Newspaper Page Text
VOL. I.
THE BEACON.
From dusk to dawn a golden star,
Hung steadfast between sky and sward,
Sent forth across the moaning bar
The smiting of its two-edgod sword,
Seafaring men with babes at homo
Asleep and rosy in their cribs, “
Beat inward through the curdling form
That tosses to the shivering jibs.
And wistful wives who cannot sleep
Feed little hearth-fires warm and red,
And comforted their vigil keep
With that great star-flame overhead.
Night wears apace; the blackest night
Wanos when the womb of morning breaks.
"With lance and spear from heavenly height
Her conquering way the new day takes.
And one by one the weary boats,
All drenched and spent, are beached at
The lust;
children hug the wet sea-coats;
The good wives sing of perils past,
—Margaret E.SangsterJn Harper’s Bazar.
A fill in His Gi-Fils.
They had been friends all their
lives.
There had been, iu their native vil¬
lage, two vine-covered cottages side
by side, and all one summer on the
veranda of one or the other of these
little homes two young women had sat
sewing through the long afternoon on
dainty white garments, setting each
stitch with a prayer and weaving with
the flying needle more precious things
than cross-stitch aud feather-edge,
as they talked of their babies’ future,
as loving women will, ancl planned
great things for the coming ones to
accomplish.
Then these mothers conferred to¬
gether about the momentous question
of “shortening,” and, this decided,
the baby boys bad each become ac¬
quainted with the restless pink play¬
fellows at the edge of his petticoat at
the identical moment, The ivomeu
bore each other company during the
trying period of the little ones’ teeth¬
ing, their croup and measles, and, in
due time, cut from one pattern their
first short trousers, their little coats.
When the boys were six, they were
ready for the September term of
school, and the two mothers led
them up to begin the second chapter,
a3 they had done the first, together.
Red-mittened and tippeted in winter,
they played with their sleds ou the
long hill on whose top the sckoolkouse
stood,and one day a little girl watched-
them as they flew down, and began
crying.
The two boys trudged up to her
together.
“You can ride on, my sled,” said
one.
“I’ll pull you up again oumy sled,”
said the other.
And so the story began.
Tue years went by, aud Charles
Paxton and Sidney Harper fulfilled
their promise#. Nellie Ransom rode
on. both sleds; and the boys were her
ckivalrie defenders aud champions in
in every cause. If she failed in her
arithmetic the teacher received black
looks, and if she cried over her gram¬
mar each boy felt a personal encoun¬
ter with Lindley Murray ivas all that
ecmld wipe out the stain. So far
febg-iSid friendship was as strong as
ever, and they fought, as one, the
battles of the yellow-haired girl. There
came the swift, strange transforma¬
tion of t'ha Heart which makes a boy
a-man; these lads turned, on one day,
shy, troubled eyes each to the other’s
face; and when their glances fell,
something from within had risen to
vftil. fga'crtet their frank and friendly
glances. the
They were rivals; and pretty,
shallow little thing, pouting now,
under her ivide-brimmed hat, had
known it all along.
Nell Ransom ivas the beauty of the
neighborhood; a little creature, soft-
eyed and golden-haired, with youth¬
ful curves and dimples. She ivas the
daughter of a farmer; one of a half
dozen girls, but the only one among
them with auy pretensions to good
looks. So the rough old man spoiled
her.
“When I’m plowin’,” he said, in
reply to some one who reproached him
for treating Nell better than he treat¬
ed her sisters, “I run right through
the bouncin’ betties an’ smartiveed,
but I vanny ef I can run over a wild
rose. That little gal of mine ivan’t
meant for common folks like us. I feel
a good deal like ’pologizin’ to her fur
bein’ her father. But, seein’ she’s
ours, I’m goin’ to make life jest as
easy as I can fur her, an’ kinder keep
her on the warm side of the shack.”
So the little girl was sheltered and
THE TRIBUNE
“Don’t Give Up th.0 Sliip."
