Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1914 — Page 3

PART ONE

CHAPTER I. On the Labrador. Dictated by Mr. Jesse Smith. Don't you write anything down yet, 'cause I ain’t ready. If I wrote this yarn myself I'd make It good and red from tip to tip, clawa out, teeth bare, fur crawling with emotions. It wouldn’t be dull, no, or evidence. But then it's to please you, and that’s what I’m for. So I proceeds to stroke the fur smootii, lay the paws down soft, fold up wk smile, and purr. A sort of truthfulness steals over me. Goin’ to be dull, too. \ No, I dunno how to begin. • If this yarn was a rope, I’d coil it down before I began to pay out You lays the end, so, and flemish down, ring by ring until the bight’s coiled, smooth, ready to flake off as it funs. I delayed a lynching once to do just that and relieve the patient’s mind. It all went off so well!

When we kids were good, mother she used to own we came of pedigree stock; but when we’re bad, seems we took after father. You see mother's folk was the elect, sort of born saved. They allowed there’d be room in Heaven for one hundred and forty-four thousand Just persons, mostly from Nova Scotia, but when they fook to sorting the neighbors, they’d get exclusive.

Anyway, mother's folk as a tribe, is millionaires in grace and pretty well fixed in Nova Scotia. Then she’s found out, secretly married among the gcats. Her name’s scratched out of the family Bible, with a strong hint to the Lord to .scratch her entry from the Book of Life. She’s married a sailorman, before the mast, a Liveyere from the Labrador, a man without a dollar, suspected of being Episcopalian. In them days the Labrador ain’t laid out exactly to suit mother. She’s used to luxury—coal in the lean-to, tatles in the cellar, cows in the barn, barter store round the corner, mails, church, school, and a jail right handy, so she can enjoy the ungodly getting of their just deserts. But in our time the Labrador was just God’s country, all rocks, ice, and sea, to put the fear into proud hearts —no need of ‘eachera. It kills off the weaklings—no need of doctors. A school to raise men—no need of preachers. The law was "work or starve” —no place for lawyers. It’s police, and court, and hangman all complete, fire and hail, snow and vapors, wind and storm tub filling His word. Father’s home was an overturned schooner, turfed in, and he was surely proud of having a bigger place than

any other Liveyere on the coast There •was the hold overhead for stowing * 'winter fish, and room down-stairs for the family, the team of seven husky tfoge, and even a cord or two of firewood. We kids used to play at Newf’nlanders up in the hold, when the 'winter storms were tearing the tops off the hills, and the Eskimo devil blue shrieks outside. The husIkies makes wolf songs all about the

fewness of fish, and we’d hear mother |give father a piece of her mind. That’s ►about the first I remember, but all what mother thought about poor father took years and years to say. I used to be kind of sorry for father. *You see he worked the bones through

■his hide, furring all winter and Ashling aummers, and what he earned he’d

(get in truck from the company. All |us Llveyeres owed to the Hudson Bay, {but father worked hardest and he towed most, hundreds and hundreds 06 isklns. The company trusted him. IThere wasn’t a man on the coast Imore trusted than he was, with moth£~r to feed, and six kids, besides seven uskies, and father’s aunt, Thessailonlka, a widow with four children and a tumor, living down to Last (Hope beyond the Rocks. There was secrete about father, and Iff mother ever found out! You see. ■he looked like a white man, curly .yaller hair same as me, and he was fearful strong. But in his inside—don’t ever tell! —he was partly small boy same’s me, and the other half of him—don’t ever let on! —was mountaineer injun. I seen his three brothers, the finest fillers you ever—yes? Scotch half-breeds —and mother never knew.

Thar's me on father’s knee, with my nose in his buckskin shirt, and even to this day the wood smoke in camp brings back the wuss, whereas summers his boots smelt fishy. What happened first or afterwards is all 'mixed up, but there’s the smoke smell end sister Maggie lying in the bunk, all white and froze.

There's fish smell, and Polly who used to wallop me with a slipper, lying white and froze. And yet I knew she couldn’t get froze In summer. Then there's smoke smell, and big Tommy, bigger nor father, throwing hip blood.’ " I said he’d catch It from mother for messing the floor, but (father just hugged me, telling me to shut up. I axed him if Tommy was

A Man in The Open

going to get froze, too. Then father told me that Tommy was going away to where the milk came out of a cow. You Just shove the can opener into the cow so—and the milk pours out. whole candy palls of milk. And there's vegi tables, which is green things to eat. First time you swell up and pretty nigh bust, but you soon get used to greens. Tommy Is going to Civil! Zation. It’s months and months off. and when you get there, the people is so awful mean they'd let a stranger starve to death without so much as “Come in." The men wear pants right down to their heels, and as to the women—

Mother comes in and looks at father, so he forgets to say about the women at Clvili Zation. but other times he'd tell, oh, lots of stories. He .said it was worse for the likes of us than New Jerusalem.

