The Ananias Club

(Readers: Ananias was the the man who lied to God and a 'coulter' is a metal plow blade. Now the following story may make more sense......)

Sumner Press

 July 30, 1891

"Our friend Jesse P. Jones has so long enjoyed the honor of being the boss storyteller of the Ananias club of Sumner, that he had just about come to the conclusion that no one could attach anywhere near him in this line. Saturday he was entertaining the club at Corrie's drugstore. Among other stories was one about John Landis, who was out hunting and wishing to cross a creek, looked around for a log upon which to cross and saw, or what he thought was, one. Anyhow he crossed the creek and did not find out his mistake until he had got across. Looking back, he saw the supposed foot log had eyes, and in fact was a big snake.

Just as Jesse had gotten thus far in his story Jack Couchman, who was one of his listeners, remarked that this reminded him of his experience plowing a certain field many years ago when rattlesnakes were plenty. The plow had a coulter in front, every once in a while, this would strike a snake and it would fly up, frequently he would have to stop and take something and clean off the snakes from the coulter as they would gather on it thick like weeds sometimes do in plowing. Finally, at noon he went to dinner and when he came back, he found the coulter had swollen so from the many bites it had received from the snakes that he could not use it until the swelling was reduced.

It was amusing to watch our friend Jesse while Jack was telling his story as he realized that once that the scepter had departed from him, in fact the very thought of it made him sick, so sick in fact that he went home and so we are informed, took to his bed; at any rate he was not seen in town for at least 24 hours."

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