Newspaper Page Text
KATV Din
t tiint a note to Katy, and was waiting her
reply;
But the carrier went his several rounds and
always passed me by.
The shades were gathering thicker, and the
sun hung very low,
I was lying in the hammock and was swing¬
ing to and fro;
And I asked myself the question, “Did she
answer me or no?"
And in the leafy maple a little insect hid.
And declared as though he knew it, ‘•Katy¬
did.”
And she did.
I finally received it, and I grasped it with a
start.
Did it contain an arrow or dagger to my
heart?
I hastened to my (Latnier, very nervous, I
confess;
I tore the letter open and beheld the fond
address,
But I burned to know the answer. Did she
tell me “Yes?”
And in the leafy maple a little insect hid.
And declared as though he knew it, “Katy¬
did."
And she did.
—Juy Kaye, in Overland Monthly.
TOM’S BARGAIN,
is very, very
ft / nice, and I am ex-
? ^ tremely proud of
it, but—”
>5 => And here little
iMaggie De * n t o n
w ' hesitated. It
was
sA-b very nice, from the
neat little drawing
room, simply but elegant'y furnished,
right away to the kitchen, where every¬
thing shone again. And Tom had got
everything together in eighteen months,
too, when the luck had changed and his
writing all at once got to be appreciated.
But, as Maggie put it, there was one
trifling drawback, consisting of an al¬
cove in the drawing room which would
never—no, never look complete without
a piano.
“And a piano you shall have,” Tom
said, looking up heartily from the break¬
fast bacon. “I had a good slice of luck
last week which I never expected. You
remember that long love story I wrote
three years ago, and which I have sent
to pretty well every magazine in Lon-
don. Well, Ned Hartley advised me to
send it to The Woman’s Companion,
where it was accepted. They paid me
£35 for it,not quite a half-a-crown a page,
but it’s better than nothing. Don’t you
think I could get a decent instrument
for the money ?”
Maggie smiled pleasantly. She was
extremely fond of music and, being a
managing little soul, equally fond of a
bargain. It would be far better, she
said, sapiently, for Tom to keep his eyes
open than to go direct to a maker, by
whieli he might save at least £10 of his
hard-earned money.
“There are lots of them advertised
every day,” she observed, “Give me
the paper and I will show you wnat I
mean. Now listen to this one.”
JD 1 AOR SALE — A bargain; magnificent
piano, by a well known maker; upright
grand, Sott overstrung, double check action,
chord pedal, steel traine, full compass, tri¬
going throughout; the property "a of a lady
abroad; cost £75 but lew months
ago; will sacrifice for £23. Apply “Bee¬
thoven,” 194 Guuuersbury road, Green-
thorpe Park, Hampstead, or personally any
day this week.
Tom nodded approvingly. An instru¬
ment costing but a few months ago up¬
ward of “three-quarters of a century”
to be disposed of for a third of the
amount struck him as the very thing le
desired. It was a little strange, though,
an outsider would have decided, that so
valuable a property should have gone so
long beggiug, or that the lady going
abroad did not get to see the folly of ad¬
vertising regularly at the rate of £1 per
week.
“I tell you what it is,” said Tom, “as
Gunnersbury road is close I’ll just walk
over there after dinner and interview
Mrs. ‘Beethoven’ personally. If I like
the 100 k of the instrument you can come
over afterwards and try it.”
So it vvas arranged, and 1’om retired to
his writing den, where for three solid
hours the anticipated purchase was for-
gotten. Ihere was plenty of work now
for the young writer and journalist, who
for the last five years had found it a ter-
rible struggle to keen himself, and find
Maggie, who had until recently been out
as a governess, with those trifling luxu-
ries which even the princely salary of a
governess does not afford. But the tide
had turned now, and although Tom
would never be a great novelist or
brilliant essayist, he earned a comfort-
able income, which by the end of the
year promised to touch close upon four
figures. It seems a lot of money, but I
know more than one of the quiet ones of
whom the general public have never
heard who are doing quite as well. It
is so easy to get a living in literature if
you have the ability and know how to
set about it—especially know how to set
about it, which, perhaps, in the long
run is better than ability, But this
secret is only learnt by much grief and
pain and bitter disappointment.
