Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1904 — Page 2

THE MISER'S DAUGHTER

CHAPTER VII. IL Grandet entered the room, gave «b» sharp glance. at the table and another at Charles. He saw how it was at •nee. “Aha! you have been making a fete for jour nephew. Good, very good, oh! very good, indeed!” he said, without stammering. “When the cat is away the mice may play.” “Fete?” thought Charles, who had not the remotets conception of affairs in the Grandet household. Grandet drew from his waistcoat pocket a large clasp-knife with a stag's horn handle, cut a slice of bread, buttered it ■Jowly and sparingly, and began to eat aa he stood. Just then Charles put some •agar into his coffee; this called Grandet’s attention to the pieces of sugar on the table: he looked hard at his wife, who turned pale and cnme a step or two toward him; he bent down and said in the poor woman's ear: “Where did all that sugar come from ?" “Nanon went out to Fessard's for some; there was none in the house.” It is impossible to describe the painful interest that this dumb show pos■essed for the three women; Nanon had left her kitchen, and was looking into the dining room to see how things went there. Charles meanwhile tasted his coffee, found it rather strong, and looked eonnd for another piece of sugar, but Grandet had already pounced upon it and taken it away. “What do you want, nephew?” the «)d man inquired. “The sugar.” “Pour in some more milk if your coffee is too strong,” answered the master •f the house. Eugenie took up the saucer, of which Grandet had previously taken possesafon, and set it on the table, looking quietly at her father the while. Charles Bad not the remotest conception of what hh cousin endured for him, or of the lorrible dismay that filled her heart as ■he met her father’s angry eyes; he would never even know of her sacrifice. “You are eating nothing, wife?” The poor bond-slave went to the table, ent a piece of bread in fear and tremBling, and took a pear. Eugenie, grown ■eckless, offered the grapes to her father, saying as she did so:

“Just try some of my fruit, papa! You will take some, will you not, cousin? I Brought those pretty grapes down on purpose for you!” “Oh! if they could have their way, they would turn Saumur upside down for you, nephew! As soon as you have finbhed we will take a turn in the garden together; I have some things to tell you that would take a deal of sugar to sweeten them.” Eugenie and her mother both gave C!harles a look, which the young man ■»nld not mistake. “What do you mean by that, uncle? Since my mother died there is no mistortune possible for me." “Who can know what afflictions heav- ■» may send to make trial of us, sephew?” said his aunt. “Tut, tut, tut,” muttered Grandet, “here you are beginning with your folly already! I am sorry to see that you lavs auch white hands, nephew.” He displayed the fists, like shoulders vs mutton, with which nature had terminated his own arms. “That is the sort of hand to rako the jrowns together! You put the kind .of leather on your feet that we used to nake pocketbooks of to keep bills in. ‘.That is the way you have been brought op. That's bad! that’s bad!” “What do you mean, uncle? I’ll be Ranged if I understand one word of Als.” “Come along,” said Grandet, and the miser shut his knife with a snap and opened the door. “Oh! keep up your courage, cousin!” Something in the girl’s voice sent a sodden chill through Charles; he followed hie formidable relative with dreadful misgivings. Eugenie and her mother and Nanon went into the kitchen; an aocontrollabhj anxiety led them to watch As two actors in the scene which was about to take place in the damp little garden. Uncle and nephew walked together in sGence at first. Grandet felt the situates to be a somewhat awkward one; not Sntt he shrank at all from telling Charles es his father's death, but he felt a kind at pity for a young man left in this way vithout a penny in tlie world, and he cast ebout for phrases that should break the eroel news as gently as might be. “You Wre lost your father!” he could say that; Acre was nothing in that; fathers usually predecease their children. But, “You tarvt not a penny!” All the woes of the wetld were summed up in those words, ra for the third time the worthy man walked the whole length of the path In 4bt center of the garden, crunching the gravel beneath his heavy boots, and no ward was said. “It is very fine; very warm,” said ■Brand et, drawing in a deep breath of air. “Well, my boy, “I have some bad news tor you. Your father is very ill * * *” “What am I doing here?” cried Charles. “Nanon!" he shouted, “order pMt horses! I shall be sure to find a Mrriage of some sort in the place, I suppeue,” he added, turning to his uncle, who had not stirred from where he stood. “Horses and a carriage are of no use,” Grandet answered, looking nt Charles, who immediately stared straight before Mb in silence. “Yes, my poor boy, you grass what has happened; he is dead. Bat that is nothing; there is something wane; he has shot himself through the “My father?" “Yes, but that is nothing, either. The •ewspapers are discussing it, as if it were any business of theirs. There, read Mr yourself." Grandet had borrowed Cruchot’s paC, and now he laid the fatal paragraph ore Charles. The poor young fellow —M was only a lad as yet—made no attempt to hide his emotion, and burst teto tears. “Come, that Is better,” said Grandet Mlimself. “That look in his eyes frlght«BSd me. He is crying; he will pull Graugh. Never mind, my poor nephew,” Grandet resumed, aloud, Dot knowing whether Charles heard him or no, “that b nothing, you will get over It, but^—"

