Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1903 — Page 2

Miss Jo’s Romance

HER full name, of course, was Josephine, her Christian name, that is, which is romantic enough for a three volume, but her surname took away from whatever romance it had ever held, and Miss Jo had never changed her name. Josephine Stallabrass, an unmusical combination, but common enough In a country abounding with Medlocks, Mortlocks and Gulvers, Hitches and Abbies, unmusical aIL Miss Jo was neither young nor old. Some people are the same age all their adult life. - Her face had not a wrinkle, her eyes were blue, clear and penetrating, her skin as supple as that of a child, her mouth not small, but well shaped. It Is difficult in a few words to fully describe the beauty or otherwise of a person, and It Is not our business here to make a pen and Ink portrait of Miss Jo; but her pervading expression, her atmosphere one might almost call It, was one of deep, grave peace. Jo, In days gone by, had suffered keenly, had bent, not broken, under the cross she carried, as Is the way with brave women, and the outcome bad been what we now find her at forty, a helpful, strong woman. She was poor—the neighbors did not know how poor, or of course help would have been proffered—but managed to pay her way and no more; she could Just make both ends meet, but they did not overlap by a hair’s breadth. Her father had owned the mill and left but little behind him when he died; the mill itself had passed Into other hands, but Miss Jo still occupied the little cottage attached to It The rooms were low ceilinged and black panelled, boasting quaint oldfashioned furniture. In the livingroom on the ground floor, red tiled and some inches lower than the lintel of the door, was an old oak settle that one could almost see one's face In, for thrifty housewives had burnished it for a couple of centuries or more. Miss Jo had occupied this house all her life Since her school days she had never slept out of it, and now, with the soft June twilight falling upon it, for once In her life she felt and almost rebelled against the unutterable loneliness. The mill house stood at the end of a long narrow lane, with six foot ditches on either side and giant elms, their branches intertwining, arched the roadway and made a twilight on the brightest day. If any one had peeped Into the living room now and looked at its tenant's sweet face he would have seen that an expression almost of despair rested upon it Miss Jo’s rent was due; the amount was only four pounds, and she was utterly unable to pay It; moreover, this was the last quarter of her tenancy, and she knew that nothing would Induce her landlord to renew her lease. He wanted the cottage for a gardener. There was nothing upon which she could raise money. Had she known It a collector would have paid her ten times the amount she owed for the old oak settle, had she been willing to part with it; but no collector had ever clapped eyes upon It She had a very small store of eggs and poultry, but so had every one. As she stood at the door watching the blinking lights of the alehouse at the end of the lane, the past came before her very vividly, and her eyes were tear-dimmed. Twenty years before Guy Hale had come to lodge with them for some months. An extension of the line was being made and he was In charge of a section. As to his actual social position, It was superior to hers, and he was well-read and Intellectual; but his father, marrying again, had turned him adrift, and he had taken to engineering as a duck takes to water, and went through the mill thoroughly—greasy. grimy and happy. He was older than she, and a young widower, but his married life had been a short and wretched one; they had separated, and he showed Jo the account of her death by shipwreck. The twain fell In love. It is honest to say that he fell in love for the first time In his life, while Josephine gave him a whole-hearted, passionate devotion .that no one but her lover knew her to be capable of. They had been “cried” twice, and on the third occasion the quiet, halfempty little church had been startled by the “I forbid the banns!” In the dipping tones of a Londoner. And the strange woman—town, not country bred, bedecked and bedizened, called Guy “husband!” The shock nearly killed the loving woman. Then her father died, and she managed to eke out a very scanty living by doing odd dressmaking jobs for the farmers’ wives, and for a time she had a few little pupils, too young even for the village school The small blackboard on Its trestles stood In the bay window now. Guy never wrote to her, but every year on the anniversary of her blrthday. which should also have been their wedding day, he sent her a birthday card. She had nineteen of them now, and they came from Canada. They were quaint things, made of two thicknesses of birch bark laid one upon the other, with a fringe running rounds of strings of fibre, sometimes of silk.

