Greenfield Republican, Greenfield, Hancock County, 18 October 1889 — Page 2

SPiliiilSM

THE MARTYR OF PRODIGAL MM

I don't wish ter be understood a* ter expressing any opinion fer publication as ter who is right and who is wrong in this er war, but I kin affirm without fear of contradiction, that it ain't no sixty-day, nor a oneyear job, Sabe!" The speaker paused for the afore-mentioned "contradiction." "I might add without fear of contradiction," he continued, that if Abe Lincoln trusts sich men as Grant, Sherman and Butler, and overlooks Fremont and my old comrades of the Mexican War, he kin prepare to carry this fight on until Gabriel blows his horn."

After the delivery of this weighty prophesy, the Colonel reached for a match, lighted it and his well-colored meerschaum, and sent forth a cloud of smoke that wrapped the five occupants of the rough board shanty in semi-obscurity. The speaker, as He affirmed, expected no contradiction. None was proffered The "Cripple" proceeded to drowsily place the greasy euchre deck on the bottom of an empty cracker barrel for a "solitaire." Sam White, the only man in camp who went by his true name, continued to wind with the wire taken from an old broom, a strained shovel handle. The "Count" and the "Prodigal," for widely dissimilar reasons, were stretched at full length on opposite bunks, presumably listening to the Colonel's mendacious criticism of the way the war was being conducted, and the American Government in general administered.

Of the two last named occupants of the cabin, the Prodigal was seemingly the best listener. He never grew restless. He maintained the most respectful silence during the longest harangue, calmly gazing at the speaker with wide-open dreamy eyes. He seldom interrupted, but if perchance he did, it was with some remark that was so foreign to the subject matter in hand, that it fairly took the speaker's breath away. The Colonel feared the interruptions, and was consequently always more or less hurried in liis arguments.

The Prodigal did not mean to be discourteous, but his thoughts were far away. He was home-sick, and had been so since the day he struck California, five years before, in '56. Unlike his companions, he hai a home to be sick for. Not only did he have a home, but what appealed more powerfully to the hearts of the miners, he had a "gal." A girl that he wrote to and who answered his letter, which letter about mado v.p the epistolary matter of the office at Snaive Fork. The Prodigal, like every gold-hunt-er in those balmy days, had expected to become rich in a few months. Many a time had he planned how he would return home with his wealth and placate the scruples of his sweetheart's parents with rich gifts and a large bank account. But fortune had proven a fickle goddess. He had worked early and late, gone through all the ups and downs of a miner's nomadic life. Luck nad not been with him. At home on tho old farm he had been taught that there was no such thing as luck, but he had since learned by bitter experience that truisms are local, not general, and that luck was the real molten image before which the miner sacrificed his burnt offerings. Perhaps it was because of his neglect to the California god that he at no time since his advent, had been possessed of more than enough to barely pay his passage back to Vermont.

It was the oftime repeated story of his leaving home to go in search of a fortune in strange lands, and of the anxious parents awaiting his return, that had suggested to the Cripple the name of the Prodigal for the, quondam farm boy. The other members of the camp did not understand this appellation until the Cripple, who was a Methodist minister's son, repeated to them the Lord's sad parable of the prodigal son, which reciLal so deeply impressed them that the Prodigal, invested in the new title, in some measure took upon himself the personality of the original, and was ever after considered an object of pity. Though the Colonel often said to the Count as he would look up from his work and see the Prodigal seated on a rock, his eyes filled with a far away look: "If that'er boy only knew what his dad had awaiting for him! Think o' nt, Count, a whole fattened beef."

The story, by frequent repetition, got so twisted that in the eyes of the miners he became the real prodigal, and his story was often told at the grocery on Snake Fork as a veritable fact. "Why, sir," Sq. Doolittle, postmaster and merchant, would say, raising on his toes in his earnestness "why, sir, this yere same Prodigal, arter whom the mine on Bellevue Fork war name

PAP

J, had

ter live with the nogs and eat cactus. Right in this free country. Fact, sir." The Prodigal took all of these stories seriously, and began to believe them himself- At least he never took the trouble to dispute them. Only at times, when the boys were puncturing him with questions as to his past life, he would wander away from the camuandup the gradually sloping Little Mountain, to a great bowlder, whose immensity made it a marked object for miles around. Here they would find him, seated under its shade, his eyes turned away down the valley of tno Sacramento. Here he would sit for hours, oblivious tj all else save his ewn thoughts. The squirrels learned that they had nothing to fear from the intruder, and whould whisli merrily past, bearing nuts to their winter

cache.

