Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

TALES OF THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN 303
It was after midnight before the unfortunate, besotted man
got relief, but the devils were cast out by the powerful exorcism
of lobelia. Some days later we found he was a farm hand on
Neighbor Brown's place, and Mrs. Brown had become so
frightened she had turned him out.
He left our house in the morning after breakfast, making
apology for his strange conduct by saying he thought the cause
was homesickness!
A Man and a Hog
A workman once threw out pomace from the cider mill
near the stamping-ground of a drove of hogs. The heat of
the sun soon did its work and charged the pomace with alcohol;
the pigs devoured it and became gay, racing around the orchard
three times at full speed. Then they waited till the next day,
when they repeated their booze, continuing to revel through the
season. Only a man and a hog get drunk the second time.
The Superstitious Hog
A farmer had a cornfield rescued from the wilderness but
still bordering on a woodland. One day an old tree fell across
the rail fence of the cornfield, crushing it down but at the same
time stopping up the opening its fall made in the fence. This
tree was hollow and bowed, one end lay in the forest and one
in the cornfield. Devastations by some unknown enemy soon
began to be apparent. The intruder was Mr. Wild Hog, but
he was never once seen in the woodland nor feasting in the
cornfield. The mystery of how he got in continued till one
moonlight night the farmer hid near the fence and watched.
At last through the shadowy wood came Mr. Wild Hog and
wriggled into the forest end of the hollow tree, coming out into
the cornfield to break his fast. The farmer kept quiet until
the pig left the field, and then a brilliant idea struck him.
He turned the bowed log so that it still blocked the opening in
the fence, but both ends opened into the forest. Mr. Wild
Hog kept shady till the next night, when he dashed into his
subway and lo, he came out into the forest; back again, and
presto! the wilderness. A third time, and the wildwood lay