pan
Bellefonte, Pa., October 23,1903.
EE —————
CONTENTMENT.
Happy the man that, when his day is done,
Lies down tosleep with nothing of regret—
The battle he has fought may not be won—
The fame he sought be just as fleeting yet ;
Folding at last his hands upon his breast,
Happy is he, if hoary and forespent,
He sinks into the last, eternal rest,
Breathing these only words ¢ “I am con-
tent.”
But happier he, that, while his blood is
warm,
Sees hopes and friendships dead about him
lie—
Bares his brave breast to envy’s bitter storm,
Nor shuns the poisoned barbs ot calumny ;
And mid it all, stands sturdy and elate,
Girt only in the armor God hath meant
For him who ’neath the buffetings of fate
Can say to God and man : “J am content.”
— Eugene Field,
A STORY OF MATRIMONY,
‘‘Is must be the cold that’s keeping Miss
Louise, this morning. She’s thas late.”
Maggie Gilligan, the old woman who had
heen a servant in the Barnard family for
nearly forty years, rubbed the back of a
stiff hand against her red nose, glanced
anxiously at the clock and then at the
table, hesitating as she realized that coffee,
rolls and omelet would be rained in five
minutes more.
“Sure. I'm glad she’s goin’ to New
York to-morrow,’’ added Maggie, as she
threw another lump of cannel coal into the
grate. ‘The counthry’s that lonesome in
winther and as cold as the saints dead this
hundred years. It's low-spirited she is,
too, and small blame to her. A good time
is what she’s afther needin,” God bless
her.”
She broke off suddenly and stepped to
one side, smoothing her orisp apron and
giving a last, anxious glance at the fas-
tidious table as she heard a swirl of skirts
on the stair. The door opened and a
smallish but very graceful woman, with
slightly gray hair and tired, lovely eyes,
came into the room.
*‘Grood-morning, Maggie. What; hasn’
the postman come yet?” :
Louise Barnard glanced at the table as
she passed it, hurrying to the fire and rub-
bing the palms of her hands smartly to-
gether. Maggie watched her with eyes
quick to discern the least disfavor of ber
table.
‘‘No,’’ she answered, ‘‘he ain’t come yit.
The drifts are that big there’s no getting
throngh, I'm thinking,”’
‘‘Of course. [had forgotten the storm.’’
Miss Barnard set down the coffee-pot and
turned toward the window. From her
chair she could see a wide sweep of lawn
where the January drifts sparkled blind-
ingly under a cloudless morning sky. Not
a breath of wind stirred the heavily laden
boughs of the pine-trees, and the hush of
the frozen,shrouded world penetrated even
to the cozy room where the geraniums
spread their green palms to the sunshine
ponnog through the speckless panes. ©
With a little shiver of satisfaction, Miss
Barnard turned toward the hearth.
‘“There’s the mail now,’’ she exclaimed,
as heavily booted feet clumped up the
piazza steps.
‘‘A telegram, Miss Louise !"’ exclaimed
the old woman, coming back with nervous
haste and forgetting to close the outer door,
through which the winter air hurtled like
a spear. / :
‘‘I hope it’s nothing bad, miss,” she
ventured, her eyes ignorantly compassionate
as her mistress tore the yellow envelope,
read the two lines within and laid the
paper beside her plate.
Louise smiled faintly. ‘‘An urgent in-
vitation,’’ she answered. She smiled again
as she stirred her coffee and reread the
telegram: ‘‘Can you come? Baby and
little Lou sick, No cook, Affectionately,
Connie.”’ !
““T'wo cents for that last word before her
name,’? said Louise, slowly. ‘‘Connie all
over. Poor girl.” She stared absently at
the window, her breakfast forgotten in the
contemplation of that picture which had
been thrust before her.
‘‘As soon as you have finished your
house-work,’’ she said, quietly, to the old
woman who was moving around the table,
‘‘pack your bag aud get ready to go with
me. Iam going to spend a week with
Mrs. Stanton.’’
‘‘You’ll not go to New York, afther all,
then ?’’ began Maggie, her wrinkled face
expressing disapproval as well as disap-
pointment. :
“Not just now,’’ returned Louise. ‘Mrs.
Stanton and the children are not very well
and I must go to them. We'll take the
early afternoon train, so be as quick a3 yon
can, for you'll bave to see your hrother
abont staying in the house, and I must go
to the bank.”
She spoke without raising her voice from
ite usual languid sweetness, but Maggie’s
eyes fell submissively ; the words her lips
shaped were sonndless. ‘‘Sure, it’s God’s
world but the devil bas the bossin’ of it,”’
she murmured, as she left the room.
