Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 167, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1918 — Page 2

The Interference of Bess

By AGNES G. BROGAN

(Copyright, MIS, Western Newspaper Union.) Billy frowned down Into the bowl of his stubby pipe, while the girl watched him solicitously. •But may be,” she encouraged, “it Is not as bad as you think.” “Bad!” exclaimed Billy wrathfully, “why where would I be, if dad married again? Do you think he would put me through college and start me out on my career, if he were interested in a new establishment of his own? No, indeedy, his second wife would take my place, and'my coming wife’s place, in the home. The thing to do, Bess, is to stop the affair in the bud. After a while it will be too late. Dad doesn’t realize yet, that he’s really in love with the girt.” "“Perhaps,” suggested Miss Blakeslee, “he Isn’t.” “Oh! No!” Billy sarcastically responded. “Then why does he spend every spare moment of his time la her company? Riding for hours with her in the park, glowering at a fellow If he interrupts a seance at the office. Dad was never like that with any of his other stenographers. And this one is a doll, you must admit that, Bess. You’ve seen her?” Bess nodded her head. “When you pointed her out to me. I—l don’t like her, Billy.” The boy smiled shrewdly. “Scheming looking?” he asked. “That’s what I thought” “Dad has quite a bit of money. Some of it ought to come to me, but will It if he has a second wife? You know. Peaches, that you and I are going to be married some day, just as soon as the little doctor’s shingle Is over my door and —” he threw out his hands despairingly—-“that’s why I want to stop this fool affair of dad’s.” The girl flushed, avoiding his eager eyes. “That ‘some day’ of yours is far away, Billy," she said. “Not so far away as you think, perhaps,” he replied. “Bess—" his voice coaxed her, “you don’t want to see my future wrecked, do you?—all my beautiful plans gone to the dogs? Somebody’s got to Interfere. Dad will not listen to me, won’t you go to him?" “1—?” the girl gasped, astonished. “Yes," he nodded quickly. “You could make him see things as no one else could. You’ve such a way with you, Bess” “Billy, Billy!” smiled the girl, but her eyes regarded him thoughtfully. “It’s mother’s money," said the boy defiantly. “I ought to have it” “I wish that I could help you—” she spoke slowly. “You can, you can,” cried Billy jubilantly. “You’ve the most wonderful pleading eyes In the world.” “Have IT asked the girl. She arose Impulsively. “We shall see,” she said. *TII run you down to the office,” Billy excitedly agreed, “and leave you Just around the corner. Send in your card. Dad’s heard enough about you, even if you’ve never met Dwell strongly upon my career, Bess, and how we’ve counted upon coming home together.” The girl laughed softly. “You, boy,”

she said. *Tm twenty-one ,” he declared, “and older than yon, child, if yon have an extra year.” The Infections enthusiasm which had sent Miss Blakeslee forth on her mission as intercessor died suddenly as she awaited her lover’s father. “Why on earth had she come, and now that she was here what should she say?" The young woman who haughtily took the card from her trembling fingers was the dread charmer whom Billy feared. What influence could one have against the fascination of such tenderly curling hair or crimson Bps?, Bess sighed, and tried vainly to compose an introductory speech. She had Just got as far as “Mr. Powers, I am here in the interest of your son,” when the charmer beckoned, and «ii« found herself in the presence of S gravely smiling man, whose hand •was outstretched toward her. “I am glad,” he said, “to meet Billy’s Iftiend.” And then all at once the set speech vanished, and Bess sitting in the wide oflice chair, was Joining interestedly in a conversation touching upon golf, automobiles and sailing. Billy’s father was so much younger and better looking than she had expected that she could sympathise more la the feelings of the blonde stenographer, perhaps after all, her’s was not merely a mercenary affair. . . . There was a certain movie actor, With whitening hair about the temples, who much resembled Billy’s father. The thought of this actor’s many troubled love affairs brought Bess abruptly looking back to the purpose of her present visit, but how to start the subject tactfully. “Billy,” she began tentatively, “takes roe much into his confidence. He is terribly anxious to get through college and begin the practice of medicine, Be has so counted uyon starting In his own home —your home,” She paused lamely, then leaned forward with sudden confidence, “and he has been so worried for fear you may marry and spoil his career. But of course you would never do that, a roan of your age must live his life. This is Billy's chance, Billy’s time for success, and Joy, and-*>ve.”

