Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 295, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1915 — Page 3

Suspicious Acts

“Why/David!" "Huh?" remarked the individual addressed, continuing his labors. "Why, David!" his mother repeated, somewhat anxiously. “Whatever is the matter? You washed up before dinner —why on earth are you doing it over again?" Through the enveloping lather the boy's complexion showed a bright pink. But, then, sunburn is pink, naturally. “Oh, I dunno,” he said gruffly. “Can’t a fellow be clean? You’re always fussing at me because I ain’t clean enough!" Stricken dumb by the spectacle of her son’s not only enduring but actually seeking, soap and water, his mother wavered onward from the open bath-room door. On David’s bed lay his newest blue negligee shirt and a handful of ties.

"Wh-wh-why, David!" she was about to stammer again, and then thought better of it. Retiring to her room, she sat down and gazed, still anxiously, through the open door. From the bathroom she could hear the sound of a shoe polisher vigorously wielded. David’s mother put one bewildered hand to her head. Only the other day she and David had conducted a debate on the subject, “Resolved, That shining one’s shoes is a totally unnecessary, foppish and annoying habit to be shunned by all really manly, sensible persons." Datid, reaching the front porch at last, glittered. He resembled the most valeted of matinee heroes. There was a new band on his straw hat and the fragrance of his mother’s most expensive perfume was wafted from him. From the upper pocket of his coat a blue-edged handkerchief, matching his shirt, peeped jauntily. His socks matched the handkerchief. “Say!” exploded his older brother, after a breathless survey of the glory that was David, “those are my socks you have on! What the deuce—” "Aw,” David interrupted, hastily sidling down the steps. “I won’t hurt ’em none!” "Where’re you going, David?” cried his mother, half rising. David was at the gate. * “David!” roared his father, awake to the situation. David vanished completely from sight. "Well, what do you know about that?" gasped David’s perturbed lyDavid walked rapidly till he was two blocks away. Then he paused and with an extra handerchief from his trousers pocket carefully dusted his shoes. With still another handkerchief he wiped his steaming brow and the inside of his collar. Shaking his shoulders straight, he marched on. His gate became slower. Four blocks away he picked up and progressed rapidly, eyes straight ahead, but at the end of the block he turned and slowly walked back. Once his feet faltered a bit and his head half turned toward a large stone house. Then he hurried on. Reaching the other end of the block, he about faced and walked back again. At the edge before the stone house David paused and examined the foliage carefully. He broke off a twig and bit it, frowning. Yes, the wood was green—the hedge was alive. He looked toward the house and then bolted down the street. There had been signs of people on the large veranda. At the corner David dusted his shoes again and again essayed the stone house. He actually turned in at the walk and advanced five feet, then suddenly pausing, pretending he had heard a hall from the street, quavered, “Oh, hullo, Bill!" and bolted outsjde the hedge again. Finally David, appearing from behind the hedge shot down the walk toward the house. He wavered a bit from side to side. His head was held high and he. breathed hard. The perspiration stood on his brow and his hands were clutched into hard balls. He almost fell against the screen door. "Wh-why, it’s David!” some one said from inside. “G’ evening’,” David gasped in a hoarse vojce. “I came—is Sis-Sis* Cecilia at home?” "I’m so sorry, David,” said the young lady’s mother. “But she’s gone riding this evening with her sister!" "Aw, never mind!” David gulped and streaked it back down the walk. "Now, young man," said his father when David appeared home, "what’s the meaning of all this? Where have you been and what—” "Ow, I ain’t been anywhere!” David growled gloomily. "I jus’ took a walk. Honest! And you can have your darned old socks, Alex—they ain’t so much, anyhpw!—l’m going to bed!".

She Understood.

Friend —If a big wagon made so much noise that you couldn’t hear George when he proposed, how did you know what he said? . .. " Sweet Giri—By the movement of his Ups. Friend —That’s wonderful! I never could do that in the world. What quick eyes you must have. Sweet Girl—Oh, I couldn’t see his Ups. They were too close for that

tn trying to get her rights many a Woman goes at it in the wrong way.

Just a Look

-My son," counseled Wyzun, “you must be careful not to select a best seller wife. There have been more domestic disturbances over the best seller habit than over any other one thing that I know of! "When a woman gets to reading .best sellers her own husband begins to measure up pretty short. He can’t compare with a best seller husband. In a best seller a woman can tell her husband four or five pages of stuff with just one 100k —” “Gee!" objected the sox “I shouldn’t think women would like that arrangement—doing away with talk.” "They like it," explained Papa Wy zun, "because they can do more talking in a day that way than in any other. If one look is equal to a couple ot chapters they can talk volumes in a day! But a man can’t talk by looks. "When he comes home at night and sees that there is no Are in the kitchen stove, and that the kitchen bakepan is guiltless of any biscuits, he thinks that there is something radically wrong, but he doesn’t realize that his best seller wife has been having a seance with her soul. All*he sees is that there is nothing doing in the way of grub. “Then his wife gives him a look, which ought to explain it all. But it doesn’t Her husband is a mere cross man with a ferocious appetite. If he is a model young man he doesn’t make a fuss. He even does a little comedy. He makes signs expressive of hunger. Then his wife gives him another look. ‘That second look doesn’t help at all. The husband' merely asks for his slippers. "At that he gets a sort of withering, sarcastic look, which seems to say, ‘Where.are your slippers? What a question! In the canary’s cage, no doubt, or under the house, or on the piano.’ “The husband begins to see light at last. He goes out softly, leaving bis best seller wife to her books. If he captures a can of beans and a crust of bread he is lucky.” "The only safe literature for a wife is a cook-book,” responded Wyzun, Jr.”

Jennie Lind’s Salute.

There is a pretty story told of the honor Jennie Lind oncte paid to the American flag. It was when she was in New York, more than sixty years ago. The frigate St. Lawrence had just returned from a cruise, and the midshipmen went to hear the Swedish nightingale sing at Castle Garden theater, and the next day they called on her in a body. Their enthusiasm and her graciousness soon brought about a visit to the ship and the acceptance of n luncheon tendered her. When she was about to leave the ship she looked up at the Stars and Stripes and said: “I wish to salute your flag." "So, standing on the gangway, she sang “The Star Spangled Banner." Silently from all over the ship men gathered with uncovered heads, until the ship’s family was all assembled on deck. Nor were they her only audience, for borne upon the still air her song had been heard by many other vessels -nearby, and when the wondrous voice ceased steamers blew their whistles and exultant cheers rose from all sides and of loyal reverence for the flag she had so beautifully saluted.

Everybody’s Friend.

Jack Podger was the most obliging man that ever lived. His services were given gratis to all applicants. He could mend a clock, repair a puncture, drown a kitten, paper a wall, and, in fact, perform any operation known to mortal man. In consequence. Jack's services were in constant demand. A week or two • ago, after cobbling a neighbor’s boots, lancing his cousin's gumboil, sweeping the vicar’s chimney, and writing a testimonial for his char-woman’s nephew, he retired to rest He was awakened by a terrible bang at his front door, and immediately rushed to the window. “What’s the matter?” he bawled irritably. “You’ll excuse me for troubling you at this time of the night,” came the reply, "but the fact is our baby is very cross, and we would like you to come and pacify him. He always laughs when he sees your funny nose."

A Natural Mistake.

General Joffre once told a good humored story of a party of four British tourists who entered a Paris restaurant one evening and announced that they wanted dinner. "And we don’t want any of your frogs, or snails, or horses,” one of them told the waiter, severely. "Well start with soup—some sort of plain soup.” "Certainly, six,” replied the waiter, and next minute the four Brltains heard him shout down the speaking tube to the kitchen: "Cat soup!” Without a word the tourists seized their hats and bolted It was not until some time later that they discovered that th French .“four soups”— "quatres soupes”—is .pronounced almost exactly like "cat soup.** A married man’s idea of Heaven is a place where his wife’s folks won’t bother him. _ ''» After a man gets about so ojd it keeps him busy Crying tb rectify the mtttakeb of his youth.

A Protest

"I don’t mind you getting a new suit and a new hat,” said Calnlp to his wife, “but there is one thing I do Insist on. It is that you refrain from buying any article of clothing, be it hat suit or shoes, that makes you look as if you had been on a jag. “Yes, I said a jag! I don’t care whether it is a Ladies’ Home Destroyed suggestion or a Ladles’ Home Impossible design. It is all the same to me. Jag clothing doesn’t go on my wife. “Ordinary bughouse blouses I can stand for. I have become more or less accustomed to them. But I cannot stand it to see my wife looking as if she were drunk and staggering. “If your mother wishes to wear a devil-a-care stuff let her go to it I don’t care. It’s up to her. But I will not stand it on you and the girls. "A hat that’s supposed to have been knocked to one side by your leaning against a wall will not do, nor a stagger skirt, nor a jag jacket You have to look sober. It won’t do for the wife of a distinguished man to look otherwise. “I don’t want your garments to look as if you had slept in them all night. Nor do I want you to look as if you were having a turkish bath. It makes my head ache to see you looking like that because —er —I have some knowledge of how it feels to feel as you would look in some of these garments. " I never could bear to see anyone uncomfortable. Ordinary thumbscrew discomfort is bad enough, but the kind of discomfort that goes with the jag look suggested by your jag jerseys is worse than thumbscrews. "When I look at such female attire I am reminded not only of the cost of such clothing but of the cost of such a champagne jag as the outfit suggests to me. Let me see —1100 worth of champagne wouldn’t begin to make a person look as tipsy as the ladies look in the latest whoop-hooray dress that the Home Destroyer and the Home Impossible are now illustrating. “Moreover you women shouldn’t encourage a man to go to such lengths. I am sure the poor man who designs these clothes has to assume a terrible thirst before he can think them out. He couldn’t do so under any other circumstances. “I don’t suppose, Indeed that a three days’ spree would get him anything half as inebriated looking as the ladies have in those pictures you are studying. “You women should refuse to wear such garments. You should allow the poor designer te sober up and come out of it and be once more a human being. Don’t, I beseech you, turn a man into such a tank for such a purpose!" “What time was it,” asked Mrs. Calnlp softly, “when you came in last night."

WIDOWS

Statistics show that widows are far more attractive to men than are the young girls who have never taken matrimonial vows. AU sorts of explanations are offered, but a woman who has closely observed the facts in many cases says that the explanation is most obvious and simple. A man is not long captivated by an inexperienced girl, and, however beautiful and charming she may be, the conversation never takes that intelligent and closely sympathetic turn that is natural to a man when he is talking to a woman who has seen more of life and knows men as they are. The widow is more anxious to please than to be pleased, and a man can stand the most copious drafts of adulation; in fact, he can be intoxicated by the widow’s subtle glances, and in such an intoxication he revels with a smile of content. The widow caters to his whims. She is too wise to argue with him. She knows that arguments are the crypts of friendship and the everlasting doom of love. She understands that when a man leaves his place of business, he wishes to leave there all cares and perplexities. Consequently she does not try to force her opinions on him; but if he cares to talk ot. them, she is capable of understanding the problems that make up a life of a man of business affairs. The well bred widow is always gracious. She ihay or may not care to marry again, but, having grown accustomed to a husband's comradeship, she enjoys the society of other men, and in that enjoyment lies one of the great secrets of her attractiveness to a lonely man. Her graciousness is charmingly apparent when greeting her friends.

Something Lacking.

Mr. Wilkerson, the architect, had been invited down to the Clark’s to display the plans of Clark’s new bouse to some guests z "Here is the front elevation,” explained the architect, as he laid the plans on the library table for the inspection of the visitors, "with the outside window and the circular gallery; thia is the east elevation, showing the tower." After various comments had been made by the guests, little Arthur, aged 7, who was enormously interested in the new house, cried: "And where are the two mortgages father said he was going to put on?"

But silence would ImpiVW scxos people's converiiatidn.

