Lewistown Gazette

LETTERS FROM THE HILLS.
To the Editor of the Gazette :
Seeing that almost everybody else was going to the circus at Perryville on Tuesday, Dad and I concluded we could afford to spend a quarter for seeing them chaps ride and tumble about and cutting up sundry shines. The clown did purty well in making a fool of himself, but decidedly the best ring performances, clowns and all, were outside. Andy Parker was there, looking as big and dignified as you please. He came up to me and wanted to know what I could do for him, but I told him straight up and down that if he turned whig maybe I would vote for him, tho' couldn't say for sartin. Well, he didn't bother me long. but got to soft-soaping others that he thought he could come the game over. I don't think he made much in his speculations, there being several witnesses there whom he had walked over rough-shod in that Valley suit, and hadn't forgotten him yet. But you'd laughed low, Mr. Printer, had you been there and seen John Ross getting dad round the neck, and whispering, and winking, and blinking at him, as if dad had been his sweetheart. I'm not sure that he did kiss the old man, but he had his face close enough half a dozen times to do so. It was fun, I tell you. Stroup was there, too, and so was that anti-Lewistown-Bank man who sued so many for usury, or something else. but somehow or other has never succeeded in getting the suits before Court, and the whole gang electioneering as if all the canal grub and treasury pap in the State was at stake. They went it on democracy strong, and some of the b'hoys quite as strong on whiskey, which I must say I was sorry to see-for though a man may be excused or justified for now and then taking a horn, provided now and then don't come too often, there's no excuse for getting downright drunk. I looked on for a considerable time, but the truth is there was so much fuss with a sprinkling of cursing and swearing that I thought it time to leave. Dad and I and old Ploughman accordingly mounted our horses and went homewards, neither having much to say. Dad however allowed that he didn't think Ross would suit very well for Assembly, because if he spent his dimes as freely at Harrisburg as at Perryville, he thought three dollars a day, less board, wouldn't go very far, and that the man would make more money by staying at home.
S. W.