Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1897 — He Was Thankful. [ARTICLE]

He Was Thankful.

One day there was a traveler in the woods in California in the dry season, when the trades w§re blowing strong. He had ridden a long way and he was tired and hungry, and dismounted from his horse to smoke a pipe. But when he felt in his pocket he found but two matches. He struck the first and it would not light. “Here's a pretty state of things,” said the traveler. “Dying for a smoke; only one match left, and that sure to miss fire. Was there ever a creature so unfortunate? And yet,” thought the traveler, “suppose I light this match and smoke my pipe, and shake out the dottie here in the grass—the grass might catch on fire, for it is dry like tinder, and while I snatch out the flames in front they might evade and run behind me and seize upon yon bush of poison oak; before I could reach it that would have blazed up. Over the bush I see a pine tree hung with moss; that, too, would fly in fire upon the instant to its topmost bough; and the flame of that long torch, how the tradewind would take and brandish that through the inflammable forest! I hear this dull roar in a moment with the joint voice of wind and fire; I see myself gallop for my soul and the fleeing conflagration chase and outflank me through the hills; I see this pleasant forest burn for days, and the cattle roasted and the springs dried up and the farmer ruined and his children cast upon the world. What a world hangs upon this moment!” With that he struck the match and it missed fire. “Thank God,” said the traveler, and he put his pipe In his pocket—Longman’s Magazine. In a recently designed door lock the key fits into the end of the and there is no oth»r keyhole.