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A BOHEMIAN IN NEBRASKA

A Peep at a Home Which Is a Slice Out of Bohemia.

A Wife and a Mother Who Finds Time to Turn out Poems, Humor, and Fiction.

It's not very often that a woman is a bohemian --a genuine bohemian. And it must be confessed that Nebraska is not the place where one would go to look for a woman of that kind, and certainly he would not journey all day along the Burlington road, over the prairie, so the tiny town of [liubbeli?] - the quietest place, with prohibition politics- to find such a woman.

Yet, there is one there. Perhaps some night you will get in that little town, lying down among its hills, about midnight. The place will be black as Erebus. Everyone
of the busy, simple-living folk of the hamlet will be in bed. But up the dark, straight street one light will be shining, and it will show you inside - for the curtain is always up - a group people in a room which does not in the least look like the room of a quiet Nebraska family village.

It is lined with books. It has a typewriter in it, and a writing desk, and a jolly big stove, and some chairs and sofas designed for loafing. And it has pictures [noist?] all of the sort you would expect to find out on the prairie - little sketches of clever [?], old engravings, souvenirs of occasions, mementoes of famous folks. There never was a more informal room - never It's a room where you any good things if it is in you to do it There's something in the atmosphere of the place that brings the humor out of you. And when you get in one of those comfortable chairs with a glass of beer in your hand, and no particular care whether it is time to go to bed or not, and the Chicago, New York, and Omaha papers at your elbow, and new books and magazines yet to be cut lying near, and the memory of a dinner that was very much more than good - that was daring and scientific in its way - then suddenly, bohemia has come to you, and the Nebraska prairie with its hard working, quiet living people seem very far away.

The big world of letters is around you, the world of Puck has come to you. You laugh with all those who have every, by laughing, made themselves famous. You feel as if the spirits of all those who were cleverest that ever you have known, had come out with you over the wind racked plains, and were there, drinking beer and laughing, too.

It's the mistress of the place that brings all this about. She is a woman not unknown in this state to those who keep track of such small literature as Nebraska can turn out. Her name is Kate McPhelim [Cleary?], and she is an Irish woman, as her name indicates - an Irish gentlewoman, as her name may or not indicate. I think she was born somewhere in Canada. But she has for a mother an elegant, most carefully reared Irishwoman of the old school, whose manners are an education in courtesy, but who has, within, something of the reckless humor in her, which gives her daughter her individuality. Mrs. Cleary's father was a man who held many positions of high trust in New Brunswick, and who was a great dealer in timber, in the days when that meant ship owning, and pioneering courage, and commercial adventure, and all that sort of thing, and he had a reputation for brilliancy and wit. There was plenty of money in those days, and a very formal way of living, and Kate went to the best convent schools, and has studied French and embroidery, and never knew she was going to turn out a bohemian. Later when her father died, her mother took her over to Ireland, to relatives there, and she lived in places where the traditions of her family would hardly let her speak to another child in the neighborhood. It is hinted, however, that about this time Kate began to slip out to the village lane to play with the baker's daughter and that, at times, she even wrote rhymes, and did other things which showed the beginning of that charming disregard for consequences which have made her what she is.

Fortunes have a sad way of dwindling when they get in lawyers' hands, and Mrs. [dePhelim?] had to come back from Ireland. She took her two sons out of college, and settled in Philadelphia with her three children. There were four children of them in fact, for an old country gentlewoman, brought up in the exclusion and with the protection which Mrs. McPhelm had been, was just about as well calculated [-o?] take care of herself in a bustling American city as a humming bird is to care for itself among [cormorants?]. However, Mrs. [dePhelm?] put her dainty heirlooms around in her little rented home, and continued to read her favorite poets, and to bring up her children in her own tender and delicate way, and she trusted to the Lord for the rest the children, who had found that the Lord [-ld?] not buy theater tickets for them, nor new novels, had begun to write verses and [-arns?] for story papers, and as they all wrote verses with as much ease as a duck swims in water, it came about after a time that the money received began to make itself felt.

There were days of carless poverty, in which no one's heart was very heavy. With mother who was never too tired or too proper to cook a chop at midnight, and who laughed over their funny verses and wept over their pathetic tales, and thought she had a family of poets, how could the three young folk be sad? It wasn't possible. Besides, life was interesting. At [-ght] there was the balcony of the theater go to, if one couldn't afford anything better, and by day there was the fascinating work of story writing, and always she [-y?] family circle, and so time went on, and the little [?] increased, and the [-rary?] work which had been a makeshift [?] for one of them, at least, a fixed occupation. For the oldest of the three, [-ward?] McPhelm, who has been for twelve years the dramatic critic of the Chicago Tribune, and whose reputation is [?] best of that of any dramatic critic west New York, entered newspaper work with the intention of making it a profession. And he is recognized among newspaper people as being the writer the most limpid and well [-ed?] English to be found in the [?] pages of the daily paper. More-[?] he has shown a fineness of discrimination that leads him at the first to estimate the worth of an actor, and his [?], family uttered in the midst of popular humor, have all ultimately come to be accepted, even by the public.