So i'om tiuished his morning’s work,
and, after dining comfortably, walked
over to Gunnersoury road, a pleasant,
semi-genteel street, with little bouses,
all bearing a strong faintly likeness to
each other aad all striving to look as if
they were semi-detached residences and
not the occupants of a common terraoe.
No. 195 was, perhaps, a little cleaner
and neater than its oai^hbors; the door
had been painted within recent memory,
there were extremely white curtains in
the windows, and a neat little maid took
Tom’s card after she had ushered him
into a tiny drawing-room, the furniture
of which struck him as being new and
cheap. But tawdry as his surroundings
were, Tom speedily forgot them as the
door opened and a lady entered holding
his card in her hand.
“I presume you come to see me about
the piano,” she said.
Tom was atolerablyself-possessed man, The
but he felt at a disadvantage now. had
speaker was the prettiest woman he
ever seen in his life. She was young—
not more than twenty-two or three, tall,
with an elegant figure; she had a won-
derful mass of red gold hair piled up in
some bewildering, fascinating fashion;
her features were wonderfully sweet and
regular, and her sorrowful blue eyes,
half bold, wholly shy, went straight to
Tom’s heart and enslaved him on the
spot. He was a very sensitive, feeling
kind of fellow, and when he noted the
black dress and tiny white cap perched
upon the golden, wavy hair, Tom felt
that he could do anything for her, or
die happy in the consequence,” attempt. he stam¬
“It ia of no
mered, unconsciously paraphrasing Mr.
Toots. “I did come over to see the in¬
strument, which I thought of purchasing
if it—that is’’—
“If it is satisfactory,” the lady said,
with a smile, and concluding the speech
Tom deemed it almost heresy to utter.
“It is there, as you see. You are, no
doubt, a good judge, and in that case
the piano speaks for itself.”
It did, and pretty loudly, too, as any
connoisseur of the popular form of har-
moniai torture would have readily testi¬
fied. It was suspiciously new, the var¬
nish was bright and obtrusive. There
was also some little difficulty in raising
the lid, and when Tom did clumsily run
his hand over the keys, even he—igno¬
rant of music as he was—felt startled at
the metallic demon he had aroused.
“It is a great bargain,” the lady re¬
marked, “and, as you see, almost new.”
Tom did see, and hastened eagerly to
pay a fitting tribute to its youth, which
apparently was the only virtue it pos¬
sessed. And yet the soft hearted fel¬
low,with those pathetic blue eyes turned
upon him, could not steel himself to
pronounce the fiat which his common
sense dictated.
“I will not decide now,” he hesitated,
man-like. “You see, I am not‘buying
for myself, but for a lady—my sister—
and I should like her to see it first. If
there is no objection I will call again to¬
morrow afternoon.”
“My—my husband chose that instru¬
ment, and he was a well known mu¬
sician,” the lady said, almost timidly;
“indeed, did not circumstances compel
m e , 1 would not part with it now; but I
am no t so well off as—”
yfie turned away abruptly, so sud-
fieuly that for a moment Tom was con-
scious of au idiotic desire to take her in
his arms and comfort her. Yet usually
he was a keen hand at reading character,
and some inward monitor warned him
even now that the pretty, child-like
widow was merely acting a part. But
we are only mortal, and Tom knew too
well what poverty was not to feel for
the others who suffer from its blighting
influence.
“I am very sorry—Mrs. Kerr, I think
you said?—but I cannot decide now,”
he said, almost humbly. “I will bring
my sister to morrow.”
Maggie listened with interest to the
story of the interview, but, sister like,
she by no means liked Tom’s encomiums
concerning the widowed possessor of the
instrument chosen by a well known mu¬
sician.
“I declare you are quite iu love with
her,” she said,half jealously. “It would
be a romance if you went to buy a piano
and found a wife instead.”
“Natural enough,too,” Tom returned*
“Why shouldn’t I n arry? I should not
be in the way then when Ned Hartley
comes of an evening.”
It was Maggie’s turn to look confused
now. Ned Hartlev aforesaid, a great
chum of Tom’s, and a dashing young
journalist of some repute,certainly spent
a deal of time in Maggie’s company, to
Tom’s secret gratification, for Ned was a
good fellow, and well able to afford the
luxury cf a wife.
“We will go and see the lady,” she
said. “I can’t trust you alone again.”
Tom assented, although not without
certain misgivings. Being, like most of
the craft, of a sentimental, emotional
nature he did not care to bring his di-
vinity under the cold, practical eye even
of his own sister, and as she sat await-
ing the arrival of the disconsolate widow,
and coolly criticising t'ae unfortunate
piano, Tom began to scent something
like trouble in the future,
“My dear, the thing is a regular take-
in,” she said, decidedly. “Any one but
you would have known that half those
advertisements were mere dodges—”
“Not forgetting that you advised the
dodge to be tried,” Tom retorted.
Any fulther ccnversation was termi¬
nated by the entrance of Mrs. Kerr, who
stood in the doorway looking from one
to the other. A stray ray of sunshine
touched her lovely hair and sweet, pa¬
thetic face so softly that even Maggie,
the practical, was fain to admit that
Tom’s extravagances had not been so ex¬
aggerated after all.
“I am sorry to have kept you wait¬
ing,” she commenced, “but—”
“It is,” Maggie cried, impulsively,
“actually it is, dear Marion.”
Dear Marion, thus accosted, smited
redly, and returned Maggie's warm em*
brace.
“It is an old school friend of mine,
the latter said, incoherently, “Tom
you have heard me speak of her? What
a memory you have, to be sure! And to
think of you being married, and I never
knew it! And a widow also! Let me
see. I have not seen you for four years,
since you left Mrs. Grimshaw’s. You
must come and see our house, the dear¬
est little place in Hampstead, I call it.”
Tom,looking on,thought that although
Mrs. Kerr seemed pleased to see her old
friend, she was strangely ill at ease.
She parried Maggie’s questions both hur¬
riedly and confusedly; the strange feel¬
ing that she was playing a part struck
him with a new and uncomfortable
force.
“You must come and stay with us,
and if you are leaving here Tom shall
find you a customer for the piano,”
Maggie decided, vigorously. “Anyone,
so long as he does not buy it himself.
Your late husband must have been sadly
taken in, dear; that showy thing is not
worth picking up iu the street.”
Tom never quite knew how it came
about, but a fortnight later Mrs. Kerr
found herself established at The Laurels
for a few days before, as she said, she
could finally dispose ot her furniture
and piano oefore going abroad.
She seemed very pleased to come, and
and yet at the same time strangely
loth; at one time 3he was in the best
and brightest of spirits, at another the
beautiful face looked sad and sorrowful,
and occasionally tearfully also.
One evening she knocked timidly at
the door of Tom s sanctum, and, having j
taken the seat he offered, looked into his
face and said, in a tearful voice:
“I have a confession, a shameful con-
fession to make, and it had better be
made now. When my parents both
died last years aud without I found myself penniless, I j
friendless a situation. was
gettsng desperate when I was introduced
to a tradesmen whose business it was, I
found, to buy cheap pianos and sell j
them to unsuspecting customers eager for
a bargan. I was a good lure, aud I
played an important part for two years.” ,
“I have taken cheap lodgings in su-
sur’oau London, a piano has been
brought in our advertisement inserted in j
the London daily papers, and—well, you
can guess the rest. I tried to deceive
you. What could I do, as you were a ,
stranger to me-then?—but I have suf-|
fered. I would not have come here
uniess I had been forced to, and you
cauuot rest and tell how quiet. I have My longed employer for a little was j
angry; but I was equally determined, ;
and besides, I half promised to go back
again; but I cannot go now. If you can
only say that you forgive me, remember-
ing liovv kind 1 was pushed !
loin muiinured a tew incoherent ^
words aud the next thing happened was
that his arms were round her, and she
nas crying gently on his breast. She
made an ineffectual struggle to free her-
self, but the clasp was strong and kind.
