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STONE OF WINSTED <<-|T">^ETERr B Jr Clear and strong the caressing cadences j| of the Wizard of Winsted fell into the "^^ depths of a well. \u25a0 •••/.•''•"" "81-u-u-p!" Quick was the response to the summons. A dark and graceful form shot with arrowlike swiftness from the sandy bottom, and Peter, the Tunneling Trout, emerged half out of the water with a look of polite interest on his high bred and intelligent face. He did not speak, but it was as if he said: P faster, lam come to your bidding bowed." le Wizard smiled and waved his hand. Peter, seeing that it contained no worm, disappeared as suddenly as he had come. To whom else would a dumb creature respond like this but to Louis Timothy Stone, the man who made Winsted famous? Winsted? Yes. Winsted, Litchfield county, Connec ticut, near the foothills of the Berkshire*; Winsted, the home of the bait retrieving hen, of the grateful woodpecker who, saved as a callow fledgling by a dairyman, remained forever in his service boring holes in Switzer cheese; Winsted, which not all the anathe mas against nature faking ever stirred from its proud pre-eminence as a mart for -wondrous tales; Winsted, where Puss of the Woods became a household pet; Winsted, home of the biggest frog in the world; Win sted, the center from which went the tidings of Pro fessor Pupin's parentless pig* and the duck which put something aside for a rainy day, hatching rattle snake eggs for bounty. "It was- thoughtless of me," observed the Wizard of Winsted with a sigh, "not to have had a worm for . Pete, but, unfortunately, ours became extinct. There used to be plenty of good bait along the edge of the little brook over there, and some fine trout, too. The hens went there, scratching around for breakfast, and they were very successful at first, but they soon real ized that the fish were eating the very choicest and fattest worms. Those trout were the most greedy that I ever saw. They jumped out of water to the bank, seized their prey and flopped back again. The hens saw that two or three times, and_one day they held a consultation. It happened to be a pretty bad year for potato bugs, and my friend was giving them a pans green diet. One day the hens helped themselves to all the poison they could load on their beaks and went down and washed off their mouths in the brook. The parts green, of course, got into the water and killed off all the fish, as those chicken Borgias in tended. There have been none since, and the hens, having no ideas about conservation, ate up all the worm preserves, and now there is hardly any bait on this place at all." "But you saved Peter?" I suggested. PETER'S SIMPLE STORY "Yes," replied the Wizard, calmly and deliberately. "Pete is a good sort. I am much attached to him. You remember my story of the tunneling trout. Pete is a subway maker. He got away from the upper brook, following a hidden watercourse of some kind; may have used a mole for a tunneling shield, but I doubt it Anyway, Pete arrived with a muddy nose in the lower spring, where I found him. He. has lived here ever since. I 'hadn't the heart to drive him away." "81-u-u-p!" A flash of glossy side, and a fin waved above the water, and although Peter did not exactly say it, surely none could doubt that he meant "Thank you." Winsted is grateful to Louis Timothy Stone,' for before he began his picturesque career as faunal naturalist for the New York newspapers the town was not on the map. Pike county had a monopoly and drove a hard bargain with the downtrodden Sun day editors, making its stories longer every year and insisting: on special rates even for such items as bears putting up scarecrows to frighten away the birds from the blackberries. It was twenty years ago that, modestly at first and then by slow degrees, Louis Timothy Stone came as the foe of the snake yard trust and brought into life his dependable accounts of the happenings of the New England countryside. , Winsted rests in a chalice of hills and- near it arc the jewels of three lakes, which on clear days arc like great expanses of turquoise. For miles round about are flourishing farms, each connected with the world by long distance telephone and also with the sympathetic ear of the Seer. Litchfield county is a whispering gallery to him, with the Berk- N-73|£YMG an Unvarnished Account vf^ r^Mcut, the Master of Wondrous Tales, the, Qu)ner of the Tunnelling Trout, the. Inventor of the Cheese Boring Wood oecker and the Only Human Being 'Who Saxv the preat Frog shires as a sounding board. No story of the doings of beast or bird