i : i { ———— | a ——— #% Demaceair latch Bellefonte, Pa., Mah 6, 1910. THE FURNISHED ROOM. By O. HENRY. Copyright, 1906, or McClure. Phillips & ’0.§ Restless, shifting. fugacious as time itself, Is a certain vast bulk of the pop- ulation of the red brick district of the lower west side Homeless, they have a hundred homes They flit from fur: | nished room to furnished room, tran- sients forever—transients in abode. transients in beart and mind Hence the houses of this district, having had a thousand dwellers, should have a thousand tales to tell, mostly dull ones no doubt, but it would be strange if there could not be found a ghost or two iu the wake of all these vagrant guests One evening after dark » young man prowled among these crumbling red mansions, ringing their bells. At the twelfth he rested his lean band bag. gage upon the step and wiped the dust from his batband and forehead. The bell sounded faint and far away in some remote, hollow depths. To the door of this the twelfth house whose bell be had rung came a housekeeper who made him think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that bad eaten itx nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edibie lodgers. He asked if there was a room to let. “Come in.” said the housekeeper. Her voice came from her throat; her throat seemed lined with fur. *l bave the third tioor back, vacant since a week back. Should you wish to look at it? The young man followed her up the stairs. A faint light from no particu- lar source mitigated the shadows of the halls. They trod noiselessly upon a stair carpet that its own loom would have forsworn. It seemed to have become vegetable—to have degenerat- ed in that rank, sunless air to lush lichen or spreading moss that grew in patches to the staircase and was viscid under the foot llke organic matter. At each turn of the stairs were vacant niches in the wall. Perhaps plants had once been set within them. If so they bad died in that foul and tainted air. “This is the room.” sald the house keeper, from her furry throat. “It's a nice room. It ain't often vacant. | had some most elegant people in it last summer—no trouble at all and paid in advance to the minute. The water's at the end of the hall. Sprowls and Mooney kept it three months. They done a vaudeville sketch. Miss B'retta Sprowls—you may have heard of her- Oh, that was just the stage names. Right there over the dresser is where the marriage certiticate hung, framed. The gas is here, and you see there is plenty of closet room. It's a room everybody likes. It never stays idle long.” “Do you have many theatrical people rooming here?’ asked the young man. “They comes and goes. A good pro- portion of my lodgers is connected with the theaters. Yes, sir: this is the theatrical district. Actor people never stays long anywhere. | get my share Yes; they comes and they goes." He engaged the room, paying for a week in advance. He was tired, he said. and would take possession at once. He counted out the money. The room had been made ready, she said. even to towels and water. As the housekeeper moved away he put, for the thousandth time, the question that he carried at the end of his tongue “A young girl, Miss Vashner—Miss Eloise Vashuer—do you remember such a one amon< your lodgers? She would be singing on the stage. most likely —a fair girl. of medium height and slender, with reddish gold hair and a dark mole near her left eyebrow." “No: 1 don't remember the name. Them stage people has names they change as often as their rooms. They comes and they goes. No: | don't eall that one to mind" No—always no: five months of cease less Interrogation and the inevitable negative: so much time spent by day in questioning managers. ngents, schools and choruses: by night among the audiences of theaters from all star casts down to music balls so low that he dreaded to find what he most fioped for. He who had loved her best had tried to tind her He was sure that since her disappearance from tome this great. water gir city held fer somewhere. but it was like a mon- atrous quicksand, shifting its ‘particizs constantly, with no foundation, its up per granules of today buried tomor- row in ooze and slime The furnished room received its lat est guest with a first glow of pseudo fospitality, a bectic. haggard, perfunc. tory welcome like the specious smile of a demirep. The sophistical comfort came in reflected