Two brilliant

humming-birds flew close to his head in quest of the sweets of the syringa that grew in the crevice of the rocks. In the sky above piping flame-colored orioles circled undisturbed by the drooping figure below. The breeze that cooled his heated face was laden with the aroma of the flowers in the gulch beneath. All nature seemed to extend a soothing hand. The Cripple once asked him what he was doing up there all alone, and he answered so innocently that it stopped the jeer on his lips: "Talking with Annie." So ever after when he was missing the boys would say: "Off talking with Annie." The rough natures of the miners respected this sentiment, and Annie became the tutelary Goddess of tho camp.

Whenever they would speculate in the illusions of hope, however they might differ *s to the best methods of disbursing their expected wealth, they agreed perfectly on one score, namely: to give to the Prodigal and Anniearousing wedding. "We kin do it jest as well as not," the Colonel said one Sunday afternoon, as he stood carefully propped up against a bowlder, contemplatine with wide-open, dreaming eyes a pool of tobacco juice a few feet in front of him. What's a few thousand more nor less," lie went on with a magnificent wave of his badly soiled hand, "when that 'ere placer is reeking with dust?" Whereupon, with a sigh and a parting salvo of juice squirted with mathematical accuracy into the placid depths of the pool, he picked up his pick, cast a benevolent glance ou the unconscious object of his remarks and resumed the motions which out of politeness were denominated work.

The Prodigal Mine was about played out

not worked out, for it was still rich in ossibilities. The present proprietor had taken it up two years before. They "had never made out of it anything but Chinamen's wages," as the Colonel often sneeringly remarked. They would have aban doned the mine long before but sacrificing their pride. Their last claim, two miles down the run, bad been sold for a song to a company of "tenderfeet," and greatly to their astonishment had panned out big. So the proprietors of the Prodigal had stuck, out of "sheer cussedness." In two years they had gone through all the epochs of a miner's life. By days they had been millionaireshopeful had seen the bottom of their pockets and the bottom of the pork-barrel had lost heart, and had put in a farwell blast more than a dozen times. For the last two days they had done nothing. The Colonel was on a strike. Even Jim White, the controling spirit of the camp, could not keep him at work. The Count, who originally had been styled "Nocount," cut down for every day use, to Count, did not have the nerve to join boldly in a strike, but instead complained of a lame leg, which he kept carefully wrapt in a canvas shot-bag, and which lameness he accented by a spasmodic limp whenever the thought occurred to Him.

As work ceased the Prodigal became uneasy. He would spend hours up on Little Mountain, or wander aimlessly about the slucices. He could not entertain the thought of breaking camp. While he never asserted himself, or even took part in the discussions, the pleading look in his babyish blue eyes told only too plainly what his feeiings were.

On this particular afterno&n it was raining—a cold, drizzling rain. For that reason the Colonel had listeners, even if they were unwilling ones, to his mendacious war stories. The rigors of winter were giving place to a greenness of verdure that in any other country would herald spring. But in California it stood lor no such happy denouement. The month of January had given place to February. The snow under the spell of the midday sun had slipped away down the many canyons, and had left behind the harsh, abraded lines of a landscape that was as yet barely covered by the tender grass. The misty glimpse of this picture through the dirty 2x3 window, the chilling dampness of the weather, the lowness of the larder, all conspired to depress the spirits of the five. Even Jim White found himself acquiescing in the clamorous wishes of the Count and Colonel. The Cripple said he didn't care a and went on with his game. The Prodigal alone stood uncommitted by speech. The mine had been named in his honor, and was the basis of all his hopes. Around it were gathered the brightest dreams of his life. For two long years he had worked unceasingly. With every "clean-up" he had expected that the next would send him home to Annie. His faith had never lagged. His 3ilent determination had kept up the spirits of the others. Lil'e was a serious matter with him he never laughed he seldom smiled, and paradoxical as it may seem he never blasphemed, but on one occasion, and that was one afternoon when the Count came running and shouting into the shanty with a panfull of black sand and iron pyrites, the Prodigal took one look at the shining specks, jumped into the air, knocked both feet together and screaued: "Married, by God!" although the Colonel afterward remarked, in discussing the matter with Jim White, that it sounded more like a prayer than an oath.

So on account of his paramount interest the final decision as to breaking up was left to him. The Colonel ceased his monologue, and turned to the Prodigal. "Shall we vamose the ranch, old man?" The Cripple threw up his cards with a disgusted air. Jim White let the shovel slide from his knees. All eyes were turned upon the Prodigal. He glanced uneasily from one to another, blushed, picked up his hat and left the camp. "Gone to talk with Annie," said the Colonel, with a shrug of his shoulders, and all lapsed into a despondent silence. Two houre passed. The Count with a badly affected limp, put over the coffee-pot, with the remark, "That's the last of it." Jim White went to the door and looked out. "Raining yet some one ought to look up the Prodigal." Another hour passed. The Cripple knocked the ashes from his pipe, took his hat and started across the cheerless gulch and up the mountain.

When the Prodigal left the cabin, his life seemed to have gone out from him. The talk of throwing up the claim on the one hand had benumed him enfeebled him. On the other, it had awakened him from a dream that had lasted uninterrupted for two years. Never for a moment had he doubted of ultimate success. Not a partial success, but one grand and overwhelming— one that would give him Annie and home. As he ascended the mountains side, perhaps, for the last time, his thoughts became incoherent, flighty. They went back to Vermont. He knew it was winter there with all its rigor. He knew the snow lay deep on the rugged hills and narrow valleys of his New England state. He could see the low, old farm house, the rain-shackle barns, the straw stack, the crumbling fences, all alike, made beautiful by their mantle of white. He pictured his father, his younger brothers and sisters happy around the glowing arch-fire. A little later he knew he would be remembered in their evening prayers. Then he thought of Annie of their childhood days of unalloyed companionship and innocent love. Her sweet girlish figure her timid delicate face her great confiding blue eyes her pure generous love, all passed before his half-crazed vision. He pressed his clamy hands to his feverish brow, and a half articulated sentence escaped him: "My God, am I going crazy?" Gradually from the chaotic mass of his thoughts and hopes came a full realization of the problem before him. With aloving, almost caressing glance, he gazed about him—on the ragged seams of the gulch beneath, filled with its wild sonorous music—on the freshly born foliage, drooping under its burdens of moisture—on the little cabin far below, just visible in the last shimering rays of the sunup at snow-crowned serrated folds of the Nevada's, and then he looked above him for tho great moss-covered bowlder, under whose shade he had spent so many hours communing with his loved ones. His eye soueht the familiar spot, but found no bowlder. He looked farther up. It was gone. But where? He took a step. He paused. A gaping chasm was at his feet. He dropped on his knees, regardless of the pools of water that had '"^llected in the fissures of the rocks. Ivar below he could distinguish a vast mass of debris. He realized what had happened. Tho bowlder stood but a few rods back, and above the canyon in whose bed they :d been vainly washing for gold. The sapping action of winter's rains and its own great weight had loosened the gravelly slope, causing a landslide, completely obliterating all traces of their feeble efforts in the river below. Unbidd3n, a groan came to his lips, and the word "busted." Ho fell flat upon his body, his head

-vjir

1.°?- „"C: -XV-* vh W

banking over the precipice. An hour passed The rain beat down on him unnoticed. It helped to still the heightened beating ol his temples. Consciousness slowly returned. His eyes opened. Gleams of light seemed to flash before them. Bright starshaped points claimed their attention. A vein of yellowish dirt ran along the clean surface of the bed rock. He put out his hand and picked up a pebble that shone yellow in the fading light. It was a nugget ol virgin gold. With it tightly clasped in his hardened palm hand he fainted. The knowledge that the great end wished for was attained that after having allowed all his hopes to collapse he had reached tha goal of his ambitions, and that all thinga were now possible was loo much for hia weakened intellect.

Thus the Cripple found him two hours later. The Cripple, whose title was one of those fictitious misnomers indulged in in California at that time, took the poor wasted form on his broad shoulders and bore him to the camp. All thoughts of breaking up were at once forgotten. Willing hands stripped the clothing from him. Tha Colonel, in endeavoring to take off the right arm of his shirt, discovered the nugget. He gave one look and ran shouting and jumping about the cabin: "Gold, boys, gold. Tha Prodigal has struck it. Didn't I alius say he was a lucli.v cuss? I never gave up for one moment. Didn't I say I felt it in my bones all along? Hurrah!" This exhibition of mendacity passed unchallenged. Tha nugget was certainly gold. The Cripple explained where he had found the Prodigal. A hurried explanation showed that tho main bar had been washed out and loosened the great bowlder above the gulch, which in its descent had smashed the rim rock and exposed the glistening gold in the old riveu bed seventy feet above where they had been tunnelling. The excitement of that night was intense. With visions of untold wealth on one hand, and the Prodigal at death's door on the other, the men spent a night that was remembered to the longest day they lived. Just at daybreak Jim White awoke the Count with a kick and sent him off to the Snake's Ford for a doctor. The Prodigal remained unconscious. There was not a particle of color in his face, and it took the united efforts of the three to keep him warm. Then he went into a delirious fever he reared and fought with the desperation of a maniac, By the time the doctor arrived the Colonel dropped on the bed completely exhausted.

For two weeks the Prodigal recognized no one. A Chinese nurse was imported. The young physician staid by lnm night and day. The first day of the sickness Jim White took him one side and said in a voice husky with emotion: "Doc, you stand by us. Bring the lad around and your fortuno is made. hy, he can't die. Damn it, man he is rich, and has got to go home and mar-, ry Annie."

The Prodigal Mine was a success. New placers were discovered along the entire length of the gulch. In a few weeks the whole place was transformed. A town sprang up. Miners flocked to the gulch. Claim stakes could be seen at every available point. A gambling hall was opened. A half dozen bars were soon in full blast. License ran riot. Law was unknown. Only one restriction was imposed on the ungovernable spirits of Prodigal. This, tho one law on the unwritten statutes of the town, was set forth by Jim White in a speech before the "Little Innocent Saloon." "In conclusion, gentlemen," he said, "let me add, the man after whom this claim is named, and who discovered-$1ie placer that has made this town what it is. lies at the point of death in yonder shanty.'1 The speaker's voice trembled. "He may never get well, but whilo he lives he is troingto have the best these ere diggings can give. Around that shanty I want absolute silence, and the man that don't take off his cap when he passes that ere doGr, his got to fight Jim White." A rjusing chcer wound up the speech, and all went to drink the health of the Prodigal.

The rude chivalry of the town exhausted Itself in its attention on the Prodigal. Rough miners vied with one another in sitting up with him, and the shanty was transformed into a bit of the tropics by the abundance of flowers brought in every morning by even the roughest frequenter of "The Little Innocent." Yet skill and nursing had no effect. The spark of life had been gradually dimmed by five years of toil, hardships and brooding. He lingered two months. One morning just as the first sounds of life were heard in the new town, the Prodigal awoke from his long sleep. A look of intelligence came into his big blue eyes, as they rested on the great manly face of the Cripple. The young doctor placed his finger on his lips to enjoin silence, but the sick man heeded it not. He put out his thin emaciated hand and grasped the strong palm of his watcher. "Old man, I have been sick." The Cripple nodded. "I have not long "to live." A sob escaped tho lips of tne Cripple. "Don't feel so, old man was the claim a success?" He continued going back to the day he became unconscious. The Cripple nodded again, and placed his finger on his lips. A smile lit up the sufferer's mouth. "We are rick then thank God. Cripple give me. your hand again. When I die, bury me here on top of Little Mountain where I can look down into the valley of the Sacramento and talk —with—A-n-n-i-e." He paused from sheer exhaustion. The doctor gave him a strengthening cordial. "Write A-n-n-i e, Cripple, and tell her I died with her name on my lips. Where-are-the-bovs?" The Colonel, Jim White, the Count, and a number of the new miners stood by his side. "Good-by, boys you have been kind to me. Don't forget the P-r-o-d-i-g-a-l." A smile passed over his faco the first rays of tho morning sun shown aslant over the barren tops of Little Mountain, and bathed the face of the dying man in a rich warm color. For an instant, it seemed to bring a new lease of life—then the struggle was over. His gentle spirit had spanned the mountains, desserts and valleys and was back among the green hills of his home—bacn with Annie.

A month later a letter was received in a little Vermont hamlet, bearing the postmark of an outlandish California mining town. With trembling fingers is was opened by a gray-haired old man. It ran as follows:

PRODIGAL, CAU, April 12, 1863.

Mit. JonN PEARCE.— DBAK FRIEND :—Your son died April the tenth. We buried him here as he wished. He had the biggest funeral ever held in this town and was buried by a regular Elder. His last words were: "Tell Annie 1 died, with her name on my lips." Enclosed, find draft on Miners' Bank, of Sacramento, for §10,000, to be divided between you and Annie. Tell Annie we all love hor, and have named a new mine after her. If theiM is anything more we can do, we are your humble servants. Yours in sorrow, "3ASI«" .FFI WM. SPAUKOW, "The Cripple.'

JIM WHITE, COL. ICHAROD AMES, HENRY LoxG, "The Count.'1

Proprietors of the Prodigal Mine.

w-BouDseville Wildmaa in Idaho Statesini a.

SOJOURN IN A HOSPITAL.

An Inside Glimpse of the Sawbones and Captivating Waiting Maids.

I never knew exactly how it happened—that accident of mine—but I do remember a swift ride in a smooth rolling' vehicle, a sudden stop, and then I found myself lying1 on a table with a man of professional aspect bending over me and feeling1 of my bones to see if any of them still remained intact. There was a man there too, an official of some sort, who asked me a number of entirely unnecessary questions about my age, civil condition and residence, to which I replied in a weary and heedless fashion. Then it seems to me that I was carried somewhere, I neither knew nor cared where, placed on an elevator and taken somewhere else, and then at last I was in bed. I could not have been at home, because there was a very pretty young woman in a snow white cap bending- over and asking me how I felt. I think I told her that I felt sleepy. At all events, I remember nothing more of what happened that night. When I awoke it was broad daylight, and I found myself in a great room, in which were a score or more of beds, each with an occupant. I realised then for the first time that I was in a hospital ward, and then I began to wonder how I got there. I did not wonder long, because my head was still aching and heavy, so I put aside the problem for future consideration and, besides, at this moment, the same pretty young woman in the snow white cap was bearing down on me from the other end of the long- room, and was by all odds the most pleasing object within my range of vision.

She came again to my bedside, smiled upon me with winning sweetness, and asked how I felt. In return I askher who she was, and she told me that she was a trained nurse and that I was then in Ward 1, of the New lork Hospital, to which I had been brought the night before from the scene of my accident. Then she asked me if I would like some breakfast. I said that I would, and she went off to get it.

O

PATIENT AND ATTENDANT.

That was the beginning of my hospital experience, and for fully a month I remained an inmate of Ward I, waiting for my wounds to heal, and slowly recovering from the effects of my fall. I had heard a great deal about hospital life, and the sufferings endured by patients, and had often wondered how it would seem to live in a room with twenty or thirty wounded and dying peoply lying about one. had always determined that if misfortune ever brought me within the walls of a hospital,! would secure tor myself the luxury of a private room. It might do for bricklayers and mechanics to lie in an ordinary ward with their fellows, but 1 was confident that I was too delicately constituted to put up with such promiscuous company. By the tim8 I had been there a week, 1 had got rid of tnat idea, as well as a good many others concerning hospital life. I found out, too, that a patent is by no means badly off in a well-appointed, well conducted hospital like the one to which I had been taken. Indeed there are a great many people who derive benefit in more ways than one from the regular life, simple food and freedom from excitement which constitute part of the treatment.

We used to awake at what was to me an unheard of hour in the morning, and at six o'clock breakfast was. served. The meal was carried on trays to those who were not able to leave their beds, and then the convalescent patients filed into the next room and eat their breakfast around a big table, after the manner of civilized human beings. The first time I laughed since my arrival was when my eyes fell upon the melancholy procession of the halt, the maimed and the blind hobbling in. Bome on crutches, others with a cane, and others with an arm in a sling, to the morning meal. After breakfast, the nurses made the round of the ward, made the beds, placing on each a snow white coverlid, which was always removed at night, and dressing the wounds of those who require it. This

SUPPORT FOR A BROKEN LEG.

duty completed, a number of bandages were given to the patients to roll, a task which occupied about an hour, and which I, for iny part, heartily enjoyed, as it was the only regular duty that I had to perform. About ten o'clock the house surgeon appeared, accompanied by one or two assistants, and made a tour of the ward, stopping at each bed, and often examining wounds or fractures. The first time I saw these sawbones enter, I shuddered, for I thought they were going to perform some operation but my neighbor in the adjoining bed had relieved me by telling me that all operations were performed in the theatre upstairs.

At eleven o'clock visitors began to arrive, and from that hour until six in the evening there were always two or three or more to be seen talking to their friends. The next event on the day's programme was dinner, which was served at twelve o'clock, and consisted of soup, meat, vegetables ahd

ir

4

It was a surprise to me to find so many educated and refined women acting as nurses. I asked the night nurse, the same one who bent over me on the night of my arrival, how she came to adopt such a calling.

DOCTOR AND NURSE.

"Because I like it,'1 she replied. "1 would much rather do this than teach school or run a typewriter. Besides, I can make more money in this way than in any other and the work is very fascinating. I get interested in every case in the ward, and although the hours are very long, from six to six, I am so busy that time llies very rapidly. After I have completed the course in the ti'aining school, I shall be able to earn from twenty-five to thirty dollars a week with my board by going out as a trained nurse to take care of patients in private families.

There is another advantage which nurses enjoy, but which my informant did not mention. That is, their calling gives them exceptional opportunities for making an impression oa wealthy and susceptible patients and also on the handsome and agreeable young doctors on the house staff.

I have known several cases in which pretty and well-bred nurses contracted advantageous matches with men whom they had nursed through illness. At such a time, as I know by experience, a soft voice and a gentle hand will accomplish wonders with a susceptible patient

Inferior Arms of Our Soldiers.

The question of arms is a live one in Europe, where fighting may be expected any time but we, the very warlike and extremely un military sovereign people of the United States, can afford to view it with indifference. We know that we have millions of fighting men ready to spring to arms at their country's call. The arms they would spring to may not be of the best, but the men are splendid. We have Springfield rifles for a few thousand of the millions and have provided by the law of the land, in force in the year of grace, 1889, that each man of all the rest shall have a good musket or firelock, two spare flints, a sufficient bayonet," and other warlike gear, except in the case of officers, each of whom must have "a spontoon and a sword or hanger," as he may elect. Our criterion of military excellence is very different from that of Europe. There it is the capability of men to get into position to shoot, and to shoot straight and quick here it is the prettiness with which soldiers, under police escort, can march up the main street of a great town. We consider it the part of wisdom to prep ire for more peace in time of peace, but should a foreign foe suddenly attack us, the pulse of the patriot would thrill at the spectacle presented by our armies springing to their arras and marching down Broadway under the protection of the Broadway Squad —each man of the rank and file bravely bearing along his firelock, his two spare flints and his sufficient bayonet, and every officer gallantly brandishing his hanger and flourishing his spontoon, while the cowering and cowardly enemy were pitching two thousand pounder shell among them from a safe position off Coney Island.— Lieutenant W. W. Kimball, in Scribner's Magazine.

Mountain Pines.

See, on the mountain top afar, Those lofty pinnacles that reach So near to heaven that a star

Burns like a taper bright in each. There, changeless all the seasons through. That green cathedral lifts its spires, The first to catch the morning dew,

The last to hold the sunset fires. Within its aisles no sound is heard While Summer's service decks the nave Its altar knows no priest: no bird

Sings from the emerald architrave. But when, wrapt in her shrowd of snow. Beneath the roof lies earth asleep, A mournful music, measured, slow,

Wakes in the summit of yon steep. That solemn dirge of Winter brings The heart to ponder thoughts divine It is God's harper strikes the strings

Stretched on the forest harp of pine! —Frank Dempster Sherman.

A Big Bell.

The workmen at McShane's bell foundry, Baltimore, are making elaborate preparations for casting "Lord Baltimore," the new fire-alarm bell which is to succeed "Big Sam" on the city hall. The new monster will weigh 7,500 pounds, will be 10 feet in diameter by 4 feet 10 inches in height, and will have atone between flat and A of the violin. The metal is, approximately, 79 parts of copper to 21 parts of tin. The McShanes have cast a bell 2,500 pounds heavier than tho "Lord Baltim ore."

Who They Were.

Mrs. Winks (at dinner in great hotel)—"Who are these men at that table in the corner?'

Mr. Winks.—"Don't know. What are they talking about? "Base-ball, horse-races, prize-fights, and so on." "Oh, they are probably oity officials. "—New York Weekly.

*F**r*

T""

bread, with sometimes a simple desert At three o'clock the surgeons made their second round, this time in company with the head surgeon of the hospital. Supper was served at six, and by eight o'clock the lights were turned down, the patients tucked away in bed and we went to sleep.

WMf."".'"T::

Wf«

mmimmm

THE FATE OF TWO BROTHERS.

