Elia Peattie articles from Omaha World-Herald

ALL FOR HUMANITY'S SAKE

A Story Told to Show the Good Which Comes of Good Action.

The Cruelty Practiced Against Dumb Animals -- Mrs. Peattie Writes of Something of Keen Interest.

Fanny was a gay little dog. She knew her tawny fur curled in ringlets all over her fat little body, and was quite aware of the fact that when she looked up at you quizzically from under her yellowish-brown bangs that you were sure to laugh.

In short, Fanny realized perfectly that she had in her the elements of popularity. She liked life, and her only grief was that she had not seen enough of it.

To be sure, wherever her Boy could take her he did. Fanny had noticed that almost every dog has a Boy, made, most obviously, to take the dog around and make fun for it. The trouble about Fanny's Boy was that he was away so much at school, and that after school, when any dog might expect that she would be taken out for a play, this Boy sat with his nose in a book. He managed, now and then, to stop long enough to scratch Fanny's ear, or feed her a lump of sugar. But this was but a trifling sop to a gay spirited little dog who wanted to see life.

It never occurred to Fanny that it was just as hard for her Boy to stay in as it was for her, or she might not have been so foolish as to lose her temper. Perhaps none of us would ever find it worth while to lose our temper if we knew all the pros and cons of the things that vox us. However that may be, Fannie got in a passion over her Boy because he was so slow; and because he seemed to prefer books to dogs -- although there was not a book in the whole library that could wag its tale, and stand on its hind legs and bark -- and so it came about that Fanny deliberately turned her back on the house where the Boy lived, and started off down the street.

The Boy's house was on one of those quiet streets in South Omaha, which look away over the river, and the groves of willows on the bottom lands, and, higher up, the groves of puny oaks upon the Nebraska hills.

Fanny cared nothing for this. She ran as hard as she could for the busy streets where the motors were, and where men and woman walked about in an excited way, and all sorts of delightful noises were going on. Fanny was so angry with her Boy that she made up her mind to look out for a new Boy, and when she saw a tall fellow, with a swagger and a cigar, come along, she decided at once that he was the sort of person who was likely to see life and that she would follow him. She had no sooner made up her mind to this than she saw him run and jump on one of those fascinating motor cars and a second later the car was whizzing away down the track, and Fanny was running after in a perfect gale of excitement.

On and on she went, like a puff ball of fur. How delightful to have got rid of that stupid Boy! At last she came to a sort of bridge. The cars made a hollow sound as they went rolling over, and Fanny could feel the bridge shaking under her. It frightened her a little, and she ran over onto the other track in her alarm, and then! -- Then for Fanny the heavens and earth came together, and a hell of pain tore at her tender body, and she heard the noise of the cars stop.

"What is it?" said a voice.

"Run over somethin''?"

"Nothin' but a dog."

"Throw it over the viaduct."

A man with a black face took Fanny by one of her torn legs and threw her down, down, till her crushed, cut body fell on the paving.

It was dusk already,, and the night soon fell. Men and women passed the little dog. Children came and looked at it.

Fanny screamed and screamed with the awful torment. She writhed back and forth like a worm in the dust. The night came. 'The trains thundered by. The little dog in her torment of thirst licked at the dew on her shaggy coat, Ah, the hours of torture! With morning a young man stooped over her, touching the broken limbs with tender hands. Then he left and returned with the water of which Fanny had been dreaming through those miserable hours. But now she was too weak to drink it. She could only look at it with agonized eyes. The young man understood. He lifted up the fainting head and poured water down the swollen throat. He put water on the little dog's forehead.

"Poor little wretch," he said, "I wish I had something to shoot you with."

Then he went away and the horrible torment went on. And at last, after hours of waiting there came a sudden sharp, terrible noise and shock, and the pain was over for gay little Fanny.

* * * * * * *

When the young man left the dog, which had been thrown from the viaduct, he telephoned to the police station:

"A dog was run over on the Sixteenth street viaduct last night. Some one threw it over the viaduct, and it has been lying there all night. It is suffering terribly. Can't you send a policeman down to kill it?"

The answer from the police station was:

"There is a policeman on that beat. It's his business to attend to it."

"But he isn't there," the young man answered. "I can't look all over for a policeman. I should think it was your business to --"

Whirr, whirr, whirr! The connection was rung off at the station, and the young man had to give up his attempt to relieve the little creature's sufferings, for he had to go to work. How much longer the groaning little dog laid there is not known.

* * * * * * *

But this much is known. If we had an operative society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, such suffering could be avoided.

* * * * * * *

The other day two drunken men drove a fine horse in front of a motor on Farnam street. The men were not injured. The big body of the faithful animal was almost cut in two. But with its splendid vitality it could not easily die. For hours it laid on that traveled thoroughfare, rocking its head back and forth in speechless agony, and now and then giving a sudden, awful scream of agony.

Why was it not shot?

Because a policeman is not allowed to use his judgment about shooting valuable animals, but must see the proper authorities to obtain permission first. And where "only an animal" is concerned a policeman is not apt to keep dinner waiting till he relieves such torture.

* * * * * * *

But if we had a society for the

[NEW COLUMN]

prevention of cruelty to animals the members would be possessed of both authority and gumption enough to shoot a horse, a part of whose entrails lay out upon the pavement.

* * * * * * *

Week before last a sweet young wife, who lives on a certain hill in this city, looking from her window, saw a cruel sight. A worn old horse was trying to drag up the steep incline of the hill a wagon laden with sacks containing some heavy material -- cement, possibly. The weight was too great for the horse, and it could make no headway up the hill. The foam about the bit, where it cut the mouth, began to be tinctured with red. Suddenly the man's irritation broke into ungovernable passion. He swore in a frenzied manner, and lashed the horse with a broken whip. Not content with that, he seized a board from under the seat and beat the struggling animal with that. The great pathetic eyes of the horse rolled in agony. The young lady could stand no more. She rushed out into the street.

