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and experimentally tickling my left ear with the middle toe of that upraised foot. "It didn't look just normal to me?in Kansas. So I lay there blinking at the baby elephant. When he saw my eyes open, he put his tickling foot down ; but just stood there, swaying slightly, and gazed at me pleasantly, reassuringly. But 1 was not reassured. "'This,' said I to myself, 'is one of those things. This, similarly, marks the beginning of my future good behavior. It's thirty to one, at least, that if I close my eyes now, and keep them closed for half a minute, when I open them again the thing stand ing there will be a blue giraffe with double dorsal fins and a stingaree's tail.' " I tried it, counting out the half minute. Then I slowly opened my eyes again. The baby elephant was still there. But, obviously for the purpose of entertaining me, this time he was standing only on his front legs, with his cute little hind legs wiggling in the air, and his merry little beady eyes beaming on me in that upside down way. "'Not only is it going to be the mere good be havior for mine for the remainder of my bodily existence,' I observed unto myself, as I closed my eyes once more, 'but I intend to become a mission ary in Beluchistan at once; for I desire to get just as far as possible, and then some seven thousand geographical leagues, from such purely fictitious and hallucinative scenes and incidents as these. In the meantime, once more shall I try closing them.' "Again then, I lidded my eyes, and this time I counted a slow two hundred before opening them. You see, I wanted to give that baby elephant all the chance in the world to evanish back to the topsyturvy section of No Such-Land whence I was perfectly sure he had come. " But when I peered again after that two hundred count, there again was the winsome little pachyderm, this time standing up on his cunning little hind legs, with his babesy wabesy front legs crossed in front of him, and his cute little head cocked on one side, looking at me just a? natural as?as eggs. "Then I came to a sitting pos ture. I felt of my head. It was there. Dawn was breaking out of the orange east. The hedge was bespangled with fragrant dew. The Bob Whites were calling in the copse. "And the baby elephant got down on all fours and nudged close to me and put his head against my shirt front like as if he wanted me to rub the knob on his little head. " I rubbed it. He was really there, and alive. We were pals. It wasn't any hallucination. I shouldn't have to go as a missionary to Beluchistan. "I rubbed the knob on the baby elephant's head for a long, long time. We were maties, kind o', it appeared. He was lost, I knew that. They may raise a lot of hell in Kansas, but not baby elephants. Well, so was I lost, lost for keeps. "And so I rose from beneath the shelter of the fragrant Kansas hedge, put my hand on the knob of the little baby elephant's head to guide him, and started down the road to Leavenworth?I could see the houses of the town in the increasing light. The little chap plugged docilely along at my side. We came to a roadside spring, and he walked over to it and drank gallons and gallons of the clear water. But he didn't drink any more of it than I did, hombres. AS we entered Leavenworth's outskirts at the edge of the Government reservation, four horse men, coming at full speed round a turn of the road, almost galloped over me and my baby elephant pal. When they saw us they reined up like cow punchers pulling up their cayuses after slinging the lariat. "'Why, here's th' blamed little pup now, dang him!' they all yelled together, and in two seconds the four of them were off their horses and pet ting my baby elephant. "It was then that I made mv world's record of "Looking at Me Juat u Natural as?as Egg*. answering six hundred and twenty-seven separate and distinct questions within the space of ten and two-fifths seconds. All the questions were about the baby elephant: where I'd nailed him, how he'd behaved, where he was bound for when I got him, and all the rest. "They had just got through, they told me, past ing up a bunch of placards, offering a reward of two hundred dollars for the return of the elephant to the Ringling brothers' circus, which was to ex hibit in Leavenworth that day. The circus had un loaded at Leavenworth the night before. The baby elephant was being weaned, and had to be kept from his mother. In the mix-up of unloading, he had wandered off. He was one of the main assets of the show. They had been in fear that some farmer or other would pick up the baby elephant and hold him for a two thousand-dollar ransom or something; hence the quick offer of the two hundred dollar reward. "I told the elephant keeper, who was one of the four horsemen, about how the baby elephant had awakened me by tickling my left ear with the middle toe of his right front foot. '"That's how he gets me awake every morning. He's been trained to do it that way,' said the ele phant man. "'Well, hike in with us and cop out the two hun dred bucks' reward,' said the man in charge of the party. And I hoofed it alongside of them, and the baby elephant paddling along beside me, to where the tents were raised. One of the Ringling brothers slipped me the two hundred without a squeak, glad to get his baby ele phant back for that money. "After that? "'Working?' he asked me, with the brevity of the circus boss. "Working I was not, and so I told him. ""Cook tent foreman went on a drunk in Emporia, and when he turns up I'm going to fire him,' said the Ringling brother to me then. 'Want his job?' " I wanted it, even if I was just breezing along in front on the chin strap with the two hundred iron men to the good. More than that, I took it. That's how I happened to go into the circus business, at which I shone like a looking glass for nearly one whole week. " Kansas wasn't so bad. I have had worse breaks than that which was my portion when I came to 'neath the shelter of a mingled fox grape and honeysuckle hedge, with a baby elephant tickling my left ear with the middle toe of his right front foot." -T * .<*? 