gleams from the de- cayed furniture, the ragged brocade upholstery of a couch and two chairs, a foot wide cheap pier glass between the two windows, from one or two gilt picture frames and a brass bedstead in a corner. The guest reclined, inert, upon a chair, while the room, confused in speech as though it were an apart ment in Babel, tried to discourse to him of its divers tenantry. A polychromatic rug like some bril- lant flowered rectangular, tropical is. tet lay surrounded by a billowy sea of solled matting. Upon the gay papered wall were those pictures that pursue the homeless one from house to house— “The Huguenot Lovers,” “The First Quarrel,” “The Wedding Breakfast.” “Psyche at the Fountain.” The mantel's chastely severe outline was Inglorious. ly veiled behind some pert drapery drawn rakishly askew like the sashes of the amazonian ballet. Upon it was some desolate flotsam cast aside by the room's marooned when a lucky sail bad borne them to a fresh port—a trifling vase or two, pictures of ac- tresses. a medicine bottle, some stray cards out of a deck ! One by one, as the characters of a cryptograph become explicit, the little signs left by the furnished room's pro- cession of guests developed a signifi- cance. The threadbare space in the rug in front of the dresser told that lovely woman had marched in the throng. Tiny finger prints on the wall spoke of little prisoners trying to fee' their way to sun and air. A splattered bursting bomb, witnessed where a hurled glass or bottle had splintered with its contents against the wall. | Across the pier glass had been scrawled | with a diamond in staggering letter the name Marie. It seemed that the succession of dwellers in the furnish ed room nad turned in fury—perhaps tempted beyond forbearance by its garish coldness—and wreaked upon it their passions. chipped and bruised: the couch, dis torted by bursting springs, seemed a horrible monster that had been slain during the stress of some grotesque convulsion. Some more potent up- heaval had cloven a great slice from the marble mantel. Each plank in the floor owned its particular cant and shriek as from a separate and indi vidual agony. It seemed incredible that all this malice aud Injury had been wrought upon the room Ly those who had call ed it for a time their home, and yet it may have been the cheated home in- stinct surviving blindly, the resentful rage of false household gods, that had kindled their wrath. A hut that is our own we can sweep and adorn and cherish. The young tenant in the chair allow ed these thoughts to file, soft shod, through his mind. while there drifred furnished s~ents. room a tittering and incontinent, slack laughter, in others the monologue of a scold, the rattling of dice. a lullaby and one crying dully. Above him a banjo tinkled with spirit. Doors banged somewhere; the elevated trains roared intermittently: a cat yowled miserably upon a back fence. And he breathed the breath cf the house—a dank savor rather than a smell—a cold. musty ef- fluvium as from underground vaults, mingled with the reeking exhalations of linoleum and mildewed and rotten woodwork Then suddenly as he rested there the room was tilled with the strong, sweet odor of mignounette. It came as upon a single buffet of wind with such sure- ness and fragrance and emphasis that it almost seemed a living visitant. And and faced about. The rich odor clung to him and wrapped him around. He reached out his arms for it, all his senses for te tine confused and com- rily called by an odor? Surely it must | have been a sound. But was it not the | sound that had touched. that had ea- ressed Qim?* “She has been in this room.” he cried, and he sprang to wrest from it a token, for'he knew he would recog- This enveloping scent of mignonette. her own—whence came it% The room had been but carelessly set in order. Seattered upon the flim- #y dresser scarf were half a dozen halrpins-- those discreet, indistinguish. able friends of womankind, feminine of gender, intinite of mood and uncom- municative of tense, These he ignor. ed, conscious of their triumphant lack of identity. Ransacking the drawers of the dresser. he came upon a discard- ed, tiny, ragged handkerchief. He pressed it to his face. I(t was racy and insolent with nheliotrope. He hurled it to the floor. In another drawer he found odd buttons, a theater pro- gram, a pawnbroker's eard. two lost