Poo =
The Girl a
Horse and |
a Dog
FRANCIS LYNDE J
Copyright by Charles Scribner s Sons
(Continued).
For a flitting instant it’ seemed as {2
it must drop squarely in front of the
iron shield under which we were
jammed—in which case even the un-
dertaker wouldn't have been needec-
not any whatsover, as Daddy Hiram
would have said. But at the critical
point in its flight the hurtling thing
“ticked” the top of the hoist frame
and its downward course was deflect-
ed the needed hair’s-breadth, causing
it to come down beyond the machin-
ery, and not on our side of things.
Nevertheless, we were cowering in an-
ticipation of a blast which would most
likely heave the entire machinery ag-
gregation over bodily upon us when
the explosion came.
We saw the belching column of
flame and gas going skyward beyond
the machinery barrier, taking a full
half of the roof with it, as if the blast
had come from the mouth of a gigan-
tic cannon. We were dazed and deaf-
ened by the shock, and half choked
by the fumes, but neither of us was
so far gone as not to hear distinctly a
prolonged and rumbling crash like the
thunder of a small Niagara, coming
after the smash!
“Phe shaft!” shrilled Daddy Hiram,
in a thin, choked voice; “it went off
down in the shaft! And, say!—
what-all’s that we're a-listenin’ to
now !”
If there had been a dozen of the
bombs raining down I don’t believe
the threat of them would have kept
us from bursting out of our dodge-hole
to go and see what had happened in
the mine shaft. But before we could
determine anything more than that
the mouth of the shaft was complete-
ly hidden under a mass of wreckage,
and that the mysterious Niagara roar,
dwindled somewhat, but yet hollowly
audible, was still going on under the
concealing mass of broken timbers
and sheet-iron, there was a masterful
interruption. Shots, yells, shoutings
and hot curses told us that a fierce
battle of some kind was staging itself
just outside of our wrecked fortress;
whereupon Daddy Hiram began paw-
ing his way to the door, yelling like a
man suddenly gone dotty.
“That there's old Ike Beasley—
dad-blame his old hide!” he chittered.
“There ain't nary ’nother man in the
Timanyonis 'at can cuss like that.
He's come with a posse, and they're
layin’ out Charley Bullerton’s crowd »
There was a fine little tableau
spreading itself out for us when we
had clambered over the wreckage and
had withdrawn the wooden bar and
flung the door wide. Daddy Hiram
had called the turn and named the
rump. The large, desperadoish-look-
ing man who had once interviewed me
at Angels, and a little later had
paused in his combing of the moun-
tains in search of me to usurp my
place at the Twomblys’ breakfast ta-
ble. this bewhiskered giant, with a
goodish bunch of followers—hard-
boiled to a man, they looked to he—
had surrounded a fair half of the
would-be “jumpers” and were hand-
cuffing them with a celerity that was
truly admirable. And Beasley, him-
gelf, square-jawed and peremptory,
was shoving Bullerton up against the
side of the shaft-house, snapping the
jrons upon his wrists and counseling
him, with choice epithets intermin-
gled, to save up his troubles and tell
them to the judge.
As we emerged from our wrecked
fortress, other members of the posse
were scattering to round up the out-
lying bomb-throwers, who had appar-
ently taken to the tall timber in a
panic-stricken effort to escape. Down
on the bench below there were horses
and horse-holders; and among the
horses one whose boyish-looking rider
was just slipping from the saddle.
While 1 was wondering vaguely why
the Angels town marshal had let a
mere boy come along on such a battle
errand, the boyish figure ran up the
road and darted in among us to fling
itself into Daddy Hiram's arms, gur-
gling and half crying and begging to
be told if he was hurt.
I didn’t know at the time how much
or how little the big marshal knew of
the various and muddled involvements
which were climaxing right there in
the early morning sunshine on the old
Cinnabar dump head; but I do know
that he quickly turned his captures
over to some of his deputies and had
them promptly hustled down stage
and off scene. While this was going
on I was merely waiting for my cue,
and I got it, or thought I got it when
the boy who wasn’t a boy slipped
from Daddy's arms and faced me.