She carefully treasured them In the lavender scented drawer In the living room, and had wept over them many times. It was the twenty-fifth of June now, her fortieth birthday, the last she would ever spend In the Mill House, and a strange fancy seized her. From out the long drawer upstairs, from Its wrappings of soft paper, she took her wedding dress—it was to be her shroud, too; that she had long ago settled, and she held It up and shook out the folds of the skirt It was of lilac-colored material and cuffs and collar were edged with lace. She put It on, laughing mirthlessly, and looked at her attire In a long, old-fashioned mirror coeval with the settle downstairs. Slim, graceful and erect she stood; her ring of tiny diamonds on the left hand caught the light; her hair, more than ever gold burnished, looked like a halo. There was a smile on her lips as she went down the narrow, boxed-in stairway. The door was still open, tho blackboard lay on the table, and on it, written large in the handwriting she knew and loved: “Guy Hale, 25th June, 1903.” Then. I think, she fainted. “Jol Jo!” Bearded and bronzed, the man had stepped Into the room and raised her. Her hand lay upon his breast, his arm was around her and he pressed his lips to hers. She revived almost at once and sprang from him, standing erect, looking taller and more graceful than ever In the well-fitting wedding gown. “How dare you? How dare you?” she gasped. “Who has a better right, Jo? After long years, Jo, sweetest and most faithful.” "You have a right? You have a right, Guy?” “You gave me the right twenty years ago, my poor, thin, wan Jo!” “She Is dead!” Her voice was soft, tremulous, eager. “You, who know me, know I should not be here If she were not” He did not attempt to embrace her again, but stood apart while this new wonder sank Into her heart This woman, the girl woman of forty, had starved for love, pined and fretted for one look from the eyes she so dearly loved, for one cadence of the voice that had just rang clear in her ears. And hope fulfilled held her straitly tonguetied. “Come to me, Jo.” There was a flutter In his tones that was not there before. He held his two hands out to her as If they had been manacled at the wrists, big and ungainly In everything he did. Gently, looking straight into his honest eyes, she patted the two brown hands, and the girl-woman, who rarely shed a tear, was sobbing happily upon hla breast • * • • • »

“Bat why do I find you still here, my Jo? I thought you would have taken one of the new houses over Barrington way. We were to have settled there when we married, dear heart” “Guy—this ia my last night In the old house.” And she told him of the overdue rent, of the awful struggle the last few years had been, and what from pride her lips did not tell him her eyes did. "But, child, you had a birthday card from me every year!” “1 have nineteen, I think.” There was no “think” about It; she knew the exact number.

“Then you have about eight hundred pounds In the house. If you have kept them. My dear, things have prospered with me beyond all knowledge. I went to Canada when—when we parted, and one of my patents was taken up almost at once—that was a tiny fortune. Then I discovered a method of treating stubborn ore—but this, of course, is Greek to you, and don’t wrinkle your forehead like that, Jo; It la most unbecoming—and so from one thing to another things have gone well with me and I am well off. Perhaps I might even be able to satisfy your brute of a landlord. I might even afford to buy the house and the mill.”

“But what has this got to do with those quaint birthday cards?" “Oh, I forgot that part!” She bad brought the bundle from the drawer, and taking one up he pulled at one of the little tabs of red silk and withdrew a twenty pound note. “You were a blind girl, Jo." In a few minutes the kitchen table was a veritable Tom Tiddler’s ground. Opening each card in its order gave an index of his prosperity. Beginning at twenty the notes ranged up to fifty and a hundred pounds. In the last one received that morning were two bank notes of a hundred pounds each. And then Miss Jo did a thing she had never done before; she began-to sob hysterically, and, sinking down on the floor at the seated man's feet, hid her face upon his knee. . They talked for more than an hour; the man’s sudden advent, the story

he had to tell seemed too wonderful to be true, all the past years seemed dreamlike and utterly unreal. They were taking up the thread of life where they had dropped It where, Indeed, it seemed that fate had cut It; and she saw no change In Guy Hale, nor he In her. When he rose to go he said, half laughing: “Is your namesake, old Stallabrass, still parish clerk?” “Yes Why do you ask? He will be at the ‘Bell’ now." ‘Oh, nothing particular,” and he kissed her again, “only I have a special license In my pocket and It has to be lodged with the authorities a day or so before the ceremony.”

Once again Miss Jo stood at her doorway watching the blinking lights of the alehouse, the figure of her lover silhoutted now and again against the red glow. Then the door opened and he hesitated for just one moment on the threshold; then she heard the roar of voices from farm hands and lime burners as Guy entered the sanded parlor and took his accustomed seat But, rich or poor, married or single, Miss Jo will always retain the pet name that has distinguished her. She will never be called Mrs. Hale In the village. “Miss Jo” will always be “Miss Jo.”—New York News.

MOTORS AND FAMILY STEED.

Inoffensive Domestic Machines Are Bound to Be Popular. There are two ways by means of which the motor vehicle tends to supersede the horse. It may scare him off the road, and It may do his work better, or cheaper, than he does It. Any one who goes about In the country must notice this summer increasing numbers of motor vehicles, put to strictly family use. A family may go out In a devil wagon, but those conveyances smack incurably of sport, and the processes of domestication are sluggish with them. ? They cost so much, too, that they could never compete with family horses. But the lowpower vehicles that carry a man and wife and a child are of quite a different order. For one thing, they are Inoffensive. They don’t go faster than the law allows, no reasonable horse has any objection to them, and persons who use them are not subject to the disagreeable consciousness that the average observer regards them as enemies of the public peace. For another thing they are comparatively cheap; cheap, that Is, compared with the big touring cars. Four or five hundred dollars will buy one. But, alas! that Is not cheap compared with the horse and buggy or two-seated wagon of familiar country use. Farmers and native villagers are not going to have them yet a while. The great advantage of them at present to men of moderate Incomes is that they can be kept in a small shed, and do not absolutely necessitate the maintenance of a hired man. They wear out and they break down, but they don’t eat, and when funds are low you can lock them up in a shed and wait, If necessary, for pay day, without Inhumanity or loss. And when winter comes there is no problem about wintering them. Put them away; that Is all The low-price and low-power vehicles are sure to come into very wide use. My venerable friend, who shrinks from guiding a hired horse past a devil wagon, admired and praised the Inoffensive domestic motor vehicle, writes Ward Sandford In the Illustrated Sporting News. He would gladly have one, I think, and would feel safe In It, for It doesn’t get scared, no matter what passes, nor how fast But the family motor wagon must arrange to carry more children. You take but one child; what becomes of the rest? It must clear Itself of all suspicion of being a promoter of race suicide.

HABITS OF COWBIRD.

It Associates with the Animals in Or. der to Find Insects. The cowbird Is black and a little smaller than the red-winged blackbird. There are three species, two of which—the common and red-eyed—migrate to our Northern States and are found associated together. The male of the common cowbird has a head and neck of deep wood-brown, while the redeyed is wholly black and very lustrous. The .females are smaller than the males and duller In color, although the red-eyed female is quite black. The bird receives Its name from Its association with cows, beside which it feeds, snatching up the insects that are disturbed by their heavy tread. About half a dozen usually attend a single animal or a bunch of cattle, part of which may be of one species and part of the other. Indeed, the two associate together aa peacefully as though they were of the same species. The most serious Indictment against the cowbird Is that It builds no nests and does not rear Its own family. Its eggs are laid In the nests of greenlets, warblers, finches and other blackbirds, most of which are smaller than itself. Of the first five red-wings' nests examined In 1902, four contained the eggs of the cowbird. The summer warbler was one day found burying the detectable egg in the bottom of her nest, together with one of her own. Two orchard orioles’ nests, not fifty feet apart each contained the egg of the parasite, probably of the same breed.—Country Life in America. Distribute fifteen or twenty cents around among the neighbor children, and you can create more happiness than the Iron kings when they give a million to a college.

POLITICS OF THE DAY

Tha Cost of Living. The cost of living still continues abnormally high. The coal trust, the beef trust and the thousands of other combines are still doing business without let or hindrance. The railroad mergers are advancing their rates, claiming that their expenses have Increased and their revenue must be Increased proportionately. These high prices for about everything must of course be borne by the consumers, and as a great proportion of these earn wages or salaries that have not been Increased, or If any advance has been made, not to the extent that the cost of living has increased their plight, is a serious one. Some of the thoroughly organized labor unions have been able to force their employers to pay higher wages, but the great mass of laborers do not belong to labor organizations and their wages have been raised but a trifle compared to the increased price of what they purchase. But It is the citizen with the fixed income that trust prices press the most heavily upon, such as clerks and others whose wages do not raise with the cost of living. The small hotel and boarding house keepers are having a hard time to make both ends meet The price the coal and beef trusts extort from those who, with the strictest economy In normal times, only get a living Is disastrous In these times of trust prosperity. Such good Republican authority as the Chicago Inter Ocean, Sept. 16, makes a terrific arraignment of the result of the policy of its own party in which It said: “Yet It may be doubted if one-half the heads of the American families are In as favorable a position as they were In 1897.” That Is just what the Democrats have been claiming is the result of the high protection given the trusts by the Dlngley tariff and that prosperity to the trusts Is disastrous to the great mass of the people who have to pay trust prices. Republican voters should ponder on what this organ or their party admits and Democrats should call their attention to it and to another paragraph from the same article, which said: “The plain truth Is that fully onehalf the workers of the United States—the men whose Incomes are from $600 to $3,000 a year, the men who are neither In trusts nor labor unions, have not been getting their share of the national prosperity. They are working for the prosperity of Capital and organized labor, but no one is working for them. And under this burden they are becoming exhausted.” There is no doubt that it Is as the Inter Ocean says, “the plain truth,” but the Republican leaders will not listen to It, or, If they do, obstinately refuse to amend the tariff schedules that are mainly responsible for trust monopoly and extortion. They say “Hands off” and “Let well enough alone.”

The decreased purchasing power and forced economy of more than half the people Is having the effect of diminishing the trust prosperity. There are strong indications that the speculative boom has run Its course and that wages. Instead of being Increased, will probably decline. The press dispatches of Sept. 16 tell us that the National Metal Trades’ Association has started a movement to reduce the wages of machinists all over the country 10 per cent when the wage agreements with the machinists' expire Jan. 1. The cause given Is “fierce competition and diminution of business.” With all this evidence of the necessary legislation to curb the extortion of the thousands of trusts, great and small, the Republican cry is to “stand pat” and leave well enough alone. That is the clamor of the trusts and not the cry of the people. President Roosevelt has decided to call Congress into extraordinary session on Nov. 9, not to legislate against the trusts, nor to revise the schedules of the tariff that gives the trusts their monopoly, but to ratify the treaty of reciprocity with Cuba. Cuba, for whom the people of the United States expended hundreds of millions of dollars and sacrificed thousands of their sons. Is of more consequence than their own people, in the eyes of the Republican leaders. When it is considered that tbe Republicans who favor reciprocity refuse to take off the differential duty on refined sugar that protects the sugar trust and Insist that 25 per cent of the duty on raw sugar shall be deducted from all sugar Imported from Cuba, the enormity of such legislation is apparent The sugar trust would naturally be the recipient of this one-fourth reduction of the tariff on Cuban sugars under the reciprocity treaty and still be protected by the differential duty from competition. That many of the trusts sell abroad at a lower price than they sell tbe same article at borne, thus persistently robbing all of us and adding to the pecuniary difficulties of those with limited Incomes, is another substantial reason for tariff reform to reduce the cost of living.

Treats Control Republicans. The protective tariff is receiving some hard knocks by Its former friends and supporters. Many manufacturers find that their business is

curtailed by the tax on raw materials and Congressman Lovering, of the Taunton district, in Massachusetts, has declared that “In the case of all articles used in the manufacture of goods, which are exported, he would remove the duty altogether.” In an interflow published In the New York Evening Post, Sept. 4, he made the above statement and added that “the number of high protectionists in the country Is small and there is no strong tariff sentiment here In Massachusetts." He also made the remarkable statement for a Republican Congressman: “There Is a growing demand for relief from the tariff burden and It will make Itself felt before long.” He believed that “President Roosevelt meant to do the right thing, but he Is surrounded by all sorts of advisers, who oppose tariff changes and is Influenced by them.” “It seems to be the policy now,” he said, “to smother all agitation. It Is not only In Iowa that the demand for tariff reform Is growing, but It Is all over the country, and It is very strong In Massachusetts. So President Roosevelt Is struggling, poor man, “to do the right thing,” but the bad men of the trusts have control of him and his policy Is “to smother all agitation” for tariff reform. That must mean he has Joined Hanna and the “stand patters” and thinks it advisable for political reasons to “let well enough alone.” Well enough for the trusts and combines, but high prices and extortion for the American people. This picture of the control of the Republican party and the coercion of the President by the trust magnates and the monopolists, will open the eyes of the voters everywhere to the bard game they are up against. It Is evidently quite safe to say there will be no tariff reform by the coming Congress unless enough Republican members are forced by their constituents to Join with the Democrats In passing some measure of relief.

A Presidential Dilemma. The statement of Postmaster General Payne that President Roosevelt was fully aware of the deal that had been made for the division of the spoils of office In Delaware is rather hard on a civil service reformer, as President Roosevelt professes to be. It must be especially disheartening to those Republicans who were hopeful that their party would not be disgraced by complicity with the attempt of Addicks to purchase the Delaware Senatorshlp. That Mr. Payne should have given the Addicks faction their share of the political spoils was to be expected, but that the President acquiesced in supporting the notorious Addicks is a shock to all patriots who demand decent government. The offense that Miss Todd had committed and for which her dismissal was requested, was that she opposed the Addicks faction, and that, and that alone. Is why Mr. Payne, as official headsman, chopped off her head. There was no word against her personal or conduct, no petition from patrons of the office for her removal, but she and her family were opposed to Addlcks. That was crime enough for Mr. Payne.

