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VHE DIPPER AND THE
Be bold a dipper in his hand.
And bravely did h» ply
With all the strength nt his command,
To dip the ocean dry.
“And all the ships that sail,” says ho,
“And go from land to land,
On the dry bottom of the sea
Shall sink into the sand.
“The wa ves are powerless to resist,
Through me fulfilled shall be
The words of the evangelist,
‘There shall be no more sea.’ *
And so he plies his dipper fast,
And does not cease to try.
As long as strength and life shall last^
To dip the ocean dry.
And like this madman even we,
With little dippers trj\
To drain the easiness of the sea,
And flip the ocean dry.
The sea of knowledge with its din
Before us breaks, and we.
We thrust our little dippers in,
And think we've drained the sea.
And bound within a narrow creed,
Shut in by walls and towers,
We deem we have no further need—
The truth of God is ours.
Then let the endless babblers be,
Who for more wisdom cry.
We’ve thrust our dippers in the sea
And drained the oceau dry.
—.S'. tV, Foss, in Winker Blade.
A MODERN KNIGHT.
BY EVELYN THORP.
*My dear boy, what v will you? Call
the fact tantastie; call it absurd. But
as a fart it lemains. Useless to talk to
Mignon, useless to approacn her. She
las her ideas, her very foolish ideas,
ion say that you fell in love with her
before you knew who she was. That
your passion has waxed warm and true,
even while you have never spokeu to
nei. 1 hat such a passion should be ro-
mantic enough to satisfy even her. 1 tell
you, no. Are you descended from some
Crusader? Do you date back to the year
one thousand. No. You have uo
glamor about you; you have no escutch- j
eon, to^ be gilded or otherwise. Y ou are
I’^ 0 Rob Beckwith, an unadorned Atner-
ican. **ove you for self? You don’t
know tins young ward of mine. I can
give you no hope*. Keep away. I hat is
“J, 81 advice.
This letter was directed, sealed, and
Mr. . lassey looked at it a moment before
sending it.
‘Little, ooi. YY here would ^ she find
siulr a husband as Rob! But I care for
the oy toy well to allow him to entangle
his affections lor naught. She would
never have him. Better let him know
the truth from the tirst.'’
The band was playing and the wind
6tirred softly iu the acacias. The people
who had just sauntered out from the table
d note of the Hotel du Norcl wandered
leisurely to and fro. Little Miss Fit/,-
gerald watched the whole foreign scene
gloomily, the cqnkcrwonn of home-sick-
ness eating out her heart as it had done
rver since the Umbria swung out of her
New Work pier three months before. She
was sacrificing her own inclinations n
coming abroad to her niece, that adorably
pretty girl, whose eyes non rested ou the
human kaleidoscope before her with a
zest us keen as Miss Fitzgerald's lack of
interest was apparent.
But now Miss Fitzgerald said tenta-
lively.
“If your guardian—if Mr. Massey
comes abroad in a fortnight. 1 suppose,
Mignon, he will prefer to return again
before the autumn? Do you think you
would be willing to return with him, ray
dear? - ’
There was no reply, for a Hush that
wav like the reflection of some sunset
cloud had suddenly dyed the girl’s lovely
cheek. A tall and dark-eyed young man
approached the chairs where the two la-
dies sat.
“Do you know this young man?”
*
queried Miss Fitzgerald, struck by
something insistent in the strauger's
glance
“ Nu, aunt, said Mignon, averting
“
her face.
But when the music was over and the
ladies arose, tlu-re floated toward them a
certain little cosmopolitan widow whose
acquaintance they had by chance made
'
in traveling. ,
“Dear Mis- Fitzgerald, I want,”cried
this lady, “to introduce a most charming
fellow to you—Count Hohn. lie speaks
English as well as you or I. Do let me
make the introduction.”
Ami before Miss Fitzgerald could find
breath she had raised her hand beckon-
Ingly, and the tall and dark-eyed younsr
man of half au hour before was bowing
to the ground before the little spinster
and her niece.
Count Hohn proved worthy of the en-
dorsement given him. Even little Miss
Fitzgerald, whose dread of “foreigners”
was ingrained aud inveterate, was com-
pelled to admit that she had never
supposed a German Count could be so
nice.
“There are times when he seems to
me just like one of our own young men
at home,” observed the little lady in the
course of a few days.