As for his sister Kate, she married. Her husband could not live in Chicago, owing the cruel lake winds, and he came west search of a more favorable climate, and [-sected?] Hubbell, and went in the lumber business there about ten years ago. There [?] four well beloved babies in the house--though two of them would probably resent being called babies. And the old bohemian life is somewhat changed.

But even the four babies, and the care- study of the household art has not put top to Mrs. Cleary's literary work. She [?] romantic sales for the story papers; [?] contributes some of the brightest jokes [?] appear in Puck, she sends delightful [-tches?] to the Chicago Tribune, and she occasionally writes verses. Perhaps she [-uld?] do all of this work more earnestly [?] did not do it so easily. What I mean say is that she has no definite aim in [?]. She does not care whether she "succeeds" or not. She wants to live as happy as possible, and she writes because enjoys it, not because she has an ambition to write. She does without thought care work which slower [?] persons would spend sleepless nights over. And after she has [?] it she thinks no more about it, but [?] it if she happens to want the money anything, and if she doesn't she lets it in her drawer. It is, however, to [?] just so careless of success that it is to come. Perhaps she would write more persistently if there was need for [?] so from a monetary point of view, since there is no such need, and as she everything he wants, writing is taken [?] as a form of amusement. It is valued more because it brings her into association with clever people all over the country than for any other reason. And her correspondence is of the sort that keeps her constantly in touch with the eastern cities, and that gives to her days a pleasant excitement. Some charming people have been entertained in that little house up the quit Hubbell street, and the gay little ponies that race over the hills with the family phaeton have introduced some distinguished visitors to the Nebraska hills.

To find a life so full, so interesting, so entertaining and--bohemian--for there is no other word for it--out in the Nebraska prairies, has never ceased to be an astonishment to me. And I hope I have not got in any way betrayed the confidence imposed in me in telling something of the inner life of this peculiar home. And I think it would not be possible to mention that home without mentioning also the genial, kindly, generous and most hospitable gentleman who is at the head of it, and whose friendship is worth anybody's winning.

Here are some of the poems that have been inspired by that life out on the prairies. And they go to show that the plains are throbbing with interest for any who have the brains to perceive their charm. But then, if you have learned the art of living, what does it matter what your surroundings are? The spot does not exist o earth which is not full of interest for him who has brains enough to discover what lies hidden there. These poems are but a few of very many written there. And they do not paint the plains any better than have some of the tales written from the same place. There was one little story, for example, of a child lost in a corn field, which appeared in St. Nicholas, which perhaps gave the atmosphere of Nebraska better than any other tale written by the story writers of this state. But here are the poems.

The Corn

When the merry April morn
Laughed the mad March winds to scorn,
In the swirl of sun and showers
Were a million legions born,
Ranged in rippled rows of green,
With a dusky ridge between,
O'er the western world was seen,
The great army of the corn

And when in May time days,
The buttercups gold blaze
[?] like flashed o'ver [?] and hollow
And the pleasant prairie ways;
Each battalion from the sod,
Flags [?] flutter and a nod
Nearer heaven nearer God
Crept to [?] perfect praise.

And when the June time heat
Over all the land did fleet,
The melody of meadow larks
In mellow music best
Martia measures, to beguile
The royal rank and file,
That kept growing all the while
To the sounds erence and sweet.

When the fierce sun of July
[?] relentlessly on high
And in the creeks the water brights
All drop by drop ran dry,
And as from a furnace mouth,
The hot wind of the south
Backed the orn with cruel drouth,
It seemed that it would die.

But the nights benign and blue
Brought the blessed balm of dew,
And baptized the corn in beauty,
Ever fresh and ever new,
Till, in amber August light,
'Twas so golden that you [?]
Fancy Midas touched the bright,
Tender tassels it out-threw.

Now the sweet September's here,
And the plover [pipoth?] clear,
And each shattered sheath of satin
Holds a guerdon of good cheer,
And the corn all ripe and high,
Taller far than you or I.
Standeth spear-like to the sky,
In the sunset of the year!