"Please, please do not hit the horse again," she cried. He is doing the best he can! Do not hit him."

The man turned and looked at her.

"You -- -- -- -- !" he yelled, "this is my horse! And that is your house. Get in it and mind your own business!"

The lady fled before his obscene oaths, and endured the pain of hearing the blows fall harder than ever on the back of the silent animal.

* * * * * * *

The lady was helpless because she did not have a society back of her.

Now a society stands for a crystalization of public opinion. There is public opinion enough in Omaha to justify the forming of a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals.

The Woman's club realizes this, and is about to undertake the formation of such a society. But it feels that it cannot make a success of such an undertaking unless the men will give it their support; unless the lawyers will be willing to assist; unless the policemen are cordial to it, and unless men and women will assist in giving evidence and assisting in prosecutions against the brutes who abuse the dumb animals. Miss Carrie Millard has been elected by the philanthropic department of the club as the president of this proposed society, and any inquiries addressed to 1818 Capitol avenue will be gladly answered by her. She would also be grateful for any expressions of sympathy, that she may know where to look for assistance when it is needed.

* * * * * * *

It will be remembered that there used to be such a society in Omaha. But it has long been inoperative.

* * * * * * *

A little girl who lives not far from the High school has started a little society among her friends called "The Black Beauty Society," named, of course, after Anna Sewell's famous story of a horse.

The code as written out by this little girl, for the treatment of horses, is interesting. Horses, she says, do not like their reins cheeked high; nor do they like a load too heavy for their strength. They do not like to be driven too fast; nor to be made to go with loads up the hillside on the slippery pavements. Neither do they like to have their tails cut up into the flesh; nor to be driven when they are in a sweat. This little girl gives it as her opinion that a person who will clip a horses tail up into the flesh, thus cutting off the ends of the nerves, has no more sense than a snail, and ought to be put in jail -- an opinion in which she will have many supporters.

The idea of encouraging such societies of children has already occurred to the Woman's club, and it contemplates distributing pledges among the children of the public schools, by signing which, the children promise to abuse no dumb animal.

* * * * * * *

There must be many women in the city, who do not belong to the club, who feel deeply upon the neglect and abuse of animals which exist in this city. It is the earnest desire of the club members that such women should either join the club, or make themselves known as sympathizers of the movement.

This may be a good place to acquaint those interested in the work with the law upon the subject.

* * * * * * *

The state statute provides that the mayor and city council of municipalities shall legislate covering this evil. However, in a general way, under the head of domestic animals, it provides that the altering of ear marks or brands is punishable by a fine of not to exceed $50, and treble the damage of the party injured. Under the caption of killing or injuring animals of the value of $35, it provides that any person wilfully or maliciously killing or destroying any domesticated animal, the property of another, of the value of $35, or upwards, or shall wilfully and maliciously injure any of such animals, the property of another, to the above amount, the person or persons so offending shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than three years, nor less than one year. For animals valued at less than $35, the punishment is a fine not to exceed $100, nor less than $5, or imprisonment in the county jail not more than three months, or both, at the discretion of the court. For poisoning, the penalty is a fine of $100, or imprisonment not to exceed thirty days.

The abuse most common -- abandonment -- is covered by section 67, which is as follows:

"Injuring Animals; Abandonment in Stormy Weather -- Any person or persons who shall wilfully or inhumanly beat, strike, kick, wound, kill or mutilate any horse, mule, cow, sheep, ox or swine, or any other domesticated animal not enumerated, or any person or persons, whether offender be owner, agent or servant, who allows his team, whether horse, mule or ox, to stand tied upon the street for a time longer than four hours in cold or stormy weather, to the injury of the said team, shall upon conviction thereof be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine for each offense, in a sum not less than $5 or more than $50. And it is made the duty of any sheriff, constable, or marshal of any city or village, or any policeman to immediately arrest any person or persons violating any provisions of the act without a warrant or any process, and to call upon bystanders or others for assistance when same may be necessary to consummate the arrest. Overwork and tormenting is also deemed a misdemeanor and is punishable the same as injuring or abandoning.

* * * * * * *

The city ordinance is:

Inhuman treatment of Dumb Animals -- Section 11. It shall be unlawful for any person to cruelly, inhumanly or unnecessarily beat, injure, overload or overwork, or to insufficiently shelter or feed any horse, mule or dumb animal, or to drive, ride or work, or cause to be ridden, driven or worked, any horse, mule or dumb animal, which, by reason of any deformity, injury or disease, or other cause whatsoever, shall be incapable of being ridden, driven or worked without suffering pain or great annoyance from such deformity, injury, disease or other cause, or to otherwise abuse any dumb animal within the

[NEW COLUMN]

[Drawing] II. So with an empty stomach, the Turk, In the early morning started hard at work.

[Drawing] III. He earns the mighty dollar acting rash, He assumes a Gould-like cute away his cash.

[Drawing] IV. But, like many worldly mon hard to keep, For it seems to want to leave sudden leap.

M

It is better to e by the investment Reliable House than life trial of Slavish vain attempt to sav sary to pay cash do a single advantage vations.

Terms T

On a bill of $10 one dollar cash and one dollar each week.

Special

[article continues here]

limits of the city of Omaha, or to encourage or urge any dogs or other animals to fight in said city, and every person violating any provision of this section shall, on conviction thereof, be fined not exceeding $50 or be imprisoned not to exceed thirty days.

* * * * * * *

It is probable that the subject of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will come up before the club tomorrow. ELIA W. PEATTIE.

ELINOR'S DILEMMA.

"We will not discuss this unfortunate subject any more today, Elinor, but I am certain if my daughter will consult common sense she will very soon see the wisdom of my choice."