BUCHANAN, GA., FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30. 1898.
petted by the rudp but tender hands,
and it is not strange that she grow up
with uo cave for auy ?me but her oivu
pleasure aud comfort. When she ivas
16 there ivpre many moths singed by
the brightness of her hair; many
hearts wounded by the darts from her
blue eyes; but she didn’t realize that
there was any harm. Hers was not a
bad or cruel heart—She simply
Didn’t, and wouldn’t and couldn’t know
And why,
did not understand.
The two friends whose hearts had
been pushed apart by her little, un¬
feeling hands had grown to love her
just in proportion to the way they had
come to hate one another. Charles
Paxton tried first; was refused and
went away; no one knew whither, but
a woman grew gray as she sat on the
little, vifie-covered veranda and turned
her eyes, with their waiting and lis¬
tening look, westward.
Then Sidney Harper put his fate to
the touch; he, too, left the village,and
two women again sat together praying
and fearing on one" of the porches
through a long summer.
It was midsummer in the Klondike,
but the air was as chill as it is when
redcheeked Canadians stavt journey¬
ing on snow-shoes over crisp fields of
sparkling snow. On left, and right
were stretches timbered with the
sturdy pines that straggled like an
army over plain and hill, and sent a
vanguard up the mountain from whose
farther timber line it seemed to signal
to the troops below. Iu front lay the
river coiling like a twist of silver
braid, and farther on the everlasting
hills rose, height on height, to pierce
the perfect azure of the sky.
Tivo men stood in this amphitheatre
of the north, their rough and bearded
faces turned toward each gther as they
had been turned in the cradle swaying
on a cottage veranda so many years
ago. Their eyes flashed like steel to
steel in the morning light, and their
lips were set in lines never seen by
those two waiting mothers.
“It’s the only way out of it,” said
one, at last, doggedly; as if to bring
to a close a long and useless argu¬
ment. “We didn’t come here to meet
each other, and the place isn’t big
enough to hold us both. We’ve both
struck it rich, and Nell Ransom owns
us and our mines. One can go back
to her—with all the gold of both-”
The other finished the sentence:
“The pistol ■shall decide which one
it shall be.”
Calmly the men paced the distance
and took their places, the revolvers
catching each added gleam that
faltered through the pines against the
eastern sky.
“One!” and the line of light rose
to the level of those strong, bared
bosoms.
“Wait a minute, boys! Wait a
minute.”
An old miner stepped out of the
thicket and walked leisurely between
the duelists. He was known to both
men as a quaint character of their own
village, a man who had been among
the defeated gold-seekers of ’49 and
’50. He had struck camp but the day
previous to this meeting.
“I’ve beu ivatchin’ ye" a leetle,
boys,” he said. “I ain’t said much,
but I’ve kop’ a-tkinkin.’ I know
young blood, an’ I calc’lated it was
just about time fur it to bile over; but
I’ve got a powder to cool it.”
He lighted his pipe and puffed medi¬
tatively.
The young men turned angrily.
“Oh, ye needn’t get riled, now,”
he continued, pulling a fine grass and
cleaning his pipe-stem with it, “but I
reckon there ain’t either one of ye
mean enough to fight over another
man’s wife!”
He stoped and looked at the rivals
sidewise; the words had gone home'.
“I calc’late ye don’t git the papers
reg’lar here; trains is sometimes late,
ye know; bein’ there ain’t no tracks
fur ’em to run on, an’ like as not yer
mail ain’t real prompt, an’ ye don’t
use yer dust fur telegraphin’ when ye
ain’t got no ligktniu’ chained. So
p’r’aps ye don’t know that that gal of
Ransom’s—there, stand still an’ go
ivith yer shootin’l—is married.”
Two lines of light sank suddenly
downward as the pistols fell with the
nerveless hands. The old man saw it
with a twinkle of his faded eyes.
’* “That’s right,boys; noiv come here,
and I’lljjell you about it.”
Slowly and with shamed * faces
Sidney Harper and Charles Paxton
drew near and heard the old miner’s
story.