Drifting Down

Gone the ripple and the rushes
Of the love-song of the thrushes,
Gone the roses in the closes of the garden and the blushes
Of the shy verbena creeping
By the old south wall, and sleeping
All its sweetness in the sunshine of the sleepy summer bushes,
And ever o'ver it all, in a gold and crimson [ball?]
Over mignonette grown tawny, and o'ver grass a bronzing brown
With a rustle and a whir, and a sad and solemn stir.
The leaves are drifting down, dear, oh, the leaves are drifting down

Come the mornings gray and chilly,
Come the nights serene and stilly.
Comes an airy midnight fairy, tracing [?] and rose, and lily
On the window panes that glisten,
While in dreams the children listen
To the swing of skites that ring, and shouts that echo shrilly,
And ever, ever, still, in the hollow, on the hill,
By the roadside where the sunflower lifts aloft a ruined crown,
Like the dear old dreams of youth, dreams of honor, fame and truth
Forever falling from us--do the leaves keep drifting down

Let the summer set in splendor,
Let the summer tribute render
Bridelike beauty, bridelike duty, every charm divine and tender.
To the conquering king, who loudly
All in trumpet tones and proudly
Tells the story of his captive, and her passionate surrender
And with the leaves that fall, in a rich and royal pall.
O'er the rose heart's crumbled crimson, and the grass grown dull and brown.
Let the bitterness, the strife, all the little ills of life,
Go drifting, drifting down, dear--with the leaves go drifting down!

Before the Bal Masque

And so you have found an old program
Throw it away, my dear
In its silken sheath its lain there hid,
In that old box with the sandal wood lid,
This many and any a year

Let us look! A galop with George Bellair,
Bless you, he's tamer now,
A decorous deacon, and leads at prayer,
And just to look at him, one would swear
To dance be never knew how

And Robert! Ah, little that night I dreamed
That his wife I should be,
I was only a child, and the future beamed,
Golden glamored and golden gleamed,
But a foolish child, you see.

That line eligible--pass it over
To this, then--Philip Keene,
A loyal lover a reckless rover,
Poor boy, beneath the western clover
His sleep is sweet, I weep.

And this quadrille was with [Devers?]
We use to vote so slow,
Strange and silent, and rather queer,
But the critics trumpet his praise this year,
For his books are the rage, you know

Can we read the last waltz faints and blurred?
Quick! Quick! Take it away!
Charlie! Yes, he went at my word
And at Alexandria, so I have heard,
He died--a hero, they say.

Hark! Thrust it deep in the fire--again!
Hear that tread in the hall!
Ah! Robert! A touch of the same old pain
Nothing more 'twill not remain,
I'm ready, dear, for the ball!

A Japanese Vase.

A timid little lover, in an attitude of grace,
With a funny little simper on his funny little face,
And a robe of green and amber and a deferential sir
And a crown upon his forehead does the little lover wear,
And I know that he is thinking
Thoughts the sweetest lover can,
Though he silent as a sphinx is
On the vase from far Japan

And the little lady near him is sedately looking down
At the dainty drifting drapery of her gayly glowing gown!
And her eyes are slanting upward, and her mouth is rosy red,
And her hair is smoothly knotted on her pretty little head,
As she shyly seems to listen
To the timid little man,
Who is paying her his homage,
On the vase from far Japan

All around them roses blossom, such as never elsewhere grew!
Birds above that in no other clime or country ever flew
And foreign fruits hang heavily from [-derest?] of stems
And golden wings of "butterflies are crusted think with gems;
And the tints of all are tangled
In the tracery on the fan,
Of the coy coquettish lady,
On the vase from far Japan.

Miss the miracle and magic of the world beyond the seas
For I feel the breath and brilliance of the land of balm and bees.
And the budding boughs are rustling just without my window pane--
Or is it just the [p-?] of the weary winter rain?
And back to bleak Nebraska.
Must I stumble as I can.

Where upon my desk is glowing
An old vase from far Japan.

Tired

Just when all dusky and dreary
Creep up the shadows and [?]
[?] out the lights all weary,
Comes a wee [?] and sweet;
Climbs on my knee in the gleaming,
Tired of romping and roaming
Oh mamma, low murmurs the darling,
I [stired?] from head to my feet

Rushed is the laughter and singing
That set the house chiming and ringing;
Still the soft arms that are clinging
Warm round my neck [?],
Light little limbs that were flying
[?] daylight in darkness were dying,
And the [?] some bit of a baby
Was tried from head to feet.

When with some [?] is [?]
The life we once meant to make splendid,
In which [?] and sadness were [?]

Which we vowed to perfect and [compl?]
Oh, may we [?] death as a moth,
Only less dear than our other,
To [? us to beautiful slumber
When tired from head to feet!

There are people who dread the [?] and think them terrible. But Mr. and Ms. Cleary do not. They like them when [t?] are white with snow, they find a [charm?] them when the grass is brown and wind sweeps through ragged corn [?] and they love them when the young [gr?] is on them, and the flowers spring up, later when the [?] orange gleams and the hedges, and the corn is tasseled full of rustling sounds.

