Democratic Press, Volume 1, Number 21, Decatur, Adams County, 7 March 1895 — Page 5

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ADDITIONAL LOCALS. Baled straw 25c. J. W. Place. Miss Lizzie Wilkins is in Cin cinnati. Lou Miller was a Bluffton visitor Tuesday. Insurance agent Mott was at Fort Wayne Tuesday. ’ Miss Hattie King is visiting relatives and friends at Bluffton. Mrs. Charles F. True is chron icled among the sick this week. E. J. Wisehaupt of Bluffton, was over Tuesday attending to business. Miss Mamie Terveer has returned to her academical studies in Fort Wayne. Grocer Hunsicker has purchased one of the Lynch lots inthewestern suburbs. Our bread trade is growing. Don't ask us why? The bread is what talks. Union Bakery. Ed H. Baumgartner of Linn Grove, was here Tuesday attending to some important legal business. Cashier Dugan of the National, was turning over business in Fort Wayne the fore part of the week. Earl Way of Winchester, stopped over in the city Tuesday, enroute to Markle, where a lumber deal was on. Ira Hough of the Indianapolis Sent inel, was looking after business around the court house the first of the week. Mrs. Saeratns Cook went home to Geneva last Thursday, after a pleasant visit at the home of E. P. Menefee. Mrs. John Wisehaupt came home Tuesday from Minster, Ohio, where she had been visiting her mother ami sister. Lost—A shawl, between this city and the Hines school house. P ease return to this office and le rewarded. Frank Crill layed off from his mechanical newspaper duties yesterday and moved into the Fristoe property on Mercer street. Mi'S M. J. Long of Berne, mails the glue ami order's a year's trial of the Press, thus demonstrating that it is the news she wants. Not the usual amount of business is before the commissioners this term of their court, but what there is they are disposing of in their usual business like manner. Jacob Snare Detwiler, thehumorist, lecturer and orator, was the attraction at theoperahouse Tuesday evening. A fa rly large audience was present and pronounced him quite interesting and pleasing. Benjamin C. Chapin, orator and impersonator, will give one of his famous lectures at the Presbyterian church Saturday evening, March 9. The entertainment is under the management of the high school • Tickets can be purchased of any of th<- up Is. Here is ai. exceptional case for a i>- >spaper editor, who most gener a y thinks of im>st anything else: “II you are getting lazy, watch Pa i . If your faith is below par, real Paul. It you are impatient, s down quietly and have a talk < ih .ioi>. if you are just a little • 2 headed, go amd see Moses. I 1 1" U weak k need, take a ok al El jah. If there is DO s k inyour heart, listen to David ”

