-
cali
Bellefonte, Pa., June 12, 1896.
OPEN THE DOOR.
“Open the door, let in the air,
The winds are sweet, and the flowers are
fair ;
Joy is abroad in the world to-day,
If our door is wide open he may come this
way.
Open the door.
“Open the door of the soul, let in
Strong pure thoughts, which shall banish sin ;
They will grow and bloom with a grace divine,
And their fruit shall be sweeter than that of the
vine. er
Open the door.
“Open the door of the heart, let in
Sympathy sweet for stranger and kin ;
It will make the halls of the heart so fair
That angels may enter unaware,
Open the door.”
y — Exchange.
A PIECE OF PASTURE.
BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
‘Yes,’” said Mr. Dexter, ‘‘honest poverty
is nothing to be ashamed of.”’
‘Nothing to be proud of, either,” said
his son John.
‘‘And very disagreeable, anyway,” said
Sylvia, his pretty daughter.
“Well, I don’t know why we need to
talk about it. It’s something of which we
have no experiende,’’ said his wife, ‘‘hon-
est, or otherwise.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Dexter again—looking
round at the breakfast room, whose walls
were lined with Sylvia’s vines and flower-
ing plants that made it a bower of greenery,
at his shining table, -and the pretty petu-
lant woman with her pink ribbons at its
head—we have every comfort, and some
luxury’’—
‘Papa means Mamma for the luxury*’’
‘No ; he means her for the comfort,”
said John, who was her especial care.
“Thanks, thanks,” said Mamma brid-
ling a little. ‘‘Comfort is quite rela-
tive.”’
‘A very dear relative, sometimes,’’ said
. John.
‘John,’ cried Sylvia ; ‘‘you really must
go into politics !”’
‘‘Heaven forbid !’’ said his father.
“He has such a capacity for pretty
speeches he would be invaluable to diplo-
macy,’’ urged Sylvia.
‘It is all he has a. capacity for,”’ his
father thought. But he did not say so.
‘No, no,’’ he said ; ‘‘the less politics the
better, His desk in the bookstore is the
place for John.”
‘I should be well content with that if I
owned the shop,”” said John. ‘‘But this
spending the best of your days for others
isn’t what it might be.”’
‘It is a great deal better than running
into debt for your beginning,” said his
father, as he left them.
‘‘Yes,”” said Sylvia ; ‘‘save your salary
and wait till I can help you.”
‘You !’’ was the contemptuous reply.
“T do think,’ said Mrs. Dexter, “that a
little dose of poverty wouldn’t be amiss for
Sylvia. She always feels such immense
capabilities that it might bring her”’—
*‘To a realizing sense of her inefficiency, ”’
said Sylvia. ‘‘“Well, Mamma,’’ she added
presently, sipping her coffee—John having
gone upstairs again to change his tie—*‘‘you
speak as if that would give you pleas-
ure.
‘No, I don’t ; not at all.
always opposing John’’—
“Why, Mamma !”’
‘Yes, you are. The moment John
comes anywhere near proposing to your
father to give him the money to buy out
the stock of that place, you come in with
your influence against it.
“My influence, Mamma !”’
were such a thing j”’
“Well, there is! You are so exactly
like your father that he hears all you say.
And he feels you behind him and laughs
the whole thing off. Saving his salary, in-
deed ! He might as well think of buying
the crown jewels with his salary ! A salary
is a dreadful thing ; it Binds you down in
chains. Yes ; there is no doubt about it,
a salary is a dreadful thing.”
‘But, Mamma, do you think it is right,
when Papa has you and the little children
on his hands—I don’t speak of myself, he-
cause I suppose I can see to myself.
‘“There it is again ! Your immeasurable
conceit of yourself.’
‘‘But, Mamma, there are quantities of
young girls who do not care of them-
selves.”
“Their name is
then.”
“Well, if I can’t see to myself, it seems
to me there is all the more reason for Pa-
pa’s not crippling himself by giving his
money to John and risking everything.’
“There is no risk about it. You are a
selfish and unnatural girl, Sylvia ! You
would let your poor brother toil and moil
all his life, rather than make a little sacri-
fice yourself. “And he has always been so
good, so kind ; he was such: a beautiful
child—I remember when his curls were cut
off that Mrs. Dares said.—"’
‘‘Mamma, dear, you sent Julia on an er-
rand, and said you would make John’s
lunch)’—
‘Sylvia ! And it’s almost train time !
Why didn’t you see toit ? So full of the
good of the family theoretically—and poor
John all day in town with nothing to eat’’
‘And not a restaurant handy, said
Sylvia. “Well, I have seen to it. And
there’s an egg-sandwich, and a breast of
duck, and some celery, and some salt, and
a buttered mufflin, and a little tart, and a
doughnut, and a flask of coffee. John has
a better lunch than we shall have. He
has'it every day.”
