Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 290, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1915 — Page 3

“FINDERS KEEPERS”

By AVA JOYCE RINGOLD.

The Gardners were poor people, and they were poorer than ever after the •county fair had come and gone.' That was late in September. The grounds used for the great annual exhibition were only half a mile away from the humble little home. It was the first time they had been used for that purpose, so Ruth Gardner, the mainstay •of the family, devised, as she thought, a sure way to make some money out of it. "Yes," her crotchety grandfather had agreed, “it looks likely and I’ll supply the two hundred dollars to stock up, although it’s my very last cent.” “I am sure I can pay you back and make a nice, tidy profit,” enthused the optimistic Ruth. There were four in the family—old Mr. Gardner, his widowed daughter, Mrs. Warren, Ruth’s mother, and Ruth’s younger sister, Netta. Ruth had been working as clerk in' the big store of the town on extra rush days when the farmers came to the county seat. It was poor pay that she received, but it helped to fill out. A vast splurge, to her modest way of thinking, was possible when the fair came along. Her mother was a wonderful cook. Her pies, doughnuts and cookies were famous. Ruth got a new idea in her mind —to start a little lunch booth on the fair grounds. She was awarded a most promising spot, right near the' entrance gates. It took two hundred dollars to secure a coffee steamer, knives, forks, spoons and the cooking outfit, and the day the fair opened she and her mother took in nearly SSO. Alas, for their simple hopes and fond calculations!. That very night a fire caught in a building next to their

Gloated Over the Prospective Feast.

little booth, and equipment, eatables, and all they had was licked up in the flames. Ruth went back to her erratic employment at the town store.' Grandpa Gardner fumed and fussed and fretted over his loss. It was harder work than ever getting along now. Mrs. Warren, however, made a little supplying homemade cakes and bread to a few village families, which Netta delivered, as well as caring for quite a brood of chickens. It was just after the county fair closed that Netta came running into the house- one morning and startled the helpless, brooding old grandfather into a state of Irritability by betraying vivid excitement of manner and voice. “Oh, Ruth!” cried Netta, “what do you think? Come, quick! There's a great, beautiful thrkey has flown into the chicken yard!” “Eh! what’s that?” exclaimed Grandfather Gardner, spurting up the energies of acquisition and appetite, “a turkey? Don’t let it get away. Pen it up. Feed it up. Why, I haven’t tasted turkey for a whole year. It will make a famous feast.” “But, grandpa, it is not ours,” remonstrated Ruth. “Make It ours!” shouted the selfish, avaricious old man. “Finders keepers!”

Ruth joined Iter sister in a hurried rush to the chicken yard. Sure enough, there, huddling down In one corner, was a turkey. The roosters were resenting its Intrusion by half-circling the stranger, with spurs set and eyes pugnaciously aslant It was as Netta had reported, a great, beautiful turkey. Ruth had never seen so royal a bird of its species. It was of unusual size, stately and graceful, and its plumage had the rare iridescence in still blues and glossy blacks attractive as the hues of a peacock. “Why,*' abruptly spoke Ruth, after a cursory inspection of the fowl, “it’s foot is injured.” This was plain to the view, for one member was. bedabbled with blood. The turkey was weary-eyed and panting, as if it had come quite a distance. Its foot had seemingly caught in some barbwire and was badly lacerated. “The poor thing!” exclaimed gentlehearted and pitying Ruth. "It won’t do to leave it among the chickens.” “Oh, no, the roosters are ready to peck at it now,” joined in Netta. Finally they decided to carry it up Into the barn, where there was a par-tttkmed-off room. As Ruth lifted the turkey it made no demur or resistance. It fact, It seemed to recognise her as a kindly spirit and quite cuddled up in her arms. They got some hay, and in