I reckon Tommy died, and Joan, too, and mother would get gaunt and dry. rocking herself. “ ‘The Lord gave,’ ” she’d say, ‘“and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ ”

There was only Pete and me left, and father wagging his pipe acrost the stove at mother. “They’ll die, ma’am," I heard him say, and she just sniffed. "If I hadn’t taken ’em out doors they’d be dead now, ma’am." She called him an Injun. She called him —I dunno what she didn’t call him. I’d been asleep, and when I woke up she was cooking breakfast while she called him a lot more things she must have forgot to say. But he carried me tn his arms out through the little low door, and it was stabbing cold with a bla?e of northern lights. He tucked me.up warm on the komatik, he hitched up the huskies, and mushed, way up the tickle, and through the soft bush snow, and at sunup we made his winter tilt on Torngak Creek. We yut in the winter there, furring, and every |lme he came home from the round of traps, he’d sell me all the pelts. I was surely proud when he took me hunting fur and partridges. I was with him to the fishing, in the fall we’d hunt, all winter we’d trap till it was time for the sealing, and only two or three times in a year we’d be back to mother.

Then I’d see Pete, too, who’d got pink, with a spitting cough. He wanted to play with me, but I wouldn’t I just couldn’t I hated to be anywheres near him. “Didn’t I tell yez?” father would point at Pete coughing. “Didn't 1 warn yez?” But mother set her month in a thin line. ■ ... “Pete," said she, “is saved.” Next time we c6me mother was all alone. “ ‘The Lord gave,’ ’’ she says ” ’and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord,’ but it’s getting kind of monotonous." She hadn’t much to say then, she

There Was Father's Hand Sticking

didn't seem to care, but was just numb. He wrapped her up warm on the komatlk, with just a sack of clothes, her Bible, and the album of photos from Nova Scotia, yes, and the china dogs she carried in her arms. Father broke the trail ahead, I took the gee pole, and when day cams, we made the winter tilt There mother kep* house just as she would at heme, so clean we was almost scared to step Indoors.

It was along, in March or maybe April that father was away in coarse weather, making the round of his traps. He didn’t come back. There'd been a blizzard, a wolf-howling hurricane, blowing out a lane of bare ground round the back of the cabin, while the big drift piled higher and packed harder, until the comb of it grew out above our roof like a sea breaker, froze so you could walk on the overhang. And just between dark and duckish father’s husky team came back without him. 1 don’t 1 reckon I /was more’n ten or eleven years old, but you see. this is kind ot serious with us, and makes even kids act responsible. Go easy, and there’s famine, freezing, blackleg, all sorts of rear

by Roger Pocock

Of course I know I’d ought to have dug down through the snow, but 1 didn’t I ran for all I was worth. Then I got out of breath and come back shamed. It wasn’t for love of father. No. I hated to touch that hand, and when I did I was sick. Still that was better than being scared to touch. It’s not so bad when you dare. I dug, with a snow-shoe for a shovel. There was the buckskin shirt smelling good, and the long fringes I’d used to tickle his nose with —then I found his face. I just couldn’t bear that, but turned my back and dug until I came to the great, big, number-four trap he used for wolf and beaver. He must have stepped without seeing it under the snow, and it broke his leg. Then he’d tried to drag himself back home. It was when I stood up to get breath and cool off that I first seen the wolf, setting peaceful, waggin' his tall. First I thought he was one of our own huskies, but when he didn’t know his name I saw for sure he must be the wolf who lived up Two Mile Crick. He’d got poor inspecting father’s business instead of minding his own. That’s why he was called the Inspector. It was March? too, the moon of famine. Of course I threw my ax and missed. His hungry smile’s still thar behind a bush, and me wondering whether his business is with me or father. That’s why I stepped on the snow-shoes, and went right past where he was, not daring to get my ax. Yes, it was me he wanted to see—first, but of course I wasn’t going to encourage any animal into thinking he’d scared a man. Why, he’d scarce have let father even see his tracks for fear they’d be trapped or shot So I walked slow and proud, leadin’ him off from father —at least I played that, wishing all the time that mother's ill’ boy was to home. After a while I grabbed down a lopped stick where father’d blazed, not as fierce as an ax, but enough to make me more or less respected. The Inspector was bigger than me, stronger 'n any man, swifter 'n any horse. I tell yer the maned white wolf is wlser’n most people, and but for eating his cubs, he’s nature’s gentleman.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

