Chapter IV: Part 4

The dinosaur, having two sets of brains (as we once pointed out in imperishable verse), was able to reason _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ with equal facility. But what we started to mention was an ad in the American Lumberman calling for "a good all around yellow pine office man of broad wholesale experience, well posted on both ends."

* * *

Among the new publications of Richard G. Badger we lamp, "Nervous Children: Their Prevention and Management."

* * *

Unrelieved pessimism rather shocks us. In spite of everything we are willing to look on the bright side. We are willing to agree that, in some previous incarnation, we may have inhabited a crookeder world than this.

* * *

The valued News, of New York, dismisses lightly the fear that the Puritan Sabbath will be restored. Ten or twenty years ago people dismissed as lightly the fear that Prohibition would be saddled on the country. On his way to the compulsory Wednesday-evening prayer meeting, a few years hence, the editor of the News will recall his cheerful and baseless prediction in 1920.

* * *

Fired by liquor, men maltreat their wives. These wretches deserve public flogging; hanging were a compliment to some of them. On the other hand, men made emotional by liquor have conceived an extravagant fondness for their wives. We have not read about liquor floating the matrimonial bark over the shallows of domestic discord; yet men who have fared homeward with unsteady footsteps under the blinking stars, know that in such moments they are much more humane than in sober daylight; they are appalled by their own unworthiness, and thinking of their wives moves them almost to tears--quite, not infrequently. They resolve to become better husbands and fathers. The spirit of the wine in them captains "an army of shining and generous dreams," an army that is easily routed, an army that the wife too often puts to flight with an injudicious criticism. It is said that since Prohibition came in the cases of cruelty to wives have increased greatly in number. We do not disbelieve this. Bluebeard was a dry.

* * *

WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE HE WANTS?

[Received by Farm Mechanics.]

Gentlemen: Will you please send me a specimen copy of the Farm Mechanics. I would like a sample of the Farm Mechanics very much. I sincerely trust that you will mail me a sample copy of Farm Mechanics as I want to see a specimen of your Farm Mechanics very much. Yours very truly, etc.

* * *

Although Mrs. Elizabeth Hash has retired from the hotel business, Mrs. Peter Lunch has undertaken to manage the Metropole cafeteria in Fargo, N. D.

* * *

POEMS OF SENTIMENT AND REFLECTION.

Sioux Falls

[From the Sioux Falls Press.]

What if we don't have palaces,
With damp and musty walls?
We have the great Sioux River,
And greater yet, Sioux Falls.

We don't have to go abroad,
God's beauties just to see,
But stay at home
And take a trip
Around Sioux Falls with me.

We confess a fondness for verse like the foregoing, and hope some day to find a poem as good as that masterpiece--

"I've traveled east, I've traveled west,
I've been to the great Montana,
But the finest place I've ever seen
Is Attica, Indiana."

Another popular pome of sentiment and reflection, heard by L. M. G. in Wisconsin lumber camps, is--

"I've traveled east, I've traveled west,
As far as the town of Fargo,
But the darndest town I ever struck
Is the town they call Chicargo."

* * *

"USELESS VERBIAGE."

[From an abstract of title.]

"That said Mary Ann Wolcott died an infant, 2 or 3 years old, unmarried, intestate, and that she left no husband, child, or children."

* * *

INGENIOUS CALIFORNIA PARADOX.

[From the Oakland Post.]

The Six-Minute Ferry route across the bay will take only eighteen to twenty minutes.

* * *

ALMOST.

Sir: S. Fein has put his name on the door of his orange-colored taxicab. Can you whittle a wheeze out of that?

R. A. J.

* * *

Knut Hamsun, winner of the Nobel prize for literature, used to be a street-car conductor in Chicago. This is a hint to column conductors. Get a transfer.

The Witch's Holiday.

A TALE FOR CHILDREN ONLY.

I.

Matters had gone ill all the day; and, to cap what is learnedly called the perverseness of inanimate things, it came on to rain just as the Boy, having finished his lessons, was on the point of setting out for a romp in the brown fields.

"Isn't it perfectly mean, Mowgli?" he complained to his dog. The water spaniel wagged a noncommittal tail and stretched himself before the wood fire with a deep drawn sigh. The rain promised to hold, so the Boy took down a book and curled up in a big leather chair.

It was a very interesting book--all about American pioneers, trappers, and Indians; and although the writer of it was a German traveler, no American woodsman would take advantage of a worthy German globe trotter and tell him things which were not exactly so. For example, if you and a trapper and a dog were gathered about a campfire, and the dog were asleep and dreaming in his sleep, and the trapper should affirm that if you tied a handkerchief over the head of a dreaming dog and afterwards tied it around your own head, you would have the dog's dream,--if the trapper should tell you this with a perfectly serious face, you naturally would believe him, especially if you were a German traveler.

The Boy got up softly and began the experiment. Mowgli opened an inquiring eye, stretched himself another notch, and fell asleep again. His master waited five minutes, then unloosed the handkerchief and knotted it under his own chin.

For a while Mowgli's slumbers were untroubled as a forest pool, his breathing as regular as the tick-tock of the old wooden clock under the stair. Out of doors the rain fell sharply and set the dead leaves singing. The wood fire dwindled to a glow. Tick-tock! tick-tock! drummed the ancient timepiece. The Boy yawned and settled deeper in the leather chair.

Tick-tock! Tick-tock!

Mowgli was breathing out of time. He was twitching, and making funny little smothered noises, which, if he were awake, would probably be yelps. Something exciting was going on in dreamland.

Tick-tock! Tick----

+Hullo!+ There goes a woodchuck!

II.