‘‘I should think you grudged it to your
brother !”’
‘‘No, indeed ! John likes good things,
and I like to put them up for him ; so we
are even. John doesn’t think so badly of
me as you do, Mamma.’
“I don’t know what you mean, Sylvia, I
never said I thought badly of you. You
annoy me with your jealously of John—
poor, dear, John ; he was meant for a
prince—and you uphold your father in his
severity.’’
‘‘Here, John—excuse me, Mamma,—
here John,’’ cried Sylvia, hurrying to the
the door as he went by. ‘Don’t forget
your luncheon.”
‘Oh, hang the luncheon !"’ cried John,
as he took the parcel. ‘My father’s
economies will be the ruin of this family
yet. If there’s any one thing that has a
cheap and detestable look, it’s this pulling
a luncheon out of your desk instead of
going out like a man with any indepen-
dence.”’
“I'm sure you needn’t take it, John, .if.
you don’t wish,” remonstrated his moth-
er.
‘Yes, take it, John,’’ interpolated Syl-
via. ‘‘A penny saved isa penny earned.
It means more than half a dollar toward
your capital.”
But you are
As if there
not Sylvia Dexter,
‘‘Come, now, that’s interesting! Work
it out for me while I’m gone, and see if I
will have enough at that rate to put out at
interest Stoel die.”
‘‘There,”’ said Sylvia to herself, ‘I shall
say no more about it. If Papa chooses to
take the risk—poor Papa ! Well, its for-
tunate that Aunt Jeannette has invited me
to visit her just now.”” And she put on
her jacket to go and call upon the neigh-
bor whose cow pastured in her lot, and see
if it would not be as convenient to pay the
rent now as later, so that she need not ask
her father to open his purse for her. And
she came back with so bright a face that
her mother declared she thought that cow-
right was worth more to Sylvia than the
whole place to them.
‘Perhaps it is,’’ said Sylvia : ‘for it’s
mine, Mamma. And it isn’t going to be
absorbed and lost in John’s business, if the
rest of the place is.”
For the little three-acre lot was Sylvia's.
She had bought it and paid for it from "her
small savings, together with the two hun-
dred dollars her grandmother had left her,
when there was rumor of its purchase for
some unpleasant purpose, it being just at
the foot of the garden. Her mother had
never given her any peace concerning it, so
to say. She ought to have lent the money
to John, was the tenor of Mrs. Dexter's
frequent remark ; and doubtless she would
have done so but for Harley Melton’s in
fluence, and for her part she wished Sylvla
had never set eyes on Harley, undesirable
and unsuitable as he was ! But Sylvia, for all
that, had been a proud and happy land-
holder and tax-payer ever since, and had
enjoyed the sight of the neighbor’s cow un-
der the great trees, aud drinking from the
little brook formed by the spring that bub-
bled there as cold as if it had come all the
way from Spitzbergen ; and she had en,
joyed quite as much the ten dollars a sum-
mer that the neighbor paid her.
She had had another pleasure in it too ;
for often had she and Harley Melton laid
out those three acres in their strolls across
them ; and here should be the house, and
here the little lawn, and here the orchard ;
and it would be so pleasant, being near
Papa ; and if Harley did not think it
would be so pleasant being near Mamma,
he kept the thought to himself. Sylvia,
with her great blue eyes, her lovely fair-
ness, and her sweet sparkling brown-haired
beauty, was so precious, that if the mother
who bore her was not perfect, too, he was
not sure that the fault was not in himself.
He loved Sylvia beyond any words, the
bright and busy little creature, alive to the
tips of her hair with interest in all things
and all people, feeling all things alive as
well to her, the bird on the bough, the
blossom there, too the child playing be-
neath it. They had no idea of marrying,
except for in the indefinite future ; they
had nothing to marry on ; it was enough
to love each other now ; by and by they
would build the little house, perhaps, in
the piece of pasture.
They used to wander over the bit of land
as if it were an estate, with a joy of A pos-
session ; and where the spring bubbled out
of the ledge that cropped up beneath the
group of great trees, they would sit and
watch the water as if every bubble were a
miracle. ;
“Just look down in it Harley—how
clear ! Look at the jewels on the bottom ;
they are rubies, sapphires, emeralds, opals,
topazes beryls—oh, what a glitter ! What
color,” what splendor ! It seems as if I
could put down my arm and scoop up a
handful of the gorgeous things.”