Miss Barnard, standing before her open
trunk and looking at the clothes which she
had begun to take out and lay on the bed,
turned a reflective face as the old woman
entered and offered to help her.
“I think I’ll just take a hand-bag,” she
said. She paused a moment, her finger at
her lip, her eyes raised to the small bright
ones of the servant, who stood several
inches taller than ber mistress. ‘I have
decided to bring Miss Connie and the chil-
dren back with me instead of staying
there,’’ she added.
‘Back here? Not in this weather,
ma'am,” stammered Maggie, respectful
resentment in her tones. “Where'd you
be afther putting them all? Sure there
ain’t but two of them little stoves in the
house, and all them children —why, they’d
have the place tore up in no time.”’. She
stopped abruptly, biting her lips.
Even the privilege of a quarter of a cen-
tury of service would scarcely bridge this
remonstrance.
Miss Barnard dropped her eyelids again.
‘‘We could manage,’’ she said, gently.
‘‘Manage,’’ repeated Maggie fiercely, to
herself. ‘‘Manage.”’” Why couldn’t some
other folks ‘manage’ once in a while?”
She sent fierce, jealons glances after Miss
Barnard all the morning. Once when she
saw her pick upa book which had been
ripped from its fine bindicg by one of the
children the summer before, she caught
her breath quickly and left the room mut-
tering.
Louise looked after her,her mouth drawn
a little, ‘‘She suffers more than I do,”
she thought. ‘‘What are books or china
or flowers or anything compared: with Con-
nie and her children? Poor, poor: Con-
nie I”? SER Bal quiet
As always, she drew the deep, accus-
tomed sigh at the mention of her sister's
name, so heavily darkened had the once
bright and beautiful creature’s life become.
Unlike the cruelties of death, this living
tragedy could not be forgotten.
.At the station, before they took the
train, she telegraphed to her sister that she
would be with her that night, but even
with this preparation the two women
found the house, on # dingy back street of
the little island city, quite dark, and; after
repeated ringing, the ‘was finally open-
ed by a little boy with his throat tied up
in a flannel shawl.
He stared a moment, then gave a happy
ory : ‘‘Aunt Lutie! Aunt Lutie !”’
‘‘Gene, dear !"”” Miss Barnard stopped
abruptly and put her arms around the
child, for a moment unable to say more.
In the dimly 1i¢ hall she had seen his
pale, thin face, his outgrown frock, his
ragged shoes.
**Where’s mama ?’’
ing him and rising.
“In the kitchen, getting supper,’”’ an-
swered the child, smoothing her sables
with his cold little bands and making soft,
inarticulate sounds of pleasure at the feel-
ing of the far.
A sudden sense of shame stang Louise.
She pulled off her collar and hung it with
her moff over the baluster as they went
down the hall.
“Lutie! How good of you to cowe !"
A gas-jet high overhead sent its flickering
light down upon the untidy kitchen ; th
presty but neglected children; the woman
who, dressed in an old skirt and flannel
sacque covered by a checked apron, turned
from the stove, a spoon in one hand, a baby
over her shoulder, and yielded herself
longingly to her sister’s arms.
Louise felt her throat tighten. Was this
thin, worn, draggled creature the once so
beautiful Constance? ‘‘Poor child. . ..
Here, Maggie, you finish supper. Let me
take the baby, dear,and we’ll go upstairs.”
“We can’t,’” laughed Connie, hastily
drying her eyes. ‘‘There’s no fire in the
furnace and I have to keep the children
here until they go to bed. The baby has
such a dreadful cold.”
Louise bent and kissed the tiny face on
her arm, then blushed hotly. The three
other children were looking at her won-
deringly, and her sister’s eyes, too, held
a silent admiration and envy. Touise felt
a quick thankfulness that she had left her
furs in the hall. And yet, why should
she be ashamed of her beautiful clothes ?
Were they not merely an alternative ? Did
her sister feel uny compunction at the pres-
ence of her children when she saw Louise’s
solitary spinsterhood ? %
She asked herself these things again as
they sat at supper in the ohilly dining-
room and she observed that Stanton looked
from her to his wife with dry, silent com-
parison.
Louise also looked at Connie. The poor
girl had put on a faded but fresh cotton
dress, had arranged her hair prettily and
pinned a muslin fichu over her shoulders.
Worn and faded as she was, harassed with
anxieties, aged by toil too heavy for her
slender and delicate physique, there was
yet a grace, a distinction, a fineness, about
her face, the poise of her head, the line of
her shoulders, that gave one a pang as of
some mutilated treasure. She had aiways
been more beautiful than her elder sister;
she was so still, in spite of the contrasting
effect of the ten years of comfortable ease,
the ten years of hardship; which separated
the two.
