Democratic Wada.
Bellefonte, Pa., November 28, 1902.
THE PUMPKIN.
It was Indian summer, and the hot air,
instead of being sweet with the breaths of
flowers, was scented with apples and grapes
from the heaps ready for the cider-mills,
and the sparse clusters still left on the
vines. It was also blue and pungent with
the smoke of bon-fires. They were a thrifty
folk in Evantown, and made a clean sweep
of the debris of the summer before the win-
ter set in, being, as far as the seasons were
concerned, well off with the old love be-
fore they were on with the new. Sophia
Bagley, was not out-done by her neigh-
bors, though in every house except hers for
a quarter of a mile down the village street
there were men. She herself stoed out in
the south yard raking a bon-fire.
Sophia had never been married; until
three years ago her eldest brother had lived
with her; since then she had lived alone
and managed the farm. After Jonas Bagley
died everybody thought that Sophia would
sell out and go to live with her married
gister at the Centre. They were surprised
and disapproving when she announced her
intention to remain on the farm. ‘I'd like
to know why I shouldn’t?”’ shesaid. *‘‘I
guess I have lived here ever since I was
born, and I am not going to leave now to
live with a half-sister young enough to be
‘my daughter, with balf a dozen children,
and no land at all except a little front yard.
I ama going to stay right where I am.”’
“You ain’t going to run the farm ?’’ said
the calling neighbor, who wasa sort of
scout of village gossip, having come in ad-
vance to spy out the land.
‘Why not?’ demanded Sophia Bagley.
“Why can’t I run the farm? I'm going
to sell all the cows but one, and the Wilder
boy is going to come over when the weath-
er is too bad for me to get to the barn, and
help me about here, and when it’s haying-
time I shall hire, and hire a man to plough
and plant the garden. Jonas ’ain’t been
able to-do much of the work himself of
late years. I don’t see why I can’t do as
much as he has. I enjoy good health, and
I’ve got common-sense, and I ain’t ahaid
to work.”’
“I should think you would be afraid to
live alone,”” ventured the woman. Al-
though she was as curiously insinuating as
a screw, she was always more or less in-
timidated by Sophia Bagley, whose nerves
were strung to such a ready response that
it seemed aggressiveness. Whoever asked
Sophia a question was exceedingly apt to
jump at the reply, it was delivered with
such impetus. Sophia Bagley was, how-
ever, very mild and gentle to see, being
small and blue-eyed and fair-haired, with
a curious sidewise inclination of her head
and shoulders, as if all her life she bad
leaned for support upon somebody else.
People had always thought she had leaned
on Jonas, and were astonished that after
he died she did not lop in the dust. They
were even a little aggrieved that she did
not; people do not like their theories dis-
proved, even to the advantage of their fel-
low-men, and moreover, an incongruity
like Sophia’s manner and deep decisive
voice and small gentle personality always
irritates. When the visiting woman went
bome to report she was distinctly censori-
ous. ‘‘I believe Sophia Bagley is aiazy,’’
aid she; ‘‘a woman who has always de-
pended on her brother the way she did on
Jonas Bagley, to live alone, and try to run
that farm herself !”’
At first the neighbors used to look anxi-
ously of a morning to make sure that the
smoke was coming from Sophia’s chimney
and nothing had happened to her in the
night, then after a while, when nothing did
happen, they got tired of it. Sophia, to
all intents and purposes, managed the farm
as well as ber brother had done, and her
solitary estate did not seem to wear upon
her. Sophia’s dependent inclination of
body had never extended to her spirit. She
was never timid alone in the house, and
she never kept the Wilder boy overnight
for protection, as some people advised. “I
don’t know what good that boy could do,
unless I threw him at a burglar,” said she.
“I'd enough sight rather bave the broom.”’
The Wilder boy was very small of his
age, which was fourteen; he was the eldest
of Henry Wilder's large family who lived
on the back road. The back road ran
parallel with the main one, and the Wilder
house was the width of the field away from
Sophia’s. Henry Wilder owned quite a
large farm of his own, and he had grabbed
thereon steadily all his life, but with small
results. His family was large, and mis-
fortune seemed to pursue him. Once his
"barn was burned and no insurance. Twice
he lost by fires all hisstanding wood which
was just ready to eut. Once a tornado
whieh harmed no other building in the vil-
lage hurled a great elm-tree onto the roof
of his house, demolishing a chimney. He
had also a deal of iilness in his family, and
once he broke his own leg. The Wilder
‘boy, whose name was Henry,after his fath-
er—but he was seldom called by it—was
very glad of the chance to do chores for
Sophia Bagley. He had left school, and
had plenty of time aside from his work for
his father, as the next hoy was only a year
younger and stronger than he, and Henry
Wilder in spite of his small progress in life
was a prodigious worker. The Wilder boy
had ambition. He was small and pany,
underfed on salt pork and pie, his eyes
were blue and steady, his month thin bus
firm; he looked asif he could split fate
with his wedge of a face. He worked with
a fury which was pathetic. ‘I’m going to
get ahead,” he said to his mother, who was
not sympathetic.
‘‘You can’t,’’ said she. *‘Yon can work
all you area mind to. Your father has
worked, and he used to talk just as you do.
It ain’t work which puts folks ahead, it’s
the Lord.” 3
“Well, I’m going to work with the wind,
anyhow,’’ said the boy, who had a streak
of poetry in him, though ke had been a
poor scholar. The teacher said that she
did not feel as badly about his leaving
school to go to work as she did about some
boys. “He looks smart enough, and he is
smart enough, too,”” said she; “but he
thinks more about selling a few apples and
earning a little money than learning any-
thing in books.”’
Sophia Bagley approved of the Wilder
boy. His vehement way of working pleas-
ed her. When she saw him plunging
furiously across the field to her barn through
a blinding snow storm, she nodded appro-
bation to herself. When she asked him if
he was tired, and he shook his head angri-'
ly, she admired him. There was the spirit
of a born fighter in herself, and she recog-
nized it in another. When he would not
drink the hot coffee which she poured out
for him on such a hitter morning that he
had stamped and swung all the way over
the field to keep from freezing his bands
and feet, she looked at him with actual en-
thusiasm. A boy who would not be cod-
dled appealed to her as nothing else could
do. She had coddled her brother Jonas a!
good deal, though everybody bad supposed
it to be the other way around. Sophia
herself had often waded through a snow
drift to milk the cows rather than allow
Jonas to venture out. Jonas had indeed
been ailing in his later years,but she knew
that the Wilder boy would not weaken if
he were ailing. Unconsciously the woman
began to depend on the boy as she had
never depended on any living thing, began
to love him as she had never loved any one,
not even her brother. Jonas Bagley had
been an uncouth, taciturn man, who had
not the ability to awaken, or feel, a very
active affection.
Sophia bad never been in love in her life;
no man had ever wanted to marry her.
Now for the first time she felt her heart
stirred to a passion half maternal, half
fraternal, for the two had much in com-
mon. Although the boy would not be
coddled and she loved him for it, she used
to watch him anxiously across the field.
She made excuses for giving him some
choice tidbits by telling him that she would
otherwise have to throw them away. Some-
times she used to long to stroke his little
sunburnt fair head as he ate, but the boy
was no more to be stroked than some little
fierce animal ‘intent on his bone. The
Wilder boy, warped by circamstances into
one abnormal slant, had but one purpose
in life; to get ahead. To get ahead meant,
with everyhody, in the little struggling
New England village one thing—money
enough to live without fear of the poor-
house, and the worst greed of all : the
greed for money as money. There was no
craving for luxuries or pleasures, which
were known only by their names, never
having been translated into actualities, but
there was the fierce instinct of the poor,
ground always on the wheel of fruitless
labor, for money. The Wilder hoy’s eyes
when he held a coin in his little grimy
hand were something terrible. Sophia
Bagley, though she herself had something
of the taint, began to see it.
“‘You’d ought to think of somethin’ be-
side money,’’ she said to him, severely,one
day.
Y What else is there?’ he demanded,
with wise, keen eyes on hers. Then he
looked again at a great silver dollar which
she had just paid him, and the terrible
look of ignoble greed brutalized his face.
‘“There’s a good deal beside,’ said she.
‘You ought to have an education.”
“All I want is money,’’ replied the boy.
He thrust the silver dollar into his pocket
and there was an answering clink. When
he left Sophia that afternoon he went to
the savings-bank and deposited his wealth.
His father allowed him to save all he earn-
ed, since his work at home more than paid
for his keep.
On his way home, travelling across the
field, the Wilder boy stopped in Sophia’s
corn-field to look at the prize pumpkin.
That it was a prize pumpkin he had no
doubt. It was a wonderful sphere of
vegetable gold. There was a monstrous
pumpkin of his own growth in the patch
which his father had given him to culti-
vate, but it was not like this. He walked
around it, he stooped over it, finally be
knelt before it. It looked larger than ever.
He touched its glossy orange suiface; it
was fairly hot in the October sunlight. He
stood up, and looked away over the fields
which seemed to he swimming in a blue
mist from the bon-fires. He sniffed the
burning leaves ¥nd the scent of apples and
grapes. Then he looked again at the golden
vegetable among the ranks of dry rustling
corn. ‘‘Fifty cents,’”’ he said, to himself.
That was the prize which the pumpkin
would probably bring at the county fair
the next week.
As he said fifty cents the Wilder boy saw
before him the coin. He felt it in his lit-
tle grimy clutching fingers, and again that
look of terrible greed came into his eyes.
When he got home he visited his own
corn-field, and examined his own largest
pumpkin. There was no question hut ib
was inferior in size to Sophia's. ‘‘Fifty
cents,’’ said he, again.
When he went into the house for supper
after he and his brother had done the barn
chores, there was not much to eat except
bread and molasses and strong poor tea.
After supper his father sat in the kitchen
husking corn with a sort of fury,as if some-
how he would outstrip fate, and all the
children except the two little girls and the
baby helped, emulating his zeal. As for
the mother, after she bad put the children
to bed, and washed up the supper dishes,
and set the bread to rise, she mended with
a knitting of her brows and a compression
of her mouth, as if she would bave rather
torn. But there was no retreat in her any
more than in her husband. Both of them
flew around their tread-mill of existence as
if it had bezen a race-course.
That evening Sophia Bagley, sitting
alone in her sitting-room sewing, was con-
scious suddenly of a flash of light from the
window. She looked up and saw a mon-
strous grinning jack-a-lantern with golden
candle-light streaming from the grotesque
slits of eyes and the crooked bow of the
mouth. Then she turned her eyes upon
her sewing again. Sophia Bagley was im-
pregnable to all such attacks of youthful
wits. Even bean-shooters who bombarded
the village houses in the spring, to the
futile rage of nervous women, retreated
dismayed by her utter calm. It was no
sport at all teasing a woman who would
not be teased. Sophia sewed away as if a
jack-a-lantern staring in at her window was
an every-day occurrence; even a loud boy-
ish whoop failed to move her rigid calm.
When she heard the retreating feet and saw
the flash of disappearing light she smiled a
little to herself. ‘They needn’t think they
can pick on me, if T am an old maid,’’ said
she. Then she thought that it could not
possibly have been the Wilder boy. ‘He
would never have been guilty of such a
prank. Catch him wasting pumpkins that
way,’ she reflected. Then she thought of
her own giant pumpkin over in the east
field, and she thought of the county fair,
and how the Wilder boy was to drive her
there in company with some superb bunches
of grapes, some remarkable specimens of
pears, and—the pumpkin. ‘It will take
the prize, sure,’’ she said. She hrd an
ambition of her own which gave a zest to
life. The county fair was her Field of the
Cloth of Gold. She looked forward to ex-
hibiting the products of her farm, and her
brother bad done so in his day. Many a
prize had they brought home together with
a greater warmth of sympathy than over
any other occurrence of life. Once Sophia
bad won a prize for a crazy-quilt. This
vear she was making a wonderful sofa pil-
low of bits of silk no larger than her thumb
nail. *‘This ought to take a prize, too,”’
she considered, as she sewed in another
tiny bit. The boys outside who were re-
tiring, completely worsted, conferred on
the situation with wonder.
*‘There she went cn sewing them little
bits of silk,?’ said one.
‘‘Don’t believe a cannon cracker would
start her,’’ said the other.
But Sophia, sewing beside the lamp in
her peaceful sitting-room, felt presently
disturbed in her mind. She laid down her
work and reflected with bent brows. *‘‘You
don’t suppose that jack-a-lantern was—my
big pumpkin,’’ she said, to herself. Then
she dismissed the idea. ‘“They wouldn’s
dare,’’ said she, and sewed on.
Meantime the boys with the jack-a-lantern
had gone across the field to the Wilder
house, thaugh with trepidation. There
were too many boys there, Their specialty
when abroad with jack-a-lanterns was
nervous solitary females. ‘‘We’ve got to
watch out, and be all ready to skip,”’ they
charged one another before they elevated
the grinning pumpkin outside the lighted
window of the kitchen.
It was well they did, for there was a wild
whoop inside, the sound of scurrying feet,
and the door opened with a bang. The
Wilder boy was upon them. As it bap-
peued, he was all alone in the kitchen.
His elders bad gone to evening meeting,
and the next younger boy and his sister
had gone on errands. The Wilder boy in
that hurried glance bad recognized by some
occult sense his own pumpkin. He waited
for nothing, but sped to the charge.
The boys with the jack-a-lantern fled
like wild things. They snatched out the
candle and extinguished it as they run,
otherwise the bobbing fiery globe might
have betrayed their whereabouts. The
Wilder boy was fleeter of foot than they,
but they had plenty of canning. Finally
he passed them like the wind where they
were hiding in his own corn-field with the
pumpkin between them.
“Jest lay low,”” whispered one to the
other, and they did. They, peeping, saw
presently the Wilder boy returning mut-
tering futile vengeance; they saw him go
to the place where had flourished his great
pumpkin, and they shrank within them-
selves when they heard his howl of despair
when he discovered that it was gone.
Suddenly they saw, to their great as-
tonishment, the Wilder boy run violently
across the field toward Miss Sophia Bag-
ley’s corn, which showed a pale rustling
patch some way beyond. ‘‘He’s going to
tell her,” whispered one hoy, fearfully.
They were quite small boys.
‘‘Had we better get out?’ whispered
the other.
“Hush !”’ said the first. ‘‘’Fraid he’ll
spot us when we cross the bare field. Bet-
ter keep still. Lay low.”
So they lay low, and presently the Wild-
er boy returned, bringing with difficulty
Miss Sophia Bayley’s great prize pumpkin,
which he deposited close to the stem whence
his own had been lopped. Two pairs of
furtive eyes watched him. When he had
returned to the house two boys, slinking
from shadow to shadow, sought the pnmp-
kin and verified it. Then they went home
aghast.
The next morning there was a change in
the weather, the wind blew from the north-
west. All objects had clearly defined out-
lines and could be seen from afar. Sophia
Bagley, looking from her sitting-room win-
dow, could plainly see the round gleams of
gold among the withered stalks of her corn-
field. ‘‘Those pumpkins must be bronght
in this morning,” said she, and again she
thought of the jack-a-lantern, and the
possibility which had entered her mind the
night before. The Wilder hoy was out in
the barn milking. He had crossed the
field, in the dusk of dawn in his little thin
jacket, sternly holding back the shivers.
Sophia thought that she would set him to
work gathering the pumpkins.
Finally she put her thick shawl over her
head and went across to the corn-field,
bending her head before the wind which
stiffened as with life all the fringed points
of her shawl.
Her face gathered wrath when she saw
the empty nest of her great pumpkin. She
blew home across the field to the barn.
‘‘Some boys stole my prize pumpkin last
night,’’ said she to the Wilder boy, ‘and
if I can find out who they be, I'll prose-
cute them*”’
The Wilder boy looked sidewise at her
frqm behind the Jersey cow. He was very
white.
“Yes I will,”’ said she. ‘I don’t sup-
pose you know who they were.”’
‘‘Some boys were up to our house with
a jack-a-lantern last night,”” said the
Wilder hoy, feebly.
‘‘And you don’t know who they were?’’
‘No, ma’am.”’
‘Well, I'll prosecute them if I find ount,”’
said Sophia. *‘I wish you’d watch out.”’
‘Yes, ma’am,’’ said the Wilder boy,
miserably. He had been brought up to
rectitude, and this was his first offence. He
had been led astray by the lust of wealth.
Golden disks as large as full moons, and
silver disks as large as fifty cent pieces had
so dazzled his eyes that he had lost the
narrow way. When Sophia bad gone in-
to the house he fairly groaned, but he had
no thought of retreat.
Later in the day his brother who had
been set to gathering the Wilder pump-
kins came into the house staggering be-
neath the large one which his arms could
scarcely encompass. ‘‘Gee!’’ said he,
‘didn’t know your pumpkin was so big.
Bet you it will get the prize instead of
Miss Bagley’s. Don’t believe hers can he
as big as this. Funny thing, it was broke
off the stem.”
‘““That often happens,’’ said his father.
“It is a great pumpkin. I guess it will
take the prize.”
“Talk about anything of ours taking a
prize,’’ said his wife. Bus she looked with
awe at the great sphere of gold. ‘‘How
much will they give if it does take the
prize ?”’ asked she.
‘Fifty cents,” replied her husband, im-
pressively.
As for the Wilder boy, he cast one com-
prehensive glance at the pumpkin; then he
went out to the barn. He had just finish-
ed gathering the Bagley pumpkins.
“Think Miss Bagley has got one bigger
than that? ‘‘his brother called after him.
‘‘No, I guess not,”’ the Wilder boy call-
ed back.
The county fair came off, and the pump-
kin took the first prize. Sophia did not
go; she was laid up with a cold. Her
grapes took a prize, her pears failed that
year, but she was two dollars with her sofa
pillow.
“I should have had another prize if my
great pumpkin had not been stolen to
make a jack-a-lantern with,’”’ she told one
of the neighbors, hoarsely, the day after
the fair. 2
“The Wilder boy took the prize for the
biggest pumpkin, ’’ said the neighbor.
“Well, I don’t wonder. I knew it was
'most as big as mine,”’ replied Sophia. *‘I
wi I could get hold of those boys, that’s
all.”
The neighbor looked uneasy. She had a
b
0y.
i was Thanksgiving week, two days be-
fore Thanksgiving, when the neighbor came
in again. She looked rather pale, but she
sat down in a determined fashion. Sophia
was making cake, and the kitchen was
redolent with spices. ‘‘Look here,’ she
said; ‘I’ve got something to tell you,
Sophia Bagley.’
“What ?’’ said Sophia. She herself
paled a little. ‘If it’s bad news out with
it,’ said she, in her peremptory way, and’
she looked as if ready to face a charge.
“Land! don’t bite my head off,” said
the other woman. ‘‘I’ve got something to
tell you. I don’t know as it’s such very
bad news,only you may be able to see that
some boys ain’t any worse than other boys.’
She spoke with meaning. Sophia’s par-
tiality for the Wilder boy was openly
criticised among the neighbors.
“Well?” said Sophia, and again her
voice rang like a pistol.
‘“Well,”’ repeated the other woman,
‘‘you remember your prize pumpkin, how
you thought it was stolen for a jack-a-
lantern ?”’
“*Of course I do.”
“Well, it wasn’t stolen for a jack-a-lan-
tern, but that Wilder boy’s was, and then
—he jest cnt across the field, and—got
yours, and put it where his was, and —took
it to the fair, and got the prize.”
“J don’t believe one word of it,’ said
Sophia.
“I can’t help it whether you do or not,
it’s so.”
“How do you know?’ asked Sophia,
suddenly, with keen eyes on the face of the
other woman, who winced.
““The—the boys who—who tock the
Wilder boy’s pumpkin—they would never
have thought of taking your pumpkin—
hid in the corn, anud—and saw him,”’ she
said.
*‘I suppose one of the boys was your
boy ?”’
‘“‘He wouldn’t bave thought of taking
your pumpkin,’’ said the other woman,
feebly.
‘What difference do you think it makes
whose pumpkin he took? I think you’d
better go home and whip him, if you don’t
want him to do something worse when he
grows up.”’
“I'm going up to see Mr. Wilder, if you
ain’t’”’ said the woman.
Then Sophia faced ber. ‘‘Jest the min-
ute you go up there and say one word
about that pumpkin to Mr. Wilder, I'll
tell him how your boy stole his,’ said she.
The other woman gasped. ‘‘It was all
in sport,’’ said she.
“I'll tell of it, if it was all in sport; and
what’s more, I’11 tell Mr. Wilder that the
pumpkin was a part of the Wilder boy’s
”
*“Then you’ll tell a lie,and you a church
member.”
‘‘Telling lies in a good cause is enough
sight better than tale-bearing in a bad
one,” said Sophia Bagley, with the -em-
phasis of a philosopher.
“Well, if youn want to shield that hoy,
you can,’’ said the neighbor, as she went
out.
*“Well, if you want to shield your hoy,
yon can,’’ returned Sophia.
The next morning when the Wilder boy
came to milk the cow and do the chores,
Sophia waited until he had finished, then
she called him into the house. ‘Look
here; I want to see you a minute,’ said
she.
The hoy stood hefore her small and bhlne
with the cold, shifting on his chilblained
feet, his stiff hands thrust into his pockets,
a pathetic fringe hanging from one elbow
of his jacket, a pathetic hole on each knee
interloping upon more pathetic patches.
He felt that his guilt was discovered, but
he never quailed. Something untamable
looked at her out of his blue eyes weak-
ened and watery with the cold wind. The
woman. who bad in herself something un-
tamable, recognized it as she had done be-
fore, bus this time from the vantage point
of victory. ‘‘Look bere,”’ she said; “I
know all about that pumpkin.”’
“111 tell father, and get a licking,”’ said
the boy, unexpectedly and defiantly.
“Well. maybe von had better,” said
Sophia; “I don’t know but you'll feel bet-
ter afterward, but you’ve got to take some-
thing else from me.”
The Wilder boy undoubtedly quailed.
He could face whippings with the courage
of a savage, but when it came to the
mysterious terrors of the law, that wasa
different thing. He remembered what she
had said about prosecuting the boy who
had stolen her pumpkin. He waited, shif-
ing involuntarily on his chilblained feet.
His wild eyes were ever so little averted
from hers.
“Well, I'll tell you what you’ve got to
take from me,’’ said Sophia. ‘‘You’ve got
to take some warm red mittens I've been
making, and a Thanksgiving dinner, and
your living here right along with me after
Thanksgiving, and—you’ve got to go to
school, and learn that there’s something in
this world beside money to be sought
after.”
The Wilder boy stared at her.
“If you don’t, I’ll. prosecute you,’”’ she
said.
The two continued to look at each oth-
err Finally the ruling passion in the boy
quailed before the dominant material wis-
dom and love of the woman. His eyes
fell. ‘‘Well,’”’, said he, sullenly. He was
very pale, and he could hear his heart
beat. :
That evening the Wilder boy’s father
walked into Sophia’s sitting-room witnout
any ceremony of knocking. **Well, he has
told me about stealing your big pumpkin,
and I guess I have given him a whipping
that he will remember,” said he. *‘I never
knew him to steal before, and I shouldn’t
be surprised if he never wanted to steal
again. Now, I wantto know how much
truth there is about what you want to do
for him 2?"
“It’s all true,”’ replied Sophia, defiant-
ly, as if she were accused of something
shameful. ‘I've got money enough to do
it with. That boy ought to be made some-
thing of.”
‘He wanted to leave school,’ returned
the man, in a somewhat aggrieved tone.
“I was willing for him to go longer, but
all he seemed to think of was making mon-
ey. He wanted to go to work, and earn
money, but now he seems ‘willing 'to go to
school if you want bim to.”’
“I’ve got enough to do it with,”’ said
Sophia, still defiantly; her face was qnite
red.
When the Wilder boy’s father went home
across the field he reflected how at one
time he had some thoughts of marrying
Sophia, although he had never courted
her. J
‘‘She did mean it,’’ Le told his wife,
when he entered the kitchen. ‘‘She really
seems to set by him, and she says she’s got
plenty to do it with.”
“Well, if the Lord sends folks more ohil-
dren than he gives them means to support,
I suppose they’ve got to let other people do
it,”’ responded Mrs. Wilder. ‘How much
do you suppose Sophia Bagley is worth 2”?
ly. He sat down and began shelling corn
furiously. Somehow old dreams about So-
phia reasserted themselves, and he esti-
mated mentally her worth in something
besides the coin of the realm. ‘You look
out you behave yourself when you're with
that woman, and she doing all that for
you,’’ he said to the boy. ‘‘Don’t you go
to cutting up and not treating her right,
and you learn your lessons, you mind.”
“Yes,” replied the Wilder boy, sullen-
ly, and yet there was an undercurrent of
response to his father’s charge in his warp-
ed little soul. A sense of gratitude and a
new ambition began to ennoble him. He
realized himself with more respect.
Thanksg'ving morning he went across
the field to Sophia’s. He wore his new red
mittens. He had fifty cents in his pocket,
“I don’t know,’’ replied the man, shiort- |
and both arms were clasped around the
great pumpkin.
‘‘It is a mercy we hadn’t cut intoit,”’
said his mother. She had brushed his
bair with a hard old brush that morning
for the first time for years, and that al-
though she was very busy. Sophia had
sent her a great turkey.
As the Wilder bov drew near Sophia’s
house he could smell spice and roasting
turkey, and onions, and stewing fruit; a
special atmosphere of love aud plenty
seemed to surround it. It was a very clear
cold morning, the snow glittered like a
crust of diamonds, the sky was like a con-
cave of sapphire, the gold of the great
pumpkin blazed in the boy’s eyes. Some-
how, carrying it, and being himself just
twisted aside in his own growth to anoth-
er course, as the vine which had borne the
pumpkin might have been, he began to
look over the great golden sphere which he
was bearing so painfully, as if he were
looking aboveall the golden dross of earth.
—By Mary E Wilkins, in Harper's Bazar.
Debts of the States.
General Reduction in Their Obligations in last
Twelve Years.
Remarkably healthy and creditable is
the showing made by the States in their
general reduction of debts incurred for
public purposes says the New York Sun.
The 45 States have collectively, a bonded
debt of $200,000,000, avd, alshough other
debts, municipal and county, have been
increasing largely of late years, State debts
have, in most cases, fallen off.
The State which has the largest debt—
contracted through obligations entailed by
the Civil War—is Virginia, which owes
$24,363,000 in bonded debt. Twelve
years ago its debt was $31,000,000 and it
has reduced the amount by $7,000,000.
The financial credit of Massachusetts is
so high that it bas, since 1890, been
pledged to sundry towns for local liabili-
ties, the payment of the honds issamed for
which is provided for by direct taxation.
The actual state debt, which was $28,000, -
000 in 1890, is now $12,400,000, a reduc-
tion of $15,000,000.
The debt of Tennessee, which, next to
Virginia, suffered moss from the Civil War,
is now $16,200,000. Twelve years ago it
was $16,600,000, $400,000 more. During
this period the population of the State has
increased a quarter of a million.
Louisiana has a state debt of $10,800,-
000, Twelve years ago it was $11,800,000,
a reduction of $1,000,000.
New York's present debt, insignificant
when compared with its manifold assets, is
$10,000,000, an increase of $3,500,000,
compared with what it was 12 years ago.
This increase is due, almost exclusively,
to the canal dz2br, now $8,500,000, anthor-
ized in 1895, and of what remains of the in-
crease $675,000 is for the acquisition of
Adirondack park lauds.
The debt of Alabama is $9,500,000, of
Pennsylvania $7,800,000, a decrease of $4,-
000,000 in 12 years; of South Carolina $6,-
800,000. of Georgia $7,600,000, a reduction
since 1890 of $2,400,000, and of Mississippi
$2,800,000. :
Texas has reduced its state debt in the
same period from $4,200,000 to $715,000,
Arkansas from $2,000.000 to $1,200,000,
North Carolina from $7,700,000 to $6,200.-
000 and Maryland from $10,000,000 to $2,-
600,000, partly by disposing of its railroad
investments. :
The debt of Kentucky, never large, has
been increased 50 per cent in 12 years. It
is now $1,100,000. Nebhrasak bas no state
debt. Neither has West Virginia nor New
Jersey, which owed $1,250,000 12 years
ago.
Illinois, Iowa and Oregon have no state
debts which, having matured, are payable,
but they have small outstandings obliga-
tions which have either not heen presented
for paymeut or bave not matured. These
obligationsamount to $18,000 in the case
of Tilinois, $10,000 in thas of Iowa and $1,-
000 in that of Oregon.
The credit of all American States’ is un-
excelled, the rates at which they can bor-
row money are low. The need of publie
improvements, buildings and water-ways
is often urgent, and of the solvency of
American States to pay for these there is
no question; bot the policy of all the
States is to diminish, not to increase. the
debts, and collectively the States have
done so and are doing so.
Largest Tree in the World.
Monarch of Forest in California Measures 108 Feet.
in Circumference Near the Root.
Just outside the borders of the Gen.
Grant National Park, in California, and
United States Forest Reserve, there has
been discovered the largest known tree in
world. Prof. John Muir describes the tree
as being ‘‘well preserved, well balanced,
noble, and majestic,” and gives the fol-
lowing dimensions, which he obtained by
careful measurement: At one foot above
gronnd the circumference is 108 feet at four
feet above ground 98 feet: at six feet above
ground the girth is 93 feet. The tree
stands in a nest of lesser giants of its own
kind, is three miles from Converse Basin,
and directly back of Millwood.
This newly discovered patriarch is of
the species sequoia gigantea sempervirens,
and belongs to a genus which flourished in
North America and Europe centuries ago,
but which was overwhelmed by the hard-
ships of time, of change and elemental ca-
prices, until only two species survived to
represent the genus, the sequoia gigantea,
and the sequoia gigantea sempervirens, both
of which took up their permanent abode in
Califoinia.
The massive, fluted trunk, straight and
strong as a granite pillar. is covered with,
rich, cinnamon brown bark, almost two
feet thick,and is free from limbs to a height
of 175 feet, where it is estimated to be elev-
en feetindiameter. The branches, ecloth-
ed in dense foliage, 1adiate symmetrically
from every side of the trunk, above this
height, and form a thick, flat crown, while
myriads of cones flutter like gay green tas-
sels on the outer borders of the foliage
masses. These cones are two and a half
inches long, one and a half wide, each hav-
ing thirty or forty strong, closely packed
rhomboidal scales, with four so eight seeds
at the base. The most peculiar thing about
these is that they are the smallest seeds
produced by any of the conifers. The cones
grow in clusters on the tips of the branches
and in one instance 140 cones were counted
on a branch only one and a half inches in
diameter. If not harvested by squirrels,
these cones will discharge their seeds, and
remain on the trees for many years. This
conifer produces more seeds than any oth-
er.
The blossoms appear toward the end of
the winter, while the snow is yet deep,and
look like thonsands of bees on the ends of
the branches. The pistilate flowers are
about three-eights of an inch in length. A
curions characteristic, indigenous to the
species, is that if the top is cus off by light-
ning a new one will take its place, forming
slowly,as with thoughtful deliberation,but
eventually assuming the perfection of its
predecessor.
a —————————
Herr Krupp Dies Suddenly of Apo
plexy.
Richest Man in Germany—He was Also ths Larg-
est Individual Employer of Labor in the Worid
and Greatly Extended His Works.
Frederick Ather Krupp, the great gun-
maker and the wealthiest man in Germany,
died suddenly of apoplexy Saturday, at his
villa at Huegel.
Herr Krapp had been ill for several days
and a report of his condition was telegraph-
ed daily to his wife, who had been several
months in Jean under medical treatment.
Concerned by the latest dispatch regarding
her husband, Frau Krupp left Jena Satur-
day, accompanied by Prof. Binswanger, of
the medical faculty of the university there.
The physicians succeeded in restoring
Herr Krupp to consciousness, but their pa-
tient soon relapsed into insensibility. He
died at 3 o'clock. In the meantime, the
directors of the Krupp works and Herr
Krupp’s solicitors had been summoned.
They had a consultation, and caused a bul-
letin announcing his demise to be posted at
the works at 6 o’clock.
SUSPICION OF SUICIDE.
Herr Krupp's villa where he died, is sev-
eral miles from Essen. The great gun-mak-
er lived there in almost feudal fashion, and:
the place tonight is unapproachable,uohody
being admitted within the gates except the
police, the directors of the Krupp works,
and the undertakers, and their assistants.
Herr Krupp was not regarded as a hard
master by hie workmen. He established
various institutions at Essen for their bene-
fit and built hundreds of model houses on
sanitary principles for their use, charging
for them a moderate rental.
Moderate estimates of the fortune of the
deceased place it at $125,000,000. and his
annual income during his recent years of
prosperity at $10,000,000. Herr Krupp
made great sums by supplying armor plate
for the navy. Besides his iron works, and
shipyards he bad an interest in many finan-
cial enterprises, and recently had acquired
extensive coal properties in connection with:
the North German Lloyd Steamship Com-
pany.
LARGEST EMPLOYER OF LABOR.
Frederick Alfred Krupp, son and succes-
sor of the founder of the great gun works
at Essen, was born at Essen February 17th,
1854.
He has been at the head of the great
manufactory established by his father,
Frederick Krupp, since the death of the
later in 1887, and had largely extended the
works at Essen and the operations there.
He was the largest individual employer of
labor in the world, there being more than
50,000 men on his pay-roll.
As a recognition of his services and
wealth, he was appointed a life member of
the Upper House of the Prussian Landtag
in January, 1897. For a number of years
he was also a member of the Lower House
of the Imperial Parliament.
The great gun factory, which has attain-
ed a worldwide reputation and bas had for
its customers 34 different Governments in
all parts of the world, was established ip
1810. BL ges
Wherever there are ships or fortifications
there are to be found the Krupp capnon,
every where, that is to say, except in Frauce,
the one country which Krupp would not
supply.
MADE BY LONDON EXPOSITION.
Ever since the Franco-German war he
had been looking forward to the possibility
of a war of revenge, and he vowed that he
would never put weapons into the hands of
an avowed enemy of his country.
The grandfather of the man who has just
died had only a few thousand marks to his
name when he started a little foundry of
his own in 1810, and for many years he was
barely able to get a subsistence out of the
ownership of the establishment, and he,
too, endured poverty for years before the
tide turned In bis favor.
In 1832 he had only nine men in his em-
ploy. He made good steel, good guns and
other good articles, but there was so little
demand for his work that he scarcely kept
his bead above water. Sometimes he could
barely afford postage stamps.
He was unable to secure satisfactory rec-
ognition for his products either at home or
abroad. but he took his steel and a gun or
two to the London Exposition in 1851, and
before it was over the British were calling
him a great steelmaker and his fortune was
made.
INDUSTRY EMPLOYED 50,000 MEN.
The industry at the present time em-
ploys 50,000 or more men, who dwell in a
city of their own that has been constructed
for them by their chief. As long ago as
1895 there were in the cast-steel works at
Essen over 3000 implements and machines,
besides 458 steam engues, with a total of
36,561 Lorse-power. The length of the helt-
ing used in transmitting the power was
over 40 miles. The 12 Krupp blast fur-
naces on the Rhine consumed 2400 tons of
iron ore and produceed 1200 tons of pig
iron.
In the statistical year 1895-96 over 1,-
000,000 tons of coal and coke were consum-
ed, or 3650 tons a day, of which 3500 tons
a day were the product of Krupp’s own coal
mines, The comsumption of water in the
establishment at Essen is equal to that of
Dresden with its 336,000 inbabitance. It
consumes as much illuminating gas as the
city of Breslau, which is a little larger
than Dresden. Fifty miles of railroad track
on the premises and connecting with the
ratlroads outside, 36 locomotives and 1300
freight cars are a part of the plant. There
are 322 telephones in the establishment,
with about 50 miles of wire.
Germany is the third greatest iron coun-
try in the world, and vet a twentieth of
its entire outpnt of iron ore comes from the
Krupp mines and is manufactured in the
Krupp works,
Hypnotized Woman's Appetite Exposes
Brother’s Deception.
A man under the name of Signor Venora,
claiming to be a hypnotic scientist of high
class, went to Emporia, Kan., recently
and caused a sensation by advertising that
be would bury his sister alive and let her
remain buried for a week. The city refus-
ed him a license and in the courts he won,
Before a large crowd Venora hypnotized
his sister and buried her, to leave her bur-
ied for a week. He had put ber in a grave,
hut there was room in the box for her to
sit up. One night the policemen caught
Venora dropping food down the shaft to his
sister. They discovered that she was not
lying down and was not hypnotized.
Turned Tables on Highwaymen.
When at Jersey Shore Tuesday night. an
Italian held up Engineer Frank Koons on
one of the principal streets, at the point of
a revolver and demanded his month’s
wages. Koons parleyed with him until
two men, whom his assailant failed to no-
tice, came up behind and knocked him in-
to thelgutter. Iu the excitement he got
away.