Bellefonte, Pa., April 20. 1900.
ROBERT HARDY’S SEVEN DAYS.
A Dream and Its Consequences.
BY REV. CHARLES SHELDON.
Author of “In His Steps.” “The Crucificion of Phil-
ip Strong,” Malcolm Kirk,” Ete.
(Copyright, 1900, by Advance Publishing Co.)
(BEGUN IN No. 12, maRrcH 23, 1900.)
Under this last item Mr. Hardy wrote
in a footnote, “Discuss feasibility of
this with Mr. B., influential director.”
It was now 3 o'clock. The short win-
ter day was fast drawing to a close.
The hum of the great engine in the ma-
chine shop was growing very weari-
some to the manager. He felt sick of
its throbbing tremor and longed to es-
cape from it. Ordinarily he would
have gone to the clubroom and had a
game of chess with a member, or else
he would have gone down and idled
away an hour or two before supper at
the Art museum, where he was a con-
stant visitor—that was when he had
plenty of time and the business of the
office was not pressing. Young Weil-
man, however, had succeeded to the
clerical details of the shops, and Mr.
Hardy's time was generally free after
4 o'clock.
He had been oppressed with the
thought of the other injured men. He
must go and see them. He could not
rest till he had personally visited them.
He went out and easily ascertained
where the men lived. Never before did
the contrast between the dull. uninter-
esting row of shop tenements and his
own elegant home rise up so sharply
before him. In fact. he had never
given it much thought before. Now,
as he looked forward to the end of the
week. he knew that at its close he
would be no richer, no better able to
enjoy luxuries than the dead man lying
in No. 760. He wondered vaguely but
passionately how he could make use of
what he had heaped together to make
the daily lives of some of these poor
men happier.
He found the man who had lost both
eyes sitting up in bed and feeling in a
pathetic manner of a few blocks of
wood which one of the children in the
room had brought to him. He was a
big, powerful man like his brother, the
large bone< Dane, and it seemed a very
pitiful thing that he should be lying
there like a baby when his muscles
were as powerful as ever. The brother
was in the room with the injured man,
and he said to him:
“Olaf, Mx. Hardy come to see you.”
“Hardy? Hardy?” queried the man
in a peevish tone. ‘What do I know
him to be?”
“The manager. The one who donate
so really much moneys to you.”
“Ah!” with an indescribable accent.
“He make me work on Sunday. He
lose me my two eyes. A bad man,
Svord. I will no have anything to do
with him.”
And the old descendant of a thousand
kings turned his face to the wall and
would not even so much as make a mo-
tion toward his visitor. His brother
offered a rude apology. Mr. Hardy re-
plied in a low tone:
“Say nothing about it. I deserve all
your brother says. But for a good rea-
son I wish Olaf would say he forgives
me.”
Mr. Hardy came nearer the bed and
spoke very earnestly and as if he had
known the man intimately:
“I did you a great wrong to order the
work on Sunday and in not doing my
duty concerning the inspection of the
machinery. 1 have come to say so and
to ask your forgiveness. I may never
see you again. Will you say to me,
‘Brother, 1 forgive you? ”
There was a moment of absolute
passivity on the part of the big fellow;
then a very large and brawny hand
was extended, and the blind man said:
“Yes, I forgive. We learned that in
the old Bible at Svendorf.”
Mr. Hardy laid his hand in the other,
and his lips moved in prayer of hum-
ble thanksgiving. What, Robert Hardy!
Is this that proud man who only the
day before was so lifted up with self-
ishness that he could coldly criticise
his own minister for saying that peo-
ple ought to be more Christlike? Are
you standing here in this poor man’s
house which two days ago you would
not have deigned to enter and beseech-
ing him as your brother in the great
family of God to forgive you for what
‘you have done and left undone? Yes;
you have looked into the Face of Eter-
nity; you realize now what life really
means and what souls. are really
worth.
He went out after a few words with
the family and saw all the other injur-
ed men. By the time he bad finished
these visits it was dark, and he eager-
ly turned home, exhausted with the
day’s experience, feeling as if he had
lived in a new world and at the same
time wondering at the rapidity with
which the time had fled.
He sighed almost contentedly to him-
self as he thought of the evening with
his family and how he would enjoy it
after the disquiet of the day. His wife
was there to greet him, and Alice and
Clara and Bess clung about him as he
took off his coat and came into the
beautiful room where a cheerful fire
was blazing. Will came down stairs
as his father came in, and in the brief
interval before supper was ready Mr.
Hardy related the scenes of the day.
They were all shocked to hear of
Scoville’s death, and Mrs. Hardy at
once began to discuss some plans for
relieving the family. Bess volunteered
to give up half her room to one of the
children, and Alice quietly outlined a
plan which immediately appeared to
her father businesslike and feasible.
In the midst of this discussion supper
was announced, and they all sat down.
“Where is George?” asked Mr. Hardy.
Ordinarily he would have gone on with
the meal without any reference to the
boy, because he was so often absent
from the table. Tonight he felt ap ir
resistible longing to have all his chil-
dren with him.
“He said he was invited out to sup-
per with the Bramleys,” said Clara.
Mr. Hardy received the announce-
ment in silence. He felt the bitterness
of such indifference on the part of his
older son. ‘“What!” he said to himself.
“When he knows I had such a little
while left, could he not be at home?”
Then almost immediately flashed into
nim the self reproach even stronger
than his condemnation of his boy.
“How much have I done for him these
last ten years to win his love and pro-
tect him from evil?”
After supper Mr. Hardy sat down by
his wife, and in the very act he blush-
ed with shame at the thought that he
could not recall when he had spent an
evening thus. He looked into her face
and asked gently:
“Mary, what do you want me to do?
Shall I read as we used to in the old
days?”
“No; let us talk together,” replied
Mrs. Hardy. bravely driving back her
tears. “I cannot realize what it all
means. | have been praying all day.
Do you still have the impression you
had this morning?”
“Mary, | am if anything even more
convinced that God has spoken to me.
The impression has been deepening
with me all day. When I looked into
poor Scoville's face. the terrible nature
of my past selfish life almost over-
whelmed me. Oh, why have I abused
God’s goodness to me so awfully?”
There was silence a moment. Then
Mr. Hardy grew more calm. He began
to discuss what he would do the second
day. He related more fully the inter-
view with the men in the shop and his
visits to the injured. He drew Clara to
him and began to inquire into her trou-
bles in such a tender. loving way that
Clara’s proud. passionate. willfu! na-
ture broke down, and she sobbed out
her story to him as she had to her
mother the night before.
Mr. Hardy promised Clara that he
would see James the next day. It was
true that James Caxton bad only a
week before approached Mr. Hardy
and told him in very manful fashion of
his love for Lis daughter, but Mr. Har-
dy had treated it as a child’s affair, and
in accordance with his usual policy in
family matters had simply told Clara
and Bess to discontinue their visits at
the old neighbor's. But now that he
heard the story from -the lips of his
own daughter he saw the seriousness
of it, and crowding back all his former
pride and hatred of the elder Caxton he
promised Clara to see James the next
day.
Clara clung to her father in loving
surprise. She was bewildered, as were
all the rest, by the strange event that
had happened to her father, but she
never had so felt his love before, and,
forgetting for awhile the significance
of his wonderful dream, she felt happy
in his presence and in his affection for
her.
The evening had sped on with sur-
prising rapidity while all these matters
There was his son George, too drunk to
stand alone.
were being discussed, and as it drew
near to midnight again Robert Hardy
felt almost happy in the atmosphere of
that home and the thought that he
could still for a little while create joy
for those who loved him. Suddenly he
spoke of his other son:
“I wish George would come in. Then
our family circle would be complete.
But it is bedtime for you, Bess. and all
of us, for that matter.”
It was just then that steps were
heard on the front porch, and voices
were heard as if talking in whispers.
The bell rang. Mr. Hardy rose to go
to the door. His wife clung to him ter-
rified.
“Oh, don’t go, Robert!
for you.”
“Why, Mary, it cannot be anything
to harm me. Don’t be alarmed.”
Nevertheless he was a little startled.
The day had been a trying one for him.
He went to the door, his wife and the
children following him close behind.
He threw it wide open, and there, sup-
ported by two of his companions, one
of them the young man Mr. Hardy
had seen in the hotel lobby at noon,
was his son George. too drunk to stand
alone. He leered into the face of his
father and mother with a drunken look
that froze their souls with despair as
the blaze of the hall lamp fell upon
him reeling there.
And so the first of Robert Hardy's
seven days came to an end.
I am afraid
CHAPTER V.
Mr. Hardy was a man of great will
power, but this scene with his drunken
son crushed him for a moment and
seemed to take the very soul out of
him. Mrs. Hardy at first uttered a
wild cry and then ran forward and,
seizing her elder boy, almost dragged
him into the house, while Mr. Hardy,
recovering from his first shock, looked
sternly at the companions of the boy
and then shut the door. That night
was a night of sorrow in that family.
The sorrow of death is not to be com-
pared with it.
But morning came, as it comes alike
to the condemned criminal and to the
pure hearted child on a holiday, and
after a brief and troubled rest Mr.
Hardy awoke to his second day, the
memory of the night coming to him at
first as an ugly dream, but afterward
as a terrible reality. His boy drunk!
He could not make it seem possible.
Yet there in the next room he lay in a
drunken stupor, sleeping off the effects
of his debauch of the night before. Mr.
Hardy fell on his knees and prayed for
mercy, again repeating the words, “Al-
mighty God, help me to use the remain-
ing days in the wisest and best man-
ner.” Then calming himself by a tre-
mendous effort he rose up and faced
the day’s work as bravely as any man
under such circumstances could.
After a family council. in which all
of them were drawn nearer together
than they ever had been before on aec-
count of their troubles, Mr. Hardy out-
lined the day’s work something as fol-
lows:
Ifirst. he would go and see James
Caxton and talk over the affair with
him and Clara. Tien he would go
down to the office and arrange some
necessary details of his business. If
possible, he would come home to
lunch. In the afternoon he would go
to poor Scoville’s funeral. which had
been arranged for 2 o'clock. Mrs.
Hardy announced her intention to go
also. Then Mr. Hardy thought he
would have a visit with George and
spend the evening at home arranging
matters with reference to his own
death: With this programme in mind
he finally went away after an affection-
ate leave taking with his wife and
children.
George slept heavily until the ntiddle
of the forenoon and then awoke with a
raging headache. Bess had several
times during the morning stolen into
the room to see if her brother weie
awake. When he did finally turn over
and open his eyes, he saw the young
girl standing by the bedside. He
groaned as he recalled the night and
his mother’s look, and Bess said timid-
ly as she laid her hand on his forehead:
“George, I'm so sorry for you! Don’t
you feel weil?”
“I feel as if my head would split
open. It aches as if some one was
chopping wood inside of it.”
“What makes you feel so?’ asked
Bess innocently. “Did you eat too much
supper at the Bramleys’?”
Bess had never seen any one drunk
before, and when George was helped to
bed the night before by his father and
mother she did not understand his con-
dition. She had always adored her big
brother. It was not strange she had no
idea of his habits.
George looked at his small sister cu-
riously; then, under an impulse he
could not explain, he drew her nearer
to him and said: 3
“Bess, I'm a bad fellow. I was drunk
last night! Drunk —do you under-
stand? And I’ve nearly killed mother!”
Bess was aghast at the confession.
She put out her hand again.
“Oh, no, George!” Then with a swift
revulsion of feeling she drew back and
said, *‘How could you, with father fecl-
ing as he does?’
And little Bess, who was a creature
of very impulsive emotions, sat down
crying on what she supposed was a
cushion, but which was George's tall
hat, accidentally covered with one end
of a comforter which had slipped off
the bed. Bess was a very plump little
creature, and as she picked herself up
and held up the hat George angrily ex-
claimed:
“You're always smashing my things!”
But the next minute he was sorry for
the words.
Bess retreated toward the door, quiv-
ering under the injustice of the charge.
At the door she halted. She had some-
thing of Clara’s passionate temper, and
once in awhile she let even ber adored
brother George feel it, small as she
was.
“George Hardy, if you think more of
your old stovepipe hat than you do of
your sister, all right. You'll never get
any more of my month’s allowance.
And if I do smash your things I don't
come home drunk at night and break
mother’s heart. That's what she’s
crying about this morning—that and
father’s queer ways. Ob, dear, I don’t
want to live; life is so full of trouble!”
And little 12-year-old Bess sobbed in
genuine sorrow.
George forgot his headache a minute.
“Come, Bess, come and kiss and
make up. Honest, gow, I didn’t mean
it. I was bad to say what I did. I'll
buy a dozen hats and let you sit on
them for fun. Don’t go away angry.
I’m so miserable.”
He lay down and groaned, and Bess
went to him immediately. all her anger
vanished.
“Oh, let me get you something to
drive away your headache, and I'll
bring you up something nice to eat!
Mother had Norah save something for
you. Didn’t you, mother?’
Bessie asked the question just as her
mother came in.
Mrs. Hardy said “Yes” and, going
up to George, sat down by him and
laid her hand on his head, as his sister
had done.
The boy moved uneasily. He saw
the marks of great suffering on his
mother’s face, but he said nothing to
express sorrow for his disgrace.
“Bess, will you go and get George
his breakfast?’ asked Mrs. Hardy, and
the minute she was gone the mother
turned to her son and said:
“George, do you love me?”
George had been expecting some-
thing different. He looked at his moth-
er as the tears fell over her face, and
all that was still good in him rose up in
rebellion against the animal part. He
seized his mother’s hand and carried
it to his lips, kissed it reverently and
said in a low tone:
“Mother, IT am unworthy.
knew’ —
He checked himself, as if on the
verge of confession. His mother wait:
ed anxiously and then asked:
“Won’t you tell me all?”
“No; I can’t.”
George shuddered. and at that mo-
ment Bess came in bearing a tray with
toast and eggs and coffee. Mrs. Hardy
left Bess to look after her brother and
went out of the room almost abruptly.
George looked ashamed and after eat-
ing a little told Bess to take the things
away. She looked grieved, and he
said:
“Can’t help it. I’m not hungry. Be-
sides, I don’t deserve all this attention.
Say, Bess, is father still acting under
his impression, or dream, or whatever
it was?”
“Yes: he is.” replied Bess with much
seriousness, ‘and he is ever so good
now and kisses mother and all of us
goodby in the morning. and he is kind
and ever so good. 1 don’t believe he is
in his right mind. Will said yesterday
he thought father was non campus
meant us, and then he wouldn’t tell me
what it meant. but I guess he doesn’t
think father is just right intellectual
ly.”
Now and then Bess got hold of a big
word and used it a great deal. She
said “intellectually” over twice, and
George laughed a little, but it was a
bitter laugh. not such as a boy of his
age has any business to possess. He
lay down and appeared to be thinking
wand after awhile said aloud:
“1 wonder if he wouldn't let me have
some money while he’s feeling that
way?”
“Who?” queried Bess. “Father?”
“YWhat! You here still, Curiosity?
Better take these things down stairs.”
George spoke with his “headache
tone,” as Clara called it, and Bess
without reply gathered up the tray
things and went out. while George con-
tinued to figure out in his hardly yet
sober brain tlie possibility of his fa-
ther letting him have more money with
which to gamble, and yet in the very
next room Mrs. Hardy knelt in an ago-
ny of petition for that firstborn, erying
out of her heart:
“OQ God, it is more than 1 can bear!
To see him growing away from me so!
Dear Lord, be thou merciful to me.
Bring him back again to the life he
used to live! How proud 1 was of him!
What a joy he was to me! And nc,
and now! O gracious Father, if thou
art truly compassionate, hear me! Has
not this foul demon of drink done harm
enough? That it should still come into
my home! Ah, but I have been indif-
ferent to the cries of other women, but
now it strikes me! Spare me, great and
powerful Almighty! My boy! my heart's
hunger is for him! 1 would rather see
him dead than sce him as I saw him
last night. Spare me! spare me, O
God!”
Thus the mother prayed, dry eyed
and almost despairing, while he for
whom she prayed that heartbroken
prayer calculated, with growing cold-
ness of mind, the chances of getting
more money from his father to use in
drink and at the gaming table.
O appetite, and thou spirit of gam-
bling! Ye are twin demons with whom
many a fair browed young soul today
is marching arm in arm down the
dread pavement of hell's vestibule,
lined with grinning skeletons of past
victims, and yet men gravely discuss
the probability of evil and think there
is no special danger in a little specula-
tion now and then.
Parents say, “Oh, my boy wouldn't
do such a thing!” But how many know
really and truly what their boy is real
ly doing, and how many of the young
men would dare reveal to their moth-
ers or fathers the places where they
have been and the amusements they
have tasted and the things for which
they have spent their money?
* *® * * * * *
Mr. Hardy went at once to his neigh-
bors, the Caxtons, who lived only a
block away. He had not been on speak-
ing terms with the family for some
time, and he dreaded the interview
with the sensitive dread of a very
proud and stern willed man. But two
days bad made a great change in him.
He was a new man in Christ Jesus,
and as he rang the bell he prayed for
wisdom and humility.
(CONTINUED NEXT WEEK.)
If you
Bullet in Baby’s Head.
Child Alone in the House is Strangely Shot—Found
on the Floor With a Fatal Wound.
A mysterious shooting took place on
Thursday evening at Swedeland, near Nor-
ristown, when Ruth, the 4-year-old daugh-
ter of Henry Oppenduffer, superintendent
of Hecher's furnace, was found with a
bullet in her head. The child was still
alive, but is not expected to live.
The Oppenduffer family resides a short
distance from the furnace. Shortly after 7
o'clock Mrs. Oppenduffer put the child to
bed, and then went to visit a neighbor.
An hour later boys playing in the vicinity
of the home heard a pistol shot and notified
the superintendent, who was at the fur-
nace. Mr. Opeenduffer made an investiga-
tion, and found his daughter on the floor.
She was unconscious, and there was a terri-
ble wound directly back of her left ear.
On the floor was a 38-calibre revolver
with one chamber empty. The weapon
belonged to Mr. Oppenduffer. How Ruth
received the wound is a mystery, but Mr.
Oppenduffer is of the opinion that the child
found the revolver and while playing with
it shot herself.
MILLIONS GIVEN AWAY.— It is certain-
ly gratifying to the public to know of one
concern which is not afraid to be generous.
The proprietors of Dr. King’s New Discov-
ery for Consumption, Coughs and Colds,
have given away over ten million trial bot-
tles and have the satisfaction of knowing it
has cured thousands of hopeless cases.
Asthma, Bronchitis, La Grippe and all
Throat, Chest and Lung diseases are surely
cured by it. Call on F. P. Green Druggist,
and get a free trial bottle. Regular size
50c and $1.00. Every bottle guaranteed.
——Subcribe for the WATCHMAN.
In a Chinese Harem,
An Interesting Chat With the Wife of a Prominent
Celestial in the City of Pekin.
For the first time in my life I have been
permitted to have a glimpse of a Chinese
harem, writes ‘J. M. R.” from Pekin,
China, to the Chicago Record. I am in-
clined, indeed, to helieve tnat I am the
first white man of any nationality who has
talked at length with a royal Chinese
princess—in fact, I might say, with sev-
eral princesses, for although my conversa-
tion was principally with one, yet many
others came in, and before I left there was
scarcely ‘‘standing room only’’ about me.
It came about in this way : Reading in
the Pekin Gazette that the empress dowager
had called all the princes of the blood,
members of the cabinet and presidents of
the six boards to a solemn conclave within
the palace, I was certain that some busi-
ness of more than usual importance was to
be tiansacted and that my business was to
find out as rapidly as possible what was on
foot. I decided to pay a visit to Prince
Tsai Feng and try and obtain from him the
event of the day. Fortunately only a few
days before his little daughter, to whom
he is devotedly attached, had come down
with measles and he had requested me to
send him a fever mixture, and if in the
neighborhood to drop in and see her. Re-
membering this, I decided to visit the child
and so interview the father. After a cold
ride of an hour in a Pekin cart I found my-
self in the outer court of the Tsai palace,
but, alas, was told by the gateman that the
prince had been deputed by the empress to
burn incense at a certain saciificial temple
some miles away, and would not he home
until after dark. Summoning up all my
courage, I replied ; ‘Yes, I know he is
away, but he has invited me to see his lit-
tle sick daughter and I cannot come at any
other time. Have the goodness to inform
the princess that in obedience to her hus-
band’s commands I want to see the child.”
““Which princess ?’’ he inquired.
“The child’s mother,” I replied, not
knowing what other answer to give.
I waited some ten minutes in my cart
and then the man returned with a eunuch,
saying : “The princess will receive you.
This eunuch will lead yon within the
harem.”
We passed through the four different
court yards, each lined with buildings, and
then entered a fifth court, at the head of
which, raised 10 feet above ground, stood a
building of the ordinary style of Chinese
architecture of one story, only it was larger
and more gaudily painted than the others.
Upon the platform in front of the door
stood a lady arrayed in many-colored silks,
and with face painted a bright vermillion.
I passed up the steps, and, bowing low be-
fore her, entered the room ahead of her, as
Chinese custom is, and proceeded to the
k’ang, which was covered with handsome
skins and soft rugs. She seated herself op-
posite me upon the k arg, separated frem
me by a little square table eight inches
high.
“The eunuch tells me my husband has
requested you to call, and I am very sorry;
he has apparently forgotten the appoint-
ment, for he said nothing to me about it.
But as you cannot call again I have decid-
ed to see you and show you the child.”
‘Many thanks,’’ I replied. ‘It is very
good of you. The journey to your place is
long and cold, otherwise I should come
again. How is the little girl ?”’
“Oh, ever so much better,’ she replied.
When we commenced speaking only the
lady, myself and two eunuchs were in the
room, but by this time the three doors lead-
ing into the apartment were filled with
painted faces and silk robed wives, concu-
bines and attendants of my much married
friend, Tsai Feng.
The little girl was carried in by a eunuch
and upon my pronouncing her quite well
the mother was very much pleased.
‘“‘How many children have you!’ I ven-
tured.
‘Alas, alas,’” she answered, ‘‘four girls,
but no boys.”
‘You are nearly as bad off as your em-
peror. Kuang Hsu,”’ I replied.
“Oh, do you know that?’ she asked.
‘Poor man, he is to have a son appointed
for him to day, and if I mistake not it will
be either the son of Prince Lien, Prince
Tuan or Duke Lan.
‘‘Too bad you have not ason,’’ I remark-
ed. ‘‘Then you might some day be moth-
er of an emperor.
‘No, that would be impossible,’’ she re-
plied, ‘‘as we are not of the generation from
which a prince can be chosen emperor. We
are descended from the emperor before
Hsien Feng, and the choice must lie in the
lower generation.”’’
‘‘I suppose the emperor will be pleased
to have a successor named will he not ?"’
“Not at all. Ever since last autumn a
year ago, when the emperor sent Yuan
Shib K’ai down to Tientsin to bring up
troops to kill the empress dowager, who
seized the throne and executed all the evil
advisers of the emperorshe could get hands
on, the dowager has hated the emperor,
and now that she is with the consent of the
princes and cabinet ministers appointing his
successor it may not be long before he passes
away.”’
‘But he never wanted to kill her.” I
interposed. ‘‘He only wanted to send her
away in seclusion where she could no longer
interfere in the matters of government.”’
“Do you think foreign clothes so very
ugly?’ I asked.
“Well, they are certainly not pretty,’
she frankly replied. ‘Your men’s clothes
are too light and thin looking, and I saw
several of your ladies from my sedan chair
window a few weeks ago, and they looked
like hour glasses, all squeezed together in
the middle, so that I wondered how the
poor creatures could eat. Don’t you your-
self think our costumes much prettier?”’
she asked, giving herself a contented going
over in a little looking-glass she had sus-
pended from her waist by a silk cord.
Then I lied most tremendously assuring
her I hoped the time would come when
our ladies would see the advantage of
changing to the Chinese costume. She
was very pleased and assured me it would
surely come in time.
At this junction the princess directed
her attention to my attire, upon which she
commented unfavorably.
‘Not in my time,”’ I sighed.
‘‘Well, then, you could take a Chinese
wife,’ she suggested.
“But I have an American one, already,’’
I objected.
“Oh, that’s no matter. Ru Kuli (her
husband’s personal name) has three be-
sides me—and her, and her, and her,"
pointing to three rather pretty but awful-
ly painted damsels standing now quite in
the room, all of them much younger than
herself—she seemed about 40. ‘Why
don’t you take a second wife, one of our
Chinese girls? I hear some of your coun-
trymen have done so.”’
“Thanks very much for the suggestion,”’
I answered, ‘‘but according to our social
code my wife would have to agree first,
and if I know the lady’s mind at all well.
I am sure she would object.
‘Would she, indeed? How funny,”’and
all the room laughed at and pitied me.
Tea was now served for the second time
and I saw it was a signal for my departure.
1 risked one more question.
“If the successor of the emperor is chosen
to-day, will the emperor at once abdicate?’
I asked.
‘‘Oh no. The dowager empress is too in-
telligent to force that at once. She really
rules everything and everybody at present.
She fears if the emperor lives he may fur-
nish a pretext for the friends of K’ang Yu
Wei and the so-called reformers to form a
revolution to reseat him onfthe throne, con-
sequently she is anxious to get him out of
the way. But she is too astute to be pre-
cipitate. She will first have a successor safely
appointed, some boy whom she can control.
PAfter the little excitement that move cre-
ates has subsided, say in a year, Kuang
Hsu, on plea of good health, will really abdi-
cate.Then, as he is no longer a figure of in-
terest, he will disappear without making any
stir. Clever, isn’t she?”’ J
“Very,” I replied. She must be a very
nice old lady—something like our English
mothers in law.”
Thanking her highness for seeing me and
howing low three times at the door to which
she escorted me. I followed the eunnchs
back to the second court, where the prince’s
male attendants awaited me and saw me to
my cart.
The next morning I received the follow-
ing note from the prince:
‘‘Esteemed friend: My wife yesterday
committed a great indiscretion in receiving
you in my absence, as it is against all rules
of Chinese etiquette, but as it was to see
our sick child it isan excusable fault. Kind-
ly however, mention it to no one in Pekin,
or it would injure us in our circle, as you
can well understand. Her conversation,
which she has repeated to me touched upon
several political questions. Please consider
her remarks but silly babble. Wishing you
golden peace, your slave, Tsal Feng.”
Upheaval of Land.
What Had Once Been the Bed of a River Is Now a
Hill 10 Feet High.
A tremendous upheaval of land is report-
ed to have occurred on Nooksack river, ten
miles west of Mount Baker, Wash., on
March 27th. What had once been a valley
and bed of the Nooksack river is now a hill
seventy feet high. The noise of the up-
heaval was heard at Hamilton, ten miles
away. A report of the occurrence was
brought to Tacoma by D. P. Simons Jr.,
who was in the neighborhood at the time
looking over timber lands.
Simons says that he heard the noise of
the upheaval, which sounded like the heavy
rumbling of thunder. He and his party
were very much disturbed and began an in-
vestigation. They journeyed in the direc-
tion from which the sound came and were
very much astonished to see a huge mound
of earth, nearly a quarter of a mile square,
where formerly there had been a valley.
In one place the mound was seventy feet
high. Nooksack river had heen turned
from its course and ran around the side of
the hill. Nearly in the centre of this high
bank of earth was a large lake. A forest
had formerly occupied the ground, and
trees which had escaped destiuction stood
up through the water. There were cracks
here and there in the mound large enough
to engulf a horse and wagon. There was a
smell of sulphur in the air, and it is Simon’s
impression that the disturbance was caused
by gases underneath the mountain.
Another theory ventured by settleis is
that the disturbance is nothing more than
a landslide from Mount Baker. This, how-
ever, could scarcely be possible, judging
from the odor of sulphur and the cracks
which appeared. William Hadley, a trap-
per, who has miles of snares in the vicinity
and whose wrecked cabin now stands in
the centre of the mound, was absent at the
time of the upheaval and thus probably es-
caped death. His cabin was split in two.
Simons says he was accompanied by H. C.
Banning. They left Nooksack April 2nd.
Wisconsin’s “Lumber King.”
Went to Work at $6 a Month; Died a Millionaire.
Former United States Senator Philetus
Sawyer, the ‘‘lumber king,’”’ whose death
at Oshkosh, Wis., has been reported in the
news columns, was an interesting char-
acter. He was born in Whiting, Addison
county, Vt., on September 22nd, 1816.
His parents removed to Crown Point, N.
Y., at that time the centre of the lumber
trade of the Lake region, where his boy-
hood days were spent. When fourteen
years old he went to work for $6 a month.
When he became seventeen he purchased
from his father for $100 his own time un-
til he should be twenty-one years old, bor-
rowing the money from an elder brother.
At the age of thirty-one he found himself
the possessor of $2000, which he had earn-
ed by logging and lumbering in the Adiron-
dacks.
With his savings he emigrated to the
lumbering region of Wisconsin, where he
invested his capital in a saw mill and the
purchase of timberland, laying the founda-
tion for his future wealth. Mr. Sawyer
married in 1841 Miss Melvina M. Hadley,
who died in 1888, leaving a son and two
daughters.
In all his business dealings, Mr. Sawyer
was noted for his shrewdness and his in-
tegrity. He was systematic in his gifts to
charitable enterprises, setting aside $1000
a month for this purpose. Mr. Sawyer
celebrated his eightieth birthday at his
home, in Oshkosh, in September, 1896,
with a most elaborate entertainment, to
which he invited nearly one thousand
friends from all parts of Wisconsin.
Mr. Sawyer served for ten years in the
House of Representatives, and for twelve
years in the United States Senate.
Not Enough to go Around.
A young married lady had just ac-
quired a new coach and a new footman to
match. “John,” she said one day, ‘we
will drive out to make a few calls. But I
shan’t get out of the carriage; you will,
therefore, take the cards that are on my
dressing table and leave one of them at
each house we stop at.”’
“Very good, ma’am,’’ answered John,
and he ran upstairs to get the cards.
After they had driven ahout a consider-
able time, and cards had been left at a
large number of houses, the lady re-
marked:
‘“‘Now we must call on the Dales, the
Framptons and Clarks.”
“We can’t do it,’’ here broke in the
footman, in alarm ; ‘‘I’ve only the ace of
spades and the ten of clubs left.
Larry—You remember our old tom cat thot
wud run if a kittin looked at him? Will,
he kin lick the hould alley by himself
now.
Denny—Phwat brought about th’
change ?
Larry—Wae toied a grane ribhon
aroun’ his neck.—Atlanta Constitution.