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I*IIdmDfRceoungabed.But:ameofficestill e in-pliedotherDon’tto4-a l§F«lt;Lee Barry9s BootsBy FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter.99HERE comes Leon C. Berry, of Beverly, Mass,, with a story of how Old Dame Nature gypped him out of a swell pair of boots.That old gal Nature has been working her racket for so long that both Lee and I think it’s time she was exposed.She’s alwaxs up to some sort of skin game. If she isn’t rooking the farmers out of their crops—the green goods game, I think they call that ore—or doing us out of a pleasant week-end with a spell ofrainy weather, sin* s playing some trick like the one she pulled on LeeI moan that old expression “Hack to Nature” is just another way of saying that a sucker always comes back for more.It All Started With a Spring Fishing Party.It was on May 2. 192C, that It all tanpiened. Lee is mighty fond of fishing, and on that spr.ng morning he took his wife and Yandly over to a place called Frost Fish Brook, at Putnainville, for a picnicWhen they got to the spot, they all piled out of the family flivver and Lee drew on his hip boots, put his rod together and walked upstream for a quarter of a mile or so toward a spot where a few brook trout were known to hang out.Lee got almost to the place he was heading for when he decided to cross the creek. It was pretty wide at that point, hut Leo thought he could make it without any trouble Even if he didn’t make It there’d he no harm done, for he bad his boots on and a wetting wouldn’t hurt them. He gathered himself together and made a leap, but the leap fell short, and so did his calculation about the hip hoots. Lee landed in a mud hole and sank in a mire of silt right up to his waistMud-Hole Turned Out to Be Bottomless Quicksand Pit.Lee threw his arms upward to protect Ids rod and got ready to climb out of the mod again. He started to lift one foot—and then panic seized him.Instead of his right foot lifting, his left sank deeper In the mud. That was the first inkling he had that the mudhole had no bottom— that what he had fatten into was a mess of quicksand.Sheer terror caused Lee to make his first mistakeHe began to thrash around wildly in ids efforts to struggle out of the muck. The more he thrashed, tlie deeper he sank.Sucking Sands Drew Lee Mercilessly Down.Before he realized what he was doing he was in up to his elbows, and hisentire body, from his shoulders down, was held all but motionless by the viselike action of the sucking sands.Says Lee: I was very near to being insane at that moment I broke into a series of frantic shouts, calling ‘Millie—Millie,' to my wife.But she was up wind from me and a quarter of a mile away.“I knew deep down in my heart that there was no chance of her hearing me, even though my terror made me half believe the contraryHip Boots and Fishing Rod Offer Only Chance.There are two things that Lee Is thankful for One of them is that Ids hip
Newspaper Details
Brimfield News
Brimfield, Illinois, US
Thu, Sep 17, 1936
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Onondaga C.
NY, USA 19 May 2020
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