“ I aat is your place,” he said, firmly;
“rest there, ray darling,” |
And with these words ringing in her
ears she struggled no longer.
“I have not finished yet,” she said,
lifting the sweet rosy face to fiis. “Do
you know that I am not even entitled to
that name I am not a widow at all. ’
“So much the better.” Tom said,
cheerfully. “Do you knoiV I half sus¬
pected that there was something wrong
all the time; but although, my darliug,
I did not buy that very elegant looking
piano, I am inclined to think that after
all I got quite a bargain.”
“And, like most bargains dear at any
price,” Marion laughed happily.
“You would be dear to me at any
price, great or small,” Tom replied.
“Don’t forget, sweetheart, that I am
going to marry an heiress, and, what i 3
more, a wife who really is liked by her
prospective sister-in-law. Iam a fortu¬
nate man.”
“And I”—Marion’s blue eyes were
turned upon him full of trust and tener-
ness—“and I am more than a fortunate
woman. What will Maggie say?”
And at that moment Maggie was ask¬
ing Ned Lauglev a similar question.
Pigmies of Houdnrns.
In the early days of the American ma¬
hogany trade in the interior of the main¬
land a party of woodcutters on the Moho
River, British Honduras, claimed to have
discovered and captured a strange little
being which suddenly emerged from the
forests, and was too startled by the sight
of the whites to make its escape. It was
a dark sxinned girl, about eighteen years
old, and not quite three feet high. She
had no covering except her luxuriant
black hair until one of the men gave her
his red flannel shirt, which on her
reached she to the ground. Though very
wild was by no means stupid, as wa£
proved by her ready consent to pilot the
party to the settlement of her people,
who, she told them in the Maya tongue,
were an agricultural people living iu a
secluded valley. Having guided them
for some distance into the forest she sud¬
denly stopped to listen, when her cap-
tors plainly heard a hubbub of voices.
Telling the woodcutters to remain quiet
while she went to prepare her people for
their appearance, which to the little
folks would be so strange, she darted ofl
into the woods, and that red 6 hirt and
its contents have never since been seen
by Anglo-Saxon eyes. Whatever may
be the present peculiarities of the inhab¬
itants of those unexplored wilds, oertais
it seems that within historic times <
pygmy race has occupied this kuna 0 / tK*
Majafc—New lurk Bum
HABITS OF ALLIGATORS-
A HUNTER’S CURIOUS EXPERI¬
ENCE IN FLORIDA.
A Bird Which Makes Itself Useful
to the Bis* Saurian—Capturing
au Alligator Alive.
6C I T was my first hunting trip in
Florida, and I was anxious to
shoot au alligator; so I snatched
up my gun before the camp was
half made and wandered along the bank
of the Indian River, looking for one. Al¬
though I wanted big game, I did not de¬
spise the small, and so carried a double-
barreled breechloader, one barrel of
which threw ball and the other shot. I
had a splendid retriever, too, for which
I had paid a pretty sum and I expected
him to earn his price.
“It was not long before I came upon
a little flock of coots, a curious water-
fowl, looking like a cross between a duck
and a ben. I fired into the flock and
killed two. My dog dashed in after
them, and retrieving one, brought it
ashore. When he turned to go after the
other, it was gone. I thought it strange,
and so did the dog evidently, for he
swam all about, iooking for it. Sudden¬
ly he gave a yelp, struggled violently dis-
for a moment in the water and then
appeared beneath the surface.
