Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 200, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1913 — Page 3

WAS A QUIET MAN

But He Babbled in His Dreams About the Plot for a Story. By MICHAEL J. PORTER. , J. Harrington Beach had an Income irom an estate. It wasn’t a terrible Income, but it did very well for a man of quiet tastes. it, Harrington had reached the age ■of twenty-three when he fell In love. He was ready to marry and would have married the girl of his choice had she not run away with an animal trainer. When the news reached the young man that his true love had gone to be trained he jumped into the river, but was rescued by a man with a large and growing family, who charged one dollar for working over time. These things happened in a village, and the friends of J. Harrington got together in convention and resolved that he ought to depart from pastoral acenes to the mad bustle of the city. His heart had been wrenched and his brain given a jar, and if permitted to brood over it he would surely fetch up In a lunatic asylum. In the city J. Harrington would meet up with free lunch palaces, confidence men, grafters, chorus girls and investigating committees, and would soon regain his confidence in human nature and fall in love again. It was suggested to him that while he was waiting to regain he take up the writing of stories for magazines. It would be a little sideline that would comfort him and add to his shekels. Amanda Penrose Phillips had an income from an estate. It provided her with food and raiment and three nights a week at the moving picture shows. She had got along in years to somewhere between twenty-two and forty-five when a gentleman who owned a mineral spring warranted to cure rheumatism if taken according to directions (barrel per day) asked her hand in marriage. After an interval of three or four seconds she gave it to him. Everything was lovely and the wedding day was approaching with the speed of the state senate whitewashing a grafter when a dreadful thing happened. A man who had come to the spring to be cured of rheumatism, was not helped of that trouble in the least, but what did the capricious water do but cure him of a backache that he had been drawing a government pension on for 24 years. He at once instituted a suit for $50,900, and the owner of the spring fled the country and left the waters bubbling behind him. leaving the country included leaving Amanda Penrose Phillips. She had attended every bargain sale for two months to get her bridal outfit together, and had written as far west as Kansas, that she was going to be married and have mineral water on the table three times a day. The blow fell as suddenly as a hired girl missing the top step of the cellar stairs. At the very moment that the news was broken the poor girl was buying her third pair of 48-cent stockings, reduced from 96 cents to make room for the fall stock of potatoes. It was awful. It came so near killing Amanda Penrose on the spot that the village undertaker bought a new hat on the chance that his luck had turned. For eighteen hours Amanda remained In. a comatose condition. Then she rallied and took chicken soup, and in a few days could walk down to the post office again. Her friends said she must go to the city to get over what was gnawing at her heart-strings. She would see sky--scrapers and trolley cars and Brooklyn bridges and Coney islands, and In time she would smile and cavort ggaln. Meanwhile, as she had once had a ' poem published in a weekly paper,, she should turn to writing stories for' the magazines. It was something warranted to turn the troubled mind into a new channel. Behold the rooming house of Mrs. Aiken. Behold J. Harrington Beach an inmate. Behold Amanda Penrose Phillips another. Behold them seated at their respective tables engaged at their literary labors. The two had been introduced, but they had not cared for more. Their bleeding hearts still bled, and they were selfish in their grief and loneliness. It was J. Harrington who first got a page of his story completed and read it to the chambermaid for her criticism. She said it was a hummer thus far, and if he could keep up the interest of It it would jump from a hummer to a thriller. It was to be the story of a millionaire’s daughter who fell in love with her table waiter at a summer hotel. He was a count in disguise, and she alone had penetrated the disguise. She' loved him for the way he carved the lobster and mixed the salad. Of course her father caught on to the racket after a bit and ordered her home, but while waiting for the hotel bus to take her to the depot the waiter sneaked up and 'suggested suicide, and hand in hand they sprang over a cliff into the briny. C; It was a story that J. Harrington Beach had read in an old magazine, and he was simply changing names and the color of hair and eyes. The next day Amanda Penrose Phillips had the first page of her story done, and she read it to the chambermaid and* asked her opinion. She got tit. •, | "Why, that’s the very same story i |Mr. Beach is writing!’* was the com.ment. - "It can’t bo!” "But it is, except that where he jcalls the girl Dora, you call her Daisy." , Amanda had read the same story in

