GpEWJN'.S ,WEEKLY 3
original company; and he let us ride for a cash
considerationJ-in the back seat of his very com
fortable buckboard .
Bowbn and! slept at Reno the Saturday night
of our arrival, and I remember walking about
the streets, and stopping to hear the blessed
music of a piano in somebody's home. Sunday I
rested while Bbwcn took a walk up the rail
4 road track. Sunday night wo slept together, and
, 'Monday morning when-1 awoke, my partner was
Igono.
I had a two-dollar bill the only paper
money. I am convinced, there was in Reno at
t the time. But no one wanted it. Finally I bought
some stamps at the post office, wh re oven green
backs were good, and wrote a louter to my In
' diana home, getting sixty cents in change.
j And at noon I discovered that the gold and
silver coins had boon taken from my buckskin
pouch, and iron washers from the railroad track
j had been substituted.
J I have never seen Bowen from that day to
. this. But I don't think it was he who made the
transfer of base for precious metal at the San
' Francisco mint, because Bowen is dead. He died
about twenty years ago. Ho had learned tele
graphy, and landed" at Dejning, N. M., in the
flourishing stages of a typhoid fever case. The
i telegraphers thoro nursed him through to con
valescence, giving up one of their beds to him
and paying all physician and druggist bills, do
ing most of the nursing themselves. And then
ho got up one day and walked east out of town
with the clothes of one benefactor, the watch of
' a second, and the two-months' pay of a third.
.He lay down beside the track about ten miles
cast of Doming, burrowed his face in tho sand
at tho base of a sagebrush, and died. And the
men ho had robbed gave him a decent burial.
As for me, when I found but sixty cents
between myself and poverty, I walked to Vir
ginia City, and took cases on tho old Enterprise.
And I still think that my translation of Judge
Goodwin's editorials from tho things ho wrote to
tho things they ought to bo, laid tho foundation
for his fame and fortune as a journalist.
DID YOU EVER GO NUTTING?
Thoro isn't much of a chance to gather wal
nuts in tho woods of Utah; but it is a mighty
pleasant exercise back in my Indiana country at
this time of year or was when I was a boy.
Just about tho time wo concluded the intense
heat of summer was going on forever; just when
tho men wore drilling wheat; just when that
' matchless picture of Jean Ingelow's is realized in
every Hoosier landscape
"Woods upon woods and fields of corn lying be
tween them,
. Not quito sere, and not in tho full, thick, leafy
, - bloom
Whcnjihe winds can hardly find breathing room
I Under tho tassels; cattle noar, biting shorter tho
' short green grass,
And a hedge of sumuc and sasafras,
And bluebirds twittering all around
Just about then conies a rain, and then a
i - heavy frost, and a day or two of cold, almost a
1 snow and then tho sultry sun again. And that
is Indian summer. Tho oaks and maplo leaves
turn from doop green to gorgeous gold, to flam-
' ing scarlet, to wine, to lemon, and all tho vivid
( colors know to sight. Tho woods are past
I 4oscription beautiful, with their masses of bril
liant hues. Thoro is an unusod, mysterious
stillness in tho air. There is a suggestion of
T smoke shades, low lying and distant. Tho air is
Wonderfully clear,, and noises come from aston
ishingly far away.
Those times you get out the team and tho
lumber wagon, and go to tho woods. The sea
son's work is out Of tho Jsvay. Mon, women and
children abandon tho farm for tho dayand go
to gather walnuts. Tho frost has loosed the,ir
hold on the branches of mighty trees, and tliqy
are falling all around tho noise of their strik
ing on leaf-carpeted earth proving tho accent
in your poem of pleasure. Tho squirrols run
necklessly about, chattering their impatient pro
test at the dividing of stores. There arc grape
vines in' tho smaller trees, and tho women gather
groat masses of grapes. They provide a delicious
jelly for winter dinner seasoning.
With their dull green coats, the walnuts are
tho size of oranges, and you fill half tho wagon
bed. Then you unhitch the horses and let them
crop the thin, sweet forest grass, while you and
the people eat pie and cookies and yellow rusks,
and drink from tho creek, and lean back against
a sycamoro tree and just let the autumn warmth
penetrate your being.
The air grows chilly as you drivo home, and
the sun goes down in a blood-red west, and the
cows aro waiting at tho pasture bars.
You don't talk much in walnut-getting time.
It is the Lord's benediction on a busy season,
and solemn gratitude lays finger on lip, and
lights the fire of worship in the heart.
One can't be wicked in walnut time.
TO A MISTRESS.
In the world of loving, in tho world of living,
I find you true, and I find you glad.
All of my faults and my sins forgiving,
And only sad when myself am sad.
Tho best of women, they say, are bad.
Your face has the stamp of tho mold heroic
Always unquestioning. Ah, how strange 1
With a smile serene as the Spartan stoic,
However my wayward fancies range.
And death might kiss you, and find no change.
You say 'tis enough if I smiling fling you
(I quoto your language) a rose some time;
More than enough if I come to bring you
What seems to you as a thought sublime
A shred of my soul in a vagrant rhyme.
