Demorralic Waldman Bellefonte, Pa., April 2I, 1899. FAREWELL. The boat went drifting, drifting, over the sleeping sea, and the man that I loved the dearest sat in the boat with me. The shadow of coming parting hung over the great gray swell, And the winds that swept across it sobbed on, farewell, farewell. The boat went drifting, drifting, in the linger ing Northern light, And the face that I loved the dearest paled with the paling light. We strove to join light langhter; we strove to wake a jest; But the voice that I loved the dearest rang sadly "mid the rest. The boat went drifting, driftng, while the dull skies lowered down, And the “ragged rims of thunder” gave the rocky head a crown. The boat went drifting, drifting, while to the darkening sky For the man that I loved the dearest the pray- er rose silently. Oh, true, strong hand I touch no more; brave smile IT may not see; Will the God who governs time and tide bring him back to my life and me? —The Home Qucen. THE ASSISTANT BOSS. The Girl Who Managed a Political Campaign. There are millions of women who can re- cline, hundreds of thousands who can sit, but the woman who can stand is one in a multitude. Her backbone does not fold. That was one distinction about Lucy Kemper which made her a positive person- ality. She stood on her feet as if she were glad of life. No poet could have written hazy lines about her willowy ways. She could not,—in all honesty, she probably would not if she could,—fulfill the ancient idea of the ivy and the oak. Being a chip of the old block, she was a healthy oak her- self. As she stood by the library window,— standing well and thus seeming tall, stand- ing straight and honest with the world,— she looked like a pose for a portrait, but the intenseness of her face shadowed a problem. In her limited lifetime she had had odd experiences. At fifteen, her mother and only brother had heen taken from her, and in less than a year she was a young woman, mistress of the house, the confidante and companion of her father. Extensive travel followed in different years, educating and developing. ‘The Governor’’ was in her hands, and the Governor was the man next in greatness to the man who ruled his own temper, for he surely raled the city in which he lived. He had the genius for handling men. He loved the sense of pow- er. Politics to him was the opportunity of satisfying the implanted ambition of con- quest. He laughed at his puppets, but he liked to move them, * Suddenly stricken, his inability to di- rect threatened party chaos. Absolute quiet was the order of the doctor. As usual, Lucy spanned the chasm. She would see all callers, and carry only the necessary messages to the invalid. He was to trust all else to her. So she was standing at the library win- dow, thinking. Suddenly she gave a little cry and clasped her hands. The man of all men she was the least prepared to meet was coming up the path,—George Howe, who expected to be nominated District At- torney, and whom the workers of the party wanted to see nominated. But even the young oak, the lithe, glad, growing oak, bends little to any breeze, and when George Howe came in, Lucy Kemper was smiling, and she greeted George as if he had come for luncheon. George was radiant. A six-footer, with a fine face and a frank, magnetic manner, he looked like a leader of men, and a fol- lower of love. The genuine masculine quality was written upon him. ‘‘You sent for me?’’ he said after the usual weather prefaces, * ‘‘Yes, by order of father.”” At which George drooped, considering it an entirely uncalled-for explanation. ‘He is really very ill,”’ she continued, ‘‘and the dector has ordered absolute quiet. But he is not content at that, and so we have compro- mised to this extent: I am to be his agent, or representative, or whatever he calls it, and take to him only the messages that are necessary.’’ ‘‘And you may count on me. way may I assist?’’ ‘‘That’s the trouble. you can’t assist. Attorney?" George really blushed, politician that he was. ‘‘Rather say I am going to be,” he replied with considerable satisfaction. ‘“Well, you are not, and that is the trou- ble,” she said very calmly, and George gazed at her in damb amazement. ‘It is just this way,” she went on. ‘‘Father has given me a full statement of conditions and things, and directed me just what to do. But really, you are to do it all. He says you are the brightest man in the party, and you know how to make up the list of nominations, and he expects you to attend to this.”’ ‘‘That is easy enough,’ he replied, re- covering from the shock. ‘‘The nomina- tions are practically made. We know whom the party wants, and, as it it a short ticket, the trouble is slight.”’ ‘And he also said that, while personally he wanted to have you nominated, it would be necessary to deter to the Independents by accepting Mr. Richard Everett Gooding- ton for District Attorney. ‘Thank you!”’ ‘And he also said that, if you would agree to this, he would see that you receiv- ed something equally as good or better later on.” George paused, and the silence in the room seemed long and deep. Finally he found his voice. *‘Miss Kemper,” he said, “‘in politics there are no to-morrows. The whole world is filled with those classed ‘equally as good,’ and virtue is their only reward, although many of the poor fools ex- pect at some time to draw salaries. Now, I have worked for this nomination; I want it; the party wants me to have it, and the only way to keep me from it is to beat me. There was another silence, and the young woman who could stand well rose, walked to the window, looked out, then returned, and, facing the lawyer, replied: “Well, it’s very disagreeable, but I must carry out my orders and beat you.” George laughed so spontaneously that the merriment cleared the atmosphere like an electric compact, and Lucy laughed, too, at her own audacity; but beneath this was In what You can assist, and You want to be District a purpose which George inadequately un- derstood. ‘Of course,” said George patronizingly, ‘‘you are new in the direction of politics, and you will pardon me if I tell you that the best politician in the world is but the weather cock of events, and I may also say that all the breezes are now blowing my way.”’ ‘‘But if they should change?” ‘‘They cannot change,—at least in this storm,” he replied cheerfully. Then he continued: ‘‘I shall be perfectly satisfied to let matters take their course.’ ‘‘But the thing is decided. You cannot have the nomination. Yon must wait.”’ Lucy demonstrated to herseif with abso- lute satisfaction that her part in the matter was purely impersonal. She was under the pledge to her father to carry out his orders, in so far as she was concerned, and she intended to keep her word. But when George Howe, whom she had known all her life, had thrown down the gage of bat- tle, the fighting blood of the Kemper fami- ly was aroused. Somehow, she felt that her own reputation was at stake, and, while she did not care particularly for Mr. Goodington, she began to look upon his nomination as necessary to her own happi- ness. And the more she ‘thought of this, the closer Goodington seemed to get to her. As a matter of fact, however, she did not exchange a word with Goodington throngh- out the whole contest, although she did write him one note. No man can be a hero to a woman more than twenty-four hours unless he is kept at a safe distance. But the cause of Goodington was ever pres- ent, and Miss Lucy had it in her sacred keeping The calls began. Kern Martin, like Irving’s sparrow, chirping cheerfulness in any corner,—and just about as rich,— came. ‘‘Really, Miss Luey,’’ he declared, growing very serious for once, ‘‘it won't do to turn poor old George down, really it won’t. As for Goodington, well, really, we won’t have him. And I came to tell you forthe Governor that if you do try to turn George down, our crowd will not work for the ticket; really we won’t.” ‘“That would he deplorable,’’ said Lucy very solemnly, and Kern afterward de- clared that he felt like a monkey on whose head a ripe cocoanut had fallen from the top of the tree. ‘You know very well, Mr. Martin, that I am simply carrying out father’s orders,’ she continued. ‘‘You know that he knows best,—now don’t you! * 3 * ‘He is a great leader,’’ admitted Kern. “Well, then, that settles the whole ques- tion, and I am going to depend upon you to help.” And before Kern appreciated what he was doing he was entirely won over. Hobbs Stack called. He was grandilo- quent, and, after he had praised George to the skies, he soared a bit higher, and told of what he himself had done for the party. Lucy listened in a way that warmed his eloquence, and when he had ended, with great personal satisfaction, she simply ig- nored every word he had said about George and replied: “Mr. Stack, it is very moble of you to be so devoted to the party. It makes me understand why father likes politics so much. When a man of your gifts offers his service so unselfishly, it must be real happiness to be a political leader. And I know how he depends upon you, and I know, too, that you will not fail him; and I ask you, now that I am acting as his agent, to make the party win by working for it as you have always done.” : She folded her hands in a pose of femi- nine helplessness and dependence, and leaning forward a bit imploringly, looked the politician straight in the eyes, and asked in tones that would have moved a saint or converted an infidel: *‘Mr. Stack, may I depend upon you?”’ Stack afterward told of it. ‘‘When she did that,’’ he said, ‘‘she knocked me six ways from Sunday. Those eyes of hers looked right down into my soul, and be- fore I knew what I wasdoing, I was on my feet, saying with a bow, “You can, ma’am, to the end of time and the other side of eternity, and what’s more, I'm going to do it. Poor George. It's just too bad!” +* Next came Uncle Ephriam, a colored statesman, open to conviction and always hungry. Lucy saw him iii the kitchen. ‘Laws bless my soul, Miss Lucy, but you am beautifuller ebery day, and hits glory to de eyes to look at you. You was de beautifullest baby in the town, and Mandy used to say hit were a powerful pity, ’cause pretty babies grow up plain, but I says, says I,‘No,Mandy,hit kin neber be, ‘cause hits unpossible for dat baby to grow out of her beauty.” And here I is, lookin’ at you, more beautifuller dan any lady in de wide world.” He paused to note the effect of his praise of her. ‘“Hit’s jest disaway, Miss Lucy. Las’ ‘lection de old man was tempted. De Governor's party was only payin’ two dol- lars, and here come erlong the oders and offered de ole man a five-dollar bill, and de old man, who's a weak and mis’ble sinnah, fell by da wayside. But de stray sheep is a-comin’ back to de fold, Miss Lucy, and I wants de Governor to know dat he’s a knockin’ at de do,’ willin’ to take eben what do prod’gal son got when sot down to his daddy’s kitchen table, eatin’ ‘nubbins.”’ Lucy laughed heartily, and said to the old rogue: ‘Uncle Eph, we haven't any fatted calf, nor even any veal, but how would some nice chicken, cooked to a turn, with plenty of gravy and some sweet pota- toes, and a piece of gooseberry pie, suit you?” And thus Ephriam was cap- tured. w®o% But the most important visitor came later. It must be said in justice to George Howe that none of these was sent by him, but there was an idea that the fight was on, and the people in politics followed custom and called at the Kemper home. There were many on curious errands, who amounted to nothing in the real situation. But a man like Rory Flanders was indis- pensable. The unit in politics is the vote, and the man who can place the most units in the totals is the real factor. Flanders controlled the liquor traffic of the lower wards, and the vote of one of his followers counted for just as much as the ballot of the richest or the saintliest person in the city. Such is universal suffrage without qualification! Lucy knew of Flanders as a man of strong characteristics of the rougher order, but that made the study of his case all the more interesting. She liked to conquer,—she got that from her father,—so she had made inquiries about the Flanders tribe. When Flanders was ushered in he was distinctly uncomfortable. His red face had lines of trouble. He sat halfway in the chair, as if afraid to sit back. When Miss Kemper entered, he rose ungracefully and ducked his head for a bow. ‘‘Good afternoon, Mr. Flanders,” she said, ‘‘You came to see father about poli- tics, I suppose. He is too ill to see anyone, ee TE but I will take any message you have for him.” Re Flanders shuffled uneasily for a moment, and then, compressing his lips as if the sit- nation were desperate, blurted out: *‘I know all bout it. Governor’s goin’ to shove the Independent racket on to us, and while he’s sick you take hold. Yes, you take hold—you——-"’ ‘Sit down, Mr. Flanders, and be com- fortable,’’ said Miss Lucy gently. ‘Thanks, ma’am. Y-e-s, you take hold. That’s it; you take hold. As long as you take hold, I come to say,-—beggin’ your par- don that your a woman, ——I come to say-——"7 “Go on, Mr. Flanders. I shall be very glad to hear what you have to say.” “And Dll say it,”” he declared with grim determination, ‘‘though they all said I hain’t got the nerve. It’s a shame,—a shame it is,—and I teli you its’s a shame——"’ ‘*You refer to me, Mr. Flanders?’’ “No, ma'am; no, ma’am. Course I don’t. ’Scuse me. I'm all a-gittin’ rat- tled. It’sa shame you’re goin’ to turn down George Howe, and take up that goody-goody Goodington, and we won’t stand it. No, we won’t. No, sir—ee, I mean ma'am. No, sir, ma’am,—I mean; oh, my! oh, my! Me tongue’s off the trol- ley, but all the same we won’t, and even if we did, I want to know what you’re go- in’ to do for me ‘hoys’?”’ “Your boys, Mr. Flanders? How many have you?”’ “A hundred and forty-seven, and ivery one of em has a vote, but it will take mon- ey. Goodness, ma'am, are ye sick?’’ He had caught sight of Miss Lucy’s startled countenance. *‘One hundred and forty-seven sons, Mr. Flanders?’’ she asked in amazement. *_% It took Mr. Flanders some little time to realize that the young lady was not fully acquainted with all the political terms, but he finally explained thAt the ‘‘boys’’ were the men who hung around his place, or whose votes he reached and controlled. Then he went on: ‘‘Of course, it’s agin the law, but we have to keep open election day for the boys, and the party will have to stand the hill, and we don’t want Good- ington nohow. If he has to go on the ticket it will cost more to hold em in line. Now, ma’am, is that clear?”’ Miss Lucy did not reply at once. The pause made the room wonderfully still. After the minute had seemed much longer than it really was, she leaned forward slightly and asked: ‘Miss Marie Antoinette Flanders is your daughter, is she not?” ‘*Yes’m,”’ came the reply, and then the little eyes of the man began to open. He wondered what in the world his daughter had to do with the case. “I have heard her play, and she has re- markable talent. You should be proud of such a daughter, Mr. Flanders.” “Iam, ma’am; I am,” he said. ‘‘Mu- sic’s our only pleasure. Some say I'm a bad man, but I love good music, and Mary,”’—he could not quite get the Marie, —**has been brought up on music.” *‘If you love good music, how can you be a bad man?” The red face grew a great deal redder as he gasped at the question, and, before he could reply, Lucy took the lead: ‘‘You |, surely want your daughter to have the op- portunity to show her talent?’’ ‘Deed we do ma’am, deed we do. That’s all me and me wife struggle for,—just to give Mary the chances.’ ‘That is very noble of you. Perhaps I can help you. The Harmony needs a solo- its for its concert next week.’’ Flanders shook his head and smiled bit- terly. ‘‘Oh, no, ma’am. That’s too high over our heads. Saloonkeeper’s daughter!” even more bitterly. ‘‘That’s what they’d say. Oh, I know.”’ *‘Well, now, Flanders, is it her fault that you keep the saloon? Is it her fault that you do not give up the business when you have money enough to live on? Is it her fault that her talent is not recog- nized?”’ : ‘Oh, miss, don’t! is always saying.’ ‘‘And why do you not listen to her?” Never did Lucy follow up an advantage more brilliantly. As soon as you can, send your daughter here to me. I will see that she plays at the concest. I want you to get her the right kind of a dress.” That’s what me wife * “I'll pay a thousand dollars for it, if need be,’’ broke in Flanders with pride, that was almost pathetic. ‘‘And, oh, ma’- am, if this kin be done, me and me wife will worship you as long as we live.’ “It will be done, Mr. Flanders, ‘‘she re- plied. And it was done. Not only did Lucy get the girl on the program, but, in managing the case, she sent her only note of the campaign to Goodington. She asked, as a special favor to her, that he would turn Miss Flander’s music on the night of the concert. And Goodington turned the music. Lucy could not go to the concert, of course, owing to her duties to the invalid. But George Howe was there. He did not enjoy it much, and after he had heard Miss Marie Antoinette Flanders applauded and twice recalled, he slipped out and wended his way toward the office. His route lay past the Kemper home. It was early, and, as he saw a bright light in the library win- dow, he rang the hell. Lucy was at home to him. “How is the Governor?'® he asked. ‘He is especially bright this evening, having slept well in the afternoon.’ “I am glad of that. I have brought the list, and I would like you to submit it to him. All the names are there except the man for District Attorney.’ She took the piece of paper, somewhat nervously for her, and left the room. The Governor looked it over and pronounced it admirable. ‘‘All excellent men,’’ he said. ‘‘Now, write Goodington’s name in the blank space, and tell George we’ll have something better for him later on. Now, it’s off my mind, and tell him not to bother me any more during this campaign.”’ As she returned to the room she felt as if something akin to a crisis was in the air. George was too quiet. She did not like that at all. But she summoned all her self-possession and handed the list to him as if it were a matter of no importance whatever. He looked at it very calmly and rose. *‘I do not think I care for it,” he said, offering it to her. ‘And I am quite sure that I do not want it,”’ she replied. ““Why not? It isyour work. You have beaten me.”’ - Hardly knowing what she did, she took the piece of paper. ‘Rather say you are beaten, but that this means something better,—father said so,—later on,’’ she replied. ‘Thank you. But I do not care to have it that way. Pray tell the Governor that he is under no pledges as far as I am con- cerned. I wish to wash my hands of poli- tics forever. If all my service to the party is to be outweighed by a piece of piano music—"’ A woman is never truly happy until she makes a man suffer. Lucy was eminently feminine, and this remark was joy to her soul. She rose to it with instant enthu- siasm. : ‘And did she play so well?”’ she inter- rupted eagerly. *‘She is a genius,’ he replied judicially, but emptily. 3 ‘I am so glad!’ she exclaimed. “Evidently,” he said, with some harsh- ness in his tone; ¢ but it happens that I do not like discussing music to-night. I do not like to bother you, but I am under the necessity of asking you to take a message to your father. Please tell him that my connection with the active management of the party is broken. I resign all the re- spousibility for the ticket. This nomina- tion was rightfully mine, and the simple demands of self-respect will not allow me to remain in a false position.?’ Lucy appreciated the crisis. Her judg- ment and her emotions, her thoughts and her sympathies were struggling. She saw the sincerity of the man, his honesty of purpose, his strength of resentment, and she somehow knew she must win him for the ticket or lose her whole reputation as assistant boss. After a pause, the whole way opened to her like an inspiration, and she turned to him with a smile of sunshine that stirred the fog. ‘Mr. Howe, I will take your message to father.” ‘Thank you.” *‘I shall say to you,—for you,—that, al- though you are deeply disappointed, you are too strong and noble a man to show it, and that you will take charge of the cam- paign, and do all in your power to make it successful.”’ ‘‘But this is not my message!” he ex- claimed, in a way that showed her holdness had startled him. “I shall,” she went on, ‘‘depend upon you with the same implicit faith as my fa- ther, and I know you will y *_ An old story about the Governor in his palmiest days tells of a great quarrel, be- tween him and John Howe, which was to be settled in open convention. Howe was a splendid person, a lion in strength and purpose, and when Kemper opened the door of the anteroom of the hall on that eventful day he stood ready for any con- flict. Kemper saw the situation, and steeled himself for the meeting, but some- how, as he approached his enemy, who had been an old friend of boyhood days, by one of those inexplicable and utterly illogical impulses of human nature, he put his arm around Howe’sshoulders and said: “John, I’ve been trying to hate you, but I can’t.’ And John, strong as he was, said simply, ‘It is hard work.” And after that, when the two gladiators marched arm in arm into the arena, the fight turned into a festival. Lucy did not throw her arms around George Howe, the son of John Howe, but there was in her ways much of the same magnetism and personal appeal which made her father a leader of men. Talking on, she forced him, by her gentle eloquence, to a full and absolute surrender, until he act- ually promised to take charge of the whole campaign. When she gave back the bit of paper he did not decline to take it. It was the most wonderful campaign the little city ever knew. ‘We're walking in a dream,’’ declared Kern Martin. “Guardian angels hover over the ballot-boxes. Hobbs Stacks is drinking soda-water. Rory Flanders is turning mugwump and practicing hymns on his flute. George Howe is writing poetry, and I have a fatal desire to go to work." *‘The assistant boss has got us so that we're all ashamed to do anything low or mean,’’ said Hobbs Stack ‘‘Sartinly am hungry ’lection times,” said Uncle Eph, wisely shaking his head. And so the election passed as a thing not of earth, and after the fall shadows had deepened into the winter darkness a gentle hand pressed a sweet caress upon the Gov- ernor’s forehead, and the Governor, renewed by the long rest, kissed it tenderly. ‘‘Father,”’ she said, ‘when you made George Howe stand aside, you promised him something equally as good, did you not?”’ . ‘Something better, I think I said.” “Well, he is coming to ask you for it to- night,’’ and before the Governor could say a word she went on: “I am very glad George did not get that other place. He belongs to Congress, and he must go there. Then, too, everyone says Washington is the loveliest place in the world for a honey- moon—especially for a Congressman’s bride. —By Lynn Roby Meekins in the Saturday Evening Post. Bird on Her Bonnet. How the Audobon Society Gained An Enthusiastic New Member. The Novel Way of Her Conversion. She Reads Documents and Examines Pictures Sent Out by the Friends of the Birds but Remains Un- convinced. About an Embarrassing Accident. ‘Speaking of birds,”’ said the woman with the plain ribbon bow in her bonnet, ‘I bad au invitation to join the Society for Abolishing the Wearing of Birds on Bon- nets the other day. Not only that, but I was asked to act on the committee that was to rush around and get other people to join. I hadn’t made up my mind whether to join it or not when that old blackbird on my hat decided me. T’ll tell you about it. You know, I always thought it was mostly tomfoolery, this talk of not wear- ing stuffed birds on your bonnet; that it wasn’s any more harm to kill a bird and wear it than it was to kill it and eat it; and look how we kill prairie hens and chickens and turkeys and eat them! Sue says the same thing.” (Sue is her sister.) ‘‘She says if she wants a bird on her hat she’s going to have it on her hat, and that’s all there is to it. They are becoming things on hats, birds are, and all this stuff and nonsense about it’s heing sinful won’t wash, and it’s time wasted, she says, to go trapesing around over the country joining societies and act- ing on committees, talking it over and try- ing to get women to quit wearing them. ‘Women will wear birds on their hats, she says, as long as they have hats to wear,and they will have hats to wear as long as they have heads to wear them