“Love?" repeated quickly, “and you are my son’s mediator? Can It be possible, then, that you are also Interested In Billy’s career?” The hot blood rushed furiously to the girl’s face, as she sat beneath his searching gaze. “I want Billy to be happy," she stammered. “And I want to be happy,” the man answered Impatiently. “I do not agree with you that ms life has been lived.” Billy’s father smiled a strangely winning, pathetic sort of smile. “The past has been none too happy,” he said. “I am hoping that the best is yet to come. So I make no false promises. You may tell my son that from me, little intercessor.” She looked back, vaguely troubled, as he bade her good afternoon, at the elevator door. Later, as Billy drove her home through the park, they came upon the big Powers’ auto, stationary, near a wide sweep of meadow. Billy’s father was in the frofit seat, and beside him the pretty stenographer. Bess glanced up sharply at Billy’s muttered ejaculation, and she fancied the trace of a smile as his father’s eyes met hers. “Darn the luck!” cried the boy dejectedly, “if you couldn’t make him see the folly of this thing. Peaches, somebody’s got to talk to the girl.” “I don’t,” she told him. “All right,” answered Billy determinedly, “then 1 will.” Bess came upon the two not long after that in her favorite tea room. Billy’s father was talking earnestly, rapidly, while the girl listened silently attentive. Bess seemed to Immediately lose her appetite for luncheon —it was all so hopeless for Billy. And presently, when the little stenographer had smilingly left him, Mr. Powers came over to her table. “Well,” he asked “how are affairs and Billy?” And when he offered to drive her home Bess decided to accept, and taking advantage of the time, to make a final plea. But Billy’s father proved such an agreeable companion that she abandoned her plan on the way, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the hour. After all It was hard that a man so congenial and kind must spend his days alone in a great vacant house. Of course there would be Billy, and later, Billy’s wife, but the more Bess thought about it—well, strange to say, the more her heart ached for the father. Billy, too, grew morbid distraught She couldn’t quite make him out For hours he would „slt pulling away on that 111-smelling pipe, only to Jump up suddenly and rush away. She supposed he was realizing the discouragement of the situation. Oftener, and still oftener she met Billy’s father In company with the blonde siren. And vhea he would leave the girl to come over and speak to Bess, a pleased light seemed to linger in his eyes. Then, one never-to-be-forgotten night came Billy’s voice over the telephone wire, and when he had finished speaking, Bess sat there dazed and white. She smiled presently, a queer twisted smile at the heartless selfishness of him. “Bess,” he said, “you take the message to father." She, of all people, to take the message—but she went. The maid had sent her in to the big fire-lighted room unannounced. So, for quite a time Billy’s father did not hear her; he bent absorbed over a photograph, and there was in his eyes the “light of dreams.” Though she could not see the pictured face, Bess discerned the outline of a girlish figure, and she trembled at the pain she must inflict “Mr. Powers,” she said at last In an Instant he was on his feet “You!” he murmured unbellev-

ingly. . . ._ ‘Tve a message,” Bess began breathlessly, “a message that will hurt. It’s from Billy.” The man waited. “Yes?” he said. “Billy is married. She rushed on: “He was married tonight to the stenographer—your stenographer. It seems she tells him she has never loved you and she has learned to love him. So it was her suggestion, not his, that they marry quickly, and tell you afterward.” Bessie’s voice broke. “Oh! Tm so sorry for you,” she said, “sorry.” Billy’s father spoke up very quickly. “It was foolish of Billy, of course,” he said, “but why should you be sorry for me?” Bessie’s eyes widened. “Because you loved her,” said the girl, “it was she whom Billy feared you would marry.” The man stood looking down upon her. “I think Til explain to you,” he said, “what I never troubled to explain to Billy. lam writing a book. The stenographer took my dictation. Sometimes it was absolutely necessary for me to get away to the solitudes from every creature, in order to think. She went with me, and wrote. That’s all. As for love and marriage I never had a thought until—” he smiled his tender quizzical smile —“until you came into my oflice that day to interfere.” - There was a moment of vibrant silence, then Bess pointed to the photograph. “And that?” she asked. He placed It In her hand; her own face smiled back at her. “It was my only comfort,” he told her. “I found the picture In Billy’s rrmm.” Quickly he raised her face to his, searching it long with eager eyes. Then suddenly, closely, he clasped her to him. “Oh! dear girl,” he said, “tell me that my life has not been lived, that the best is yet to come.” Radiantly Bess smiled up at him. “And well give Billy Us career, too,” she said.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, INA

TWO SUBMARINES ARE SUNK IN ATTACK ON LEVIATHAN

Germans Fail in Raid on Greatest United States Transport. CARRIES 10,000 SOLDIERS Eye Witness Gives Thrilling Account of Trip Across Atlantic—High Praise for Work of American Navy—Men on Transport Behave Splendidly in Time of Danger. Durand, Mich. —An eye-witness account of an attack by three submarines on the United States transport Leviathan and the destruction of two of the U-boats by United States destroyers, is contained in a letter from Capt. Charles A. Harmon of this city to his son, Sergt. Carl A. Harmon, at Camp Custer. The Leviathan, formerly the German Vateriand, is the largest vessel afloat and was seized by the United States when this country entered the war.

Captain Harmon Is In the motor mechanics division of the aviation corps, now safely In France, while his son is a member of the ambulance company. The Leviathan carried 10,000 soldiers on that particular trip and every precaution of camouflage and zigzag navigation was employed to, protect it from the submarines, since the German government is said to have offered a fortune and great honors to the commander and crew of the U-boat that succeeds lu sinking it. All Obey Orders. “Most of the men aboard were raw recruits,” says Captain Harmon, “but when the emergency came the constant drill and training told and not a man disobeyed orders. Twenty hours from our destination, at daybreak, we picked up the < destroyers in a howling gale. They came swooping at us out of a rain sqnall like flying fish. Boy! They looked good. They are little, long, intrepid devils all engine and wickedness. We were tearing along at high speed, trusting to luck not to hit anything, but those little devils curved and circled and zigzagged around us as If we were at anchor. “Even with our thousand feet of length we could hardly keep our feet on deck, but they, with their 200 feet or less, were simply doing the impossible. Seas too high to ride they dived through, actually disappearing at times. And when, in their circles, they fell Into the trough, they took a list that would make your heart stop. “They carry two spars about 50 feet high. On top of each Is a crow’s nest, with a man in each watching for periscopes. The gunners are lashed to their guns. They must be amphibious. The ride those crow’s-nest birds took that day would curl your hair. Taking No Chances. “All day long It howled and rained and blew, and most of the following night, too. It was too rough / for Üboats, but we were pitching over the bones of the Lusitania and hundreds of other good ships and the destroyers were taking no chances. “Any time the United States navy is mentioned you just get onto your legs and salute—Just on general principles. When you cross you will understand why. They are there, those lads. “I went on duty in a troop section below the water line that evening at five and was on duty for 12 hours stationed on a stairway where I could pick off the first bird that batted an eye. About midnight the sea went down. Then we did expect trouble any minute. It was a tough, long night We knew that If a torpedo ever hit In that section we hadn’t .a chance in the world. At five In the morning I was relieved and went up topside, to the forward upper deck. It was just breaking daylight, clear, no wind, sea as smooth as glass. Six more destroyers bad Joined us some time during the night and they were coursing like panthers, near and far, In great swooping curves all around us. Finally They Came. “We were roaring along In sharp zigzags, the ship trembling like a. nervous dog, with the best speed In her. I thought to myself, as I took It all In: ‘“Well, this is the time and the place. Now where In h are those doggoned Huns?’ \ _ “As If In answer to my question the nearest destroyer on her tall and shot straight at our cutwater as if to head something off, at the same time firing rapidly atl something the other side of her andi close by. Instantly the others pointed in toward ns and came darting In like diving sharks. “The nearest destroyer was not more than 50 yards distant. Next it swung around In a smother of white water, and In an Instant I saw the black stern of a submarine as it upended In a dive so close to the destroyer that they actually slumped. Then the destroyer sat back of the ‘sub’ only a few feet under the surface. U-Boat Blown to Atom*. ♦ThArfl was a terrific explosion; it shook our ship as If It had been struck. That ‘sub’ just was naturally blown to atoms. It almost cut the destroyer in two, nearly blew the stern of her off. Bnt that Is just a part of the Job for those boys. Their business is to get ‘subs.’ What happens to them Is another matter entirely.