By HONRE DE BALZAC

“Never! never! My father! my father!” “He has ruined you; you are penniless.” “What is that to me? Where is my father?" The sound of his sobbing filled the little garden, reverberated in ghastly “echoes from the walls. Tears are as infectious as laughter; the three women wept with pity for him. Charles broke from his uncle without waiting to hear more, and sprang into the yard, found the staircase, and fled to his own room, where he flung himself across the bed and buried his face in the bedclothes, that he might give way to his grief. “Let him alone till the first shower is over,” said Grandet, going back to the parlor. Eugenie and her mother had hastily returned to their places, had dried their eyes, and were sewing with cold, trembling fingers. “But that fellow is good for nothing,” went on Grandet; “he is so taken up with dead folk that he doesn’t even think abpuL the money.” Eugenie shuddered to hear the most sacred of sorrows spoken of in such a way; from that moment she began to criticise her father. Charles’ sobs, smothered though they were, rang through that house of echoes; the sounds seemed to come from under the earth, a heartrending wail that grew fainter toward the end of the day, and only ceased as nighs drew on. “Poor boy!” said Mme. Grandet. It was an unfortunate remark. Goodman Grandet looked at his wife, then at Eugenie, then at the sugar basin; he, recollected the sumptuous breakfast prepared that morning for their unhappy kinsman, and planted himself in the middle of the room. “Look here, you two,” he exclaimed, “there is to l>e no nonsense, mind! I am going to Cruchot’s and have a talk with him about all this.”

CHAPTER VIII. Grandet went out. As soon as the door closed upon Grandet, Eugenie and her mother breathed more freely. The girl had never felt constraint in her father’s presence until that morning; but a few hours had wrought rapid changes in her feelings. “Mamma, how many louis is a hogshead of wine worth?” “Your father gets something between a hundred and a hundred and fifty francs for his; sometimes two hundred, I believe, from what I have heard him say.” “And would there be fourteen hundred hogsheads in a vintage?” “I don’t know how many there are, child, upon my word; your father never talks about business to me?’ “But, anyhow, papa must be rich.” “May be. But M. Cruchot told me that your father bought Froidfond two years ago. That would be a heavy pull on him?’ “He did not even so much as see me, the poor dear!” said Nanon, entering the room. “He is lying there on his bed like a calf, crying, you never saw the like! Poor young man; what can be the matter with him?” “Let us go up at once and comfort him, mamma; if we hear a knock, we Avill come downstairs.” There was something in the musical tones of her daughter’s voice which Mme. Grandet could not resist. Eugenie was sublime; she was a girl no longer, she was a woman. With beating hearts they climbed the stairs and went together to Charles’ room. The door was open. The young man saw nothing and heard nothing; he was absorbed in his grief. “How he loves his father!” said Eugenie in a low voice, and in her tone there was an unmistakable accent and hopes of which she was unaware. Mme. Grandet, with the quick instinct of a mother’s love, spoke in her ear. “Take care,” she said, “or you may love him.” “Love him!” said Eugenie. “Ah! if you only knew what my father said.” Charles moved slightly as he lay, and saw his aunt and cousin. “I have lost my father,” he cried; “my poor father! If he had only trusted me and told me about his losses, we might have worked together to repair them. My kind father! I was so sure that I should see him again, and I said good-by so carelessly.” “We will surely pray for him,” said Mme. Grandet. “Submit yourself to the will of heaven!” “Take courage, cousin,” said Eugenie gently; “nothing can give your father back to you; you must now think how to save your honor.” A woman always has her wits about her, even in her capacity of comforter, and with instinctive tact Eugenie sought to divert her cousin's mind from his sorrow by leading him to thing about himself. “My honor?” cried the young man, hastily pushing back the hair from his eyes. He sat upright upon the bed, and folded his arms. “Ah! true. My uncle said that my father had failed. Leave me! leave me! Cousin Eugenie," he entreated. “Oh! heaven forgive my father, for he must have been terribly unhappy !” There was something in the sight of this young sorrow that was terribly engaging. It was a sorrow that shrank from the gaze of others, and Charles’ gesture of entreaty was understood by Eugenie and her mother. They went silently downstairs again, and sewed on for nearly an hour without a word to each other. About 4 o’clock a sharp knock at the door sent a sudden thrill of terror through Mme. Grandet “What can have brought your father back?” she said to her daughter. “I have hooked them, wife,” said the vine grower, in high good humor. “I have them safe. Our wine is sold. The Belgians were setting out this morning; I hung about in the market place in front of their Ind, looking as simple as I could. A mnn came up to me. All the best growers are hanging off and holding their vintages; they wanted to wait, and so they can, I have not hindered them. Our Belgian was at his wit's end, I saw that. So the bargain was struck; he is taking the whole of our vintage at two hundred francs the hogshead, half of it paid down at once in gold, and I have promissory notes for the rest There are six

louts for you. In three months’ time prices will go down.” ■ ' The last words came out quietly enough, but there was something so sardonic in the tone that if the little knots of growers, then standing in tho twilight in the market “place of Saumur, in dismay at the fiewsrof Grandet’s sale, had heard him speak, they would have shuddered; there would have been a panic on the market—wines would have fallen fifty per cent. ‘.‘You have, a thousand hobsheads this year, father, have you not?” asked Eugenie. “That will mean two hundred thousand francs?” “Yes, Mademoiselle Grandet.” “Well, then, father, you can easily help Charles.” The surprise, the wrath and bewilderment with which Belshazzar beheld Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin written upon his palace wall were as nothing compared with Grandet’s cold fury; he had forgotten all about Charles, and now he found that all his daughter’s inmost thoughts were of his nephew, and that this arithmetic of hers referred to him. It was exasperating. “Look here!” he thundered; “ever since that scapegrace set foot in my house everything has gone askew. You take it upon yourselves to buy sugar plums, and make a great set-out for him. I will not have these doings. I should think, at my age, I ought to know what is right and proper to do. At any rate, I have no need to take lessons--;from my daughter, nor from any one else. I shall do for my nephew whatever it is right and proper for me to do; you need not meddle in it. And now, Eugenie, if you say another word about it, I will send you and Nandn off to the Abbey, at Noyers, see if I don’t. Where is that boy? Has he come downstairs yet?” “No. He is crying for his father,” Eugenie said. Grandet looked at his daughter, and found nothing to say. There was some touch of the father even in him. He took one or two turns up and down, and then went straight to his stroegroom to think over possible investments. He had thoughts of buying consols. Those two thousand acres of woodland had brought him in six hundred thousand francs; then there was the money from the sale of the poplars, there was last year’s income from various sources, and this year’s savings, to say nothing of the bargain which he had just concluded; so that, leaving those two hundred thousand francs out of the question, he possessed a lump sum of nine hundred thousand livres. That twenty per cent, to be made in so short a time upon his outlay, tempted him. Consols stood at seventy. He jotted down his calculations on the margin of the paper that had brought the news of his brother’s death; the moans of his nephew sounded in his ears the while, but he went on with his work till Nanon thumped vigorously on the thick wall to summon her master to dinner. On the last step of the staircase beneath the archway Grandet paused and thought;“There is the interest beside the 8 per cent —I will do it. Fifteen hundred thousand francs in two years’ time, in gold from Paris, too, full weight. Well, what has become of my nephew?” “He said he did not want anything,” replied Nanon. “He ought to eat, or he will fall ill.” “It is so much saved,” was her master’s comment. “He will not keep on crying forever. Hunger drives the wolf from the wood.” Dinner was a' strangely silent meal. When the cloth had been removed Mme. Grandet spoke to her husband. “We ought to go into mourning, dear.” “Really, Mme. Grandet, you must be hard up for ways of getting nd of money. Mourning is in the heart; it is not put on with clothes.” .“But for a brother mourning is indispensable.” “Then buy mourning out of your six louis; a band of crape will do for me; you can get me a band of crape.” (To be continued.)