Lm.iKl STILE 3. Ho Was aVoritab’.a Concordance of the Holy Scripttiros. As near as I could find out nobody ever knew how .Conky Stile- eatne to knew so much ot the Bible as he did. Thirty- years ago people as a class were much better acquainted with the Bible than folk are nowadays, and there wasn’t another one of 'em in the whole Connecticut valley from the Canada line to the sound that eould stand up longside of Conky Stiles and quote Scripture. Well, he knew the whole thing by heart, from Genesis, chapter one, to the am.-n at the end of the Revelation ot St. John tile Divine; that's the whole business in a nutshell! His name wasn't Conky; we called him Conky for short liis real name was Silas Stiles, but one time aV a Sunday school convention Mr. Hubbell, the minister, spoke of him sis; a “veritable concordance of the Holy Scriptures,” and so we boys undertook to call him Concordance, but bimeby that name got whittled down to Conky. and Conky stuck to him all the rest of bis life; not a bad name for him. neither, as names go; heap more dignified than 1 Si! My father always insisted thaj Conky got his start in the Scriptures in this way: Conky's folks lived for about five years (while Conky was a boy; in the old Ransom house. Their next neighI bors were the Cooleys, and just over across the road lived the Kelseys. Maybe you've heard of the Cooley-Kelsey debate? No? Funny, isn't it. how soon folks forget events and epochs and things! Fifty years ago nothin' else but the Cooley-Kelsey debate was talked of in Hampshire county, and yet here we are livin' in this intelligent state of Illinois, and it's dollars to doughnuts that half our people never heard of Lawyer Kelsey or cf Deacon Cooley! You see, the deacon was high up in the Congregational church, and he believed in "baptyzo,” which is the Greek for the Congregational doctrine of sprinkling. Lawyer Kelsey had never been converted and had never made a profession, but, having a brother who was a Baptist minister in Pennsylvania, he was counted with the Baptists, too, and I guess he was a Baptist if he was anything, although, like as not, he'd have said he was a heathen if he thought he could get up an argument by sayin’ it. for of all the folks you over saw Lawyer Kelsey was the worst for keepin’ things stirred up. One time Deacon Cooley and Lawyer Kelsey come together an' locked horns on that word “baptyzo,” Lawyer Kelsey maintainin’ that the word wasn't or shouldn't be “baptyzo,” but “bap- | tidzo,” and, as you know, of course, there is as much difference between “baptyzo" arid "baptidzo” as there is between a fog and a thunder shower. Well, for about six months they had ' it up hill and down dale, in all the meetiu' houses, and schoolhouses, and vestry-rooms, and town halls in the I country, and. it did beat all how much . learnin’ they got out of the books and dictionaries, and what long sermons they made, and what a sensation there was among the unbelievers as well as the elect! I guess they’d have been arguin’ yet if the freshet hadn't come and distracted public attention by carryin’ away the Northampton bridge and the Holyoke dam. It happened that while this theological cataclysm was at its height Conky Stiles, being six years old, was born again, and, repeatin' of his sins, made a profession of faith. And from that time he never lapsed or backslided, but was always a conscientious and devout follower, illustrating in his daily walks (as Mr. Hubbell, the min--1 ister, said) those priceless virtues which \ad illuminated the career of his I Grandmother Cowles, a lady esteemed not more by the elders for her piety than by the younger folks for her ' cookies and squash pies. When Conky was eight years old he got the prize at our Sunday school for having committed to memory the most Bible verses in the year, and that same spring he got up and recited every line of the Acts of the Apostles without having to be prompted once. By the time he was twelve years old he knew ; the whole Bible by heart, and most of j the hymn book, too; although, as 1 have said, the Bible was his specialty. ' Yet he wasn't one of your pale-faced, studious boys; no, sir, not a bit of it! He took just as much consolation in playin' three-old-cat and barn ball and hockey, as any of the rest of us boys, and he could beat us all fishin', although perhaps that was because he learnt a new way of spittin’ on his bait from his Uncle Lute Mason, who was considerable of a sport in those days. Conky was always hearty and cheery; we all felt good when he was around. We never minded that way he had of quotin’ things from the Bible; we d got used to it, and maybe it was a desirable Influence. At any rate we all liked Conky But perhaps you don't understand what I mean when I refer to his way of quotin’ the Bible. It was like this: Conky, We’ll say, would be goiu" down the road, and I'd come out of the house and holler: “Hello, there, Conky! Where be you goin'?” Then he’d say, “John 21:3”—that would be all he’d say, and that would be enough; for it gave us to understand that he was goin' a-fishin’. Conky never made a mistake; his quotations were always right; he always hit the chapter and the verse sure pop the first time. The habit grew on him as he got older. Associating with Conky for fifteen or twenty minutes wasn’t much different from readin’ the Bible for a couple of days, except that there wasn't any manual labor about it. I guess he'd have been a minister if the war hadn’t come along and spoiled it all. In the fall of 1862 there was a war meetin’ in the town hall, and Elijah Cutler make a speech urgin’ the men folks to come forward and contribute their services—their lives, if need be—to the cause of freedom and right. We were all keyed up with excitement, for

