Show adventurers CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF 1 monster r from rom the by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter H HELLO ELLO well EVERYBODY sir if I 1 seem to be continually harping on the fact that adventures are things you meet up with most frequently at home you can put it down to the fact that I 1 am continually being remind reminded edof of it just the other day while looking through a sheaf of letters I 1 came to a story by a woman who had an adventure on a farm well of course cours theres nothing unusual in that the funny part of it was that the farm was in this country and the adventure was of a sort only expect to run into in the jungles of africa or south america or to read about in some account of the grim battles between men and animals that the ancient romans used to stage in their gladiatorial arenas the woman is lottle lottie hawco mrs john hawco of new york city and the animal she fought with was a wild boar ill bet a lot of people including me know there were wild boars baars in this country but there tell how they got here is is are as any south carolina farmer can you an interesting story you see the ordinary barnyard breed of pig is is nothing in i the world but a descendant of the wild boars baars you r read ead about in tales of old time merrie england those boars baars were tamed and fattened and domesticated until over the space of six or eight hundred years they became the fat lazy gluttonous animals you see in hog pens the country over how pigs get wild and dangerous but a pig will stay fat and tame and lazy only so long as hes kept in captivity and stuffed with chop suey from that well known galvanized iron can out on the back porch once he gets loose and goes back to the woods again and has to rustle for his own food well then he gets thin and tough and rangy his tusks grow out and in a generation or two he becomes a boar again just as wild and as dangerous an animal as ever he was when he roamed the marshes and forests of old england in the days of robin hood there are plenty of those backsliding back sliding wild hogs in the back country of south carolina and the farmers hunt them down and round them up because they destroy the nests of the wild turkeys in the neighborhood 0 0 the boar viciously attacked latties Lot ties mother and that brings us to lottle lottie hawco who on february 16 1931 was visiting with her mother and her sister inez on a farm near osborn S C where a wild boar hunt was in progress A bunch of men from the neighborhood had been out all day combing the marshes with packs of dogs roping boars baars and herding them alive into a big high sided farm wagon they had just returned home with six or seven boars baars big vicious fellows waist high to a man and weighing three or four hundred pounds animals that could break a mans leg with their huge crunching jaws and which frequently did disembowel the fierce dogs that hunted them with one sweeping blow of their long protruding tusks the men backed the wagon up to a strong enclosure and were untying the boars baars one by one and cautiously prodding them into the pen lottie her mother and sister were standing near by watching the proceedings and then suddenly a terrible thing happened attack by a savage boar the men had un loosed the largest boar and were prodding it toward the pen when it turned squeezed between the wagon and the enclosure and rushed out into the open gnashing its great teeth and foaming at the mouth it headed straight for latties Lot ties mother who was standing nearest the pen and before she could turn to run it was on her throwing her in a heap to the ground biting at her savagely it was the most terrible sight lottie ever beheld in her life charlie the foreman stood with his mouth agape too surprised for a moment to even move sister inez paralyzed with fright clapped her hands over her ears and began to scream lottie herself was numb with terror and for precious seconds seconds that seemed like a lifetime she stood rooted to the spot AM all the rest of the men were on the other side of the pen or on the wagon too far away to reach the spot in time to do any good then all of a sudden lottie came to life she cant explain what happened but it seemed as if a spring inside her had suddenly been released she sprang forward threw herself on the snarling screaming rolling jumble of woman and beast singled out the boar and began beating and mauling and scratching it with insane frenzy surprised him so he fled the boar could have killed lottie with one thrust of its sharp pointed tusk latties Lot ties mother had been saved from death thus far only by her long skirts and thick clothing but taken by surprise the boar quite figure out this wild new menace that came beating and kicking at his flanks tearing and scratching at his eyes it was a thing of fury it dian didn t seem one whit afraid of the boar and an animal will often reason that if you are not afraid of him then he must have good cause to be afraid of you this one did just that snarling and grunting he turned to flee from this inexplicable new attack he got about three steps and then he found himself tangled up in the ropes of the men who by this time had come around from the other side of the pen to deal with him the next thing lottie knew she was back on the porch of the farm house with liar her mother looking over herself for injuries she even remember helping her mother to the porch and to t this his day she cant figure out how she came out of that f ight fight without a scratch on her hei body copyright service |