Elinor looked out of the open window straight into the heart of a bed of nasturtlums growing beneath, without seeing any of their glowing beauty. Her eyes were misty with unshed tears. She made no effort to answer her mother's words.

For fully five minutes there was silence in the room. The soft rustle of a pencil drawn over paper, in the hands of a young girl who was drawing in the clear light of an east window, was distinctly audible. Dab, dab, went the broad pencil point on the soft paper. Mrs. Scott added at least three rows to the silk mitten growing in her supple fingers. Suddenly the gleaming needles were still, and of her own accord she again approached the subject she had herself dismissed five minutes before. She was evidently determined, womanlike, to have it out with her daughter.

Mrs. Scott was, in most respects, a sensible woman; and as the most sensible people will sometimes err in doing what they consider, under existing circumstances, to be their duty, let us not judge her harshly for insisting that her eldest daughter should encourage the attentions of a man so eligible as Lawrence Aldrich.

"You must tell me, Elinor, just what

THE MOCKERY OF MOURNING

Thoughts Upon Outward Signs of Inward Grief Prescribed by Convention.

They Will Disappear Only When Superstition Disappears and We Have More Culture

Why do women wear mourning?

They will reply, without a doubt, in order to make some outward evidence of their inner grief.

But the question arises, if this is so, why do not men also wear it? No one will maintain that they suffer less than women. Their hearts wear black much oftener than their hat bands do. They used, it is true, to wear it much more in former years than they do now. But at present, mourning is almost exclusively a feminine demonstration, and it is rather interesting, psychologically speaking, to inquire why women should still cling to this ancient custom, while men have almost abjured it.

Anyone who stops to think on the subject for a moment or two, will perceive that men have been the ones always to make progress toward greater spirituality in matters concerning death and burial. For example, it is the men, almost without exception, who are in favor of cremation, that hygienic and economical method of disposing of the dead. But women will have no crematories. They want a grave to weep over. They want a palpable, cold, long, grass-grown grave to put wreaths on, and at which they may sit and remember the virtues of the deceased.

It may be that this is not materialism, but it looks very much like it. Men seldom visit graves, except in the novels of Mrs Augusta Evans.

They had no solace for their woe in the purchasing of cheap flowers -- for women are very apt to exercise economy in these melancholy purchases and generally choose white carnations in preference to roses It is difficult, always, for a woman to be so prodigal that she will forget the limitations of her purse, and even when she purchases the flowery emblem of a broken life, she will pause to inquire the price, and to calculate whether or not she will have enough left over to buy the week's groceries. Of such details must the life of woman be compounded.

Mourning is a hard thing to reconcile with the sense of fitness of a woman who has really loved the person whose death she celebrates in wearing of her solemn garments Supposing, for example, that you had loved one man all your life -- loved him for the first time that you saw him and that you had married him, and that he was the father of your children and your constant companion, and, withal, your heart s dearest possession. And suppose that suddenly some day he should die And that you would have to face the fact that henceforth your soul must remain silent -- that it was stricken dumb -- that you must simply wait, through the rest of life, for the day of death, which might -- just possibly, might -- reunite you. And supposing, then, that you swathe yourself in black. You drape your garments in folds suggestive of woe, yards of black hang from the bonnet on your head, you see that every letter you write bears its silent evidence to your life's disaster, and even the pocket handkerchief with which you wipe your nose proclaims the fact that your condition is a sorrowful one. You regulate all these signs with a fine nicety. The width of the hem of your veil is regulated by inexorable fashion ; so is the size of the border of black on your handkerchief and your stationery.

The days drag on. Six months pass -- six little months. And what happens? You buy new writing paper with a border of black but half the width of that on which you wrote in the first dread days of your sorrow, you let out the hem of your veil, and divide its width, and you hasten to wear out the handkerchiefs with the wide border, and to get some with a smaller edging of black. For it is unnecessary to say that no woman, however rich, would think of setting aside or throwing away her handkerchiefs, even to oblige the tradition which has set its limit upon the sharpest hours of her grief, and told her when she ought to begin to appreciate the law of compensations No, no woman, in any transport, would throw away good handkerchiefs.

Very well; six more months pass And by Niobe! but gray and lavender take the place of blackest black! There is a flower in the button hole. One even wears a diamond or two. And a little later, and the costume of delicate or rich tints tells the world that your heart is mended and that you are ready once more to take part in the world's gayeties, and to laugh when others laugh. It would be very well, if your heart had really grown light in the same ratio that your garments have. But it's all a ghastly lie. The heart awakes at night to cry for the love it has lost Through all the world it goes, alone, and the cancer of loneliness eats at it always

Or, on the other hand, suppose that one nearly related to you -- perhaps, even your husband -- dies, and that you did not care in the least for him, and were secretly much relieved, though, of course, shocked, as we all must be at the fact of death. You were relieved to know that you were to be spared from possible shame, or from a life of lowering discontent, or from wranglings and deceits Such things happen, it is said. Then what a horrid, revolting, contemptible sort of a lie, to pull your mouth down to the proper angle of regret and hang yards of nun's yelling around you !

Whichever way you take it, it seems to be artificial, foolish, insincere and repellant. I don't say that everyone of us might not do it. But I insist that it is a bad thing to do.

Along with this wearing of weeds goes the tradition that the person thus afflicted absolutely must not enjoy herself. She cannot go to hear beautiful music. She must not attend any sort of a public gathering She cannot meet only a certain number of her friends at one time In short, she must apply no balm to her wounds She must steadfastly refuse to drink of the waters of Lethe.

It's all nonsense If there is ever a time when music has a message for one it is when the house has been made dreadful by that awful Absence -- it is when the yearning imagination hears in fancy the familiar foot on the stair, and shudderingly discovers the lie, and then recurs, with maddening mechanical repetition, to the same fantasy.