a very brief space of time the gobbler had a comfortable bed. its wounded toot salved and bound up, and a platter of corn and a pan of water within ready reach. As the days went on it became a regular pet to Ruth. She nursed it, fed it, and the grateful bird seemed to greet her morning and evening visits with pleasure. Every day Qrandfather Gardner gloated over the perspective feast, demanding to know how the coveted fowl was fattening up. “Next Sunday, Ruth,” he suggested, at the end of a few days, and Ruth’s heart sank. Somehow the pretty fowl had appealed to her protection. She could not think of having it killed and eaten, but the old man was imperious and Obstinate. He would hear of no respite. It was Saturday afternoon and Ruth was walking slowly home from the store. The turkey was on her mind and she scarcely noticed that a handsome, well-dressed young man had caught up with her, was walking by her side and .had lifted his hat courteously, until ne spoke the words: “Excuse me, miss, but am I headed right for Hubbard road?* “I am going in that direction myself,” explained Ruth. As if he valued the tacit invitation to keep her company, the young man fell into her step, keeping up a chatty, pleasing conversation that made her feel interested. His talk was of the county fair. He had been one of the exhibitors. Ruth was quite reluctant to pause and inform him: “This is Hubbard road.” “Ah, thanks,” he bowed, “and can you further direct me to the Gardner home? It is for there lam bound.” “As Mr. Gardner is my grandfather snd I live with him, I think I had better continue to be your guide,” explained Ruth with a smile. “You are Miss Ruth Warren, then?” spoke the young man, in surprise and with pleasure. “Why, then, my business is with you. It is about —a turkey, Rhodame, the prize fowl in its class, which escaped when the county fair broke up, and worth —well, a hundred dollars for its recovery, and if you still have it, as I learned in the town you did have it —” “You have come just in time,” spoke Ruth, eagerly and gladly, and then she told the story of the bird in its entirety. Mr. Paul Rivers told his in turn. The lost turkey was a rare fowl of a valuable breed. The chit-chat of Netta in the village had been the means of his tracing down Rhodame, and Netta received a check for one hundred dollars two days later. A week after that young Rivers came himself again to the humble Gardner cottage. And after that, and then again. The kindness of Ruth to his pet and prize helped her beauty in winning his heart, and Ruth was asked to share his wealth and his name. (Copyright, 1915, by W. G. Chapman.)

COUNTRY GIRL IS EFFICIENT

She Doesn’t Need Uplifter to Direct Her Mental Energies, Is Writer’s Opinion. “It is time that the country girl were getting her share of attention in the effort to advance the conditions of rural life.” This is the announcement of one of those critics of rural conditions who exist in such large numbers in the large cities, whose self-complacency is equaled only by their ignorance of everything rural, and whose condescension is almost as irritating as their assumption of superiority—if such a thing can be imagined. The particular specimen of the obnoxious species whose words we have quoted finds that the country girl has been terribly neglected in the scope of the rural uplift, the Rochester Democrat observes. Only think of it, state universities send out scores of lecturers to men, but none to women. Crop demonstration cars do not contain a single exhibit v to show the country girl “the real possibilities of enriching her home.” Isn’t it shameful? Naturally, It would never occur to a critic of this type that there might be a reason for such significant omissions, and that this reason might be the ability of the country girl to carve out her own career without the help of busybodies masquerading as upllfters. The fact of the matter is that the typical country girl needs assistance in directing her mental energies about as much as a German business man needs a training in efficiency.

Did Service to Society.

In the years 1649-50 there arose a strange party in England called the Diggers. They might be seen in large numbers in some localities, diligently digging up and cultivating the waste lands and out-of-the-way places. They objected to the land being held by a few proud covetous men, "to bag and barn up the treasures of the earth from others.” Yet, as one of their leaders said, “they intended to meddle only with what was common and untilled, and to make it fruitful for the use of man.” Gerard Winstanley, their chief leader, urged that the poor should be settled on the common or waste lands, and that in this way the country would yield much larger crops, the hungry be fed, and times be made better for everybody. The Diggers were very peaceable .people, and not at all disposed to make trouble, but the movement was suppressed by the authorities. Nevertheless it bad its influence in later, years, for from 1760 to 1830 more than a thousand acts of parliament were adopted for inclosing and utilising waste lands.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, INP.

RULER OF SIAM HAS RESOLVED NEVER TO WED

Educated in Europe His Mind Revolts at Requirement to Marry Sister. ILLITERACY UNKNOWN THERE Country Has Compulsory Education, Military Service and Religious Service Women Unusually Free In Biam, But Polygamy Prevails. Port Worth, Tex. —The king of Slam Is a sad, sad king. Not on account of the war, for the conflict has not had the slightest effect there; not on account of his finances, for'he receives $3,000,000 annually. But because he is doomed to live an unmarried life while his father before him had 300 wives. The Siamese monarch has refused to marry of his own free will, for the inexorable law of that country says that a king must marry either a sister or a half sister; he may not have for a first wife a person lower in rank. But the king recently has announced that he prefers to remain single than to marry his sister, although he has a romance on with a celebrated and beautiful Oriental dancer of Bangkok. { Advice to this effect has been brought here by Frank Huffman, formerly of Fort Worth, but for the last sixteen years a resident of Bangkok, where he is publisher of the Daily Mail. For many years the Siamese wondered why their ruler never married, but the foreigners knew. Now that he has told them the natives are amazed. “Not marry a sister? What a funny king!” they are saying. Idea Revolts Him. But the king, whose name is Mana Majiravudah, spent ten years In England and graduated from Oxford, and is as polished, refined and western as

King of Siam.

any European ruler. And of course while in England he learned that to marry one’s sister is abhorrent, and he will none of it He must abdicate if he would marry the girl he loves, but the king is sensible, likes his people and will not desert them; so he has chosen to live single. He is now thirty-five years old. Siam has compulsory military service, compulsory religious service and compulsory education. While the active standing army is no greater than 50,000, all male Siamese are required to enlist for two years’ field service and then spend two months of each year in the reserves or “continentals,” after which they pass into reserves, ready to be called % to the colors in case of war. This Is the plan just indorsed by President Wilson to a certain extent, except for the compulsory feature. Every youth at twenty-one years must enter the priesthood whether it be for life, a few years or three months. The usual erm of “enlistment" in the priesthood is three months. The religion is Buddhism. Before entering the priesthood the young man must clear himself of all debt, otherwise he is forbidden to enter the temple. Any creditor who releases a man about to become a priest will “make merit” in future life. Illiteracy Unknown. "Although Slam may be regarded as one of the semi-civilized nations, Illiteracy there is unknown; every Inhabitant can read and write,” says Huffman. “In childhood they must go to the temples and the priests teach them.” While the Siamese are most friendly and hospitable, they are below the Chinese in thrift and intelligence, Huffman says. He says the Chinese are one of the most intelligent .races on earth. Regarding women, Huffman says that they are unusually free in Siam, but that polygamy prevails. The husbands keeps his wives in the back

FOR ANOTHER WINTER CAMPAIGN

During the cold weather the new sleeping bags of sheepskin will be a great boon to the soldiers of the allied troops. The lower photograph shows one of the men comfortably incased. The upper photograph shows how the bags are examined and folded before shipment. Urgent calls for more and more of such bags are made in England.

yard, where ho has a house for them. The richer the man is, the more wives. When a man “goes broke” he lives with and off of his friends until he gets on his feet again. “And yet,” says Huffman, “the Siamese do not mix like we do. They do not call on each other or dine with each other, and foreigners do not call on them. Their chief outdoor sports are kicking the rattan ball and kite flying. A circle of men or boys will form and keep the ball going without touching it with hands. Expert performers will keep the ball in the air half an hour, knocking it with head, elbows, knees and feet, but never touching it with hands. In kite flying rival parties will send up a male and a female kite, so called, the male being the larger. A line is drawn on the ground. The male tries to grab the. lady kite and elope with her across to his side of the line. The female flyer also tries to abduct the male to her side. Whichever is able to carry the other wins.”

Marriage Customs. Huffman says the young Siamese swain never calls on his sweetheart at her home; that would be impossible. He sees her outside and they begin a flirtation. Then they meet often, and may even elope and wed. But usually the marriages are arranged beforehand. The bridegroom gives the parents what is called “milk money” for the bride. This is to pay them for the bride. When they marry they live together in the parents’ home for a year, then go to their own home, and perhaps the parents will return the “milk money” to let the young couple buy furniture and get a good start. Huffman employs more than one hundred on the Dally Mail, all but four being Orientals. He issues both an English and a Siamese edition. The typesetters are paid from $lO to S4O per month —good wages in Siam. “The same motion picture plays are exhibited over there,” said Huffman, “and they are attended by crowds of the natives, who enjoy the pictures with keen delight. “It is very difficult to tell the men from the women, for all wear a sort trousers or skirt that gives you no chance for distinguishing. The Siamese takes a roll of silk about three and a half yards long, wraps it around the body, rolls up the loose end tightly and then, bringing it between the legs, fastens it securely to the waist in the back. Elephant Lore. For a while Huffman had charge of timber work in a teakwood forest where elephants are employed. He has had much experience with the big beasts. “Some of them are harder to ride than a bucking bronco,” he said. “Some elephants will shake their heads when the rider straddles their neck. The rider will be thrown from side to side so violently that he will be sore for a week afterward, sore enough, maybe, to keep in bed. Then there are a few elephants that shrink their skin to make it uncomfortable for the rider. This is worse than ever, for it makes the rider quiver violently from head to foot and dazes him. The female is more docile than the male. We used them to carry logs to the river and then work them down stream. Sometimes when we would have a jam we would send in a strong elephant to break up the logs.” When three or four years old the elephant becomes rather mischievous. At that age it may stand five feet high and is very heavy. Often they will run dovra ® man, give him an affectionate slap with the trunk on his back, then run away squealing in delight. But the gentle little slap usually makes a man take the count. Once in a while, Huffman says, an elephant will kill and eat a man. He says he knew of such a case.

Monster Gray Eagle.

Elizabethtown, Ky.—Mr. J. E. Walters killed a gray eagle on his farm, four miles east of town, Sunday evening. The eagle had Just previously killed a goose belonging to Mr. Walters, who took part in the affray with a shotgun. The bird measured seven Xeet from tip to tip of its wings.

AERO SHOT FROM SHIP DECK

New Navy Device for Releasing ’Planes From Moving Vessels Proves Successful. Washington.—When a navy aeroplane was shot into the air at Pensacola from the deck of the cruiser North Carolina while the ship was in motion a new feat in aviation was accomplished and a device on which navy airmen have been at work for three years proved a success. The device consists of a track extending along the ship’s after deck, on which Is a car. An aeroplane lands on the device from the air and is secured to the car. On launching the car is driven down the track until It has attained high speed. Then it is brought to a sudden stop, and the aeroplane, released from its moorings. Boars into the air, shot over the cruis* er’s stem at a speed of 50 miles an hour.

RECORD FOR LITTLE MOTHER

Father Leaves Half of His Estate to Daughter Who Guarded His Children. Passaic, N. J. —Miss Rosie Seltmann, eldest daughter of Julius F. Seltmann, who died recently, will receive onehalf of his estate, according to the will which was probated the other day. The remaining half is divided equally among Miss Seltmann’s six brothers and sisters, Walter, Frederick J., Otto, Arthur, Helen and Olga Seltmann. “Rosie has been practically a mother to her younger sisters and brothers, especially since the death of her mother fifteen years ago,” said Mr. Seltmann in his will. “I therefore consider her entitled to special considera*tion in the division of my estate.’’ The value of the estate is not given, but it is understood to be large.

RABBIT LEADS WAY TO SWAG

Dragged From Hole by Mexican, He Uncovers Large Collection of 81iverware. Pratt, Kan. —A Mexican, hunting six miles east of here, ran a rabbit into a hole. He pulled the bunny oat, bat the rabbit held to a sleeve of the man’s jacket. Further examination by the Mexican showed that a large swag of heavy silverware had been hidden in the hole, wrapped up in the jacket. The police are trying to decide whether the silver was hidden treasure or the proceeds of a robbery. They suspect the latter.

WILSON PORTRAIT IN OIL

The latest life-size portrait m oil of President Wilson, by Marion Swlnton, formerly of the royal institute of painters, London, #*s specially hung at the recent celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Manhattan club In New York.