“He dots not seem that to me at all,”
asseverated Mignon with unusual quick-
ness.- “Anything but that!”
Her aunt turned her eyes upon her in
mild surprise. What had come over
Mignon? Prone to dreams and sun-
dry exaltations such she had always been.
But now there was something more.
About the lines of her mouth and eyes
there had come an intensity, wistfulness
and far-awayness that had not been there
before. She started at unexpected with¬ foot-
steeps. She flushed or grew pale
out visible reason. She studied German
poetry by the hour. Count Holm trans¬
lated its appealing sentiments for her in
amazingly faultless English—faultless accent—and she
save for a very slight
listened with lowered eyelids and a flut-
tering color in her cheek.
Her little aunt’s words recurred to her
a few days later as she found herself
walking with the young man through the
sun-flecked woods, up toward the old
castle that dominated the town from its
shadecl heights. All about them was a
warm scent of pine, and he was talking
slowly, softly, bending his graceful dark
head.
“Long before I knew you I loved
you,”he was saying, and though she tried
feebly to stein the current of this pre-
cipitious declaration, he continued:
“You think these mad words? You
doubt my sincerity? I know that the
American race is slower and calmer in its
affections; that it repudiates our warmer
passions ami gives them no faith. But,
ah! how wrong you are! If you
knew-”
4 a We are not all of that mind.” threw
iu the girl, beneath her breath.
“Ah! if only you were not! If you
could believe that I loved you, even be-
fore I hacl spoken a word to you, with a
most true, a most faithful, a most en-
during passion! You resume the whole
world to me! The light of sunrise and
of sunset lingers for me in your eyes!
Yes, I love you! Will you turn me away
because, forsooth, as conventional stand*
aids go, I am still a stranger to you to*
day?”
The words were eloquent, but the
voice and the eyes that looked into hers
were more so. Like an American? No!
"What countryman of hers,however noble
and loving, could be so chivalrous, so
romantic? The background of a long
and interesting past, the traditions of an
old race shone about the man pleading
with her like a halo. She bad always
been enamored of these things, and now
she found every condition fulfilled in his
person. They had reached the grass-
grown courtyard of the castle, and as they
paused there, the gray ruined walls about
them and the canopy of blue sky above,
the young man began to tell her of an-
other castle—a ruined raediteval castle
that was his and that he would have
stored for the abode of the woman who
might love him. Again Mignon listened
with a changing color. All about them
there was silence; the rest of the party
had dropped behind.
llow did it come about? Neither
ever knew. But abruptly Mignon had
looked up and met the young man's ar-
dent glance. And then he stooped, and,
taking her tenderly, reverently in his
arms, he kissed her!
From the spell of that sudden unex-
pccted, ineffable moment both were
shaken by approaching steps and voices.
Was it the rest of the party that had
lagged behind and now tardily joined
them?
Mignon, crimsoning and trembling,
kept tier eyes on the ivy-colored wall in
front of her and her shoulders turned.
But Count Holm looked in the direction
of the advancing steps and incontinently
stood as though petrified. Through the
half-ruined arch of the great gateway
there came, not little Miss Fitzgerald
and the residue of the company, but a
portly traveler, accoinpauied by a guide,
and who at the sight rccognizingly of the young under man
smiled broadly and
his greybeard. boy! And
“Hello, Rob! YVell met, my
you, Miss Mignon, too? Come and greet
your guardian, you little rogue, and
don’t stand staring there! Y'es, I took
a berth on one of the German lines just
a week sooner than I expected. Found
I could get off and here I am.”
As he talked Mr. Massey had been
looking from one of the young people to
the other, and the smile had begun to
fade from his face and to give place to a
puzzled frown. YVhat was amiss with
Roll Beckwith? He stood there, white,
speechless, with evasive eyes, not the
frank fellow he knew him to be at ail.
And Mignon had passed from the dream-
ing child as which her guardian remem-
bered her into a stately woman whose
glance seemed to wither the young man
to the ground. slowly, and she
“Uncle!” she said
pointed to the suppositious Teutonic no-
blemau. “So you know who this is? ’
“Do I know who Rob Beckwith is? I
should hope so! And lam glad that you
seem to know, too. Y’ou’ve heard of the
Beckwiths long ago, heaven knows,
They’ve been my neighbors at home for
years. I had no idea that Rob was
knocking about this part of Europe ^ust
now, however.”