The Boy gave chase across the fields, only to arrive, out of breath, at the entrance to a burrow down which the woodchuck had tumbled. He had not a notion where he was. He seemed to have raced out of the world that he knew into one which was quite unfamiliar. It was a broad valley inclosed by high hills, through which a pleasant little river ran; and the landscape wore an odd aspect--the hills were bluer than hills usually are, the trees were more fantastically fashioned, and the waving grass and flowers were more beautiful than one commonly sees.

"Good morning, young sir!"

On the other side of the stream stood a tall man wrapped in a cloak and leaning with both hands upon a staff. He was well past the middle years, as wrinkles and a beard turned gray gave evidence; but his eyes were youthful and his cheeks as ruddy as a farm lad's. His clothing was worn and dust-laden, but of good quality and unpatched, and there was an air about him that said plainly, "Here is no common person, I can tell you."

"You are wondering who I may be," he observed. "Well, then, I am known as the Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare."

"A queer sort of knight, this!" thought the Boy.

"And you--may I ask whither you are bound?" said the stranger. "We may be traveling the same road."

The Boy made answer that he had set forth to chase a woodchuck, and that having failed to catch it he had no better plan than to return home.

At the word "home" the Knight put on a melancholy smile, and cutting a reed at the river edge he fashioned it into a pipe and began to play. A wonderful tune it was. Tom the Piper's Son knew the way of it, and to the same swinging melody the Pied Piper footed the streets of Hamelin town; for the burden of the tune was "Over the Hills and Far Away," and the Boy's feet stirred at the catch of it.

"That," said the Knight, "is the tune I have marched to for many a year, and a pretty chase it has led me." He put down the pipe. "Knocking about aimlessly does very well for an old man, but youth should have a definite goal."

The Boy did not agree with this. With that magic melody marching in his head it was hey for the hills and the westering sun, and the pleasant road to Anywhere.

"What lies yonder?" he queried, pointing to a deep notch in the skyline.

"The Kingdom of Rainbow's End," replied the Knight. "It is an agreeable territory, and you would do very well to journey thither. The King of the country is no longer young, and as he has nothing to say about affairs of state, or anything else for that matter, he spends his time tramping about from place to place, in much the same fashion as myself."

"And who governs while he is away?"

"+She!+" said the Knight solemnly--"+She That Bosses Everybody!+"

III.

"You see," said the Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare, "the King made a grave mistake some years ago. It is a foolish saying that when a man marries his troubles begin; but it is the law of Rainbow's-End that when a man marries he may chloroform his mother-in-law or not, just as he pleases. But if he forfeit the right he may never again claim it, and the deuce take him for a soft-hearted simpleton."

The Boy thought it a barbarous law and so declared.

"There is something to be said for it," returned the Knight. "A mother-in-law is like the little girl with the little curl. It so happens that the King's mother-in-law is a very unpleasant old party, and the King made a sad mess of it when he threw the chloroform bottle out of the window."

"Tell me about Rainbow's-End," the Boy entreated. "Is there a beautiful Princess, with many suitors for her hand?"

"The Princess Aralia is a very pretty girl, as princesses go." The Knight opened a locket attached to a long gold chain and exhibited an exquisite miniature. "I don't mind saying," said he, "that the Princess Aralia and I are on very good terms, and a word from me will procure you a cordial reception. The question is, how shall we set about it? You can't present yourself at court as you are; you must have a horse and a fine costume, and all that sort of thing."

"Perhaps there's a good fairy in the neighborhood," said the Boy hopefully.

The Knight shook his head. "Not within a dozen leagues. But stop a bit--it is just possible that Aunt Jo can manage the matter. Aunt Jo is the sister of my wife's mother, and one of the cleverest witches in the country. She stands very high in her profession and is thoroughly schooled in every branch of deviltry; and with the exception of my wife's mother, I can think of no person whose society is less desirable. But one day in each year she takes a day off, during which she is as affable and benevolent an old dame as you can possibly imagine; really, you would never know it was the same person. These annual breathing spells do her a world of good, she tells me; for incessant wickedness is just as monotonous and wearisome as unbroken goodness."

"And to-day is the Witch's holiday?"

"Yes, it so happens; and I always make it a point to spend the night at her cottage if I am in this part of the country."

The Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare rose and put his cloak about his shoulders, and with the Boy set forward through the valley.

IV.

Presently they came to the Witch's cottage, snuggled away in a hollow and hidden from the road by a tangle of witch hazel shrubs. The Boy rather expected a dark, forbidding hut of sinister outlines, but here was as pretty a cabin as ever you saw, weathered a pleasing gray, with green blinds and a tiny porch overrun with Virginia-creeper.

The Knight strode boldly up the path, the Boy following less confidently. No one answering the summons at the porch, they tried the kitchen door. It was open, and they stepped inside. The Witch was not at home, but evidently she was not far away, for a fire was crackling in the stove and a kettle singing over the flames. An enormous black cat got up lazily from the hearth and rubbed himself against the visitors with a purr like a small dynamo.

With the familiarity of a relative the Knight led the way about the house. One door was locked. "This," said he, "is Aunt Jo's dark room, in which she develops her deviltry. This"--opening the door of a little shed--"is the garage."

The Boy peeped in and saw two autobroomsticks.

"The small green one is her runabout. The big red one is a touring broomstick, high power and very fast; you can hear her coming a mile off."

They returned to the sitting room, and the Boy became greatly taken with Aunt Jo's collection of books. Some of these were: "One Hundred and One Best Broths," "Witchcraft Self-Taught," "The Black Art--Berlitz Method," and "Burbank's Complete Wizard." The Boy took down the "Complete Wizard," but he was not able to do more than glance at the absorbing contents before the clicking of the gate announced that the Witch had returned.