“Yes,” he said, after the whole had
been recited, “she married a uo-ac-
count feller, an’ has taken him home
to the old folks, She wasn’t
never wuth dyin’ fur lads; but when
I came away I seen two other wim-
miu’ wuth livin’ fur. They’re a-wait-
in’ on their cottage porches now as
I’ve seen ’em sit for 30 years. Only
them babies, them little shavers they
uster hold an’ ciuhlle in their arms
ain’t there; they-”
“Stop! God bless you, you old
meddler J >
One man spoke, but the other’s
eyes made answer.
“Those are the women we’ll live
for and care for and go home to see!”
And, single file, with strange new
looks the men went back to camp.—
Grace D. Boylan, in the Brooklyn
Staudard-Uuion.
HOLIDAYS IN MANILA,
At One Time There Were Over Forty in
Every Year.
“Life in Manila,” is the subject of
an article by Wallace Gumming iu the
Century. Mr. Gumming says:
Manila loves holidays. At one time
there were over forty in each year.
The number has been sadly dimin¬
ished, though there are stiU thirteen
left, I understand. Each pueblo has
its saint, and on that saint’s day the
inhabitants give themselves over, as
they do ou the great holidays of the
church, to music, firew'orks, cock-
fighting, processions, etc.
Almost all these processions took
place at night,and the effect was most
picturesque. There would be a line
of marchers, men, women and chil¬
dren, walking in single file on each
side of the street, everyone with a
lighted candle in his hand. At inter¬
vals, in the middle of the road, would
come images of the Saviour, the
Virgiu and the saints, borne ou the
shoulders of from ten to thirty men,
surrounded by priests, and preceded
by a band of music. Some of the
images were covered with diamonds
and other precious stones, said to be
enormously valuable. In these cases
there was always band of soldiers
with fixed bayonets about the image.
Often there would be thousands of
people walking in these processions,
and all the while it was moving tens
of thousands of rockets and bombs
would be fired. These rockets and
bombs are home-made. The rockets
consist only of a joint of bamboo
filled with powder, exploding with
great noise, but with little light. The
bombs are simply a handful of powder
tightly wrapped with hemp. They
cost a mere trifle, but make a great
noise, and no fiesta is complete with¬
out plenty of them.
The most curious procession is par¬
ticipated in only by natives and the
poorer mestizos. It takes place, if I
remember rightly, during holy week,
aud is a high solemnity. E\ery one
walking m the procession is robed in
his grave clothes. The garment is
a long, loose, gray robe with a hood,
aud it. comes to the ground. ihe
effect is very strange. It may seem
strange that grave clothes are pro¬
vided before they are needed, but in
Manila they are considered a prime
necessity, and every native owns
those clothes, even if lie is bare of all
other. The ordinary dress of the
native man is trousers and shirt of
“piece-goods” (calico), the shirt being
worn outside the trousers. On holi¬
days they wear a shirt made of pina,
which is an expensive material. Na¬
tive servants wear the same articles,
but they must be of spotless white and
very suitable aud nice looking it is.
A curious freak of custom was that
native servants were required to serve
barefooted, while it utis au insult if a
Chinese servant appeared before his
without his shoes.
The Americans in Europe.
Captain Frank W. Crosby, writing
to one of our reporters from Turin,
Switzerland, says: “Americans never
held up their heads in Europe as they
do now. I walk so erect as to lean
slightly backward. Of course, it is
all because of Dewey’s and Schley’s
victories. This old world has waked
ui) to the fact that there is a giant in
the west to be reckoned with here-
after. The mightiest power here will
think twice before measuring strength
with Uncle Sam. Emperors, czars
and kings have been taught a lesson.
The sympathies of the common aristocrats people
here are ivith us, but the
would like to see Spain victorious. I
can say this after a rather extensive
tout through France, Italy and Switzer-
laud—Washington is the foeps,
political hub of the world, ajid more
is heard of it just noiv than of all the
cities iu the world.”—Washington
Star. •
FODDER IN THE TREETOPS.