‘The pebbles down there? It is the
wonderful clearness of the water that
makes them so near ; and I suppose it is
the vertical sunbeam that makes them
seem so beautiful. They are really a dozen
feet beyond your reach,’’ said the young
chemist.
“They can’t be, Harley !”’
‘Yes, I sounded the spring last week ; it
is eighteen feet deep ; and I don’t dare to
say how many gallons it pours out a min-
ute that all go so waste through the Tel-
assee River.” *
‘To think that our brook makes part of
a big river !”’ ?
‘And I analyzed it, too. The river that
went out of Eden could not be purer. One
drinking this might think he was drinking
of the water of life.”
“Well, it will be Eden when we have
our little house up there on the knoll.
‘What a beautiful earth it is, Harley, when
such freshness and purity pour out of its
dark places ! What a dear earth, to let us
call this little piece of hers ours !”’
‘1 really should think,’’ said Mrs. Dex-
ter when Sylvia came in, ‘‘that that spring
was full.of diamonds by the way you and
Harley Helton hang over it.’’
“It is, mamma—it is!’ and Sylvia
danced away with no idea of the truth in
her words. ;
It was lonesome at Aunt Jeannette’s, in
the big town twenty miles away. Her
father and John and Harley came in every
day to their business, and for five minutes
she saw Harley, who made occasion to go
by the gate. Her father and John found
time for few visits. Her first letter from
her mother informed her that she would be
glad to hear that her father had at last sold
his bonds and given John the proceeds to
buy out the business where he had slaved
so long as a clerk. Sylvia knew, however,
under what unbearable pressure her poor
father had been brought to buy out the
business where he had slaved so long as a
clerk. Sylvia knew, however, under what
unbearable pressure her poor father had
been brought to yield ; and her indigna-
tion and pity for him made her feel at first
as if she never wanted togo into the house
again. Succeeding letters were very jubi-
lant and happy ; it gave his mother so
much pleasure to see John taking his place
as became him, a man among men. She
thought the business must be flourishing,
for John had a little naphtha launch on
the river, in which he went to town now,
instead of traveling with a fhe dust and
jar of the railway. urse, there
had been opposition, the letter said,
for his father was one of those men who
never liked innovation ; but probably he
would soon be going into town on it him-
self. He was always prognosticating evil ;
any one would think John was committing
an unpardonable extravagance in having
devised a healthier way of going to busi-
ness than they had ever known before.
Mr. Dexter did not approve of John’s new
horse, either ; and yet any one could see
that the horse was as gentle asa woolly
lamb, and he ate apples and sugar from the
children’s hands, and when he traveled he
simply flew.
When Sylvia made an errand to her
father’s office, she found him as anxious as
she had expected. But it would do no
good for her to go home with him just now ;
she would show her disapprobation of the
state of affairs too plainly ; and she
couldn’t if she would, for Aunt Jeannettee
was ill with typhoid fever, and, of course,
it was out of the question to leave her.
There was really a pestilence of typhoid in
the town. All the drinking water was
drawn from a river that passed large pol-
luting towns and tanneries, and every day
a new case appeared, till there was almost
a panic in the place.
Fortunately for Sylvia she was one of
those creatures so full of vital strength and
fire that fear was unknown to her ; and so
well had she nursed Aunt Jeannettee that,
when she was a little rested, the hard-
pressed physician begged her to help him
on another case. And so it chanced that
she went from one sick bed to another, and
presently came to be offered large payments
for her services ; and in view of her appre-
hensions concerning John and her father’s
unsecured loan to him it seemed best for
her to continue both earning money and
carrying relief. Harley protested that she
would wear herself out ; but she protested
in return that she was well and young and
strong, and liked it ; and that even if the
duty had not heen set so plainly before her
in relation to the sick and her ability to
help them, it would be a wanton waste for
her to refuse to earn the money thus offer-
ed her. ‘Oh, Harley !”’ she cried ; “I
must do all I can’ for them. For when I
think of the poor creatures dying for want
of good water, murdered by bad water, and
remember our spring in the pasture bub- |
bling up fresh and pure every second, I
feel like a criminal ; as if I kept health
and strength all to myself ; as if I, and
not the spring, were wasting what would
be life to them.
“‘Such a morbid feeling shows that you
are tired and in no condition to be nursing
the sick,” said Harley. But suddenly, as
they went along together—for he appointed
to meet her almost every day now in the
hour’s walk allowed the nurse by custom
—his face flushed and flashed with a sud-
den thought like the passing of a sunbeam.
“Will you give me permission to do what
I please, to take all I want of the spring
water, and in the way I think best ?”’ he
on her finger some little time before. ‘‘Pa-
pa, you are quite another person already,’’
she cried pinning on her hat and going out
to the minister's with them and her Aunt
Jeannette.