Getting Ready

"There!" exclaimed the little stenographer, taking her watch from her belt and setting it in front of her. “I’m going to hold my breath till it’s 5 o'clock and then I'm going to run! I've always felt above watching the dock, but I’m beginning to understand a few things! Besides, I've had a horrible time today trying to get ready for the Fourth." The bookkeeper slid his ledgers back on the shelf. "Now what's the matter?" he asked, with an exaggerated air of resignation. “Oh, Fm tired to a frazzle and as cross as two sticks!" The little stenographer exploded. “Well, don’t take it out on me!" objected the bookkeeper, amiably. “What has happened, anyway?" “Everything!" returned the little stenographer dramatically. “I’ve been turned into a housekeeper, general utility man—anything but the stenographer I thought I was, the stenographer trying to get things shipshape In preparation for the holiday. “This morning I had to devote two solid hours to checking up his club bills for Mr. Gray! And my flies a mile behind, waiting for a clear minute! If those men don't hear my typewriting machine rattle they think I've nothing to do! And they bother around for an hour, to think up something to help me pass the time. Mr. Gray smiled generously when he handed me his bills as if he were giving me the time of my life by permitting me to see how he spends his money—and incidentally keep his personal accounts for him!

“When I finished that, Mr. Nicholas called me in and said his wife had asked him if I wouldn’t be so kind as to write out her club programs for the whole of next year! The club was about to adjourn until fall, and it was saving money by doing its own programs instead of having them printed. Mr. Nicholas beamed on me as if he were conferring an honor upon me that could never be estimated in letting me get so close to his wife’s club as to spend a few hours writing out the club programs! Then she’ll feel so righteous when spending on charity the money I’ve saved for her, when the fifll credit —well, it belongs elsewhere, if I do say it myself! “Just when I was working as hard as I could to get that finished, so that I could get started on that awful filing, who should come out and look over my shoulder I ut Mr. Brown himself! I could tell that he thought that I was presuming a good deal in writing something that was not business letters, so I hastened to explain what It was I was doing. That gave him an idea and he went back into his office and returned presently with his silk gloves. “ *Won*t you, please, when you have a little time, just catch these threads together?* he asked. And he showed me fingers of his gloves that were almost entirely gone at the tips! ‘Cateh them together!’ Why, I had positively to crochet new tips on them! And I didn’t dare do anything but my very carefulest work for him.

"That’s the way it’s been all day long! Mr. Gray asked me to pack his suitcase —from that drawer yhere he keeps shirts and - collars, you know — for he had to go out of town for the Fourth. And while I was at it that Mr. Vandewater had a bright idea. He suggested that I phone a reservation for him —and then run down and get it! And —oh, well, what’s the use? I’m going home!” She half arose from her chair. As she did so Mr. Brown emerged hastily from his office. "Here,” he said, "I’ve got to run for my train. Will you shut my desk and close the window and sign the letters I left there?" The little stenographer nodded and said no word. "And," called the bookkeeper, as he poked his head back through the door as he was leaving, “don’t forget to put the cat out and wind the clock.”

Maggie’s Effort.

Now that the washing hung on the line, Mrs. Moran was leaning over the back fence and discussing with sympathetic Mrs. Regan the problem of fringing up a daughter. Privately, Mrs. Regan considered that Maggie Moran was born lazy, but Maggie's mother held that Maggie’s case was not so simple. "It ain’t that Maggie’s not willin’” said Mrs. Moran. Willin’ she is, and active on her bicycle, and always ready to run an errand for you. But she ain’t one that hears work callin’ or sees it a-lookln’ at her. "It’s easier to do a thing yerself than to be tellin’ others,” said Mrs. Regan, "And that's the truth," agreed Mrs. Moran. "But Maggie ain’t to blame, although maybe she's a little too easy discouraged. I’ve seen her tryln’. Last winter I says to her, 'Maggie,’ I says, ‘every time you find something to do to help mother round the house I’ll give ye a cent.’ That started her hard at it, Mrs. Regan, and ’twas a foil two weeks before she got discouraged and give It up." ‘And how much did she make?" asked Mrs. Regan. "Nine cents," said Mrs. Moran, "but I called it a dime." The older a man gets the less he knows ho knows. Some men would die young if they Wwru uanpeUed t» Urerk for a living.

