Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 233, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1916 — Page 2

The IDYL of IWIN FIRES

by WALTER PRICHARD EATON

SYNOPBIB. —l3 r crow tired of mjr work u a college tastructor and buy a Now England farm on alght I Inspect my farm and go to board at Bert Temple's. Bert helps me to {lire a carpenter and a turner. Hard Cider, the carpenter, estimates the repair* aad chanres necessary on the house. Mike oommences plowing. X start to PT UI V® ■orchard trees. Hard Cider builds book* nsasi around th 6 twin fireplaces. Mrs. Temple hires Mrs. Will* for jne as a housekeeper, and announces the coming of s new boarder from New York, a halfolflk young woman who needs the country air I discover that Stella Goodwin will snake a delightful companion ami believe ■he ought not to return to the hot and dusty city for a long time. I squeere her hand slyly. Together we dedicate Twin Fires." I surprise her waling to the brook and enjoy a delightful thr JlV.. *■ PtlUg. my housekeeper, arrives with her ■on Peter and his dog Buster I wonder If I love her. We take a ? ul «* p b > the brook. Stella returns to New York.

You’d never guess how John Upton made the decision of hla life and carried It out. If you, reader, are married you’ll hugely enjoy this Installment. If you're not married and are wondering how to persuade a girl to marry you there’s all the more reason why you’ll enjoy the following continuance of the story.

John Upton takes his first mess •f peas to town and sells them to the hotelkeeper—with whom he enters ja conversation.

CHAPTER Xll—Continued. « skepticism which annoyed me. I hastened from him, and left my manuscript with the stenographer, who had arrived for the summer. “I’ll call for the copy tomorrow «oon,” said I. Then I went to the telegraph booth and sent a day letter to Stella. “Buster sending me to thank you,” It read. “Meet me Hotel Belmont six tomorrow. Sold over a bushel of peas today. Prepare to celebrate.” “Mike," said I, returning to the cart, “drop me at-the golf club. Tell Mrs. f*llllg not to expect me to lunch.” It was ten o'clock when we arrived at the entrance to the club. I jumped «ot and Mike drove on. The professional took my name, and promised to hand it to the proper authorities as a candidate. Then I paid the fee for the Iday, borrowed some clubs from him, and we set out I had not touched a club since the winter set In. How good the driver felt in my hand! How ■weetly the ball flew from the club (as the golf ball advertisements phrase it), 0B the first attempt! I sprang down the course In pursuit, elated to see that C had driven even with the pro. Alas! may second shot was not like unto it! tTta second spun neatly up on the green mad came to rest. Mine went off my masble like a cannonball, and overshot Into the road. My third went ten feet. But It was glorious. Why shouldn’t a • farmer play golf? Why shouldn’t a golfer run a farm? Why shouldn’t elther write stories? Heavens, what a lot of pleasant things there, are to do In the world, I thought to myself, as I finally reached the green and sank my put: Poor Stella, sweltering over n dictionary In New York! Soon she’d be here, too. She should learn to play golf, she should dig flower beds, she should wade In a brook. I flubbed my second drive. “You’re taking your eye off,” said the pro. “I'm taking my mind off,” said I. •*QI ve me a stroke a hole from here, for double the price of the round, or Suits?” “You’re on.” said he. That night I slept ten hours, worked over my manuscripts most of the next morning, packed a load of them in my suitcase, and after an early dinner got Peter to drive me to the train. “Peter ” an Id T at. the station, “your Job Is to take care of your mother, and Iceep the kindlings split, and drive to market for Mike when he needs you. lAIso to water the lawn and flower beds (With the spray nozzle! If I find you’ve Btsed the heavy stream. I’ll —PH —PH sell Buster!” Thai amiable creature tried to cllmh_ aboard the train with me, and Peter bad to haul him off by the tail. My last sight of Bentford was a yellow Uog squirming and barking In a small boy’s arms. The train was hot and stuffy. It grew hotter and stuffier as we came out of the mountains Into the Conjnecticnt lowlands, and we were all sweltering in the Pullman by the time Clew York was reached. As I stepped -* out of the Grand Central station into FOrty-second street my ears were asMaulted by the unaccustomed din, my nose by the pungent odor of the city streets, my eyes smarted in a dust whirl. But my heart was pounding with Joy and-expectation as I hurried across the street. 4 I climbed the broad steps to the lobby of the hotel, aftd scarcely had my feet reached the top than I saw a familiar figure rise from a chair. I ran toward her, waving off the boy who rushed to grab my bag. A second later her baud was in mine, bar eyes ilDoa my eyes. . .

