The Searchlight. (Savannah, Ga.) 1906-19??, May 05, 1906, Image 2

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TWO CLASSES. There are two kinds of people on earth today. Just two kinds of people, no more, I say. Not the sinner and saint, for ’tis well un derstood The good art half had, and the had are half good. Not the rich and the poor, for to count a man's wealth You must iirst. know the state of his con science and health. Not the humble and proud, for in life’s little span. Who puts on vain airs is not counted a man. Not the happy ar.d sad, for the swift-flying yea rs Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears. i * % | Ufye New " Bullocky.” | 4. + * | A Tasmania Story. | $ . f !* 1 * T ~ . « * It •i**? *£’v L '' s v•£ - •I**i c v*“2* *'i < *2*•£*V w *s* ’i® °i* * i c *i c ‘•j* *..«*s**2* *b *Z ! °2* *l* v ‘2* r 2* *E* *i* *2* *l* *i* v ‘‘l dinna want a wood-cutter,” said Moffat. "An I dinna want a shoe inan. An’ I dinna want a cook —” “You want a bullocky?” “Aye. But I hire men tae drive ma bullocks, an’ no’ half-baked boy. I dinnnh give such-like tibets tae new chums.” “Never asked you to,” said Tony, hotly. “I’ve driven a twenty-team on the Murrumbidgee heaps of times ’ “Harnessed tae a go-cart wi you tied intae it?” “Harnessed to a threshing-plant with three rivers to ford, anti the fire box alight all the time,” said Tony. Moffat looked straight at him. Tony was the slim-run, light-built Austral ian breed that grows pluck first and last and in between, and muscle wv.cn it has time. Tony had not much mus cle as yet. Moffat rubbed hi:; nose slowly. “I'll tak ye,’ he said. “Ma men air gey rough oot at the camp; hut 1 jalouse ye hae a tongue tae hauld ye safe. Y'e 11 need it. Weel; 11l send oopward by ye tae Robinson. D’ye Ken the way? !!Up to Tregelian’s Gap, round the ironstone shoulder, and follow your nose till you strike the tramline.” Moffat grinned. “Ye has came wi’ ye’re lessen weel conned. Y’e’ll dae * * Aye; I’ll send Robinson a screed, an’ ye’ll git oop theer afore the nicht. Tony had tramped eight miles along the Western Tiers tand these hold some of the roughest country in las •. - He. tr.' ; i; : y£.d , : l*u more before he sighted the logging camp, sunk deep in great green shad ows of heavy bush, and flooded with scarlet of the after-glow that sifted through the half-cleared gun-*crub. Twenty men loafed, smoking, about the Jong hut made of unsqnared tree trunks. Tony walked straight into the midst of them, and handed over his letter to a red-bearded, hawk-eyed man who carried himself as one in authority. Robinson tore open the envelope, grinning. “What yer wantin’, sonny?” he said. j He read the note through. Then he sat down on the chopping-block. “Well, I am blest,” he said. “Is old ; Moffat gone off his chump?” Tony’s j neck and ears burnt, but he stood the j volley of stares unflinchingly. “1 had j a look at the bullocks as I came through the clearing,” he said. “They’re not a bad lot; but you ought to have more sense than to keep that aged brute with the twisted horn and the swelled nearfore. He’s got a tem per, I’ll bet.” A low-browed, bull-necked man looked up. “Where did Moffat pick up that kid?” he demanded. “It tuk us all o’ ten months ter find out what Buster cud do when he liked.” “The kid’s a bullocky like yerself,” said Robinson, dryly. “Moffat sent him up ter take Cobham’s place. He’ll run on the lines with you, Jake.” Jake heaved his huge bulk upright. But the blare of a great cow-bell in the cook’s two hands broke Jake’s words, and the men poured headlong into the hut. Under the rattle of tin plates and pannikins, the shouts for tea and milk, j and the rough chaff that flew broad- j cast down the length of the unplaned ; table, Tony found a place on a form, j and stared round. The smell of the | clean peppermint wood and the wat tle was in the very breath of the room, and the gum of uleeding trees was oa the hair of the men’s necks and arms. Tony hugged himself and his eyes shone. By the movements hazy through the steam from pannikins and hot meats; by the great ripping mus cles, and the great roars of laughter, he knew that he had come to hold his own amongst men. Bullock driving is done by the swing of a twenty-foot whip, and the tones of the voice. There are no reins and just a little more harness. A bul lock team can tangle itself more- ef ficiently than a kitten with a skein of wool when it likes; and it is not so easily picked up and straightened. Tony knew all this. But he had the love for animals which is really gen ius, and the cool head which is the most valuable