sons* against laziness. It sort of educates. Mother was worse than silent. There was something about her that scared me more than anything outdoors. In the morning her eye kep’ following me as If to say, “Go find your father.” Surely it was up to me, and if I wasn’t big enough to drive the huskies or pack father’s* gun, I thought I could manage dfoot to tote his four-pound ax. She beckoned me to her and kissed me—just once in ten years, and I was quick through the door, out of reach, lest she should see me mighty near cryin’. It was all very well showing off brave before mother, but when I got outside, any excuse would have been enough for going back. I wished I’d left the matches behind, but I hadn’t. I wished the snow would be too soft, but it was hard as sand. I wished I wasn’t a coward, and the bush didn’t look so wolfy, and what if I met up with the Eskimo devil! Oh, I was surely the scaredest 111’ boy, and dead certain I’d get lost Then I went on because T was going, and there was father’s trail blazed on past Bake-apple Marsh. The way was as plain as streets, and the sun shining warm as he looked over into the valley.

Then I saw a man’s mitt, an old buckskin mitt sticking np out of the snow. Father had dropped his mitt, and without that his hand would be froze. When I found him, how glad he’d be to get it! But when I tried to pick it up, it was heavy. Then it came away, and there was father’s hand sticking up. It was dead.

The trouble was not him hunting, but me scared. Why, if he’d wanted me, one flash, one bite, and I’m breakfast. It was just curiosity made him so close behind like a stealthy ghost. When I’d turn to show fight, he’d seem to apologize, and then I’d go on whistling a hymn. Thar he was cached right ahead in the deadfall, for a front view, if I’d known. But I thrashed with my stick in r. panic, hitting his snout, so he yelped. Then he lost his temper. He’d a “sorry, but-buslness-is-business” expression on him. I ran at him, tripped on a stump, let out a yell, and he lep’ straight at my throat And in the middle of that came a gunshot, a bullet grazed my arm, and went on whining. Another shot and the Inspector ran. Then I was rubbing whar the bullet hurt sort of sulky, too, with a grievance, when I was suddenly grabbed and nigh smothered In mother's arms. She’d 'come with the team of huskies followin' me; she’d been gunning, too, and I sur« had a mighty close call. She’d no tears left for father, so when I got through Bobbin’ we went to the body, and loaded it in the komatik for home. Thar’s things I don’t like to tell you. ■ ’ . It waiifil a nice trip exactly, With the Inspector superintending around. When v« got back to the tilt, we

daresn’t take out the huskies, or unload, or even stop for grub. We had to drive straight on, mother and me, down the tickle, past our old empty home, then up the Bacalieu all night. The sun was just clear of the ice when we made the Post, and we saw a little ball jerk up the flag halyards, then break to a great red flag with the letters H. B. C. It means Here Before Christ

The air was full of a big noise, like the skirl of sea-gulls screaming tn a gale, and there was Mr. McTavish on the sidewalk, marching with his bagpipes to wake the folk out of their Sunday beds. Then he saw father’s body, with legs and arms stiffened al! ways, and the number-four trap still gripped on broken bones. Off came his fur cap. Mother stood, iron-bard, beside the komatik.

“Factor,” says she, “I’ve come to pay his debt.” “Nay, it’s the Sabbath, ma'am. Ye’ll pay no debts till Monday. Come in and have some tea —ye puir thing.” “You starved his soul to death, and now I’ve brought his body to square hie debts. Will you leave that here till Monday ?” Mr. McTavish looked at her, then whispered to me. "B’y,” said he, “we must make her cry or she’ll be raving mad. Greet, woman, greet By God, I’ll make ye greet!” He marched up and down the sidewalk, and through the skirl of gulls in a storm, swept a tune that made the meat shake on my bones. Once mother shrieked out trying to make him stop, but he went on pacing in front of her, to and fro, with his eyes on her all the time, peering straight through her, and all the grief of all the world in the skirl and wail, and that hopeless awful tune. She covered her face with her hands, trying to hold while the great sobs shook her, and she reeled like a tree in a gale, until she fell on her* knees, until she threw herself on the corpse, and cried, and cried.

CHAPTER 11. The Happy Ship. Cap’n Mose of, the Zedekiah W. Baggs *e was a Sunday Christian. All up along ’e’d wear a silk hat, the only one on the Labrador. Yes. Sundays 'e’d be ashore talkin’ predestination an’ grace out of a book *e kep’ in ’is berth, but never a word about rish or the state of the ice. Mother’d been raised to a belief in Christians, so when Mose dropped in at her shack, admirin’ how she cooked, she’d be pleased all up the back, and have him right in to dinner. He’d kiss me, talkin’ soft about little children. Yes. That’s how *e got me away to sea as boy on a sealin’ voyage, without paying me any wages.

ACCORDED A HIGH POSITION

Women of Servia, Well Educated and Able, Are Companions of Their Husbands and Brothers.

There is no country in the world where women occupy a more dignified position in the home than Servia The Servian idea is quite different from that of the Turk, who keeps his women behind" shut doors or the German, whose ideal woman is a hausfrau. In Servia the woman is the companion of the man.

A mhn is responsible for his unmarried sisters, and throughout the Balkan states it is considered rather a breach of etiquette for him th marry before his older sister. No Servian girl would feel she coula hold up her head in society unless she could speak four languages. There is hardly a Servian woman who cannot play some musical instrument. Embroidery, painting, drawing, and sculpture are all studied. Politics is a popular feature among women. Servian women are very domesticated and the highest ladies pay personal attention to trivial matterr of housekeeping. There are two women doctors practicing in Belgrade, and several women teachers. Bnt public opinion, on the whole, is rather against women entering the labor arena.

Want Protection for Lions.

The legislative council of British East Africa is expected to adopt a proposal at present before it for the protection of lions on crown lands. Up to the present game licenses which stipulate the iiusber and class of animals that may be* killed or captured have ignored lions, which have been regarded as vermin. Now, however, it Is proposed tq limit each holder of a big game shooting license to four lions. The other day a game ranger who la said to be familiar with all the conditions in British East Africa

„ Mother never knew what Cap*B Mose was like on week-days, and Sunday didn’t happen aboard of the Zedekiah. I remember hidin’ away at the back of Ole Oleson’s bunk,, axing God please to turn me into an animal. Any sort would do, because I seen men kind to animals. You know an animal mostly consists of a pure heart, and four legs, which ie a great advantage. Queer world though, if all our preyers was granted. Belay thar. A man sets out to tell adventures, and if his victims don’t find some excuse for getting absent, he owes them all the happiness he’s got It’s mean to hand out sorrow to persons bearing their full ehare already. So we proceeds to the night when I ran from the Zedekiah. and joined the Happy Ship. We lay in the big ice pack off Cape Breton. The Zedekiah was old. just paint an’ punk, and she did surely groan to the thrust of the pack. 1 was too scared to sleep, so I went up on deck. I’d alius watched for a chance to run away, and thar was Jim, the an-chor-watch, squatting on the titts dead asleep. He used to be. that way when nobody chased him. I eeen the lights of the three-masted schooner a couple of miles to windward. I grabbed a sealing gaff and slid down on the ice.

First, as the pans rocked under me,. I was scary, next I warmed, gettln’ venturesome, until I came near sliding into the wet, and after that I’d look before I lep*. You know how the grinding piles an edge around each pan, of broken splinters? That edge shone white agin the black of the water, all the guide, I had. But times the squalls of wind ’ was likes scythes edged with sleet, so I was blinded, waiting, freezing until a lull came, and I’d get on. It was broad day, and I reckon each step weighed a ton before I made that schooner.

A gray man, fat, with a chin whisker, lifted me In overside. “Come far?” says he, and I turned round to show him the Zedeklah. She wasn’t there. She was gone—foundered.

So that’s how I came aboard of the Happy Ship, just like a 111* lost dog, with, no room in my skin for more’n bones and famine. Captain Smith used to say he’d signed me on as family ghost; but he paid me honest wages, fed me honest grub, while as to clothes and bed, I was snug as a little rabbit He taught me reading and writing, and punctuation with his belt, sums, hand, reef, and steer, catechism, knots and splices, sewing, squegee, rule of the road, soojie moojie, psalms of David, constitution of the United States, and playing the trombone, with three pills and a good licking regular Saturday nights. Mother’s .little boy began to set up and take notice.

The five years in the Pawtucket all along, from Montreal to Colon, from banjos plunking in them portales of Vera Cruz, to bugles crying revally in Quebec, and the oyster boats asleep by Old Point Comfort, and the Gloucester fleet arstormlng home past Sable, and dagos basking on Havana quays. Suck oranges in the dinghy under the moonlight, waiting to help the old man aboard when he’s drunk. If ever he went ashore without me. I’d be like a lost dog, and he drunk before the sun was over the yard-arm. But away together it wasn’t master and boy, but just father and eon. He’d even named me after himself, and that’s why my name’s Smith. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

expressed the opinion that the proposal would do very little, if carried into effect, to prevent the extermination of lions in certain parts of the protectorate. "They are being exterminated.” he said, “by the advance of civilization. Exterminated may not be the right word, for they are really being driven away. In my opinion, however.-, there will be no actual disappearance of the lion for a very long time to come, although, even when he is on the game license, there will be complete freedom to hunt and shoot on private land."