‘Oh, you dear, sweet, confiding old
Mother Earth,” Sylvia exclaimed, kneel-
ing at her window that night, and looking
out on the dark, slumbering, country be-
hind the town, “I love you so!’
“I think,” said Harley, ‘‘you had better
be saying how you love me !”’
‘“That goes without saying,’’ she replied,
leaning back her head on his arm. ‘‘But
this dear Earth—she makes us so happy
while she rolls with us about the sun that
it seems to me now only a happiness to
think of the time when we shall be a part
of her—just brown dust together in her
bosom !’
“Oh, but a long way off I’ he cried,
folding her still more closely in his arms.
Dexter, having inspected the released
mortgage and the gratifying check, had
coquettishly picked out the pink ribbons
of her. cap and was remarking to her hus-
band :
‘Well, it was the most thoughtful thing
Sylvia ever did—to save me the fuss of a
wedding, That piece of pasture ! Is John
to have a salary—or a commission ? A
salary is so comfortable. You always
know where you are with a salary. It has
to be paid. Oh yes, a salary is the best
thing ; I have always said so. Harley
Melton is turning: out better than I
| thought. I never said there was any harm
[in him ; only that he was so inefficient.
Still, with the money coming in, Sylvia
could have done better. She could have
married almost any one. It is vexatious,
said.
“The idea !"’ cried Sylvia. ‘Permission, |
indeed ! Isn't what is mine yours, I
say what you will, to have an outsider like
Harley directing family affairs. It is just
! the thing for John himself to do ; and it is
It was about the same hour that Mrs.
| Terrible Downpour of Water in Altoona.
| Rainfall the Greatest Ever Known in the History of
the City, Ober Two Inches Falling in Two and One-
Half Hours:on Sunday Afternoon.
Beginning at half-past 12 Sunday after-
noon the greatest rain storm which ever
visited Blair, Co., swept over Altoona and its
suburbs. In two hours and a-half 1 19-100
inches of rain fell according to the official
register. This is the heaviest rainfall in
that length of time ever recorded in .Al-
toona.
The storm was accompanied by terrific
displays of electrical force, though there
are but few casualties from this source re-
ported. Mrs. Eliza Ennison, of 3023 Seventh
avenue, was terribly shocked by lightning
while putting down a window at her home.
The storm twas general thoughout the
city, but was particularly heavy on the
west side over a belt extending from Fair-
view southward over the First, Third,
Fifth and Sixth wards. All over the city
the streets were innundated, sewers over-
flowed and street railways washed out.
Gaidens, outhouses, business places and
manufacturing plants were flooded and
losses entailed which will aggregate from
$75,000 to $100,000.
The scenes along the devastated dis-
tricts remind the visitor of the great Johns-
town flood in 1889. There is the same ap-
pearance of disaster noticeable, but in a
lesser degree. Residences and outbuild-
ings are turned . topsy turvy ; gardens
washed out and strewed with debris many
feet in height”; there is terror among the
residents along the paths of seething tor-
rents. :
At Fifteenth avenue and . Eighteenth
street, four families only reached their
homes by means of rude bridges construc-
ted with portions of fences and side-walks.
| Men, women and children crossed these frail
should like to know ?’” And they passed ! my private opinion that John suggested | structures from one window to another
to more purely personal matters.
i ‘the whole business in the first place. He
| over raging torrents of murky waters which
“I don’t know if you are aware,’’ wrote | always said that water was pure. John is swept with resistless fury around the cellar
her mother some weeks afterward, ‘‘that
Harley Melton is meddling with the spring |
in your piece of pasture, as you call it,
meddling in my opinion must unwarrant-
ably. He has had men there scooping it
out and curbing it ; and he has rigged an
unsightly derrick there, and men are filling
great glass demijohns by the wagonful.
And at this rate there’ll be no spring there
at all presently. I suppose it is to save
himself the trouble of distilling water for
his prescriptions—that is so pure. I'm
sure if he has money enough to hire men
and rig derricks and all that, and cares as
much as he pretends ahout you, he had
better lend it to John, who can’t sleep
nights for worrying about his notes,’
Sylvia was too busy with her sick and
dying people to wonder much about the
burden of her mother’s letter. She knew
that whatever Harley did was likely to be
right. She could not spare the time ‘to go
and see her father again ; she could not get
the time ; hut she felt oppressed with fear
for him, and she laughed a little bitterly
at herself to think she had supposed she
could help him with her earnings, when a
whole year of them would not amount to a
thousand dollars. But at any rate she was
glad that she was lifting any portion of ex-
pense from him, be it ever so small.
