Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 154, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1913 — The Diary By F. E. C. ROBBINS. [ARTICLE]

The Diary By F. E. C. ROBBINS.

! The 0 1 satisfaction on (hhl Jenkins's flam when ha cam* home one afternoon attracted attention almost as soon as toe bulky pared that he carried In his hand. "What os earth have yon got now that you're so tickled evert** demanded his wife. She took the parcel from Caleb's unresisting hands. He watched her with a kind of fascination while she impatiently tore off the brown wrapping-paper, and as she brought to view something that looked like an overgrown amount book he found voioe to say, "Bh only a diary.’* “A diary!" echoed Mre. Jenkins “Just as though yon had patieom enough to keep a diary! I should judge by too rite of the book that you expected to write In It every day, and lire to be a hundred, at that!** Then, as she opened the hook, ihe exclaimed, “Why, It's been nesdl Somebody has palmed off a secondhand dhury on to yon, Caleb Jenkins!” “Ota, that's why I bought fi. I wanted to see If I couldn't floor Zones Perkins with It once la a while. You see, Zenas has got to be considerable of a nuisance wtto tost diary of his, that he's kept for a dozen years or more. “He doesn’t allow anybody elm to know anything. If anybody remarks that this Is toe wannest October that he ever see, why, Zenas la ready to prove that toe mercury averaged to ran higher In October only two years ago. “Then he’s always wanting to know If we remember that it ia fust so many years age to-day that Joel Pike's barn burned, or that something or other elfi, happened. Only too other day I was saying that Cap’s Baker’s third wife hadn’t been dead more's six months when he married his fourth, and Zenas took me right up, and got his diary, and Showed by It that toe eap'n had remained a widower Just eight months and eleven days. "You can't bring up n namable thing but Zenas is waiting to pounce on you with his diary. And I don’t believe heto right more’n half toe time. I eale'lato he doesn't keep toe diary along regular, but writes It up at odd Jobs rainy days.” “I s'poasd Zenas spent his rainy daya hanging about the store, like some other folks I know.” "Time and again,” continued Caleb, disregarding his wife’s thinly relied allusion, “I've thought of keeping one myself; but a diary has to hare some age before it’s good for much, and Zenas had most too BMflta of a start.

"One day, when I hud an errand at old Unde Artemas Baxter’s, 1 found him writing in a big book, and he remarked that he had kept a diary for thirty odd years, and 1 thought then that I’d kinder like to get hold of It. Well, when the old gentleman passed away, and 1 heard that his son-in-law. Seth Strout, was a-disposlng of the household goods, I reflected the diary, an«l thought I’d see If 1 couldn’t dicker for it. I’ve Just come from Seth's, and there’s the book. I’m going to read it all through, and then I’m going to keep It along myself, and we'll see if Zenas Perkins will be the only authority on happenings In Pondtown!” "How much did you pay for that book?” asked Mrs. Jenkins. “If you paid for It by weight it must have come to considerable.” - “Well, I paid three and a half for It. I offered two, and Seth wanted five, and finally we split the difference.” “Three dollars and a half! W*R, I never did!” and Mrs. Jenkins-re-tired to toe kitchen, leaving her husband to toe undisturbed perusual of his dearly bought treasure. When she looked in on him, ah hour later, Caleb waa still poring over toe book, but toe exultation had faded from hte eye#. "Ahrlra,” he said, mournfully, “I've spent three dollare and a half dreadfully foolish.” "I guess that’s no news, Caleb Jenkins,” WSS the curt reply, "Now Just listen to thte,” said Caleb, too mush absorbed in hte trouble to notice hte wtfe’s displeasure. "This te one day's reoord: 'October the eighteenth. O, toe corruption In high places 1 O, the wickedness that •talks abroad! We have Indeed fallen upon evil times. I myself am aa prone to evil as the sparks to fly upward. Rheumatism about as yesterday. Applied skunk’s oil, but derived no benefit.’ “Thera. It’s Just Uke that, Alvlra, all through the diary. There te plenty of toe old gentleman’s reflections and accounts of hte ailments and what he took for ’em, but there’s nothing about the weather, and 1 have not ran across a single exeat yet “This book Isn't wutta a red cent to me, Alvlra,” he continued, bitterly. “Of course Beth wouldn't take M back. I believe I'll heave it lute the stove.” "Oh, no. Caleb, don't do tbitf” ■aid the good woman, her heart softened by her husband’s dejection. *T Meed Joel such a book. I’m always wautlng to. press leaves flowers, you know,, and pretty mush all of toe books In the house are full. That diary will be foot the thing. Tm proper glad you pot It Caleb."