“I had found my alligator, That
thought struck me at once. And he had
found my expensive dog and I did not
like the meeting one little bit. Not
knowing how big the brute might be,
and having had no experience of alliga-
j. org aQ y wa v I felt genuinely afraid to
tackle this unseen, noiseless foe and go
to my dog’s rescue. Wading cautiously
in, I leaped upon a fallen tree which lay
half in and half out of tbe water , a few
yards from shore. On the other side of
it thjJ riyer became suddenly deep and
here j could gee my dog, held un _
der water iQ the j aws of a good sized aI _
K t and slow j y drowning. The al-
fi ga t or was taking things coolly. He
wag in no hurry> Mature had fitted him
0Q p Ur pose to drown animals in his jaws,
wMle he brea thed freely in the air
a5ove . Hig nostri i s were on top of his
U pp er jaw, at the end, and he was thus
able to keep them j U8t abovc the surface
of the water while my dog was wholly
j mmerse d.
“Quick as a flash I fired both barrels
at him. The bullet struck the water
just above bis head and ricocheted rods
and rodg away ; the shot kicked up a lit-
tIe ripple about him and that was all.
d ; ved deeper and moved off with my
d and j never saw either of them
anrjfin. That was my first experience
with an alligator. ‘
,t Tbe ne x t one 1 me t was lying bask-
j Qor ^ be 8UQ on a Iliud fi a j, 1 crawled
cautiously up within gunsnot and before
firing, watched the curious creature. I
was aston i s hed to see a little plover set-
tie on his ugly head and began to pick,
ick pick among the big brute ’ 8 scales,
Though 1 ‘My little fellow, you will be
snapped up by those cruel jaws for your
impertinence.’ Presently the plover got
aroun d to the alligator’s nose, still pick-
j ng r^ picking, and the big jaws began to
0 n slowly. They opened about a foot
and my surprise the little plover
walked right inside and began to pick
more vigorously than ever among the
horrid teeth. I laughed so that the alli¬
gator took alarm and waddled into deep
water; not without holding his jaws
open long enough, however, for the
plover to come out of his mouth and fly
away. learned that this species of
I afterward
plover greedily eats the water leeches
which fasten on the alligator’s gums and
pests which burrow under his scales and
the big lizzard will not hurt the bird sc
useful to him.
“My third alligator I shot dead and I
bad the pleasure of skinning him. I
learned then how the brute can hold its
mouth wide open under water, without
letting any go down its throat or wind¬
pipe. There is a valve in the back of its
mouth which can be made to shut off
the mouth completely from the throat,
and as the upper jaw lifts upward and
the nostrils are on top, as I said before,
the creature can breathe without show¬
ing anything above water but the tip of
its nose.
“Everybody knows that an alligator
is well supplied with teeth; but few
know that the baby alligator is born with
all its teeth in place. They are conical
on top and hollow at the base. The new
oiies come up and shove tbeir conical
tops into the hollow bases of the old
ones, gradually forcing them out. This
shedding and renewing of teeth goes on
all its life. Moreover, a baby alligator
probably grows more, in proportion, than
any other animal. It comes out of a
shell no bigger than a goose-egg. From
the start he has to fear tbe cannibalistic
appetite of its father. It is a curious
fact that his ancestors had the same trick,
for in the fossilized bodies of the male
plesiosaurus have been found the fossil¬
ized fragments of baby plesiosauri.
“My fourth and last alligator I cap¬
tured alive with the aid of a daring col¬
ored man. By the means of a squealing,
hungry little pig tied to a tree a short
way from the river bank, we enticed a
fine, medium sized alligator to crawl up
the bank and a little way into the grass
after the succulent pork-r. Then we
get between him and the river and with
a singular boldness and agility, my hunb-
ing companion jumped astride the back
of the scaly beast and bending down,
grasped one of its short fore legs in each
hand, and by main strength dragged
than back and yanked them upon tbe
crossing alligator’s back; man’s for all behind the worl^
this undignified a position-the arms allig him
forward and could only lash its at0|
tail «|
in impotent rage. It was not hari
tie it up after that, but it seemed t>
a dangerous way to ‘monkey 1 ifi
‘gator.”—New York Tribune.