marshmallows, a book on the div- ination of dreams. In the last was a woman's black satin hair bow, which halted him. poised between ice and fire. But the black satin hair bow also is femininity's demure, im- personal, common ornament and tells no tales. . And then te traversed the room like a hound on the scent. skimming the walls, considering the corners of the bulging matting on his bands and knees, rummaging mantel and tables. the curtains and hangings, tne drunk. en cabinet in the corner, for a visible sign, unable to perceive that she was there beside, around, against, within, above him, clinging to him, wooing him, calling him so poignantly through the finer senses that even his grosser ones became cognizant of the call. Once again he answered lovilly, “Yes, dear!” and turned. wild eyed, to gaze on vacancy, for he could not yet dis- cern form and color and love and out- stretched arms in the odor of mi- gunonette. O God. whence that odor, and since when have odors had a voice to call? Thus he groped. He burrowed in crevices and corners and found corks and cigarettes. These he passed in passive contempt. But once he found in a fold of the mat- ting a half smoked cigar, and this he ground beneath his heel with a green and trenchant oath. He sifted the mom from end to end. He found dreary and ignoble small records of many a peripatetic tenant, but of her whom he sought and who may have lodged there and whose spirit seemed to hover there he found no trace. And then he thought of the house- keeper. He ran from the haunted room down- stairs and to a door that showed a crack of light. She came out to his knock. He smothered his excitement as best he could. stain, rayinz like the shadow of a The furniture was into the room furnished sounds and | He beard in one | the man cried aloud, “What. dear?" as if he had been called, and sprang up mingled. How could one be perempto- nize the smallest thing that had be | longed to her or that she had touched | the odor that she had loved and made | “Will you tell me. madam,” be be- sought her, “who occupied the room 1 have before I came? “Yes, sir. [ can tell you again. ‘Twas Sprowls and Mooney, as | said Miss B'retta Sprowls it was in the theaters. but Mrs Mooney she was. My bouse is well known for respecta- bility. The marriage certificate hung, framed, on a nail over” -— “What kind of a lady was Miss | Sprowis—in looks, | mean?" “Why. black haired, sir: short and stout, with a comical face. They left a week ago Tuesday” “And before they occupied it?” “Why. there was a single gentleman connected with the draying business. He left owing me a week Before him | was Mrs. Crowder aud her two chil- | dren that stayed four months, and | back of them was old Mr. Doyle, | whose sons paid for bim He kept the i room six months. That goes back a ear, sir, and further 1 do not remem- ber.” He thanked ber and crept back to his room. The room was dead. The essence that had vivified it was gone. The perfume of mignonette had de- | parted. In its place was the old, stale | odor of moldy house furniture, of at- | mosphere Iv storage, | The ebbing of his hope drained his faith. He vat staring at the yellow, | singing gaslight Soon he walked to the bed and began to tear the sheets | Into strips With the blade of his | knife he drove them tightly into every rerevice around windows and door | When all was snug and taut he turned out the light, turned the gas full on again and laid himselt gratefully upon | the bed. . * . LJ . * * It was Mrs, McCool's night to go with the can for beer No she fetched it and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those subterranean retreats where housekeepers toregather nnd the worm dieth seldom. “1 rented out my third floor, back, this evening.” said Mrs. Purdy across a fine circle of foam. “A young man took it. He went up to bed two hours ago ” “Now, did ye. Mrs. Purdy, mn'am said Mrs McCool, with intense ad- miration. “Youn do be a wonder for rentin® rooms of that kind And did ye tell him, then?’ she concluded in a husky whisper, laden with mystery. “Rooms,” =aid Mrs. Purdy in her furriest tones, “are furnished for to rent. 1 did vot tell him, Mrs. McCool.” “'Tis right ye are, ma'am; 'tis by rentin’ rooms we kape alive. Ye have the rule sense for business, ma'am. There be many people will rayjict the rentin' of a room if they be tould a suicide has been after dyin’ in the hed of it” “As you say, we has our living to be making.” remarked Mrs. Purdy. “Yis. ma'am: ‘tis true. Tis just one wake ago this day | helped ye lay out the third floor, back A pretty slip of n colleen she was to be killin’ herself wid the gas—a swate little face she had, Mrs. Purdy. ma'am.” “She'd ‘a’ been called handsome, as i you say.” said Mrs. Purdy. assenting, | but critical. “but for that mole she . had a-growin’ by her left eyebrow, Do | fill up your glass again. Mrs. McCool.” 