on, excepting them what has to wear sun bonnets. ‘‘But about the old blackbird of mine. You know I ain’t much on birds. I never had very many to wear on my hats. To tell the truth, I couldn’t afford them,and that’s the rock-bottom reason, if you want to know it; so, that being the case, the sub- ject didn’t interest me much until I hap- pened to be invited to act on that commit- tee what sets on them birds and things. Well, they sent me a nice little card with a bird’s nest painted on it. It was about the orneriest-looking nest you ever set eyes on, and full of the orneriest-looking birds, young birds without any feathers on them, piping and screeching for the old mother bird. It didn’t seem to make much dif- ference how they piped and screeched, them young birds, the old mother bird wasn’t coming to them, and she had a mighty good reason for not coming to them. In the other corner of the card there she sat, kill- ed and stuffed and perched up on the side of a hat! And between the two were these words in large letters: ‘Starving—that the parent bird may ornament a hat!’ THE PICTURE OF SADNESS, “That was a pretty sad picture. Then when you went on and read about how the old mother bird was killed while she was nesting, because her plumage was brightest then, the tears came pretty near dropping down out of your eyes. Still, when you come to think of it, you ain’t right certain about that, either; at least I ain’t. I’ve seen many an old hen a-setting on her nest, and her feathers were drab and sad-looking as they could be. They didn’t seem to have no life in them at all. Maybe birds are different, but I know it’s when a hen is ready to scatter her brood and flirt around again, like some frisky, fat pullet, that her feathers begin to brighten up, same as a widow’s eyes when she quits cry- ing and begins to take notice. ‘‘Anyway, it’s a mighty sad picture to look at. It don’t make any difference what reason they’ve got for killing them old birds while the young birds is teeth- ing, they’ve got no business doing it. They might just as well wait until the little things are out of the nest and gone. After a bird has finished raising her young ones she is like a mother with grown-up chil- dren, she might as well peg out and be done with it—or so think some children— and if somebody wants to kill her and stuff her and set her on a hat, she ought to be glad enough that she can do a little more good in the world and die a-chirping. That’s the way I look at it, or rather did. I’ve changed my notions since the accident to that old blackbird. *‘Since then I’ve been trying to convince Sue and myself at the same time that there ain’t no real good reason why birds should be worn on hats. There are plenty of oth- er things to wear that are much prettier, I said, but there’s no convincing Sue. She's gone and ordered ahout a dozen birds for her spring hat, just out of pure contrari- ness. It’s a shame, too, when she might just as well have had flowers. Flowersare going to be more stylish than ever this spring, they tell me, flowers and ostrich feathers. And then ostrich feathers are different from stuffed birds, mighty differ- ent; youdon’t have to kill the ostriches to get them. THE BLACKBIRD’S PIERCING EYE. ‘‘Well, to come back to the blackbird. I’d been wondering and wondering wheth- er or not I should join that society and act on that committee, and still wondering I got out my hat and put it on, for I was going down town to do a little shopping. I had forgotten how that old hat of mine was trimmed, and I sort of started back gasp- ing when I saw that blackbird a-setting up stiff and prim on one side of it, tucking his head and looking straight at me out of one eye—he didn’t have but one, the children bad picked the other out with a hat-pin— and seeming to kind of blame me. because he was setting there instead of hopping about, alive and chirping, on the limb of some tree. I was completely turned about again, seeing the thing from all sides at once. It wasnt’ my fault that he was there on that hat, that is, not altogether. I didn’t kill him or have him killed. Still, if I hadn’t wanted him for my hat maybe he wouldn’t have been killed. Then, again, if I hadn’t wanted him for my hat, some other woman would have wanted him, and he would have been killed anyway. So was it my fault? It must have been his fate to be killed and stuffed and sewed on a hat. If that was the case all he bad to do was to work out his fate or destiny or what- ever vou’ve a mind to call it, just the same as the rest of us do, and I counldn’t believe it was my fault that he had been hatched and had grown to be a good sized bird and then had been cut off in his prime all for the express purpose of roosting on the side of my old hat, though it might have been. The whole thing was awful puzzling, and it was made all the more puzzling by the way he cocked his head and looked at me sort of reproachful-like out of the corner