The last word expired abruptly, for
Mignon had turned from them without a
sound and vanished through the cool
shadows of the gray and broken arch
******
“I don’t say that I uphold him,” cried
Mr. Massey impatiently. “I repeat that
it was a knavish piece of deception—only
proving how lost to the laws of what is
honorable and what is not a fellow can
become when he has the misfortune to
fall in love with one of you women. Eat
I do say that Rob meant no harm. It's
true that he loved you before ever you
laid eyes on him. He used to see you
coming to my house at home, and one
day he wrote to me, just before you
came abroad, telling me how he felt
about you. I replied that your head
was so turned with nonsensical European
romance that I believed he had not the
shadow of a chance. So I suppose he
took the matter in his own hands. You
had made up your mind to marry a title,
a historic name, the scion of an old fam¬
ily, and he played Claude Melnotte to
the Lady of Lyons. Presumably he
thought if you once learned to love him
for himself you would not mind when
you discovered that he was, after all,
j only plaiu Rob Beckwith—who is pos¬
sessed of a very fair fortune of his own,
by the way.” uncle.”
‘‘You need say nothing more,
Mignon spoke coldly, collectively, im-
pessively. “You need not excuse Mr.
Beckwith to me. He knows his own of-
fense, and I know it. We will leave the
subject.”
In silence they descended the stairs
and entered the carriage, where Miss
Fitzgerald already sat. Another carriage
behind carried their luggage. They
were going, Mignon had said, always
with the same strange calmness, thr.t she
did not care where, only they must go.
Rob Beckwith’s repeated prayers absolutely for an
interview, a hearing, she had
disregarded, he,”
“I ha ye nothing to say, nor has
had been her one remark.
Down the town street they now rat-
, tied at a brisk pace. Mignon had her
white, set face turned away, speakingno
j word. Near the railroad station another
street crosses the one on which they were
driving, and a momentary confusion of
hurrying carts, carriages and drays oc-
curred. Still wrapped in her icy ab-
sorption, Mignon heard a sudden shriek
that pierced the air. Miss Fitzgerald
sat bolt upright with a palid face, Mr.
Massey sprang out just as their own car-
riage halted, and then Miguon saw Rob
Beckwith's tense visage in the crowd,
saw him throw himself forward,
It was like a dream to the girl. Slowly
the truth came to her benumbed percep-
tions. A child—a pitiful little street
waif—had fallen under the horse’s hoofs,
and Rob Beckwith, in the desperate at-
tempt to save the child, had been dashed
senseless to the ground,
They raised him softly and bore him
to the nearest house. Then Mr. Massey
turned upon the girl a face as white as
that inanimate one, but thrilled by a
strange passion of scorn.
“Talk to me of your romantic dreams,
girl! These are the true knights—this
the heroism, the nobility that count men
among the great ones of the earth!”
* * * * * *
It was a long and slow battle, but Rob
Beckwith pulled through. A week or
two of convalescence there was for him
after the wasting fever and then he said
to his old friend:
“I must go home so soon as I can,
Mr. Massey. YcAi understand/that I can
never meet your ward again. It would
be a miserable embarrassment. I wish
to save myself and her. How much Ire-
gret my most abominable folly no words
can say. She can never forgive me, of
course. Once I thought she loved me.
But that, naturally, must have passed
now. I see, at present, how fallacious
j was any hope I could ever have had to
the contrary. Yes, I must go at once.”
To this there was no reply. When
the young man looked up he saw that
Mr. Massey had left the room. Butin
his place stood Mignon, with a light iu
her eyes such as had shone there when he
kissed her lips under the shadows of the
ruined castle wall,
“Mignon!” he whispered, overcome
by awe, by the presence of a hope too
rapturous for belief.
Softly she came and knelt beside his
couch.
“I love you, plain Rob Beckwith, my
nineteenth century knight,” she said.—
Mew York Mercury.
The Oldest Y'cssel Afloat.
The oldest sailing vessel afloat!
YVhat must she look like and what is
her history? She is 110 years old, built
in Baltimore in 1780. Her name is the
Vigilant. She has since then been a coast-
er, a peaceful common carrier of merchan-
dise, a slaver and a pirate, and now to-day
she does good service as mail carrier be-
tween St. Thomas and Santa Cruz in the
West India Islands. Her owner, Mr. S.