It was some weeks afterward that when
she went out ‘for het morning walk ina
new direction, and saw great posters on
all the fences and telegraph poles, ‘‘Drink
water from the Sylvan Spring and prevent
typhoid,” she understood with a double.
thrill of joy for themselves, and joy for the
sick, what Harley was doing. And when
she met him driving in with a load of the
glass car-boys filled with Sylvan Spring
water, which he left from house to house,
before going to his headquarters for fresh
orders, she felt as if he were really an angel
of the Lord in mortal guise. And he held
out his hand for her to mount to his side,
and she rode back into town with him,
feeling as a devotee might do who carried
holy water to the perishing and penitent.
Sylvia had gone back to her Aunt Jean-
nette’s for a short rest after the hard and
cruel winter, when, one bright May day,
her father came to see her. John had fail-
ed ; and all that Mr. Dexter had saved and
spared in the long years had gone into the
gulf with the money of the other creditors.
There were no assets to speak of—a few
notes, the remnants of an ill-choosen stock,
the horse that had gone lame, the disabled
naptha launch. Sylvia felt as though her
heart would break when she saw her fath-
er’s despondency. ‘‘Don’t blame your
poor mother,” he said. ‘Love isa good
fault. It was her love for John, and her
‘belief’ in me. She thought I was equal
to any trouble that might come, superior
to it ; but even I supposed John had some
capacity. It’s hard, my child, to begin
life over again at sixty.”
‘‘I don’t think you will have to do that,
Mr. Dexter,” said Harley who, coming in
just then, had heard the last words. ‘I
am just making a return to my chief ; and
I am sure it will be a joy to Sylvia to re-
place a good portion of your losses by in- |
dorsing this check to you.”
“Harley !”’
“I have deducted all the expenses and
my own commission,’’ said Harley. ‘You
will see by the schedules that we supply
in this town and others along the route and
on the further side—for the typhoid scare
is widespread now—more than a thousand
families with the Sylvan Spring water, at
fifty cents a week. Of course the expenses
are heavy ; but then the net profit is
heavy, too. It gives Sylvia and me enough
to build our house in another spot at some
distance from the water-works, a pasture of
mine. ‘And if you, Mr. Dexter, will take
the management of the business in town—
I think it need not interfere with your pre-
sent arrangements ; and John will overseer
the teams—that is quite within his power ;
I can attend to the spring-house until the
time, that is, when the towns take the
works off our hands and pay us fifty or a
hundred thousand for our plant, with per-
manent positions in the business.”
‘‘There is no more honest poverty in
ours, Papa,’’ cried Sylvia.
“Harley !”” said Mr. Dexter ; ‘you are
my salvation.” .
‘‘Well, sir, you can reverse the thing
and be mine by giving your daughter a
command to become my wife here and
now. !”’ ’
‘“Without her mother ?*’
“Well, papa,’’ said Sylvia, blushing
rosy-red, but feeling obliged to come to
Harley’s help,” Aunt Jeannette would do.
And you know that mamma has a great—a
great faculty for obstruction. I think she
will be so relieved about John that ‘she
will forgive us. And we will make her a
wedding present of a paid-up-mortgage of
the house.” :
‘You are a nouveau riche, Sylvia. Har-
ley must not allow you to be too free withe
your money.”’ :
‘Oh, it isn’t ours ; it is a trust the dear
old Mother Earth gives us. - We, are to be-
happy out of it, and to make every one
else happy. And, oh, what happiness it is
to: bring health to whole towns full of peo-
ple ! Don’t you remember I told you the
sprin- was full of sapphires and rubies and
emera.ds, Harley ? “And real ones you
see, papa !’ for Harley had slipped a ring
| so full of ideas !”’
“rr
| Rev. Weaver and His Assistants.
| Night after night the attendance at the
| Tabernacle on the school groumds at the
| corner of Spring and Lamb streets keeps up.
| The Bible readingsat three o’clock are well
| attended for day services and since school
| closed, the children’s meetings; at four
| o'clock, fairly swarm with youngsters.
| Rev. Weaver came to Bellefonte in Feb-
{ ruary under the auspices of the W. C. T.
| U., and was so successful in his revival
| meetings that he was persuaded to return
| as soon as he could with his associate evan-
| gelists Wharton and Weeden. , Mention
| has been made in the WATCHMAN several
times of the Tabernacle, its construction
and how it happened to be built, so we
will only sketch the noble men who are do-
ing a great work towards the evangelizing
of our community.
Evangelist Leonard Weaver isan Eng-
lishman by birth, born at Leommster,
Herefordshire.
verted and the result of the prayers of pi-
ous parents and Christian training soon
manifested itself in consecration to what
has become his life work. When 21 years
old he gave himself up to evangelistic
! work, and for nine years traveled through
Great Britain and Ireland preaching to
great congregations. Six years ago his
health failed him and he came to this
country, and with the change came re-
newed health.