Aunt Jo was a sprightly dame of more than seventy years, very thin, but straight and supple, and with hair still jet black. Her eyes were gray-green or green-gray, as the light happened to strike them; her cheeks were hollow, and a long sharp chin slanted up to meet a long sharp nose. Ordinarily, as the Knight had hinted, she was no doubt an unholy terror, but to-day she was in the best of humors, and her eyes twinkled with good nature.

"I just stepped out," she explained, "to carry some jelly and cake to one of my neighbors, a woodcutter's wife. The poor woman has been ill all the summer! Mercy! if I haven't had a day of it!" She dropped into a chair, brushing a fly from the tip of her nose with the tip of her tongue. "How is everything in Rainbow's-End?" she asked. "I suppose +She+ is as bad as ever."

"Worse," replied the Knight, fetching a sigh. "And +She+ never takes a day off, as you do."

"Well, Henry, it's your own fault, as I've told you a thousand times. If you hadn't been so soft-hearted-- But mercy! that's no way to be talking on my holiday."

"So!" said the Boy to himself. "This wandering knight is the King of Rainbow's-End and the father of the Princess. I have a friend at court indeed."

V.

"And how is the Princess Aralia?" asked the Witch. "As pretty as ever, I suppose, and with no prospect of a husband, thanks to her grandmother and the silly tasks she sets for the suitors."

"That brings us to the business of our young friend here," said the Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare. "He wishes to present himself at court, and is in great need of a horse and wardrobe."

"You've come to the wrong shop for horses and fine feathers," said the Witch. "Those things are quite out of my line."

The Boy looked his disappointment.

"The best I can do," said Aunt Jo kindly, "is to give you a letter to a Mr. Burbank, an excellent wizard of my acquaintance. He has recently invented a skinless grape and a watermelon that is all heart, and is quite the cleverest man in the business. Such a trifle as changing a pig into a horse will give him no trouble whatever. Have you seen my garden, Henry?"

"No, but I should like to," said the Knight rising.

"Meanwhile," said the Witch, "I will start the supper if our young friend will fetch the wood."

The Boy responded with such cheerful readiness that Aunt Jo patted him on the cheek and said: "You're the lad for the Princess Aralia, and have her you shall if Aunt Jo can bring it about. And now go out in the garden and pick me a hatful of Brussels sprouts."

It was impossible to imagine a more appetizing supper than that which the three sat down to. Everything was prepared to a nicety, and the Knight could not say enough in praise of the raised biscuits and home made currant jell. As for the doughnuts, "Such doughnuts can't be made without witchcraft, Jo," he declared.

"Nonsense!" said the old lady. "I don't put a thing into them that any good cook doesn't use. Making doughnuts always was an art by itself. You must both take some with you when you go."

After supper the Knight wiped the dishes while the Witch washed them, Aunt Jo declaring it a shame that a man so domestically inclined should be compelled to wander from one end of the rainbow to the other just because of a foolish tender-heartedness in days gone by. While the pair discussed this fruitful topic the Boy dipped into the fascinating chapters of the "Complete Wizard."

"Time for bed," announced the Knight an hour later; and he added for the Boy's ear: "We must make an early start in the morning."

"I for one shall sleep soundly," Aunt Jo declared. "I've run my legs off to-day, as I never use a broomstick on my holiday."

She conducted her guests to a tiny bedchamber above stairs. "I will leave a bag of doughnuts on the table, Henry," said she, "as I suppose you will be off before I am up. Good-night!"

When she had gone below the Knight said: "We must be moving with the first streak of day. Aunt Jo's holiday ends with sun-up, and you would find her a vastly different old party, I can tell you."

VI.

"I don't think I should be afraid of her," said the Boy.

The Knight chuckled, and without further speech got into bed and was soon wrapped in a deep slumber. Next to a clear conscience and the open road, a good bed at night is something to set store by.

But the Boy could not sleep for the exciting pictures that danced in his head, and he was impatient for the morning light, that he might be on his way to Rainbow's-End. The moon peeped in the window; the breeze made a pleasant sound in the poplar trees; from somewhere came the music of a little brook. To all these gentle influences the Boy finally yielded.

He was awakened by a plucking at his sleeve.

"Time to be moving," said the Knight in a hoarse whisper. "We can put on our shoes after we leave the house."

They crept down the stair, which creaked in terrifying fashion, but a gentle snoring from the Witch's bedroom reassured them. After they had tiptoed out of the house and gained the road they discovered that they had forgotten the bag of doughnuts. The Knight declared that he would not return for a million doughnuts, but the Boy, remembering how delicious they tasted, stole back to the door and lifted the latch softly. Aunt Jo was still snoring, but, just as he laid hold of the doughnuts, Pluto the cat came leaping in from the kitchen, and the Boy had barely time to put the door between its sharp claws and himself. He ran down the path, vaulted the gate, and looked about for the Knight. Away down the road was a rapidly diminishing figure.

The Boy was a good runner, and he was fast overtaking the Knight, when the latter, who had been casting anxious glances over his shoulder as he ran, suddenly plunged into the bushes at one side of the road. The Boy thought it wise to follow his example.

And not a moment too soon. A small whirring sound grew louder and louder, and Aunt Jo went whizzing by on her high power autobroomstick, leaving in her wake a horrible reek of gasoline and brimstone. But not the Aunt Jo of the evening before. Her green eyes flashed behind the goggles, and her face was something dreadful to behold. On her shoulder perched Pluto, every hair erect, and spitting fire.

The Boy gasped, and hoped he had seen the last of the terrible hag, when the whirring noise announced that she was coming back. She stopped her broomstick directly opposite the hiding-place and began cutting small circles in the air, the while peering sharply about.

As the Boy plunged into the thicket, he fell. As he lay there, something cold pressed against his hand.

It was Mowgli's nose. The dog's eyes questioned his master, who had cried out in his sleep.

"Oh, Mowgli!" he exclaimed, taking the spaniel by his shaggy ears, "did you dream _all_ that wonderful dream? Or did you stop at the woodchuck hole? What a shame, Mowgli, if there shouldn't really be a Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare, and a Princess Aralia and a Witch who makes wonderful doughnuts!"

A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO

"_Nous ne trouvons guere de gens de bon sens que ceux qui sont de notre avis._" --_La Rochefoucauld._

"THE FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE."

Old Amicus Pop
Is the friend of the Wop,
The friend of the Chink and the Harp,
The friend of all nations
And folk of all stations,
The friend of the shark and the carp.
He sits in his chair
With his feet on the table,
And lists to the prayer
Of Minerva and Mabel,
Veritas, Pro Bono, Taxpayer, and the rest,
Who wail on his shoulder and weep on his breast.

Old Amicus Pop
Is the solace and prop
Of all who are weary of life.
He straightens the tangles
And jangles and wrangles
That breed in this city of strife.
Whatever your "beef,"
You may pour him an earful;
Unbottle your grief
Be it ever so tearful.
Oh, weep all you wish--he is there with the mop.
Bring all of your troubles to Amicus Pop.

* * *

When we think of the countless thousands who peruse this Cro'-nest of Criticism, a feeling of responsibility weighs heavily upon us, and almost spoils our day. Frezzample, one writes from St. Paul: "We have twenty confirmed readers of the Line in this 'house.'" The quotation marks disturb us. Can it be a sanitarium?

* * *

Most of the trouble in this world is caused by people who do not know when they are well off. The Germans did not know when they were well off. Your cook, who left last week, as little apprehended her good fortune. Nor will the Filipinos be happy till they get it.

* * *

Those who stand in awe of persons with logical minds will be reassured by Henry Adams' pertinent reflection that the mind resorts to reason for want of training. His definition of philosophy is also reassuring: "Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems."

* * *

Among those who have guessed at the meaning of "the freedom of the seas" was Cowper:

"Without one friend, above all foes,
Britannia gives the world repose."

* * *

Maxwell Bodenheim has published a book of poems, and the critics allow that Max Boden's brays are bonnie.

* * *

IF YOU MUST KISS, KISS THE DOCTOR.

[From "How to Avoid Influenza."]

Avoid kissing, as this habit readily transmits influenza. If physician is available, it is best to consult him.

* * *

QUICK, WATSON, THE PLUMBER!

[From the Cedar Rapids Gazette.]

Mrs. T. M. Dripps gave a dinner Friday in honor of Mrs. D. L. Leek of South Dakota.

* * *

"Kind Captain, I've important information." Mr. Honkavaarra runs an automobile livery in Palmer, Mich.

* * *

"The first child, Lord Blandford, was born in 1907; the second was born in 1898."--Chicago American.

This so annoyed the Duke, that a reconciliation was never possible.

* * *

When your friend points with pride to a picture that, in your judgment, leaves something to be desired, or when he exhibits the latest addition to his family, you may be perplexed to voice an opinion that will satisfy both him and your conscience. An artist friend of ours is never at a loss. If it is a picture, he exclaims, "Extraordinary!" If it is an infant, he remarks, "_There +is+ a baby!_"

He might add, with the English wit, "one more easily conceived than described."

* * *

The advantages of a classical education are so obvious that the present-day battle in its behalf seems a waste of energy. Frezzample, without a classical education how could you appreciate the fact that Mr. Odessey is now running a Noah's Ark candy kitchen in St. Peter, Wis.?

* * *

One may believe that the "gift of healing" is nothing more than the application of imaginary balm to non-existent disease, but if one says so he gets into a jolly row with people who consider an open mind synonymous with credulity. Our own state of mind was accurately described by Charles A. Dana: "I don't believe in ghosts," said he, "but I've been afraid of them all my life."

* * *

The congregation will rise and sing:

Bill Bryan's heart is a-mouldering in the grave,
But his lungs go marching on.

* * *

The astronomer Hamilton "made an expedition to Dublin to substitute a semi-colon for a colon"; but, reports J. E. R., "my wife's brother's brother-in-law's doctor charged him $600 for removing only part of a colon."

* * *

Few readers realize how much time is expended in making certain that commas are properly distributed. Thomas Campbell walked six miles to a printer's to have a comma in one of his poems changed to a semi-colon.

* * *

Following a bout with the gloves, a Seattle clubman is reported "in a state of comma." A doctor writes us that infection by the colon bacillus can be excluded, but we should say that what the patient needs is not a doctor but a proof reader.

* * *

"She played Liszt's Rhapsodie No. 2 with remarkable speed," relates the Indianapolis News. In disposing of Liszt's Rhapsodies it is all right to step on the accelerator, as the sooner they are finished the better.

* * *

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY CLIMATE, AND FORGIVE US OUR DROPS IN TEMPERATURE!

[From the Pasadena Star-News.]

To put it in another form of expression, Mother Nature maintains poise and evenness of temper in this state far better than in most regions on this terrestrial ball. If you haven't thanked God to-day that you are privileged to live in California it is not yet too late to do so. Make it a daily habit. The blessing is worth this frequent expression of gratitude to the All High.

* * *

VARIANT OF A MORE OR LESS WELL KNOWN STORY.

[From the Exeter, Neb., News.]

Whoever took the whole pumpkin pie from Mrs. W. H. Taylor's kitchen the night of the party was welcome to it as the cat had stepped in it twice and it could not be used. Many thanks for the pan, she says.

* * *

THE WORLD'S GREATEST WINTER RESORT.

"_Because of high temperatures and chinooks
Medicine Hat is menaced with an ice famine._"

They bask in the sunshine and purr like a cat,
The fortunate people of Medicine Hat.

Its climate is balmy in spite of the lat.;
You have a wrong notion of Medicine Hat.

At Christmas they sit on their porches and chat,
For it never gets chilly in Medicine Hat.

The Medicine Hatters all spoil for a spat
With any defamer of Medicine Hat;

They're ready and anxious to go to the mat
With any one scoffing at Medicine Hat.

The birds never migrate--they know where they're at,
For it always is summer in Medicine Hat.

No day that you can't use a heliostat;
Sunlight is eternal in Medicine Hat.

They're swatting the fly and the skeeter and gnat,
As frost never kills them in Medicine Hat.

His nature is skeptic, he's blind as a bat
Who can't see the beauties of Medicine Hat.

All jesting is flatulent, futile, and flat
That libels the climate of Medicine Hat.

Away with the knockers who knock it, and drat
The jokers who joke about Medicine Hat.

In short, it's the one, the ideal habitat.
Boy! buy me a ticket to Medicine Hat!

* * *

According to the Milford Herald a young couple were married "under the strain of Mendelssohn's wedding march."

* * *

THE VILLAGE OMAR LOSES HIS OUTFIT.

[From the Fort Dodge Messenger.]

Lost--Grass rug and ukulele between Shady Oaks and Fort Dodge. Finder notify Messenger.

* * *

"Thelander-Eckblade Wedding Solomonized," reports the Batavia Herald. Interesting and unusual.

* * *

"TWEET! TWEET!" GOES THE ENRAPTURED REPORTER.

[From the Sterling Gazette.]

The wedding party wended its way to the grove south of the river and there, in a lovely spot, where pleasant hours of courtship have been passed, the wedding ceremony was performed. No stately church edifice built by man, no gilded altar, no polished pews nor polished floors were there; no stately organ or trained choir; there was an absence of ushers, bridesmaids and parson heavily gowned. No curious crowd thronged without the portal. In place of this display and grandeur they were surrounded by an edifice of nature's planting--the stately forest tree, while the green sward of the verdant grove furnished a velvety carpet. There, in this beautiful spot, where the Creator ordained such events to occur, the young couple, true lovers of the simple life, took upon themselves the vows which united them until "death itself should part." The rustle of the leaves in the treetop murmured nature's sweet benediction, while the bluebird, the robin, and the thrush sang a glorious doxology.

* * *

Wedded, in Clay county, Illinois, Emma Pickle and Gay Gerking. A wedding gift from Mr. Heinz or Squire Dingee would not be amiss.

* * *

A SPLENDID RECOVERY.

[Waukesha, Wis., item.]

Mr. and Mrs. J. Earl Stallard are the proud parents of an eight pound boy, born at the Municipal hospital this morning. Mr. Stallard will be able to resume his duties as county agricultural agent by to-morrow.

* * *

HOW FAST THE LEAVES ARE FALLING!

[From the Waterloo Courier.]

Frank Fuller, night operator at the Illinois Central telegraph office, has been kept more than busy to-day, all because of a ten pound boy who arrived at his home last evening. Mr. Fuller has decided that he will spend all of his evenings at his home in the future.

* * *

HOW SOON IT GETS DARK THESE DAYS!

[From the Pillager, Minn., Herald.]

That stork is a busy bird. It left a 10-lb baby girl at Ned Mickles last Thursday night. Ned is a neighbor of Cy Deaver.

* * *

_UPON JULIA'S ARCTICS._

_Whenas galoshed my Julia goes,
Unbuckled all from top to toes,
How swift the poem becometh prose!
And when I cast mine eyes and see
Those arctics flopping each way free,
Oh, how that flopping floppeth me!_

* * *

"We are all in the dark together," says Anatole France; "the only difference is, the savant keeps knocking at the wall, while the ignoramus stays quietly in the middle of the room." We used to be intensely interested in the knocking of the savants, but as nothing ever came of it, we have become satisfied with the middle of the room.

* * *

A GOOD MOTTO.

I was conversing with Mr. Carlton the Librarian, and he quoted from memory a line from Catulle Mendes that seemed to me uncommonly felicitous: "La vie est un jour de Mi-Careme. Quelques-uns se masquent; moi, je ris."

* * *

In his declining years M. France has associated himself with the bunch called "Clarte," a conscious group organized by Barbusse, the object of which is the "union of all partisans of the true right and the true liberty." How wittily the Abbe Coignard would have discussed "Clarte," and how wisely M. Bergeret would have considered it! Alas! it is sad to lose one's hair, but it is a tragedy to lose one's unbeliefs.

* * *

Chicago, as has been intimated, rather broadly, is a jay town; but it is coming on. A department store advertises "cigarette cases and holders for the gay sub-deb and her great-grandmother," also "a diary for 'her' if she leads an exciting life."

* * *

We infer from the reviews of John Burroughs' "Accepting the Universe" that John has decided to accept it. One might as well. With the reservation that acceptance does not imply approval.

* * *

It is possible that Schopenhauer wrote his w. k. essay on woman after a visit to a bathing beach.

* * *

We heard a good definition of a bore. A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you.