of that one eye of his. Anyway, I brushed the old hat off, gave him an extra flick or two for looking so knowing, put the hat on, stuck a hat-pin straight through his foot, and started off down town. HOW SHE WAS CONVINCED. ‘‘There’s a good deal in the way you look at things. Now, I had been wearing that blackbird on my hat the whole winter iong and he hadn’t feazed me. I had worn him until he was beginning to be a rusty brown bird instead of a shining blackbird, and half the time I had forgotten he was on my hat; but now, would you believe it, I worried about him all the way down town. I kept thinking that everybody in that car was looking at that bird and saying to themselves, ‘What a wicked, wicked wom- an she is to have a bird killed and stuffed made up his mind that it was time to move, 80 what remained of the stock was packed a mile or two up the gulch, where there were rumors of good strikes, and business was resumed at the new place. This new place was subsequently Lead- ville, by Tabor’s naming. It is said that the name was given in this way: Several of the old timers were talking of a name for the place when it had become certain that there was to be a permanent settlement there, and several suggestions were made. One hopeful spirit suggested Goldtown, ‘‘after the metal that’s common around here.” It so happened that the night be- fore there had been a general shooting at the saloon and bullets had flown in all di- rections, with fatal results to three of the men concerned. Having this in mind, Tabor spoke up: ‘If you're going to call the place after the metal that’s plenty, what’s the matter with Leadville?’’ he said. And Leadville it became. Scon he began to grub-stake needy prospectors, who with the outfits furnished by him would go back into the hills and hunt for precious metal, which they usual- ly didn’t find. Tabor’s friends said it was bad business and predicted his ultimate ruin, but he kept adding to his business, and, despite the items charged to profit and loss on account of his grub-stake business, he prospered. It was generally supposed that his aid to the prospectors was not re- garded by him as an investment, but as a charity which he could afford to dispense where it was most needed; and it is certain that he saved many men from want and hunger in this way. Everybody knew that these items of profit and loss were all loss, and as usual everybody knew the thing which was not. 3 For one day in 1878 there came to the storekeeper an Irish prospector and a Ger- man tailor, badly smitten with the gold fe- ver and without means, whom Tabor start- ed in their search with a good outfit. They went up on the hill and dug until they were exceeding weary of digging and at- tained to no gold—only aspecies of curious looking gravel, heavy in the spade and not pretty to look at. When they became fi- nally convinced that no gold was in reach at that point they abandoned the claim and went away, the Irishman taking with him a bag of the gravel, saying that, as he had dug so much of it, he would just find out what it was that made it so eternally heavy to hoist. The assayer to whom he took it told him it was silver, almost pure. The Irishman and the German survived the shock, went hack to the claim, and sold out for $100,000 apiece. This was the Little Pittsburg Mine. One-third of it be- longed to Tabor as his stake for the grub. He was regarded as an irresponsible idiot when he refused $100,000 for his share. There was plenty of time, however, for those who so regarded him to change their minds during the days when the claim achieved the neat little output of $8,000 a day. Tabor finally sold his part of it for a million, and said that as he’d done tolera- bly well on his profit and loss account he’d just keep on in the mining business for a while. This was a source of unselfish sorrow to his friends, who knew that an innocent sort of chap like Tabor would get swindled right and left if he tried to in- crease his capital in gold instead of soaking it away. The first person who thought Tabor would be a good subject for a confi- dence game was *‘Chicken Bill”’ Lovel, ex- mail carriér for the district. ‘‘Chicken Bill” had a claim on Fryer Hill not far from the spot where the two prospectors located the Little Pittsburg, and he had worked it for six weeks without taking anything out in exchange for his labor ex- cept tons of unprofitable soil. One day he helped himself to some pay dirt from an- other and luckier man’s claim and dropped it in the mud vein he was working. Then he sent for Tabor, showed him the dust and offered to sell out for $150. Unhesi- tatingly, the innocent Tabor paid the price. ‘‘Chicken Bill” went down to town and bought drinks for himself for a week. At the end of that time he was looking for some one to blow him off to a carbolic acid cocktail, for Tabor had dug five feet deeper than he had gone and had struck gold that had not been