the same old magazine, and she thought a change of names was quite sufficient “Mr. Beach is a literary thief!” she exclaimed with set jaw, “and he shall know that I know it The scoundrel who steals other people’s brains shall be exposed!*’ And she wrote and sent by the maid: “If' the bearer has told me right you are stealing the plot of my story, and unless you drop It at once the public shall be made aware of what sort of a ‘genius’ you are!” - • The note was delivered, and the chambermaid added: “Is this what is called a curious coincidence?” “Not at all,” was the reply. "The woman must have heard me talking in my sleep. I often go over my plots in my sleep, and anyone with an ear to the ? keyhole can hear me. Take this dime, Mid you may carry my answer to the person whom is mean enough to take advantage of a man babbling in his dreams. If she can’t originate a plot for herself she had better stop trying to be literary.” The note was delivered and the girl added: “If you had the lovers jump Into a duck-pond Mr. Beach could not say you stole his plot could her* "A duck-pond!” was contemptuously exclaimed. “Do you think I would make use of such a common thing as that in writing" a romance! Beach or no Beach, it shall never be a duckpond with x me. It shall be a cliff a hundred feet high. Let the literary thief use a duck-pond if he will. I must ask you to carry another note for me.” * “But I have five rooms yet to do up.” “But I have been grelvously insulted, and as one of my sex you must stand by me.” And she wrote and. dispatched: “You cannot have one single attribute of the gentleman in your composition. In addition to stealing my plot, even to the color of the hotel bus, you say that you babble in your dreams, and that I must have caught some of the babble. That, sir, places me on my knees In the hall at midnight with my ear at the keyhole of your door! I retuse to be so placed. I demand the most ample apology. Further, I demand that you either surrender my plot to me or change it over so as to have the lovers blow themselves up with a bomb. Not hearing from you in a reasonable -time, I may resort to the protection the law grants to the most helpless.” J. Harrington Beach did not reply to this note. The chambermaid was otherwise busy, and he felt like walking and thinking matters over. Amanda Penrose Phillips waited for an hour with glaring eyes, and then also concluded to -take a walk. It is always well to take a walk before consulting a lawyer. Mr. Beach strolled up the avenue. Miss Phillips strolled after him. Mr. Beach halted to look at a billboard on which were depicted many Chorus girls, and Miss Phillips was about to overtake him, but not even to glance at a single chorus' girl when a grocer’s runaway horse took to the sidewalk to bring down the high cost of living. He was sweeping all before him, and was getting ready to sweep Amanda Penrose Phillips when J. Harrington Beach gave a spring and caught her and twitched her into the middle of the street. The hat was twitched from the woman’s head, and one shoe from a foot, but she had the sense to realise that it was better thus than to be a mangled corpse. Mr. Beach led her home very gently. Not a word about babbling and the stolen plot. Nothing said about a suit for slander, with damages laid at fifty thousand dollars, good and lawful money. As he left her at the door he pressed her hand. She returned the press. “You did not steal my plot!” she softly said next day. “Nor you mine!” A month later, as they were married in the parlor, the chambermaid said to herself: “Gee, but I knew that story would turn out to be a hummer!’’ (Copyright, 1913. by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)

Yankee.

Theories are numerous as to the origin of the word "Yankee,” but the encyclopedias practically agree regarding Its use. Its correct application lain a slang sense to citizens of New England, but it has been applied by Europeans to any citizen of the United States. In the war of independence British soldiers applied the name to their opponents and in the Civil war Confederate soldiers generally spoke of the northern men as Yankees. In a "History of the American War,” by Dr. William Gordon, published in 1879, Yankee was said to have been a cant word at Cambridge as early as 1713, where it waq used to express excellency. He quotes such Expressions as “a yankee good horse,” “yankee good elder,” etc. Webster’s New International Dictionary gives a theory that the word is a corrupt pronunciation of the word English, or of the French word Anglais, by the native'lndians of America. It also gives Thlbrry as authority fgr the theory that yankee Is a corruption of Jankln, a diminutive of John and a nickname given to English colonists of Connecticut by ths Dutch settlers of New York.

How They Became Warm.

He—You’re a good .little wife. She —Why so? , "Because you had my slippers so nice and warm when I got home to night’*“Ob. you need not give me credit tor that” "And why not?’’ "Because I've been using thorn on the children all day."

