Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 148, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1912 — A Change of Heart [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Change of Heart

By Lois Willoughby

(Copyright, 1313, by Associated Literary Press.) The president’s outer office was be tag enlarged and generally made over during bis trip abroad. The room wat in confusion—the floor covered with tools, boards of all lengths and sizes, and general debris. ! Over la oae corner was a saw bench which bore many marks of antiquity, and on it eat the old carpenter—"Dad** they called him. Ho had finished his luneh and was contentedly puffing away at his pipo, and as he smoked he looked down at the sawdust and shavings which surrounded him. . “There ain’t no use talkin’, “he said to the stenographer, “mahogany makes pretty shavfn’s, and I’ve planed off lefts of them the last few years. They’re puttin' on considerable triminin’s in offices nowadays. A' man don’t do business any more—no, sir—he transacts it, and he transacts It right up to the latest style, too. *- “I never get in one of these business parlors but I think o’ Bill. Bill was good company and I miss -him lots. He was a good worker, too, and you Just set him down In some meek and lowly place and tell him what had to be done, and he’d light into It like fury. But when we’d get sent on some of these jobs where the buildin’ was strictly up to date, Bill'd go all to pieces. He couldn’t stand mahogany any way you fix it; he was a reg-. ular porcupine the minute be spied it If there happened to be a fancy shade over the electric light—TilTny, I guess they call it—it made him all the madder; and he threw a quill ev’ry time he saw the boss push one of them little pearl buttons in a silver frame.

“•You’re all wrong, Bill,’ I used to. tell ’lm. If cuttin’ up a few square feet of mahogany into strips and nailin’ it on to the wall Is goin’ to make a man happy—let 'im have it—maybe It's only baywood anyway; and if smashing colored glass into ragged pieces and solderin’ It together with

Iron, pleases him—let’s be pleasant And there ain’t no use kickin’ about them push buttons; he ain’t got time to stand out in the hall and yell every time he wants anybody. Them bells ain’t as stylish as yon think they are.’ "It wasn’t much use tryin’ to argue with him, but I was such an old fool I used to try It Why, when noon would come and we was alone, Bill’d glare and growl like a crazy man and he’d harangue something fierce. ‘Shut up,’ I says to him one day, ‘the first thing yon know the place’ll be pinched and maybe they’re got the cells done in mahogany now.’ ‘lt was just ign’rance with Bill—he couldn’t understand toman nature — didn’t know everybody had Ft. When we worked for ane of them plutocrats, as he called them, he’d spend a whole hour in the morning foolin’ around with his tools and layin’ (hem this way and then that—Just killin’ time; and when twas about time for the captain of industry to blow in. Bill’d watch the door like a cat watches a mouse hole, and he’d always manage to be doin’ nothin’ —Just nothin’— when .the captain walked through. That was about all the fun Bill had. "Maybe I didn’t give Bill due credit, for I guess be knew somethin’ about human nature after all; he knew that would make the captain mad. It usually did, anti BUT would get as near as he could to the door.to the private offiee and listen to him kickin’ about IL The captain would be riled up all day long and we*d bear him tell ev’ry man that went in his office how awfully capita} was being cheated and robbed by the workin’ classes; how ’twas an outrage, a downright outnjy, that the money Interests should be ee imposed upon by unscrupulous labor, and tbat sonae day-—some day—l always have to laugh when I thidk bow hb used to doable up on them ‘some days’—that some day the interests of capital would be protected by Jaw. I was kind for Cap. for be actually thought he meant tt while be sms tentin’. “Bill ‘d be reasonably contended all