comes out of the thicket- or the wood but what "Stone of Winsted" knows. Being a wizard of fairness of mind, he spreads what he learns to ascertain if such and such a locality has a better offering., And, strange to relate, before the wires are ' heated even more remarkable occurrences have been found, for nothing is too good for the metropolitan journals, which the Seer zealously, serves. He is the city editor of a daily paper in Winsted, t which means that he gets most of the news, edits the foreign and telegraph dispatches, attends to .the market reports, keeps his eyes and his ears open for those wonder v. tales garnered with such conscientious care and*' writes advertisements. V : ": ; .'',]'<\u25a0;£„ HIS LAKE RETREAT " ' . : Great inspirations \u25a0 come to the "man who : made Winsted famous" amid the seclusion of. his summer home on the shores of Highland lake. Here it is that ' he harvests $20 a year from his chestnut trees and also writes many of his most profitable contributions. Wintergreen is the name of this Arden of-10 acres, which slopes down to the edge of the water, and, within~its boundaries are brooks for fish, trees for birds of strange plumage, caverns in the living rock where weird animals come to hibernate until the spring critter yarn season has come, and .cavities, where ancient toads may come forth to tell feebly of the paleozoic age, bless Louis Timothy Stone and die. Beauteous and romantic Wintergreen, home of checkerberries and stories of checkered animal 'lives, holding within its limits the cottage where the Wizard of Winsted goes to commune with the secrets of earth and sky. His bedroom is an octagonal chamber perched on the second story, from the seven broad windows of which he can view the lake and shore and wood and dale with the rising of the sun., Practical and direct is Louis Timothy- Stone. His square jaw, his clear blue eyes, his 'broad forehead are not those of the dreamer, but would characterize the hard working man of affairs'. When he speaks it is with an air of conviction. He looks the auditor squarely in the face and tells his story without the quiver of a muscle. His voice takes on inflection only when he. talks of his friends of furred and feath ered tribes. He was born in Winsted in 1875,. and after completing his high- school course plunged into r the vortex of journalism, twenty years ago, and with in a year after his entrance into the lists he had "landed" his first story. It was something about a chipmunk and a poker game. ' , . His humble beginnings enabled him to acquire this domain on the shores of the lake, and to add to it year by year. Such is the gratitude of nature that the birds of the air and the creatures of' the wood and field pay for theif shelter and add to the preserve by furnishing stories for metropolitan markets. Like ginseng, some of these narratives are disposed of in condensed form and have much of the zest dried out of them, yet for all that every little helps. Winter green grows larger as' the years add luster -to the 1 fame of Winsted and its sage. HATCHED BY HAND \ t "I do not suppose," said the .teller of -talcs, "that anything more happens in Winsted and its neigh borhood than in" any other large ruraP community, but I take as much care as I can to get, all of interest which docs occur and to present it in compact form. I find some of them here. Now, there was the crow which w^s hatched by hand." ,' "The which?" I asked. * "Claude Berne," -began Mr. Stone in : - a low and even voice and.with that intensive earnestness which shows a minute attention to details, "is a> neighbor of mine, and here is the 11 * tree where we found the nest of "a crow, perhaps deserted by^thc unkind mother or perhaps the parents were slain by some wanton hand. There were four eggs in the nest, and Claude took two and I had the others. : He wanted to carry his home and put them under a sitting. white duck" just to see what the effect would be, and El. had ? some scheme to hatch mme i by . electricity. Claude down the road with his: two eggs, walking.'under the broiling sun, when suddenly a beak came out of one of the shells and -a- little black crow hopped out'fbn his hand. He took it home and tried to raise it Vnder a- white hen, but as only one kind of a crow is wel come in apoultry yard trie poor little'; chap died of 'a broken heart.". ! s • " : LOUIS TIMOTHY STONE. The Only Photo graph of Sheriff Midb dlebrook's Giant Frog* \u25a0/\u25a0 _ \u25a0«&\u2666# \u25a0 " - r"^ \u25a0 \u25a0•\u25a0 - -\u25a0\u25a0 . We had wandered unconsciously* to the well, and looking down we beheld the smiling— yet perhaps it was all imagination — the mocking countenance of j the " intelligent; Peter. . \ ''--... The Sage tossed a bit of soda cracker to the Tun neling Trout, andiout of the depths' shone the eyes of the- creature, which nowTsecmed all confidence. and ; trust. \ / ; - • ' One of i the charming places \ on ; trie estate of ' Louis j Timothy-Stone, where the,; prophet rests while the ravens paring him : food, is completely, shut in : by ' the " giant/; pine trees, where for years v the dried needles , have -been accumulating :ina;C carpet in which one's > feet sink ankle deep".' His favorite -seat, howeveiyvis.^ by' a spring in \u25a0 the center of his .demesne^ " between^ the upper and . lower - vegetable gardens, . and f rom its cool waters: a simple ; lifting of : a rope brings 7 ! to light a \ basket : filled : with -bottles of cooling^ arid ! sparkling drink. The • glasses are brought frigid frornj the ; same -delectable' source, > and here, where; the waters rins^fromnature'sifouhtainVahd' the ibifds- 1 blithely sing and the chipmunks leap from bough to bough, the Wizard of Winsted js at his best. His mind dwell almost^ tenderly upon all the children of his brain. , "Out there somewhere," said he, indicating the lake, with the biberon in his hand; "is the Sheriffs giant frog. He oame ashore one day and we man aged to get a photograph of him, and then he jumped off the pier when he realized whac' had happened." \u25a0Everybody remembers the Giant Frog oij Winsted, .\u25a0 pictured not so long ago^: tall as the persons who. stood near him and as wide as a barn. The lake:is said, to have risen half an inch" after his plunge back into its bosom. * : Professor .Michael Pupin, the eminent authority qn electricity, who is ; connected . with Columbia uni versity, lives not ; far 'from the retreat of the fame maker of- Winsted., lUs farm bore tragedy, for an automobile ran over Getrulda, the mother of as.hne a- porcine litter -as ever graced Connecticut. The "cvifly tailed \orphar.s were in despair. They pined for food.aiTd mother and refused ordinary fare. The rrofessor .mounted a storage battery of nursing bot tlcs-in'a trough, pig high, and in the form of a plate dryingrack or a saw buck. The necks of the bottles, with -their rubber ' feeding appliances, were placed through the holes bored in Uie side of the rack and the bottles being thus placed with their bottoms up and" well secured afforded rapid feeding by gravi tation. The young porkers : took to" this substitute in avidv aud ; joyous 'fashion, as -was evidenced by the' swift "moving of- their tails. They all flourished. In the chill spring they ( were accustomed to lie down by ; the kitchen stove until the season advanced The , Curly Tailed Orphans and Their Storage Battery o Nursing Bottles In the Xhill Spring fThcy Were Accusr horned vto Lie Down by the Kitchen Stove aufficieiitly to permit them to wander in the open and to achieve a sty? . * WILD MEN j AND WRAITHS h.Whatj memories cluster about old Winsted! . How the news came over the \u25a0 wire fifteen years ago:— "Wild man loose, terrorizing country! Posse. How much?" :> How the -reporters went, by shoals to be received at the station by the Sagejiimself, then slender and with the bloom "of youth in his cheeks! How he conducted them through „ swamp and field and briar patch! *v Shall that memorable Sunday ever be for gotten when . farmers- reported that they had seen a monster with eyes of flame, with his. great shock ofblood red hair and his eyes? How the '-. hero of . Buena Vista had , fifed at him . and the creature had bounded away leaving in" his v wake a thinicrirhson trail!' Ah, ; halcyon 'days were those! [\u25a0;.;'\u25a0 Wizard- 6f ; Winsted, it : has; been jnany a day since you * have brought such -z tale as that ' "So i you "know," ' commented ) hv M as { he / sippad :In The .San' Francisco Sunday' Call ) reminiscent mood, "I have often d^^°J^ wfldman was? Do you suppose that old Blank could have started all that to keep the chO. dren from getting into his blackberries , . Who can ever forget the spook onksunkamon^ who rose a flaming wraith out ot the floor of tto club house there,' and with primitive gudgeon pur sued the merrymakers nearly to the -L.tcW.eld hne? \u25a0 It was a* good ghost story, and the descriptions ot the spirit gathered by the able correspondent himself were duly reproduced in pictures, and never to tnv day has that ghost of the silent frozen lako b*m laid. •*" VERSATILITY AND VIM IN HIM Meteorological information of all kinds comes iroqf Winsted. It is not recorded that late