Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 272, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1918 — Page 2

Maxwell’s Harvest

By CLARISSA MACKIE

{Copyright, 1918, by McClure Newspaper ' y Syndicate.) Maxwell stood with folded arms watching his house burn to the ground. In the grove of chestnuts negro servants ran to and fro, dragging the precious family heirlooms away from the blistering heat of the fire. Mahogany and glass and china and silver, pictures and carpets, formed a miscellaneous pile representing all the home that was left to the last of the Maxwells. The long drought and its consequent lack of water told the story to the neighbors gathered about the young master who looked with brooding eyes on the scene of devastation. The nearest neighbor had galloped five miles when the first glare of light at midnight had declared the alarm of fire. He stood at Maxwell’s elbow, panting with the exertion of hiS long ride, a strange look of triumph on his fat face. ‘Tm sorry for you, old man,” he said with an air of heartiness. “You’ve certainly had the devil’s own luck! First, the failure of your cotton—then Blue Jeans dropping dead on the track when he was marked for a winner and lastly—” Maxwell waved an impatient hand. “Spare me a recitation of my afflictions, Seymour,” he said dryly. There isn’t one item I have overlooked, I assure you! Not even the fact that the insurance will exactly pay off the mortgage!” Seymour’s face settled into heavy lines of ill-concealed satisfaction. “Oh, I say, I wasn’t thinking of that, you know; Maxwell, although I must say I can find a use for the five thousand dollars I loaned your uncle,. It’s been tied up in that mortgage for fifteen years and I don’t see any more show of its being paid off now than before he died— though you’ve tried hard to So it, I’ll admit! Everything’s against you. Maxwell. Better clear out and start anew.” • - John Maxwell did not reply. He was Staring straight into the heart of the fire with troubled dark eyes. • The outer framework of the house had crumbled in with the walls and lay a palpitating center of white heat. Above it arose the six dark towering atone chimneys—unharmed by the flames.

Tn the heart of the fire John saw a fair face crowned with golden hair, and the blue eyes that looked so sadly into his pronounced him 'a failure. He groaned as he turned again to his companion. “You’re right, Seymour—l’ll clear out and start over again somewhere else. There isn’t much chance for a Northerner in the South anyway.” His eyes drifted back to the fire now dying down into smoldering embers. A train of dark figures went ceaselessly to and fro between the grove and the cabins of the servants. Maxwell’s furniture would soon find humbler quarters. . * “Cisterns empty, I suppose?” ventured Seymour after a while. “Almost draw a gallon in time to do any good. I don’t know how it started —from the kitchen fire, probably. All I know is—this!” He swept his hands toward the ruins of his home and it was intercepted 'by the touch of a soft, cool palm. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Maxwell,” breathed Eleanor Lee at his side. Clad in riding habit and with her golden ; hair uncovered to the night wind she had stolen from her bed to be beside him in his trouble. “Eleanor! Go home at once!” commanded Seymour angrily. “This is no place for you.” ‘TH ride back with you, stepfather,” said Eleanor, looking down from her saddle at his perturbed countenance plainly visible in the glare from the smoldering ruins. Again she turned to the young man beside her. “You will build again, Mr. Maxwell,” she said decisively. . Maxwell laughed shortly. “I cannot, Miss Lee. This fire beggars me. Mr. Seymour will take the land off my hands.” “And you?” There was forced indifference in her tone. “Begin over again.” “Here?” “No. I shall return to the North;” There ensued a long silence while the three looked at the glowing embers of what had once been the finest mansion in West Virginia. “If there’s nothing we can do to help you, Maxwell, we better go home. Won’t you make the Hall your headquarters until —” Seymour paused awkwardly. “Until I clear out?” Maxwell’s laugh was not pleasant to hear. “Thank you, no, Seymour—l’ll find a shakedown somewhere on the plantation as long as I am here.” His voice trailed huskily into silence. Seymour mounted his horse and turned into the avenue. “Come, Eleanor—it is beginning to rain; this escapade of yours will end disastrously if you take cold." “I am afraid it Will end disastrously tor some one,” she said carelessly. For a brief instant Maxwell held her Laud in the darkness. “I may not have th? courage to see you again, Nell,” he said brokenly; “if you could wait — some day 1 may come back for you—- ■ ■