transplanted. Before the vein was worked out it brought in a mil- lion dollars. That was the way the Cryso- lite mine was discovered. People said this was bullhead luck, and Tabor was a good fellow, but didn’t know enough to go in when it rained. After he had organized a few stock companies and come out far ahead on all of them public opinion had another opportunity for a sec- ond guess. Among those who thought that Tabor was ‘‘easy’’ were Foley and Wilgus, own- ers of the Matchless claim, which showed some color, but not enough to convince them that it was really much good. They convinced Tabor, however, so successfully that he gave them $112,000 for the prop- erty. It was reckoned to be worth per- haps $25,000, as claims were going then. As soon as the sale was completed the former owners went about telling every- body how they had ‘‘fooled good old Ta- bor.”” The curious circumstance of a sub- sequent offer of $3,000,000 to Tabor for the Matchless saddened the remainder of their existence with the knowledge that under some circumstances honesty is the hest poli- cy by a huge percentage. Then there was the Maid of Erin mine which Tabor and a Major Dubois bought for $20,000; a dead loss, said Leadville. Two months later they sold out to an English syndicate for ten times that amount: the luckiest hit ever made, as Leadville put it. But the syndicate didn’t like the looks of the claim after they had bought, and raised such lam- entations over the matter that Tahor said he didn’t want to swindle anybody and he’d take the mine back at the same price. Thereupon Leadville, which hadn’t learned any better yet, wrung its collective hands and said that somebody ought to look up a nice quiet lunatic asylum for poor Tabor, where he'd be restrained from dissipating his fortune in such a manner. A year or so later somebody tried to buy that same rejected mine for $2,000,000 and was greet- ed with a cheerful laugh. Thus far all had prospered with Tabor to which he had put his hand. People called him the luckiest man in Colorado, and as soon as he got the title his luck changed. It is asingular circumstance in a world where evil deeds are not always visibly punished that as soon as he had deserted the wife who had been a true helpmeet in the days of his adversity. Tabor’s affairs underwent a change for the worse. He got a divorce from her—through no fault of hers—and with $300,000 which he settled upon her as the price of his release she went up to live in Denver and dropped out of his life. His money—$7,000,000 ap- proximately—was now scattered all over this continent. Much of it was in Hon- duras, much in the Northwest and some on the Pacific coast. He invested heavily in Denver property and some of the handsom- est of the old houses there were built by him, but all had passed from his possession before his death. Going to Washington, he married the young woman a char- acter of T.eadville for whom he left his wife. The marriage was made fa- mous by Eugene Field’s poem of the $10,- 000 nightgown, which was alleged to be just to make her look pretty! and I thought I read in a woman’s eyes across from me that I didn’t look so pretty with it perched up on my hat after all, and that made me firing mad. I wished I had never seen the old bird. “I was glad when I got off that car and went into a store. You'll be surprised when you hear what happened in that store. I was looking at some handkerchiefs and waiting for the clerk to get through wait- ing on about a dozen others to ask her the price of them when something came tum- bling over my face onto the counter. I looked down, and there was the black- bird’s head on the counter. It had fallen on one side with that good eye of his upper- most, staring straight at me. The thing kind of gave me a shock. I looked ina lit- tle mirror opposite me, and there was the rest of that blackbird broken half in two, one wing hanging down over my hair and the other lying back flat against the bonnet as if he’d gotten tired sitting up straight so long and wanted to rest awhile. ‘I took what was left of him off my hon- net then and there. I couldn’t go into the street with a headless bird dangling about —and got the girl to put this bow on in place of it, and I took it for a sign that I mustn’t wear birds. Since then.I haven't worn the ghost of a bird on my bonnet and I won’t. Not only that, but I've joined the committee and am working bard—and that’s something bran new fora committee —trying our level best to abolish this monstrous killing of birds and stuffing them and perching them on women’s hats, all for nothing in the world but to encour- age them in their vanity ; andjheaven knows they’ve got enough vanity and to spare, most of them that I know anything about, without any encouraging of them in it, if I do happen to be a woman that says the same.’’— Chicago Inter-Ocean, ——You ought to take the WATCHMAN.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers