Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1885 — Page 6

IN THE NORTHWEST. BY H. H. NEWHALL. Night sailed resplendent in her jeweled robes Above the silence of the wooded knolls And o’er the crystal sheen of forest lakes That gracetally Indent the land once trod By the swart Sioux In homicidal bands. The quiet seemed intense, as though, with stealth. Again the hideous painted demons stalked To midnight carnage. Melancholy owls The dusky ear of even jarred with notes Identical with those which echoed there A hundred years before. Yet,'twixt the marge Of fairest lakes and sainted Anthony's Propulsive tide, there lay, in pomp of wealth, A citv vying, with its thousand lights Made dazzling by the alchemy of heaven. The firmament itself. O change sublime! O courage rare'. Tc bear I with puny might All nature in her savagemss intrenched. And from the u ic ual combat snatch a prize Like this. At every step the wondering mind Wakes to new loveliness and finds a . ov In each fresh con uest of the civil hand. No longer Minnehaha laughs alone, But thousands mingle merry glee with hers. And stun the groves with eChoes far less fierce Than when the pulsing war whoop shrieked dismay. Proud Minnetonka’s verdurous shores are gemmed With clustered habitations reared by wealth Hard won from out the snowy piles that feed The millions of the world. June. 1885.

ONLY A FARMER.

“I don’t like the country, and I never would have come here but for the ■chance of becoming Mrs. Allen Waters —that’s the truth.” And Miss Ada Atherton flounced into an easy chair, and prepared for a fit of the sulks. Her mother looked up, amused at the frankness of her youngest daughter; as for her eldest, Bora, she sank back in her seat with a pained blush on her dark cheek. “I am sure, Ada, you need not complain. You have a far easier time living at the Hollyhocks than either mother or I,” she said. “Why everything need be so hateful, I don’t see,” grumbled Miss Ada, frowning under her flaxen curls. “If father hadn’t died now, he might have run along for years, until Dora and I were suitably married, and kept up appearances so that we could have made good matches. Now everybody knows we are poor.” “And everybody knows we are honest!” cried Dora, who still trembled at mention of her dead father. “We settled everything as honorably as possible, and came here to live, glad of Uncle Alfred’s offer—at least I was.” “And I am sure I was, my dear,” said Mrs. Atlferton, with a sigh. “I am thankful to have a roof over my head in-my old age.” “Uncle Alfred was absorbed in floriculture, and made a pet of the place for years. It’s lovely here, I think, ” said Dora, leaning to look out into the bright summer garden. “I don’t care for flowers, ” returned Ada, moodily. “I can’t make myself happy with hoes and watering pots. I did think it would be better than this, with the Waters’ place opposite. But Allen Waters is away, and the gates shut against us. In fact, there is nobody here.” “You calculated a great deal on the society of a man you don’t know in the least,” said Dora, returning to her sewing. “I’m not in the least like you, Dora, with your notions of congeniality and similar tastes,” burst forth Ada. “I’ve a taste for comfort and luxury, and I could love any man who wduld give them „to me. Besides,” somewhat moderating her violence, as her mother looked annoyed at her extreme statement, “you know we have always heard what a fine fellow Allen Waters was!” Dqra said no more. Her bright, dark face burned with indignation. She was ashamed of Ada, grieved, yet Secretly tried to make some excused for her sister..

Perhaps the Hollyhocks was dull beyond endurance to Ada. They had never been alike. It was wrong, perhaps, to blame her too much. Yet she still shuddered at Ada’s unwomanly words. Day by day Ada continued her complaints of the Hollyhocks. She was miserable herself, and she certainly made everybody else so. While Dora was busy as a bee, Ada moped herself almost sick. The little old phaeton which Dora had driven in as a child was left the family, and, at her mother’s suggestion, Dora hired a mild, fat Dobbin of a neighboring farmer one day and invited Ada to a drive. “There’s lovely scenery along the valley road. It will make a little change for you, Ada. Besides, I’ve a bit of news to liven you up.” Ada turned languidly. “Allen Walters is coming home,” said Dora, with a faintly mischievous smile. After a moment’s thought Ada rose, arrayed herself in her prettiest driving costume, and entered the carriage. “Drive past the Waters’ estate, Dora. What a fat, lazy horse! There is no fun in driving if you can’t drive in style. There, now, see the Waters’ place. It’s all I expected it to be. There’d be some comfort in living if one could be mistress there. It’s no better marriage than I ought to have made if papa had not failed.” And, with discontented lips and an arrogant toss of the head, Ada was driven past a hay-wagon in which was a man in his shirt-sleeves.