1 EE —————————————————— | Do You Take Enough to Keep Your Arteries In Condition? Dr. Woods Hutchinson, in criticising | the different fads of exercise in Out- | Ing, says: “The worst error of exercise. the | most dangerous fad of physical cul- | | ture, is not to take enough of it and ! to sneer at every form of it that does those cynical poetic justices of nature the very men who denounce all phys- Ileal culture and recreation as fads are these who pay the heaviest personal penalty for this delusion. They use the vigor they have gained in early youth in nature's open air school to chain themselves to the desk. to bury them- selves in dungeon-like offices or airless workrooms twelve or fourteen hours a day. They ‘feel fine’ and are sure they are going to live to be a hundred, but one day, to their astonishment, a little artery whose coat has been hardened for twenty years unnoticed becomes so brittle that it snaps suddenly, and down they go with u stroke of paraly- sis, like a winged duck. It is never safe to jeer at the uzods, whether the imaginary ones of Olympus or the real ones of modern science. “The men who jeer loudest ut phys. ical culture and who sarcastically ad- vise college and high school students, ambitious for gymnasia or athletic flelds, to ‘go and git a bucksaw and a did when I was a boy’ are the very ones who die suddenly when they exercise and open air recreation really an astonishing thing how many giants of industry and transportation, particularly executive raiiroad men, die or suddenly go to pieces between fifty and sixty years of age It is a common saying in raflroad circles that Many break down before that.” ca + —— Playing Children. A Japanese street is a delightful in Japan do not seem to mind if the tail of a kite fAaps right into their smiling faces and only laugh when they are turned out of their way by some huge pegtop which bums ike an angry bee around their feet. Wee, dark eyed maidens in butterfly kimonos of brilliant coloring turn their skipping ropes gayly, the tiny black heads of the babies they carry strap- ped to their backs bobbing up and down like small round bails. Their brothers plays at “flags.” which is a favorite 'epme of theirs. They divide them- . not bear the dollar mark. By one of | cord of wood’ or a hoe and a potato | patch and develop their muscles ‘like 1 i should be in their prime for lugk of | It is | a big general superintendent or de | partment chief will seldom live beyond | forty-eight to fifty-five years of age. ! They Swarm With Sideshows and | place to play in, for grownup people | — — selves into two parties. one carryicg white flags and the other red ones. At a given signal the “reds” attack the “whites,” striving to wrest away their flags, and the side which carries off most of these is proclsimed victor Wonderful conjurers are to be found at the street corners They make swarms of birds fiy from crystal bowls and flowers spring as if by magic from slender stems of bamboo Others show marvelous beetles har- nessed with wax to paper carts or command the snakes that accompany them everywhere to perform exiroor dinary tricks A little farther on you will tind an old woman who is making » curious sweetment of beans, called *“torfu” over an oval brazier, and you ean buy a big slab of this wrapped up in a cool leaf for a very small sun or, if you prefer it. a piping hot griddiecake costing no more. Acrobats, fo, ure as common as copjurers, and surely in no other land than this quaint litle Japan do they twist themselves into such strange shapes —Home Chat Chamois Tobogganers. “Chamois toboggan down the steep white sides of the Alps with the skiil of Norwegian skeers.” said a million aire. “1 know,” he went on, “for : have seen thew do it. | spent a win ter at St. Moritz, and on many a skee ing trip I saw a chamois lie on his back and go skimmipg like the wind down a white precipice—a prety