Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1916 — Page 2

The Impersonator

By HAROLD CARTER

(Copyright. 1916. by W. G. Chapman.) "Gentlemen, Mister Harry Saunders, the celebrated female Impersonator, will now appear before you.” Benson, leaning against a pillar in the background of the little mining camp saloon theater, looked on with disgust All about him the cowboys were riotously applauding. He, Benson, had tasted the sweet and bitterness of life too long to be stirred by anything. JFive years on a lonely ranch, whither he had betaken himself after that past which the West nevdr inquires about varied by periodical Incursions to such places of amusement as this, had been his portion. Benson was tired of life. He had again and again meditated self-destruction. Each time he had decided to give the show another chance. "Hurrah! Bully for you, Harry!" yelled the cowboys. ■ Benson looked toward the stage. Harry Saunders was certainly impersonating a woman well. His skirt dance was inimitable. His voice, his gestures conveyed the illusion, completely. Benson felt his disgust rising. "Why can’t he stick to the sex God made him?” he muttered contemptuously. "Touring the country and showing off in women’s clothes, instead of hustling for a living like —like me.” And, glancing toward his patient horse, tethered outside the saloon among a score of others, he thought of the hard, brown earth from which he had so painfully wrung a living during five years. But he thought, too. of the distant mountains, in their glory of blue and crimson, when the sun rose; of the desert wind, the loneliness of the vast spaces. There was peace, at. least. “I was a fool to have come here,” said Benson. Nevertheless, he strode up to the bar and ordered a drink, more to satis-

“Put Him Down, Ben!”

fy the manager than because he needed it And all the while he drank his mind wandered between thoughts of returning to his solitude and thoughts of death. A prolonged spree, a slow debauch, the quick revolver bullet at the end, end who would care? Surely that was the final atonement that a man could make to a world which he had spurned, and which, in turn, had cast him out. As he mused he became aware that the number had ended. A group of cowboys had surrounded Harry Saunders as he emerged in male garb from his dressing room, and were clapping him on the back, uttering coarse pleasantries. They hustled him toward the bar.

“Name it!” shouted the bartender. “Five fingers of Lunn’s!” shouted ♦he man who had the boy in tow, naming a popular, and very fiery brand of rum. ' “I beg your pardon! I don’t drink!” stammered Saunders. The cowboys laughed. They insisted that he should drink. It seemed to them both hospitality and a kind of retribution upon a fellow who could make up as a girl. Harry’s girlishness was apparently a- force of habit, for he stammered and pleaded, and the more he did so the more the men insisted. Finally the manager of the troupe interfered, but they shook him off. They were determined that Harry should swallow his grog. Then Harry began to cry. At first discomfited, the cowboys looked at one another in consultation. What was to be done with a kid like that ? They were as disgusted as Benson had been. One threw the fiery spirit in bis face. “Dance, then!" yelled one, drawing his revolver and blazing into the floor between hfs feet. The boy sprang five feet into the air. But he came down again and did not dance. Instead, ty? planted hlm-

self defiantly upon the, floor and doubled his fists. “Leave the kid alone! He’s got some Bpirit!” shouted one of the kindlier of the cro^d. But another ran upon him and struck the boy a vicious blow on the face, knocking him backward into Benson’* arms. Instantly the saloon was in an uproar. The drunken cowboys were evenly divided in their opinions of Harry, and meant to enforce them. Then it was that Benson, looking into his face with the perspicacity of sobriety, realized that Harry Saunders was a girl. The “impersonation’’ had been no impersonation at all. He was the impersonation. Swiftly he moved toward the door with Harry, and, before the cowboys had realized that their quarry, and their object of protection respectively, was gone he had untethered his horse and mounted. He leaned over. "Jump!” he shouted; and as he did so the drunken mob came pouring out, all now animated by the same spirit of anger. m Benson leaned low and hoisted the girl into the saddle in front of him just as the leaders ranged themselves about him. "Put him down. Ben!” they yelled. “He’s got to sing and dance and drink now, and then, maybe, we'll teach him some more.” Benson spurred his horse, which reeled wildly, upsetting the two who clutched at the bridle. Then he was off, galloping down the long, dusty road toward Tils ranch, miles In the distance. One or two shots were fired; but very soon he had got clear of the town, and, looking back, saw that he was not followed. He reined in his panting 1 steed to a walk and spoke for the first time. “Who are you? How did you get here?” he demanded. “First, your name—unless you don’t want to give it.” The girl looked up at him, and the awful fear upon her face disappeared when she saw the kindliness on his. “Ethel Saunders,” she said timidly. “Harry was my brother. He was the impersonator. He—-he died.” “How did you get here?” “I had to come West. I was threatened with tuberculosis. I could dance and sing a little, but I had never done co in public, and I—l didn’t dare trust myself in the mining chmps. So since Harry had been known I thought I’d take his place and pretend to be a boy. But I’m going home now. I can’t bear what happened today.” She burst out sobbing, and the discolored mark on her cheek showed like a finger of shame. “I can take you to Lumley’s. The coach will be there afternoon,” said Benson. “But the troupe—” “They mustn’t know. I tell you I’ve done with it all. I’m going home.” “Where’s your home?” “East.” "People there?” “What is it to you? No. I have nobody."

“Then you’ll do what to live?” “The same old game!” she cried hopelessly. “The same—but sick as

I am of it what else can I do?” Benson felt a swift and vast pity for the helplessness of this child, thrust alone into the world, into the West, helpless. A glance at her face showed him that the rose of innocence, scorched though it had been by the life there, still bloomed. “Listen!” he said. “I guess life has treated both of us pretty badly. But I’ve got a little ranch yonder, and — will you try it with me? If you won’t, I’ll take you to Lumley’s. Here’s the cross-roads.” But since she made no answer, he looked at her again and set his Jiorse toward the ranch.

Taking Him Down a Peg.

“There is no one,” remarked a politician who has been a candidate for governor of Missouri, “who can take the wind out of a fellow’s sails so effectually as an oldtime, leisurely Missourian. For example: “After a twelve years’ absence, dur-’* ing which I had graduated at the university, got my name in the paper a few times and bought a new suit of clothes, I went back to the little old country town where I had been a ‘poor but ambitious youth.’ “I expected a reception committee to meet me, but it did not. However, seeing the grandeur of my new clothes and stiff hat, my old acquaintances came round and shook hands cordially—all" except' - old Bill McClanahan, who kept the general store. Old Bill sat at the back of the stove, handy to "thi sawdust box. He never noticedme; didn’t even glance my way. “I was piqued, angry, in fact. I walked back to the stove and got right in front of my old friend, so that he had to look upon me in all my glory. “Slowly, casually, he looked up from under the flap of his old white hat and remarked: “ ‘Arthur, you have been away somewhere, haven’t you?’ ”

Not Smoke, but Snow.

F. D. Young of the United States weather bifreau has advanced three theories to account for the “smoke” reported from time to time as having been seen rising from Mt. Hood, in Oregon. One is that the “smoke” is snow, blown by a strong wind from a certain direction from the cliffs inside the crater rim and thrown high in the air. Another is that clouds drifting into the open side of the crater rim are transformed into a column of vapor and carried upward by rising air currents.» The third is that snow thrown by slides on hot patches of rock inside the crater is con tertfed into steam which, being carriOd upward, looks like smokg.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

Mountain battery, Company A of the Sixth infantry, coming in to headquarters near Narniqulpa. Mexico, the line extending far aeross the sands.

BRITAIN HAS BIG ARMY IN FRANCE

New Battalions Have Completely Engulfed the Old Regular Force. HOLD 100 MILES OF FRONT Never Have There Been So Many German and Allied Troops on the Western Front —Doctors Help the Civilians. By FREDERICK PALMER. *” British Headquarters, France. —A correspondent who has been absent for six months from the British front is amazed upon his return at the increase in numbers of men, guns and equipment. The numerous battalions of the new army which have arrived have engulfed the old regular army. Not one officer In ten whom one meets has had any military service before the war. Now one must ride a hundred miles to pass the British front. Khaki is thick in the villages of the Somme country as well as in those of northern Belgium. The British hold the famous “Labyrtoth.” as well as Ypres and Loos. In the course of the taking over of a long section of the French line, which freed French troops for service, hundreds of miles of wire had to be laid, transport organized, headquarters moved, new corps and divisions created and commanders appointed. In the last few months new men have come into positions of responsibility. Men who entered the army as second lieutenants have become captains without yet being old enough to vote. Majors have become colonels and generals. “We do not know when the war will be over, but we do know that spring is here,” say the soldiers. The second winter in the trenches is finished. Itß chill, wet monotony is over. Before another winter —well, what will happen this summer? The growth of the army and the sun drawing the moisture out of the mud emphasized the universal question. Face Big German Army.

Never, so far as one can learn, have there been so many Germans and so many allied troops on the western front as at this time. Next to the Verdun region, the German concentration is heaviest in face of the British of any section from the North sea to Switzerland. NO German troops have been drawn off from the British front as re-enforcements for the attack on Verdun. One side of the other demolishes a section of enemy trench by exploding mines or by artillery concentration. Then the infantry rushes the trench, gathers in some prisoners, does what damage and returns to its own trench.** In the morasses of the Ypres salient and the Loos region nothing more could be done, though a winter attack might be possible in high country like that around Verdun. Much ingenuity has been shown by both sides in these trench raids. But no sooner has one side worked out a hew trick than the other learns how to counter it. “Mud” was the reason given in a word by an officer why the British could not attack in winter to relieve the pressure on Verdun. “It was the season the Germans would have chosen for us to attack,” be added.

Doctors Help Civilians. Recently a bundle of reports which throw interesting light on the work of peace the British army is doing in France was collected at headquarters. They came from army medical officers all the way from the fighting line back to the hospitals at the bases far from the zone of shell fire, and told of the service which the army doctors have been rendering to the civil population. France itself has been depleted of doctors. The .young ones who did not go to therfront as medical officers or to the army hospitals, went to fight. In many villages any British army doctor who happened to be stationed there took the place of the local practitioner. These simple reports reveal the suffering and the sacrifice of the French ( population who have received free medical service from the allies. Surgeons go from the operating ble to set the broken leg of a boy who has fallen out of a tree or to lance a felon; troia the clearing station, where the white-bandaged wounded pass through* to look at the baby with,

MOUNTAIN BATTERY ARRIVING AT NAMIQUIPA

the colic in a neighboring peasant’s cottage. There are many records of shell wounds both to women and children who have gone on living and working in the danger zone. His niimeroua patients became so fond of one British doctor, who refused to take any pay, as all do, that the children called him "Papa Anglais," and when he was transferred to another post they took up a subscription and made him a present.

Wife, Aged Fourteen, Gets Divorce.

Findlay, O. —Mrs. Holland Chain, aged fourteen years, has obtained a divorce from her husband, who is seventeen years of age. They were married less than a year ago here.

DAKOTA MAN HAS MANY ADVENTURES

Billy Thorin Saps Career by Fighting in Legion After He’s “Dead.” TOOK YEAR TO GET THERE War Is Just One More Thrill to Wanderer —Shanghaied to Chile When He Reaches Bordeaux —Chum Killed in Row. By PAUL ROCKWELL. Paris, France.—A full chronicle of the adventures on land and sea of Billy Thorin, American legionnaire, would fill volumes which for absorbing interest would rank with “Treasure Island” or any of the widely read stories of adventure and romance. Billy was born on a wheat ranch, near Canton, S. D., and was Christ; ened Daniel William Thorin. The peaceful occupation of following the plow or operating a steam thresher did not appeal to him, however, and at the age of fourteen years he ran away from home to see the world. The roving blood of hardy Viking ancestors coursed madly in Billy’s veins,' calling him to the sea. Reaching the Pacific coast, he shipped as cabin boy on a tramp sailing vessel, and from that time on Billy followed the sea with fair regularity for fifteen years. Marine on Chinese Gunboat. Like all sailors, however, Billy had his spells of being tired - of ordinary seafaring. Once he enlisted as a marine on a Chinese gunboat and fought with desperate yellow pirates and opium runners. He was a member of Price and Mosby’s legion of soldiers of fortune which fought for first one Mexican pretender, then for another. That campaign was almost Billy’s

WOUNDED IN MEXICO

Corporal Richard. Tannous of the Thirteenth cavalry who was wounded in the fight at Parral. Corporal Tannous with a squad of men was passing unobtrusively through Parral when a volley of shots fired by Mexicans whizzed past them. They quickened their pace but the Mexicans fired at them until they came in sight of the main division. Corporal Tannous was shot through the arm. >

HEROES’ GROVE FOR GERMANS

Such a Plan to Honor Soldier Dead Has Popular Approval In Germany.

Berlin.—“ How shall we honor our dead?” is a question which is being widely discussed in the German press just now. The majority of German editors is averse to a repetition of the erection of innumerable “Krieger Denkmale,” soldier monuments, such as were in vogue after the FrancoPrussian war. Nor does the plan to scatter throughout the empire monuments of the kaiser and the leading generals find any approval. The most "popular proposal yet made for the commemoration of those who have fallen on the battlefield is the formation of a “Hain,” or grove, to be called "Heldenhain,” or Heroes’ Grove.

finish. In a guerrilla battle with a band of revolutionists Billy and a comrade decided to investigate a small adobe hut which stood in the low brush near a road. Billy started round one side of the house, his mate round the other. When Billy came to the front of the house the headless body of his comrade lay in the dust before the half open door. Billy “saw red." He put his hand on the door to push it open, and a Mexican lurking behind it cut the hand half off with a machete. Somehow or other, Billy killed the Mexican with his bare hands. Then he heard firing and stepped out of the hut. A bullet passed through his face, from cheek to cheek, and Billy started to run. Just as he reached the road a second bullet caught him through • the thigh and Billy pitched forward in the dust When he recovered consciousness he was in a military hospital at Fort Roswell, N. M. After Billy recovered he went to Australia. He left that country in June, 1914, on an Italian vessel bound for Liverpool. When the ship reached its destination it was learned that the great war had broken out. Goes to Enlist, Shanghaied on Ship. Billy at once announced his intention of going to France and joining the foreign legion.

Jack Hodge, an Australian sailor who had shipped along with Billy, decided to join the legion with him and the Italian captain offered to carry the two men to Bordeaux on his boat. At Bordeaux the two comrades helped load the boat with a cargo for Chile, then went into a case with the captain, who proposed a drink to their success. One drink was followed by another, and when the two would-be legionnaires recovered their senses they were far out on the ocean en route for South America. Some weeks later Jhe ship sailed into the harbor of Ama, Chile. Before going ashore Billy and his mate gave the treacherous captain a thrashing that sent him into a hospital and them into a Chilean prison for two months. After coming - out of Jail the two comrades had to wait around Arica for several months before they could get a ship back to France. There were many Germans in Arica, who did not relish the loudly proclaimed intention of Billy and Hodge of returning to France to Join the legion.

One night Billy and Hodge r been In a saloon together. Hodge stepped out alone, and, hearing a commotion, Billy rushed out after him. He found his mate dying in the street, a knife stuck in his back. -- “Dead” in Battle, Soon Recovers. The next morning Billy sailed, and in June, 1915, he reached Bordeaux, and was enrolled in the legion. He trained at Camp La Val bonne, and went to the front withal detachment of re-enforcements Just before the Champagne offensive In September. A few days after the legion’s charge In the Bois Sabot, on September 28, I received this news in a letter from Paul Pavelka:, . “Early in the .attack Billy Tborin was struck in the head by a piece of shrapnel. He refused to go to the rear, but kept on. A few minutes later he was again hit and toppled over. I knelt and looked at him, and he was stone dead.” But Billy was not dead. He came to and crawled alone to a first-aid post, and later reached a hospital in the far south of France. Billy has Just gone back to the front.

The women of the Philippine Islands make some of the’ finest lace in the world from a strong silk fiber obtained from pineapple leaven

Home Town Helps

TREES HAVE DEFINITE VALUE Betting of a House Has Much to Do With Its Attractiveness—BackGround Easily Mads. A background makes all the difference between a house and a home. Your house will be twice as to sell if it is seen against woods-or orchards rather than empty sky. If your house is already located and has no background, plant some tall-grow-ing trees behind it. Why not plant some of the trees that reach great height, the sycamore, the linden, the sweet gum, and the tulip tree, which

Looks Bleak and Barren.

has gorgeous cup-like flowers, foul* Inches across, of yellow marked with orange? Many old farmhouses are very poor architecturally. The ideal is a new and better home; the next best thing is remodeling; but if neither is practical, can’t you hide the unattractive part by planting, and show the attractive? Even a house that is false and ugly may have some good detail. Study once more the house you think hopeless, and hold your hands before your eyes in such a way as to hide the bad and show the good. Then see if you cannot find trees that will do the work in a reasonable time. You can greatly increase the value of your property by planting the right sort of trees at either end of your house, so as to frame a picture of your home. Many a rich man pays hundreds of dollars extra for a farm because the old house Is surrounded by century-old elms. He builds a big new house under the old trees and at once it looks old and mellow. The pioneers thought only of shade and shelter from the wind, and so they commonly planted trees all around the

With Proper Surroundings.

farmhouse, generally too near one another and too close to the house. Consequently, the houses look dark, damp, and gloomy in winter, while in summer they look hot and stuffy. The best thing is to cut out enough of the old trees to give some light and air, and frame the view of the house from the road. Illustrations in this article published by courtesy of Landscape Extension Division of University of Illinois.

METAL ASH BARREL IS BEST

Always Danger in the Use of Wooden Receptacles to Hold the Accumu- - lated Rubbish. Hot ashes in a wooden barrel are almost certain to cause a disastrous fire sooner or later. The use of an empty flour or sugar barrel to keep ashes until the weekly visit of the ashman may seem an economy? but in the long run it is a costly mistake. In many places the fire regulations prohibit this sort of thing, but there are still instances where city and town authorities permit It. It is also unwise to use a wooden barrel for ordinary rubbish, for a spark in a barrel filled with paper, sweepings and housecleaning rubbißh means disaster. A careless maid or thoughtless child la apt to forget and put hot ashes in the rubbish barrel. For this reason metal ash barrels are the cheapest. Galvanized iron, made in corrugated form to insure strength, is the popular material. They will last a long time and will not go to pieces suddenly as will a wooden barrel.

Care of Lawns.

Now that hot weather has come, remember that lawn grass is now making its most vigorous growth, that under the best conditions it roots but a few inchep deep and therefore needs ■an abundance of water; more now is needed than in the hottest weather to supply the new and succulent growth. It will pay to watch, lawns closely, and not water them until it is needed, but do it most thoroughly, so that as the water supply lessens the roots will go deeper to find moisture. In this way a resourceful lawn may be made, one that will not dry out in midsummer if left without watering for a few days.