.. Louise watched her as she poured the
coffee, served the children, told the funny
side of the winter’s troubles in an effort to
hide the poor meal’s deficiencies, the rag-
gedness of the table’s outfit.
‘‘At all events, I have learned how to
cook lots of things, haven’s I, ‘Gene?’’ she
‘‘Have you?'’ said her husband. ‘‘This
seems like the first decent meal we've had
in months.”’
A red stain appeared under Connie's eyes
as if she had been erying. ‘‘I do the best
I can,”’ she said. ‘‘I have to be as econom-
She asked, releas-
‘laughed.
‘ical as possible.”’
‘Yes, of course, but it seems like rather
poor economy to oblige me to teach on a
diet of tough beef and sloppy oatmeal,’’.
answered Stanton. ‘By the way,” he
‘added, ‘‘tell Maggie to leave the coffee-pot
on the stove.
in.”
asked Louise, innocently. .
‘No, not exactly,’’ answered Eugene,
glancing at his wife.
‘‘He has his studio where he practises
and gives lessons down town at the hotel.
The children make such a noise, you
‘koow.”’
fact cheerfulness through this explanation.
who sat in timid silence, watching appre-
hensively whenever their father spoke.
‘‘Let Maggie hold the baby, while I clear
off the table,”’ she ed. “‘Just tell me
where the things belong. I can doit all.
‘Where do the napkins and silver go? Oh,
yes, here. Bus, Connie——? ‘Where is all
‘your silver ?’’
‘Oh, I don’t use it ordinarily. It—it’s
too much trouble to keep it clean.” Con-
nie’s voice was curiously smothered.
‘‘But the forks and spoons ?'’
‘Oh, I just—loaned them.’ i
Louise was silent. It had come to this,
at last. Pawning. ve
She tried to talk gaily of home affairs, of
neighborly gossip, but each incident seem-
ed a fresh pencil with which to underline
the contrast between Connie’s poverty and
the well:bheing of the others, and Louise
felt a hard lump in her breast.
There was an oil stove in the front bed
room, where Connie slept with the baby
and one of the children, and the two wom-
en sat down one on each side of i, talking
in low tones, while the mother nursed her
baby. :
Connie spoke of the struggles and disap-
pointments of her life with an appearance
of frankness which would have deceived
most persons, but Louise knew the reserve
of her sister’s proud nature and saw through
the veil of those brave pretenses about the
need of ‘‘congenial companions’’ and ‘‘a
musical atmosphere,’’ with which she en-
deavored to explain her hushand’s fail-
ures,
Louise murmured words of loving en-
couragement as she kissed her and went to
bed. She moved very softly for fear of
waking little Lou, who slept with her, but
her patent-leather boots made a heavy
noise on the uncarpeted floor and the rustle
ot her silk petticoats seemed insolently
oud.
Shivering in the chill of the sheets, she
lay awake for a. long time. thinking over
once more what she had planned to do and
trying to study it in every aspect. As she
lay there, wide-awake, she heard Eugene
come softly in and creep upstairs. As he
went toward his own room, Louise heard
Connie say : ‘‘Did you latch the front
door, ‘Gene? I was afraid to go to sleep
until you came. What made you stay so
late? Did you stop to play cards?’
“Only a game or two,”’ whispered the
an in reply, and Louise heard her sister
sigh.
In the first flush of their married life,
every one had laughed at Connie’s mis-
I'll get a cup when I come :
“Do you have choir rehearsal at night 2”? |.
‘breath, ‘“if I only could !
Louise looked at the three little ones, |
takes and trials. Then they bad come fo
laugh with her. Now they looked at her
while she laughed alone.
Through it all, Louise had stood by them
lovingly. She admitted that Connie had
been hasty, but sometimes infatuation end-
ed in love. fr 1s
She invited the yonng couple to live as
home with her while Engene was building
up a position in New York. And when,
at the end of the year, he annonnced that
he thought it foolish for a young unknown
man to start out in a big city, that he
thought he had better go to some small
place and work up a reputation, Louise
agreed. With Connie, and the baby which
had Some; she wens A yew
ersey where Eugene had taken a place as
organiss, hired and a a little house,
saw the two started, and then left them to
try life alone together.
For a year, with Louise, and Albert, the
married brother, to help, they kept it up.
At the end of that year. Stanton resigned.
It was not a place which would advance
him, he said, and he must be rising in his
profession, no matter how humbly he
started.
This was honest,and Louise helped them
to pack, move and settle themselves at
home with her while Eugene was making
a fresh start.
Before he found just what he wanted,
another baby arrived, and Connie was so
far from well that it was decided bess to
have her stay with Louise for six months,
at least, and be ready to go to housekeep-
ing with her husband, who by tbat time
would be settled in his work. But
three months passed before he found what
be liked; then the salary was so small that
Louise and Albert were constrained to send
a monthly check, and Connie,broken down
by the hard work and anxiety, had to give
up and go to the hospital for six weeks.
So the years had slipped craftily by,
while they were expecting each to bring
the golden future.
Louise, hoping steadily for better things,
forgot to regret the thousand sacrifices
which fed the clear flame of her love. Not
a word of reproach, not a single refusal,
met Connie’s appeals, and although the
younger woman had more and more often
felt the searing scorch of the fire which
warmed her, she shrank from the cold out-
side its radius.
For herself she would have endured, she
would have suffered, anything. But her
children had made a primitive creature of
her; fighting for their needs, she forgot
what she took. :
She hardened herself when she sent for
her sister, poignantly aware of, yet refus-
ing to recognize, the sacrifices to which she
forced her by her importunity. She felt
almost a sense of injury in that sufficiency
which belonged to Louise, forgetting that
she possessed it only through the sacrifice
of her own life; that she owned the old
home only so long as she remained unmar-
ried, and that she couid not marry because
the man she loved had died while waiting
or her to finish taking care of other peo-
ple. yi
Louise stared up at the vague circle on
the ceiling cast by the arc-light in the
street. As it leaped and flickered and
ebbed low, yet never went out, so would
Eugene’s career waver through the years
while he dragged his wife with him into
as yet unsounded depths of sordidness,
Connie’s thin face, with its large, de-
fiantly sad eyes, sensitive scarlet lips and
sweet chin, the inquiring child-faces about
her knees, came back again to Louise, and
she shook off the weak defense which she
had begun to build about herself. What-
ever came, Connie should share all that
was hers. *
There was an added pressure in the clgsp
of her arm when little Lou woke ini the
freezing dawn and turned to her.
forth, this child should be her pictures, her
music, her books and travel. ’
She smiled bappily as she sat on the edge
of the bed in her wrapper and dressed the
Jittle thing, who retarded the process by
shivering hugs and kisses and snuggling of
ice-cold hands in Louise’s neck. 5
‘‘What happiness it is to have . some one
get breakfast !”’ sighed Connie, content-
edly. ‘‘How often I have longed for a cup
of Maggie’s coffee !”’
Her sister looked at her, smiling strange-
y.
‘Come home with me and have it every
day,’ she said.
. *'‘Oh,”” answered Connie, with a deep
When I think
how soon you must go and leave me——’
‘Shecould not finish. Louise saw her lip
‘tremble.
Connie’s voice kept a ‘matter-of- |:
epeak; she was
She
Louise herself could not
trembling nervously.
Connie did not appear to.notice it.
was busy putting something aside on a
plate. “‘Maggie,’’ she said to the old wom-
an who was waiting on the able, the haby
on her arm, ‘‘put this where it will keep
hot, and make some fresh: coffee in abous
an hour. Mr. Stanton won’t be down to
breakfast with us.’’ . j
‘Is he always late ?’’ inquired Lonise,
bassivg herself with little Lou’s bread and
milk. :
‘Oh, no; but you see he can work so
much better at night that he stays down-
town at his studio very late, and so I lét
him sleep in the morning.”
‘*And you always make fresh coffee for
bim ?”’ asked Louise, gently.
‘Oh, no,’’ laughed her sister. ‘‘That is
a luxury he prepares for himself, usually.
He will miss Maggie when you go.”’
‘You know I must —?’ began Louise,
when the door opened and Stanton came
in. He looked from one sister to the
other.
‘‘What is that ?’’ he inquired. “You
are going home, Iouise? You mustn’t
think of it. Connie has been looking for-
ward to having you here ever since Christ-
mas. You can’t go yet; no, indeed.”
As he spoke, he was opening the morn-
ing papers one alter another, glancing
through them and throwing them down.
‘Where is my breakfast, Maggie ?’’ he de-
manded. ‘I must go down town early
this morning.”
“You don’t really mean that you are go-
ing soon?’ Connie said, in alow tone.
‘“‘Why must you, Lou? No one needs you
at home as I do here.”
Louise smiled a little. ‘‘No,'’ she said,
‘‘bus 1 cannot leave the house alone. And
Maggie's brother has to go back to his
family. If you’re willing, though, I’ll
take little Lon with me and keep her
through the winter.”
