Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1915 — Page 3

MARK AND HIS WIFE

By GEORGE A. ENGLAND.

(Copyright.) “Look here, Malcolm, you’ve got to tell me! She’s my wife, and —” "Hush! Not so loud!” “She can hear, then?” “Yes, she’s conscious —how much longer she will be I can’t say.” “Sinking, Malcolm?” "Now, now, no questions! ■ You’d better go out in the hall.” “Never!” Mark’s reddened eyes glinted defiance. “No, no, I’m not going to leave her while she’s gasping like that!” His voice shrilled hyaterically. “But you’re only harming her by staying!” “No, no, she’s my—” Malcolm slid a broad palm over the protesting mouth; his other hand gripped Mark’s elbow. “Out you go!” he commanded, trying to thrust Mark into the hall, but Mark clung and the doctor could not shake him off. He had perforce to drag him out. When they were both in the ha-H and the door was shut; “Hang you!” said the doctor in a voice tense as steel, “you get out and stay out! Don’t be a crazy fool!’ “Mally, Mally! She’s my wife and you’re my -friend —my best, oldest —” “All the more reason why I’m going to keep you out of there till she —rallies! Till then, I’m not your friend— I’m the doctor, nothing else, nothing. Remember!’ The hand-grip was gone from Mark’s angular elbow; the hall door was shut, the man was alone. He leaned against the wall for a minute, shivering as he heard the windows rattle with the January gale; then he shuffled to the stairs and sat down. His air was that of a man who has been painstakingly mangled on the rack and thep given five minutes’ respite. The gas flame over his head cast a high light'on his salient cheek bonps. After a while he nodded and dozed, with pendent arms. Malcolm’s hand on hiß shoulder wakened him in half an hour; he started up wild-eyed and shivering. “What—what time is it?” he stammered in confusion. "Is Dorry—4s she—" “Come, now, pull yourself together," said the doctor, sternly. "I've got some work for you. Get your things on quick! You’ve got to go down to the dispensary.” "What! And leave—” “Yes. I can’t go, Miss Abbott here can’t go, and somebody’s got to go, so you see how it is. We’ve got to have a tank of oxygen, right off!”

“What?” “Oxygen. It comes in big steel cylinders like soda water tanks, painted blue, with a valve at the top —you’ve seen ’em. The quicker you can get one up here, the better it will be.” “What—what are they for, those tanks?” “Well, when there isn’t anything else to do, we give oxygen to aerate the blood and stimulate the heart; sometimes it keeps the patient up until the congestion begins to resolve and then —” “Her lungs, you mean, are —” he began; but Malcolm interrupted. “Now, you see here, Mark, if you want your wife to die, stand right there where you are and discuss things. If you want her to live, hustle Into your overcoat and get a wheelbarrow and bring up a cylinder of oxygen from the dispensary just as quick as the Lord will let you! Understand?” "Yes, yes—but can’t you telephone? Can’t I? We can save no end of time that way.” “Tried it, and can’t. Central says the wires are going down all over Hampton. This storm’s a recordbreaker. No, you’ve got to go for it yourself. Hustle out with a wheelbarrow and follow the car tracks. The snow plows have probably kept ’em clear. There’s a fellow named Timothy Foley for night orderly down there this week. He knows me. Just say I sent you, and he’ll let you have it all right Now get along! If you’re not back in half an hour—” “All right! All right!” said Mark, end tiptoed shakily downstairs. Tim Foley, reading an old magazine ;in the dispensary office, under the yelflow circle of a hooded electric light became vaguely conscious of a curious sound as of some one struggling and ’floundering up the steps with a burden; then, after a minute or two, he beard a fumbling at the door., Tim dropped the magazine and listened; then he got up, went silently to the door and ppened it Through the snow eddy that swirled in he saw something that looked like a man standing outside—a snow-man, thin and tall, with teeth that chattered like castanets. This man had neither hat nor gloves; he was gripping the handles of a wheelbarrow. He stammered with bloodless lips: “Oxygen! I’ll take it home on this.” He tried to drag the wheelbarrow Into the vestibule, hut Foley restrained hln» “Hould on, man —hould on! Youse can’t bring dat in here 1 ." "Eh?” "I say youse can’t bring dat wheelbarrer Into de hall, see?” Hie man stared, but said nothing. “Say, what d’youse want, anyway f* “Malcolm sent me.”