“I don’t want to wait, John,” she whispered, with a catch in her voice. “I will go with you and begin again with you. Do not leave me!” “Darling I” he murmured, pressing her hand to his lipa. “Dear heart —do you nTean it?" "Eleanor!” Seymour’s voice cut the darkness like a knife. “Yes,” came Eleanor’s voice out of the night as she joined her stepfather. The sound of hoofbeats grew fainter and finally died into silence; the soft patter of rain on the chestnuts and the low wail of mourning- from the negro quarters formed the only requiem over the funeral pyre of the house of Maxwell. John drew nearer the ruins and looked up at the frowning majesty of the six huge chimneys. They must come down,” he murmured, and made a mental note to go to town and get the dynamite necessary for the blasting.

Out of the grove of trees Uncle Jake’s voice came, cracked with emotion. “Marse John, Aunt Sally she done clar outer her cabin an’ its sweeter’n honey foh yo’ comfort, sah; yo’ bed an’ lot of things from the big house am there —oh, Marse John 1” Maxwell forgot his own troubles in allaying the grief of the old servants, but when the gray morning dawned and he still lay awake in his new quarters all the comfort and hope that Eleanor’s promise had awakened in him had departed.

He would be a cur indeed to snatch the delicately nurtured girl from her home and let her slender shoulders bend beneath Jhe burdens that the wife of a poor man—a beggar, he thought bitterly—must suffer! He would not bind her to a promise given perhaps in the first warmth of sympathy. He would go away—alone —and Seymour could have the coveted land. Stern in this resolution, he rode over to Leesburg that afternoon and purchased a quantity of dynamite, and the following dajk» with the help of the servants, he prepared to raze the menacing chimneys to the ground. The women servants carried all the precious crystal and china to a place of safety, and then the work of removing the chimneys was begun. One by one, they tottered and fell in clouds of choking dust, until there remained only the great central chimney —the hearthstone around which generations of Maxwells had gathered in joy and sorrow, in prosperity long ago, and now ip bitter ruin. Better remove this landmark of a dead race of which he was doomed to be the last. So mused Maxwell, as he stood absorbed in bitter thought while Uncle Jake, near-sighted and half blinded by tears, recklessly prepared the last blast. The fuse was laid and they withdrew into the shelter of the chestnut grove. ’ “I done leave ebery stick ob dinnamite there, Marse John,” muttered the old man with resentful triumph in his grumbling tones. “There won’t no folks pint in here an’ say—” “My God, Jake, what —” John’s words were drowned in a deafening roar, followed by the blackness and silence of death itself. When he regained consciousness his eyes opened on the sunshine streaming through the window of Aunt Sally’s cabin; all around him were familiar articles of furniture and above him bent Eleanor Lee. z “What happened—Uncle Jake?” he asked faintly.

Uncle Jake’s snow-crowned head bobbed above the foot of the bed, his lips stretched in a toothless smile. “Here I is, Marse John,” he chuckled softly; “dem lazy niggers done left a fedder baid yander in de grove, an’ when de ’splosion came this nigger fell on the bed an’ ain’t hurt a mite, sah. You was de only one—” “I’m glad of that, Uncle Jake,” smiled Maxwell, and then he raised his eyes to Eleanor’s. “What did the doctor say?” ( “That you will be as good, as new tn a few weeks,” returned Miss- Lee promptly, evading his tender eyes. Maxwell groaned. “The devil’s own luck,” he muttered desperately. “Nell, darling, I can’t hold you to your promise to go with me—-I am penniless. I am not selfish enough to accept your sacrifice —”

A soft hand covered his mouth and Eleanor’s bright hair touched the pillow beside his head. ‘Tve set my heart, on making a rich marriage. John, don’t disappoint me, please! Listen —two weeks ago I heard my stepfather telling that man who bought the Leeson place next door that he was positive that there was a vein of coal beneath your place that meant a fortune to the man who acquired the property. “I thought the matter over and decided that he was the author of all your troubles. It is he who has balked all your enterprises. He had hoped to discourage you and send you away, that the place might become his.” She whispered in his ear now. ”“I aha afraid he set fire to the hall as a last* resort, but for mother’s sake —■” her" voice broke. Maxwell found strength to encircle her wtfist with his right arm. “The matter is forgotten already,” he said generously. “As for the coal mine, that is a chimera —■” “No—Uncle Jake’s overcharge of dynamite has opened a huge hole in the ground and disclosed what Colonel Pike calls the richest vein of coal in Lees county.'; I will be poor beside you.” Uncle Jake gave one glance at them and then tiptoed from the room. “Great crap,” he chuckled, softly, “plant dis heah dinnamlte in de chimbley. and git er hahvest ob coal I De Lo'ds ways am wunnerful— wunnerful indeedvi”

THE ETBmO BMVBLIOAK, BMBBBLAM, lUD.

TAKE CHOICE OF ANY NEW STYLES

New York.—Well, we are settled as far as the fashions go. The designers have done their work; now arises the time for us to do our work. The public insists, writes a fashion critic, that it has the harder job, or at least that is the conclusion one reaches after hearing the\ discussions* of countless women for knd against the purchase of a single garment. It is not easy to buy clothes in war time, whfen the slogan of judicious spending echoes and re-echoes from every point of the compass. Even poverty has rarely impressed upon us with such drastic emphasis the need to spend wisely and well. Apparel is not the only branch of Industry that demands judgment and caution in spending. We have somersaulted from a nation of extravagant Individuals to one of thrift and shrewdness. < There has been a story current for two decades among the French designers that the American Women are not helpful to them, except through their money power, for the reason that they do not approach the choosing and purchasing of clothes with that watchful discrimination displayed by the French woman. They buy a gown because it is in fashion, or because it is the kind of thing their menfolk like, or because they have seen it on some excessively smart woman at a restaurant. If some doctrine could only be burnt into a woman’s consciousness which would compel her to spend money wisely! She is handling funds, and usually they are the funds of another party, and “she has no right to toss them into\the coffers of the dressmaker, thU "grocer, the interior decorator or the butcher. Skirt Struggle Is Ended. < It is probable that America has won out in the length of the skirt. The short French garment did not go. It is worn by war workers as part of their uniforms, but the great majority of

On the left, medieval gray gown trimmed with squirrel and sliver net studded with rhinestones. The cuirasa blouse, as shown In this gown, Is considered one of the best features of formal evening frocks. On the right, a dinner gown of taupe-colored velvet, with skirt and short train cut in one piece. It has long, tight sleeves, In the medieval manner. The waistline and the square decolletage are edged with ostrich tips dyed to match the belt. ■

women accept the desire of the American designers to launch an anklelength skirt. Those who have been criticized tor exploiting this design at a time when the conservation of wool is necessary insist that they can cut such, a skirt out of less material than the short, flaring one which has been the fashion. An extremely narrow, short skirt has proved to be an impossibility because of the manner in which it rides above the knees when one is seated. There is an immense amount of velveteen, also soft velours, velvet and heavy satin. One does not have to use wool in order to have a warm or fashionable gown or suit. Velveteen has been accepted as a fabric for the commonest kind of usage, and it serves in the early morning for a coat suit with a waistcoat blouse of angora wool or heavily-embroidered jersey. There are homespuns and various types of mannish materials of which the tailors seem to have sufficient to make all the suits demanded; but there is no denying that both jackets and skirts are longer than they have been for several seasons since the summer of the war. The foremost designers of jackets play all sorts of tricks upon the hem, cutting it to points like a jester’s costume, and blocking it out In' battlements as If it were a medieval tower. One well-known dressmaker accentuates this jester effect in. frocks as well as jackets. He cuts long panels at the sieves which hang .from hip to berrf qf the sleeves that leave the arm at the elbow and drop to the knees, and he cuts the bodice into "a panel at the middle of the back, letting it drop below the knees. AU of these panels

end In sharp points. They are not placed simultaneously on one suit or frock, but are used in various methods over the majority of street clothes. There-are some short jackets. Doucet and Cheruit, and many of their American followers have adopted' a square hip-length jacket that does not give long lines, does not promote the established silhouette,, but achieves an air and prestige of its own, apart from the regular run of fashions. Doucet made one especially striking costume that has been taken up by smart women. It is in a deep tobaccobrown cloth. The jacket Is box shape, jmd on nearly the whole surface, except for about four Inches, is laid a flat piece of sealskin. It goes without saying that an excellent trick like this was taken up by everyone who demanded something new in coat suits. The desire of the United States government to promote Alaska sealskin as the most fashionable fur for American women bore agreeable results, and by some persuasion the French signers acceded to- the wish that American peltry should rule. It is true that Russian squirrel steadily advances, but it is also s true that most of these animals grow in the woods of America. New Fastenings on Jackets. .No woman who is interested in the subject of her coat suit, which is the usual first choice of the autumn, should be ignorant of the diagonal fastening which has leaped into fame as a substitute for the conventional opening down the front. A great many tailors, some of whom are among the best in this country, do not cater to this novelty, but the women like it One guesses that its inspiration was in the Sain Browne belt and women believe that the bias line across the bust is an attractive one. Buttons are sometimes used down this line, and often it is braided or run with tiny strands of tarnished gold

braid, if the material is velvet or vel : veteen. ' It .is not possible to say that the other novelty in the method of fastening the jacket; which is in a straight line down the spine, is a new thing, but it is possible to say that it is a pleasing thing. It has spread like a prairie fire. There are jackets that .are modeled on straight cuirass bodices, built of deeply-colored broadcloth or velours, such- as Burgundy or bottle green, and these end at the hips, are cut in battlements at the hem, and fasten down the line of the spine with round bone buttons. There is another ingenious jacket which has no fastening at aU. It is cut off squarely at the hips and goes over a fitted cuirass blouse of deepcolored angora wool. This blouse Js longer than the coat, It clings to the hips, and it gives the jacket the appearance of a hastily donned sacque. Yet it is so well put together and the colors are so admirably composed that the woman who wears it cannot fail to achieve the distinction of being different from her neighbor. (Copyright, MM, ty McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) •

Long Revers on Blouses.

Georgette crepe plays a prominent part in the fall fashions in blouses, especially in the darker shades. The individual tastes of the woman of fashion arq satisfied, for the blouses dis played show such an infinite variety of neck styles, high and low collars, round and squaig collarless models. A new expression of the fashion is s blouse of georgette crepe having long revers reaching to the waistline, trimmed with insets of filet lace.

Seven War Service Organizations Are Co-operating to Help Win the War

By EVANGELINE BOOTH.

tinguishing spirit. Certainly, we repeat, this is so in the case of the Salvation army, but no man or woman who has been close enough to catch a view of one tithe of the need will of saying aught against any one of these ministering agencies that are grappling with the problems which press upon us in these stressful times. - , If we could multiply ourselves twenty times over this field of service would still be, to a large extent, a great uncovered opportunity. While we are doing all we can we reverently thank God for what the Y. M. C. A., the National Catholic Council, the Knights of Columbus, the War Camp Community service, the American Library association, the Jewish Welfare league are doing. They each have their sphere as’ we have ours, and, by common consent, our little niche is in the great task they are engaged in for humanity’s sake. - f There is many a signal victory in store for truth, liberty, righteousness and human progress, and not the least of these shall be that all the factors which go to make up the brotherhood of man are sensibly and securely amalgamated in this vast undertaking. The Salvation Army is nonsectarian, and it greets its sisters and brothers in this emergency, pledging itself to work alike for all parts of the great human family.

Convert Breweries Into Dehydrating Plants in Various Parts of Country

If the brewers want to perform a real patriotic service at this time they will at once convert their breweries into dehydrating plants. The problem of providing food for 1,500,000 American soldiers now in France and the millions more who are soon to go is a staggering one. Each soldier eats twice as much while on duty as he does at home. There is also the loss of food through the sinking of ships by submarines. Potatoes, carrots, turnips—practically all vegetables —can be dried and preserved indefinitely. They take up much less space and are easily and quickly prepared for . use and cannot be told from the fresh article. One hundred and eighty pounds of potatoes when dehydrated weigh onljr forty pounds. In this shape not only the loss from decay and freezing is prevented, but there is an immense saving in transportation. Germany has 2,0Q0 dehydrating plants and the United States has only twenty. This is one of the reasons why Germany has been able to hold out for So long in spite of the allied blockade. .The need for such plants in this country is urgent. Instead of building new plants the breweries, which will go out of use December 1, should be used. The buildings could be changed for this purpose easier than for many pther uses which have been suggested. Fans would have to be installed in place of the freezing apparatus. The same labor could be used and the plants could be put to an immediate patriotic use. -

Lack of Timber Teaches England Expensive Lesson in Building

By Prof. W. J. MORRILL.

England has been the one highly enlightened nation of the world which never practiced forestry. England’s policy was to have pleasure parks in place of lumber-producing forests. She preferred to import her lumber rather than to grow it in Great Britain. On the other hand, France and Germany deliberately set about growing timber and began to do so scientifically and systematically many years ago. The war has placed England in an unenviable position as regards timber. She is dependent upon wood imports, bulky material, at a time when shipping is desperately needed for importation of foodstuffs and material tions. England has stripped , her parka of trees suitable for lumbeT. In America our virgin forests have enabled us, to speed up in shipbuilding and airplane construction to a degree impossible in a timberdrained country. But the lesson is obvious —we must never let our country become deficient in wood supplies. In a generation or two our virgin forests will be exhausted. We must be planning sufficient timber supplies for the distant future, not only as a treasure for national defense in war time but to maintain the industries of peace. '

Some s Self-Styled Patriots and All Pro-Germans Need Education

JjFhen I thQk of some self-styled patriots and all pro-Germans I long. to grab the English language by the handle and use it like a wet elm club to smash their contumacious heads. We are'fiot jverfon'd of horse thieves in the Lone Star state, but I have much mores personal regard for the benighted crook who lets a “broomtailed cayuse” take up with him without the owner’s consent than I have for the yellow hound, I care not what his financial prestige is, who fattens on the crying needs of this nation. The pro-Germans have been pretty effectually muzzled and are afraid to tongue the secret thought of their shriveled souls, but in many instances the profiteer is still uniished. . . The very nature of his pursuit is such that in unnumbered cases the only remedy is public sentiment and a fearless local committee. J«t us hope that before long these will be supplied throughout the land.

, c—inhr of Salvation Army to Anettoa

The Salvatiop Army in the United States greets with utmost enthusiasm the announcement that all of the recognized war relief organizations, representing the creeds and elements that go to make up our nation, are welded together for the great war fund drive in. November. . j \ - We meet in service. Here there are plenty of dissimilarities in plans and methods, but the one controlling ideal in all is to do good —to help men. Each' organization has its quota to contribute and each has a distinctive realm to occupy, and albeit each has its dis-

By MISS LUTIE E. STEARNS,

, Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collin*. Colo. .

By C. M. TAYLOR,

Milwaukee, Wto

San Antodb, Teas*