“It was over In less time than It takes to tell It At the same time the next nearest destroyer was perhaps 100 yards away, spinning around in a tight little circle and dropping depth bombs as fast as it conld spill them over the stern. ‘Presently a great oily blob of water rose and the destroyer curved away from the ship and went over to the first one tq see what It was doing. The rest of them had apparently gone plumb crazy. They were simply whipping the near-by surface of the sea to white ribbops. Living Wall Formed. “A big flock of English gunboats~and destroyers came up from nowhere in particular and moved along ahead of us and on our flanks. We reduced our speed to theirs and our own flock of Wasps came up and formed a living wall around us and we moved along up to where an hour later an English pilot was picked up who took ns through, the mine fields and lnto port. “We learned then from the commander of the destroyer fleet, who came aboard us, that there had been three ‘subs’ waiting for us. They had fired three torpedoes at short range, but just as the fracas started we had been signaled to turn sharp and beat it. We did. The torpedoes skimmed our sides. Two of the submarines went to Davy Jones’ lpcker and they kind of felt that the other one was smothered the same afternoon.”

RUMOR IS INTERNED FOR THE DURATION OF WAR

Chronic Gossipers in Wall Street Are Put Under Ban by Exchange Officials. UNPRECEDENTED IN STREET While Not Completely Checked the Tendency Is Toward Suppressing Wild Stories That Might Be Harmful. New York. —War has wrought many and varied changes In Wall street ways. The adjustment of the financial district and „ Its army of workers to the new order of things ushered In by the entrance of the United States into the war has gone ahead steadily and Is still progressing. The process will go on until peace comes and perhaps thereafter. Banks, foreign exchange, the security and commodity markets, have all felt the hand of the war god In varying degree, and the changes that have taken place in business methods and customs in the street would surprise the Wall street frequenter of five or ten years ago. Probably one of the most Interesting developments in the financial district since our entrance into the war has been the attempt made by the market authorities to put the ban on the rumor-monger. In normal times the most gossipy place in the country Is to be found right In the financial district where a rumor is born every minute. Millions of dollars have been made and lost In Wall street on the circulation of rumors. There have been times when wild stories were deliberately concocted for stock market purposes.

Unprecedented on Street. Dame Rumor lately, howeydl:, has been taken in hand by of the New York stock exchange and the New York cottqn exchange, and while she Is still to be found at large, her activities have been much restricted. Oif the stock exchange the governors recently adopted resolutions to the effect that “the circulation In any manner of rumors of a sensational character by members of the exchange or their firms will be deemed an act detrimental 'to the interest and welfare of the exchange. Similar resolutions were adopted by the cotton exchange governing board after there had occurred a tremendous slump In cotton prices ascribed partly

BIGGEST WAR GARDEN IN THE COUNTRY

(jamp DU is now planting tne country's biggest war garden, 4UU acres. Soldiers are shown here unloading from the first of nine motortrucks seeds sent to the camp by the national war garden commission. The War department la planning to spend 160,000 on war gardens In the camps. ___.

BOYS LEARN TO COOK, GIRLS AS CARPENTERS

Cleveland. —Manual training' is not for boys only, and domestic science Is not only a girl’s study In Cleveland schools now, for the courses in some of the public schools have been switched and the boys are being taught to cook and buy groceries and the girls are getting training In household carpentry. The girls are said to be proficient in handling tools, while many oi the boys In the “bringing up father” divisions are becoming good cooks and buyers.

GIRLS AS SHEEP HERDERS

Loneliest Job in the World Is Latest Industry to Attract the Women. Cheyenne, Wyo.—Herding sheep—the loneliest job in the world—is^the ming ranchers have given so many men to the war that sheepherders are very scarce. Hence Misses Lulu Munson, Belle Pattison and Grace Keenan, Campbell county lassies, have become sheep-herdesses at a wage of SSO a month and “found.” They have been employed by B. J. Reno, and each girl acts as guardian to 2,500 “woolles.” These girls are said to be the first feminine sheepherders In the United States.

to rumors set afloat that the government intended to fix the price of cotton. The effort being made to stop rnmor spreading Is new and has never been done before. It has been effective to a degree, although It did not prevent the flotation of a rumor Hint the German crown prince and 40,000 men Aiad been captured by the allies. This rumor started the rounds shortly after the opening of the stock market and later when It came back to the exchange the total bag of Teutons had reached 80,000... Curiously enough during the recent visitation of German submarines to these shores the rumor factory was comparatively Idle, only story emanating from that quarter being a Hbnor that six German submarines were lying to off Atlantic City getting ready to bombard the resort. Since the various exchanges banned the dissemination of rumors their point of origin has been carefully concealed so that it is next to impossible nowadays to run them down .at their source. Curb on Wild Stories. The .German kaiser, who mnst yield the palm only to the crown prince in the number of times he has been killed In this war, has been killed on the stock exchange time and time again since 1914. On other occasions he has died a natural death froni a strange malady. There was a /time when the death of the kaiser meant to Wall street the end of the war so that rumors of this character were often put out with a view to influencing the course of market prices. But since the exchange banned rumormongering the kaiser has not been “killed” once In the financial district In the markets of 1915 and 1916 reports of war orders placed with industrial companies filled Wall street for months. Some of the rumors proved to be true, whereas others were made out of whole cloth. Periodically there came also rumors of peace proposals which on a number of occasions exerted an important influence on stock market prices. The most frequently appearing reports have been those of vessels sunk at sea.

It would of course be too much to say that the exchange authorities have effectively checked rumors spreading by their recent action, although undoubtedly the tendency Is toward suppressing wild stories that might be harmful both to sentiment and to market values.

Home Town Helps

BUILT ON LINES OF BEAUTY Structures for Industrial Establishments Need No Longer Constitute Blots oq Landscape. Recent years have seen a marked advance in the architectural treatment of office buildings, shops and even “loft” buildings—the last built essen-tially-for commercial purposes. “Architecture,” indeed, as applied to building, has been proved a beneficial asset rather than an esthetic ideal. Several architects of Chicago and the middle West have attained remarkable success In distinctly architectural renderings of factory buildings; and architecural ideals are by no means Incompatible with a type of building usually regarded by most of us as “hopelessly" utilitarian—buildings for power houses and pumping stations. A Pacific coast architect, however, has distinguished himself for years by his unusual rendering of this type of building. “Plants,” which in most instances have been accepted as irremediable blots upon their immediate localities, have been given the architectural dignity and grace which are commonly regarded as the special requisites of “architectural’ buildings, such as libraries and the like. Perhaps the spell has been broken—perhaps those people who need most to dream dreams and see visions of architectural beauty have been and are being gradually awakened, by the patient endeavors of a few earnest and inspired architects, to a realization that there may be ideals. In everyday architecture —that a garage may be a beautiful building, a storage warehouse a structure of fine dignity aad strength, and that a factory may he clothed in an architectural mobility of concept which will be commensurate, in terms of the better and final ideal, with the commercial significance of the great Industry which it houses.

CURVES FOR BEAUTY

Well to Follow Mature In Avoidance of the Straight Line When It le Possible. In avoiding straight lines we must not go so far aS to violate what common sense dictates. It is not expected that a path 20 feet long running from the public sidewalk to the front door Is capable of many. or, in fadt, any curves. The shortness of the distance precludes the possibility of these, and straight lines must prevail. On a place of greater extent or where the house Is situated farther from the public highway the need of curves Is Indicated, for if one having no pathway marked out should carelessly walk from the street back to the front door over a freshly raked soil surface looking backward he would discover that he had made a line composed of very faint yet beautiful curves, and this line might properly be utilized for outlining the subsequent path. The one thing to avoid in paths of this kind is abruptness. It will be noted that the course of a river consists of broad, graceful sweeps, and wherever abruptness occurs a short curve may be forced by the water leaving a rocky bank or some other natural Impediment. We should make our "abrupt curves appear equally neccessary by planting a shrub, tree or some other natural impediment. We force them from a line of travel otherwise necessarily straight or nearly so.

PRETTY SHINGLE FENCE

Surrounding a Shingle Bungalow, or One Built of Bowlders, Logs, or Weathered Shlplap, a Shingle Fence la Often Attractive. —Popular Mechanics Magazine.

What's A Watt?

A current of electricity flowing through a wire is like a stream of water flowing through a pipe. And the pressure of the water, the speed with which it flows, we call the volts or the voltage of electricity. And tfle Slze of the stream of water In the one'or two-inch pipe Is amperes when we measure the size of an electric current. But the actual volume of water that Is flowing through the pipe is so many gallons, while with electricity we measure In watts—so many watts for an hour or so many watt-hours.

What It Takes.

Dp not consider that a town Is great jMxvume it has mountains, lakes, trees, or blue skies. A town Is never great unless It has men and women to stamp it with character and assure It destiny. There Is more In a soul than a body, and this is not less true of towns than of persons.—Corpus Christ! (Texas) Caller. v