* * *

The sleeping sickness (not the African variety) is more mysterious than the flu. It will be remembered that two things were discovered about the flu: first, that it was caused by a certain bacillus, and, second, that it was not caused by that bacillus. But all that is known about the sleeping sickness is that it attacks, by preference, carpenters and plumbers.

* * *

Slangy and prophetic Merimee, who wrote, in "Love Letters of a Genius": "You may take it from me that ... short dresses will be the order of the day, and those who are blessed with natural advantages will be at last distinguished from those whose advantages are artificial only."

* * *

Happy above all other writing mortals we esteem him who, like Barrie, treads with sure feet the borderland 'twixt fact and faery, stepping now on this side, now on that. One must write with moist eyes many pages of such a fantasy as "A Kiss for Cinderella." There are tears that are not laughter's, nor grief's, but beauty's own. A lovely landscape may bring them, or a strain of music, or a written or a spoken line.

* * *

All we can get out of a Shaw play is two hours and a half of mental exhilaration. We are, inscrutably, denied the pleasure of wondering what Shaw means, or whether he is sincere.

* * *

WHY THE MAKE-UP FLED.

[From the Dodge Center Record.]

Mr. and Mrs. Umberhocker returned yesterday from an over Sunday visit with their son and family in Minneapolis.

They are in hopes to soon land them in jail as they did the hog thieves, who were to have a hearing but waved it and trial will be held later.

* * *

"It isn't hard to sit up with a sick friend when he has a charming sister," reports B. B. But if it were a sick horse, Venus herself would be in the way.

* * *

"Saving the penny is all right," writes a vox-popper to the Menominee News, "but saving the dollar is 100 per cent better." At least.

* * *

_MUSIC HATH CHAHMS._

_What opus of Brahms' is your pet?--
A concerto, a trio, duet,
Sonate No. 3
(For Viol. and P.),
Or the second piano quartette?_

Sardi.

_Our favorite Brahms? We're not sur,
For all are so classique et pur;
But we'll mention an opus
With which you may dope us--
One Hundred and Sixteen, E dur._

* * *

BRAHMS, OPUS 116.

I care for your pet, One Sixteen
(Your choice proves your judgment is keen);
But in E, you forget, see,
It has two intermezzi;
Please, which of these twain do you mean?

Sardi.

Which E? Can you ask? Must we tell?
Doth it not every other excel--
The ineffable one,
Of gossamer spun,
The ultimate spirituelle.

* * *

A candid butcher in Battle Creek advertises "Terrible cuts."

* * *

Another candid merchant in Ottumwa, Ia., advises: "Buy to-day and think to-morrow."

* * *

MUSIC HINT.

Sir: P. A. Scholes, in his "Listener's Guide to Music," revives two good laughs--thus: "A fugue is a piece in which the voices one by one come in and the people one by one go out." Also he quotes from Sam'l Butler's Note Books: "I pleased Jones by saying that the hautbois was a clarinet with a cold in its head, and the bassoon the same with a cold in its chest." The cor anglais suffers slightly from both symptoms. Some ambitious composer, by judicious use of the more diseased instruments, could achieve the most rheumy musical effects, particularly if, a la Scriabin, he should have the atmosphere of the concert hall heavily charged with eucalyptus.

E. Pontifex.

* * *

"I will now sing for you," announced a contralto to a woman's club meeting in the Copley-Plaza, "a composition by one of Boston's noted composers, Mr. Chadwick. 'He loves me.'" And of course everybody thought George wrote it for _her_.

* * *

"Grand opera is, above all others, the highbrow form of entertainment."--Chicago Journal.

Yes. In comparison, a concert of chamber music appears trifling and almost vulgar.

* * *

At a reception in San Francisco, Mrs. Wandazetta Fuller-Biers sang and Mrs. Mabel Boone-Sooey read. Cannot they be signed for an entertainment in the Academy?

* * *

We simply cannot understand why Dorothy Pound, pianist, and Isabelle Bellows, singer, of the American Conservatory, do not hitch up for a concert tour.

* * *

Richard Strauss has been defined as a musician who was once a genius. Now comes another felicitous definition--"Unitarian: a Retired Christian."

* * *

Dr. Hyslop, the psychical research man, says that the spirit world is full of cranks. These, we take it, are not on the spirit level.

* * *

The present physical training instructor in the Waterloo, Ia., Y. W. C. A. is Miss Armstrong. Paradoxically, the position was formerly held by Miss Goodenough. These things appear to interest many readers.

* * *

THE HUNTING OF THE PACIFIST SNARK.

(_With Mr. Ford as the Bellman._)

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
"Just the place for a Snark, I declare!"
And he anchored the _Flivver_ a mile up the river,
And landed his crew with care.

He had bought a large map representing the moon,
Which he spread with a runcible hand;
And the crew, you could see, were as pleased as could be
With a map they could all understand.

"Now, listen, my friends, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wherever you go,
The warranted pacifist Snarks.

The first is the taste, which is something like guff,
Tho' with gammon 'twill also compare;
The next is the sound, which is simple enough--
It resembles escaping hot air.

The third is the shape, which is somewhat absurd,
And this you will understand
When I tell you it looks like the African bird
That buries its head in the sand.

The fourth is a want of the humorous sense,
Of which it has hardly a hint.
And last, but not least, this marvelous beast
Is a glutton for getting in print.

Now, Pacifist Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet I deem it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums----" The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For Jane Addams had fainted away.

* * *

Concerning his reference to "Demosthenes' lantern," the distinguished culprit, Rupert Hughes, writes us that of course he meant Isosceles' lantern. The slip was pardonable, he urges, as he read proof on the line only seven times--in manuscript, in typescript, in proof for the magazine, in the copy for the book, in galley, in page-proof, and finally in the printed book. And heaven only knows how many proofreaders let it through. "Be that as it may," says Rupert, "I am like our famous humorist, Archibald Ward, who refused to be responsible for debts of his own contracting. And, anyway, I thank you for calling my attention to the blunder quietly and confidentially, instead of bawling me out in a public place where a lot of people might learn of it."

* * *

SORRY WE MISSED YOU.

Sir:... There were several things I wanted to say to you, and I proposed also to crack you over the sconce for what you have been saying about us Sinn Feiners. I suppose you're the sort that would laugh at this story:

He was Irish and badly wounded, unconscious when they got him back to the dressing station, in a ruined village. "Bad case," said the docs. "When he comes out of his swoon he'll need cheering up. Say something heartening to him, boys. Tell him he's in Ireland." When the lad came to he looked around (ruined church on one side, busted houses, etc., up stage, and all that): "Where am I?" sez he. "'S all right, Pat; you're in Ireland, boy." "Glory be to God!" sez he, looking around again. "How long have yez had Home Rule?"

Tom Daly.

* * *

OUR BOYS.

[From the Sheridan, Wyo., Enterprise.]

Our boys are off for the borders
Awaiting further orders
From our president to go
Down into old Mexico,
Where the Greaser, behind a cactus,
Is waiting to attack us.

* * *

The skies they were ashen and sober, and the leaves they were crisped and sere, as I sat in the porch chair and regarded our neighbor's patch of woodland; and I thought: The skies may be ashen and sober, and the leaves may be crisped and sere, but in a maple wood we may dispense with the sun, such irradiation is there from the gold of the crisped leaves. Jack Frost is as clever a wizard as the dwarf Rumpelstiltzkin, who taught the miller's daughter the trick of spinning straw into gold. This young ash, robed all in yellow--what can the sun add to its splendor? And those farther tree-tops, that show against the sky like a tapestry, the slenderer branches and twigs, unstirred by wind, having the similitude of threads in a pattern--can the sun gild their refined gold? How delicate is the tinting of that cherry, the green of which is fading into yellow, each leaf between the two colors: this should be described in paint.

No, I said; in a hardwood thicket, in October, though it were the misty mid region of Weir, one would not know the sun was lost in clouds. At that moment the sun adventured forth, in blazing denial. It was as if the woodland had burst into flame.

* * *

As a variation of the story about the merchant who couldn't keep a certain article because so many people asked for it, we submit the following: A lady entered the rural drugstore which we patronize and said, "Mr. Blank, I want a bath spray." "I'm sorry, Mrs. Jones," sezze, "but the bath spray is sold."

* * *

_IN A DEPARTMENT STORE._

_Customer--"I want to look at some tunics."_

_Irish Floorwalker--"We don't carry musical instruments."_

* * *

That Tennessee congressman who was arrested charged with operating an automobile while pifflicated, would reply that when he voted for prohibition he was representing his constituents, not his private thirst. Have we not, many times, in the good old days in Vermont, seen representatives rise with difficulty from their seats to cast their vote for prohibition? One can be pretty drunk and still be able to articulate "Ay."

* * *

A new drug, Dihydroxyphenylethylmethylamine, sounds as if all it needed was a raisin.

* * *

The Gluck aria, which Mme. Homer has made famous, was effectively cited by the critic Hanslick to show that in vocal music the subject is determined only by the words. He wrote:

"At a time when thousands (among whom there were men like Jean Jacques Rousseau) were moved to tears by the air from 'Orpheus'--

'J'ai perdu mon Eurydice,
Rien n'egale mon malheur,'

Boye, a contemporary of Gluck, observed that precisely the same melody would accord equally well, if not better, with words conveying exactly the reverse, thus--

'J'ai trouve mon Eurydice,
Rien n'egale mon bonheur.'

"We, for our part, are not of the opinion that in this case the composer is quite free from blame, inasmuch as music most assuredly possesses accents which more truly express a feeling of profound sorrow. If however, from among innumerable instances, we selected the one quoted, we have done so because, in the first place, it affects the composer who is credited with the greatest dramatic accuracy; and, secondly, because several generations hailed this very melody as most correctly rendering the supreme grief which the words express."

* * *

Arthur Shattuck sued for appreciation in Fond du Lac the other evening, playing, according to the Reporter, "a plaintiff melody with great tenderness." The jury returned a verdict in his favor without leaving their seats.

* * *

Reports of famine in China have recalled a remark about its excessive population. If the Chinese people were to file one by one past a given point the procession would never come to an end. Before the last man of those living to-day had gone by another generation would have grown up.

* * *

"Say it with handkerchiefs," advertises a merchant in Goshen, Ind. That is, if the idea you wish to convey is that you have a cold in your head.

* * *

THE SOIL OF KANSAS.

[From the Kansas Farmer.]

Formed by the polyps of a shallow, summer sea; fixed by the subtile chemistry of the air, and comminuted by the AEolian geology of the Great Plains, the soil of Kansas has been one of man's richest possessions.

Why prose? The soil of Kansas, the Creator's masterpiece, invites to song. Frinstance--

Formed by the polyps of a summer sea,
Fixed by the subtile chemistry of air,
Ground by AEolian geology,
The soil of Kansas is beyond compare!

* * *

THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

Sir: An old stage hand at the Eau Claire opry house was talking. "No, sir, you don't see the actors to-day like we used to. Why, when Booth and Barrett played here you could hear them breathe way up in the fly gallery."

E. C. M.

* * *

"WHAT THE LA HELLE!"

[From the Kankakee Republican.]