SELECT SIFTINtiS.
Rats are natives of Asia.
Twelve average tea plants prod tig
pound of tea.
The site of Boston, Mass., was $4
1635 by John Blackstone for $15(| jJ
A boy, while wading in a
Jefferson County, Florida, was strj
an alligator’s tail, and hadhisiegbi
in two places.
Glass beads pass as money in pi 1
Africa. In Masai, five blue beads
buy a woman, but ten of them aren
sary to biiy a cow.
Mrs. E. H. Robertson, of S
third County, North Carolina, is cuttinj herei]
set of teeth. She is in
eighth year of her age. >
More people were executed iu Ent
during the reign of King Henry'
than little ever island, before the or since in the j
number reaching °j
400.
A Knoxville (Tenn.) man has cap!
a bird, curiosity in reality, in the form of a moj
or, two birds g r0lV j
gether in body, but separate iu j"
and song.
Lake Erie, it is said, produces ■
fish to the square world. mile than because! auy bol
water in the This
result United of the Fish good Commissioners. work done bl 1
States
tached A trained his terrier, with a \i«ht coil
to neck, runs through ®
ground conduits, from one ma Q £ 0
another, in London streets. Thus 1
trie wires are safely and hurriedly dn
from station to station.
Chinese witnesses have » pec
“saucer oath.” When put ia the
they say, “If I do not speak tie h
may my soul be cracked aud broW
this saucer;” and then they dai
saucer against the wood-work ands
it.
The hose used in sprinkling
plazas of Paris is a queer contrivaa!
consists of lengths of iron pipe,
length mounted at the end on
axles having two small wheels an!
lengths joined together by short;
of flexible hose.
An autograph manuscript of Cl
Lamb, two folio pages in lengti
sold in London the other day for
—just about one-third of the dru^ |
salary Lamb earned by his “dry
of the desk’s dead wood to which!
dent Harrison referred in a recenti
view.
In 1016 an awful famine raged tbn
out all Europe, and again from 111
1195, when complete failures
rible suffering. In England
the people ate the flesh of dogs
and many cases of cannibalism m
corded. During the latter three
thousands upon thousands perished
starvation.
A two-year-old girl fell from
fourth story of a New York tees
house one day recently. 0 a the
down she met considerably with sundry tossed clothes-]
and was u
When she landed on the stone flu
of the court-yard, she was picked d
hurt save for a scratch on her forej
She fell sixty feet.
All bread is not made from tkl
of the cereals. Along kind the of Colj brJ
River, in Oregon, a
made by the Indians from a
grows on the spruce fir tree. T"
is prepared by placing it in
sprinkling it with water and per
it to ferment. Then it is roll
balls as big as a man’s head and
in pits.
In excavating some ancient CanM^»
in the direction of Chace
Mexico, Governor Prince has
twenty stone idols of a dilfere®!
from any before discovered. disxsfi* Ef;
circular in shape, forming
to fifteen inches in diameter.
half containing a deep carved :
the lower half rudimentary armi
lief. The idols are believed ft
least 600 years old.
door The of custom house of where placing there crape has j
a
recent death had its origin in thei
English heraldic customs and *
far back, at least, as the year B
D. At that period hatchment*
Luorial ensigns were placed in
houses when the nobility » na
died. These hatchments were
mond shape, and contained the
arms quartered and colored with!
Value of the Tree*
Discussing the value of the
schoolmaster, Garden and
sents as the first of its lessons
teaches man to reserve judge®
showing that the insignificance ^ 1
is no criterion of the magnitu
product, that slowness of
not au index of the scope of
and proves to him that the
reaching results can be attaig ei
simple be the nucleus meaus. of A barrel forest of ^ to*
a
cherish to fertilize s ‘
sti earns *
handful of tedar cones ow?
avalanche, while a bushel of P‘
may prevent the depopulation u*
section of country by
rants.’'