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6 WHEN YEH MA AH’ ME GOT TIES. Oar* wa’n’t ao fuss an’ feathers, an’ ther* wa’n’t no great paxade, Utr ther’ wa’n’t no weddin’-breakfast, ner no weddin’-marches played. It wa’n’t no High Noon weddln’j 'twaa dark as Sambo’s hide, <hnse yer grandad wa'n’t Invited when yer ma an’ me got tied. Vher* wa’n’t no string o’ kerrldges lined up in front th’ door, But Jos’ my old red sulky, with th’ gray mars hitched afore; An* yer ma slid down a bed-cord while I held my arms out wide go's to ketch her es she tumbled, when yer ma an* me got tied. didn’t give no invites, an’ ther’ wa’n’t no kinfolk there, But you coxfldn’t jes’ have called It a quiet-llke affair, Btr her old dad wa’n’t far behind us, an’ th’ gray mare like to died A-acootln' fer th* parson’s when yer ma an* me got tied. Th’ parson didn't wear no robe, nor none too many clo’es, yes* pants an* coat an* night-cap an’ th’ specs upon his nose; An* some folks of his was present, so’s it couldn’t be denied That th’ thing was did all hunky when yer ma an’ mo got tied. Ther* wa’n’t nobody weepin* ner a-shakin' hands around. But jes’ about th’ finish ther’ come a smashin' sound, An* yer gran’dad struck th* weddin jes’ in time to kiss th’ bride, An his langwldge—it was awful, when yer ma an’ me got tied. —Lippincott’s Magazine. IheTower Room A 1 ix “We never use this room,” young Dallas said. “It has been kept shut up ever since I can remember —for twenty years, at least.” “Why?” Carmichael asked, looking about him with interest. It was a round room, furnished In the fashion of years ago; but every thing was falling to pieces from decay and neglect. . It went by the name of the Tower Room from its situation, and was isolated from the rest of the house by a little spiral staircase. “It was my mother’s favorite room,” Dallas said, dropping his voice, “and when she died my father shut it up, and would have nothing in it dis turbed. It must have been a charming little room when It was In use. You see it has a magnificent view. My mother was a good artist, and she used to paint up here.” Carmichael sh'vered a little, though it was a warm summer’s day. “It feels and looks like a grave,” he said. “I don’t know any thing more pa thetic than a room like this, filled with mementoes of the dead. It brings the thing home to one far more than any tomb la a churchyard. If it were not for the dust and decay, one might imagine that your mother had just gone out and was coming back. Look, there is some paint still on that palette and a book open on the chair!” “Yes. it Is dreadfully sad and depres sing. I very seldom come here; my father never does. I thought I had better tell you about it, now you are looking round, as it is a forbidden topic downstairs. We never refer to this room or to my mother in any way. My father seems to feel his loss as much now as he did twenty years ago.” “You hardly remember your mother, I suppose?” “Very little. I was too young at the time. But I seem to know her well, I have thought of her and pictured her to myself so often. I was rather a lonely child, and I used to He In the hall and look at her portrait by the hour together. There Is a sketch of her here, but I do not like that as well.” Carmichael stepped softly Inside the room—it felt like entering a church— and looked at the drawing that hung on the wall. It was a half-finisbed por trait of a woman of about twenty-eight, dainty, fragile, suggesting the grace and brilliance of a butterfly, but the eyes were a little hard, the mouth petu lant. Carmichael was reminded of a spoilt child who has tired of its toys. “How did she die?” he asked gently. Death seemed such an incongruous thing for that brilliant creature. She was palpitating with life from head to foot. She was looking out for fresh worlds to conquer. “In a railway accident. The ficst in timation my father had that anything was wrong was a telegram saying that «hc was among the dead. You can imagine what a terrible shock it was. He has never got over it. I don’t won der it made him what he is—stern and hard and unapproachable. He shut himself up with his trouble, and would have neither sympathy nor consola tion.’