one Octobrf Mrs. Ellen M: Wright .was picking raspberries by th» quart and that dahlias were still in' bloom. A %V£* armed matron had been brought from Canada to \u25a0wash all Jittlc children in Winsted and put them to bed amid* squalls: Where but in that Connecticut town and "who but Louis Timothy Stone could have discovcred^natjhc decision- would have been reached by Mr. and -Mrs: Josiah Whitscomb to change occu pations? "He to stay at home and wash dishes; she to work in the factory. • > How tfi"c news^ simmers. out of Winsted when the indefatigable Wizard invokes the muse I In one dis • patch he announced that Minister Rpckhill was back from China, that a pig running wild for two months had been captured, that five large rattlesnakes and violets" had been seen as harbingers of spring, and a new order issued on the railroad was to make all conductors look the younger. . It is nearly time for the floating islands on Goose pond, in the Berkshires, to beirin circulating. J hcv break adrift occasionally and then fishermen sitting on the Sargossa like wastes cut holes in the sod, drop their lines- through and haul up gudgeons in great and considerable quantities. Who can drive from his mind that beautiful lyric entitled "Wets Want Wicked Pumpkin Pie," based on the guile of certain restaurateurs who placed more spirits than vegetable in the pastry which they sold in a temperance town? What of the squirrels, which, threw limburger cheese at a man who had tormented hem? How time flies! They have long since re lented of their unsavory deed and died in the odor of sanctity. When the discussion concerning race sui cide was at its height did not the .wires from Winsted sing with the story of the barber blessed with an eleventh child and who was immediately called upon by a delegation of democrats, who insisted that he accept a nomination for the' legislature? LAY OF GRATEFUL HEN Mr. H.-C. Spaulding had the grateful hen which ii return for her board dug worms for him. The bir{ whenever she saw her master going for his fishing pole and basket ran like one possessed to the gzr den and brought in her beak worm after worm so that -he might go on his excursion well provided with bait. :^t£ "It was a good story," remarked the Wizard of Winsted, "and so true, although another man got it first, but I made New York with it. in time." How many boys have been saved from rcckles> ness by the simple warning -which came from Win sted .in the story of the rude youngster who dis turbed his teacher in "school by blowing into and bursting a paper bag, and in so doing broke both baj and hand. All the accounts which the Wizard commits to th« wings of the morning have names attached and al ways suitable ones. What would a man named OtU E. Gillette do, for instance? He would be resourceful, brilliant and inventive. He was tormented by the attacks of mosquitoes on the bare citadel of his brainy and at once had a picture of a spider painted on thir\ top of his bald head, which frightened away ereij; pest within lighting distance. Phineas Aldrich captured 29 skunks yinv in one day, selling them for. $80.25, and it was a \u25a0 gentleman of a similar name who had many of these interesting \u0084 animals as household pet 3, so great was their ad- I miration for the bonhomie and clfeerfulness which t. he had ever displayed. When the president fared ori opossum in the south Winsted and its environs were not to be outdona."p One old settler declared that he knew wildcat soupM to be beyond compare; a second recommended con-ff somme de 'woodchuck; a third was sure .that blacV , lynx puree would fill the bill Peanuts "win the hearts of. squirrels near Winstedj| andthat appetency of theirs resulted in a great sar^ ing for Mr. .Thomas Hicks. One appreciative rodenM on the payment ~bf 10 goobers was acctwiomed t«; brush off Mr; Hicks' shoes with his bushy tail, taking the end' of it in hi3^eeth and swinging backward anda| forward imparting that brisk action so. necessary toS a perfect polish. . "Jf - . . I It* was only last May, at; Winsted that a trout (noU« Peter) bit a man and hung to i him v for a quarter of aY mile as he ran, finally relinquishing his hold when h^ came to an inviting stream. " ; These are only -a few of Ithe. 1 traditions on which^ the mind'of the .Wizard to! dwell -as he sit-^P on; Sunday . afternoon ' listening; to nature's teaching« rand; taking, deep draughts at the sprin^f Peace- be to" him ; at ;;Wintexgfeeh;\ where the laurel* grows^ and the wliite. blackbirds sing, and long life t« Peter in the limpid pool and to all; raven* hatched b^ hand, " bSBHRSHI