Both Perish In Heroio Attempts to Rescue Each Other. Several years ago in the western part of Snyder county a large gang of men were raising a barn. A number of them were pushing up a heavy piece of timber (vertically) to be placed horizontally along where the eaves would be. When tho one end was about half way above the height of the eaves the object was to swing it into position. Albion Deutler, weighing 200 pounds, was standing at the end of the barn on the upper log. When the timber was almost ready to be swung into position the scaffolding upon which the men at the lower end stood gave way, and every thing being wet and slippery from a recent rain, the upper end slid around and struck Albion. He being very quick, caught at the moving piece of timber which soon fastened itself as a temporary cross-beam.

Albion was suspended from the log by his arms eight feet from the barn and twenty-live feet from tho ground. He was so disabled from the jar that he could neither get into the barn nor hold himself long. On the ground near by his brother Harry and another man were working. Seeing Albion in this predicament they ran to his assistance and wanted to catch him. "Go away and let me die if I must you shall not risk your life for mine." said he to his brother. "All right," responded Harry, and at the same lime he motioned to his companion to assist him in catching Albion.

Not over two feet behind Harry was a newly-dug well, thirty-live feet deep. He looked into this, fully realizing his dangerous situation, and then turned his eyes toward Albion. The latter, not being able to hold himself any longer, began his descent. "I must, I must save him," said Harry earnestly. His heroism was at the expense of his own life, for the momentum of the falling boby was too much for them to check. The sweeping descent of Albion knocked both men on their backs and hurled Harry head lirst into tho well.

Albion in his descent broke one of his arms and two of his ribs. After looking about him and realizing the situation he quickly fastened one end of a long rope to a tree near by and the other end he dropped down the well, down which he began his descent with one arm, while the pains of his bruised and mutilated body were almost unendurable. Notwithstanding the pain, he descended the rope to tho surface of the water, which was eight feet. deep. He plunged in to rescue his brother, but, alas! was unable to swim, and, having lost his hold on tho rope, Harry, while struggling for life, pulled him under.

Before the men above could be of any real assistance Harry died. Albion did not live over fifteen minutes after ho readied the surface of the earth. —Philadelphia Press.

Ilolly-Hocks.

Holly-hocks are coming in style again. Years ago when pansies were known only as Johnny-jump-ups, and fuchsias and geraniums were all imported from foreign lands and cost two dollars a smell, holly-hocks were the pride of every garden, and held sway along with the peony and tho cabbago rose. But the inexorable decrees of fashion ordered them all on to the back seat, and there they have sat and patiently bided their time like the plain skirted dress, until the fickle world has pone through the dizzy program of fancy varieties in flowers and in attire, and now they lind themselves trotted out. the dust of years shaken out of their garments, and they given a prominent position in the flower garden. They have been doubled up and colored up by the manipulations of the florist, until people wonder why their beauties were never discovered before. This is a fickle world, and that's what relieves the monotony, and makes business. The holly-hock should make good use of its time, for next year ^ombody of wealth and influence will discover new beauty in the dadelion or sunflower, and the holly-hock will be laid on the shelf again, and be numbered with the great and ever increasing "chestnut" family.—Dan vsille Breeze.

The Writing Telephone.

A company is being formed in St. Louis, to introduce th? writing telephone machines. It is proposed t® operate them on tho telephone system, having a central office connecting with all private or public instruments. If a business man wants to hold a conveiv gation with a customer or friend, he pulls a little lever, which rings a bell at the central office. Ho then writes down on his plate the number he desires, the connection is made, and he proceeds to write down his message, which is immediately reproduced in the same handwriting at the other end. If the party the message is addressed to is in he answers in the same way, and the conversation can be carried on indefnitely. The questions and answers being ail in writing, they can be filed away for future reference. When tho party called up is not in the message is ready for him on his return to the office. By the use of this machine a man in New York can affix to a cheek, sav in Washington, his own signature. —Ex.

A Costly Gun.

The 110-ton gun at Shoeburyness is stated to have cost £15,00V and the carriage with its various mechanical devices for handling it, £11,000, a total of £26,000. Each time it is fired it is calculated that.including wear and tear, the explosion costs £600, and experienced gunners assort th.it 100 rounds is the limit of its capacity. Its range is fourteen miles.

One Wftj of Identifying It.

Colored Attendant—Hi! dar, Mistah, whaf-for you smash in' all de gemmcn'8 hats?"

Young Oats (very unsteady)—I'm (hie) lookiti' fer my (hie) hat. It's a crush hat. When find (hie) one that crush right, that's my hat.—Texas Sittings.