Cattle in Hatwtili May in Time
►Scan Mortal Attributes.
A cow' cannot climb a tree—un¬
doubted fact in natural history. Yet
if environment can effect what some
believe it can, a few generations of
cattle iu Hawaii are likely to evolve a
race of scansorial kine, for the com-
mon fodder for cow's and horses grows
on trees.
There are only two directions in the
islands of the Pacific, and everybody
uses the terms windward and leeward
as glibly as if bred uboard ship to use
sailors’ English. In Hawaii these
tw'o directions are distinctly marked,
On the windward side of every island
tropical rains, grow th of green things
to jungle luxuriance; on the leeward
side drought rarely broken, scanty
grasses precariously existing in a sun¬
baked soil, for most months of most
years sere and brown. But as not
every one can live to windward, and
it seems a pity to let so much leeward
go to w'aste which might otherwise be
good, the algarroba tree has been in¬
troduced from the African aridities
and lias made cattle ranching a sue-
cossfurpossibility on the dry lands.
Priests of the French mission were
the introducers, they having become
acquainted with its value in Algeria,
As its name show's,it is the Carob tree
of the “Arabian Nights,” the source
of most people’s knowledge of things
Arabic. The tree grows most luxur-
iantly in most Haw aiian soils and bears
continuously the year round. This is
a matter of particular importance, for
it is the fruit which is of value. The
tree grows to the height attained by
large maples,and branches luxuriantly
so as to shade a considerable area,and
as the leaves are both abundant and
large, there is formed a protection
against the heat which stock appre-
ciate. The fruit is a large fleshy pod
filled with beans the size of a horse
chestnut. It is upon the pods and
the beans that the cattle feed. This
fodder is so satisfying that for long
periods cattle are fed on nothing else
and reach market in prime condition.
—New l r ork Sun.
An Historic Carriage.
An historic carriage owned by the
late Dr. Evans has been offered for
sale at the Paris Tattersall establish¬
ment, hut it was decided at the last
moment to retain the vehicle as an
item of the estate. In it the doctor
left Paris with the Empress Eugene
011 Sept. 4, 1870, when he was assist¬
ing her to reach England. It is in¬
tended by the heirs of the noted den¬
tist to transfer the carriage to the
Evans Museum, which is to be
founded in America under the clauses
of the doctor’s will.
The vehicle will be temporarily
handed over to the care of the old
coae hman who drove the empress, her
attendants and the doctor to the coast
j n 1 ^ 70 , when she was about to em-
f or England in Sir John Bur-
g 0 y ne ’ 3 yacht. The vehicle is a lan-
f |au with accommodations for four
persons, and was built in 18G7 for the
Exhibition. About ten years since
Dr. Evans had it recleaned and reem-
belished, in order to make a journey
to Greenville over the same ground
as that traversed by him with the
Empress in 1870. During that long
drive he stopped at the same places
en route as those selected on the
memorable journey.—London Daily
Telegraph.
Demand for Raggage Eal>els.
Foreign baggage labels are in great
demand just now. And a student of
the University of Pennsylvania these has
cornered the market iu labels,
selling them to people who want to
show some evidence of having been
abroad. This year the demand seems
to be greater than ever, and already
the. bluffers have started to smear their
dress suit enses with the marks be¬
longing to European hotels. One of
these interesting gentlemen appeared
in Chestnut street the other day with
his traveling grip, and attracted con¬
siderable attention. Home-made labels
in imitation of those from various I 10 -
p e ] s j u Switzerland, France and Ger-
many bring the highest prices, astheen-
terprising dealer claims that these are
very rare. The profit iu this queer
business must,he exceedingly large,
fts this particular chemist, who is de-
pendent upon his own resources for
his livelihood aud schooling, is en-
a bled to take quite extensive trips and
n ve j n luxury during his summer va-
cation. His fellow students are his
principal customers, aud girls but also lots of other
y 0 ung men are often
seen emerging from the label mer-
chant’s boarding house ivith colored
slips iu their hands,
NO. 43,
THE CAROLINES UP-TO-DATE-
What the Cnlted States Consul at Tumi!
►Says of tliu Group.
In the advance sheets of the consu-
1st reports lately issued by the state
department the Caroline islands was
made the subject of an interesting de-
scription by the United States agent
at Yap, one of the principal islands of
the groop. The consul describes in a
brief and entertaining manner the Isle
of Yap, which, w ill be seized by the
United States and utilized as a coaling
station or a naval base. Interesting
in the extreme is the history of the
people of this little island, occupying
as it does such a commanding position
on the high road of original traffic,
The islaud proper, the consul writes,
is surrounded by a coral reef thirty-
five miles long by five broad. There
are hardly any rivulets in its area, but
inland are extensive swamps with n
dense growth of tropical foliage. The
island is richer in scenery, the groves
of bamboo,, crotou, cocoanut and
spreading palms being most impres¬
sive. Yap is full of relics of a vanished
civilization—-old embankments and
terraces, sites of ancient cultivation,
stone-paved roads, euormons council
lodges of quaint design, with bold,
high projecting gables, and lofty
cavern pillars. Walls of ancient fisli
ponds and stone weirs fill the lagoon
between the coral reef and the shore,
thus making navigation a difficult
matter on many parts of the coast,
Huge species of alligators are found
iu the underbrush, and reptiles abound
in great numbers. Bird life, however,
is scarce, and there are but few cattle
and horses on the island,
There are about 8000 natives on Yap
—kindly, industrious and peaceable
folk. They are very dark in color
and speak a quaint dialect,
The consul, in conclusion, makes a
statement which bears no little signi-
ficance and treats of a subject which
may cause no small friction with the
Germans, who even now' are none too
friendly toward our country and the
policy of our government iu the His-
pano-Amorican war. German traders
have spent a vast amount of labor and
money in the last few years in build¬
ing up trade in and about the Caro¬
lines. The Isle of Y’ap is rich in pro¬
duction of cocanuts the kernal or in-
side of which, when dried, is called
copra and is the chief article of ex¬
port, Any interference with the trade,
which has been greatly stimulated by
the labor of the Germans, would im¬
mediately be met with a protest from
the German government,and consider-
able discussion,if not serious trouble,
might follow.
The principal town of the island is
Tomil, which, the consul writos,
would make an excellent coaling sta¬
tion. It is at present garrisoned by
about 100 soldiers, with some 150 po¬
litical prisoners captured in the late
Philippine uprising. Tomil harbor is
peopled with many Europeans and is
the seat of the Spanish governor of
the Caroline islands.
“ Annexation, it is thought, would be
very acceptable to the inhabitants of
this island, as they, as iu most cases
where Spanish rule predominates, are
tired of the treatment they receive at
the hands of the authorities.
Roosevelt and His Hough Riders.
Private Will T. Palmers of the
Bough Eiders writes home to Kansas
as follows: “When we came to make
the final charge that took this posi¬
tion, some of the officers wanted to
fall back and leave it in possession of
the Spaniards, but Colonel Eoosevelt
pulled his pistol and said: ‘You can
fall back if you want to,, but my men
will hold it till the last man dies.’ We
held it and did not die, either. 1 tell
you Wood and Eoosevelt are proud of
their regiment. Colonel Eoosevelt
says if we knock the bottom out of
this thing in time he is going to take
all the Rough Eiders that are alive
aud able to go to the Paris exposition
in 1900 at his own expense. Our boys
are proud of our colonel. We fought
90 hours without sleep or rest.”—New
York Tribune.
A Hard I.if«.
Benevolent Lady (to tramp)—Here
my poor man, is all we have left this
morning. I suppose you have a hard
time of it?
Tramp—Yes, mum. It’s awful hard,
mum, to leave a nice soft hay mow so.
early iu the mornin’ or else git around
too late for breakfas’.—New York
Weekly.
Abofit eighty miles from Stockholm,
Sweden, there is a large waterfall of
100,000 horse power. A project is ou
foot for using this to supply that,city
with electric power.