* Carmichael had not seen bis friend’s father before, and he looked at him with interest when they met at dinner, lie saw a tine, upright ok! man, with snow-white hair; but the face belied the bleached locks. It was so alive and nlei t. There was scarcely anything of rge in it. The eyes were almost un naturally bright and searching. The whole face, stern and hard though it was. looked young because of the life wiJ restlessness In it. There was none ot the repose that generally comes with years. Mr. Dallas did not talk more than courtesy demanded, but what he said was worth listening to. If he did not go much Into the world, he kept him self familiar with Its doings by the aid of books. Carmichael was keenly in terested in him from the first. It is not often. In these half-hearted days, that a man sorrows for twenty years; he looked about sixty now. That would make him forty when he lost his wife. She had been a good deal younger than he was then. One thing Cahmichael noticed—Mr. Dallas did not like the dark. As soon as the room began to get a little shadowy, hejiad the lamps lit and the curtains drawn. Carmi chael did not often make an impulsive remark, but he made one then. It was in answer to something Godfrey Dallas said about It being a pity to shut them selves up so soon. “You are fond of the night. I used to be,” he said; “but one wants to be very young to stop with It long. Now adays”—with a laugh—“lt depresses me a little. It seems to be always ask ing questions to which I have no satis factory answers, so I think it wiser to turn my back on it. I don’t know any thing like darkness and silence for find ing out the weak points of a man.” Mr. Dallas looked at him a little sharply, but be made no remark. “I wonder,” Carmichael said later on to Godfrey, when they were smoking to gether In the hall, “I wonder your fath er can bear to see that always there”— nodding at the portrait of Mrs. Dallas that hung on the w’all. “He must face it every morning when he comes down, every time he enters the house.” “It was there before my mother died,” Godfrey said. “Whatever pain it might cause him. he would not have it moved. He would think it was put ting a slight on her. That is her right place. He would not have her put out of sight and forgotten.' He is always most punctilious that every respect should be paid to her memory. The choicest flowers in the conservatories are used to decorate her grave.” This portrait fascinated Carmichael much more than the sketch In the Totver Room. Mrs. Dallas was quite a girl here —not more than twenty. It had been painted soon after her mar riage, Godfrey said. There was nothing hard in these eyes. They were the clear, laughing eyes of a child, that look out on the world and find it “very good.” The whole face was young and eager, and untouched by even the shad ow of a doubt. “What a gay, beautiful face it Is!” Carmichael exclaimed. “She looks such a radiant creature, the embodiment of youth n* its best. It might well break a man’s heart to lose her.” “When I was a small boy, I used to wonder where she bad come from— where she had gone to,” Godfrey said, softly. “I had never seen anything like her in real life. The people about me were quiet and grave and severe. With that face, in lief laces and flowers, can you wonder that I thought her a being of another world? I used to climb up on a high chair sometimes, and try to kiss her eyes. They always fascinated me. I shall never forget my father coming in once and finding me perched up here. He looked a moment from me to her, and went out without a word.” Carmichael thought of the unfinished sketch upstairs, and wondered why the face should have changed so much in less than ten years. That woman was a little tired, a little impatient of things as they were; she had known disillusion. Had she found her hus band too old for her gay, laughter-lov ing youth? He could not imagine that Mr. Dallas had ever been young as this girl was; he must always have been somewhat grave and austere. He came of Puritan stock. Well ’ It was all done with now. The pretty butterfly lay dead in her grave this many a year, and the man who had married her mourned her still, when probably a companion of her own age would have long ago consoled himself. But as the days went on, Carmichael was not so sure that was all over and done with. In spite of the years that had elapsed since the tragedy, Mrs. Dallas was not forgotten; her presence was still felt in the house. Even he, a stranger, was reminded of her every day in one way or another; he could not get her out of bis thoughts. It be gan to worry him after a time. He would wake up in the nighty with the GRANT COUNTY HERALD, LANCASTER, WISCONSIN. lovely face close to his, not gay like the one picture, or disappointed like the other, but sad and pleading. That was the word—pleading. The wonderful eyes were always asking something; trying to tell him something, it seemed to Carmichael. At last he could bear it no longer. “I know whether you will think I have gone out of my mind,” he said to Godfrey Dallas, “but I am tor mented by the Idea that your mother wants to tell me something. She quite haunts me.” The young man looked at him In amazement Of course, he knew some thing of what Carmichael had done, and the theories he held, but he had never thought of them being brought into use here. The idea revolted him. “I know it seems like sacrilege to you. I can quite understand your feel ing, and I hope you will believe that I have not sought for this. I have struggled against the Influence, but it is too strong for me. Either I must go away, or I must try and help. Your mother may have been wishing for years to make some communication to you, and I may happen to be the first person through whom she can speak. As you know, an electrician must have a ‘sensitive’ at the other end If the elec tric waves he sends traveling through space are to make any impression. Weil, the idea is the same here.” “But I don’t understand,” Godfrey stammered; “what can it be? What can she have to say? Why have we not felt this —my father especially? Surely she would come to us rather than a stranger?” “You have not given up your life to these matters, as I have; she may not be able to reach you. There must be spiritual rapport. As I said, a ‘sensi tive’ to receive the message.” “What do you want to do?” he asked, reluctantly. “I should like to pass a night in the Tower Room. That was your mother’s special room, where she spent most of her time. Her Influence would lie strongest there, and I may find out the meaning of this haunting. Of course, it is for you to decide, but I think,” impressively, “that it would be cruel —to her—if you refuse. You have known me long enough to trust me, I hope. You know I should not speak like this unless I had good cause.” The sorrowful face was before Car michael as he spoke—the piteous, en treating eyes. It was the look of a soul that cannot rest. “My father would never consent,” Godfrey said. “As you put it so strongly, I would agree myself, but he would not. Ndbody is allowed to re main in that room; very few people have seen it of late years.” “I would suggest that your father’s permission should not be asked. If I am mistaken, it would be a great pity to have troubled him for nothing, to have revived such painful memories. If, on the other hand, I am right in thinking that there is something wait ing to be revealed, it will be time enough to tell him when I have heard it. Whatever it may be, I promise,” laying stress on the word, “that you, at least, shall know what it is. Then you can use your own judgment whether you tell him.” And after some more discussion the matter was settled in this way. The old house was wrapped In si lence and darkness when Carmichael went up the ilttle staircase leading to the Tower Room. Godfrey had given him the key, and when he had opened the door, he locked it again on himself. He pushed open one of the windows, and a soft wind blew in, bringing a breath of life. It was a bright moon light night, and Carmichael stood ad miring the sweep of meadow and wood, with the misty hills in the distance. It was a beautiful view’. What had the girl thought of it whose favorite room this had been? Had she grown a little weary of it as the years passed? Car michael wondered. He sat down, facing the portrait on the wall. “What was it?” he murmured, uncon sciously speaking his thoughts aloud. “What went wrong? You would expect so much from life —too much I you were doomed to disappointment. For no body, not even for you, can it be ‘roses, roses all the way.’ Had the days be gun to drag? Did you feel like a bird in a cage up here?” The face looked back at him, holding his eyes. It changed as he gazed, and his breath came more quickly. The hard eyes grew sad and entreating, the whole face softened until it resembled the woman of his dreams. Presently, without realizing what he was doing, he took a pencil and paper from his pocket and began to write. He wrote automatically, quickly, and clearly like a machine, never pausing for a word. Until the pencil dropped from his fingers to the floor he did not know what he had been doing. He could not have told how he came to write, or what he had written. Pass ing his hand over his eyes, for he was still a little dazed, Carmichael picked up the sheet of paper, and read the message from the dead. It had “got through,” as he had thought it might, but In a way he had not anticipated. He had, of course, heard of automatic writing, but this was his first personal experience of it. “Forgive me,” it ran. “I cannot rest until you do. I had hardly gone before I repented. I would have come back, but he never left me for a moment. Oh! forgive me. It was you I loved all the time, but 1 grew tired of our quiet life. I wanted elmnge and excitement, and he knew how to work on iny weak ness. God was merciful, and sent death to save me. I died thinking of you.” That was all, but a life’s history can be told In a few words. Carmichael understood, as though he had heard the whole story. The brilliant butterfly creature, neither strong nor wise, but meaning no evil. The temptation, the sudden Impulse, repented of almost as soon as conceived. The swift retribu tion, which gave no time for explana tion or pardon, which left only the bare truth in Its hideousness. Mr. Dallas had kept his terrible secret all these years, kept It from everybody, even his own son. The next morning he sought an In terview with Mr. Dallas In the library. He looked at the stern, proud old face, miserable under all its pride; at the restless, seeking eyes, and he was thankful that at last the question they asked could be answered In a way to make for peace. As briefly as possible he explained how he came into posses sion of the paper he held, and then he put in down on the table and turned away. As Carmichael stood looking out of the window, he heard a broken voice sobbing, “Thank God! Thank God!” He saw the white head bowed on the hands above that message from the dead, and he went silently from the room.—Black and White. X-RAY USED AS DETECTIVE. Smnffglen Exposed in French Cus tom Houses. The French government has employ ed the Roentgen ray in a peculiar and certainly novel way. It is subjecting persons who pass through its custom houses to the X-ray in order to de termine whether they are smuggling articles upon which they should pay duty. On one trial mentioned 167 per sons were examined in forty-five min utes and on them were found jewels and merchandise hidden for the ex periment. A small jeweled locket was revealed under a young man’s tongue. Several watch chains were found in the coils of a woman’s hair. Card cases spread out flat under the feet in the shoes were revealed. Articles wrapped in many thicknesses of pa per and woolen fabrics were discover ed, and the account of this trial says these articles instead of being success fully hidden might as well in nearly every case have shouted out their ex istence and declared themselves on a manifest. What a fine thing it would be if the Roentgen ray could be successfully ap plied to proposed legislation and to legislators, if it could be made to re veal the presence of the little joker in the bill and the consideration lodged in the pocket of the legislator to in duce him to pursue a certain course of action! The X-ray of publicity is all right when properly applied, but it has not yet been developed to as high a degree of efficiency as the interesting scientific principle of Roentgen ray.— Minneapolis Journal. Willing; to Try. “Pulsatilla,” said the young lawyer, stirred by an emotion which he made no pretense of concealing, “will you listen to me for a few minutes?” She nodded. “I am about to ask a great deal of you—the most that any man can ask of any woman.” Still she did not stop him. She listened with downcast eyes. “I am but a beginner,” he proceed ed, “in law as well as in love. While I am confident of ultimate success, I realize that there Is no short cut to it. The way is rough and thorny. Good heavens, yes! Pulsatilla, do you know there are 4,000 lawyers in this town starving to death? It is the old contest that has raged from the be ginning of time. To the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest there are no exceptions. I must fight my way up or be trodden under foot. I do not deceive myself as to the strug gle that lies before me.” Wiping the perspiration from his brow he resumed, but in a different voice: “Dear girl, it would be unfair on my part to ask you to unite your destiny with mine without placing the case be fore you in all Its aspects. It would be unpardonable to assume that I am able to support a wife in luxury with my present income. But I have allow ed myself to dream that love would make all our burdens light I have dared to hope that I would have you by my side to cheer me on my way. Pulsatilla, dare you assume the risk of marrying a man who has nothing to offer you but health, strength, de votion, and an unconquerable determ ination to achieve success in life and make himself worthy of you?” “I am willing to make a stab at It, Billy,” she answered, raising her eyes trustingly to his. —Chicago Tribune. Babies* Club. A Paris journalist has founded a babies’ club. It is a spacious and pleasant building, with a garden, and a club house, where games of all kinds are provided. There is a Punch and Judy show, with a case, where sweets, cakes, tea, milk and various kinds of lemonade are sold to members and their parents, while there are also toy shops and a theater. Extravagant. Kind Lady—ls I give you this penny what will you do with it? Beggar —Hire a motor cab and show me friend Rigsby the town, ma’am.—ll lustrated Bits. You always knew what some people will speak about when you see them approaching: the weather. DAY OF GAMBLERS GONE. Men Are Now Ashamed to Admit That They Play Poker. Gambling was the pastime of rich and poor for centuries, condemned only by the fanatic and Puritan. The great est names in English history are in the betting books of Brooke’s and White’s, the clubs where fortunes asd estates changed hands at cards and dice each night. In this country no man lost esteem by reason of high play until the coming of the present generation. That era has ended. The law, sup ported by public sentiment, caused the “gambling king” of America to offer his SBOO,OOO hell at Saratoga. A house that cost him almost as much to build and decorate in New York has been unoccupied and unvisited for two years. Richard Canfield is a man of educa tion ; an appreciative lover of art; an agreeable companion of men of equal wealth and mental gifts. But his mil lions cannot buy the possession of the poorest laborer —the right to enter the home of a fellow man as a self-respect ing equal. He is an outcast. The gambler’s day is done. A century ago lotteries were ap proved in every community. The last one has been crushed by the national government, though it was intrenched in the constitution of a State. The policy vendor, forced to sell his chances in secret, is looked upon as a meaner criminal than the petty thief. No people love the thoroughbred horse more than Americans. But rac ing now is permitted in only four States, and in those is taxed and re stricted. Because it has been impos sible to divest the sport of its gambling accompaniment, cities like Chicago and St. Louis have forced the abandonment of tracks in which millions were in vested. Tennessee, one of the greatest breeding States, has put the ban upon all betting, and the persistent efforts of the past to legalize pool-selling in other States, like Pennsylvania and New Jersey, have proved more and more hopeless every year. The same class of men who sought their amusement openly in the gam bling hells, free to all comers, half a century ago, would be ashamed to ad mit to-day that they were in the habit of playing poker in private games. Gambling was regarded, at worst, as an excusable weakness generations af ter it was recognized as a moral and economic evil. It was condoned as piracy, smuggling, moonshining each in its heyday was condoned. And like those wrongs, gambling in turn has be come disreputable. Public gambling is dead by action of the law in every community where there is no alliance between crime and political corruption. Private gambling cannot be obliterated wholly by any law. Rut what the law cannot do pub lic sentiment is fast doing.—Boston Globe. FROM PILOT TO “SAMURAI.” ; Money is being raised in Japan to restore the monument of Will Adams, the first English resident of that coun try and the founder of the Japanese fleet. No fiction of adventure is more romantic and seemingly improbable than is the story of this Kentish pilot of the seventeenth century. , Lafcadio Hearn, in one of his books on Japan, tells the tale of the young English man’s rise to fortune. In 1600 Will Adams arrived in Japan in command of a Dutch ship. Adams had partaken of many a sea adventure, and had probably been brought in con tact with Hawkins, Drake, Sir Rich ard Grenville and the other celebrated voyagers of that day. He says himself, in his account of his life, that he “serv ed for Master and Pilott in her Ma jestle’s ships.” On landing in Japan Adams was tak en prisoner and sent to Osaka to the great Emperor lyesyasu. “As soon as I came before him he de manded of me of what countrey we w*ere,” says Adams. “So I answered him on all points. He asked whether our countrey had warres. I answered him yea. He asked as to the w’ay we came to the countrey. Having a chart of the w’hole w’orld, I showed him through the Straight of Magelan. He viewed me well and seemed to be w’on derful favorable.” The emperor attached Adams to his personal service, and later we read of the late pilot teaching his royal master “jeometry and understanding of the art of mathematicks.” Ada»iS was well provided for, and commanded to build ships for deep-sea sailing. Before long he was created Samurai, and an estate was given him. Surely no romance of that romantic age was stranger than the rise of this plain English pilot, with only his sim ple honesty and common sense to help him. He was in such extraordinary favor with the greatest and shrewdest of Japanese rulers that we read in a contemporary account: “The Emperor esteemeth hym much, and he may goe in and speake to hym at all times when Kynges and Princes are kept out.” Adams’ only cause for regret in his elevation to fortune was the fact that he was never allowed to visit his na tive land. His services were regarded as too precious to be spared. The em peror never refused him anything but this one privilege, and Adams did not dare urge the matter too hard, for, as he writes, “When I asked one too many times the Quid Emperour w’as silent.” The older the man, the less he tries to show off. Old Favorites Advice of Polonius. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertain ment Of each new hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, Bear it, that the opposed may beware of thee, Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in France, of the best rank and station, Are most select and generous, chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend i And borrowing dulls the edge of hus bandry. This above all —to thane own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day. Thou can’st not then be false to any man. Farewell; my blessing season this in thoa. —William Shakspeare. Treasures. i Let me count my treasures, All my soul holds dear, Given me by dark spirits Whom I used to fear. Through long days of angu’sh. And sad nights, did Pain Forge my shield, Endurance, Bright and free from stain 1 Doubt, in misty caverns, ’Mid dark horrors sought, Till my peerless jewel, Faith, to me she brought. Sorrow, that I wearied Should remain so long, Wreathed my starry glory, The bright Crown of Song. Strife, that racked my spirit, Without hope of rest, Left the blooming flower, Patience, on my breast. Suffering, that I dreaded, Ignorant of her charms, Laid the fair child, Pity, Smiling in my arms. So I count my treasures, Stored in days long past — And I thank the givers, »Vhom I know at last. —Adelaide Anne Procter. SEAL TAKES FISH OUT OF HAND. Old Ben, Pet nt Avalon Harbor, as Wise as a Trained Seal. Old Ben, the famous old seal of Ava lon, is still in his old haunts among the rowboats and launches that dot the little harbor, says the -Los Angeles Times He has been there for thirty five years and in that time became as tame as the seals which are confined in parks and aquariums. He is as wise as the trained seals of Ringling’s cir cus, and were he to be captured and put with them he would c3st his keep ers a tidy fortune, for he has the big gest appetite of any of his kind ever known. Old Ben feasts on the big fish brought in by the hundreds of anglers that visit Catalina each summer. At each meal he will consume a half-dozen big albicore or skipjacks, aggregating 125 pounds in weight. When he is hungry he swims up near the boat land ing, where his favorite befriender, Charles Tompkins, has his boat stand. After a glance at the fish rack he sets to barking and diving about until he has attracted the attention of those on the pier. He will crawl clear up on the float after food, but even when ex tremely hungry he cannot be induced to remain there. As soon as he has seized his fish, he dives back into the bay, rising to the surface now and then to give his food a vicious toss as he tears out mouthfuls of flesh. At these times he is often followed by other smaller seals which are too timid to approach the landing. Gulls also pur sue the old sea lion and seize the mor sels which are torn loose from the fish as it is being consumed. This old pet of the bay has attained a great weight from the constant easy supply of food within bis reach. He has never been on a scales, but esti mates of his weight, made by causing him to cross planks up to a size that he would no longer break, give it close to 1,400 pounds. His sleek, gray-brown back is often seen dashing between the bathers, who scatter in wild commotion whenever he appears. He has an utter disregard for people and things and roams about the bay in whatever place suits his fancy. Before Catalina was made a resort Old Ben is supposed to have been the chief of the colony on Seal rocks. Pre sumably he was vanquished by some younger rival, and now leads the life of an outcast. He seems to find this entirely agreeable, how-ever, and has succeeded in coaxing several others of the colony Into the bay with him. His face is scarred with the marks of many battles, and he has lost the sight of his right eye. but he rules his little band in the bay as supremely as his successor on the rocks governs the col ony. Giris chase the boys so hard here lately that the boys are using their mothers’ parlors more to • entertain them in.