. Va., and I left him talking when I went 

 ashore at Ironton, Ohio. If I had been a short- 

 hand reporter I would have had quaint stories 

 enough to have filled a book of several volumes, 

 and in my note-book of that day I find an attempt 

 to report some of his talk in longhand. I will 

 quote only that part that refers to the weasel. 



"Well, sir, when I use ter live in Union, Penn- 

 sylvania, I was tortling through the woods one 

 day when my little dog started somein' from un- 

 der a stun. I seed it was a weasel, an' I always 

 calcaleted they were the usefulest animals we could 

 have on a farm, so I called off my purp jest as he 

 had chased the stoat to the woodpile. We had been 

 pestered with rats round the house: they stole th' 

 hen's eggs an' 



KILLED THE YOUNG CHICKENS AND DUCKS. 



I saw one drag a good-sized pullet into its 

 hole under th' barn, so I jest thought that the 