FOR THE LEASURELY PAST.

Plea for Old-Time Leisure and Simplicity Is Heard Again. Mrs. Frederic Harrison’s plea in the Cornhill for old-time leisure and simplicity is in a well-thrummed key. The theme is a stock one for essayists and verse-makers. How many, indeed, have been the laments, in a tone of tender melancholy, over the decay of the diary, the loss of the art of letter writing, the passing of the time when life’s unruffled stream serenely flowed between velvet meadows of quietude. Truly, so recurrent is this familiar sentimentalism concerning the past that It Is strange Campbell did not make his lines read: Remembrance springs eternal in the breast, Man never Is but always has been blest. It is a favorite preoccupation of each succeeding generation to regard itself as time-'worn and jaded—the power of agreeable sensation exhausted; the store of primitive simplicity spent. The glory of Solomon’s court was disturbed by the voice of the preacher saying all things had become vanity; on Dante’s page fell the morning beams of the renaissance, yet hla spirit is that life In his day had lost its savor and was an ordeal to be endured rather than a privilege to ba enjoyed; Shakspeare wrote in the jocund way of the great Elizabeth, yet when his soul speaks through Hamlet It is to complain that the times are out of joint. An age Is seldom simple and leisurely to Itself. It is ungracious to break in upon self-solacing musings, reflections which do no harm even though born of fancy rather than of fact Nevertheless, the modern historical spirit is stern and Insists that the truth Is always its own justification. If the latter is a correct principle, then witness must be borne that the data collectors have fairly established that to-day is the age of leisure rather than fifty or one hundred or any other known number of years ago. —New York Globe.

However lady-like a girl may really be, she can’t show It when chewing gum. You're not in on some of the jokes the men laugh at; they’re on you.

JAPANESE BATTLESHIP HATSUSE.

Sirnk by Russian Mine Off Port Arthur, with Great Loss of Life.

MILLIONS FOR IRRIGATION.

One Million Acree of Arid Lands to Be Reclaimed to Man's Use. New plans for irrigating arid lands in the West have been adopted by Secretary Hitchcock of the Interior Department. Several plans Involving work which will require an outlay of $27,000,000 were submitted to him the other day, and after devoting much time to their consideration the Secre-

CAPSTONE OF AN OUTLET CANAL. —From The World To-day.

tary has approved them. The expenditure contemplated by this work not only exhausts the fund now on hand for enterprises of this kind, but mortgages for several years to come all receipts for irrigation purposes. Fourteen projects have been adopted by Secretary Hitchcock, scattered

CONDUITS AND TUNNELS CARRYING WATER THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS. —From The World to-day.

through as many States and Territories. It is estimated that something like 1,000,000 acres of land that is now utterly worthless for grazing and agricultural purposes will be converted into fertile and productlveifarms upon the completion of the government dams and reservoirs contemplated/; in the irrigation projects. According to the statements of the