If ever the mimic life of the stage is really calculated to help one, it is when one is most anxious to forget the real life in which one is forced to live. If ever human companionship would be stimulating, it would be at a time when solitude was haunted with its newly made ghost, and when, in the persistent laughter of the rest of mankind, could be found life a grim, but wholesome philosophy.

I do not suppose that it is very surprising that women, even the most original and independent of them, come under the thrall of this imperative fashion and yield to it, when I consider that their failure to do so would lay them open to be suspected by other members of their sex of lack of affection for their dead. And that would be the one thing that no woman could endure patiently. A woman likes to be thought to be crushed by grief, even when she is not. She cannot bear to be thought disloyal, and she seems to think it a form of disloyalty not to love everyone that she might be expected to love, because of the accident of their connection with her. Woman insists upon having the world believe in her affections She would rather be suspected of wantonness than of hardheartedness And the world itself always receives with reluctance the idea of a coldblooded woman. Indeed, the world consents to be rather interested in her when she weeps It considers her very feminine when she is bathed in tears.

No one, I hope, is so dull as to inveigh against the sentimental. But there is a good deal of sentiment that is really of a very low and commonplace order, and that we would all be disgusted with if it were not so familiar.

But some day I really hope to meet a

[TOP OF NEW COLUMN]

woman, who, when she loses her best beloved, will say:

"He is dead. And he is immortal. Burn that putrifying mass of flesh. It was dear to me once, for it held his soul. It is repulsive now, for it it vacant, and it is changing. I cannot weep over that vacant and repulsive tenement. What I remember is his soul, and that is not beneath the ground If I shed tears of loneliness it will be when I am looking at the stars -- beyond which I prefer to imagine that he is As for my dress -- black or scarlet -- what is it to me? I have not thought of dress. How could I pause to think of my bonnet when my love was making his way through space and the silence up to God! No, I shall tell the world n thing about my sorrow. It could not understand. It did not share my sacred joy while he lived. It shall not share my sacred grief now he is dead."

Some day, perhaps. I will know such a woman. But I never have yet.

As for funerals!

But the subject sickens one!

Carbolic acid and tuberoses, lachrymose hymes, and insincere clerical [?] A ghastly room round which the live things sit, looking with [?] eyes at the dead thing! Whispers going on in the room beyond, the house chilly for want of fire, nothing much to eat, everyone as faint with hunger as with grief, all sorts of people daring to try to console you with commonplace words, all sorts of lies circulating, amiable and otherwise -- Oh, most desolate, repulsive, wretched, material time, in which one has no pause to stop to hear the song of the liberated spirit who sings his song of victory above the bowed heads of those who weep!

I think going down to hang over the coffin of your dead before the curious eyes of casual neighbors, to whom you may lend your flatirons, but to whom you certainly would not lend your soul a secrets! Think of having them talk over, afterward, all your [?], incoherent utterances, and to know that they enjoyed your misery in proportion as it was demonstrative Not that they are cruel -- far, from it. But some persons cannot help their morbidity They like superlative conditions If they hear of a cyclone they want it to blow down all the houses in town; if they hear of a fire in a mine they want 200 miners imprisoned just where the sounds of their voices can reach those who are making futile efforts to liberate them; and if you lose a friend, they want it to wreck your life absolutely, and want you to let them see that it does!

No, no! It is all hideous, this public show of grief, this cant of the preacher who has to praise a man for qualities of which he knows nothing; this deliberate laceration of the tortured heart by the singing of mournful songs!

But when will we outgrow it? When will we go alone with our dead to some place where their perishing mortality may most quickly be made [?], refusing to make a spectacle of our grief for the inquisitive and the vulgar! When will we wear our grief in our hearts instead of ou our bonnets? When will we take the money we spend on wreaths for the dead, to buy bread for the living? When will we forget the material part of death to remember the spiritual part of it?

Truly, only when we have fewer superstitions and more culture than we have now. ELIA W. PEATTIE.

CHRISTIAN ENDEAVORERS.

The McCook District Societies Meet and Transact Business.

McCook, Neb , April 29 -- The district convention of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor opened here last night by a song service and address by Rev. D. L. McBride. The meeting this forenoon was chiefly a business meeting for the purpose of electing officers. Mr. A B. Colvm of Cambridge was elected president, C. J. Watson, McCook, vice president, Miss Maude Bodine of Orleans treasurer. The name of the convention was changed from 'Republican and Beaver Valley union" to "The Light McCook district convention" The address of welcome was delivered by C T. Watson and responded to by Miss Mayo Beaver of this city. This afternoon was occupied by committee conferences and reports The delegates here now number about thirty, from Holdrege, Cambridge, Alma, Beaver City, Indianols, Orleans, Loomis, Bertrand and many other neighboring towns

The hours of the convention were spent tonight in speechmaking by C. A. Burch, president of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor of Lincoln, and L. P. Ludden Mr. Ludden gave an elaborate description of the accommodations at Montreal in July at the National Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor. Tomorrow the convention intends spending the entire day in suggestions and fixing plans for the next convention.

CORN BELT EDITORS

They Will Meet in LeMars, and Will Have a Big Feast.

LeMARS, la, April 20 -- The Corn Belt editorial convention has been called to meet at LeMars, May 25 and 26. Newspaper men of the adjacent parts of Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska will form the association, which it is expected will be organized at this meeting. A large number of those present were active newspaper men of the section, and are active in working up this first meeting.

The LeMars Polo club, the champions of the Missouri valley, will entertain the editors with a [?] game of polo, and the program will close with an address by Ignatius Donnelly and a banquet.'

A CANE TO VAN HORN

The clerks in the employ of Max Meyer and Bre company, as well as the head of the firm took occasion last evening to show their appreciation of M. M. Van Horn's services by presenting him with a goldheaded cane. Mr. Van Horn has been with the company for the last ten years, and his withdrawal from active work is a source of much regret.