Beuthany, of Santa Cruz, was in Bangor
Sundayand displayed a picture of the old
craft which was taken last summer as the
vessel was rounding a coral reef under full
sail. The picture is a good one and the
lines ot the craft are well brought out.
How-much of the original craft is there
now?” asked the reporter,
“The keelson and main tributors of
the hull which are laid in the construction
of her are still there,” said Mr. Penthany,
“and they are good for many years to
come.”
YVhat a story would the history of this
craft make !—Bangor (Me.) Meics.
YVho Arc the Greatest Readers?
YY T hich class of our population is the
most addicted to reading? Some in-
teresting light is thrown on this question
by the latest report of the Birmingham
Free Libraries Committee. Among other
tables therein given is one showing the
occupations of borrowers admitted dur-
ing 1889. Here are some of the figures:
Scholars and students, 1392; clerks and
bookkeepers, 113S; errand and office
boys, 301; teachers, 293; shop assist-
: ants, 290; jewellers, 216; eompositor#
and printers, 192; milliners and dress-
; makers, 109. Almost at the bottom of
the list come journalists, six; news
agents, two. and reporters, two. Is this
because they have libraries of their own,
or because the people who write in news-
papers lose the taste for reading bookj?
— Pall Mall Gazeltt.
CENTRAL GEORGIA ALLIANC
WAREHOUSE.
Cotton Received, Stored and Handled at Lowest Prices.
INSURANCE LOW. ■ «* WFSGHT Fill
OUR MOTTO;
We Price Our Own Cotton.
R. W. BONNER, Manager, Macon, fi
ALLARD BARNWELL, Salesman.
C. G. HILSMAN & CO.
DEALERS IN
GROCERIES,
Hardware and Clothin
Of Every Quality, Style and Price.
We also sell Wagons, Buggies and Sewing Machines, in fact, nearly everytl
to be found in either a city or country store.
We have established a branch store at Culloden for the accommodation of,
ustomers, and are now doing a general supply business.
Wc have an extensive ginnery with all modern conveniences.
Will gin and buy all the cotton brought us without delay and guard
satisfaction.
We solicit your patronage and cordially invite you to give us a trial.
HILSMAN A FINCHER BROS., Robley, Ga.
H. T. FITZPATRICK. J. M. .I0RDJ
FITZPATRICK & JORDAN
C ulloden, ■ ■ Georgia i
Experience has taught us that the quick sale and short profit system couple] a
ini the most satisfactory to both buyer and seller. This system,
honest dealings, are the principles on which we base our hopes of sum*)
Our Stocls. Consists of
DRY GOODS, NOTIONS, SHOES. HATS, HAROWI
GROCERIES, I
An in fact everything usually found in a first-class general merchandise
We handle the Celebrated OLD COLONY Sl|
in Mens goods, and the QUEEN A® I
CRESCENT in Ladies’ goods- Every | I
pair guaranteed
Wc will open very soon a handsome line of goods suitable for Christmas j®
We guarantee thank prices arainst any friends market for the within liberal your patronage reach on given eveiy us, article aniM m]
We heartily our many
solicit a continuance of the same.
FINCHER BROTHERS.
WATCHMAKERS AND JEWELERS,
°/C Harris House B1
9 & x
^iJ9989i FORT VALLEY,
; 9 t Keep a Full Line of Watches, Clocks,
<9 S* ^ p Roll Plate Jewelry, Bridal and Christmas P-
vW /
= 5 . RAILROAD WATCHES A SPECI
, e>
•j- ■r Best makes at lowest prices, Every Will (lu artu P ^ j
9 of any city, North or South.
teed just as represented.
REPAIRING A SPECIALTY
Silverware, Sewing M aC
SB Spectacles, Etc-
• Q ent^
> iSliomer
Finest in the
^ETALU^-'
FINCHER BRO
E L. BURDICK »
DEALER IN
Corn, Meat, Flour, Hay, Oats, Meal, Wheatf
Sugar, Coffee, Lard, Syrup, Tobacco,
Salt. Bogging, Ties, etc.
A\ hen you come to M icon call and see rue and get my prices.
E. L. BURDICK *
11 ac^ 1
43, Poplar Street,