NOT FRENCH DAUPHIN

CLAIM OP ELEAZAR WILLIAMS HAS BEEN DIBPROVED. Romantic Story That for a Tims Had Many B«llevers la Now Almost Universally Acknowledged to Ba Fiction. Full of romance though the history of Wisconsin is, it contains no story more strange or fanciful than that of Eleazar Williams, the mysterious missionary of the Green Bay Indians, who. some threescore years ago startled Americans by his claim to being the tost dauphin of France. To Green Bay, the historic fur-trade center, once the seat of the French regime in Wisconsin, this tale adds a new touch of color and picturesqueness. The one event of the French “Reign of Terror" that created the profoundest Impression upon the popular mind of the time was the execution of the Bourbon monarch, Louis XVI, and his unhappy queen, Marie Antoinette. The son of the royal pair, the dauphin of France, then a lad of eight, was spared the guillotine, but was held for two years a lonely prisoner in the tower of the Temple. In 1795, according to history, he died there, the result of 111 treatment and neglect on the part of inhuman jailers. Even at the time of his death, however, rumors were current that he had escaped. Adherents of the Bourbons, it was said, had spirited the young prince away, and had substituted in his place a child of humble origin, which had suffered martyrdom in silence until relieved by death. In 1849 Eleazar Williams, then a man of over sixty years of age, announced from the wilds of northern Wisconsin that he was the lost dauphin, that he was Louis XVII, that he was the hereditary king of the French. The story that he told was a marvelous one. The friends who had rescued him from the Temple had carried him to North America, where they had left him in charge of a worthy Indian fanw lly of the St Regis tribe of At first his mind had been a blank, the result of ill usage, but later he had happily recovered his faculties. In 1841, Prince de Joinville, son of the reigning French king, Louis Philippe, while on a trip through tbe new world, had secretly visited him, and attempted to bribe him, with a promise of a splendid establishment, to abdicate the crown of France. This he had scornfully rejected, for "though in poverty and in exile, he would not sacrifice his honor.” Williams’ story, published broadcast in the United States and France, was believed by thousands. Sympathetic journalists in all parts of North America took it up, and several wellknown volumes were written with it as a background. More critical students, however, denounced the entire tale as fiction. Williams’ actual life, though In reality romantic enough, was far from identifying him with the royal throne of France. He was of mixed white and Indian blood, his grandmother having been carried captive as a child from the famous Deerfield, Massachusetts, massacre, tp Canada, where she had later married among her captors. Her grandson, the subject of our sketch, had served the Americans as a spy during the war of 1812, and afterward lived among his tribesmen, first as a Catholic, then as a Congregationalism and later as an Episcopalian missionary. Coming to Wisconsin in 1821, he was instrumental in bringing to the region about Green Bay, from New York, numbers of Oneida, Stockbridge, Brothertown and Munsee Indians. He apparently dreamed of establishing in the Northwest a new Christianized confederacy, with himself as its dictator. He was an Intelligent and ambitious character, but eccentric, untruthful and selfcentered. Above all, he was an Inveterate poseur. When, In 1848, this interesting individual set up his claim to the throne of France, his circumstantial story, his physical resemblance to the Bourbon family, and the scars and birthmarks which he exhibited upon his body convinced many of his sincerity. Those who knew him best, however, either laughed him to scorn or indignantly repudiated him. Even his Indian mother, whom he denied, denounced him as a had and untruthful man. Needless to say, he never asi cended the French throne, and in 1858, died in poverty and neglect. h v any of his sermons and papers are preserved In the collections of the Wisconsin Historical society.

Couldn't Digest Dynamite.

Three prize heifers belonging to Cornelia Warren, proprietor of the Cedar Hill farm, Waverly Oaks roads, Waltham, nibbled at a tasty stick of dynamite, and are no more. Never were three heifers more emphatically dead. No explosions were reported. The young cows placidly chewed the dynamite, apparently enjoying the flavor. One died in its tracks in the pasture and thp other two succumbed in a barn after a night of bitter ruminaMiss barren recently purchased tfce erty. and workmen were in all the veterinary bu^wfaat