sight The creature's paws would be folded on his breast. His head. uplifted and frowning, would keep watch, Thus he'd skim down a halt mile slope, growing smaller nnd smaller and final ly disappearing in a whirl of snow.” - Philadelphia Bulletin. A Real Disappointment. “Yes, sir,” Cocle Eben sald to his uephew, “there are all kinds of disap pointments in this world, Charley, and some of 'em are worse'n others But they're all jest ways of feelin’ bad for a minute, | guess ‘Bout the disap pointingist disappointment | ever have is when I feel and fee! like sneezin’ and it won't sneeze. That kinder gives you a potion of how all disappoint ments feel till you get over them.” - Youth's Companion. At It Again. Growells—This meat Is scorched again. It's a pity you can't get a meal without burning something! Mrs. Growells—It's a pity you can't sit down to the table without roasting somebody !—Chicago News. What Bothers Him. “There's two things about this blam- ed grapefruit that I can’t understand,” said Uncle Jerry Peebles. “One is that it’s called ‘grape’ fruit and the other is that it's called grape ‘fruit.’ "—Chi- cago Tribune. Travelers Guide. i i i { i | (VENTRAL RAILROAD OF PENNSYLVANIA. | Condensed Time Table effective June 17, 1909. READ DOWN | 1 | READ UP. IT LJ Sane | : INol No 5 No 3 No 6 No 4 No 2 } +4 | | . ' a. m.|p.m. p.m. |Lve, Ar.)p.m. p.m.la. m, #05!" 5 % %0| BELLEFONTE. |% 10% 55. 5 00 715706 2 32 igh... 57 4 52, © 27 | 72017 11) 237 - 51 4 47/19 21 | 7271718 245. 45 441915 t 729 i247) 43 438 913 | 7331723 251). 39 4 34/19 09 | 737728 255... 36 429 905 | 7 40if7 30 2 58) 34 427/09 2 | 74273 301 32 4 24/19 00 | 746 738 305 £8 29 4 21/f8 57 ] 3 40/308 .... 18 26, 4 18/f8 54 | 752744 312. "822 414| 850 7 56/17 49 3 16... ille.... f8 18/ 4 09/f8 48 802) 754 322. 812 403 843 805 757325 a... 810 401/841 8 10/ 8 02 3300... "| 805 3 56! 8 36 (N. Y. Central & Hudson River R. R.) Ba IN tees Jarsey Shore, nl 0B { AIT, » ve, i 1229 11 0 Lye. on) fer. 23 650 i Ye i 730 650....P | 18.36) 11 30 1010 900... NEWYORK..... | 900 i a (Via Phila.) L i .M., a.m. Arr. ve. a.m pm t Week Days. De WALLACE H. GEPHART, General Superintendent. ELLEFONTE CENTRAL RAILROAD. Schedule to take effect Monday, Jan. 6, 1910 WESTWARD i {EASTWARD Read down. | Read up. 1 ! | STATIONS. { 1 1 No5/tNo3 No 1 tNo2/tNo4|No 6 p. m.la. m.|a.m.|Lve. Ar. p.m. 2 00 10 15/6 30|. e...| 6 00 392 10 23/0 38 38 2 7 10 27 6 43]... 5 & 22110306 540 2 26) 10 34) 6 50|.. 535 232 1040/6 55!...... 53 2 35 10 45/7 001.. 52 I hs = 25 i | 7 31... Bioomsdorf.| 7 40! 7 35/PineGroveM'll 7 35 | | 340 i F. H. THOMAS, Supt. TENTS, TRADE MARKS, COPYRIGHTS. P* &c. Anyone sending a sketch and de- THE LADIES.—Miss Jennie Morgan in fier fete on is ready to en A en i and imita- Ey. bel ad belt. buckles hair goods: and y and belt hair and Bho you with toilet ar- Yeagers Shoe Store THE MISSION OF THE PLA-MATE SHOE Is to make a nation of men and women to whom walking will be a pleasure and with whom perfect feet will be the rule rather than the exception. Could parents be brought to realize the importance of starting the child's foot right, there would be little or no suffering in later life from foot blem- ishes. As nature forms the child's foot, each toe lies flat and straight thus pro- viding the human foot with the power to balance the body, the spring to make walking easy. Unfortunately few children reach maturity without cramped, pinched and misshapen feet. This is usually ‘caused by shoes sold by unscientific shoemen to thoughtless parents. The Pla-Mate Shoe is designated by students of the human foot to allow the bones and muscles to w in the shape that nature intended. SOLD ONLY AT Yeager’s Shoe Store, Bush Arcade Building, BELLEFONTE, FA. | LYON & CO. Shoes Shoes LYON & CoO. Come to our store to buy your Shoes. Our line is always complete. Men’s Working Shoes from $1.50 to $4. Men's Fine Shoes from $1.50 to $5.00. Boys’ Working Shoes from $1. to $3.00. Children’s Shoes from 75 cts to $2.00. Ladies Dongola Oxfords $1 to $3.50. Ladies Pat. Leather Oxfords $1 to $3.50. Ladies Tan Oxfords from $1.25 to $3.50. Children’s Oxfords and Slippers 75¢ up. DRESS GOODS, CARPETS, &c. A full line of Dress Goods and Silks. Carpets, Linoleums and Lace Curtains. We are agents for Butterick Patterns. LYON & COMPANY, Allegheny St. 47-12 Bellefonte, Pa.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers