Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 109, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1910 — Page 2

TO A DAISY. Blight as thou art, thou art enough to hide, ~ Like all created things, secrets from me. And stand a barrier to eternity, And I, how can I praise thee well and wide. From where I dwell upon the hither side? Thou little veil for so great mystery, Wen shall I penetrate all things and thee, And then look back? For this I must abide, » . Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled Literally between me and the world. Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring. And from a poet’s side shall read his book. O daisy mine, what will It be to look For side ev*n of such a simple thing? -—Alice Meynell.

HIS LADY CLIENT

"Fourteen years?” t Paul Latimer spoke mope as though h« were questioning himself than his confidential clerk. Be stood looking out of his office window upon Lincoln’s Inn Fields, his gray eyebrows sternly knit “Yes, sir, it’s fourteen years,” said the clerk In a low voice, his hand upon the closed door. “You’ll see him, won’t you?” "I’ll see him, of course. But ” The lawyer stopped abruptly, for Just then a carriage and pair pulled up at the entrance, and a sac face of a lovely girl of one or' two and twenty—appeared at the carriage window. Latimer and his clerk exchanged glances. “The young lady will be coming into the office, sir. What had best be done?” “Go out to her,” said Latimer, “Tell them to drive around the square till I’m at liberty. Don’t let her quit the carriage on any account. There’s no knowing what might happen if ” - “Leave that to me, sir,” said the elderly clerk, hurrying out. “I’ll see to that” Latimer sank into the chair at his desk. The day was closing in. A young clerk came in and lit the desk lamp and drew down the blinds. And now the lawyer’s look grew graver, more concentrated, for there was a step on the air. Presently the door opened, opened slowly, and a weary-looking man came slowly into the romo. “Where’s my daughter?” said he, standing with his grasp upon the back of a shalr. “John Masterson,” said he, in a tone of reprimand, “that’s a question which it was understood between us, fourteen years ago, that you would never ask. Your daughter regards you—lt was your wish then, if not now—regards you as—dead!” “Ah! And she is a woman now,” said Masterson. “When—when I was convicted, unjustly convicted, in that forgery case and sentenced to fourteen years, Nora was nearly eight. She would now be twenty-one—a woman now. She is beautiful, too, isn’t she?” And he looked keenly for confirmation into the lawyer’s face. “Yes,” said 'Latimer, “She is a woman now, and very beautiful. And the lady of fortune, the lady who adopted her when you were sqnt to prison, Masterson —has lately died and left her property to Nora, and ” “An heiress? My daughter an heiress?” said Masterson, rising quickly from his chair. “Take me to her! I’m destitute —nearly starving. Is there anything now to keep us apart?” “Yes, there’s a barrier.” “What is it?” “Yourself!” said Latimer. “Once make yourself known to your daughter and the property, by a clause in the will, reverts to another.” “Nora shall not be made penniless through me. No. I’ll never But stay! What if my innocence were proven—the stigma taken from my name?” “Ah, that might alter the case,” said Laimer, cautiously. “Help me!” cried Masterson. “I had no hand in the business. Give me your aid —for Nora's sake —for I solemnly take oath that I'm not guilty of the crime that fourteen years ago was laid at my door. “The man who did it —who forged those drafts on the Philoboro' bank — was a fellow clerk of mine, Robert Holroyd; and I’ve already begun my search for him,” said Masterson, with a keen look in his eyes. "I mean to hunt him down! I mean to force from him a full and true confession, or else ” “Well, well! We’ll not pursue the subject any further —not just now,” said Latimer. “I’ll turn it over in my mind. Leave me your address. I’ll see that the matter is looked into — 11l see if anything can be done.” When Masterson left him Latimer’s hand trembled as he placed the slip of paper in his desk whereon the man had written his address. The interview had agitated the lawyer deeply.But as he went downstairs to the carriage all signs of agitation vanished; and when a lovely girl appeared at his carriage window to greet him his stern features even broke into a smile. < As the carriage drove away, before It had turned out of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the girl placed her hand upon the lawyer’s arm and looked-up with an inquiring glance Into his face. “Who was that?” .. _Latimer looked down at her and noticed that she was unusually pale. “Who was that?” he rtiterated, with a sudden sickening sense of dread. “I —I don’t qnlte follow you.” 4 *! mean that man who came out at

your office door some minutes before you,” said she. “He looked as if in terrible distress. Is he? I saw him stop under the street lamp, strike his forehead and look distractedly about him. Then he walked on, and ” “See!” the girl suddenly interposed, ‘'“there’s the very man. How dazed he looks! He is staring into people’s faces as if he were In search of some one—some one whom he ” “Nora, sit down, my dear,” said Latimer, as she rose and leaned out of the window. “Are you crazed?” The girl uttered a low cry of pain, for Latimer, in a sudden frenzy of excitement, had seized her wrist and gripped It tightly. But now the carriage, for a moment blocked among the crowd of vehicles id the great Holborn thoroughfare, moved rapidly forward, taking a westerly course in its homeward way. Days went by. For the time being Masterson was buoyed with hope. His interview with Latimer had put new life into him. He looked for a letter from the old lawyer every morning But Paul Latimer gave no sign. One night, as he turned out of Long Acre to start upon another night’s wanderings through the lamp-lit London streets, Masterson became suddehly alive to the fact that a long line of vehicles was arriving and passing in under the portico of Covent Garden Theater. He was just making for his chosen post when a hansom cab pulled up with startling abruptness at his very elbow, and a tall man sprang out. He

AS THE CARRIAGE DROVE AWAY.

was in evening dress, a light Inverness cloak thrown negligently over his wellset shoulders; and as he thrust his hand Into his pocket and turned half round to pay the cabman, the light from the street lamp fell sideways upon his face. Masterson uttered a cry; and then, with the swift and writhing movement of a tiger eager for a leap, a flash of passion and hatred in Us eyes “Curse you!” he cried,fringing forward. “I’ve found you, at last!” - But as he made the spring a passerby unwittingly ran against him, and he was thrown upon the railings with such force that he lost his footing; and when he rose to renew the attack he found the figure was gone. Casting about him a vild and searching glance, Masterson again got sight of the man. He was just passing in at the swinging doors of the theater—had passed in—vanished.——.— _ Waiting there, pacing up and down outside those railings, Masterson began to grow puzzled over Robert Holroyd’s youthful appearance. He looked no older —looked younger, if anything —than when they were fellow clerks at the Phliboro Bank. Was this man Robert Holroyd, or ? Suddenly a startling thought came to him. Robert Holroyd’s son! If so, so much the better. His yearning to strike was deeper rooted now; he would deliver a double blow. At last it grew evident that the performance was drawing to a close, and Masterson's gaze now became intent upon the faces of the fashionable crowd that began to pour out. No face in that outflowing crowd escaped observation. And now a strange and startling thing happened. A carriage—one that" he seemed to recognize—drew up, and the Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, Paul Latimer, presently appeared, a girl on his arm—a girl whose face sent a sudden thrill to the very heart of John Masterson. “Nora!” he gasped. “My child!” But no sooner had this lovely woman taken her place in the carriage with Latimer at her side, than a thing more strange and startling by far engaged Masterson’s attention. That man for whom he was waiting —the man Holroyd—came hurrying out behind Latimer, stepped into Latimer’s carriage and sat down opposite to Nora. He spoke to her—spoke and looked like one who seeks to win a young girl’s love. . The sight was maddening; and as the carriage moved from under the portico toward the exit gate Masterson ran headlong forward, forcing his way through the surging crowd.

JXe had reached the carriage, had leaped upon the step and looked wildly into the girl’s now terror-stricken face, when a passing vehicle struck htih and he fell back—fell into the crowded thoroughfare, crushed and broken—and remembered no more. • •**•** When John Masterson recovered consciousness he was lying in a large and luxurious bedroom—as he gradually came to realize, aided by the light of a dim night lamp. Then there came to the bedside a shadowy figure, and then a sweet and anxious face bent over his pillow, and then a whispered’ -word fell upon his ear: “Father!” “Nora,” said he one summer’s morning, when she came and drew a chair to his side, “am I out of the doctor’s hands?” “Yes, father. Why do you ask?” “I was forbldden to question you,” said he, “to speak more than was needful —forbidden to speak one word about the —the past. May I speak now?” “About ” “That night,” said he, “the night upon which I—l met with that accident. Who was that man with you in Latimer’s carriage? Tell me his name.” “Holroyd,” said she. Masterson gripped the arms of his chair, apd would have risen had not Nora held him back. “Upon the day you saw him in our carriage,” said she, “Mr. Holroyd had arrived in London coming post-haste with a letter for you—from your fellow clerk at the old bank—a letter from his father.” “A letter—from Robert Holroyd—for me?” , “Yes; and being unable to find you,” said she, “young Holroyd had called that very morning upon Mr. Latimer. That letter, as you will find, contains Robert Holroyd’s full tonfqssion of the crime of which you were so shamefully convicted.” “Ah!” “And,’’Nora went on, “and he has since died —since you brought here to Mr. Latimer’s house on that dreadful night—and he has madp what amends he could by leaving you half his fortune, and ” “What more?” said Masterson dejectedly. “His son, young Holroyd, has asked me —to be—his wife,” said Nora. “What?” “I love him, father. Would you have me suffer for Robert Holroyd’s sin?” Masterson made no answer. He seemed lost in thought; but, after a while, he began to stroke her head caressingly, and Nora took heart, knowing instinctively that he would give way to her*as he always had given way to her when she was a child.— Exchange.

STONE AGE CUSTOMS.

Ancient Habits Still Endure Among Natives of Rural Ronmanla. Customs and habits directly traceable back to the end of the stone age are still observed by the inhabitants of the remoter parts of rural Roumania, says Dr. Emil Fischer of Bucharest in the Umschau: The latest statistics show that there are still in Roumani* over 54,000 cave dwellings in existence, in which a quarter of a million peasant folk live. These caves are almost as primitive in their arrangements as the original cave dwellings of the stone age. As recently as in the eighties millet, the oldest Indo-Germanic grain, was stil crushed in Roumania by means of band mills and stored in peculiarly shaped granaries similar to those used by the natives of central Africa. Today the Roumanian peasants still use ancient plows. At funerals a repast named coliba is partaken of consisting of soaked and boiled corn the e*, act way corn was first prepared and eaten by the tribes of Europe. Even to-day -crabapples and wild pears are the only fruit known to the Roumanian peasant, and his vegetables are wild herbs boiled with oil pressed—from sunflower, hemp and gourd seeds. Medical men in rural Roumania are still known among the peasantry as wizards.

A PRISON HORROR.

Awful Fate of a Russian Political . Offender. David Soskice writes in McClure’s Magazine of the horrors of the Schluesselburg, Russia’s political prison. "Grachevsky, unable to stand his life any longer," says he, “struok a*guard in order to be executed. But the commandant of the fortress declared him to be insane and therefore exempt from punishment. - . —-—_ “ ‘Then.’ said Grachevsky, ‘it remains for me but to kil myself.’ He was t£ken to the ‘stable’ and kept there under most vigilant watch. “‘One night,’ related Ludmilla Volkenstein, ‘a terrible, inhuman shriek was heard. Footsteps hurried toward Grachevsky’s cell. Feeble groans followed, and it was evident that something terrible had happened to him. Smoke and the smell of burnt clothing and flesh pervaded the building and hung about it till the following day. We then knew that Grachevsky had burnt himself alive. He had soaked his clothes and bedding with the oil from the little night lamp and, rolling himself up in his blanket, had set it on fire. For several days beforehand he had disarmed the suspicions of his guards by exceedingly rational behavior, so that they had relaxed their watchfulness a little and enabled him to commit the dreadful deed." If you are contented, you are prettj well off without an auto and a man, sion. When a young man flatters a girl she decides later that he really meant it.

The above illustration of one of the main avenues of Cairo, Egypt, during the tfour at which all and sundry take their walks abroad is of particular interest. Note the almost uncanny contrasts of the scene; the buildings.

THE BASE-BURNER STOVE.

The Husband’s Light Came When It Was Too Late. There was not a more honest man in the State than Joel Phelps, so the neighbors said. He was a member of the church, and was counted a consistent member. Some people called him " “close” in money matters, but those who knew his situation were aware that there were some extenuating circumstances. When old Father Phelps died, he had left the farm and little else. It was to be divided equally among his three daughters and two sons. In the division, each of the daughters took a quarter on which the buildings stood, which was adjudged to be worth twice as much as the others, and gave his brother George his note for the difference. It was an equitable distribution, made by agreement among the children themselves. George did not Want to work the farm, and did want the moneTy. One sister, who was married, joined her forty acres tb the farm of her husband; the other two rented their respective “forties” to Joel. Nor in the years that followed did any suspicion ever rise that Joel wronged one of them; but one by one he added the outlying forties to &e home estate, and held it at last and free from debt. , So the farm stood with its original one hundred and sixty acres,’ as old Father Phelps had bought it from the government; and the four remaining children turned their land into cash as Joel earned it, and invested it elsewhere. About the time Father Phelps died, Joel married the little teacher of the district school. She came to a comfortable home, although with plenty of hard work, and entered with enthusiasm into her husband’s plans. But she longed for little comforts in th§ home which Joel never could affpfd; firgt because he wad paying off the note to George, and afterward because he was buying the remaining forties, and after that because the habit was upon him. So twenty-five years went by. The neighbors bought better carriages, better carpets, better furniture. Joel listened to the suggestions of his wife, and promised that they should “get round to it some time.” The standard of comfort rose among the neighbors. Most of them came to count some things as necessities which formerly had been luxuries, but Joel reckoned all these things as future ac-

qulsitiong. The Phelps household celebrated with some dignity the silver wedding of Joel and his wife. The presents received at that time called for a new cupboard with glass doors; and that would involve a new dining table; and it was not in keeping that the dining room should be better than the parlor. So, although Joel’s wife gently urged the matter, it was decided to pack the new gifts away for the present and perhaps next year the house would get a general overhauling. “But there’s one thing, Joel, I wish we could have right away,” said his wife. “That’s a base-burner stove. That old wood stove makes so hot a fire at night, and in the morning when I put my feet on the floor it’s dreadfully cold, and I seem to feel the cold more than I used to.” ‘That’s so,” said Joel. “It would be good to have. And we’ll get it with the rest. I guess we can make the wood stove last one more winter." v His wife submitted, as she had done before, with no word of reproach.. Yet there was a 1 look in her eyes that he remembered for "many a day. In the early autumn she fell sick* and the doctor said it was serious. And no man could say that Joel saved money then. He sent to the city for a specialist, and for a trained nurse at S2O a week. If the money came hard, be never said so. But day by day he saw her growing feebler. The nights began to grow cold. He hurried ofT to town and bought the best base-burner in the store, and hard coal enough to keep a fire all winter. And he tried to cheer his by telling of its beauty and the regularity of its

A CURIOUSLY COSMOPOLITAN SCENE .

IN FASHION ABLE CAIRO.

huge fashionable European hotels and apartments, great blocks of stone flanked by broad pavements such as we are used to;' in their shadow native women, veiled from head to foot save for their eyes, quaint Arab types, mounted on camels, donkeys, or on

heat. But the day they kindled the Are in the new stove was the day she died. They came back from the funeral on a blustering, raw day, and stood and warmed their hands. But Joel cast one look at the beautiful new stove, with the red light glowing through the mica. andsat down, sobbing. “She was the dearest wife that ever lived,” he said, “and I tried to be good to her. But I was so eager to get the farm paid for I didn’t always consider as I ought. I’d give the whole farm to-day if I’d bought that base-burner ten years ago.”—Youth’s Companion.

EXTERMINATING THE BIRDS

The blood lust of man is insatiable. Created lord of the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, he kills his servants ruthlessly for food, for personal adornment, for mere sport:-Only such animals as he can profitably domesticate are spared. The list of creatures which have bee/n wholly or nearly exterminated by man is appalling. At present it is'the birds which -are suffering most severely—unless the fur-bearing animals can' dispute that sad pre-eminence. From an article by Franklin Clarkin in Everybody’s Magazine these statements are taken: Those who shoot the wild fowl are three: the pot-hunter, the plume-hunt-er, and the collector, whether private or employed by a museum. The pothunter has already done <his worst, ftiost Of the species which are very valuable for food have been wiped out or thinned almost to extinction. In 1848 the passenger-pigeon came down the Hudson in such numbers that the then owner of “Claremont” on upper Manhattan Island shot a hundred from his roof in one .morning. In 1876 a pigeon “nesting” in Michigan occupied an area twenty-eight miles long by four wide. That season many million birds were killed _in Michigan’ and shipped to the city markets. They were sold in New York for a cent apiece. Nobody has seen a passengerpigeon in a state of nature, and proved it, since 1900. Being good enough to eat, he was too good to live. No specimen of the quail has bfeen seen for five years. The Labrador duck, once numbered by millions, is so nearly extinct that collectors—if they have the .money—are glad to give a thousand dollars for a single specimen. And so with a dozen other species of edible birds.