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

HUMBLE “BIDDY” BEST

IN THE END, MORE PROFITABLE . * THAN THE OSTRICH. Figures Would Seem to Show That Bird of Prized Plumage Is Prime Investment, but There Are Drawbacks. No, she is not one of the SIO,OOO biddies we sometimes read about, especially when it comes to laying eggs. She is any one of the several thousand ostrich hens that may now be found in some of our western states. You can figure it out for yourself. An ortrich hen, a “good” one, will lay about 100 eggs a year, and each egg contains as much food-material as 30 ordinary hen’s eggs. That gives the ostrich credit for furnishing egg-food amounting to 3,000 hen’s eggs per year. , , But let’s not all go into the ostrich business. There are several drawbacks. One of them is that it costs twenty dollars a year to keep an ostrich, or thereabouts, and they do not begin to lay until they are four years old. Then there is the first cost —no little item, as six-months-old chicks are worth SIOO each, while birds old enough to begin laying cost SBOO a pair. Rather, they are held to be worth that, as the ostricti breeders will seldom sell a bird at any price. There is also the inconvenience of handling. The kick of an ostrich will discount any exercise of a mule’s hind legs about 100 per cent, and they are said to be far from sweet-tempered, especially during the plucking season. Being eight feet tall, an ostrich that got really out of patience at a person would be rather more difficult to handle than a “mad” sitting hen, and most of us find the latter lady all we want to tackle. On the whole, perhaps we would be wiser to stick to the barnyard biddy for ordinary purposes, though the beauty of the aristocratic Mr. Ostrich should prove a great temptation to desert our first love. Then, too, the Lady of the Plumes is, if the truth were told, rather lazy. She does not even lay her eggs in the nest her mate has carefully prepared for her half the time. She leaves them scattered about just as it happens, and her patient consort has to roll them into the nest himself. Then, too, he gets most of the sitting to do, as his proud wife refuses to do nest duty except for a little while in the daytime. Often incubators are used for hatching the ostrich chicks, and then there need be no family quarrels on the subject. The incubators used must be peculiar in construction, as one of the eggs is five Inches long. Machines holding about fifty eggs are generally employed.

Hens as Barometers.

A poultry raiser in Bohemia has produced curious results by altering and Alternating the food given to his flocks. It is known to many who have raised canaries for the market that Cayenne pepper put into their food results in a notable difference in the character and shade of their plumage, giving the feathers a smoothness and reddish tinge which adds very much to the sum for which the birds may ordinarily be sold. If the same ingredient be added to the diet, especially of white hens which have been hatched from carefully selected eggs, their feathers become pale rose, and they flush to a brilliant red when the weather is damp and a storm is approaching. These hens thus become veritable barometers, and the progression of color from pale to brilliant is so exact that a scarlet hen stalking about the barnyard is regarded as certain prophecy of a storm which may be as much as twelve he 'rs distant —- Harper’s Weekly.

In Time of Pt

The new "beast,” ler-class man, at West Point had jCver heard i heavy siege gun fired. The first•lass man was solicitous. “You -.have never been close when me of these guns was fired, eh?” he Inquired. "No.” “No, sir,” coihmented the first-class nan. - • - i “Yes, sir. No, sir,” replied the ’beast” “Um-m. It’s liable to bust your earlrums for life. See here, don’t tell Jim I told you, but go to the commandant and ask him for—.’’ The up-per-class man was so solicitous that ae whispered the rest of his communication. A few minutes later the few cadet presented himself before the .commandant. 1 “Please, sir,” he said, “I want some pin-cotton for my ears.”—New York Evening Post,

Ties Herself to a Man.

The motion-picture theater was well Oiled the other afternoon when a stout woman entered and wedged herself in next to a slender man. For a time both appeared extremely interested in the pictures. Then the woman noticed that one of her shoe-laces was undone. Afteri something of a struggle she bent over and finally succeeded in bringing both the laces together. A few minutes later the man arose as though to start for the door. Down he went in the aisle and the woman gave vent to an exclamation. The audience turned from the flickering the real catastrophe. She had knotted her shoelace with his. It was several minutes before the pair untangled and untied. —Florala (Ala.) NeWa.

HE WAS HUNGRY, POOR BOY

Now, Mothe**s, Do You ' Think J-te Deserved Being Called Cousin to an Anaconda? “Now see here, Percy,” said Mrs. Packer to her son of a dozen summers, ‘“when I went out this afternoon I left seven large doughnuts in the pantry, and now there are only three. What do you know about that?” “Well, a fellow is always hungry when he comes home from school, and ‘T also left half of a good-sized chocolate cake and a dozen cookies in the cake box. Now there are only six cookies and about a third of the cake left. Do you know anything about that?" v “Well, a fellow wants something to eat when he has been pegging away in school all afternoon, doesn't he?” “I also left eight cranberry tarts and a large mince pie in the pantry. Now there are five of the tarts and a good quarter of the pie is gone. Have you anything to say about that?” “Well, I was hungry when I got home from school, and I ’’ "I had Jane make a nice dessert of lady-fingers and whipped cream for dinner tonight, and about a fourth- of it is gone, together with a lot of the white meat of a chicken I had saved for a salad. Of course, you don’t know anything about that?” “There’s plenty of the stuff left for dessert, and there wasn't hardly any of the chicken anyhow.” "But there was a lot of honey left when I went away this afternoon, and it isn’t here now, and half of the coffee cake I was saving for breakfast is gone, and someone has opened that jar of orange marmalade I was saving for company. Have you anything to say about that?” "Well, I tell you I was hungry, and I wanted a little something to eat, and so I—” “And so you opened that glass of extra choice currant jam and ate up nearly a whole package of those little afternoon teas, and drank half a pint of cream, and most of the pound of raisins and all the nuts I left here at noon are gone. Hungry? My soul and body! Percy Packer, are you first cousin to an anaconda? Hungry? I should say so! I honestly believe that you are hollow cleat into the ground!”—Puck.

Boy Scouts Like Knights of Old.

When good King Arthur ruled, boys were trained for knighthood, 1 says a writer in the Christian Herald. This began when they were seven or eight years of age. Their first course was when they gave seven or eight years of constant attendance and waiting upon a master and mistress. They were taught religion and morals and love by the chaplain. They were taught to walk as soldiers, and to ride as brave hunters. They were accustomed to military exercises and athletic sports. They voluntarily suffered heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue and sleeplessness in order that they might become hardened. When between fifteen and sixteen years of age the “pages” became “squires,” and in the ordinary course of chivalrous education "knighthood” was reached in early There is much in the Boy Scout movement of today that reminds us of the training for knighthood. The solemn promise made by a Boy Scout at his initiation is "I will be a friend to every living creature, man or beast, and a brother to every other scout, fortunate or unfortunate, rich or poor. I will be courteous to aIL”

Helps Telephone Talk.

What is hailed as a great improvement in telephony is an improved transmitter which has been recently devised by a French physician and which was recently described by Prof, before the French Academy of Sciences. The inventor is Dr. Jules Glover, and is based on his observation that many of the sounds escaping from the larynx are divided in the throat and a large portion of them are emitted through the nose. With the type of receiver now made use of these are lost, but he has designed a receiver with two diaphragms, one much more sensitive than the other, and the nasal sounds are transmitted through this auxiliary diaphragm. This improvement is said to completely remove some of the difficulties to conversation which have hitherto existed, and makes it possible to carry on conversation over longer distances than heretofore.

Secret of Perpetual Youth.

( "Fall in love and keep constantly falling in love if you wish to remain young,” said Dr. Josiah Oldfield, in the course of one of his lectures on the “Secret of Perpetual Youth.” “There is nothing more important than this to prevent men and women from growing old. If you are married, all you have to ■do is to fall in love all over again with your husband or your wife. If you do this you will never find time to adopt the nagging habit, and nothing ages like matrimonial nagglqg.” Dr. Oldfield is strong in his denunciation of the loveless individual. "If you do not know how to fall tn love,” he says, "you must practice until you learn, and when you have learned, then you are young again. "A person who has never been In love and never wants to be ought to be drowned,” Ik the conviction of Dr. Oldfield.

Added to the Language.

“Mamma,” said little Edna one day. "I’m getting tired of this pug nose. It’s getting pugger and pugger every day."

SOME REMARKS.

Some gossip is too good to be true-. A short pocket maketh a short ten> per. Even the fellow who knows it all can learn a little by experience. A man is not necessarily a philanderer who spends his time seeking rare jades. —————— The trouble with platonic love Is that there is more play about it than tonic. Wise Is the woman who. gets through changing her mind before she marries. Advice to aspiring authors—There Is always room at the top—of the waste basket. She —“Woman, you know. Is the weaker vessel." He—“l don’t know about that She can generally break • man.” The man who thinks he knows It all ought to stack up against a small boy just old enough to begin to ask questions. Optimism may be divided into two classes: That which comes from the stomach and that which comes from the brain. Slllicus—- “It is sometimes difficult to tell whether a man is a knave or a fool.” Cynicus—"Well, he’s neither until he is found out” An old proverb tells us that a good surgeon must have an eagle’s eye, a lion’s heart and a lady’s hand. Still, if he lacks these he can generally make both ends meet on a millionaire’s leg and his own bill.

POINTED PARAGRAPHS

Too often the soul kiss breeds the germs of alimony. The political band wagon has need of an emergency brake. A young man courts danger when the girl’s father objects. True love never dies, but it frequently gets stranded a long way from home. A man seldom discovers the dangerous microbe in kisses until about a year after marriage. People who think they are good looking have a warm place in the hearts of photographers. There is always plenty-of room at the top because many who get there become dizzy and fall off. If a woman keepp her face closed when she has nothing to say it’s a safe bet she has reached the age of discretion. It’s the easiest thing In the world for a man’s wife to convince him that he ought not to work so hard during hot weather. —Chicago News.

JUST THOUGHTS

No woman is so angelic as to prefer a halo to a hat. Men may be made of clay, but lots of them are only half baked. The play that is tried on the dog isn’t always a howling success. Some people think they are false to their ideals if their worst suspicions don’t come true. The fellow who begins to explain his mistakes won’t have much time left to make any more. The judge's charge doesn’t always affect a man so much as the charge his lawyer is going to make. It seems as though a man will surmount all obstacles when he once makes up his mind to make a fool of himself. ■ Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched. Many a fellow has married an heiress with a bad cough, only to have her outlive him.'

CURIOUS CONDENSATIONS

Argentina is devoting 3.000,000 acres to the production of oats this year. One American telephone company has 14,610,000 miles of wire in use. In the polar regions there is one Inhabitant to every ten square miles. Greece has practically a x world monopoly in the cultivation of currants. Two-thirds of the adult males in New Jersey earn less than 1600 a year. India’s cotton crop is estimated at 4,897.000 bales of 400 pounds, the yield of 21,911,000 acres. * • Recent corrections in maps of Greenland have added about 150,000 square miles to its area Mandayam Ypralivadibhayankaram Tlrusnab Acbarya applied for naturalisation papers in New York. Paul Hixon, a St Lqpls railroad clerk, forgot an appointment at which he was to claim a legacy of >62,500.

GINGER SNAPS

After fl,ooo years doctors don’t know exactly how we breathe. v Love still has something of the* sea from whence his mother rose. Rome was not built in a day, but the vandals kicked it over in about an hour. There are people in every town who would greatly improve the place by leaving it. No woman should marry a man with bad habits unless he will promise to reform. A young man has a fine opportunity to display good judgment when he selects a father-in-law. 81 Spoodles Is some singer, but he reads music by ear and sometimes it sounds u if he had the earache. The love that survives the little commonplace frictions of everyday life together is the genuine article. The accumulation of wealth is a simple process. Get all the money you can and hold onto all the money you get Looks as If some women had swapped their thinking caps for dustin* caps, the way they wear them every place they go.—Chicago Record-Her-ald.

BY THE WAYSIDE

Love is fire taken from the altar of heaven. Memories are pearls from the necklace of the past. _ When sin becomes a trade It becomes a pleasure. If you feel you are going to be beaten before you start a thing, don’t start it. It is far easier for a man to please a woman than it is for a woman to please a man. Troubles aren’t anything to talk about. Every one has a choice collection of his own. Things were no more beautiful yes- / terday than today. The only difference is that men found them more beautiful. Every time I see grand opera I always wonder what gink first sang a proposal to his best girl. It’s hard enough to propose with just plain words, without orchestra attachment

FLASH LIGHTS

A success is usually just a man who wasn’t afraid to fait Nine times out of ten when a man scoffs at his wife’s opinions, she’s right. A good neighbor U a man who minds his own business and doesn’t object when you interfere with his. A summer cottage is a place where a woman works twice as hard as she does at home with half the conveniences. When a girl boasts of her popularity she means that two young men have tried to make an engagement with her for the same evening.

EVERYDAY PHILOSOPHY.

A profit is not without honor in this country. ■ . The man with last year’s automobile is more likely to feel out of date than the man with last year’s horse and buggy. ■Among the greatest fools on earth are the miser wbo saves all of his mpney, aad the spendthrift who doesn’t save any. Some men who drop nickels into the contribution box at church carry away more religion than some others who drop dollars.—William J. Burtscher in Lippincott’s Magazine.

IMPOSSIBLE PARAGRAPHS

The family is at home doing all the work in order to give father a week’s rest at the seaside. The firm begs your acceptance of an automobile, realizing that your salary makes carfare an additional burden. The boss desires me to say that you may take six months* vacation in Europe, on full pay, and in the interval your salary will be raised.

PEN POINTS

Trust has ruined more men than mistrust • No man hesitates to tell his wife ha is losing money. If you think there are no girls who ring true, try the telephone. The world may owe us a good living but we are lucky if we get a dime on * dollar.