GATE CONTROLLING WATER SUPPLY. —From The World To-day.

men in charge of the undertakings new homes for thousands of families Will be thrown open for entry on public lands in the course of the next year or two. The charges for these homesteads will be nominal, and every precaution will be taken to prevent syndicates of land grabbers from m -

nopolizlng the sites to the exclusion of home seekers. The average cost of the irrigation schemes Is about $2,000,000. The two that are considered the most important, one on Salt River, in Arizona, and another at Truckegee, Nev., will each cost $3,000,000. The list of approved projects to datq Is as follows: Arizona, Salt River, $3,000,000; California. Yuma, $3,000,000: Colorado. Gunnison, $2,500,000; Idaho. Minidoka. $2,600,000; Montana, Milk River, $1,500,000; Nebraska. Pathfinder, $1,000,000; Nevada, Truckegee, $3,000,000; New Mexico, Hondo, $350,000; North Dakota, Fort Buford, $1,200,000; Oregon. Umatilla, under survey; Oregon, Malheur, $2,000,000; South Dakota, Bellefourche, $2,100,000; Utah, Utah Lake, $1,000,000; Washington, Big Bend, $1,500,000; Wyoming, Cody, $2,250,000. It requires very little capital to acquire ownership in one of these Irrigated farms. The land Is open to entry under the homestead laws. Practically no charge Is made, the homesteader being required to pay to the government In ten annual Installments the actual pro rata cost of Irrigation. He must reside upon and improve his property for five years before getting title, after which he may dispose of it as he sees fit. On the basis of the present compilation the cost will be about $27 an acre. The government officials have no

fear that the irrigated land will not be taken up by homesteders. They fully expect to sell all the land. No effort will be made to realize a profit, the idea being to recover the actual cost of building and operating the irrigation ditches. The proceeds from the sale of these lands will be turned into the reclamation fund, to be used for similar work in new regions. The $27,000,000 to complete the 14 projects thus far approved was realized through the sale of public lands in arid States and Territories since the adoption of the irrigation act in June, 1901. The actual proceeds have been about $20,000,000, but Secretary Hitchcock thinks he is safe in mortgaging future receipts to the extent of $7,000,000.

An Old-School Gentleman.

A leap year joke, thrice refined, recently appeared in the New York Press. A white-haired, infirm old man stood wedged between other standing folk in a crowded Broadway car. Every seat was occupied, and for a time no one paid any attention to him. At last a little girl, whose golden hair fell in waves over handsome velvet coat, noticed the old man clinging to the strap. Without a word to her mother, who sat beside her, she rose and gently plucked the sleeve of Lis coat. “Won’t you take my seat?" she said. The old man looked at her sweet, upturned face and hesitated for a moment Then he bared his snowy head and bowed low. “My little lady," he said, "I thank you. I shall accept your offer because it is leap year.” “Are you doing much work at college?” “Yes; I’m trying to keep up • correspondence with fifteen girls.”— Princeton Tiger. _ , _ a .

THEATER CAT IS SKEPTICAL.

Animal Annoyed Actors During th* Performance of “Othello. The theater cat is always obtruding its presence on the stage when it !■ least wanted, but the feline which koeps Chase's theater free of rats has a particularly erroneous idea of the eternal fitness of things. It was when the stock company was playing “Othello” that the cat rendered Itself conspicuous, and, therefore, greatly disliked by friends the actors. Desdemona was dead and all the other characters were dead that could conveniently die, and were stretched on the stage in various postmortem attitudes when the theater cat suddenly made her way daintily upon the stage. She paused at the first prostrate body she came to end apparently said to herself, “Ha! how Is this?” Then she looked at the body hard and went up and sniffed delicately at its face to see if she could render- any assistance. The body opened one eye and emitted something very like a giggle, so the, cat went on. No first aid to the wounded was needed there, at any rate. The next body was also suspiciously warm and smiling. It did seem to this theatrical cat as if grown humans ought to be able to find something better to do than to He rigidly on a draughty floor while a man held the center of the stage and talked. The cat moved on to another body, and was just about to nibble the ear of this one in a spirit of sportiveness—for it was breathing too —when some one said something in a hoarse whisper, and the curtain went down amid a chorus of laughs. It was then that the Innocent and would-be helpful theater cat was chased all over the stage—the bodies helping in the chasing—was caught and held in much too fond an embrace, and was finally taken and locked up in a dark place where it had space to meditate on the Ingratitude of man. And upstairs the play went merrily on, if a tragedy may be said to go merrily.—Baltimore News.