next to Wendell Phillips and Henry Ward Beecher, I guess Elijah ( utler was the greatest orator that ever lived While we were shiverin' and waitin’ for somebody to lead off, Conky Stiles rose up and says “First Kings, 19 20," says he. and with that he put on his cap and walked out of the meetin “Let me, I pray thee, kiss my fathei ! and my mother, and then 1 will follow thee.” That's what Conky said—or as good I as said—and that's what he meant, too. He didn't put off his religion when he put on his uniform. Conky Stiles, soldier or civilian, was always a-liviu', , walkin' eneyclopedy of the Bible, a ' human compendium of psalms and I proverbs and texts; and I had that I confidence in him that I'd have bet he ! wrote the Bible himself if I hadn't known better, and to the contrary \>e were with McClellan a long spell. There was a heap of sickness among the boys, for we weren't used to the climate, and most of us pined for the i comforts of home. Looking back over ! the thirty years that lie between this time and that I see one figure loomin' up, calm and bright and beautiful in the midst of fever and sufferin’ and privation and death. I see a homely, , earnest face radiant with sympathy and love anil hope, an 1 I hear Conky ' Stiles' voice egain speakin’ comfort and cheer to all about him. We all loved him; he stoixl next to Mr. Lincoln and Gen. McClellan in the hearts of everybody in the regiment. They sent a committee down from our town one Thanksgiving time to bring a lot of good things and to see how soon we were going to capture Richmond. Mr. Hubbell, the minister, was one of them. Deacon Cooley was | another. There was talk one time that Conky had a soft spot in his heart for the deacon’s eldest girl, Tryphena, but 1 always allowed that be paid as much attention to the other daughter, Ttyphosa, as he did to her eldest sister, and 1 guess he hadn’t any more hankerin’ for one than he had for the other, for when the committee come to go home Conky says to Deacon Cooley: “Well, good-by deacon." says he. “Romans, 16:12,” <Ve had to look it. up in the Bible be- | fore we knew what he meant. “Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord"—that was Conky's message to the Cooley girls. He wrote a letter once to Mr. Carter, who was one of the selectmen, and he put this postscript to it: “Romans. 16:6." You see Mr. Carser's wife had been Conky's Sunday school teacher, and Conky did not forget to “greet Mary, who bestowed much labor on us.” Down at Elnathan Jones’ general I store the other day I heard Elnathan 1 tell how Conky clerked it for him a spell and how one day he says to Conky: “That Baker bill has been ruunin' on for more'u six weeks. We can't do business unless we get our money. Conky, I wish you'd just kind o’ spur Mr. Baker up a little.” So Conky sat down on the stool at j the desk and dropped Mr. Baker a short epistle to this effect: "Rom ms 1:14; Psalm 22:11; Psalm 142:6.” Next day who should come in but Mr. Baker, and die allowed that that letter had gone straighter to his conscience than any sermon would have gone, and he paid up his bill and bought a kit of salt mackerel into the bargain, so Elnathan Jones says, I could keep on tellin' things like this, day iu and night out, for lots of !. just such stories are told about Conky all over Hampshire county now; some of ’em doubtless are true and some of ’em doubtless ain't; there's no tellin'; but it can't be denied that most of 'em have the genuine Conky flavor. The histories don't say anything about the skirmish we had with the rebels at Churchill's bridge along in May of '64, but we boys who were • there remember it as the toughest fight in all our experience. They were just 1 desperate, the rebels were, and—well, ; I we were mighty glad when night | came, for a soldier can retreat in the , dark with fewer chances of interrup-' tion. Out of our company of one bun- < dred and fifty men, only sixty were left! You can judge from that of what . the fighting was at Churchill's bridge. When they called the roll in camp next day, Conky Stiles wasn't there. Had we left him dead at the bridge, 1 1 or was lie wounded, dying the more ] awfnl death of hunger, thirst and neglect? “By 1” says Lew Bassett, "let's 1 go back for Conky!" That was the only time I ever neard i an oath without a feelin' of regret. I A detachment of cavalry went out to j reconnoiter. Only the ruin of the preceding day remained where the boys had stood and stood and stood—only to : 1 be repulsed at last. Bluecoats and gray - I coats lay side by side and over against i one another in the reconciling peace of ] death. Occasionally a maimed body ■ . containing just a remnant of life was found, and one of those crippled bodies was what was left of Conky When the surgeon saw the minie hole \ < here in his thigh, and the saber gash here in the temple, he shook his head, f and we knew what- that meant. Lew Bassett, a man who had never ' been to meetin' in all his life, and who ' could swear a new and awful way every time—Lew Bassett says: “No, I Conky Stiles ain't goin' to die, for I shan't let him!" and he bent over and left up Conky's head and held it, so, and wiped away the trickles of blood, and his big hard hands had the tender- 1 ness of a gentle, lovin' woman's. s We heard Conky's voice once, and > only once, again. For when, just at the last, he opened his eyes and saw , that we were there, he smiled feeble like, and the grace of the Book triumphed once more within him, and he says—it seemed almost like a whisper, he spoke so faint and low: “Good-by, boys; Second Timothy, 4:7 " : And then, though his light went out, I the sublime truth of his last words 1 shone from his white, peaceful face. ( “I have fought a good fight, I have j finished my course, I have kept the faith.”—Eugene Field, in Chicago Rec- ; ‘ ord 11

