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The Silence
By John Barton Oxford
Copyright, 190C, by McClure, Phillips <i Co.
It hung conspicuously on the south
wall—the only picture in the little bed¬
room. In the foreground, between two
walls of water which reared theru
selves on either side in defiance of all
natural laws, fat, bearded, complacent,
stalked a herculean Moses. Behind him
trailed the children of Israel, looking
very like a mob of German peasants,
while on the horizon the Egyptian hosts
—sadly out of perspective—were threat¬
ened on every side by curling waves of
gigantic proportions.
It had hung there In the same place
for years, but it was only since the day
he had been brought in from the barn,
his rigut side useless from a stroke of
paralysis, that Daniel Crosby had giv¬
en the ancient, smoke streaked wood
cut more than a passing thought. He
ha t been aware of its existence in a
vaguely familiar way. If it had been
taken down he would have missed it.
He knew from the title underneath it
was supposed to represent the passage
of the Rod sou by the children of Is
rael, but heretofore he had never taken
the trouble to notice further detail,
save that it was yellowed by age and
badly smirched In places by smoke
from the adjacent kitchen.
But now it was different. As ho lay
there on the bed practically helpless
and the June days went by in monotO
nous succession, he found himself ex
undoing the picture minutely during
the long, wakeful daylight hours when
the breeze fluttered the chintz curtains
at the windows and the bees droned
among tlie blossoms of the syrlnga
bushes just outside.
It came In time to have an unwhole¬
some fascination for him. He began
lo wonder just how many children of
Israel were represented in that cut, and
to satisfy lilmself on this point he tried
time and again to count them, begin¬
ning with the two patriarchial gentle¬
men just behind Moses, hut always at
the thirty-fourth the heads resolved
themselves into a blurred mass that de¬
fied further enumeration. Day after
day. hour after hour, he counted pa¬
tiently, and steadily his anger at his
own helplessness In the matter and his
resentment of the blurred heads grew
stronger. Try as bo would to divert
l:ts mind to other tilings it always re¬
turned pertinaciously to the picture nnd
the all absorbing question of how
many children of Israel there would be
if be could once succeed in counting
them all. Tie grew by slow degrees to
hate that picture, yet witli this hate the
fascination was no whit lessened. Li¬
dded. the stronger grew his hate the
more frequent became his countings
until at last he realized he could know
no peace of mind until the picture was
taken from tho room.
It seemed the simplest of matters to
have a picture removed from the walls
of a bedroom, but In Daniel Crosby’s
ease there wore complications,' nnd
those complications lay in the fact that
the only person to whom he could sug¬
gest that tho picture be taken down
was Ills wife, and l»etween Crcsby and
tils wife there had existed fourteen
years of stubborn, unyielding silence.
It had come as the climax of numer¬
ous potty differences. They had wran¬
gled long and flercely. At. the end of
it Abby Crosby had burst Into a flood
of bitter, rebellious tears.
“You can rest assured of one thing.
Dan’l Crosby,” she had sobbed wretch¬
edly. “1 won’t never, never open my
mouth to you again’s long’s I live!”
He had smiled in superior fashion.
"So be it.” he had acquiesced. “It’ll
suit me perfee'ly. An’ I’ll see to It
you ain’t troubled with any remarks
from me.”
And from that bitter day, fourteen
years before, they had lived together In
silence witli never so much as a word
passing between them. Not even this
paralysis which had stricken him in
his advancing years could shake the
stubborn pride of either of them. He
had wondered vaguely that day the
neighbors had borne him into the house
and laid him on the bed if perchance
in the excitement of the moment she
would forget herself &nd speak to him,
and he was rather ]jroud of her self
restraint when she had not
Silently she prepared his meals and
brought them in to him; silently she
massaged him and used the battery ns
the doctor had directed. lie watched
her narrowly day by day. ail kis long¬
ing for companionship in these hours
of his helplessness carefully coneeai.-d
lieneath a cold exterior.
"If any one speaks first. It'll be her,”
he tohl himself over aud over.
So day after day as his wife came
silently into the room and went silent
ly out Daulel lay feebly lingering the
ebeets with his left hand, striving to
•conjure up some scheme which might
rid him of the troublesome Israelites
who refused to be couuted above the
thirty-fourth. At last In desperation -
lie had been counting, counting all day
long—he decided to take the matter
into his own bands. In the early dusk
When he heard Abby go out the back
door to shut up the barn and the hen
houses for the night he managed, by
ihe use of his sound left arm, to slide
himself out of the bed onto the floor.
blow y, painfully he contrived te
reach the corner where an old cane with
a crook handle leaned in the angle of
ihe walls. Then with Indomitable pa
tieuee be wormed his way along the
After?,. ! WaS beneath the P^re.
After several unsuccessful attempts he
managed to book the handle of the
cane securely onto the frame, and,
throwing bis whole weight upon !t be
t
dragged the picture crashing to the
tioor.
lie listened for a moment, half ex¬
pecting to hear his wife’s footsteps cn
the back steps, but no one came. He
dragged himself into the kitchen, push
ing the picture before him. The cellar
door was ajar. Thither he made his
painful way and pulled it wide open,
The mingled smells of damp earth and
last season’s vegetables greeted his
nostrils. Without a pause he thrust
the picture through the doorway and
listened with many delightful chuckles !
as tile children of Israel went hump¬
ing downward. Halfway down the
frame stuck fust. That would never
do. He pulled himself back to the bed¬
room to get the cane. With the aid of
the cane he was sure he could reach
dow'n and complete the descent.
He had scarcely regained the bed¬
room when he heard his wife come in.
He lay on the floor, spent and breath¬
ing hard. Perhaps she was going out
again. He would lay low and wait.
He beard her moving briskly about the
kitchen for a time; then a door squeak¬
ed raucously on its hinges. There was
only one door in the house that creaked
in that fashion. It was the cellar door.
lie heard l^er descending the cellar
stairs cautiously, step by step, as If she
were going down in the dark. Good
Lord! She was going down, and that
picture was lying there on the stairs,
; i u the darkness she would never see it.
it would send her headlong down more
than half tbp flight,
I Well, whatever happened, he wouldn’t
; speak before she spoke to him. He
1 thumped the floor lustily with his fist,
' Undoubtedly she would come back,
thinking he wanted something. He
listened breathlessly. Creak, creak!
She was still going down. She must be
close upon that cursed picture. Ills
fist was clinched; he bit his lips. But
he wouldn’t speak first, not if she went
down a thousand flights of stairs. Iu
an agony of suspense he thumped the
floor again, and in his excitement he
did not notice that this time he used
his right hand.
“Abby, Abby! Come here, quick!”
The words broke from his lips almost
involuntarily. He heard her coming,
floundering up the stairs in her haste,
and he sank into a huddled heap, relief
an(l shame struggling for the mastery
of him.
Abby came running Into the little
bedroom. Her eyes fell first on the
empty bed. then on the huddled figure
on the floor.
“Father, father,” she cried, sinking
’to her knees beside him, “what has
happened?”
“Abby,” he said severely, “do you
know you’re a-tnlkin’ to me?”
"I don’t care. I’m glad of It,” she
confessed recklessly. “You spoke to
me. father. You called me.”
She sat down and lifted his head to
her lap, stroking it tenderly as if he
had been a child. “How came you to
be out here?” she asked.
He smiled up at her sheepishly. “I
took a notion to git that picture of the
children of Isra’l out of the room,” he
explained. “It’s bothered me a good
deal of late, so I yanked It down with
the cane an’ slid it down the cellar
stairs. Then you come in an’ started
to go down them stairs, an’ I hollered
to you. I was afraid you’d break your
neck over it.”
“Ten minutes ago I shouldn’t ’a’
cared much If I had broke my neck,”
she said, “but now”—
She drew him to her hungrily. Some¬
thing W'arm and wet splashed on his
forehead. Daniel coughed huskily.
“I guess you’d better git the children
of Isra’l off the cellar stairs an’ hang
’em on the south wall again,” he said.
“Somehow l feel’s If I could stau’ ’em
now.”
The Woril “Dollar.”