Thought She Couldn’t Live.

Moravia, N. Y., June 6.—Mr. Benjamin Wilson, a highly respected resident of this place, came very nearly losing his wife, and now that she is cured and restored to good health his gratitude knows no bounds. He says: “My wife has suffered everything with Sugar Diabetes. She has been sick four years. She doctored with two good doctors, but kept growing worse. The doctors said she could not live. She failed from 200 pounds down to 130 pounds. This was her weight when she began to use Dodd’s Kidney Pills, and now she weighs 190, is well and feeling stronger every day. “Slid used to have Rheumatism so bad that it would raise great bumps all over her body, and this is all gone, too. “Dodd’s Kidney Pills are a God-send to those who suffer as my wife did. They are all that saved her. We can’t praise them enough.”

A Grasping Minister.

“Have you a good minister?” asked a summer visitor of a rural resident in New England. “Waal, ho would be, es be warn’t quite so graspin’.” “How does he show that he is grasping?” “Waal, last winter when we gave him a donation party, an’ carried him ’a lot o’ veg’tables an’ other truck, an’ forty dollars in money, he warn’t willin’ that the money should go on his salary.” “But I suppose he doesn’t get a very large salary,.” “Waal, purty fair —a hundred and - fifty dollars a year.”

$100 Reward, $100.

The readers of this paper will be pleased to learn that there Is at least one dreaded disease that science has been able to cure In all Its stages, and thatds Catarrh. Hall's Catarrh Cure Is the only positive cure now known to the medical fraternity. Catarrh being a constitutional disease, requires a constitutional treatment. Hall’s Catarrh Cure Is taken Internally, acting directly upon the blood and mucous surfaces xu the system, thereby destroying the foundation of the disease, and giving the patient strength by building up the constitution and assisting nature in doing Its work. The proprietors nave so much faith in Its curative powers that they offer One Hundred Dollars for any case that It falls to cure. Send for list of Testimonials. Address, F, J. CHENEY & CO., Toledo, O. Sold by Druggists, 75c. Hail’s Family Pills are the beet.

He Was Real Rude.

“Do you admire a song with a retrain?” asked the young lady who imagines she is a vocalist. “Sure,” replied the old bachelor; “that Is, if the refrain is applied to the Bulging.” •

"Lake Shore” Summer Tours.

Where are you going to spend this year’s vacation? The Lake Shore Railway’s book of “Summer Tours to Mountains, Lakes and Seashores” will help you to decide. It will be sent on application to O. F. Daly, Chief Aest. Pass. Agt., Chicago.

More Satisfactory.

“He who runs may read," remarked tlie party with the quotation habit - “But,” objected the contrary person, “it is safer to occupy a seat during the perusal of a newspaper." Ask Tour Dealer for Allen’s Foot Ease. A powder to shake into your shoes. It rests the feet, Cures Corns, Bunions, Swollen. 4' Bore, Hot, Callous, Aching. Sweating feet t and Ingrowing Nalls. Alien’s Foot-Ease makes new or tight shoes easy. Bold by all druggists and shoe stores, 25c. Bainpie mailed FREE. Address Allen 8. Olmsted, Le Boy, N. Y. Home isn’t home if a man may not put his feet on the mantel and have somebody fill his pipe. ■ r ” I find Pise’s Cure for Consumption the best medicine for croupy children.—Mrs. F. Callahan, 114 Hail street, Parkersburg. W. Ya, April 16, 190 L The Kaiser still persists ip murdering the violin.