Lost and Found

“Why, I dunno," said their father, bewllderingly. “I did call them to come to lunch; you told me to!** “Well, but didn’t they answer?” demanded the mother. "Er—well—l don’t know!* said their father, not thoroughly divorced from his magazine. “Pete—rrr! Florence!” Dead silence. “My goodness!” cried their mother anxiously. "Whatever has happened to them?” "Now, Agnes!” said the husband. "Why should anything happen to them at this perfectly simple place? Nothing has happened—they’ve just strolled off! Telephone the Goobles and the McKanes!” He remained standing nonchalantly on the steps, while she obeyed. Two wrinkles came between his eyebrows as he narrowed his eyes to look up the pathway winding between the summer cottages. Peter and Florence was conspicuous by their absence. “They haven’t seen them!” declared his wife, .hurrying to the door. “You go up that way and I’ll go this way and ask people.” She darted off in the hot sun and their father sighed and did likewise. It was odd —Peter had definitely promised never to run away again, after the last time back In town when he had been rescued from an old clothes wagon and then painstakingly disinfected. Florence was too young to be strong against malign Influence. Where he was she was sure to be! Half an hour later the hot and worried perents met again on the veranda. The cook joined them. The woman from the adjoining cottages ran over, luncheon napkins in hand, to discuss the mystery and tell the distracted mother that positively nothing could have happened to her children. They were absolutely optimistic. “Why, It’s perfectly safe here!” declared the fat, blonde woman. "That’s the reason it’s such a lovely place for children! You know,/they simply can’t get into trouble! The time that Phipps: child got carried away by gypsies was an exception—the farmer shouldn’t have let them camp on his land. Now, my dear, don’t take on that way! Nobody has seen any gypsies around here this year at all! Some one certainly would have seen them if there had been any? Still, they’re so sly—” “You must brace up!” chimed in the short, dark woman, soothingly. “Peter certainly wouldn’t think of taking Florence and going out in a rowboat, a child of eight like Peter! You’ve warned him repeatedly, especially since the accident at the other end of the lake! Oh, I’m sure he hasn’t gone out in a boat —I wouldn’t worry about it a bit! Not a bit!" "D-d-da you see anything of them, Walter?" faltered their mother, incipient hysteria showing in her voice. "No,” said the father. “I’ll go get some of the men to search the woods. Pete-rrrr! Flor—ence! Peter—rrr!” "Oh, Oh!” cried the mother, wringing her hands. "We’d never f-f-flnd them in these w-w-woods never!/ "It was a week before they found that Phipps child,” said the fat, blonde woman, consolingly. "Or, wasn’t It ten days, dear?” she Inquired from the short, dark woman. "It seems to me they would have thought of gypsies immediately, but people are so funny! They always hope for the best! Now, I believe If something awful happens the best thing to do is face It at once, and Now, my dear, you really mustn’t get Into such a distracted state! Probably nothing at all has happened to them

"Then why don’t they come home?* walled their mother. “They’re always so starved at meal time. Nothing would keep them away! Oh, Pete-rrr! Flor —ence!" "We’ve beat the woods all around here,” reported their father, appearing with several other men. "We’ve called and shouted ** "They couldn’t have found that abandoned well back of the old Jones place, could they?” asked the fat blonde woman. “I’m sure they couldn’t have lifted off the boards and fellin * “They’re not there reported their father qulverlngly, a little later, returning in time to help resusitate his wife, who had promptly fainted at mention of the well. There was a little rustle of leaves in the stillness. The rustle came from beneath the summer cottage, which was built on piles. All the men fell upon their hands and knees and p eared beneath the house. Then their father clutching a shoe of each, dragged them out, protesting. “Y’ don’t understand!" Peter yelled Indignantly. "We’re ’Mexicans—an* you were Mexicans —an* we had to be still as—as still—er you’d catch us and shoot us—why, you jus* don’t understand!” “My compreheipion may be limited said Peter's father, punctuating each syllable with a spank, "but my imagination is great! Just'play Pm a Mexican who’s spanking you." The woman who says she wouldn’t marry the best man on earth usually weds one that is no good. A bachelor says the simplest kind of simple addition is the addtotf of tme and one to make on*