Unconventionalities.

“It was printed in your paper, was it, mister? That’s the reason I didn’t see it” , % "You don’t seem to notice, Gerald, that it’s nearly midnight and I’m yawning to beat the band!” “There’s no need of your apologising for these sliced tomatoes, Mrs. Nayber; I saw they were spoiled, and 1 haven't touched ’em.” “Yes, I notice, Mrs. Sykes, that your boy Bill takes my Mary Jane to the moving picture shows quite often What she sees in him 1- can’t imagine." “Oh, well, Mrs. Glizzard, my Bill goes to see your Mary Jane because nobody else does; he kina •* pities her." —Chicago Tribune.

Interesting Memory Test.

Ask anyone to draw a representation of a watch face with Roman numbers and you will have plenty of evidence of the unreliability of incidental memory. Of two hundred persons examined by Myers only eight omitted the VI from their drawing of the watch face, and only twenty-one put 1111 instead of the more familiar notation, IV. From this it would appear that impeachment of a witness because of his inability to report some incidental feature of an event or scene Is not psychologically justified—Case and Comment

the ONLOOKER

by HENRY HOWLAND

ALWAYS READY CHEATED

Where there’s no chance of getting it back; It Is useless to warn or advise them. For the wise man by whom they ara checked Is hated as one who denies them The triumphs they vainly expect.

They’ll regard you with cunning suspicion If your plan is a feasible one; If you offer a fair proposition They will cling to their purses-and rum But if you’d get rich in a hurry Propose some ridiculous scheme; The crowd will be eager—don’t worry— No matter how “punk” it may seem.

CANDID OPINION.

There are many people who are M constituted physically that they could not use food for thought if they were supplied with it » It is always hard for an invalid te stick to his diet when he is dining al the expense of somebody else. Every woman who has a son hopes he will remain a bachelor, so little faith has she in the rant of the members of her sex. To some women life is nothing but going from one style to another. Some women fade quickly, being al their best no longer than a warship. The man who would not trust any body else gives himself a poor recons mendation.

Provoking.

"Confound it!” exclaimed the insur gent general. It was evident that he was provoked “What’s the matter, old man?” asked one of the war correspondents. “We’ll have to fight yesterday's bat tie all over again, and, just as likelj as not we will get licked next time The moving picture people say theli films were* ruined by being accident ally dropped in the mud.”

Trials of Life In a Small Town.

“I suppose you find it a little dlffi cult to become accustomed to life is a small town, after having lived m long in a large-city.” “Oh/ dear, yes, it is very hard. 1 fear I never shall be able to feel al home here. When my little boy caught the whoopipg cough every woman liv> Ing in our block knew about it and rornmmpndo/l anmathino’ 99

Where He Had to Stop.

“She’s a beautiful little girl, old man, and you have a right to be very proud of her; but why in the world did you call her Susan?" “Because my mother’s name is Jane That’s as far as my wife would permit me to go.”

NOT WHOLLY PRAISEWORTHY.

Patience.

“Pa, was Job the most patient man in the world?” “No. We haven’t any evidence that he evqr ; trained a dog to walk up a ladder oh his hind feet or that he ever succeeded in balancing a feather on his nose.”

Going Too Far.

“She’s isn’t pretty, but Perdy went entirely too far.” , “Wouldn’t kiss her under the mistletoe, eh?” . “Worse than that Swiped their mistletoe and took it next door, where there is a prettier girl.”

Friendly Candor.

"Is he a friend of yours?” “Well, he seems to think he is. He never meets me without feeling that it is his duty to tell me something that will leave me unhappy for the rest of the day.”

Certainly Trying.

“Don’t you sometimes find it awfully trying to have a poet in the family?" “Yes. He simply ruins the curtains with the smoke from his strong pipe.”

If you wish to get rich in a hurry Invent some ridiculous scheme For hoodwinking people don’t worry. No matter how poor it may seem; Promise something for nothing; the plainer It is that your plan Is a fake The surer that you’ll be the gainer. The surer the thing is to take. It would be moot deliciously funny. If it weren't so tragic, alack! To watch people handing in money

“My husband never drinks, nor swears, nor uses tobacco in any form.” “But I saw him picking his teeth in a street car the other day."