I THE SWEETEST PLAGE ON EARTH | Should be made the pride of every true hearted man and woman. In contributing to the comfort of the household, nothing is as essential as a perfect cooking and baking apparatus. Every housewife should have the best—the very best. Contemplating their wants and needs of somethin g better than they are using, we introduce The Steel Range. .. . Majestic

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The Factory's Salesman is with us to explain the many points of merit combined in this wonderful cooking range. One will be in constant operation to show how quickly and perfectly it does the work. Exhibit opened Wednesday, Feb. 27, and continues until Saturday, March 03P31 rp r a v r, s it rrr p; offered by the factory through us during the exhibit. Every range leaves the store with our personal guarantee. We extend a special invitation to every lady and gentleman in the city and vicinity to call and partake of those wonderful 3-minute biscuits and delicious drip coffee. F. SCHAFER <&. LOCH

Miss Bessie Heimberger of Geneva, visited relatives in the city ihis week. J. T, France aud IL K. Erwin expect to make Berne a profession al visit this afternoon. The investigation of the management of the feeble minded institn tion has ended and Superintendent .Johnson has exonerated of any and all charges of corruption. Deputy Clerk E. Burt Leuhart i just phoned us that the court costs in the Miller Popejoy seduction case figures up $451.70. There is some talk that the case will be appealed to the supreme court. It will be a sad blow to many hereabouts to know that statistics reveal the fact that millionaires do not live as long as the common heid. Manj’ people will now for ever ghe up the pleasure of paying I an income tax. The Mercer County Standard is this week celebrating its forty second anniversary, and strange to say it boldly asserts that it isn't ashamed of its age. The Standard is a rattling good democratic news paper, and here is wishing it fortytwo more years of financial prosperity. We want to call yotir attention to the new Standard dictionary. It is the dictionary for doctors, lawyers, ministers, business men, teachers and everybody. It is edited | by special sts in all its departments, insur- 1 ingcompleteness of vocabulary amt accuracy of statement. it has 301,864 words I from ato z; 48,000 additional iu the ap-I pendix; over 5,000 illustrations; 247 emi- 1 nent specialists on editorial staff. It is the ' handiest for reference and the best dictionary for you. Gel it. J. A. Anders n, agent, Huntington, Ind. “Blessings on the head of Cadmus or whoever it was that first invented books.” I Also on the head of him who devised the schime of getting up a dictionary that should have in it all the works that are in all of the books in the English language. This dictionary is “The Standard," published by the Funk & Wagnals 1 0., N. Y. I'he chief examiner of the patent office at Washington, D. c., says that it is not only ihe best dictionary in the English language hut by far the best dictionary of any language. So if you want the latest and best get “The Standard.”

Administrator’s Sale of Real Estate. Clark J. Lutz, administrator of the estate of William H. Lamar, will offer for sale at the east door of the Court House in Decatur, Indiana, on Saturday, March 9, 1895, in-lot No. 31 on First street, also the Lamar farm of 80 acres, 3 miles east of Decatur.

* I!'.' - TWClp' • yli > .--Sshrl

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