Size and Ability

"You can’t teU by the look of a frog ’ how far ho can jump.” That old and crude philosophy is as applicable to men as to frogs, says the Kansas City Star. A story in the Star, a short time ago, told of the arthral at Union station of four men, three of them alert, well-dressed, impressive-looking. The fourth wore a battered old gaberdine frayed at the buttonholes. His manner was timid and retiring. In size he was insignificant. He was a little great man. Dr. Charles H. Mayo, one of the greatoet surgeons the world has over known. John B. Gough, the great platform orator, used to tell a story about himself, how he arrived late at a hall in Glasgow, where he was to speak. The place was packed. He could not got in. To the crowd wedged into the front entrance he told that he must fiet in, he was Gough, the speaker. They looked at him, he was an undersized man. and laughed. They imagined that Gough, the great orator, must bo a tall Tnan. He went to a side window, hoping to be able to crowd in there. It was already jammed full, and they, too, laughed when he told them ho was John B. Gough. Finally he went to a rear door and told the man on guard there that ho was Gough. .“Yes, five or six other men have already told me t K at,” the watchman said. Gough gave him a shilling to pass him in to the stage and after the lecture the doorkeeper went to him and said: "Well, Gough you’re like a singed cat; better than you look.* Many men who do great things are small in stature and Insignificantlooking. Nearly all of them would pass unnoticed in a crowd. Gen. Sir John French, field marshall tn command of the British forces in France, "the incomparable Ney* of the British army, Is described as: “Short and squat In stature, a ludicrous figure on horseback and not at all the sort of man In appearance one expects a cavalry leader to be." And he Is “quiet and unassuming.* They all are—all the men who do great things. Lloyd-George, British chancellor of the excequer, one of the great men of England, Is described as follows in Colliers Weekly: "A short, stocky man, about the size of La Follette, there was nothing distinguished In his appearance.* Ho is known as “the little Welsh lawyer.* Lord Roberts, a great general, was known as "Little Efobs.* Grant was short and stocky. Lord Nelson, "the greatest sea fighter the world has ever seen,* was undersired and delicate. Napoleon was “the lltte Corporal.” Stephan A. Douglas was "the little giant.” Harriman and Jay Gould, wizards of railway finance, were u» derslzed. So Is John D. Rockefeller. The list might be extended to cot umns, disproving the popular belief that for a man to be a genius he must be big; but still the world will keep on believing it.

His Precaution.

Mr. Rouzier Dorcelrese of Paris, who has fought many duels and directed over 200 others, enjoys telling the following story: Two gentlemen who had decided to settle a quarrel on the field of honor betook themselves with their seconds to a quiet country spot, where they would bo free from reporters, photographers and spectators, and where the only witnesses would be some cows peaceably grazing in the field. While the necessary preliminaries were being carried out the farmer on whose land they were rushed up. “Excuse me, gentlemen," he saidL "but is it a sword or pistol duel?" "Sword. But what difference can that make to you?” “Well, you see, if it was with pistols, I'd want to take the cows in first.”

Appropriate Music.

One afternoon a party named Bowers had business at a state penitentiary in the west, and on returning he spoke of the visit to a number of friends. "The prisoners down there," said Bowers, “were having some kind of Saturday afternoon holiday, with a brass band and speeches to match. And say, maybe the leader of that band wasn’t some wonder in the choice of appropriate music! What do you suppose he was playing?" . “Search me,” responded one of the friends. “Some sad hymn, I presume." ‘.‘He was not!” declared Bowers, emphatically. "He was playing Thia Is the Life.’"

Real Heroism.

He had been courting the girl for a long time. It happened on Sunday night, after church. They were sitting on the sofa, and she looked with ineffable tenderness into his noble blue eyes. "Tom,” she murmured, “didn’t you tell me once you would be willing to do any act of heroism for my sake?" •Yes, Mary, and I would gladly reiterate that statement now," he toplied. "No Roman of old, however brave, was ever fired with a loftier ambition, a braver resolution than V "Well, Tom, I want you to do soanw thing really heroic for me." "Speak, darling, what is itl" "Ask me to be your wJM WW been tooling fcng oWWurfk*