Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 February 1910 — The Value of a Negative [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Value of a Negative

Into every house in Little Falls where she carried her shears and Baedle, Miss Hanson, “city dressmaker, op to date in Paris fashions,” carried firm convictions on the subject of Signs. r-" : 7- — In the majority of households she met with no -sympathy and covert smiles. Whereupon, she would announce solemnly that while other signs did occasionally fail, there was one which was as fixed in its results as the laws of the Medes and Persians—she herself had come under its spell three times! When she betook herself to Mrs. Taylor’s, she found a smallfaced, fidgety woman who did not smile, although nothing would induce her to say that she credited signs. **Slgns are silly things,” said Mrs. Taylor, nervously, failing to meet Miss Hanson’s eyes, “and none of the kittle Falls people believe in them, of course. Mr. Taylor thinks it’s very foolish to pay any attention to them.” Mrs. Taylor invariably annexed her lord’s opinion to her own for bolstering purposes. Miss Hanson snapped open her mouth and shears simultaneously. The two articles worked in unison from >a. m. to 5 p. m. “Would you,” she demanded, “dare to be one of thirteen at table?" v Mrs. Taylor faltered, hesitated, and aaved herself. “Mr. Taylor •aid, triumphantly. “I’ve never been called on to do it.” Back came the swift and equally triumphant response: “Then you’ve counted every time to make sure! That shows!” "I smell my cake!” exclaimed Mrs. Taylor, irrelevantly, retreating to the kitchen. She was followed by Miss Hanson’s declaration, “But if aU other signs fail, there’s one that always holds, as you’ll find once you come under its spell.” Mrs. Taylor shivered slightly, but Sung over her shoulder, “I’ve never been under the influence of a sign, and Mr. Taylor- ” She paused abruptly. Her heart gave an extra thump. Was that a boast? If so —softly she closed the kitchen door, although the dressmaker was speaking, and softly she rapped on wood. “Of course. I don’t really believe that knocking on wood amounts to anything,” she thought, “only—if it does —it’s best to be on the safe side!” Having thus reconciled herself with herself, she opened the kitchen door and found that Miss Hanson was still ■peaking. “I can prove to you,” declared Miss Hanson, “that you’ve been under the ■pell of a sign a(l this week.” Mrs. Taylor’s eye 3 opened questioningly and a little fearfully. “A Monday morning,” pursued the dressmaker, “when I came into the hall I found your umbrella laid across the hall table, and it’s there yet. Now, for ill luck, there aih't a better sign.”. “I never have heard of it,” quavered Mrs. Taylor. “Well, it's bi-pught you bad luck all the week just the same,” Miss Hanson w£nt on. grimly. “A Monday it raihed on your clothes just as they were drying. A Tuesday your fire heated your fiats so h|>t you scorched the clothes. A Wednesday you slipped and fell on the walk, and might have broken your bones! Now I should think you would keep your umbrella oft of tables!” Mrs. Taylor made no reply, but when Miss Hanson next passed through the hall the umbrella no longer lay on the table! Thursday afternoon Miss Hanson rese trom the sewlng machine. and laid a dress across the back of a chair. “There,” she announced, “that dress is done.” She began to pick “snlpptngs” from her gown, preparatory to leaving. Mrs. Taylor looked worried. She glanced at an uncut piece of goods on the table, remarking uncertainly, “Then there is the blalk to—begin—to-mor-row——” Miss Hanson regarded her severely. “Ton’ll not see me to-morrow.” Her tone was as Severe as her glance. "Tomorrow is a-Friday, and I’d no sooner think of beginning a dress than I’d think of starting on a journey.” Mas. Taylor's small face was bright w ith relief as she fingered the uncut ..', - ■ • • “To be sure,” vouchsafed Miss Hanson, “picking a last “snipping” from her dress, "I have known the Friday

sign to fail, —although I, for one, won’t take any risks with a Friday,—but there Is a sign—and I’ve tried it three times —which never fails.” "What ” began Mrs. Taylor, driven on irresistibly; but Miss Hanson was gone, and with her all knowledge of the infallible sign. “I must find out what it Is,” Mrs. Taylor told herself, nervously. "Of course I’ll not believe in it, but it’s better to be on the safe side after all, and I needn’t say a word about it to him." “Him” referred to a certain tall, thin individual who, that very day, in in his efforts to please his wife, all unwittingly put her into a corner from which her feminine logic could not extricate her. When, at the supper table, Mr. Taylor announced that he could leave his store for ten days, and Join the Little Falls party who were going on the Buffalo for a ten days’ cruise on the Great Lakes, Mrs. Taylor’s face became a sunbeam center. But when she learned that they must leave home Friday, August 1, the sunbeams were totally eclipsed by lowering clouds of apprehension. “When—when does the boat start?” she faltered, noisily moving the coffee cups. - “Saturday 7 the 2d, from Buffalo, early—painfully early in the morning.” “Why can’t we (leave here Saturday morning?” Mr. Taylor regarded her in amaze-

ment. “Because there’s no train that catches the boat.” The clouds thickened. “Why can’t we go Thursday?” “Because I can’t afford another day from business.” After Mr. Taylor had gone back to the store, the clouds produced a shower, and the shower produced additional nervousness. As the days passed, the idea of starting on Friday worked more and more on Mrs. Taylbr’s nerves, rubbed in, as it were, by Miss Hanson’s perpetual sign conversation. One morning Mrs. Taylor sat in her kitchen, convenient to the oven door. She was possessed of a “jumping” nervous headache, contracted by too much thinking on one subject—the FTiday start. “I can’t talk it over with Mr. Taylor,” she commented. “He would laugh —and be provoked, and If I told Doctor Jo”—here she glanced out of the window at Dr. Josephine Sprout’s office next door—“she would laugh and ask me how long I’ve been bilious. 0 dear!” Mrs. Taylor pressed 6ne cold hand against her hot forehead and reached for the oven door. “Of course, I’m not so foolish as to believe that anything wrong must happen If we start Friday, but it’s certainly flying right into the face of Providence, and I shall not take a minute’s peace the entire ten days! O dear! Of course I don’t believe In signs,— it's best to be on -the safe Bide.” She jerked the oven door open and slammed It shut, involuntarily starting at the noise. that moment there yaa a flutter behind her accompanied by, a prolonged squawk, and in at the open window opposite flew a. large henhawk. It was frightened, but not half so frightened as Mrs. Taylor. - For the fraction of an age that lady

could neither move nor utter a sound. For another period of time which she was Incapable of measuring, she could not respond to Miss Hanson calling her from the front hall. Miss Hanson had finished Mrs. Taylor’s sewing the day before, but had forgotten her shears. She was accompanied by Dr. Joseptilne Sprout, for whom she was next to exhibit her knowledge of Paris modes. “Goodness me!” cried Miss Hanson. “You’re as white as a sheet! What is the matter?" Mrs. Taylor sank limply into a chair, and Doctor Jo, In a trice, was loosening her collar with one hand and wielding a fan with the other. “A hawk,” gasped Mrs. Taylor, “gave me such a turn by flying right through the kitchen, squawking all the way!” Miss Hanson at once improved the state of Mrs. Taylor’s nerves by giving a scream and clutching her shears. “My sign!” she cried. “It’s the sign that never fails.” The blood pounded in Mrs. Taylor's ears, and her head spun round while Miss Hanson insisted on talking, and Doctor Jo insisted on inviting her to keep quiet. But Miss Hanson's voice soared higher, and when the two left, Mrs. Taylor was in possession of the one infallible sign. She rocked and repeated, working her cold hands together, “ ‘lf a bird flies through the room, you’ll have bad luck for thirty days, and the bigger the bird the greater the . result.’ And wbat bird round here is bigger than a hen-hawk?” walled Mrs. Taylor. She went into the kitchen presently, moving about weakly, preparing dinner. But Just as she opened the door of the china closet, the awful thought assailed her that the thirty days would cover the trip on the Great Lakes. “b dear! To start on Friday—and now—” She gave a nervous jerk, and down came her beautiful large “hand-paint-ed” cake plate, and lay at her feet in a thousand pieces. Her heart contracted. She was surely under the "spell” of the infallible sign! Other proofs multiplied during the week. In her anxiety she ate little and slept little, consequently everything she undertook went wrong. Fearful lest another bird should invade her kitchen, she closed the doors and windows, thereby improving neither her health nor culinary skill. She burned her. bread and underbaked her cake; she touched everything breakable with timidity and apprehension—and the result was exactly what she expected / By the tenth day she was nearly sick, and almost desperate enough to tell Mr. Taylor boldly that she had resolved not to set one foot on board the Buffalo. “She would sink,” thought Mrs. Taylor, with conviction, “and I believe it, and I don’t care who knows that I believe it, either!’ In fact, Mrs. Taylor was rapidly arriving at a point where she felt she must take some one into her confidence. The some one proved to be the young physician next door, and the time that very afternoon when the bread knife in her fingers slipped and cut her thumb. * As Doctor Jo, in her office, bandaged the wounded thumb, Mrs. Taylor’s woes burst their bounds and poured into the other’s ears. When she reached the supernatural cause of those woes, Doctor Jo looked interested, and having finished with the thumb, sat back, surveying the overwrought woman with a new interest. “And all this has occurred during the ten days that I’ve been under its spell,” sobbed Mrs. Taylor, “and I’ve got to go through twenty more such days! Well, I’ll never live through them, that’s all, and I shall not go on the excursion, and he will be disgusted, and O dear! Miss Hanson said it was a sign that never, failed, and I believe her now.” “Mrs. Taylor,’ Doctor Jo began in a peculiar voice, “will you please repeat that sign?’ The peculiar expression arrested Mrs. Taylor’s attention. She sat up, dried her eyes and looked suspiciously at Doctor Jo. “You were right there, and heard her say that if a bird flew through the room you’d have bad luck for thirty days.” “Yes, I was right there,” interrupted Doctor Jo. “but I did not hear that!” “What!" cried Mrs. Taylor. “She certainly said just that, and I’ve been proving the truth of it for ten days ” Doctor Jo’s eyes twinkled and the corners of her severely straight lips turned up. She rose and opened the back door of the office. “Miss Hanson, will you come here a moment?” Miss Hanson complied, her shears in one hand and a basted sleeve in the other. She paused in the doorway and regarded Mrs. Taylor’s red eyes with astonishment. “Miss Hanson,” began Doctor Jo, “what happens if a bird flies through the room?” The dressmaker brightened and swung her shears. She glanced at Mrs. Taylor in pleased anticipation of confirmation. “You’ll not have bad luck for thirty days, and the bigger the bird—” But Mrs. Taylor had caught her breath and the negative at the same time. “Not?” she almost screamed. “Did you say *not’?*' . ' . 7 ■ Miss Hanson put her hands and regarded Mrs. Taylor with sudden resentful suspicion. “I certainly'said ‘not’!” was the crip response. Mrs. Taylbr rose and faced the dressmaker in falterlng accuaatloh. “Over at my morning—yousurely said I’d have bad luck—’’ The suspicion on Miss Hanson’s face deepened. “I certainly didn’t say any

such thing!” she snapped. “You were so nervous that morning you.didn’t knovy what I said.” She pulled the office door shut belligerently. Then opening it a crack, she sent the oftrepeated statement through, “And It’s a-sign that never falls, either, and nobody could make me believe to the contrary!” . Mrs. Taylor, her face flushed and foolish, sank back into her chair and looked timidly at Doctor Jo. But Doctor Jo was not laughing—even her eyes ceased to twinkle. Instead, she was reaching for a black bottle on a high shelf, and remarking quietly: “Take one of these every hour during the day, and live as much as possible in the open air until you start on that August cruise. That will do more for you than any medicine.” “I think it will.” Mrs. Taylor’s voice was small and meek and grateful. Friday afternoon, August Ist, a gay party boarded the Buffalo express at Little Falls en route for the boat, and among them was Mrs. Taylor. Perhaps hers was not the stoutest heart on board that train; perhaps her smiles were a little tremulous at first and her laughter a trifle forced, but she was prepared, nevertheless, to enjoy the delightful ten days’ trip which ensued, unmarred by any mishap.— Youth’s Companion.

SOFTLY SHE SAPPED ON THE WOOD.