A. Mandelberg, head clerk of the jewelry department, made the presentation speech, and Mr. Van Horn was taken entirely by surprise and expressed his thanks in reply.

The can was beautifully carved and bore the following lettering, "Presented to M M Van horn by His Associate Employes and Max Meyer and Bre Company, April 30, 1895." On the cap was also engraved the initials "M. M. V."

PENSIONS

WASHINGTON, D. C., April 29. -- Nebraska: Original, Henry Lewis, Albert Watrous, Greer Hair, Alanson Palmer, increase John Wier; original widows, etc, Sarah Meeds, minors of George W Howe, minors of Reuben H. Hurd, Sarah Watts Iowa: Original, Joel E. King, David [lrotter?]: additional, T. M. Bancroft, John Rasier, increase, [Evl?] Fuller, Augustus L. Moore, J. D. Denison: reissue, William P. Peterman, Milton Grabain, original widows, etc., Charles C. Hunting (brother), Kmiline King, Mary E. Keller, Rosalia Weyer, Polly Cartwright, Amy A T. Silcott, Laura E. Ellsworth, Melvins Randall.

RESISTED ARREST.

INDIANOLA, Neb , April 29 -- A tough named McKeever was shot here today while resisting arrest by City Marshal Crabtree. McKeever got into an altercation with a man named Green over reported indecent proposals from McKeever to Green's little 13-year-old girl. Green swore out a complaint and Marshal Crabtree, armed with a warrant, attempted to arrest McKeever and was resisted McKeever was shot in the leg, causing only a painful flesh wound, but he did not resist any long after the shot.

THE CIRCUS [?]

NORFOLK, Neb , April 29 -- The Hurlburt and Leftwich combined circus, which has made this [?] winter headquarters for two years gave this season's initial performance today to a crowded tent, not withstanding the cold weather The show has been greatly enlarged since last season.

A LITTLE FIGHT.

CHEYENNE, Wyo , April 29 -- A fight occurred among sheep herders in a Fort Steel saloon this morning John Calhoun, as American, was killed by a Mexican, who was badly wounded by Calhoun before he died

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.

BARRIERS AGAINST WOMAN

They Are Mostly Erected by the Women Themselves Blind Superstition.

Prejudices of Youth Which Endure Through Womanhood -- A Flea for the Unusual Woman.

All that follows is for women. The men are not forbidden, but they are advised not to read it.

But, the, they will read it. A man always does anything he wants to, particularly if it is forbidden."

It is so from his earliest days.

At the age of 6 he says to himself:

"If I climbed to the top of that baro I wonder if I would see anything that I never saw before."

He climbs to the top of the barn. he sees fields, houses, woods that he did not know existed. And he perceives that the world is large -- unexpectedly large. His mother comes out of the house and sees him on the barn. She does not scold him. She thinks he is splendidly adventurous. She mends his torn trousers without complaining.

But let her little daughter show any such inclination to see the world! She is called names that are a shock to her innocence. She is told that she is a "tomboy" -- terrible word! Her budding modesty is offended. Her ambition is [?] She drops bitter tears into her little checked apron and admits to herself that it was very naughty indeed of her to try to find out if the world was large. She discovers that for a woman it is not large -- that is to say, no larger than the door yard.

And, in a little while, she, too, has a contempt for a woman who tries to get up where can look off and see what the world is like.

It is this placing of the limitations of women by the women themselves that always seems to me one of the most irritating of things. There are some women who always resent the success of any other woman.

After one of Mrs. Lease's peculiar and not to be forgotten addresses, I heard a woman say:

"Why in the world doesn't she stay at home and take care of her children?"

There is a place where the women stay home and take care of the children. It is in India. And there the men have so little respect for them that they do not even accredit them with the possession of souls. And what is very much worse, I do not think the women suspect that this theory is wrong. They are married in infancy, their lives are doomed if their husbands die, and from birth to death they live in degrading subserviency to the men. And well may these girl mothers weep when the child they have born them is not a son! Well may turn from the dark eyes of their little daughters, knowing what their future is to be:

There's the necessity of being mammal. Women are destined to be that. But the fact is subordinated to the Woman herself. She is the Fact. Posterity is a secondary consideration.

The other night after a horribly hot day a woman was going home from [?] park. She had five little children. One of them seemed to be about 5 or 6 weeks old. The oldest appeared to be about 7 years. The children were all sleepy, but they didn't cry. They were good little things. They all had baskets or bundles, and had no doubt carried their luncheon to the park and eaten it there. When the mother signaled the train to stop she half arose. All the children did the same. The car stopped with a jerk. There was the usual result. Some one picked up the babies. The conductor dropped them off the car. Three of them fell getting across the street. A horse was coming and the mother had much difficulty in jerking them out of the way. The bundles seemed to be all over the block. But the tired woman gathered them up after a little and the troupe went on.

"Well," a woman on the car said, "if I had as many children as that, I'd stay at home."

She hadn't as many children as that -- or any at all. She is a woman who doesn't like to be inconvenienced. That is why she has never had any children. Instead, she has pink luncheons.

Now, it didn't seem to me that the woman with the children was at all absurd in her little excursion. It involved fatigue, and some anxiety. But there was anticipation and enjoyment, and a lot of excitement to be counted in. There is nothing like dressing up. It gives a zest to life. And, there were all of these little ones in clothes that stood out with starch. They had had a day to a beautiful place. And if they were going to bed dead tired, it was that happy fatigue which comes with a new experience.

But what is most important and significant of all is the fact that the woman herself had not stagnated. In her soul was still the thirst for the beautiful; in her pulses still the power to leap at pleasure.

Perhaps her shuffling, overworked husband was at home wishing for her, surely at her absence, weary, wet with sweat, irritable.

What of it?

Had she not been hearing the children laugh in their play? Had she not seen the sunset through the skies, and noted the dark silhouettes against the amber west? Had she not heard the leaves whispering, and watched the [?] shimmer of the fountain down through the "draw?"

She had been trying to live a little. And her effort would be sure to bring its own reward.

However, though, I think women do not always appreciate one another. I am far from thinking they are as mean to each other as they are commonly held onto be is a certain class of novels. There was Mr. Anthony Trollope, who used to write interminable novels about feminine quarrels, and who seemed to work on the supposition that all any woman cared about was to get some other woman's lover away from her. That may be true in a certain class of idle and stupid society. But it isn't true here in America very much. We all seem to have all the lovers we want over here. And marriage isn't the only subject we talk about or think about. It's secondary and incidental to life itself, though it sometimes brings the chief joy of existence.

I've often noticed the girls in dry goods stores. They are good illustration of the point I wish to illustrate There they stand, tired, dusty, harassed by senseless customers, the day stretching out before them to an interminable length, yet almost always they are kind to each other, and are sisterly and courteous. There are exceptions. But the exceptions are few. On the street cars women are almost always particularly nice to each other. In the offices down town they seem to be generally kind and polite. And in society there is not half the idle gossip and illnature that there is commonly supposed to be. The women are sympathetic with each other. They have an admiration for each other's abilities and accomplishments.

I don't know exactly what they would do if they got a genius among them. Perhaps they would find it hard to invent excuses for her. But so long as a woman shows only well-bred mediocrity she will find affectionate friends.

Now, they want to stop the placing of limitations. They want to get over their narrowness of aspect. They want to learn to applaud. If a woman makes a success of anything from walking a tight rope to painting a picture, give her credit for it. Do not call her a crank because she has ideas. Do not cut her because she knows enough to earn a living. Try to get to a point where you can admit that she is nice [?] of the fact that she has opinions. It's this fighting shy of the women who are trying to march with the marching time that I most deprecate in woman.

I don't like them to be afraid of genius Genius isn't necessarily disreputable. Make room for the uncommon women as well as the common ones. When you hear a remarkable orator, such as Mrs. Lease, do not say that she ought to stay home and take care of her children.

When you see a woman struggling after a little joy in the midst of her dull days, do not tell her that she ought to stay home and take care of the children.

The children will be taken care of all right enough. You needn't worry about that.

But give the women a chance to do something else. And it is the women themselves to whom I am talking. It is they who build the barriers.

And I want to ace them all knocked down -- all those moss-grown walls erected by superstition, and tradition, and prejudice. Flowers will not grow in the shadow of a stone wall. you have to let the sunlight get in at them.

ELIA W. PEATTIE.

SIBERIA'S WONDERFUL LAKE.

Averages a Mile in Depth and is Frozen Nine Months in the Year.

On the road from Irkutsk to Kiakhts, the frontier town of the Chinese empire, the monotony of the journey is broken by crossing Lake Bakal, a wonderful lake frozen for nine months of the year, which has sixty times the area of the Lake of Geneva and has an average depth of no less than 5,404 feet, or more than a mile. The cold is so terrible that when a hurricane stirs the waters the waves often freeze as waves, remaining in hummocks above the surface, but when J. M. Price, author of "From the Atlantic Ocean to the Yellow Sea," crossed the cold had caught the lake asleep and the ice was perfectly smooth. He had thirty miles to drive on the solidified water. "For about a mile from the shore the ice had a thin layer of snow over it, but we gradually left this sort of white carpet, and at length, reached the clear ice, when I saw around me the most wonderful and bewitching sight I ever beheld. Owing to the transparency of the water, the ice presented everywhere the appearance of polished crystal, and although undoubtedly of great thickness, was so colorless that it was like passing over space. It gave me at [?] an uncanny feeling to look over the side of the sledge down into the black abyss beneath; this feeling, however, gradually changed to one of fascination, [?] at last I found it positively difficult to withdraw my gaze from the awful depths, with nothing but this sheet of crystal between me and eternity. I believe that most travelers, on crossing the lake on the ice for the first time, experience the same weird and fascinating influence About half way across I stopped to make a sketch and take some photographs. I was no easy matter, as I found on getting out of the sledge, for the ice was so slippery that, in spite of my having felt snow boots on, I could hardly stand. The deathlike silence of the surroundings was occasionally broken, however, by curious sounds, as though big guns were being fired at some little distance. They were enused by the cracking of the ice here and there. I was told that in some parts of the lake were huge fissures, through which the water could be seen. It is for this reason that it is always advisable to do the journey by daylight. We reach Moufabkaya, on the opposite coast exactly four and a half hours after leaving Liestvenus, the horses having done the whole distance of over thirty miles with only two stoppages of a few minutes each. it was evidently an easy bit of work for them, as they seemed as fresh when we drew up in the post-yeard as when they started in the morning."

Prof. Niel.

Government Chemist, writes: I have carefully analyzed your "Royal Ruby Port Wine," bought by us in the open market, and certify that i found the same absolutely pure. This wine is especially recommended for its health-restoring and building up properties; it strengthens the weak and restores lost vitality. Be sure you get Royal Ruby; $1 per quart bottle. Sold by [?] and Co. 15th and Douglas sts., Godman Drug Co., 1110 Farnain St., and O. H. Brown, Council Bluffs. Bottled by Royal Wine Co., Chicago.

A VERY BAD MAN.

"Speaking of queer happenings to newspaper offices recalls a little experience of my own," said Robert G. Adair, now a guest of the Souther to a St. Louis Globe Democrt reporter. "The city editor of my home paper was a great friend of mine, and when I got married determined to give men an elegant send-off. I had never been married before, and of course knew no better than to send a basket of champagne to a newspaper office before the paper went to press. In country offices everybody about the establishment from the editor-in-chief to the junior devil, considers himself in on all the luxuries that make their appearance, had that of the Boomerville Broad-A was no exception. The result was that my wedding bells became inextricably mixed with the paid puff of a cheap circus and was [ostencallously?] marked 't. f.' I immediately ordered my half of the remarkable advertisement out. It stated that it was worth double the price of admission to see the blushing [?] and her [?] bridesmaids come up the aisle in costumes of white silk and turn a double sommersault over three monster elephants and a herd of camels. Nobody could well doubt it. The bridegroom was described as a young man recently captured by a company of military in the wilds of Borneo,' and who 'went on his fours down the aisle with his bride on his arm.' It is needless to say that every seat at the circus was filled. My friends had the audacity to tell me, however, that the performance was a disappointment -- that it was not as prepared in the advertisement."

Buckien's [?] Salve.

The best salve in the world for cuts bruises, sores, ulcers, salt [?], fever sores, [?], chapped hands, chilblaze corns and all extra eruptions, and positively cures [?] or no pay required. It is guaranteed to give perfect satisfaction or money refunded. Price 25 cents per box For sale by Goodman Drug company.

THE ST. JAMES ORPHANAGE

Happy Days Spent by the Inmates of a Worthy Charitable Institution.

Excellent Discipline -- The Routine Work of the Day -- The Good Sisters and Their Charges.

The children call her Sister 'Lastics.

Her real name is Sister Mary Scholastics, and her duties, with thirteen other Sisters of Mercy, are to care for the children at the St. James orphanage.

This place of refuge is on that stretch of rolling, grass covered prairie northwest of the city. When this prairie is left as God made it it is beautiful in the extreme. It swells and undulates away into purple nothingness, and all over the bearded grass dandelions nod their delicate hands, and and yellow butterflies with eye like spots upon their wings submit [?] to the buffettings of the wind

But it sometimes happens that God proposes and man disposes. And man, who has a mania, in this part of the country, for cutting down hills, has resolved the place into a series of clay cuttings, which in wet weather are almost impassable because of the mud, and in dry weather are the home of the infant simoons, which pepper the eyes with torturing particles of clay.

By taking the Walnut Hill motor and riding to the western end of the line and then getting on the brisk little Benson place motor, which rocks over the road bed like a poorly balanced cat boat over a choppy bay, you come to a stretch of these clay cuttings in the midst of which, you get off, walk a quarter of a mile to a very substantial brick building in the midst of a clay plateau, and find yourself at the Orphanage.

In the facade stands St Joseph -- done in bisque -- with the Child in his arms, and playing literally under the shadow of their patron saint are ninety little children.

Meanwhile, tolling for them, praying for them, loving them, are Sister 'Lastics and her thirteen colaborers.

All of these good women bear the name of Mary -- name dear alike to sacred and to secular ears. And to distinguish them a very little one from another, another name is given, so that Mary Borgia, and Mary Benedictine, and Mary Celestine, may answer to earthly call.

But aside from that middle name, so often amusingly inappropriate, there is little to distinguish these gentle, strong, faithful women one from another. Their faces are [?] from lack of excitement, their steps are quick because they are ever bent on willing service, their eyes are soft because they are filled with kindness, their manners are gently authoritative, and their faces are framed in the white linen and the black drapings of their order

Sister Mary Michael is the superior -- a calm woman who looks at you with eyes which are not unsophisticated, as are those of some of her satellites. She is a woman who has ability, as you feel directly upon meeting her, and who could, if you asked her, tell you the exact amount of every item of expense of the Orphanage.

The building has not yet been occupied a year. It is substantial, commodious and very simple. It cost in the neighborhood of $70,000. Of this six sevenths are still owing

But it will be paid for The order of the Sisters of Mercy will do it. They will do it by their faithful minutes which reach into monotonous and beautiful years of toil The order is a great one and this branch of it here will be helpful if the need comes Meantime, by subscription, funds will be raised as much as possible, while the Sisters bend every energy toward paying for the expenses of the institution, and of meeting the interest, which, fortunately, is only 5 per cent.

It would be easier to do this if coal were not so high. But to beat a building that holds over 100 persons, who insist on their rights to a certain number of cubic feet of air per capita, is an expense almost as great as all the other expenses of living put together

There is no one so lowly, just as there is no one so powerful, that he is not plundered by the man who deliberately place coal above its value!

To have been held up on the highway and despoiled by a feudal baron, as honest men were three centuries ago, was preferable to being robbed in a country which makes its meaningless boasts of law and order, under the mistaken impressions that these things stand for equity and justice.

But in spite of coal combines and other damnable contrivances of a more or less cold world, ninety little boys and girls were kept warm and snug at the Orphanage last winter Ninety little folks, none of whom are provided with more than one parent, and some of whom have no parents of any sort or description knew what it was to be housed and clothed, and fed, and even loved.

In the morning they awoke in the dim early light to see the dormitories with their white shaped iron beds reaching north and south. They washed, dressed, combed, according to the inflexible rules, each boy and girl in his or her place.

Then, morning prayers in the chapel -- a chaste room with delicately colored windows The priest is a German and loves his own tongue better even than the Latin And he is old, and it maybe that he forgets just how hungry boys and girls may be! Not that anyone said so But it is impossible, for a very wordly person, with a good appetite, to think of ninety little boys and girls trying to pray when they are all thinking of porridge, with sugar and milk on it, without sighing in sympathy.

However after the good father has read his Latin with a German accent, all the people go stumbling down the bare halls to the dining room And the very little ones sit at a table which is not much higher than a bench, while the others go to higher tables, according to their size. And they have, porridge, and cakes, and coffee [?] milk, and hash or browned potatoes and stewed meat, quite after the manner of children at home. And when they have eaten there is a time for work for the older ones, and then school for all. Some of the boys study German with the venerable priest, who loves to teach the tongue of the fatherland. But it is the sisters who guide through the intricacies of those first perplexing lessons, and who, with the older pupils, teach the mystery of fractions, of geography and of physiology.

And above all, they teach gentleness, courtesy and kindness.

For to have a loving heart is thought to be of more kindness by the sisters, than to have a clever brain.

Then dinner -- a hearty meal this, with meat, vegetables and pudding -- then school, and after that relaxation, a little work, supper of bread and milk, the even prayer, and later benediction and bed.

But this skeleton of the day's duties tells nothing of how the big girls carry about the fretful, teething babies, soothing them, jabbering to them, playing with them. It tells nothing about the toil of the sister who cooks the meals for this great family, her pleasant face wearing so bright a smile that it obscures the pock marks on her face. It says nothing about maternal looking woman up in the sewing room, who, in the defect of the sweet trials of actual maternity takes her delight in sewing for the children of other women. It says nothing about the woman who watches over the beds of twenty babies and soothes them in the nights and stills their crying, tyring with soft touch to compensate for the mother hand that should have patted them back to dreams. It says nothing about those younger sisters, who, during recreating hours play games with the girls, and even so far forget their serious state, as to now and then emit a little shriek of excitement as the rollicking game progresses.

As for the boys, they have their own games, and very conspicuous is the diamond in the back yard, where the national game is pursued with an ardor not to be excelled on any diamond the country over

The other day when I was out, the boys from St. Patrick's were down there playing a match game, and the Orphanage got beat, and there wasn't a baby in the place who could not have told you by just how many points

The umpire was unpopular. I don't know who he was The captain of the Orphanage nine told me about him. The captain was undaunted, though suffering not only in mind, but in body. A ball, which, he assured me, cost $1.50, had crashed into the bridge of his nose straight from the hands of a most accomplished pitcher The captain seemed very proud of the fact that this black, palpitating, [?] mass of flesh had been brought to its condition by a ball that cost $1.50 I ventured to inquire what would have been the result if the ball had cost only 50 cents. And the captain gave it as his opinion that it would have split the ball. But, as I was saying he told me all about the umpire, and I am convinced that the decisions were villainous, and that if he was served right -- but I must not let my emotions run away with me.

There never was a place any cleaner than the Orphanage But there are some things I would like to change. For instance, there is a large play room, in which there are not many play things. I would like to remedy that. There is a many shelved blanket room, in which there are no blankets. That does not seem to be just as it should be. There are a lot of little hearts aching for stories, and I did not see any story books around There are yards and yards of wall, and no pictures on them. And I wondered why. There was a large yard but no lawn, and I would have dearly liked to have remedied that.

And I particularly noticed how well adapted those ninety little mouths looked for strawberries. A berry would consider it a happy fate to have got into one of those mouths, and the red lips would have found that it was filling its perfect destiny in slipping 'round a red berry -- a berry with a tang, and a subtle sweetness, and piquant little yellow touches -- something like the buttons the upholsterer puts in his cushions

The though somehow haunts me, and I wonder if some one with a real perception of the eternal fitness of things could not manage it so that some red, ripe berries would get in those redder and riper mouths

It's clinging kind of a thought -- eh?

ELIA W. PEATTIE.

A JEALOUS COW.

In Love With Thomas and She Resented His Attentions to a Puppy.

In the London Spectator Mr. C. Hunter Bown of Nelson, New Zealand, toils the following odd story of a cow's jealous of a dog It will be observed that it was a New Zealand cow and a New Zealand dog

A few years ago I had a quiet milch cow, Rose, which certainly was fond of Thomas the man who milked her regularly, and she also showed an aversion to dogs even greater than is usual in her species. One night, for what reason I now forget, I had tied up a young colly dog in the little cow shed where she was accustomed to be milked. The following morning I had just begun to dress when I heard the puppy barking in the cowshed. "Oh!" thought I, "I forgot to tell Thomas about the puppy, and how the cow will get in first and gore it." The next minute I hear a roar of unmistakable fear and anguish -- a human roar I dashed down tot he spot, and at the same moment arrived my son, pitchfork in hand. There lay Thomas on his face in a dry gutter by the side of the road to the cow house and the cow butting angrily at him We drove off the cow and poor Thomas scuffled across the road, slipped through a wire fence, stood up and drew a breath

"Why Thomas," said I, "what's the matter with Rose?"

'Well, sir," said Thomas, "I heard the pup bark and untied him, and I was just coming out of the cow house, with the pup in my arms, when Rose came round the corner As soon as she seed the pup in my arms she rushed at me without more ado, knocked me down, and would have killed me if you hadn't come up"

Thomas had, indeed, had a narrow escape, his trousers were ripped up from end to end, and red marks all along his legs showed where Rose's horns had grazed along them

"Well," said I, "you'd better not-milk her this morning, since she s in such a fury"

"Oh! I'll milk her right enough, sir, by and by, just give her a little time to settle down like. It's only jealousy of that air pup, sir. She couldn't abide seeing me a fondling of it."

"Well, asyou like," said I. Only take care and mind what you're about."

"All right, sir!"

In about twenty minutes Thomas called me down to see the milk The cow had stood quiet enough to be milked. But the milk was deeply tinged with blood, sand in half an hour a copious red precipitate had settled to the bottom of the pail Till then I doubted the jealous theory, After that I believed

A STATESMANS' JOKE.

Washington Post: Congress is the subject of numerous jokes, but as it is alway sin a position to get even with the public for any remarks made concerning it there is no danger of its suffering to any great extent.

Some time ago a Washington man applied to a friend for a report on horses and got it. Later he asked for a copy of a report on mutes and pigs. The friend sent hima note as follows "I send you herewith a package which contains the best thing I could find in that line that you want."

The package contained a copy of the congressional directory.