Yet, sometimes, surely I doubtless grieve you,
For women treasure the little things.
A careless look when I turn to leave you
How deep in a woman's heart it stings.
And yot she close to her idol clings.
The love you bear with a glory folds you
As ono who walks in white samite clad.
I know you good as your law upholds you
With faith liko that which the prophets had.
The best of women, they say, are bad.
Whatever tho world says has your scorning.
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
Not even my own hard note of warning,
Nor ancient legend of moth and rust
Can make you listen, or shake your trust.
I toll you true, I am worlds below you
In all that is best of our nature shown.
With logic pitiless clear I show you
How woman's lovo to tho dregs is thrown;
And my words are chaff to tho breozes blown.
Is it because that you catch at tho slender
And shadowy warp of tho last days fledl
And dream when my mood to your mood was
tender
That Fate had knitted tholirokon thread 1
Does it mean so much for a kind word said?
I know this much: That a man's devotion ""
Will ebb and flow liko tho ftcklo tides
That cross a rock in the trackless ocean .
Or hero or there, as the palo moon guidog
And a woman's lovo like the rock abidos.
In tho world this side of the dim hereafter
Whore friends have failed mo, and life grows sad,
I bravo' for your love, and I crave your laughter;
And hero at tho last the proverb a,dd:
Tho host of Women, they say, are bad.
Ernst McGaffy.
WHAT GAIN SAID TO GOD. H
"" H
This is tho condition Qf their jatlj JM
Colls under water from backed up sewers. H
' Four to ton men lodged in one cell .room.- I H
Children and minors placed in nejls with H
hardened criminals. H
Dirty roller towels used by both discased'tftiU Jmm
cloan prisons. Jmm
Boards used for beds in most of the pphep H
stations. ' l mm
Filthy mattresses filled with vermin :uh B
many oftho polioo stations. y H
Colls facing blank, solid walls with only 'a' Jmm
few bars on the front to admit light and fresh H
air. ' , ; a H
Colls used at times for tho detention of stray H
doys. a& . u tmrn
Rats and vermin found in -abundance. I -' Jmm
Of courso it doosn't at all apply t'o thVStflt m
Lake County jail. Tho picture probably" -could m
not bo duplicated in Utah, if in tho whole mduli-
tain country. And yet it Is true of prisons'?of fihe H
older states, and in a sliooking numb'cr't)fyii- H
stancos. Tho category giv(Sn above applieW,a H
prisons in Chicago. Fully as badti cbnditiotifhas JW
for many years existed in Pennsylvania and New m
York. 1 ' '
Tho theory of the penal system iVlhjUvi3ie H
prosecution is right; that it take's its' cOmihii- M
sion and its authority from a flawless rectitude; H
that its very warrant for restraining or punish- mm
ing a man rests on tho fact that its hand'aire fl
clean; that not a flaw flocks tho fair faco o its
escutcheon because that only perfection daro H
lift a hand to punish imperfection. It;s,anhl- H
tolerable theory that tho culprit can face court H
and custodian with tho charge that they pr;.either H
of them violates even tho smallest qf homim- 1
dates of tho Most High God! Va;r mm
After all, tho warrant for tho penal. stem ( W
is correction not punishment. It rosts, uponthe H
purpose to save the man in tho oriminal;,JLo H
mako of him once more a useful member Tpf H
that society which must consider the prisoner M
an economic waste and a social debit. , -
How shall a prisoner in surroundingsnlijte H
that described above respect the ;power i,t)iat H
confined him thoro? How shall ho roconoijetjie H
theory of perfection in the prosecutioaVijhhat H
measureless horror of offenses? How'sUall ho H
bo taught desire to bo one of tho cpmpn'y,that H
locks the other company behind such wafts1? H
And tho Lord said unto Cain, "where, is Abel, Mm
thy brother?" And ho said: "I know not. Am
I my brother's keeper?" x. 'H
But he was. And in an infinitely dcop'cr and lmw
more sacred sonso is the presont-day community Jmm
a keeper of its brother in jail. No "plea of H
poverty, no charge of criminality oan defend so m
gross an inhumanity as that whiuh is pro,yon H
in pictures liko this. And tho Great Father who B
gave to Cain a punishment harder than he M
could boar, is surely no loss just this day- than H
when Asia's sun looked down on thq .face .of H
the first slain. jl
ir Quoon Mary lias oioe'toa Orsor"onBof or tho silont mW
" drama, ns n cablo report-StiyfcMhbWl dlicaftv her 'lltilsli. jfl
Motion iPlcturos have r,Qnfll)9$fvvlpo.liH,n popularity,, jhat MM
would jjustiry thorn In jcnVlvn,thorl)Uifr of, four queens. H
it now appoars that a garitloman l)Olng suodJflRiCll- H
Vorqo snt up with his woman frlond's Jowols (unakjmano) JW
to koop thorn (tho Jowpjs) rrom holng- stolon. M
fmM
. It's a good thing you, didn't huvo to yaitjor M
tho completion of that comfort station-at ho H
cornor of Broadway and State street. .otTob I