They know the delight of driving through the summer nights under the stars, [?] all the rest of the prairie world [?] they know how to get all the charm out the perfumed prairie morning, by [go?] off for the day with the children and ponies, and a well packed [ham?] in short, the plains, that for loneliness and toil have for the light-hearted people meant [m?] forms of delicate and wholesome happiness.

There is one thing that distinguished this home from most of those out on prairies, and that is good cooking. I do mean that the cooking in most Nebraska farming communities is not good in ample way. But I mean when Mrs. Cleary found herself stranded, as it we[?] in mid plains, and confronted by deplorably small bill of fare of a coun[?] town, that she set about making a [?] cuisine. In all the arts of salad [?] roasting, deviling, baking, preserving and mixing, she is a connoisseur--and [?] she is original. It would be absurd commend all of her methods to the [?] farm woman who has neither time nor money for making the dishes, but I am sure the isolated life cut on the [?] would take to itself a little more charm other women would do as Mrs. Cleary has, and make a study of how to use cream and eggs, poultry and pork, vegetables and the native fruit. It's a great art, and takes brains of a good sort--so no one [?] scorn it because of the idea that it is [?] intellectual.

All this may not be to the point, [a?] may seem very vacuous and discursive but I really think it will be a good thing for some of our serious, hard-working American women to know how human imagination, ability and adaptability [?] illuminate our lonely western life.

For say what you may, there is a little ache in the hearts of every one of us [?] the 'place back east' which we left. This state are hundreds of thousands, homesick people. It is inevitable. We did not grow up together here. And the new home, the new friends, however dear, cannot be quite like those we were born to. The Plymouth women used to weep when [?] Mayflower spread its white sails and turned toward "home," yet not one [?] [?-tered], not one went with her. On [the?] unknown to themselves, was placed the destiny of conquering this continent. [A?] westward still have come the pilgrims, [?] the subjugation of the continent is yet far from complete. And we, here in the west a vast company of strangers from [?] lands, look at each other with eyes of longing, appealing for closer friendship, stronger interests, dearer compensation.

And so I think that anyone who has broken down the obstacles, who has proven that the art of living is not a thing controlled by environments and circumstance is a fine example to us all.

And in the house in Hubbell that I have told you of such an example may be found.
ELIA W. PEATTIE.

POACHING IN CUT-OFF.
Men Catching Thousands of Fish With Seine.

Late last winter a party of young men living in Omaha, who were not so situated as to be able to enjoy even a couple of weeks' outing at any time, and all of them being experienced in the art of angling, decided to lay in a good supply of the most improved fishing apparatus and spend the isolated days from their decks fishing [?] adjacent lakes.

Sunday before last the party concluded to try the new material in Cut-Off lake. They were prepared for all kinds of fish being provided with luring artificial bait live minnows, frogs, worms, etc. Procuring a boat they set out, and during the nine hours they were upon the water, and after trying all the known "good holes" in different parts of the lake succeeded in landing, four small sunfish; but their 'string' was as large as any they saw all day.

Last Wednesday two of the same party, having a half holiday, decided to again visit Cut-Off, and try other places in the lake. But the result was about the same as on the previous Sunday. Thinking it would be a good scheme to set a night line, as they were morally certain that large fish were in the lake, they boarded an East Omaha motor and arrived at the upper end of the lake shortly after nightfall, and in seeking a good place to drop their line came upon a party of five men hauling a seine. They watched the proceeding, and when discovered by the poachers, were told to "get out of here or you will get your skin full of lead". Further down the east shore they found another party similarly engaged, who gave them a warning to keep away, in shape of a pistol shot.

Inquiry and [?] opened the way for a boy native to tell how this kind of "fishing" goes on nightly, when the thousands of fish thus taken are disposed of in Council Bluffs and this city, and this in direct violation of the fishery laws of the state of Nebraska.

The young men did not set their line that night, but they immediately took steps to prevent further wholesale destruction of fish in Cut-Off lake, and it is understood, also, that the Courtland Beach Improvement company will take a hand in the matter at once and prevent this nefarious robbery of fish in the lake, thus affording the hundreds of legitimate sportsmen of this city an occasional day's enjoyment.

Thousands of game fish have been caught in nets in this lake, and it acquaints for the poor showing the many fishermen have made there this spring. But for the fortunate discovery of the young men referred to this wanton thievery would, no doubt, soon have taken from our citizens many days' pleasure to be had right at our door. The Nebraska fish laws prohibit seine fishing in our lakes, and make each fish so taken punishable by a fine.

SICILY SHOCKED
ROME, April 22.-- A severe earthquake shock occurred at 2 30 o'clock this morning at Milazzo, on the north coast of Sicily. This shock was followed by several others equally severe. What damage, if any, was done has not been reported.