James Wharton, the English evangelist
is a native of Penrith, Cumberland. He
was born in a saloon named ‘“The Golden
Keg,”’ kept by his parents. He attended
the Congressional Sunday school along
with his brother, where he received his re-
ligious impressions. He was at the age of
15 apprenticed to the hardware business,
but after awhile left it and went to sea,
where he experienced _many hardships and
hair-breadth escapes.” After five years or
so of seafaring life he returned to his na-
tive town, where a revival was in progress,
and he was converted from the error of his
ways. This changed the whole tenor “of
his life and he soon afterwards became a
worker in the cause and kingdom of his
new Master. He married and settled. in
business as a house furnisher at Barrow,
England, and he finally relinquished his
business for evangelistic work, and since
then has had calls to preach and conduct
revival services throughout the United
Kingdom and the United States and Cana-
da and the Shetland Islands. He has
crossed the ocean 23 times, and for 20
years has preached the Gospel in nearly all
the large towns and citigs of these countries
including the southern states. He was the
first man who attempted to preach af-
ter the war in the open air in the city of
New Orleans, and during these many years
has been instrumental in bringing hund-
reds into the peace which ‘‘passeth all un-
derstanding.” :
W. 8S. Weeden was born in Columbia
county, Ohio, March 29th, 1845 ; his father
moved into southern Ohio when Mr. Weed-
en was about 10 years of age. He grew up
in that country, went into the late war
from there, served 23 years, came home in
the fall of ’95, being in his 19th year, and
attended a revival held in a Protestant
Methodist church and was converted dur-
ing the meetings, was married the follow-
ing spring, took up the study of music, be-
gan teaching singing schools, and soon af-
ter he began to study, and served as choir-
master in small towns for several years.
About 10 years ago he was called to Alle-
gheny city as chorister of one of the largest
churches there, where he served for a num-
ber of years. Three years ago he moved to
New York city, taking charge of the music
at Washington Square M. E. church serv-
ing them two years, and during the week
singing in evangelistic work in the slums
and missions of that city and Brooklyn.
Could All Live In Texas.
They are said to lie at times, but they
can tell the truth. A statistician who is
also a bishop, and hence of necessity truth-
ful, says that if all the arable lands in the
United States were under cultivation it
would feed 450,000,000 people and we
could also export 2,555,000,000 bushels of
grain. He declares that we could care for
1,000,000,000 people and also keep the
world from starving. If all the people in
the United States lived in Texas it would
not be.as thickly settled and populated as
Germany. We are worth $69,000,000,000,
and the most astonishing part of “this story
is that the larger part of this wealth has
been acquired since the war.
——An exchange says that gossip has
made many a home a hell on earth ; gossip
has parted husbands and wives ; gossip has
blackened and sullied the character of many
poor girls ; gossip has parted lovers who
would have been very happy if it had not
been for gossip. One little misstep or one
little indiscretion will cause gossip to arise
with new strength and start on her mis-
sion. Her, did we say ? We ought not
, to, for we have our male gossipers, and as
a rule they are ten times more venomous
than a female. A good, healthy man -gos-
sipper is about as mean and low and dan-
gerous as the meanest thing on earth.
When a boy he was con-!
| walls.
Residents near Tenth street and Howard
| avenue were surprised to see a torrent of
| water five or six feet deep come sweeping
| down Tenth street from the direction of
| Eighteenth avenne. After passing Fifteenth
| avenue it cut diagonally across the street,
| crashed through cellar walls and residences
land made its way to Ninth street, down
{ which it sped in a raging rivulet a hundred
| feet in width and fouror five deep.
| The intake of the First district sewer is
| situated in Eighteenth alley near Tenth
| street. The terrific downpour speedily
clogged this and the waters gathered into
a raging~torrent and sped down through
the city. The residence ‘of C. L. Koller,
1016 Eighteenth avenue, was almost wreck-
ed. The rear yards in this vicinity are
devastated, outbuildings overturned, cel-
ar walls crushed in and cellars flooded.
The water rose eight feet, filling the first
floors of the houses, tearing down fences
and literally washing gardens away. The
sufferers in this vicinity are : John Miller,
{ 1010 Eighth avenue, John Smith, 1012
Eighteenth avenue, Charles Mattas, 1014
Eighteenth avenue, carpets ruined, fences,
outbuildings and residences damaged, loss
$200 ; C. L. Koller, 1016 Eighteenth ave-
nue, loss $400 ; C. C. Durburrow, 1018
Eighteenth avenue, loss $200.
