Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1915 — THAT MALACCA BUG [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THAT MALACCA BUG

By JUSTINE NELTNOR.

"Good-by to my dream of dreams!" sighed Vance Edison, sadly. He stood at the window of the plain house he called home. Its bewildering attachment was the radiant garden. There the captivating scene fascinated his vision. A lovely girl of nineteen sat on a rustic bench between a golden-haired little maid of four and a rosy-cheeked lad two years her senior. The little ones were adjusting a wreath made up of pansies and forgetmenots across her rare flaxen hair —a happy, laughing trio, and yet It made Vance Edison's heart ache, for in the combination lay his distraction. The young lady was Nella Burt, the daughter of a widow, his next-door neighbor. Both she and her invalid mother had found a true friend in the young college professor. His life was very simple and humble, yet bright and merry were the hours they spent in the garden that was the pride and glory of the place. Then the father of the two children came along. He was an uncle of Edison, a sea-faring man. He had been compelled to give up his ship on account of failing health. He had taken his motherless children from an asylum where they had been placed. He had come to Edison’s home, carried on a litter.

“Dear boy," he said, bluff and hearty, but his voice woefully piping and thin, *Tve brought my chests, the children and myself to the only relative 1 can claim in the world. I’m a dying man —three months more the doctor gives me. I’ve a little saved. Tomorrow I shall give It to you. I want you to adopt the little ones, educate them, be a father to them when I am gone, and take it a little more easy yourself.” Alas! before another sunrise a seizure attacked the old salt. The little ones were left orphaned. Vance Edison cared for them tenderly. He said nothing to anybody concerning a disappointment he sustained during the week after the funeral. Anxiety for the children caused it. As for himself, Vance Edison was too soulfully unselfish to covet riches. Aside from a few curiosisties that he had gathered up in his travels, the chest his uncle had brought with him contained nothing of value. The old salt’s wealth must have been a phantasy, Edison decided. Then he set himself to work to block out the

future. He found that the added expense of the two children would take all the surplus he could earn, unless his college salary was increased. This particular afternoon, as he watched his lovely neighbor with the two little ones his spirits sank low, indeed. He loved her with a fervor he dared rarely contemplate. Before his uncle had come he had more than once decided to tell Nella of his affection. He knew that she respected him, looked up to him. He hoped she returned his love. But now! — Before, he could have offered her a fairly comfortable home. With the additional burden of the children, however, how could he ask this lovely girl to help him share their care, and economize himself down to a humdrum life and the bare necessities of existence? No! “Good-by to my dream of dreams!” he repeated mournfully, and fell into a reverie wondering if some new field of professional activity might not offer better recompense. “Shoo —shoo!” suddenly aroused him. Nella uttered the somewhat startling cries. She had sprang from the aide of the children, nearly upsetting them. Edison saw her run up to the vines that half covered the side of the house. She was wielding a fan as a weapon. There was the flutter of a "bright winged bird driven into sudden flight Then Nella was down on her knees; Edison saw her lift a small squirming object from the ground. ! “Poor thing!” Nella cooed in her sweet sympathetic tones. “The naughty bird nearly caught you. Oh, what a rare little beauty!” His curiosity and Interest aroused, Edison hurried to* the front door, and thence into the garden. "What is it?” he asked, and Nella showed a beetle-shaped bug lying in the palm of her hand. It was an unfamiliar specimen to Edison, profound entomologist as he was. The bird had

slightly pecked It, and the little creak ture was partly disabled. •'I can’t imagine where it came from,” observed Edison.

“Do you notice that it hl. of a bright bronze?’’ suggested Nella. “Can’t you mend it up? Perhaps it is suffering." “We will try," smiled Edison readily.” "It is a rarity. I should like to study and classify it Certainly it is a stranger to this country," and he took it into his library, poured some healing oil upon its shattered wing, and made a soft cotton nest for it which he placed Under an open globe.

Sorrowful as Vance Edison was over his money prospects and consequently those of love, he was cheered at seeing more of Nella than ever. The little ones clung to her constantly. The bronse bug became a positive institution with the family group. It seemed as though it had a mind to appreciate kindness and recognize Its friends. As It was nursed back to normal strength it refused to leave the house, even the room. It became domesticated in a sort of playhouse that Edison constructed for it, more for the gratification of the children than anything else. There was a tiny trough for bathing, a swing, a diminutive step ladder. To all these novelties the strange insect accommodated Itself. For hours Nella and her two child proteges would watch the glossy bug. One day an old messmate of the dead sailor called upon Edison. “Just to talk over the best friend he ever had," was the way he put it. He brought some gifts for the two little orphans. He chanced to see the bug. “Shiver me!” he exclaimed noisily. “Where on earth did you get a Ma» lacca finder?” “You know what It is?” interrupted Edison eagerly. “Why surely,” replied the old salt, “for they’re thick as bees In Malacca. They get their name from going after other insects bold and pushing, ferreting them out of all kinds of queer cracks and crannies. They are credited with a very acute sense of smell. Why, say, this specimen must have been imported here in some of your uncle’s old truck.”

Apparently this was true, for when the beetle was first discovered it had probably crawled on to the window to the attic where the chest and other belongings of the dead sailor were stored. The visitor departed two days later. A week after that the bronze bug was missing. Little Ralph came rushing down the stairs one morning all excitement. “In the attic!” he announced breathlessly. “I saw him —the bug, crawling out of one of those big idols.” All hands hurried to the attic. There were a number of grotesque wood, glass and plaster idols among the curiosities taken from the uncle’s chest. Ralph pointed to one on a shelf. “There! there!” he insisted. Edison lifted down the idol. Sure enough, out crawled the lost bronze bug. Edison placed the idol on a stand. In his excitement little Ralph ran up against it, tipped the Jdol and it was broken into bits upon the floor. But among the fragments was a small silk purse. Within it was the fortune the dead uncle had boasted of—diamonds! And now the future was provided for, and through the kindly offices of the bronze bug Vance found a speedy way to the heart of the girl he loved. (Copyright. 1915, by W. G. Chapman.)

"Where on Earth Did You Get a Malacca Finder?”