1 "V; WOMAN'S PART IN THE WORLD'S PROGRESS HERE woman is the theme, the pen must be dipped in the rainbow and the pages dried with the dust of the butterfly's wings" is Diderot's charming tribute to woman; which should be supplemented by this statement of Harder, "There is nothing, I think, that marks more decidedly the character of men, or of nations, than the manner in which they treat women." An other writer has said, "If you would know the po litical and moral status of a people, demand what place its women occupy." Woman is ever the theme of artist, poet, and historian. It is not alone her charm, her beauty, or her ac complishments that attract the exponents of the good, the true, and the beautiful, but her practical methods in securing a competence for her family, or those depending upon her, as well as herself. A study of political economy has demonstrated the fact that woman's capacity, mentally and physically, averages man's capacity. Modern woman is not the pioneer in the pro fessions, business, nor inventions. She had most distinguished forerunners in many countries; as early, for example, as 4000 B. C., when the invention of spinning was attributed to Yao, wife of the fourth Emperor of China. The activity, ability, and cul ture of women of the past compare most favorably with that of the present. Women in medicine, law, literature, science, invention, and as warriors on land and sea have been notably to the front since centuries ago. They have engaged in industrial pursuits, notably in America since the close of the Revolutionary War, continuing the business their husbands had abandoned for the war, and they proved most successful. Early Days in Nantucket AT Nantucket, the men returned to whale fishery, fitting out and manning ships, while their wives kept the stores. At one time all the drygoods stores were kept by women, who went to Boston semian nually to renew their stock, until capitalists finally drove them out of trade; and it was resumed only when the California emigration made it necessary for them to do so. Failure was very uncommon in Nantucket when women managed the business, and it is alleged in later years that Mrs. Fowler Wells, sister of Fowler the phrenologist, saved the business of her brother and husband from bankruptcy by her By Giselle D'Unger foresight and business ability a number of times. In 1784, Ann Bent entered a crockery and dry goods firm. Miss Emily Ruggles, of Reading, Massachusetts, a relative of William H. Taft and the late Judge Alphonso Taft, conducted a drygoods store for over twenty years, buying as well as selling her goods, keeping her books, and directing her assistants. She was a successful merchant. She also engaged in the real estate business, purchasing lands for in dividuals and corporations. She owned a tract of land, laid out streets, and arranged building lots, showing a foresight and business capacity not gen erally accorded to woman at that period. Rebecca Motte, after the Revolution, met all de mands against her husband's estate by purchasing a large tract of rice land on credit, and by industry and economy paid all demands and accumulated a handsome property. Woman was the pioneer in industrial pursuits, as in the making of straw hats, when Miss Betsy Metcalf discovered the secret of bleaching and braiding the meadow grass of her native town of Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1789 and ingeniously made this braid into a bonnet. A facsimile of this seven-straw braid bonnet may be seen in the " Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry." This method taught by Betsy Metcalf started the industry of bonnets and hats for summer wear, which led to the use of other pliable and similar material for this purpose. In 1833, Hannah Davis of Jaffrev, New Hamp shire, manufactured the first nailed bandbox and made herself rich. Woman and the Cottota Gin "PROM the straw hat to the calico frock is an easy transition, and to Mrs. Catherine Greene of Rhode Island, widow of General Nathaniel Greene of Revo lutionary fame, is alleged to be due the honor of in venting the cotton gin. While Eli Whitney received the credit, it is said that on account of Mrs. Greene's modesty the patent was not issued to her, as she feared the criticism of the world and the loss of her social position. The cotton gin is one of the great in ventions adopted by the world. Mrs. Greene sub stituted wire belts for those of wood first used. Mrs. Greene, as Mrs. Miller, assumed an interest in her patent. It is interesting to learn that the discovery of cot ton as a textile fiber is ascribed to Semiramis; but in America it is attributed to the mother of the Incas who taught the Peruvians to manufacture it. With the advent of the sewing machine, invented by Walter Hunt of New York, and patented by Elias Howe, jr., twelve years later, needlewomen were not in demand as formerly; but woman was still active in other lines, even inaugurating, in 1836, the first strike on account of a reduction in wages, which was not successful. Incidentally it may be stated that Si-ling-Chi, wife of Emperor Hoang-ti, 4000 B. C., discovered silk, and to this day when the name of China is men tioned, it is a perpetual honor and remembrance to this woman inventor. Gauze was the invention of Pamphile, a woman of Cos, who shortly after the introduction of silk into Europe unraveled its web and from this manu factured the fabric known to Roman women as coa vest is and to moderns as coan, or gauze. A woman owned the largest flax mill in Europe; a woman established the manufacture of buttons, although the business was run by a man; and the self fastening button was also the invention of a woman. A child was the means of inspiring the spinning jenny, and two girls combing their hair in spired the machine that combed cheap cotton into moderately fine yarn. Maggie Knight refused fifty thousand dollars for her machine for the manufacture of satchel bottom bags, after she received her patent. Another machine was that which does the work of thirty persons in folding bags. Two silk dresses were spun, woven, and colored by the skilful fingers of Miss Betty Green of Georgia, who raised the silk from the worm. This industry for woman is no novelty to-day. The knitting ma chine was invented by William Lee, or Lea, of Eng land, through observation of his wife in handling her knitting needles. In 1824, Miss Lucy Johnson wove seven pairs of seamless pillowcases and received a premium at the fair held at Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They were on view some years ago in an excellent state of preservation, and are supposed to Continued on page 16