Sometimes It seems as if the collectors were responsible, for a part of the •lame. One man in the United States has a collection of thirty thousand specimens, and a member of the Rothschild family has three or four times as many. The American Museum of Natural History has ninety thousand skins; the British Museum over a hundred thousand. But these figures are trivial, when compared with the slaughter occasioned by 'the demands of the milinery trade.' The collectors alone could never threaten the existence of a sin gle species, but one plume-hunter in Florida in a single season killed a hundred and twenty-five thousand birds. More than two hundred million skins are used annually In the manufacture of boas, hats and feather trimmings, fdr women who must follow the fashion. Several million dollars’ worth of feathers are Imported every year into the United States, besides the birds which are killed here and neverleave the country. „ The killing is done with unnecessary brutality. The hunter in search of pimped heron or egret pushes his boat into the swamp, and lies in wait among the nests he finds there. Overhead the parent birds, bringing food to their nestlings, arrive and stop, spread their beautiful plumes and drop upon their nests. But the plume-hunter has an unerring “drop” on them. After he has slain say two hundred, he goes at them with an open knife. He scalps the plumes from the dead birds, leaving them to rot, and their helpless young to starve in the nest. The plume-hunter Is of course an ignorant and insensitive man, a poor v

foot, jostling against fair English and smart Parisian visitors; whilst now and again a heavy-powered motor of the latest type makes the old camels and their drivers move out of the road with an alacrity quite new to the leisurely ways of the East.

“cracker,” perhaps, who knows no other way of making so good a living. The responsibility for the slaughter wnich has almost or quite exterminated scene of the most beautiful creatures in the world lies beyond him, beyond the feather merchant, beyond. the women even who wear the ornaments got by such bloody means. The men in the millinery ateliers of Paris, who •make the fashions, and impose them subtly, irresistibly on women; are perhaps the chief sinners—at least, they are the only ones who actually have it in their power to put a stop to the murder. If it only were nbt the fashion to wear feathered hats! #

A HAT STORY.

Ji» Any Society It la Well aa the Reat Do. The young wife of the new professor came downstairs and paused, as if to turn back, at the very threshold of the parlor. The next instant she advanced toward the group of “faculty ladies” who had been Invited to meet her at a formal luncheon in the home of the university president. She was a slight figure in soft browns, with big, interested eyes—a Western girl suddenly transplants to a far Eastern circle. Apparently unconscious of the fact that every other guest in the room wore an elaborate hat while her own head was quite uncovered, she went bravely through the presentations. Then, turning to her hostess with a half-appealing, wholly charming smile, she said, simply: “I ought to have kept on my hat, Mrs. Blount.” “It’s not of the slightest consequence, my dear Mrs. Tyson,” was the gracious answer. “You and I will be company for each other.” Before that party dispersed it had dawned upon the most superficial woman there that the incident was a trifle. At subsequent luncheons, It need not be said, the newcomer’s costume met accepted requirements, but her popularity really began that day when, with deference to others and perfect self-respect, she smilingly proved that she was mistress rather than slave of conventionality. There was another luncheon, given in a certain college circle where fashion may occasionally lag, but intellectual progress never. The guest of honor, who happened to hail from New York City, found herself the only person wearing a hat, and her hostess, noticing the situation in time, offered her an opportunity to “do as the Romans.” “Yes, but I’ll keep It on, thank you," was the unlooked-for reply. “I’m doing the proper thing; * why should 1 change?” / The result, absurd as it seems, was a marked constraint throughout the luncheon. “I was ashamed to think that we couldn’t rise superior to that hat,” said one of the ladies afterward, “but somehow the fact of her wearing it, under the circumstances, prejudiced every one of us against her. It did give me one useful Idea, though. Since then, wheneyer I find .myself—and it often happens—less in any respect than any other woman, I just reflect comfortably that it’s going to be far easier for her to forgive, aSd love me still, than if I had managed to outdo her. It really helps, you know, if one can keep it in mind.”—Youth's Companion. -

Cheering Her Up a Bit.

A young lady living in Atlanta visited the home of her fiance in New Orleans. On her return home an old negro “mammy” long* in the service of the family, and consequently privileged to put the question, asked : “Honey, when is you goin’ to git married?” The engagement not having been announced, the Atlanta girl smilingly replied: “Indeed, I can’t say, auntie. Perhaps I shall never marry.” The old woman’s jaw fell. “Ain’t dat a pity, now!” she ejaculated, and, aftet reflection, she added, consolingly, “Dey do Say dat ole maids is 'thd happiest critters dey is, once dey quit strugglin’.”