The residence of Mrs. Rachel Marks,
1013 Eighteenth avenue, was damaged to
the extent of $200. Miss Virgie, her daugh-
ter, had to be carried out of the house.
J. L. Jones, and A. G. McGlaughlin, of
Seventeenth avenue, lost much. While
0. S. Kane, of the 7Zimes office force,
was washed into the torrent and narrowly
escaped drowning. v4
There are many sufferers in the Tenth
street district whose losses will aggregate
several thousands of dollars. Some of these
would not or could not estimate the dam-
age they suffered.
Down in Logantown the damage was
restricted to the district between Third and
Fourth streets and Cherry and Chestnut
avenues A large number of cellars were
flooded, fences and outbuildings destroyed.
The damage here, however, did not nearly
approach in magnitude the Tenth and
Eighteenth street disasters.
ALONG EIGHTEENTH STREET
the climax of destruction was reached.
The inlet to the Fourth district sewer is
situated at Eighteenth avenue and Eigh-
teenth street. Here a small child fell into
the torrent abot 4.30, and would have
drowned had not a bystander jumped in
and rescued it. At Fifteenth avenue and
Eighteenth street the scene was indescrib-
able. At 6 o'clock in the evening the water
was still running down its improvised
passage way several feet in depth.
Through the Eighteenth street culvert
the flood poured to a depth of four or five
feet. Fences, lumber, sidewalks and
debris indescribable were borne along with
the current and mostly lodged in the yard
in front of the Edison plant on Union
avenue. The water poured into the elec-
tric plant, filling the draft tunnel and
practically closing the plant. After the
storm was over pumps were rigged up and
by dint of hard work on the part of Super-
intendent Greene the current was turned
on in full by 10 o’clock. Previous to that
a large portion of the city was in dark-
ness.
After passing the Edison plant the water
spread over a large area, filling cellars, but
doing less damage. The various streams
did not converge again until they reached
the culverts at Ninth avenue and Twenty-
fourth street. Once through here a river
six or eight feet in depth and fifty feet wide
was formed, which continued the work of
destruction in the lower Sixth ward and
beyond the city limits. Travel on the
Seventh avenue line was suspended because
of the great washout at Seventh avenue
and Twenty-fourth street, while on the
Logan Valley line the bridge on Fifth
avenue near Twenty-fifth street was render-
ed so unsafe as to make its use perilous.
Accordingly passengers were transferred
here, while workmen repaired the damage.
Near Llyswen the Logan Valley line was
washed out for a space of nearly 220 yards.
Travel south of the power house was sus-
pended altogether. On the Bellwood line
the damage was correspondingly great. Be-
tween Blair and Flizabeth Furnaces about
thirty-five feet of the tracks are standing
edgewise, while in other places it is dan-
gerously washed. More than $1,000 will
be requiled to repair the Logan Valley and
City Passenger companies’ losses.
In the vicinity of the three culverts there
is chaos. The wagon roads is obliterated,
and where a few days ago a shallow
streamlet trickled yesterday a raging riveg
flowed. Trees, fences and other debris
FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN.
A woman in St. Louis has gained the
right to solicit fire insurance. Some time
ago the Board of Underwriters expelled the
company which employed her. The case
was taken to the courts, and the firm was
reinstated, with full privilege to employ
this or any other woman.
All thin textures are now arranged over
color, and the skirts are quite separate at
the edge, which gives a lighter and more
fluffy effect. In many cases the slip is
distinctly a separate garment, and can he
used as a foundation for several gowns.
Bran water is recommended for the com-
plexion. Put a cupful of bran in a small
cheesecloth bag. Pour over it very hot
water, and when the water is cool enough
to use it will be found creamy and soft.
The bran bag is used hy many in the
daily washing of face and hands. Some-
times there are added shavings of olive oil
soap er orris root, which give a delicate
perfume like violets to the skin. Indian
meal or oatmeal is often substituted for
bran.
The dry air of the modern dwelling house
is inimical to beauty, drying up the skin
and causing early wrinkles.
The tailor-made girl is strictly in it this
summer for a tailor-made costume is one of
the necessities of the day. They now fit
the back to perfection and cling to it, and
the loose fronts show the sides of the figure,
which is a marked improvement. Only
the best tailors understand the secret of
doing it.
If you order coat and skirt at the best
places you will find your skirt untrimmed
but faultless. Your jacket will be mould-
ed to your figure, except directly in front,
where it will close with two large mother-
of-pearl buttons and hang loose from the
bust down. A narrow opening above will
reveal a mousseline white or cream chemi-
sette or plisse, of course. Then broad revers,
turn over, and the material will have an
edging of guipure.
