Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1920 — Page 7

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18, 1020.

WHITE MAN

By George Agnew Chamberlain

Author of “Home.” ’’Through Stained Gleet,” "John Bogtrdua,” etc.

Copyright, 1010, The Bobbe-MerrUl Company SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I.—Andrea Pellor, handsome daughter of Lord Pellor, impecunious aristocrat, is doomed to marry an illiterate but wealthy mfddle-agea diamond mine owner. She disconsolately wanders from her hotel in South Africa and discovers an aviator about, to fly from the beach. Impulsively, of course imagining that the trip will be merely a pleasant excursion, and a welcome relief from thoughts of her impending loveless marriage, she begs to be taken for a flight, although she does not know him. He somewhat unwillingly agrees, and they start. CHAPTER n.—When she realizes her unknown aviator is not going back Andrea in desperation tries to choke him with one of her stockings. He thwarts her and they sail on into the very heart of Africa. Landing in an Immense craal. Andrea finds the natives all bow In worship to her mysterious companion. She Is given a slave boy, "Bathtub," and the White Man sets about building a hut for her. CHAPTER lll.—Andrea is given a glimpse of the home which Is to be hers, and wonders at its completeness. White Man Invites her to dinner that evening, and in spite of the fact that he has refused to take her back to civilization Andrea accepts bls invitation, but he continues deaf to her pleading that he restore her to her friends. * CHAPTER IV.—Andrea is awakened from sound sleep next morning by loud pounding on her doorway and Is told to prepare for a day’s hunt with White Man. She thoroughly enjoys the exciting trip and begins to understand more of he "host's’” character and the reason for tils apparently ruthless slaughtering of animals. He is providing for the force Of blacks he employs and who look to him for sustenance. - CHAPTER V.—Andrea, worrying over her deplorable lack of change of clothing, Is surprised and delighted .when a trunk, loaded with everything in the way of clothing dear to the feminine heart. Is dropped at her doorway hy .stalwart natives and she is told by White Man that they are hers. White Man by a skillful •hot saves her from the attack of a •able bull and she is fast becoming reconciled to her fate after eight days in the craal. • CHAPTER Vl.—On another expedition the donkey on which Andrea is mounted runs away with her and she is for a moment made ridiculous. White Man explains the African method of wife purchase "obolo.”’ She Is horrified. Afterward’she listens to the report of native runners that a herd of elephants is in the district and Is Invited to the hunt by White Man. They start down a croco-dile-infested stream for the scene of the hunt. CHAPTER Vll.—After a tedious tra™P three bull elephants are sighted and Andrea is transfixed by the excitement of the chase. Overcome by the spectacle of the killing of two elephants Andrea suddenly finds herself in the warm embrace nt White Man To her surprise she is by no means indignant. Andrea learns that another white man Is encamped near their craal, but when she declares she would like to see him White Man warns her she must never try to see or communicate with the stranger. He refuses to give his reasons, and Andrea resolves to meet the other man. CHAPTER VIII. On the day following M’sungo received a message to the effect that his steamer hud arrived and was already taking on the warehouse cargo and could do with three hundred tons jmore. Andrea had previously thought ’him a gourmand for work; now she discovered a maniac. "It’s a cleanup,” he declared. “In another month the rains will be here, there’ll be no working In the forest, the game will scatter, the natives will want to plant And what’s more, with this cargo I’ll pass the million-dollar mark. That doesn’t mean anything to you but it’s my stake—the stake Td set my heart on.” He took all hands off production and put them to baling and packing. From the reeds along the river he dragged to light a veritable fleet of scows. They were up-ended along the bank, scraped, calked and pitched. One after another they were floated out into waisthigh water and anchored. The days were no longer enough. Every woman In the camp was set to making long, tightly bound palm-leaf torches and the pickanins from eight years up were organized Into squads to light the night shift through the short hours of darkness. M’sungo took his sleep. If he took any, leaning against a tree near the nest of hand-pressure baling machines. AU hands were kept steadily at work until It was completed. At Its finish, when all the available material was stacked along the edge of the forest in great oblong piles that looked like newly cut timber, M’sungo gave a «reat spread. ,•<. U To each ten men he allotted a tin of marmalade; to each twenty a box of crackers, a sack of flour, one load of salt and a demijohn of cheap but sound wine. Andrea watched this wholesale depletion of the white man’s stores and began to wonder. As she Wondered, her heart went way up and then way down. Was this the beginning of another end? Was she sorry or was she glad? She looked back on the few days of her neW life and they seemed already to have stretched Into years. She was too young or too careless to have leaned that time passes sßowly only to those who are In a rut of daily routine, dragging tragically under the blows of sorrow and almost forgetting itself entirely when joys are various. came when the last of the barges, towing a little scow stacked

with an overflow remnant of bales, was dispatched and M’sungo could take a long breath and turn his attention to putting .the camp In order. This in itself was no small task. All branches, chips, bark, refuse and other rubbish consequent upon the work in the forest was gathered and burned. Then, z as squad after squad of laborers left for home and the planting, their grass huts, scattered without the limits of the ’permanent craal, were also set on fire. "Within a week of the first rains,” said M’sungo to a listless Andrea, “the wilderness will have returned altogether to its own to all outward appearance. Three weeks after that, anyone penetrating to the clearing we have made will find nothing beyond a flourishing shamba or corn patch, the very natural property of the craal.” On a night of downpour Andrea sat in her room, hands crossed upoq a discarded book in her lap and eyes widely fixed on some point of focus far beyond the encircling walls of her hut. She was frightened, for her soul had come to talk with her and there was no escape. She could not phone up a taxi and a party of four and go to a show and supper afterward, thus losing the universal guest. With a childish gesture of despair, she crept Into bed, curled up with her face against the pillow and wept. The more she cried, the more it rained; the mord it rained, the more she cried. There was no end to that —no end —no — Sleep did its best to take ahd hold her but tonight its grip was uncertain and long before morning it saw defeat coming and made a dastardly retreat. Andrea awoke, not slowly, not swimming up to consciousness through drowsy gradations, but suddenly with a snapping of eyes wide open on a great emptiness. She was alone, terribly alone, and hopelessly awake. She lay staring up at the uncheerful lantern that she had purposely left burning. Its chimney was smoked. Outside, rain still poured. She decided to cry a little more and found she couldn’t. Tears had withdrawn before an Ineffectual rage. Her face hardened. Well, if she couldn’t cry, something must happen; if not on its own, then it must be forced. She wondered what the white man was doing. Perhaps he was sound asleep; perhaps he was even snoring! What did she know about this man, anyway? Was he human? Had he live points of contact or was he an Impalpable creation of her sick brain? Perhaps she wasn’t here at all! If she screamed, would Aunty Gwen come running In or— Her eyes, following the sequence of her thoughts, fell upon the barred door. She arose, put on her slippers and her bathrobe, walked deliberately to the door, grasped the bar with two trembling hands and threw It up with all her strength. The clang of the farawag gong rang out above the din of the droning rain. Following it instantly came the thud of a fanlng chair. The door, released, swung slowly open with a long-drawn creak of unolled hinges. Andrea was suddenly frightened. Coming through the covered way she could hear the swift crush of hur-

M'sungo, Fully Dressed, Shot, Into the Center of Her Room and Whirled.

rylng steps. M’sunge, fully dressed, shot into the center of her room and whirled. In his hands, held at the hip, finger on trigger, was a villainous sawed-off shotgun. Only hfs long train* ing to look twice before he fired saved Andrea when his eyes brought him the startling conviction that besides himself she was the only other living thing in the room. She stared at him, wideeyed and trembling. She saw his figure, keyed to one sort of combat, relax only to grow slowly tense again. He turned, laid the shotgun aside and came toward her with swift sure strides. For an instant his eyes wavered but as he drew nearer they steadied to transfix and hold her pinned against the wall. She felt herself struggling as against an unjust accusation. Under her trembling hands, her heart, beat -with great Irregular throbs. A lump rose in her throat and it seemed as though it must strangle her if she did not let it out In her desperation she hurled herself forward, threw her arms about

THE TWICE-A-WEEK DEMOCRAT

M’sungo’s neck,’ pressed her face against him and sobbed. “Oh, White Man,” she gasped, “I was so lonely—l am so lonely." The embrace of a woman is one thing; the clinging of a child quite another. The sternness in M’sungo’s eyes died suddenly; the hard look in his face faded, vanished and gave place to one of ■■great “tenderness. He gathered Andrea up in his arms and carried her quickly through the covered way. lie told himself there was every reason to hasten, for he could feel her soft warm body, shaken with sobs, wrapping Itself round his heart and crushing it beyond repair. He laid her on the couch in his room, made a nest for her in the many pelts with which It was covered, pillowed her head in a bundle of furs and drew over her a gayly figured sarong. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

The WEEK'S DOINGS

MT. AYR (From the Tribune) Chas. Penwrlght was a Fair Oaks visitor over Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Lester Shriner of Moody called on us Thursday while over to attend the Miller sale. Claude Hickman has moved to town and is living in the Hile property in the west part of town. Ed Harns went to Chicago Monday to bring home his Mitchell. He had it overhauled and repainted. Mrs Dan Lelchty was down from her home at Fair Oaks Thursday, returning home Friday afternoon. Frank Ringfhelsen and family spent last Sunday with W. R. Willitts, their old neighbors, near McCoySburg. George Delaney moved Monday to a farm west of Roselawn where he will be employed the coming year by Earl Clinton. Mrs. Clark’s mother, Mrs. Barton, and sister, Mrs. Schryver, of Rensselaer came Friday and are looking after the sick folks in that home. Vane Yoder, who has spent several months in the west, returned here 'this Week. Vane says the main topic there as here is “how high everything is.” J. H. Beasy has moved from the p/ Elijah farm to the one he bought near Parr. John Miller has moved in and will occupy the Elijah place the coming season. Mrs. Charles Shriver, who was called to Wrightsville, Va., on account of sickness and death of a relative, returned home Thursday. She contracted a cold on her trip home of a threatening nature and a physician was summoned Friday. She is improving and as we go to press is much better.

BROOK’ (From the Reporter) Chester Besse has purchased the Sharman Hess home in East Brook. Dr. Collier was in Chicago Tuesday. He was accompanied by Wm. Barton and his daughter Elsie, the latter was taken to a specialist tor an ear trouble. On Monday Mrs. John Lyons, Jr., and Mrs. Albert Othman left to join the Brook colony at Hot Springs, Ark. They will remain a month or more. Will Simonin had the little finger of his right hand crushed in the cogs of a corn shelter one day last week. It necessitated taking the finger off down in the hand. Mr. and Mrs. John Lawrence left Tuesday for Kansas, where they will visit a cousin of the lattei. They go from there to Missouri to visit a brother of Mr. Lawrence. MEDARYVILLE (From the Journal) Mrs James Stevens is quite sick. Her sister, Mrs. Meade Rayburn, has been helping care for her this week. Ruby Strantz and sisters came up from Lafayette Tuesday evening to help care for their sisters family, Mrs. Frank Llzenby, Who is sick • Lew Holt died at 4:30 Wednesday afternoon from influenza. WHolt had been sick for several (lays and in a critical condition for the pest week. He survived by five children, his widow, father-in-law, Jackson Stump; brothers and many friends. Squire Kilgore of San Pierre died last Saturday night of complications due tQ old age. iHls funeral was (held Tuesday of this week at the San Pierre Evangelical church, and (burial made in the cemetery east of Ban Pierre. He is survived by his widow and five children. Dr. Englerth of North Judson, who has been httendtog the Clark family in Rich Grove township, where the mother and two children died last week, reported last evening that two of the remaining children still (have high fever and that he did not expect them to recover. At 5:30 last Tuesday afternoon Mrs. Hugo Manning passed from this world as the result of cerebral hembrshage which came upon her early to the morning. Mrs. Manning Is survived by six children, her. husband and many friends. The funeral was held today at the M. E. church, Revs. Beisel and Sobering officiating. Burial in the White Post cemetery. Miss Davena Arrowsmith, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bass Arrowsmith, was struck on the head several weeks ago with a heavy club by an unknown man, who attacked her while in the yard of a Mr. Powells, where she Is staying While attending high school in Michigan City. The attack has never been explained as Mise Davena did not know the man and he ran as soon As he had administered the blow. Everyone is at a loss for the motive of the brute. Miss Davena was recovering nicely, having re-

