Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 163, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1912 — A Change of Heart [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Change of Heart

By Lois Willoughbyby

(Copyright, MIX by Associated literary 1 Press.) L The president’s outer office was be-, lng enlarged and generally made over during his trip abroad. The room was In confusion—the floor covered with tools, boards of all lengths and sizes, and general debris. Over in one corner was a saw bench which bore many marks of antiquity, and on it sat the old carpenter—" Dad” they called him. He had finished his lunch and was contentedly puffing atway at his pipe, and as he smoked ha-looked down at.the sawdust and, shavings which surrounded him. "There ain’t no use talkin’, “he said to the stenographer, “mahogany makes pretty shavin’s, and I’ve planed off lots of them the last few years. They’re puttin’ on considerable trimmin’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 Borne 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 regular porcupine the minute he spied it If there happened to-be a fancy shade over the electric light—Tlff’ny, 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 ’im. ‘lf cuttin’ up a few square feet of mahogany into strips and nailin’ it on to thq 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 you 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 you know the place’ll be pinched and maybe they’ve got the cells done in mahogany now.’ "It was just ign’rance with Bill—he couldn’t understand human nature—didn’t know everybody had it When wa worked for one erf them Plutocrats. as he called them, he’d spend a whole hour In the morning foolin’ around with bis tools Mid layin* them this way and then that—just killin’ time; and when 'twas about time for -the captain of industry to blow In, Bill’d watoii the door like a cat watches a mouse hole, and he’d always manage to he 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; be knew that would make the captain mad. It usually did, and Bill would get as near as he could to the door to the private offioeand listen to him kickin’ about tt The captain would be riled up all day long and we’d hear him tell ev*ry man that went in his office how awfully capital was being cheated and robbed by the workin’ classes; how ’twas an outrage, a downright outrage, that the money interests should be so Imposed upon by unscrupulous labor, and that some day—some day—l always have to laugh when I think how toe used to double up cm them ‘some days’—that some day the Interests of capital would be protected by law. I was kind o’ sorry tor Gap, for he' actually thought he meant It while he pas talkin’. "Bill’d be reasonably contended all

day If the captain had enough callers, but long about quittin’ time he’d get downhearted and glum, and I’d say; ’What’s the matter, Bill? You’ve had the captain upeet all day, you ought to be happy—hear him kickin’ plow.’ ’Yes,’ says BtU, ‘but he’s gettin’ about $lO a minute for kickin’.’ "If we ever had a long stuck-up Job, Bill got so cantankerous there was hardly any livin’ with him. One afternoon the captain was gone and we was workin’ along as peaceful, and suddenly Bill stopped his 1 work and fairly roared at me: ‘What does he know about trouble? He never had any.’ * “I didn’t know what be was thlnkin’ about In particular, but It wouldn’t have made any difference If I had, ’cos Bill had on sort of a blanket grouch—lt covered everything. So I says to him: ‘You don’t know what you're talkin’ about I heard the captain tcinr a man this Yfioalng what an awful time he had playin’ golf yesterday. He said he got in a highly critical place—them are his words — and he 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 ’twasn’t. It kind of seemed like ’twas the brassie, and then allowed ’twas the mid-iron; then he felt pos’tive ’twas the putter. I didn’t happen to hear what the right one was, but Judgin' from some of the language Iheard 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 have when you can’t 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, r 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 put out with them. Of course, I didn’t like ’em in Bill, hut somehow I always felt he wasn’t so bad —Just young and a little mißguided. “Once he come In where I was, Just as forlorn. I didn’t stop work —I just said ‘Well?’ “‘What chance have I got with them college fellows?’ he demanded. ‘“Oh, shucks,’ says I, because he did try my patience a lot at times. ‘lf you want somebody else’s chance, 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 thlnkin’ 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 op 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 ft way from me. He fell In love with a girl who was pretty ambitious and she liked him, too, but she saw his faults. He was ratin’ around one day about capital and plutocrats and tellin’ 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. *Hlt it easy, Bill,’ she says, ’as smart a man as you ought to be a plutocrat himself some day; maybe you’re only plannln’ suicide.' ' "That made Bni awfurinad, but T 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 prize 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. Gut 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’ over 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 aB can be and ain’t changed a bit 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 has 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 trlmmin’s all through, and everything nice. Of course I know he was just havin’ a litle fun with me about them hens, but I would like to know if Bill really got TilFny windows in his garage.”

“You’re All Wrong, Bill,” I Used to Bay to Him.