corvtuoMT oouecsoov. »oGe O ccx

“It—lt was nice of Buster to send you.” she said. “You look so white, so tired,” I anawered. “Where is all your tan?" “Melted,” she laughed. “Have you business in town? It’* awfully hot here, you poor man." “Yes,” said I, “I have business here, very important business.— But first some supper and a spree. I’ve got ’most two bushels of peas to spend!" We had a gay supper, and then took a cab, left my grip at my college club, where I had long maintained a nonresident membership, and drove thence to Broadway. “How like Bentford Main street!” I laughed, as we emerged from Fortyfourth street into the blaze of grotesque electric signs, which have a kind of bizarre beauty, none the less. “Where shall we go?” “There’s a revival of ‘Patience’ at the Casino,” she suggested, “and there are the Ziegfeld Follies—” “Not the Follies," I answered. “I’m neither a drummer nor a rural Sundayschool superintendent. Gilbert and Sullivan sounds good, and I’ve never beard 'Patience.* ” We found our places In the Casino Just as the curtain was going up, and I saw “Patience” for the first time. I was glad it was for the first time, because she was with me, to share my delight As incomparable tune after tune floated out to us the absurdest of absurd words, her eyes twinkled into mine, and our shoulders leaned together, and finally, between the seats. I squeezed her fingers with unrestralnable delight. “Nice Gilbert and Sullivan,” she whispered. “It’s a masterpiece; It’s a masterpiece!” I whispered back. “It’s as perfect in Its way as—as your sundial! Oh, I’m so glad you are with me!” “Is It worth coming ’way to New York for?” “Under the conditions, around the world for,” said I. She colored rosy, and looked back at the stage. —■— After the performance she would not let me get a eftb. ‘“You’ve not that many peas on the place,” she said. So we walked downtown to her lodgings, through the hot, dusty, half-deserted streets, into the older section of the city below Fourteenth street. I said little, save to answer her volley of eager questions about the farm. At the steps of an ancient house near Washington square she paused. “Here is where I live,” she said. “I’ve had a lovely evening. Shall I see you again before you go back?” I smiled, took the latchkey from her hand, opened the door, and stepped behind her, to her evident surprise, into the large, silent, musty-smelling hall. She darted a quick look about, but I ignored it, taking her hand and leading her quickly Into the parlor, where, by the faint light from the hall, I could see an array of mid-Victorian plush. The house was silent Still holding her hand, I drew her to me. “I am not going back —alone,” T whispered. “Yod are going with me. Stella, I cannot live without you. Twin Fires is crying for Its mistress. You are going back, too, away from the heat and dust and the town, into a house where the sweet air wanders, into the pines where the hermit sings and the pool is thirsty for your feet.” I heard in the stillness a strange sob, and suddenly her head was on my breast and her tears were flowing. My arms closed about her. Presently she lifted her face, and our lips met. She put up her hands and held my face within them. “So that was what the thrush said, after all,” she whispered, with a hint of a happy smile. • “To me, yes,” , sm& I. “I didn’t dream It was to you. Was it to you?” “That you’ll never know,” she answered, “and you’ll always be too sttF pid to guess.” “Stupid! You called me that once before about the painters. Why were you angry about choosing the dlningroom paint?** -——- She grew suddenly wistful. “I’ll tell you that,” she said. “It was—it was because you let a third person Into our little drama of Twin Fires. I—l was a fool, maybe. But I was playing out a kind—a kind of dream of home building. Two can play such a dream, if they don’t speak of it. But not three. Then it becomes —it becomes, weil, matter-of-faety, 'and people talk, and the bloom goes, and—you hurt me a little, that’s all.’*’ I could not reply for \a moment What man can before the wistful sweetness of a woman’s secret moods? I could only kiss her hair. Finally words came. “The dream shall be reality now,” I said, “and you and I together will make Twin Fires the loveliest spot In all the hills. Tomorrow we’ll buy a stair carpet and—lots of things—together.” “Still with the pea money?” she gurgled, her gayety coming back. “No, sir; I’ve some money, too. Not much, but a little to take the place of the wedding presents I’ve no relatives to give me. I want to help furnish Twin Fires.” She laid her fingers on mv

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

protesting ftps. *1 shall, anyway." she added, “We are two tone orphans, yon add I, bat we have each other, and all that la mine ia yours, all—ell — all!’’ Suddenly she threw her arms about my neck, and I was silent In the mystery of her passion.