Cadet blue is an especially favored color
this season, and comes in all the newest
goods. It is clear, yet soft, and is eminent-
ly becomlng to a face daintily flushed with
pink. A charming tailor gown made up in
English homespun in this soft color has a
sfx-gored skirt, made to flare smartly at the
foos, where a five-inch hem is turned up on
the outside and heavily stitched.
The fullness at the back is arranged in
flat, box plaits to harmonize with the box
plaits at the back of the little coat. The
jacket is in reefer effect, cut open broadly
to show the shirt waist front, and having a
rolling collar and oddly-cut square revers,
thickly braided over with black.
The sleeves are in in the melon shape,
with the braided decorations at the wrist as
a finish. The entire gown is interlined
with rustling black taffeta.
One of those simple—mind not inexpen-
sive—the two are a long way apart, and
beautiful gowns is of white Swiss dotted
with black and lined throughout with an
exquisite shade of yellow silk ; the bodice
was trimmed with horizontal rows of black
lace insertion, while the bottom of. the
skirt was finished by three or four tiny
lace-edged Tom Thumb ruffles. The stock
and wide girdle of black taffeta completed
this airy costume, which looked the acme
of girlish simplicity.
Another, of white organdy, made over
pale pink ; the skirt, which was very full,
was finished with a wide flounce, trimmed
with many rows of white lace insertion.
The bodice, in blouse effect, was a mass of
lace, and was partly covered with a wide
mull collar.
“Harper's Bazar says the proper length for
a bicycle skirt is now conceded to be about.
to the top of the boots ; no shorter, and for
hall riding even longer. The fulness is
all in the back, but there is so much. gor-
ing over the hips and width below that the
outlines of the figure are becomingly hid-
den. On the correct cut of the skirt de-
pends the beauty of the costume, which
may be made of a cheap material, if only it
hangs well. i
There are two ways this season of ar-
ranging the fulness of the skirt at the back.
One has it all beneath the folded-over-
pleats which meet at the back ; the other
has two box-pleats, double, like many of
the walking costumes. The latter fashion
looks rather better off the wheel, but the
former looks Deny when riding, for the folds.
hang more ully.
The —_— style for the waist is. .
the Norfolk jacket, but this season the fill--
ed in Eton jacket is more popular. The:
Norfolk jacket has the pleats sewed down
(and cut away underneath), and there is.
none of the ugly bulkiness which formerly
condemned that garment for stout women..
It should be made to come quite below the.
waist-line, and with full-gkirt effect.
At the neck it is cut open just enough to-
show the neck tie—the four-<in-hand, fash--
ionable once again—and bas. small flat.
revers. The sleeves of a correet bicycle:
costume are much smaller than for other:
gowns, and are invariably oft the leg-of--
mutton shape. 7
When the Eton jacket is:worn, it must.
be very carefully fitted, and the front have
turned-back revers, which ara-broad at the:
shoulders and taper in at the waist. A full
silk front is part of this costume, and is.
worn with narrow turned-down collar, sup- -
@osed to be the same as, boys wear with
their Eton suits. While the Norfolk jacket .
can be made becoming. alike to thin or
stout women, the Eton jacket is never be- -
coming to a woman with short waist and
broad hips. Large hips may, according to .
classic lines, be very handsome ; they cer- -
tainly do not tend to graceful effect when
riding a wheel, and the costume that will
modify them is the best for women in gen-
eral.
The bicycle skirt" should not have any
facing on the inside. The desired weight
and finish can be given by a broad leather
band or rows. of machine-stitching, and
through a broad hem ov facing turned up
on the outside.
There are many devices .for the placket-
hole, and the skirts that quite do away
with it in thie back and have the front
breadth button at each side are the smart- -
est in appearance as well as the most com-
fortable to manage. Where buttons are |
not liked, invisible hooks and eyes on a
strew the banks or lodge in protected cor- |
ners.
——The government makes a big profit
out of pennies. According to the Seientfic
American the blanks for making them are
purchased under contract from a Cincinna-
ti firm at the price of $1.00 per 1,000.
Blanks for nickels cost about one and a
half cent each. There is a profit of nearly
50 per cent on silver coins. The gold coins
are worth their face value in bullion or un-
coined metal.
|
|
|
|
flap answer every purpose.
Skirts of thin dresses are almost invari-
ably trimmed. Sometimes the gores are
defined by insertions of lace, straps of
braid, or cut-work. embroidery, or the
front breadth is embroidered so that it
looks like a panel ; but at the bottom of
skirts is where new fashions are particu-
larly noticeable ; small overlapping ruffles
are headed with a ruche, or a bias ruffle is
put on in festoons, or perhaps with a band
of ribbon.
IN. tbl A