He glanced at the young ladies with frank curiosity. “Did you bow, Dora ? Impudent fellow ! How he stared! Country folks!” sneered Ada. “I bowed because he bowed to us, Ada. You would not have me repel such a mere civility. He is probably some one who knows us, though we are strangers here.” “I detest such people.” •I don’t tliink I could, detest any one

who wore such white shirt-sieves, and looked so comfortable under a broad straw hat this hot day,” laughed Dora, carelessly. But the very next moment Ada was thankful for the existence of “such people,” for the phaeton broke down, and, with a dismal scream, she was tipped from her seat and landed among the roadside buttercups and clover. The mild, fat old horse instantly stopped. Dora looked anxiously about for help. No house was near. She looked appealingly up and down the road; then —oh, gladly!—she saw the hay-wagon, the straw hat, and the white shirt-sleeves drawing near. “You have broken down,” said the owner, heartily, jumping down. “Thankyou, yes. The carriage seems coming all to pieces,” said Dora, still trembling from fright. “Could you do anything to help us? I should be, oh! so much obliged to you.” “Yes,” said Ada, shaking the dust off her silk skirts. “We are the Misses Atherton. We will pay you, of course.” The man bent to examine the axletree. His side face was toward Dora, but she plainly saw him smile. “It’s not so very bad, then?” she said, anxiously. “It might be fixed, I think, so you could get home safely; but I haven’t much time. In fact, I’m in a great hurry.” “What is your time worth to you?” asked Ada, with the air she had once seen a millionaire use when speaking to some workmen he was about to employ. “Sometimes more, sometimes less,” answered the man, with the same quizzical smile. But he had procured a cord from his pocket, and, with deft fingers, began mending the broken trace. Then he produced some nails, and with a stone pounded away vigorously beneath the carriage. “There! by driving carefully you will be able to reach home safely,” he said, at last, rising. There was something in his composed manner and distinct enunciation which made Ada stare for an instant; but she could see little beneath the broad straw hat but a curling black beard, a tanned cheek, and two piercing eyes. “What is to pay?” “Nothing.”

He offered a hand to help Dora into the carriage. She seated herself and drew out a little embroidered portemonnaie. “1 beg your pardon, ” she said, earnestly, “but you must let me pay you. You said you were in a hurry; we have taken your time, aqd you have done us a great service. I have nothing but a half-sovereign. Pray take it. I am sorry it is so little,” blushing, as she tendered him a shining coin. Again the quizzical smile and the eyes—they had a world of meaning in them, those piercing dark eyes under the hat-brim. Dora felt her heart thrill strangely. It relieved her greatly that the ihan extended his hand and received the money. • . “Thank you,” he said, quietly. “What may your- name be?” asked Ada, who had seated herself unassisted, “and your occupation ? You are quite handy,” patronizingly. The man laughed outright, a low, mellow laugh. “My name does not matter; I am a farmer. Good-day, ladies." He stepped back, lifting his hat, smiling again at the look of consternation upon the features of the girls at the grace and the face the movement revealed. A kingly brow shaded by closeclipped yet beautiful hair, a white forehead, eyes dauntlessly bright, with scorn and a smile in them. The phaeton turned one way, the haywagon another. “Whoever thought that he looked like that, under that old hat, in a haycart?” said Ada, breathlessly. “Who can it be? How provoking! He was a right down gentleman, though he said he was only a farmer.” Poor Ada! Her mortification had just begun. That evening, with silk hat doffed from the handsome head, faultlessly arrayed, Mr. Allen Waters presented himself in the little parlor of the Hollyhocks, and, . introducing himself, begged leave to inquire if the young ladies had reached home quite safely. Ada apologized quite eagerly and tried to be sweet, but Mr. Waters seemed to have eyes only for Dora’s brunette face.

He came again and again to the Hollyhocks, and at last one day boldly declared himself Dora’s lover. “You have known me tut such a little while, you don’t know half my faults,” murmured she. “I don’t care if I don’t,” he laughed. “I love you, and have loved you ever since you offered me that half-sovereign so charmingly, blushing and ashamed of the small sum. Why, you little darling, do you know your appealing dark eyes kept me from meeting a man who would have paid me a hundred pounds that day?” “And you never got it?” cried Dora, aghast. “No; but that does not matter. I have your half-sovereign, and had rather have it.” Such an incorrigible fellow as that of course had his own way, and Dora became Mrs. Allen Waters. She loves her husband because, under all circumshe finds him a gentleman. And Ada is in the sulks. True quietness of heart is got by resisting our passions, not by obeying them. “I don’t think freckles are so very back” said a lovely girl. “I never object to oeeiags them on a rival’s face.”