‘“That’s a good idea,”’ exclaimed Stan-
ton, looking up from his paper. ‘‘You
know she’ll be much better off there than
in this house,’’ he went on, turning to his
wife, who had not spoken. “It will be
easier for you, t00.”’
Louise moistened her lips. ‘‘Wouldn’t
you like to have me take Connie home,
too ?’’. sheasked, in a curious, light, high
voice.
Eugene looked at her questioningly.
‘Why, she really would be better off
there,’” he began, as if uncertain of her in-
tention. ‘‘I’'m going to give up this job
in the spring, anyhow. There’s nothing
in i6. I can see that. And if Connie and
Henece- |,
the children were with you, it would be a.
tremendous relief—a help for a while.’*
‘I meant for always,’’ said Lonise,look-
ing at him, still, with thas far-off smile.
She-had taken little Lou by the hand and
‘was clinging to‘her now in a sort of panic,
as a man clutches at a frail vine when his
ladder falls beneath him. o
‘Oh! ‘Always?’’ repeated Engene, ou-
riously, doubt-and a sort of relief in his
voice. ‘‘Yon mean for Connie to live in
the old place always?’ He repeated the
word with emphasis.
*‘Yes,’” said Lounise, ‘‘I mean for her to
settle down there and make it her home.
Would you like it, Connie?’ She turned
to her sister with a sndden deep appeal in
look and voice.
Connie's face grew white, her eyes dark-
ened, yet lnminously. ‘If I only could !’
she breathed. The prospect was like heav-
en to her wearied heart. She looked at
Louise, smiling softly.
‘You wonld be willing to let me take
her and the children—permanently ?’’
‘Why, yes.”” Eugene laughed awk-
wardly, but with evident relief. *‘If you
want her to go.”’
‘‘And you would be willing to go, dear?
Everything I have would be yours. I
would do all I could to make you and the
children happy.” Louise spoke earnestly,
almost warningly.
‘Oh, the mere being at home would be
enough,’’ laughed Connie, a cateh in her
voice. ‘‘And then when Eugene comes
‘No,’ said Louise, in a sharp, deep tone
that made them both turn. *‘No, there
would be no time when he wonld come. I
meant that yon should stay with me and
leave him for—for always.”
Her voice rang strangely at the last
word; she looked to and fro between them.
‘‘Why,’* she laughed, sharply, ‘did you
think it was for him I meant it? No. I
meant to take youn out of this misery, this
poverty, this—this neglect that you have
endured for ten years through—through
your husband’s selfishness, and give youn
all you were used to before he took you
away from me.
‘Yes, I say all this to you, Eugene. I
have never said it to your wife alone. You
know whether it is true. If she were hap-
py, the rest wouldn’t matter, but she is
unhappy. She is tired, lonely, discour-
aged, sick. Sick at heart because yon
neglect—neglect——'’ Her voice came in
sharp gasps, her eyes burned the husband
and wife with their fused fires of love and
loathing. She had risen, and now went
toward Connie, her hands held out. In
her slight, fanltlessly dressed figure, her
silky gray hair, her soft, beautifully kept
bands, there spoke a reproach, a plea,
stronger than her words.
‘‘Come with me, Connie dear. I will
take care of you, I will love you.”
She had taken the wife’s hands as they
hung nervelessly beside her, and standing
close to her looked up into her silent face.
Connie did not stir. She was gazing at
her husband.
He had dropped the newspaper,and with
his bands on the back of a chair had lis-
tened silently to Louise’s terrible words.
His boyish face, with iis round, beauti-
‘ful forehead, big blue eyes and weak
mouth, had grown stiff and old as he stared
back at her, and a dull-red flush stained
his eye-lids. When she had finished speak-
ing, he too looked at his wife, but with ex-
pressionless eyes.
“You of course understand what your
sister says,’’ he began. ‘‘She wants you
to go to live with her and to leave me out
of the question. Simply ignore the faet
that you have a husband. She will take
care of you——'" He paused.
‘Yes. Do you want'me to go?’ Con-
nie spoke in a level, dead voice.
Her husband shrugged one shoulder,
spreading out his hands in a dul! caricature
of indifference. “‘I?’’ he said, with a
daugh. ‘What can I say ? As your sister
tells yon, ever since yom have been mar-
ried you have been poor, overworked and
neglected. You have nothing to look for-
ward to, for I shall never be a rich man. I
have nothing to promise, nothing to offer.
She has—everything.””, He let his hands
fall and went to the window. :
‘‘Do you want me to go? Eugene?”
Only in that last word was there an echo
of the ory she stifled. i
He turned sharply. ‘‘Do I want you to
go? Wantyou to!’ he cried out. ‘Why,
Connie—"’
‘‘Don’t, ’'Gene, don’t! Let me stay
with you ¥’ She sobbed piteously as they
ran and clung to each other.
‘‘It is only for your happiness, sweet-
heart,’ he said, unsteadily, as he smooth-
ed the head pressed close to him. “I have
done nothing to make you happy, nothing
to deserve your love——"’
‘‘Oh, Gene, let me stay ! Let me stay !
T love you! Nothing else matters.’
‘‘I love you too, dear. You know that.
I’H try to make you happier.”
They had quite forgotten the other wom-
an—they had forgotten . everything, past
sorrows and future trials—as they held
each other close. :
“As Louise closed the door softly and
stepped into the hall, Maggie was coming
from the kitchen, muttering to herself and
shaking her head. Aft sight of Louise she
stopped abruptly.
‘“‘Whatever is it,’ miss?” she began
wonderingly, ‘and then she opened her
arms as Louise, overwhelmed in strange,
unfamiliar grief, drooped forward blindly
against the old nurse’s shoulder, sobbing
again and again: ‘‘I didn’t understand.
I. didv’t understand !’’—By Josephine
Arthur, iu the Cosmopolitan.
His Neck Was Broken
Harold Launtz, eldest son of Mr. and
Mrs. Alexander Launtz, of Lincoln town-
ship, Cambria county, met with a shocking
death last Monday afternoon, falling for-
ward from a scaffold in Christ's (Casebeer)
Lutheran church, now building, five miles.
north of Somerset, and breaking his neck.
The unfortunate young man lived for prob-
ably two or three minutes after the acei-
ent.
The workmen at the building, carpenters
and brick masons, were startled by a ory
of alarm about 4:30 o’clock, and some of
them turned from their work in time to
see young Launtz tilt forward from a scaf-
fold twelve feet high and fall tothe floor of
the building, alighting on his head, says
the Somerset Herald. All of them hasten-
ed as quickly as possible to his side, but
were t00 late to render any assistance.
The unfortunate young man was 22 years
of age. With his father and two brothers,
Aden and Frank, he went to the church
Monday morning to do a voluntary day’s
work, the same as nearly all of the male
members of the congregation have been
giving towards the erection of the new
house of worship.
The dead boy was one of the most pop-
ular in the neighborhood and his sad end
has cast a gloom over the entire commun-
ity in which he lived.
——If we counld always get what we
want, we would probably never want
what we got.
Langley Undismayed.
The Wrecking of His Aerodrome Not a Death Blow.
Faith in His Ability to Make a Flyer Continues
Strong as Ever—Awful Experience of His Assist.
ant.
After three months of daily preparation
by the members of the Langley flying ma-
chine expedition off Wide Water, Va., the
big steel, sixty-fodt, man-carrying aero-
drome was launched from the houseboat
Buzzard shortly after noon on last Wed.
nesday. The trial proved to be an in-
glorious failure. The aerodrome hit the
water 100 yards from the launching tracks,
and was wrecked. Prof. Charles M. Man-
ley, the aeronaut, escaped with a ducking.
Mr. Manley admitted, while changing
his clothes shortly after he was pulled ous
of the river that the experiment was un-
snccessful. Prof. Langley, when seen
Wednesday afternoon at his office in the
Smithsonian Institute in Washington was
not in a cheerful mood.
Eversince the flying machine expedition
was towed down the Potomac to Wide
Water, early last June, the scientific men
have been waiting and the tests have heen
postponed, presumably on account of bad
weather. The scientific instruments perch-
ed in a row on the superstructure of the
houseboat Buzzaid were apparently very
delicate, and according to their indication,
there have been just three day between
July 7th and October 7th suitable for
aerial navigation.
On the first trial after a couple of months
of waiting and daily preparation, the in-
struments finally agreed. Prof. Manley
said good-bye to his relatives and friends a
signal rocket bomb was sent up, to notify a
government tug two miles down the river
that the airship might he expected that
was shortly, the aeronaut entered his frail
car and the spectators held their breath.
The motive power refused to respond to
Prof. Manley’s yank of the lever, bowever,
and a cursory examination showed a brok-
en valve, a misplaced piston a bent crank
and a few other defects in the gasolene en-
gine, which had been overlooked. On the
second suitable day the engines worked all
right, but one of the propellors flew off the
shaft and damaged the insides of the aero-
drome. :
At 10 o’clock last Wednesday morning,
the scientific instruments all agreeing that
the conditions were perfect for aerial navi-
gation, a force of men was put to work as-
sembling the aerodrone on the super-
structure of the Buzzard. This was ac-
complished soon, and shortly after noon
Prof. Manley took his seat in the naviga-
tor’s car. He was cool and confident of
success, and wore a cork jacket. The sig-
val rocket and the government tug were
omitted from the program. Prof. Manley
merely nodded to the assembled scientists,
waved his band to the man in charge of
the pneumatic catapult on which the
aerodrome depends for its initial velocity,
and pulled the starting lever wide open.
Tbe aeronaut seemed somewhat sur-
prised when the machine began to move.
The aerodrome slid along the seventy feet
of elevated tracks at the rate of about forty
feet a second, darted into the air, hovered
uncertainly for a moment and then turned
its nose downward and made for the bot-
tom of the Potomac.
There was a gasp from the spectators, a
yell from the scientists on board the ‘Buz-
zard, and the aerodrome; with Prof. Man-
ley on board, hit the water and sank. As
the model aerodrome, launched a month or
80 ago, buried its nose in the mud of the
channel bed and had to be dragged for with
grappling irons and pulled up in pieces
there weresome anxious moments hefore
the steel body of the machine, buoyed up
by a number of hollow cylinders, bobbed
up again, with Prof. Manley still; seated in-
the navigator’s chair. : *
Prof. Manley gasped once.or twice, shook
the water out of his eyes and yelled that he
was all right. The aerodrome appeared to
be a total wreck. ' The bamboo and silk
wings were drenched and smashed, the
steel propellers were broken into bits, the
engine looked rather the worse -for wear
and the steel frame of the airship was
twisted and tangled like so much rope.
ley from the navigator’s car, and. a couple
tugs towed the remains of the srodrome
back to the Buzzard, where a very sober
crew of scientists pulled it out of the water
and stowed it away in sections inside the
houseboat. Owing to the completeness of
the wreck this undoubtedly ends the flying
machine experiments for the present year.
No one who saw the test of thearodrome
will venture a reason as to why it didn’t
fly, other than that offered by an old na-
tive of Wide Water, who remarked with a
shake of his head, as he rowed slowly back
to his home on the shore, that ‘‘it wasn’t
the nature of the beast.” :
The ®rodrome did not appear to derive
any momentum from its swiftly revolving
propellers. Ck
Shortly after returning to the houseboat
for dry clothing, Prof. Manley made the fol-
lowing statement through a window to the
uewspapermen : i
“It must be understood that the test to-
day was entirely a experimentand the first
of its kind ever made. The experiment
was unsuccessful. ‘The balancing, . upon
which depended the success of the flight,
was based upon the tests of the medels,
and proved to be incorrect. But only an
actual test of the full-size machine itself
could determine this. My confidence in
the future success of the work is not
dampened—I mean, not shaken.’’
Last Wednesday's unsuccessful trial is
not the first setback that Prof. Langley has
had since he began his experiments in
rial navigation more than twenty years
ago. Practically only once since he began
his efforts to construct a mechanical bird
has Prof. Langley obtained a glimpse of
the goal which he has so persistently
sought. This was in 1896—seven years
-ago—when two models sent up by Prof.
Langley and his assistants, under their own
motive power, furnished by a gasolene
engine of the type used in last Wednes-
day’s experiment, sailed upward of halfa
mile. On these occasions the model sro-
drome ascended in the face of a moderate
wind and sailed along a horizontal plane at
a velocity of about twenty-five miles an
hour, until their engines ran down, when
they settled gradually and without injury
to the surface of the Potomac.
Claims $50,000 for Boll Weevil Remedy.
F. L. Richter, a practical farmer of
‘Cuero, Tex., who this season raised nine-
teen bales of cotton on eighteen acres of
land situated in the midst of other cotton
fields which were devastated by the cotton
holl weevil, recently arrived in Austin and
made a formal claim on Chairman Jefferson
Johnson, of the state boll weevil commit-
tee, for a prize of $50,000 that is to be paid
by the state to the person who devises a
successful and practical method of exter-
minating the boll weevil.
——The travelling representative of the
Regal Shoe—the famous $6.00 shoe for
$3.50—will be at the Brockerhoff hotel on
Saturday, Oot. 31st.
EE
Workingme n Warned.
Using Socialism to Aid the Republican Machine.
Democrats should be wary of the ef-
forts now being made by the Republi.
can machine to entice them into the
Socialist party.