CHAPTER XIII. I Do Not Return Alone. Many people, I presume, long to fly from New York during a late Jane and early July hot spell. But nobody who does not possess a new place in the country, still unfurnished, with a garden crying for his attention pnd a brook wandering amid the pines, can possibly realize how the dust and heat of town affected me in the next ten days. It affected me the more because I saw how pale Stella was, how tired when the evenings came. With her woman’s conscientiousness, she was struggling to do two weeks’ work in one before leaving the dictionary. She even toiled several evenings, denying herself to me, while I wandered disconsolate along Broadway, or worked over my manuscripts at the club, surrounded by siphons of soda. At the luncheon hour and between five and six we shopped madly, getting a stair carpet, dining-room chairs (a present from her to herself and me, as she put It — fine Chippendale reproductions), a few ruga—as many as we could afford — and other necessary furnishings, including stuff for curtains. For the south room the curtains were gay Japanese silk from an oriental store, to balance the Hiroshiges, and while we were buying them she slipped away from me and presently returned, the proud possessor of two small ivory elephants.

“Look, somebody has sent ns another present!” she laughed. “Folks are so good to us! These are to stand on th# twin mantels, under the prints.” “From whom are they ?” I asked. “Your best friend and my worst enemy,” she answered. For three days after she left th# office of the dictionary I saw little of her. “There are some things you can’t buy for me—or with me,” she smiled. Then we went down together to the city hall for our license, sneaking In after hours, thanks to the kindly offices of a classmate of mine, the city editor of a newspaper. The clerk beamed upon us like a municipal Cupid. The last evening she left me, to pack her trunks, and I went back to the club, and found there a letter from the magazine where I had submitted my story. It was a letter of acceptaneel Misfortunes are not the only things which never come singly. I danced tor Joy. It the stores had been open I should have rubied out then and there and bought the mahogany secretary we had seen a few days before and wistfully passed by. Fortunately, they were not open. In the morning my cab stopped in front of the old house near Washington square, and Stella came forth with a friend, a sober little person who appeared greatly a impressed with her responsibilities, and bore the totally inappropriate name of Marguerite. “Dear, dear!” she said, “I’ve never attended a bride before. It’s very trying. And it’s very mean of you, Mr. Upton, to take Stella from us, and leave me with a new and stupid opworker. How do you expect the dictionary to come out?" “I don’t,-” said I, “nor do I care if it doesn’t There are too many words in the world already.” Bill Chadwick, another classmate of mine, came up from downtown, and met us at the church door. The rector was a friend and fellow alumnus of ours. It was like a tiny family party, suddenly and solemnly hushed by the organ as we stood before the altar, and in the warm dimness of the great, vacant church Stella and I were made man and wife. The four of us "“Went out to the cab again, and Bill insisted on a wedding breakfast at Sherry’s. “Good Lord!” he Bald, “you two gumshoe into an engagement, and get married without so much as a reporter In the church, and then expect to make a getaway like a pair of safe breakers! No, sir, you come .with me, and get one real civilized meal before you go back to your farm fodder.” '* Bill had the solemn little bridesmaid laughing before the luncheon was over, but the last we saw of them they were waving us goodfby from behind the grating as we went down the platform to our train, and the poor girl was mopping her eyes. “Isn’t the best man supposed to fail in love witt the bridesmaid?” I asked. “At least I hope he’ll dry her tears.” “Good gracious, yes!” cried Stella, “I never thought of that. You-don’t know what we’ve done! Marguerite is -a dear girl—and—an excellent crossindexer, but she’s no wife for your gay firiend William. You’d best send him a telegram of warning.” “Never!” said I. “Bill hPs cruised so long in Petticoat bay as a blockade runner that I hope she-shoots him full of holes and boards him in triumph Besides, everybody ought to get mar ried."~’' - Stella’s eyes looked up at mine, deei and happy below their twinkle, and we boarded the train.

But we haven’t reached the finish yet, by a long shot. Moat stories end with wedding musio but not so this tale about John and SteLla. How Peter and Buster and the others greeted the newlyweds and how Bill Chadwick and little Marguerite spun out a romance is told entertainingly hereafter.

(TO BS CONTXNUfiIto

The Luck of War

By H. M. EGBERT

CJopyrlgut, 1916. by W. G. Chapman.) “The sentence of this court is that you are to be shot at daybreak." The young English officer spoke to the young German, caught within the British lines without uniform. Such an offense carries only one penalty with it In warfare. The spy is too dangerous a man to be dealt with in any other way. The German smiled ironically. The sergeant in charge of him conducted him to the guardhouse, but not before he had cast a meaning glance at Lieutenant Denis, who had communicated to him the court’s decision. All the while the eourt-martial was being held a German big gun was hammering away at a spot behind the British lines. It was a 42-centimeter howitzer, and was being fired apparently under the belief that some vital line of communication existed there. And the shells had been exploding nearer, each with a devastating uprush of soil and tree trunks. The night wore away. The prisoner in the guardhouse heard the gun playing without cessation. He had nerved himself to meet his fate. He had no fear, for that was the lot of a captured spy. Nor had he a sense of injustice. But he knew that Denis would come. Denis came at four o’clock when he returned from duty. He found the prisoner waiting for him, smoking on the bunk. “Well, Krauss,” said Denis. "I was expecting you,” said the other. “Lord, Denis, what a world away we are from Montclair 1” Denis nodded and gulped. “It was a hard thing to have to do, although we were not exactly the best of neighbors at Montclair,” he said. Krauss waved his hand deprecating-

Krauss Was Raised High In the Air.

ly. “I am glad it was not my fate to have to do it to you,” he said. “Do you remember when we used to run for the New York train in the mornings?” “And we always walked borne together at night,” said Denis. “Yes. That was when we were good neighbors. What a pity you ever mortgaged that piece of property to me!” “I had to raise some money quickly 4or business purposes,” said Denis. “And I had to foreclose,” answered Krauss. “Your business ventures were not successful.” “They would have been, if you hadn’t shut down on me,” answered the Englishman. “But what’s the good of thinking over those things now? This beastly war finished me. You know ray business interests were largely with England. I had to enlist—should have done so anyway, though. Got my commission after our first fight. I wonder what my wife —” He checked himself, and the German looked at him curiously. “So you are married?” he asked, evidently pleased with the news-. “I should have Ky now. But Kitty Loft promised to wait for me when I sailed. That was three months or, so before you left, wasn’t it? She’ll wait for me till the end of time —that girl. Denis, I want yori to write a note to her informing her—” ’ He broke off, for the first time filled with evident emotion. Denis nodded. “Pll let her know,”- he said'. “Do know, I always thought you cared for Miss Loft,” said Krauss, watching the other strangely. “Of course I regarded you as something of a rival uatil I learned that she cared for me. Whish!” The exclamation was caused by a shattering explosion from the big gun. A sentry came. to the door. “It’s knocked down the camp cbmm&ndant’s house, sir,” he explained. “Yes?” inquired Denis, rising. ■ He stretched out his hand to Krauss. * “I’ll see you in the morning,” said Krauss, with ghastly humor. Denis left him. Krauss paced his cell, smiling. He had loved Kitty devotedly, and, though she had promised to wait for him, he had a little fear that Denis * t . well, Denis was married,

and there waa no fear uow. Somewhere they would meet again, Kitty and he, in tbatland where aU~goo<rtHngs come true. " At six o’clock the guard came for him. He was led a few paces away from the guardhouse, to where a file of soldiers was drawn up. Their rifles were held in their hands at the slope. Krauss and Denis nodded. “No!” said Krauss, as the sergeant began to fasten- a white handkerchief about his eyes. “I’ll take it with my eyes open,” he said. The sergeant looked at Denla, who nodded. The rifles were raised. Krauss stood facing them. At that moment his face was singularly calm. “Whee-ee-ee 1” sang a big shell from the distance. Denis was waiting for it to fall before giving the command to fire. The sound came nearer and nearer. Suddenly the air was filled with flame. A terrific din was In their ears. Krauss was raised high in the air and flung down bodily into the grass. Slowly the sulphurous fumes died away. Krauss opened his eyes. Where the guardhouse had been there was not even the fragment of a structure. And where had been the rolling meadow was only a deep, barren pit, still full of dust and smoke. Out of the smoke a hand’s breadth away, emerged the face of Denis. His eyes were open and he was looking at Krauss. The two men continued to regard each other in silence for perhaps a minute. Then Denis slowly raised himself. His uniform was hanging from him in tatters. One arm hung limply at his side. But otherwise he did not seem to be injured. Krauss raised himself to a sitting position. Blood was dripping from his shoulder where a fragment of the shell had struck him. All about them there was absolute silence, except for the sudden outpouring of a lark’s song, high overhead. They watched each other with a grim question in their eyes. There remained nothing at all of the firing squad, except perhaps some mutilated bodies, burled under fifty tons of earth. The force of the explosion happened to have hurled the two men in one direction, while it traried the rest. That was all. It was the unappealable, inexorable law of war. Presently Dmils extracted his firstaid bandage Lid, crawling toward Krauss, began t# bandage his arm. Krauss submitted in silence, wincing a little as the stripped flesh was exposed under the sleeve. Denis wound the bandage about the wounded limb with deliberation. When he had finished he put his head on one side and surveyed his work critically. Then Krauss spoke for the first time. “Rather strange,” he suggested, "to bandage up a man who is to die in a few minutes.” Denis looked at him steadily'. “That sentence cannot be executed/ Krauss,” he said. “Why?’ ’inquired Krauss. “Because there is nothing to prevent yon from taking your chance at crawling back to your lines. Look 1” Wherfe the British outposts had been the eirt-tfi was piled into a succession of pits and caverns by the big guns. It was a No Man’s Land of desolation. “You.aren’t going to kill me, Then?” inquired the German. “No,” answered Denis. "We are both out of action now,” he added, looking at his arm.

“Permit me,” said Krauss. And, taking out his first aid bandage from his knapsack, he began to cut away the sleeve of the other’s wounded arm and to bind up the wound. “That’s about even, I think,” he said, when he had finished, looking critically at his work. “Now, I want to ask yo'u a question. Why didn’t you kill me? Why don’t you do it now? You are able to fire your revolver with your left hand, and I am unarmed. Is it because of the Montclair days?” ? “No." answered Denis. - “It isn’t heaping coals of fire on my head because I foreclosed on that mortgage of yours?” “No,” said Denis again. “Why, then?” < “Because I don’t have to, and I don’t want the job of sending news of your death to —to Miss Loft,” said Denis. “Are you satisfied?” “Entirely so.” “Then let me recommend you to get out as quick as you can before the ambulances «nne up,” said Denis. Krauss held out his hand, and Denis, after an Instant’s pause, took it “Good luck!” he said. “The luck of war,” answered the other, as he crawled out of the pit ~And Denis, weak and weary from niswound, watched the spy’s slow progressthroughthegrass untll he disappeared in the distance. Perhaps he had done wrong to let him go, he thought—but then, he was no executioner; and how could he write to his wife that he had put to death the man whom she had once loved and who thought that she still loved him?

True View.

The late James J. Hill was a man of buoyant optimism. “Failures,” he once said in an address to railroad men, “failures are always Successes, on the other hand, are optimists. Which is right?” ,-V~— ■ ' “It’s easier to slip down hill than to climb up, but the view, remember, is at the top."

Striking an Average.

Nipp—That fellow Hlghedde is gen erally disliked. Tuck—Yes, but h|s awn opinion of himself brings the avenge pretty well UP, , ‘

“CAT-FEAR” VICTIM

HERE 18 INDIVIDUAL WITH REAL TALE OF WOE. Many Who Have Suffered Under Like Circumstances Will Extend Bym- - pathy. Since “Honey Boys” Are Quite Numerous.

Can anyone tell me at what age on* la likely to become subject to catfear? I wasn’t born with it, for I have vivid recollections of being foolishly fond of a homely, spotted old cat, bearing the musical name of Molly Cottontail, asserts a writer in the Indianapolis News. Maybe catfear, like honors, comes to the individual in various ways. If this should prove to be true, then I’m under the Impression that it was thrust on me. Strange to say, all cats do not affect me unfavorably. I can even see a scrawny black cat shoot across my path without feeling a qualm, and I’ve been known to warm a saucer of milk to cheer some stray cat on Its backalley pilgrimage. If there’s any harder lot than that of stray cats I don’t want to hear about it, and I’m glad I’ve helped some of them a bit It’s the fine, family pet that brings on my attacks. Two people in the upper flat have an Angora, an im'mense black and clay-colored chump that gets on my nerves. It seems that this upper flat was rented primarily> for Honey Boy. The two people occupy any chair, couch or bed that his majesty is not using. If he kept strictly to his own rented apartment it wouldn’t be so hard, but he takes privileges with the whole building and surrounding grounds. He is partial to the downstairs front porch, and sprawling his long-haired self out on one of the posts at the side of the front steps, he waits, fondly expecting every passer-by to exclaim over his catshlp. And a lot of them do it —more’s the pity! He also has his favorite , lounging places in the downstairs library, one of them being the top of the book shelves, near a much-prized vase, but he has his uneasy moments when I fix ray eye on him and mutter through clenched teeth: “You old lowbrow!* He knows it has a different ring compared with the pet names he gets upstairs. The two people up there call him Honey Boy, and Boo’ful Sing, and Child! He presumes that the back yard belongs exclusively to the upper flat, so he takes his morning airings down there, and bne wakens to musical sounds like this: “Honey Boys Honey Boy 1 Oh, *oo boo’ful sing! Is you wollin’ in de gwass? Des a wollln’ In de gwass, des a wollin’ in de gwass!” Wouldn’t that be enough to counteract the effect of even a good nightis rest? At noon a gentle voice calls down the back stairway: “Honey Boy, come wight upstairs and det some ice cold milk for *oo lunch.” He seems to have a hankering after iced drinks, for once when I had placed a pitcher of Ice water on the table for my own especial enjoyment during the afternoon, Honey Boy sprang up lightly and lapped his fill out of it. The members of my family told me afterward that they feared I was going to have apoplexy or hydrophobia, but it was really an attack of my cat-fear. Sometimes the gentle voice calls persuasively: “Come upstairs this minute, Honey Boy, to *oo mother." Gee 1 before I'd call myself mother to a disreputable bunch like that I’d make the rounds of all the orphan asylums in the city. But going back to my cat-fear—-It’s different from any I’ve ever heard of. I’m trying hard to keep It well under control, but every* day the fear grows stronger, that some time I’ll mistake Boo’ful Sing for the splotchy mop he resembles, and with tense nerves and set teeth either mop up the front porch or the back yard with him. That would hurt his pampered feelin’s and worse still, it would hurt the feelin’s of his mistress —and there’d be strained relations between the upper and lower flatters. No, I’m not afraid of the upper flatters reading this outburst of suppressed cat-fear. They don’t find any time to read —they’re too busy caring for Honey Boy.

Cheerfulness and Efficiency.

Efficiency is the most needed attribute of anything designed to perform a duty in this world. It is efficiency that makes for business success. Itis efficiency that makes in large measure for domestic happiness. It is efficiency that-brings preferment in office or in factory. But the man or the business that forms the conclusion that cheerfulness and efficiency are incompatible has yet much to learn. There is no other thing that begets efficiency in- business as cheerfulness does. The atmosphere that it brings into office or store makes for stark of the kind that gets results.

To Promote Trade With Brazil.

An American chamber of commerce was recently established In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to further closer relations between Americans in business In Brazil and their countrymen trading in similar lines In the United States and other countries - Tire honorary presl- - dent Is Hon.. Edwin V. Morgan, American ambassador to Brazil. Among the honorary vice presidents are Dr. Lauro S. Muller, minister of foreign relations of Brazil, who has made two visits recently to this country, and Dr. Domldo da Onma, ambassador of Brazil to the United States. The chamber issues a magazine devoted to the furthering of Its objects. f ,