turned to her school work when the attending physician discovered some infection. Before this infection was gotten rid of it was doubtful as to Miss Daven’s recovery. Now, however, it is thought that she will get along nicely.

COUNTY EDUCATIONAL NOTES The Jasper county board of education voted unanimously to fix tihe minimum wage, for class "A” teachers at |3.50 per day. The state department asks that the minimum wage be 13.92 per day. Benton county voted to pay its beginners the >3.92. It must be understood that the law fixes the minimum at $2.83. Counties are beginning to bid against each other for the inexperienced. Experienced. teadhers are seeking other fields and can hardly be gotten at the price trustees are able to pay. Undoubtedly it would, take no dreamier to Judge rather accurately who is paying the price in this underpaid profession. School trustees are bidding against themselves for more children to

Give MeaFriendfy, Natural Hand-shake an’ a friendly natural tobacco. Keep yo’ puton Aira an’ ‘ sauced-up” tobaccos for the fellow that likes nut sundaes better than home made pie— So says a friend of ours named Velvet Joe. .And he just about hits the nail on the head. Velvet is made for men who think there’s no smoke like real tobacco. If you are that sort of man, listen: Velvet was bom in old Kentucky, where more than one good thing comes from. It was raised as carefully as any othei Kentucky * thoroughbred. But the real secret of Velvet’s friendly qualities is its slow natural ageing in iwooden hogsheads. Ageing in the wood never hurt anything —and least of all, tobacco. And so we say, Velvet is good tobacco—nothing more or less. It runs second to none. t , I The picture of the pipe on the tin needn’t keep you from rolling a jim-dandy cigarette with Velvet i V Inr ►* 4 ■ i ~. j f 1 Mil 'Bl fiaM v B W -m iWii ■ * ■I BMBPHWn □ i -die friendly tobacco

teach ttie oncoming generation Its finest lessons in citisenship. With all due respect for the ability of the beginning teacher yet It seems fair to ask a plain Question: Are they qualified to do the biggest job before the American people today? - About 25 seniors from the various high schools in Jasper county took the teachers' examination Jan. 81. It Is true that none were able to pass the examination, but our grading standards must be lowered if we are to turn this biggest o t all jobs to them. Possibly it would not take a dreamer to Judge rather accurately who is paying the price when the requirements are lowered. This problem has been agitating the federal authorities to such an extent that legislation from Washington will soon be framed so that teachers can be placed on the government pay roll for a portion of their salaries so that our boys ana girls can be educated by a permanent teaching personnel rather than by those who just experiment on our young until they make good and then go on to a better paid

work. State Superintendent IHn—is using every power under (his aoutrol to awaken the slumbering vuAlic to the school situation in Indiana. Last week was teadhers’ In Indiana. Jasper county was net officially notified to put on th* campaign for public enllghtennwsxt as the county superintendent wsa unable on account of sickness tn give the matter attention. But a* this late hour the falrminded parson who reads these notes cast 'form a fair and unbiased opinkm upon the facts as herein presented. —COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT.

NOTICE TO FARMERS We handle the Rumley line trantors, threshing machines and fanning implements; also Western Utilitor, one-horse tractor, at White Front Oarage.—KUBOSKE & WALTER. An armload or old papers for la at The Democrat office.

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