A fellow feeling made him wondrous kind to Addicks and his ambition to represent Delaware In the United States Senate. The respectable faction of the Republican party In Delaware have been trying to stem the tide of corruption and have denounced Addicks as a debaucher of the voters of the State, but Postmaster General Payne has evidently determined to aid him. What will President Roosevelt do? Will he reinstate Miss Todd or stand by the action of bis Postmaster General? President Roosevelt an afford to be Independent of tbe Addicks faction for, In any event, they can but send a contesting delegation to the next national convention and their claim for recognition will be settled by that body where the will of the President, from the present outlook, will be omnipotent. But the voters of Delaware and the whole country will hold him responsible and expect him to carry out his own declaration that “Words are good only when backed by deeds.”

“A Difficult Feat.

Getting Back at Him.

’’Why is It,” asked the inquisitive man of the caramel-eating maid, “that you women are so fond of sweets?" “While I’m trying to think of the answer,” replied the fair one, “suppose you tell me why you men are so fond of “sours.’ "

THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF RENSSELAER, INDAddison Parkison. Pres. John if. Wasson. Vice Pres. K. L. Hollingsworth. Cashier SUCCESSES TO THE BUSINESS OF THE COMMERCIAL STATE BANK. Opened March 3, 1908. at the old location, NORTH SIDE PUBLIC SQUARE. A general banking business transacted; deposits received, payable on time or on demand. Money loaned on acceptable security Drafts on all cities at home and abroad bought and sold. Collection of notes and accounts a specialty. 5 per cant, farm loans. Your Business Solicited.

Chicago to the Northwest, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and the South, Louisville, and French Lick Springs. Rensselaer Time-Table, In Effsot Juno 29,1902. South Bound. 10. H—Louisville Mall, (daily) 10 :S3 a. m. ©.*3—lndianapolis Mall, (dally).. 2 $1 p. m. o. IS— Milk aeeomm., (daily) 0:15 p.m. o. S—LoulsvUleExpreaa, (daily).. 11:25 p. m. to. 45—Local freight t :40 p. m. No.M—Past Mall 4:49 a.m. North Bound. No. 4—Mall (daily) 4:30 a. m. No. 40—Milk aeeomm., (daily) 7:31a.m. No.tt—Fast Mail (dally) 9:55 a.m. No. 6—Mall and Bxpreas. (daily)... 3:30 p. m. SNo. 30—Cin.to Chicago Yea. Mall.. 0:33 p.m. JNo. 38—Cin. to Chioago. 1:57 p. m. •No. 48—Local freight 955 a.m. •Dally except Sunday. tSunday only, Hammond haa been made n regular stop for No. SO. No. 81 and S 3 now atop at Cedar Lake, fun J. Bod, G. P. ▲., W. H. McDoxin President and Gen. M’g’r. Chas. H. RooxwbUh Traffic M’g’r, eHioaao. W. H. Bsak Agent. Rensselaer.

CITY, TOWNSHIP AND CITY OFFICERS. Mayor „ J. H. S. Ellis Marshal Mel Abbott Mark Charles Morlan Treasurer James H. Chapman Attorney .....Geo. A. Williams Civil Engineer. J.C. Thawls Fire Chief C. B. Steward COUNCILMEN 1st ward Henry Wood, Fred Phillips 2d ward W. S. Parks, B. F. Ferguson 3d ward J. C. McColly, Peter Wasson COUNTY OFFICERS. Clark .John F. Major Sheriff Abram G. Hardy Auditor W. C. Babcock Treasurer R. A. Parkison. Recorder Robert B. Porter Surveyor Myrt B. Price Coroner Jennings Wright Supt. Public Schools Louis H. Hamilton Assessor John R. Phillips COMMISSIONERS. Ist District Abraham Halleck 2nd District Frederick Waymire 3rd District Charles T. Denham Commissioners’ court—First Monday of each month. COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION. TRUSTEES. TOWNSHIPS. Joseph Stewart Hanging Grove John Ryan.. Gillam Lewis Shrier Walker Ellas Arnold Barkley Charles M. Blue Marion John Bill Jordan Geo. M. Wilcox Newton S. L. Luce Keener Thomas F. Maloney Kankakee Stephen D. Clark Wheatfield Albert J. Bellows Carpenter William T. Smith Milroy Barney D. Comer Union Louts H. Hamilton. Co. Supt Rensselaer G. K, Hollingsworth Rensselaer George Besse.... ... Remington Geo. O. Stembel Wheatfield JUDICIAL. Circuit Judge.... Charles W. Hanley Prosecuting attorney ....John D. Sink Terms of Court. —Second Monday in February, April, September and November.

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