He helped tramp the old Hindenburg line, but this time, beating it on the strains of "Allons enfant de la Patrie le Jour de Gloire est de Triomphe et Arrivee!"

* * *

Here is a characteristic bit of Vermontese that we picked up. A native was besought to saw some wood, but he declined. The owner of the wood offered double price for the sawing, and still the native declined. He was pressed for a reason, and this was it: "Damned if I'll humor a man."

* * *

"It is not moral. It is immoral," declared an editorial colleague; and a reader is reminded of Lex Iconles, the old Greek baker of Grammer's Gap, Ark., who used to display in his window the enticing sign: "Doughnuts. Different and yet not the same."

* * *

The mind of man is subject to many strange delusions, and one of these is that the stock market has a bottom.

* * *

The manufacturer of a certain automobile advertises that his vehicle "will hold five ordinary people." And, as a matter of fact, it usually does.

* * *

The Westminster Gazette headlines "The Intolerable Dullness of Country Life in Ireland." And Irene wonders what they would call excitement.

* * *

An advertisement of dolls mentions, superfluously, that "some may not last the day." One does not expect them to.

* * *

The London Mendicity Society estimates that L100,000 is given away haphazard every year to street beggars, and that the average beggar probably earns more than the average working man. There is talk of the beggars forming a union. A beggars' strike would be a fearsome thing.

* * *

I want to be a diplomat
And with the envoys stand,
A-wetting of my whistle in
A desiccated land.

The London Busman Story.

_I.--As George Meredith might have related it._

"Stop!" she signalled.

The appeal was comprehensible, and the charioteer, assiduously obliging, fell to posture of checking none too volant steeds.

You are to suppose her past meridian, nearer the twilight of years, noteworthy rather for matter than manner; and her visage, comparable to the beef of England's glory, well you wot. This one's descent was mincing, hesitant, adumbrating dread of disclosures--these expectedly ample, columnar, massive. The day was gusty, the breeze prankant; petticoats, bandbox, umbrella were to be conciliated, managed if possible; no light task, you are to believe.

"'Urry, marm!"

The busman's tone was patiently admonitory, dispassionate. A veteran in his calling, who had observed the ascending and descending of a myriad matrons, in playful gales.

"'Urry, marm!"

The fellow was without illusions; he had reviewed more twinkling columns than a sergeant of drill. Indifference his note, leaning to ennui. He said so, bluntly, piquantly, in half a dozen memorable words, fetching yawn for period.

The lady jerked an indignant exclamation, and completed, rosily precipitate, her passage to the pave.

_II.--As Henry James might have written it._

We, let me ask, what are we, the choicer of spirits as well as the more frugal if not the undeservedly impoverished, what, I ask, are we to do now that the hansom has disappeared, as they say, from the London streets and the taxicab so wonderfully yet extravagantly taken its place? Is there, indeed, else left for us than the homely but hallowed 'bus, as we abbreviatedly yet all so affectionately term it--the 'bus of one's earlier days, when London was new to the unjaded sensorium and "Europe" was so wonderfully, so beautifully dawning on one's so avid and sensitive consciousness?

And fate, which has left us the 'bus--but oh, in what scant and shabby measure!--has left us, too, the weather that so densely yet so congruously "goes with it"--the weather adequately enough denoted by the thick atmosphere, the slimy pavements, the omnipresent unfurled umbrella and the stout, elderly woman intent upon gaining, at cost of whatever risk or struggle, her place and portion among the moist miscellany to whom the dear old 'bus-- But perhaps I have lost the thread of my sentence.

Ah, yes--that "stout, elderly woman"; so superabundant whether as a type or as an individual; so prone--or "liable"--to impinge tyrannously upon the consciousness of her fellow-traveller, and in no less a degree upon that of the public servant, who, from his place aloft, guides, as it is phrased, the destinies of the conveyance. It was, indeed, one of the most notable of these--a humble friend of my own--who had the fortune to make the acute, recorded, historic observation which, with the hearty, pungent, cursory brevity and point of his class and _metier_--the envy of the painstaking, voluminous analyst and artist of our period-- But again I stray.

She was climbing up, or climbing down, perplexed equally, as I gather, by the management of her _parapluie_ and of her--_enfin_, her petticoats. The candid anxiety of her round, underdone face, as she so wonderfully writhed to maintain the standard of pudicity dear--even vital--to the matron of the British Isles appealed--vividly, though mutely--to the forbearance that, seeing, would still seem _not_ to see, her foot, her ankle, her _mollet_--as I early learned to say in Paris, where, however, so exigent a modesty is scarcely ... well, scarcely.

"Madam," the gracious fellow said in effect, "_ne vous genez pas_." Then he went on to assure her briefly that he was an elderly man; that he had "held the ribbons," as they phrase it, for several years; that many were the rainy days in London; that each of these placed numerous women--elderly or younger--in the same involuntary predicament as that from which she herself had suffered; and that so far as he personally was concerned he had long since ceased to take any extreme delight in the-- _Bref_, he was charming; he renewed my fading belief--fading, as I had thought, disastrously but immitigably--in the capacity of the Anglo-Saxon for _esprit_; and I am glad indeed to have taken a line or so to record his _mot_.

_III.--As finally elucidated by Arnold Bennett._

Maria Wickwyre, of the Five Towns, emerged from muddy Bombazine Lane and stood in the rain and wind at Pie Corner, eighty-four yards from the door of St. Jude's chapel, in the Strand. She was in London! Yes, she was on that spot, she and none other. It might have been somewhere else; it might have been somebody else. But it wasn't. Wonderful! The miracle of Life overcame her.