The Socialist propagandists have
been at work in counties that should
be Democratic, and in counties where
the party vote is too uncomfortably
close for the Republican machine
leaders. Republican counties are
never invaded by these pro, dists,
or, if at all invaded, then only in
strong Democratic distrisz:s
The history of the Greenback party
in Pennsylvania should act as a warn-
ing to Democrats. Tom Armstrong,
Charlie Brumm, Henry Cary Baird,
John Kelly, Tom Mason, Terry Pow-
‘derly and the whole phalanx of Green-
back party leaders went over to thd
Republican party when their attempt
at disuniting the Democracy was end-
ed and they left nothing of that party
but a mere tradition. .
The Henry George movement in
New York, ended as did the Greenback
movement in Pennsylvania, by a final
assault upon the Democratic ticket.
If the Socialist leaders were earn-
estly striving for the acceptance of:
their doctrines they would not begin
their work by setting up candidates for
political offices. Socialism is a maf-
ter of ethics that needs study and rea:
soning, not the hurly burly of political
campaigns. If the theories of Soctal-
ism are ever adopted, those who ac.
cept such theories will be men who
solve social problems in the quietude
of their homes and not by listening
to the fervid harangue of some person
who is most interested in securing a
political office than in anything else
on earth.
There are Socialists who honestly
think that the government should own
and control all tolls of trade, trans-
portation and commerce and give the
benefit of this ownership to the people
as a whole. If there be any virtue in
such a theory of government it will
come into practical use by argument
and debates made dispassionately, bit
never by thrusting it forward politi-
cally in the period of its infant growth.
Socialism in France, Germany, Italy
and Spain, has accomplished nothing
of good, notwithstanding great suc-
cess at times, in the election of So-
cialists to representation in political
offices.
In none of those countries have the
people been granted any less costly
means of communication and trans-
portation; the standing armies have
not been decreased, but, on the con-
trary, they have been increased; the
navy, too, has been increased and the
power to earn wages has been so low-
ered that Socialists cannot point to a
peasant laborer who is any better off
now than he was before Socialism
stepped into the political arena.
All that Socialism has accomplish-
ed in those countries is a political oh-
slaught against’ religion, the Socialist
leaders being nothing but Atheists
pure and simple—and the same may
truthfully be said of many of the So
eialists of this country.
In any cvent let Democrats keep
away from Socialists and their issues
until the time at least when Republi-
cans will have themselves joined the
A an iB & rowboat voaoned rol. Mon Bocialist fold and voted that ticket.
The Democratic: party has an ex-
cellent candidate for auditor general
in Mr. Dewalt. The Republicans have
‘a very bad candidate in Mr. Snyder.
The former was the champion of the.
working people, in the state senate,
whilst ‘the latter ‘was the willing tool
of the monopolist. The Republican
party managers know that the miners
at least know the bad record of Mr.
‘Snyder. They fear .they will vote
against him. They seek to neutralize
the defection from Snyder by urging
their dupes to vote a Socialist ticket.
: ‘Can you see the point?
Potatoes A Foot Long.
Phenomenal Crop Being Gathered In Sheriaan,
Wyo. oy
Sheridan, Wyo., a mushroom town of
ten years’ growth, looks with scorn upon
Greeley, Col., for it has seen the Greeley
potato and gone it one better, says the
Minneapolis (Minn. )JJournal. They claim
there, and the claim seems to he well sub-
stantiated , that Sheridan holds the
world’s record for the size and yield of its
potatoes. It is not necessary to say that
the town is founded upon irrigation.
Without artificial water supply it would
he the same brush desert it was eleven
years ago.
President Alger, of the IMirst National
bank of Sheridan, declares that 976 bushels
of potatoes have heen raised on one acre of
Sheridan farm land. This feat was ac-
complished in a competition with Greeley
and for a prize of $1,000. An agricultural
publication offered the prize and named the
conditions. It was stipulated that the
acres be surveyed and that the potatoes be
dug in the presence of a committee. which
should make affidavit before a notary. pub-
lic of the amount of the yield. The win-
ner challenged the Greeley farmers to
another contest, offering to bet an addi-
tional $1,000 that 976 bushels could be
exceeded and Greeley again surpassed, but
the challenge was not accepted.
It is easy for one who has seen the Sher-
idan potatoes taken at random from any
field along the road. as I was permitted
to do, to believe that the ‘‘potato brag’’ of
this town is well founded. The potatoes
are nearly one foot in length by six inches
in diameter with an occasional specimen
almost the size of a man’s head. Most of
the yield at present is sold for use on the
Union Pacific dining cars, where they are
served up baked, and are very popular
with the traveling public. An occasional car
load, however, goes to Chicago and Min-
neapolis. At first the farmers sent the
potatoes to market as Greeley potatoes but
they are now getting a reputation which
enables them to stand on their own merits.
In the course of time Sheridan will he-
come world famous as the greatest produc-
er of the ‘‘spud.”