asset of the man who would work amongst them. He saw No, the two kinds of people on earth I mean, Are the people who lift and the people who lean. Wherever you go, you will find the world's masses Are always divided in just these two classes. And oddly enough, you will find, too, I ween. There is only one lifter to twenty who lean. In which class are you? Are you easing the load Os overtaxed lifters who toil down the road V Or are you a leaner who lets others bear Your portion of labor and worry and care? -—Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in Harper's Weekly. just when to strike for present victory. Three days Tony drove his team down the ten miles of tram-line to the mill. By that date he knew each animal by name, and he knew their characteristics. And they knew him as animals do know the human who loves .them. On the fourth morning Buster was sulky, fie did not obey the wall-eyed old leader who rounded the mob at daybreak, and Tony had to go cut for him with whip. He c-ame, dropping saliva from his jaws, and stood four square and unmoving, as Tony yoked up. Then lie flung him self straightway, and it took six men to bring him up again. Robinson was angry, fer Jake was grinning. “You get away, Jake,” he said. “The lad’ll want room s’posin’ they starts goin'.” When Jake had .creaked off through the faint light Robinson said; “Yer goin’ to leave a pair be'ind terday, Tony.” “D‘ you think I’m going to leave my head?” retorted Tony, crisp ly- “ Couldn’t say. But—” “Then you needn’t think I’ll leave Buster.” Tony’s eyes were burning. “I’m not going to be bested by any brute that chooses to play up with me. He’ll have to go; and I'll make him put his back into it, or I’ll know why. Stand clear there, you fellows.” Tony knew that he was on his trial before the whole camp, with a thous and pounds’ worth of bullocks to his care, and danger waiting at each turn of the track. Buster crawled sulkily over the rough' where"life grfcdfT wi~ level, and the weight of the heavily laden truck steadied him. Tony watched, light-lipped, for the steep downward pinched beyond, grinding down the brakes as firmly as he dared, until the screech of the wooden tram lines under the wooden wheels shut out all the merry music of the bush. Tony’s hands were yet stiff on the whip, and the chains chilled him as he took the rear ones up two links at | the foot of the grade. They had come I down faster than he liked to remem j ber. and he felt sick somewhere when he thought of the meaning of a false | step. “An’ very certainly there'll be a false step ’fore long. Buster’s mak | ing pace to blow the lot of ’em.” With a quick, clumsy “clack-clack” they rounded the cutting above the Black Whirlpool, with Tony walking partly on air and partly on any stray scrub root available, and holding him self ever beside Buster, alert-eyed and quick-tongued. Below the water was white foam and black ink, and gray as death. Tony looked down only once. He had walked between the lines until this day. Over a frail bridge they creaked; through a swamp where the rails were greasy with slime, and Tony ran, half-bent, sanding the track to give grip. At a pool beyond Buster desired to drink. Tony objected, and then came the trouble. From sulkiness the brute grew to stubbornness. Finally he stuck in his toes, and refused movement -of any kind. Tony tried art, persuasion, and the merciful lash of the whip. Buster stood firm; his great head low, | his little eyes half shut. Then Tony | sat down in the narrow gut between J the line and the chalky cliffs, and | wiped the sweat off his face and neck. “You’ll get sick of that presently, my friend,” he said. “And then I’ll take it out of you.” The day was very hot among the tail trees —hotter than it should ba for the time of year. There was a new tang in the air, Tony flung up his head and sniffed. Then he came to his feet with horror wide in his eyes. To right of the line the sky was smeared red, and red glinted in the top-most gum leaves. “Fire!” said Tony in his throat, and gripped his whip, bringing the but down on Buster’s quarter. The bul locks snorted, thrusting their heads forward with the sudden strange moan ing that hurts the heart of those that love them. Tony’s eyes blinded for a moment. “We’ve got to go through with it, old boys—if we can. But I’m not going to leave you. And there’s \ no turning back. Buster—if I get you started —” Here Tony did a cruel thing. He took the sharp-pointed bar used for levering and other necessities, roused up the rest of the team, and jabbed Buster savagely in the tenderest por tions of his toughened body. As Euster jumped forward Tony dropped the bar and swung to the yoke, thereby saving an upset by the last inch of his weight. Then the team thundered down the narrow track, wailed “in by tangled under scrub and tall trees with ridden rot tenness of foothold, and creeks to make all thought of escape impossible. A smother of smoke belched suddenly through the bush, smarting- Tony’s eyes, and bringing his heart to his lips. It lifted, and he saw underneath one pillar of scarlet that seemed to hit the sky. Then came the cruel noise of it, and heat that make the bullocks drip from flank to shoulder. “This is going to be a close thing,” said Tony. “Must cast off the track if we' want to get through.” He let them peit full speed up the next rise. On the top even Buster was blown,-and in the minute’s wait he slung apart the hooks, and the truck ran back to the bottom to upset there with a crash. Buster shook his shaggy head slow ly. Then he pitched forward with a grunt, making the pace unweariedly. Tony’s mouth grinned, though his eyes were anxious. He knew that Buster thought he was doing unlawful deeds by trotting where the rule was a care ful walk. On the next siding the windward bush fell away, and Tony saw some thing that made him giddy. All the country that spreads from TregellaVs Gap far north to the Ironstone Moun tains was under fire, deep in the ferny gullies, livid in the sunliglit on the faces, blood-crimson where it ran along the half-naked ranges. Fire! The crudest, grandest thing on earth; a bush fire in heavy timber. It was glorious, and powerful, and terrible beyond words. Tony’s face was white under the healthy red that painted everything, and the corner of his lip bled where his teeth had met in it. He trotted beside his team, sweating and breath less, and with a heartache of pity for the frightened wild things that passed him. And still the team slung heav ily forward, with the dogged Buster to force them. The road and the volleys of smoke filled earth and sky. A spark from somewhere hit Tony’s hand, and the breath of flames fluttered in the leaves close beside. Tony prayed only that the fire might strike behind first. With that goad to drive them the team might get through. A honey-suekle ahead flushed, quivered, and broke in to flame. Tony felt the pull-back of the great. and his heart Thumped untiTTt snook him. * “Buster!” he yelled, and swung up the bar again. Buster charged in fury, bearing the team along by his impetus. The honeysuckle linked hands with a tree | across the line, and dropped sparks j on them as they passed under. Tony beat the sparks out. But others came, fiercer, nearer; more often. Tony’s hands blistered; the heated chains seared the flesh as the bullocks sway ed and staggered; the hurry of the fire grew more insistent, and the lick of the flames strengthened. Tony had neither speech nor power left. Only he knew that he must drive his team forward—forward —until the river should make the right flank of the track and told the fire off by its width. Five times the beasts would have, stopped. Five times the unbroken strength of Buster bore them on. Tony saw by the madness in his eyes that there would be danger to the man who tried to stop him, and he grinned with stiff lips. “Good for me I took you, you old savage,” he said. ******* That evening Jake, his eyes sore with watching the fury of the fire that had passed two miles off, said to the group about him: “Seems like Moffat’l! hev ter git an other bullocky an’ another team,” he said. “There ain’t must as ’ud be like ly to come alive outer that.” The slow clank of chains came up the one street, and the dry clack of split hoofs. The whole crowd came out to see eighteen bullocks crawl up to the door and stand, leaning each on the other. Jake gasped. “Tony’s lot,” he said. “My sakes! Tony’s lot! But where is the kid?” Something stumbled out of the dark that smelt of burnt flesh and singed hair. “I lost the leading couple,”- said Tony, in a voice that no man knew. “The smoke smothered them, I think. Buster pulled the others through. Don’t unyoke him, you chaps. He’s got enough left in him to poke a hole through you yet. I told you he was a ‘dinny-aiser.’ ” Then he pitched forward at Jake's feet in a dead faint. They picked him gently up. “I reckon Buster ain’t the only dinny-aiser in this lot,” he said.— Y’oursg England. High Life. Knicker —What will become of their children? Bocker —They will be taken from the I servants of the father and brought up j by the servants of the mother.—New ' York Sun. The “Rule of Three.” This “Ilule of Three”—it puzzles me From morning until night, And never I exnect to see A boy who wwks it right! My teacher told the class today That I could » ! tand the test Os ciphering, and he must say My sums were done the best. And so it is not at my school, But here at home, you know. I find that hard perplexing Rule Which plagues and frets me so. For Auntie, Grandpapa and Nurse Each make a “Rule” for me— Now tell me, pray, what could be worse Than this hard ''Rule of Three!” Zilelia Cocke, in Little Folks. The Washbear. “Come, children, time for breakfast,” called Madam W T ashbear, climbing out of the hollow tree where she and her two sons had slept all day. The moon was just rising as they entered Far mer Brown’s cornfield. Each helped himself to a couple of ears, and then hurried off to the brook. There Moth er Coon showed the boys how to shake the corn vigorously in the water and pat it between their paws. “It tastes so much nicer,” she said. —Hol- iday Magazine. Chickaree. “Ah, ha!” chuckled Chickaree to himself as he watched the blue-jay putting his acorns into storage for the winter. “I shall know where to go when I an hungry. Now I’ll just run up the hickory tree and take soma supper.” Seating himself where two I branches met, he plucked a nut, turn ed it twice, and peeled off the outer green covering. One more turn and he knew whether it was good or not. .What a keen-witted little fellow he was! He is now filling cupboards with chestnuts and hickories, but he is j likely to go to bed supperless many a ! night before the spring buds swell.— M. W. Leighton, in Holiday Maga zine. When to Cry. There are millions of little boys and J girls in the world who want to do j just the right thing and the very best j thing. But they do not always know i what just tire right thing is, and some- 1 times they cannot tell the very best from the very worst thing. Now 1 have often'thought that there are little boys and girls who cry, now and then, at the wrong time; and I hffve asked many of the older people, but none of them could tell me the i best time to cry. But the other day I met a man older and wiser than any of the rest. He was very old and very wise, and he told me: “It is bad luck to cry on Monday. “To cry on Tuesday makes red eyes. “Crying on Wednesday is bad for children’s heads and for the heads of older people. “It is said that, if a child begins to cry on Thursday, he will find it hard to stop. “It is not best for children to cry on Friday. It makes them unhappy. “Never cry on Saturday. It is too busy a day. “Tears shed on Sunday are salt and bitter. “Children should on no account cry : at night. The nights are for sleep. “They may cry whenever else they i please, but not at any of these times, ! unless it is for something serious.” | I wrote down the rules just as the i old man gave them to me. Os course | they will be of no use to boys and girls who are past six, for those chil dren do not cry. The wise man meant them for the little ones—the millions of little boys and girls who want to do the right thing and the very best thing—Mary Elizabeth Stone, in St. Nicholas. Tame Otters. The otter, says the London Daily Graphic, requires to be taken young if it is to be properly domesticated, and some of the most successful experi ments have been those wade with baby otters which had to be brought | |up with a feeding bottle. The late ! | Captain F. H. Salvin had an otter j w'hich was trained to fish for his ! amusement, and the late Mr. Duff As- i sheton Smith had one at Vaynol that ! would follow' him like a dog, and hunt for trout along a stream as keenly as any terrier after water rats. Mr. S. J. Hurley, of Killaloe, has trained many otters, and has publish ed a very' interesting account of them. On one occasion he w r as going out ’ snipe shooting, when, his water span- ! iel being laid up, it occurred to him | I to take his tame otter to the snipe j j marsh to see how' it would behave j No spaniel, he says, could have per- j formed better. She put up the snipe j splendidly, and retrieved any birds ! that fell into the big pools or bog ! I holes. This otter possessed an almost j epicurean sense of taste, and when I i her master would place before her I - five fish of different species she used ! invariably to tackle the eel first, then the salmon fry, next the trout, then the perch, and last of all the roach, A few years ago there appeared in the “Animal World” (March, 1896) a very pleasing story of a tame otter called “Mousie,” belonging to Mrs. E. L. Boucher, whose portrait, with that of her pet, appeared as an illustration to the article. This animal had been brought up from Infancy with a feed ing bottle, and amply repaid the trou ble bestowed in taming her. In one respect she differed from those above mentioned. In spite of the natural love of fish, she could not be induced to fetch a living one out of the water, even if it were only a foot deep, and it seemed as if cultivation had de prived the little creature of the facul ty of obtaining her food in the nat ural way. Mrs. Boucher tells a touching story of her attempt to overcome this natur ad antipathy to water. “In a neighboring wood I had dis covered a small brook containing no end of small fishes. I rejoiced before hand in the pleasure I should give her, and was full of expectation. From a plank that crossed the brook I dropped her gently into the water; but no sooner did ‘Mousie’ realize her posi tion than she raised a miserable cry for help, lifted both her arms toward me like a drowning child, without making any attempt to swim toward the bank, or taking the slightest no tice of the fishes round her. There was no choice for me but to help her out of the water once, and as soon as I had lifted her up she nestled, wet as she was, round my neck, and seem ed to teil me in low wails of the dread ful danger from which she had es caped.” This serves to show how dependent young animals are on the teaching of their parents. Toys. To tell the whole story of the art of making toys, it would neces sary to find some means of exploring the ages that antedate history. The love of toys is as instinctive as it is universal. No barbarous land has j yet been found which was so unciviiiz j ed that its children did not have their playthings, shapeless and clumsy, per haps, but still capable of fulfilling the purpose for which they were created; and there is no record of any time when little ones have not possessed some kind of puppets with which they might divert themselves. Arch aeologists, in delving among the tombs of ancient Greece and Egypt, made the surprising discovery that the art of toy-making was not only known, but had attained a high de gree) of development as far back as five thousand years ago. In those | days both Grecian and Egyptian chil- I dren had their dolls, and they were | jointed dolls at that. As compared . with the magnificently attired French •I conceptions of the year 1905, they were crude inventions, of course. Their i bodies were made of wood, of clay, or ; of stone, and their little limbs were wee laths, fastened to the body by means of a ware. The carving of the bodies, however, was not badly done, and many a child since that time has been glad to mother a more unsightly doll. By the side of the dolls of the chil dren of ancient Egypt the archaeolo gists unearthed other playthings which j children still love to possess,—the ! deli’s furniture, the utensils for cook j ing, and, w'hat is even more interest ■ ing from an antiquarian’s point of j view', the articles used in the making |of sacrifices, cleverly duplicated in miniature, that the children might be | able to conduct their dolls through j the ritual of their religious exercises— j a circumstance that suggests that the j word “sacrilege” had not then the same meaning which it has today. It is a long step from the year 3000 B. C. to the fifteenth or sixteenth cen turies, but it was within that time that the art of toy-making was both brought to a high state of perfection and then once more forgotten. Like other art, it could not survive the ne glect and vandalism of that period known as the “Dark Ages.” Just what j the children used for playthings dur ing these long centuries of darkness and ignorance one can only surmise; but it is safe to say that they found some things to play with, not only be cause the making of toys was one of | the first objects to which man devoted | his attentions when the Renaissance, ! but aiso for the reason that, as the i psychologists have recently taught us, | playthings are, and always have been, quite as necessary a constituent of human health and development as food and medicine. In other words, children crave toys because it is natur al for them to want them. They need then, and to deprive them of these pleasures would be to retard their progress in their work of becoming men and women. —Public Opinion. Honi Soit. “There’s no usp talking,” sighed the young man who had received a note telling him that it could never be; there’s no use talking, you can't tell anything about women.” “You shouldn’t tell anything about them,” replied the gray-bearded phil osopher, wagging his head sagely.— Judge.