Drop dat autermobile of yours, an* come in am’ tell me all about it! I can’t keep dis here door open all night —dey’s sick folk in here, see?” "That’s so, that’s so!” Mark let the barrow handles fall and came into the corridor blinking. “No, w’at is it youse want? Who sent you?” ‘Malcolm —that is, Dr. Miller.” "Yes?” r “And he said for me to get oxygen in a tank, right away.” “Say, are you Mr. Andrews?” “Andrews? Yes, that's my name. My wife’s sick —pneumonia —” “Oh, yes, now I know. Say, sit down a minute. I’ll get it!” He padded away on his rubber soles. “Plum dotty!” he said to himself as ho l unlocked the storeroom and switched the light. Mark, left alone, stared unblinking'ly at the incandescent, clenching and unclenching hi* l bony hands. Once he swallowed hard and tried to wet his lips with his dry tongue. After a certain time he heard a metallic rolling noise, and saw in a dream the orderly propelling a long blue cylinder down the hall. "Here you are!” said Foley, “an* here’s de tube an’ inspirator. TO put ’em right here in your pocket, see? Now you wait one minute, an’ I'll fix youse a good dose of whisky an’ git a hat an’ some gloves. I guess one pneumonia case at a time’s enough for anny fam’ly!” “No, no! I don’t want it, I won’t have it! .Let me —” - “Shut up! If youse goes hollerin’ like dat you'll wake up all me par tients! You keep still, see?” Mark, cowed, leaned against the wall and waited. In two minutes.he was hatted, gloved, and ready for the home trip, with a gill of whisky burning his stomach. “Lend a hand now,” commanded Foley, “an’ we'll load it on de wheel-bar-rer. That’s right. Easy down de steps now! Td send somebody wld youse, if dere was annybody here, but dere ain’t Now, den, TO hold de door open till you reach de tracks. All right? Got it? Good luck to youse!” v • • • • • • It was a nightmare, that freezing dark wallow back through the blizzard. Shrieking wind-devils buffeted Mark and snatched the breath from his lips; snow-devils clogged the barrow wheel; cold-devils shot him through and through with long stinging arrows. His clothes, stiffened and frozen, made every movement doubly painful. Twice he was blocked and had to kick the snow away with numb feet. 'Once a snow plow Jolted past, glaring and sputtering; it forced him to drag his load off to one side and almost burled hixp in a smother of snow. The man’s reason and thought staggered down and out; he became nothing more than an automaton, lunging onward, sobbing, thrusting the barrow on and on through the tumult Sight and sound faded; cold faded; darkness and wind and everything faded from his consciousness—every-

thing but the lash of his idea. Time* too, was blotted out; the universe was just a whirl, a whirl, a whirl. Suddenly a light broke through the whirl and stopped it; then the man saw some steps and felt a thrill of recognition—the steps were his! Some* one was coming down those steps —a voice was calling (it seemed miles and miles away): “Hurry! Hurry!” Oh, it was Malcolm, dear old Maßy, and—the cylinder was lifted; it wan carried up the steps. Mark followed. Then his own self surged back again, with sickening pains of memory, and Mark stood shivering, gasping in Ms own house. See! Malcolm was carrying the cylinder upstairs on his shoulder Mark followed again; shuffling up the stairs. At t*e sickroom door the nurse repulsed him. “No, no! You can’t come in here!” she whispered, laying her hand on his thin chest “No, no! You’re all wet and cold. Keep out!” “Quick!” he heard Malcolm whisper to the nurse. “Hurry! Get that inspirator on! She’ll be gone in a minute!” Then there came a little silence and the click of a metal snap. “Now let’s have it—easy at first! Just turn the valve till you hear it hiss!” Another silence. “Well, what’s the matter? Why don’t you turn the valve?” “I am turning it, doctor!” “You are? H-m, that’s odd; there’s no gas coming. Throw it wide open!** “There, it won’t go any further!” “Say, what the— Why, there’s nothing in it! Foley must have given him an empty!” “An empty?” Mark appeared in the doorway. His face was the color of old ivory. “Empty, was It? Empty?” he shouted. “Hush! Go back!” “And she’s dead—dead?” Malcolm started toward him, but the man tossed up Ms arms and whirled about and laughed, laughed, laughed—screamed: . “It’s an empty one! It’s empty! Ha, ha! What a joke! Ho, ho! He gave me an empty one, and she died! Ha. ha, ha! Capital! Cap—” His arms dropped, Ms head dropped, he doubled bp like a pocket knife and fell distorted on the carpet. Malcolm jumped to him, knelt over him, tore open his clothes, put Ms ear to the narrow chest. “Hypodermic?” asked the nurse. “No, no, not the slightest use,” Mal» colm answered. “Cardiac rupture. He was stone dead when he struck the

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER. IND.