day if the captain had enough callers, but long about quittln’ time he’d get downhearted and glum, and I’d say* ‘What’s the matter, Bill? You’ve had the captain upset all day, you ought to be happy—hear him kickin’ now.’ Tea,’ says Bill, *but he’s gettin’ about $lO a minute ter kickinV V “If we ever had' a Tong stuck-up job. Bill got so cantankerous there was hardly fay livin’ with him. One afternoon the captain was gone and ire wat workln’ along as peaceful, and suddenly Bill stopped hie work and fa|rly roared at me: ‘What does ho know about trouble? He never had any.’ ... T.T~ *T didn’t know what he was thlnkfn’ about in particular, but It wouldn’t have made any difference If I had* ’cos Bill had on soil of a blanket g&ueb— ft covered everything. So I ■ays to him: Ton don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I‘heard the captain tellln’ a man this morning what an awful time he had playin’ golf yesterday. He said he gbt in a. highly critical place—them are his words — end ho couldn’t tell for the life of him what golf stick to use. He could remember just exactly how the play ought to be made, but he Couldn’t remember what to do. It with. First he thought ’twas the’ driver —then he thought ’twaan’t. It kind of seemed like ’twas the brasfcie, and then allowed twas tbe mid-iron; then he felt pos’tire twas the putter. I didn’t happen to hear what the right one was. but judgin’ from some of tbe l&ngftage I heard him use after he specified, he didn’t get It. •“Now, Bill,’ I says, that's trouble and It’s just as -bad trouble as you hpve when you -cant tell what tool to use, and after you’ve tried everything from a rabbit plane to a gouge, find out you’ve foozled the door jamb. Them woes are alike,’ I says, ‘and you ought to be more considerate.’ But Bill was a little short on good common sense at times. “There was something about Bill you couldn’t help likin’, but If anybody else’d had his notions I would o’ been all pnt out with them. Of course, 1 didn’t like ’em in Bill, but somehow I always felt he wasn’t so bad —just young and a little misguided. “Once he come In where I was, just as forlorn. I didn’t stop work—l Just said ‘Well?’ , .. “*What chance have I got with’ them college fellows?* he demanded.. “ ‘Oh, shpcka,’ says L because hj did try my patience a lot at times. Ts jhm. want somebody else’s chanoe, pick on a chap your own size.’ “It seems he drove a nail more than he’d intended to; he’d made up his mind to do jus’ so much that day, and he got to thinkin’ about his wrongs and forgot and went right on workin’. He said if you went to college they taught you to concentrate, and if he could have concentrated on not doin’ the work as he’d figured, It would o’ been all right “Well, I was sick for a spell and Bill kind of drifted away from me. He fell in love with a girl who was pretty ambitious and Bhe liked him, too, but she saw his faults. He was ratin’ around one day about capital and plutocrats and tellln’ what ought to happen to them, and I tell you Sodom and Gomorrah got it light compared to what Bill was goin* to hand out. *Hit it easy, Bill,' she says, ‘as smart a man as you ought to be a plutocrat himself some day; maybe you’re only Planhtfl’ suicide.’ " ‘ “That made Bill awful mad, but I guess on due deliberation he* seen things a little different. He never let on, though,-for a long time. She went out west and got the second prise in a land drawln'. He tried to hate her because she wasn’t poor'and downtrodden, any more* but she just laughed at him. “They got married and went out to live on the ranch. Out o’ doors seemed to do Bill a lot of good, and things kept cornin’ their way right along. He made a lot of money on sheep, and I guess by this time he's rich. The last I heard about him he was goin’ at a pretty rapid clip and lookin’ oyer airship catalogues.

“Alf Simmons stopped to see him when he was out west. He says Bill sent me a special Invitation to come an’ visit him. Alf says I ought to go; says he’s just as sociable as can be and ain’t changed a hit toward the old crowd. He says, though, that Bill has acquired a ravenous appetite for a lot of things he used to think was poison. "His last fad was fancy hens, and Alf said when he was a-goin’ through the henhouse he saw a dull mahogany frame with a dozen solid pearl push buttons in it; that every time a hen lays an egg she kgs to press a button so Bill’ll be advised right up to date. "Alf told me how nice he was livin’; told me all about his house; mahogany trimmln’s all through, and everything aiea Of course I know be was just havin’ a title fun with me about them hens, but I would like to know If Bill really got TUTny windows la his garage." *

“You’re All Wrong, Blll,” I Used to Say to Him.