According to one authority, the word
“dollar” is a corruption of the German
word “thaler,” the form in Dutch be¬
ing “danlder.” AH these different forms
were derived from Joachim's Thai, a
Bohemian town, where the Count of
Scfolick, A. D. 1518, coined some excel¬
lent pieces iu silver of an ounce in
weight. “From the name of the town
came Joachim’s thaler, applied to the
above named coins as well as that of
Kehlleken thaler; hence Joachim’s thal¬
er pieces were first contracted into
Joachim's thalers nnd then into thal¬
ers. These coins gained such a reputa¬
tion that they became a pattern, so
that others of the same kind, though
made in other places, took the name,
the word assuming different spelling
through the Low Countries, reaching
Spain as dollars nnd through its prov¬
inces transmitted to the western hemi¬
sphere, where It was applied to coins
prior to the adoption of the federal cur
rency. In coinage, the word ‘dollar’ Is
a favorite, being found under various
spellings in almost every part of the
globe.”
Sur B ory in the Middle a sea.
Tn the middle of the twelfth ■century
* )rie8ts "’ere the only doctors, By an
°T the council of Tours surgery
was separated from medicine and the
P raetlce of the former forbiddeii to the
t-lcr &- v The latter then employed their
barbers to perform surgical operations,
Tllis arose from the fact of the monks
having their heads shaved frequentlv
aud observing the dexterity acquired
tk e barbers in the use of edge tools
The knights of the razor from cupping
au<1 bleeding passed on to tooth draw
Sn S and finally to other operations re¬
flulring skill and deftness, if not much
knowledge. They knew practicallv noth
Ing of anatomy. It Is said surgery was
denied to the clergy by a canon ot the
church which forbade them to shed
Wood. This was considered the dark
age of medicine, and somber indeed it
must have been to the worthv citoven
*-ko. perhaps, placing himself In ‘the
hands of his barber for relief micht ^ nr
the same time that he was getting rid
of a tumor also part company with bis
bead.
IHE ENTERPRISE,
As to the Action of the State
Executive Committee.
The Democratic Executive Com
m ittee has met and acted* acted to
its own satisfaction, surely it made
no attempt to carry out tho will of
great majority of the party, it
did anything and everything but
what the people wanted and
The pledge put on the
official ballot is uncalled for, tin
necceeeary, a challenge and an in¬
sult to every democratic voter in
the State.
We are not championing th
cuse of aay candidate, are only i
so far as we want a fair and hone
election. The executive comm;'
tee seems to be determined to tab
v
sides in the race forgovenor, th
action in Atltnta plainly show,
this, and moreover it is no gtr
work to tell where they stand.
There will be a day of recki^j
ing, the people will speak, tf .
the politicians will hide out. Ms
that.
The pledge will not deter many
from voting, nearly all the one
time populist9 are now democrats,
and better democrats than the gag
rule gang. These citizens, demo¬
crats, of Georgia are going to vote
in the coming primary and woe be
unto the gang gaging ring that at¬
tempts to keep them out, out of
the house of their fathers.
Such an action on the part of
the Democratic party was unneces¬
sary when the poptlisls were in the
heighth of their glory, why now?
There’ll be an answer late in Au¬
gust.
Osborn-Alford.
Miss Bessie Osborn, of this city,
and Mr. J. W. Alford, of Rich¬
land, Ga., were married at the
residence of Mr. R. R. Fowler o n
last Monday at 2 o’clock, Rev. R.
0. Cleckler officiating. There
were only a few of the most inti¬
mate acquaintances present.
Miss Osborn is the daughter of
Mrs. W vV Osborn of this city was
one of Covington’s, most popular
young ladies. Mr. Alford is a
popular and respected young busi¬
ness man of Richland. After the
ceremony the couple left for their
future home.
The Enterprise join the mauy
friends in wishing for them a hap¬
py and useful life.
THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.
It Wa* at FIrat Known aa the Cape
of All the Stornia.
An c-arly navigator. Bartolomeu
Dhtz. commissioned by Kirtg John II.
of ^Portugal to continue the work of
African exploration down the west
coast, sailed from Lisbon in August,
I486, with u small force and ’anded at
several places, of which he took pos¬
session in the name of his master.
As he approached the southern ex¬
tremity of the continent he was blown
out to sea by a tremendous storm and
doubled the Cape without knowing it
Land was not again made until the
mouth of the Great Fish river was
sighted, and the ship3 came to anchor
In Algoa bay. A council held there de¬
cided to return home, and on the way
back the Cape was discovered and
christened by the commander, iu re- j
membra nee of his first experience. 1
Cnho Tormentoso, or Cabo des Todos !
les Termini ton; that is. Cape of All the
Ktorms. .
Whet) the discovery was reported to '
the king he immediately saw the tup
mouse possibilities of a new road to the
Indies and bestowed upon it the hap- !
piei name of tlie Capo of Good Hope.
By a singular corruption of its first
title the Cape was long known to Eng¬
lish wamen as the Cape of Torments,
and the legend of the “Flying Dutch¬
man was localized there by a misun¬
derstanding of the experiences of tliii
Portuguese expedition.
Sour
Stomach
No appetite, loss of strength, nervous
ness, headache, cons t>P*-tion, bad breath,
ft _. X n , Ln . a K c.
of the S ° Ur risin e s ' and catarrh
stomach are all due to indigestion.
Kodol cures indigestion. This newdiscov*
represents the natural juices of diges
as they exist in a healthy stomach,
™ ,h ,h0 latest known tonic
reconstruchve .i properties. Kodol Dys
Cure d 0 e l nof only cure indigestion
d P S I a t Ut ,his famous
all stomach . ’ troubles by remedy
linfngTestem^ch! cleansing,
membranes
Kodol Digests What You Eat.
- ™
“r E. O. D.wtTT . oo.,’ ch.cago.
i
lr
y
after
s. The
M ;e spe
CT>
••
smess
appre
ye en
entire
11)0111011
■y a
C. C. ROBINSON, Covington, G
Dry Goods, Hardware and Groceries,
uu
Never in the history of this business has our stock been so bead
varied and attractive as this season. Our departments are
full to the brim of the best and latest things in
SPRING AND SUMMER GOODS.
To Trade at This Store Means to Get The Right Goods at The Right Pa
IN DRESS GOODS.
We are always Headquarters. We
have pretty silks for waist9 and
suits. See our magnificent display
of woolen dress goods in Panamas,
Voiles, Panama Voiles, Chiffon
Panamas, Batistes, Pop'inettes,
Mohaii’3, Crepe de Chenes,
ennes, etc., in black and all
latest colors. Grey is the leading
shade of the season m solids,
checks and plaid effects. Visit
thia department before buying
e sewhere.
IN NICE SHOES
We handle “Just Wright” for
men, and Drew, Selby & Cq’s,
i
f or Edits There are none bet tel.
e pretty Slippers for Ladies,
Hisses and Childrgu,
_
“
SPECIAL ~ EMBROIDERY AND LACE SAl
FK ID_A."ST 3 MAT11.
A Hearty Welcome For Everybody All The Time.
*
Read The Enterpr ise’s Extraordinary
Offer in This week’s 1$
%
WASH GOODS.
Look through this department,
see what pretty things we have.
Everything in Ginghams,
Chambruys, Percales, Pongee,
gandies, Silk Tissues in plain
flowered effects in rich designs.
j SUNDRY
Just arrived, beautiful white
Waists, new Bags and Belts,
Parasols, a new lina gent’s
late styles in gent’s Fur Hats,
Embroideries, new
Laces, new Ribbons, late things
Dress Goods.
GENT’S FURNISHING
- - GOODS
Are a specialty at our store.
The prettiest aud latest things in
Shirts, Collars, Ties, Umbrellas,
Hosiery, Hats, etc.
WHITE GOODS.
Were never before quite sopoj
as this season, especi tlly U
in soft and hard finish n allgl
and prices. French' lawns,
gaudies, Mulls, Persian D
Tndia Linons, White Madras,Ii
Lawns, Mercerized Egyptians
and Lingerie Lawns for Dll
waists and suits are in gr? a j
maud. We have a splendid i
of all these and they were W
tention belore the is called advance. to Indialj Specijll
our
bought by the case while they!
about low, and the are now wholesale being smj pi
present
AMERICAN LADY
CORSE
Cfcbiiot be praised too much
are comfortable aud durable.
Carry a big stock of them ■’>'
1 ’itfie,