A French advance guard pausing to recover a wounded comrade. In the improvised trenches are bodies of dead soldiers.

SEEK OUT JOBLESS

New Employment Bureau Completes Preliminary Work. * Appfication Blanks Sent Throughout Country—Union Leaders Watch to See If Organized Toilers Get Preference. Washington.—The department of labor has completed the preliminary work in connection with the federal employment bureau, and necessary blanks are being sent to employers throughout the country and to post offices for distribution to persons seeking employment. It is the purpose of the department to- act as a clearing house for those who seek employment and those who have employment to offer. Both union and nonunion workers and proprietors of open or closed shops throughout the country are interested in these operations of the department. In connection with the voluntary work now being undertaken by the department of labor special interest attaches to the fact that Secretary Wilson is himself a union man, having been at one time prominent in the official councils of the miners’ organization.

The application blanks beini? sent out to employers and unemployed are being handled directly by the division of information of the bureau of immigration. T. V. Powderly is chief of the division. . The general plan contemplates the co-operation of the department of agriculture and the post office department with the department of labor in locating both the employer who desires labor and the unemployed. The agents of the department of agriculture, about 175,000 in number, will send reports of labor conditions in tbeir district to the secretary of agriculture, who will transmit them to the department of labor. Postmasters throughout the country will distribute the application blanks to the unemployed, who will fill them out and return them to the postmaster, to be forwarded to the department of labor, postage free. Mr. Powderly and Commissioner Caminetti of the bureau of immigration will receive daily reports from the labor centers giving actual conditions and will also receive the applications for employment from workmen. Applications for employment are designed to cover virtually all forms of employment, both skilled and unskilled, including domestic work and farm labor. The applicants are required to answer numerous questions as to age, height, weight, trade, nationality, qualification for labor other than the trade mentioned, languages spoken, names of two former employers, reason for loss of latest employment and wages expected. As these documents will be public records, the leaders of organized labor have a list of the union and open shops in the country, and the union wages for every trad j in every locality are known, It will be a comparatively easy matter for those interested to know from the trades mentioned the wages expected and the names of former employers, whether or not the average applicant for employment is a union or nonunion man. It will also be an easy matter in the case of the employer to ascertain whether his shop is open or closed. The employer also is required to report specifically the hours of labor a day in his factory or shop; “labor conditions (strikes existing or contemplated), etc.,” and other questions which will easily characterize his business to those most interested. To what extent this situation will be recognized in the administration of the federal employment bureau Is a question for development. There is little question that if preference be given to organized labor the effect would be to force unorganized labor into the ranks of organized labor.

Preferred Dog to Daughter.

East Orange. N. J.—ln her suit few separation, Mrs, Anna Kaeck says that her husband’s fondness for a French bulldog and his' indifference to their fifteen-month-old daughter caused all the trouble.

A Father at 92.

Lexington, Ky.—Robert U. Bates, ninety-two, is the father of a new toil" Hates’ first wlfe died several years ago, leaving 15 children. year be remarried.

SAVING WOUNDED FELLOW SOLDIER

FAIL TO GET JOBS AS “MEN”

Women In Male Attire Seek Aid of Police After Vain Search for Work. Lafayette, Ind. —Dressed In men’s clothing, Mrs. Mary Smiley, who said she was forced to support her three children, and her sister. Miss Josephine Williams, both of Danville, 111., applied for aid at police headquarters, saying they were hungry. They had been seeking work, according to Mrs. Smiley, and believed it would be easier to find employment dressed as men. The police decided to send the women back to Danville. The decision was not opposed. According to their story they left Danville on a Wabash freight train, going to Logapsport. They were aided in that city by the charity authorities, who sent them here, giving them aprons to wear over their clothing.

TO BE RED CROSS NURSE

Miss Nona McAdoo, daughter of the secretary of the treasury, sailed recently for Europe, where she will be a war nurse. Miss McAdoo has taken a course in nursing and will take up active service in the field hospitals in southern France. Miss McAdoo was accompanied by her chum, Miss Catherine Britten of Washington, also a nurse, and Mrs. E. H. House, who will act as chaperon for the party.

SENATORS ARE GAME

Night Sessions Test Old Mem- * bers’ Endurance. Bitter Antagonisms Conquer Age and Lend Strength to Participants in Ship Purchase Bill Debate in Senate Chamber. By EDWAfiD B. CLARK. (Staff Correspondent Western Newspaper Union.) Washington. —Night sessions of the senate which, paradoxically, are the order of the day, are tests of the endurance of the* aged participants. The senate at night is a study of deep Interest, though one pities while he studies. “There Is no gamer bird than the old bird,” said the man in the gallery, whom the dignity of the senatorial garb did not halt from comparing an aged one to a cock in the pit. Senator Jacob J. Gallinger of New Hampshire, -seventy-eight years old, was then In the last round of his seven hours’ speech against the ship purchase bill. On an average the senators of today are younger than those of a day not long gone by, but age still .rules and the word senate still holds its significance. Gallinger Is seventyeight years old and there are other men In the chamber who are older. Then again there are younger men whose physical stamina cannot compare with that of the veteran physician of New Hampshire. Lodge is a much younger man than Gallinger, and so is'Root, but neither (r sK ir jpHcno the~cockpK, could stand the gaff as Gallinger stood

LAW CODE 4,000 YEARS OLD

Acts on Babylonian Tablet Provided for Elopement and for Injury to Women. . New Haven, Conn. —A Babylonian tablet, believed to have been buried in the earth more than four thousand years and containing the earliest law code, recently has been unearthed, and is now in possession of Yale university. The tablet is heavily encrusted but part of it has been cleaned and deciphered. The laws are written in the Sumerian language, the language of Southern Babylonia, prior to its conquest by the Semites or Accadians, in the time of Hammerabi. Owing to the imperfect knowledge of the language, the work of deciphering is extremely difficult, but the university expects to have complete translations made and published. The laws that have been translated refer to legislation; concerning injury to women; the repudiation of children who have perhaps been adopted; elopement; ‘the hire of boats and cattle; and provision for the killing of a hired ox by a lion. These laws are believed to have been written about 2500 B. C.

LUXURY IN THE TRENCHES

Drainage and Sanitation Are Almost Perfect —All the Comforts of Home. London. —The Germans boasted to some prisoners, one of whom escaped, that they had recaptured the town of Dixmude because the allies were “too soft for life in the trenches.” Some of the trenches even in the scenes of the shifting battles are as luxurious as houses. Sheltered passages lead to back premises; on ope side is the storehouse and kitchen, on the other the offices. The drainage and sanitation would pass the test of th« British factory acts. One of the Tommies said that if you had “cards, cigarettes and socks the trenches weren’t bad."

Bees in War Strategy.

Cairo.—To hinder the advance of British forces the Germans in East Africa placed hives containing wild bees in bushes op each side of the road. Wires led ;to the lids of the hives. German machine gun fire and the sting of the bees repelled the British attack.

Auto Bandit Would Fight.

Paris. —A letter to his mother from Dieudonne, the Paris auto bandit, says he Is sorry he did not die on the guillotine Instead of getting a commutation of sentence, because he can’t go to the front and fight

it and is willing again to stand It. If all the opponents of the ship purchase bill physically were Gallingers the advocates of the measure would hard nothing to hammer against from now until March 4 but a re-enforced concrete wall. In days when something big is at stake the senators give over all enticing social engagements. The dinner at the home of the cabinet officer is foregone; the reception at the Army and Navy club goes begging for senator guests; the Geographic society lecture, one of the most potent attractions of the Washington winter, shows a dwindled attendance. The capltol is the scene of action and no senator must desert it. When some senatorial opponent of the measure under consideration is talking relevantly or irrelevantly to the subject the other senators wander into the cloak room to smoke, or down to the restaurant to drink dubious milk or eat doubtful doughnuts. They make it a point never to go beyond earshot of the warning bell which announces "no quorum” or the approach of a vote. One learns from the senate gallery that age can stand much when it is strengthened by the spirit of bitter antagonisms. Words are drawled out. but, speak slow or fast, the senator who holds the floor is the senator who holds the fort against the enemy.

A Sad Story.

Paris. —The newspaper Le Bonnet Rouge appeared with a two-column head in large display type: “A Sad Story.” However, the oensor got busy, sard ar a reetdt only two columns of wTOte space appeared bel ow 'the head Wba

HAD TO STAY YOUNG

GRANDMOTHERS COULDN'T AFFORD TO GROW OLD. , Desire to Appear to Advantage Bofore the Third Generation Mada Them Determined to Keep Up to Date. « The two grandmothers were talking, relates Edna K. Wooley In the Kansas City Btar. And of course they were talking about their grandchilddren. They were not old grandmothers, by the way, but the modern kind that keeps very much up to date, mentally and physically. “My oldest grandson and I are great ‘chums,” quoth the plump grandmother. “We go about a great deal together. And it was he who broke me of a lifelong habit that had unconsciously grown upon me and which, I presume, I have inflicted upon my relatives until I made good liars of them all. “You see—er —I’m inclined to he plump, though I never weighed more than 105 till after I was married. I expect I made life a burden to my husband by asking him every time I saw a large woman, ’Am I as fat as that, William?’ And Williain invariably answered with a soothing ‘No, indeed!’ “With my son I was about the same. He was as diplomatic as his father with his T should say not;’ “And I began the same thing with my grandson, who started out by politely denying, as did his forbears. But one day he was either out of temper or he was tired of answering the same old question. “A very large woman was walking ahead of us on the street. She was extraordinarily stout. “ ‘Billy boy,’, said I, ‘am I as fat as that?’ “ ‘Yes, you are!’ answered Billy with emphasis. “And I've never asked anybody that question since,’’ laughed the plump -grandmother. “My oldest grandson paid me a similar compliment,” gurgled the little thin grandmother. “We were walking down street one day when a carriage stopped at the curb. A young man got out and very carefully and tenderly helped out a very old lady. It was just beautiful to see how gently he took care of her. “ ‘See how beautifully he takes care of his old grandmother,’ I said to my small grandson. 'When lam old you will take care of me like that, won't you?” ‘“Why, you’re old now, grandma!’ he informed me.” “I suppose we ought to feel old,” ruminated the plump grandma, after they had laughed in unison, “but somehow I can’t just realize that I’m going on sixty-one. Seems to me I get younger with every grandchild that arrives.” “Exactly,” agreed the little thin grandmother. ‘1 am living the third generation now, and I feel just as fresh as when I started out on the first.” “I pity people who-grow old and haven’t any grandchildren to keep them young,” quoth the plump grandmother. “It’s my growing kiddies that keeps me hustling up to the minute. I can’t afford to be a back number and lose their respect.” “Exactly,” again agreed the other. “People who won’t have children because they’re a nuisance and expense, don’t know what they’ll miss when they get old. I’m glad I was old-fash-ioned enough to have a family.”

General Macard in Action.

The story of the Siberian soldiers who refuse to have their beards' cut, because their shagginess is supposed to frighten the Germans, recalls Marbot’s account of Brigadier General Macard, one of the Revolution’s rankers. When about to charge, this hug# man used to cry: “Look here! Fip going to dress like a beast” Then he stripped off his coat, vest and shirt, keeping on only his plumed hat, leather breeches' and boots, and exposing a chest almost as shaggy as a bear’s. In this guise he charged, waving his saber and swearing “like a pagan.” And, “at sight of this giant, halfnaked, hairy all over, and in such a strange outfit, who was hurling himself at them and uttering the most fearful yells, his opponents would bolt On all sides, scarcely knowing if they had a man to deal with or soma strange wild animal.

Squaws’ Bowis “Old Relies.”

Juan Segura did a thriving trade in “prehistoric Indian relics” until recently. He sat on the platform of the Santa Fe depot at Riverside and peddled the "relics” to tourists at fancy figures. Segura might have grown rich had not Unde Sam taken a hand, because he discovered the Mexican was raising the cost of living for many Indians in the vicinity. Many a squaw was forced to go miles to purchase bread because Segura, it is alleged, had taken her bread bowl and disposed of it as a “relic.” His practice threatened to denude the district of bread bowls. So he was arrested and pleaded guilty in the United States district court—Los Angeles Times.

Currency Hard to Carry.

On the island of Yam, which was recently captured by the Japanese, the dime is the exact replica of a common grindstone. It la 20 inches h> diameter and made Of practically the isame material. values 'lug sufficient to boy t