MODERN ARCHITECTURE.

BiU Nye Tells What CaUed Oat His First Falsehood. It may be premature, perhaps, but I desire to suggest to any one who may be contemplating the erection of a summer residence for me, as ar slight testimonial of his high regard for my sterling worth and symmetric escutcheon—a testimonial more suggestive of earnest admiration and warm personal friendship than of great intrinsic value, etc., etc., etc., that I hope he will not construct it on the modern plan of mental hallucination and morbid delirium tremens peculiar to recent architecture. Of course, a man ought not to look a gift house in the gable end, and if my friends don’t know me any better than to build me a summer cottage and throw in odd windows that nobody else wanted, and then daub it up with colors that they have bought at auction and applied to the house after dark with a shotgun, I think it is time that we had a better understanding. Such a structure does not come within either of the three classes of renaissance. It is neither Florentine, Boman, nor Venetian. Any man can originate such a style of architecture if he will drink the right kind of whisky long enough, and then describe his feelings to an amanuensis. Imagine the sensation that one of these modern, sawedoff cottages would create a hundred years from now, if it should survive! But that is impossible. The only cheering feature of the whole matter is that these creatures of a disordered imagination must soon pass away and the bright sunlight of hard horse sense shine in through the shattered dormers and gables and gnawed-off architecture of the average summer resort. A friend of mine a few days ago showed me his new house with much pride. He asked me what I thought of it. I told him I liked it first-rate. Then I went home and wept all night. It was my first falsehood.

The house, taken as a whole, looked to me like a skating rink that had started out to make money and then suddenly changed its mind and resolved to become a tannery. Then ten feet higher it had lost all self-respect and blossomed into a full-blown drunk and disorderly, surrounded by the smokestack of a foundry, and with the bright future of 30 days ahead with the chain gang. That's the way it looked to me. The roofs were made of little odds and ends of misfit rafters and distorted shingles that somebody had purchased at sheriff’s sale, and the rooms and stairs were giddy in the extreme. I went in and rambled around among the cross-eyed staircases and other nightmares till reason tottered on her throne. Then I came out and stood on the architectural wart called the side porch to get fresh air. This porch was painted a dull red, and it had wooded rosettes at the corners that looked like a brand-new carbuncle on the rose of a social wreck. Farther up on the demoralized lumber pile I saw, now and then, places where the workman’s mind had wandered and he had nailed on his clapboards wrong side up, and then painted them with the paris green that he had intended to use on something else. It was an odd-looking structure, indeed. If my friend got all the material for nothing from people who had fragments of paint and lumber left over after they failed, and then if the workmen constructed it nights for mental relaxation and intellectual repose, without charge, of course the scheme was a financial success, but architecturally the Bouse is a gross violation of the statutes in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the State.

There is a look of extreme poverty about the structure which a man might struggle for years to acquire and then fail. No one could look upon it without feeling a heartache for the man who built that house, and probably struggled on year after year, building a little of it at a time as he could steal the lumber, getting a new workman each year, building a knob here and a protuberance there, putting in a three-cor-nered window at one point and a yellow tile or a wad of broken glass and other debris at another, patiently filling in around the ranch with any old rubbish that other people had got through with, and painting it as he went along, taking what was left in the bottom of the pots after his neighbors had painted their bobsleds or their tree boxes—little favors thankfully received—and then surmounting the whole pile with a pot-pourri of roof, a grand farewell incubus of humps and hollows for the rain to wander through and seek out the different cells where the lunatics live who inhabit it.

I did tell my friend of one thing that I thought would improve the looks of his house. He asked me eagerly what it could be. I said it would take a man of great courage to do it for him. He said he didn’t care for that. He would do it himself. If it only needed one thing, he -would never rest till he had it, whatever that might be. Then 'I told him that if he had a friend—one he could trust —who would steal in there some night while the family were away, and scratch a match on the leg of his breeches, or on the breeches of any other gentleman who happened to be present, and hold it where it would ignite the alleged house, and then remain near there to see that the fire department did not meddle with it, he would confer a great favor on one who would cheerfully retaliate in kind on call.

Tea in Japan.

In Japan the use of tea dates back to time immemorial. Whenever a guest presents himself ata persorf’s house a cup of tea is at once “offered him; the omission to do this is a breach of politemeaf,. In most Imuses it is the leaf

of the tea plant called Sencha that is used, and not the powdered leaf at all. Powdered tea, matcha, is usually used only in the houses of nobles and"of the rich. A ceremonious system of drinking tea has existed from very ancient I times. A gathering of friends is held ■ in a certain small room of fixed dimen- : sions, in which ground or powdered tea is served to them. This room is called sukiya, and is generally detached from the dwelling-house. Outside and about the room curious and valuable stones and plants are arranged, and inside old tea utensils are displayed, also old scroll pictures and other paintings. At the time of a gathering various kinds of prepared dishes are placed on low stands before each guest. The host himself prepares Koicho (thick tea) in the presence of his guests, and offers a cup of it to all of his guests (always five), to be taken in turn, after which Usucha (weak tea) is handed to them. The great point about this tea-room is, not that it be gaudily decorated, but that it be neat and thoroughly clean. The process of making tea for everyday use does not differ materially from that adopted in this country, but in the matter of ceremonious tea-drinking it is necessary that great attention be paid to the selection and preservation of tea, the selection of the water, the arrangement of the utensils, observation of the temperature of the water, and care in the washing of the utensils.

The Dividing Line.

“Well, I never saw the like.” Such was the exclamation I heard while whizzing along in an express traip of the New York. Lake Erie and Western Railroad last spring. I had been deeply immersed m a novel and had not noticed that the weather had changed and that it was raining. “O, that’s nothing; we see it every spring and fall.” The speaker was a brakeman, and his remark was addressed to the man who had never seen the like. The latter had arisen from the seat in front of mine to get a drink of water and had halted to gaze but of the opposite window. The brakeman stood by his side and continued: “That’s nothing; this is the dividing line between rain and snow at this season.” Glancing from the window on the south side of the car, I saw the pane mottled with raindrops, and a board fence running parallel to the track black with wet. Then, peeping out of a window on the north side, I understood the stranger’s surprise. The ground on that side of the track was gray with snowflakes, and they were still falling, “The dividing line—how?” stammered the man addressed by the brakeman.

“Why, this is the point where the di viding line between rainstorms and snowstorms crosses this road,” said the brakeman. “Of course I don’t mean that every storm here is snow to the north of us and rain to the south of us, but at just this season of the year a storm is sure to be divided within a quarter of a mile of this spot, not far from Allendale.” “How do you explain it ?” I asked. “Explain it?” said the brakeman. “I don’t pretend to. I only know our trainmen have noticed it for years, every spring and fall in this neighborhood, if a storm came up at the right season. Some folks as is wiser than I say that the air from the sea impregnates the other air as far inland as this and warms it, while beyond this belt of country the breath of the Gulf Stream, as you might call it, has no effect. But I don’t know—l can’t tell. I just know it is this way onst a year, as you can see for yourself, ” and he vanished in the direction of 1 .. the baggage-car.— Philadelphia Times.

Is the Color of the Sun Blue?

It may be asked, what suggested the idea that the sun may be blue, rather than any other color ? My own attention was first directed this way many years ago, when measuring the heat and light from different parts of the sun’s disk. It is known that the sun has an atmosphere of its own, which tempers its heat, and by cutting off certain radiations, and not others, produces the spectral lines we are all familiar w-ith. These lines we customarily study in connection with the absorbing vapors Ot sodium, iron, and so forth, which produce them; but my own attention wks particularly given to the regions of absorption, or to the color it caused, and I found that the sun’s body must be deeply bluish, and that it would shed blue light, except for this apparently colorless solar atmosphere which really plays the part of a reddish veil, letting a little of the-blue appear on the center of the sun’s disk where it is thinnest, and staining the edge red, so that to delicate tests the center of the sun is a pale aquamarine and its edge a garnet. The effect I found to be so important that, if this all but invisible solar atmosphere were diminished by but a third part, the temperature of the British Islands would rise above that of the torrid zone; and this directed my attention to the great practical importance of studying the action oi our own terrestrial atmosphere bn the sun, and the antecendent probability that I our own air was also and independenti ly making the really blue sun into all apparently white one. — Prof. Langley, in Science. Two ladies presented themselves at the door of a fancy ball, and on being asked by the usher what character they impersonated, replied that t 1 ey were not in any special costume, whereupon he bawled out, “Two ladies without any character.” German proverb: “A handsome young woman is always an ugly old one.”

HUMOR.

An epitaph for a boatman: Life is oar. — Budget. The favorite tool of the printer is the adze. — Pittsburgh Chronicle. A sliver in the bush is worth two in the hand.— Whitehall Times. In India it costs more to get married than to die. Nature is full of wise provisions.—Philadelphia Call. When a man sees double, it is evidence that his glasses are too strong for him.— Boston Transcript. Gather wisdom by open ears and eyes, and let thy mouth be an exemplar of the early closing movement.—Barbers' Gazette. Dr. Waeren’s theory explains the anxiety of some people to reach the pole. Who can blame man for wanting to get back to Eden?— St. Paul Herald. Paris hackmen complain that some of their passengers are rude to them. Poor things! Let them come over to this country and revenge themselves.— Texas Siftings. One man may call another a liar with perfect freedom in Kentucky,*but it will prevent litigation over his estate if he will make his will before he does it.— Merchant Traveler.

Foe twenty cents you can obtain liquid materials for a tremendous spree in Japan, Louisville papers who don’t want their city depleted will not copy. —Philadelphia Call. A Bridgeport man had a “revelation” that the Lord wanted him to work for 50 cents a day less than he was receiving. His request was granted by his thoughtful employer, who is looking for more “strikes” of the same sort. — Hartford Post. THE boarder’s MORNING SOLILOQUY. How swift the hours of sleep glide by! I hear the sparrows chinning; The mackerel peddler’s screeching cry Proclaims that day’s beginning. Once more to dress I mus. begin. The sun shines out in splendor, And I h ar the thud ot the ro ling-pin That makes the beefsteak tender. —Boston Courier. When Philip of Macedon wrote to the Spartan ephors: “If I enter Laconia I will level Lacedtemon to the ground,” he received for answer the small but significant word, “If.” Telegraph rates between Macedon and Lacedaemon must have been unusually high. —Louisville Courier-Journal. “What did your husband think of the play last night?” asked Mrs. Yeast of her neighbor, Mrs. Crimsonbeak, the other morning. “Oh, he thought it was very dry.” “Did he say so?” “No, he didn’t say so, but he went out between the acts.” “Well, that’s proof enough, certainly.”— Yonkers Statesman.

A correspondent wants to know whyboys whistle and why men do not. Boys whistle out of inherent perversity or something of that sort; but a man soon ruins his whistle, and that is the end of it. He drowns it by too much wetting. And this is the one good thing which can be said of the tippling habit. —Poston Transcript. In consideration of the fact that the new baby of the J apanese Minister has been named after President Cleveland, a correspondent sends us the following wish for his welfare : Ah, tootsy-wootsy little Jap, Now lying on your mammy’s lap! Delightful bit of black-and-tan. When home you go across the sea. Let’s hop? that you may live to be The Grover Cleveland of Japan. —Boston Globe. A Western paper tells of a young woman in Idaho who “whipped four lions. ” Such a young woman doesn’t need a “big brother” to protect her, and it is safe to wager that her father’s front gate doesn't need repairing once a year. A man doesn’t want a wife that can whip four lions—unless he can. whip about twenty-four.— Norristown Herald.

Keeping Old Letters.

A plea for the keeping of old letters contains these sentiments: “In the stilly night, ere slumber’s chain doth bind, an inspiration unbidden seemingly guides the pen while those exquisite thoughts that come trooping through the brain are written, and on the moving train the whitewinged messenger takes its flight, bearing to some dear friend tokens of precious remembrance, words of lig htand beauty, words that will grow brighter as years go by. ” Now, a grown-up person who can recommend in such a simple style an incendiary course like that, ought to know that it would bring about a good deal of discomfort and neuralgia in the stilly night, to get up and jot down those exquisite thoughts before they trooped off down into the back yard. It won’t do. The unbidden inspiration that most usually gets under way ere slumber’s chain doth bind takes its precious flight in the gentle murmur: “Ouch! Keep your great, cold, clammy feet on your own side of the bed.” New York Commercial Traveler.

A Simple-Minded Woman.

Mrs. Josiah Fender is a very simple sort of a woman. An old gentleman by the name of Ryckman and his wife moved into the vicinity of the Fender mansion on Austin avenue. Mrs. Fender, who is very neighborly, baked a nice cake and took it over to the new arrivals. “I have brought over some cake for Mr. Ryckman's children,” said Mrs. Fender. But we have never had any children,’* said Mrs. 1 yckman. “Well, then, give it to your grandchildren,” sad Mrs. Fender; “it must make them feel sad never to have had any parents.”— Texas Siftings. If you want enemies, excel. others; if vou want friends, let others excel you.