“I'm not burt, either,” I ventured
to say, hoping that the brain storm
had subsided sufficiently to make me
visibie. “Welcome home, Miss Twom-
bly—or should I say Mrs. Bullerton?”
The look she gave me was just plain
deadly; you wouldn’t think that vio-
let-blue eyes could do it, but they can.
Then she drew a folded paper from
somewhere inside of her clothes and
held it out to me.
“There is the deed to your mine,
Mr. Broughton,” she said nippingly,
and with a fairly tragical emphasis on
the courtesy title. “You wouldn't
take the trouble to go to Copah and
get it recorded, so I thought I'd better
do it. I hope you'll pardon me for be-
ing so forward and meddlesome.”
It was the super-climax of the en-
tire Arabian-Nights business, and b2-
cause my feelings would no longer be
denied their rightful fling, I sat down
on the shaft-house doorstep and
shouted and laughed like a fool. But
after all, it was Mr. Isaac Beasley,
deputy sheriff and marshal of Angels,
who put the weather-vane, so to
speak, upon the fantastic structure.
#] been lookin’ 'round for you a
right smart while,” he told me gruffly.
“When you get plum’ over your laugh
and feel that you're needin’ a little
gashay over the hills f'r exercise, you
can come along with me and go to jail
fr stealin’ that railroad car.”
CHAPTER XVIIL
The Hold-Up.
Beasley left me sitting on the door
step—I've a notion he had run out of
handcuffs, else he might have clapped
a pair of them on me—while he start-
ed his posse down to Atropia with the
captured raiders and their leader.
When he came back we tock time,
Daddy and I and the big marshal, to
size up the damage that had been
wrought, and beyond that. to dig into
‘Hooray!” He Yelled.
erton’s Dreened Your Mine for Ye!”
“Charley Bull-
=
the mystery of the continuous grum- |
bling roar which was still ascending |
out of the wreck-covered mine shaft.
Beasley stayed with us, waiting, as
I took it, to get his breakfast before
he ran me off to jail, and the three of
us fell to work clearing away the
fallen timbers and roofing iron, Dad-
dy Hiram leading the attack and be-
ing the first to stick his head through
what remained of the tangle and hang
it over the edge of the shaft’s mouth.
“Hooray!” he yelled, his voice
sounding as if it came from the inside
of a barrel; and then again, “Hooray,
Stannie, son!—by the ghosts of old
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,
Charley Bullerton’s done gone and
done eggs-zac’ly whet he said he could
do—dreened your mine for ye! Climb
in here and take a look at her.
empty—empty as a gourd—but. at
that, she ain’t goin’ to be, very long!”
A few more minutes of the strenu-
ous toil cleared the pit mouth so that
we could all see. The bomb which had
exploded in the shaft had wrought a
complete transformation, The stand-
ing flood. which all of our pumping !
attacks had failed to lower by so
much as a fraction of an inch, was
gone, and with
two big centrifugals,
the platform
She’s |
it had vanished the .
upon which they had stood, and their
pipe connections.
the greater part of the heavy wooden
shaft-lining. A little of this remained
in the upper part of the shaft, but
from a point possibly twenty-five feet
down, there was nothing but the bare
rock sides of the square pit swept by
the receding flood.
Gone. likewise, was |
OE SE EC Et: ed
in the box, and there was a bottom.
And that other impression—that I had |
encountered an inrmshing stream of
ice-cold water in the chilling depths;
here was the stream; a foot-thick,
never-failing cataract, pouring in
through a perfectly good and substaw
tial conduit of twelve-inch iron pipe!
In a flash the whole criminal mys-
tery involving the ostensibly flooded
mine was illuminated for me. “Haul
away!” 1 called to the two above;
and when they had drawn me up to
the pit’s mouth and I could get upon
my feet, I yipped at Daddy and the
marshal to come on, and led them in
an out-door race along the mine ledge
to the castward; a hundred-yards
dash which brought us to the banks
of the swift little mountain torrent in
the right-hand gulch.
A brief search revealed precisaly |
what I was expecting to find; what
anyone in possession of the facts pre-
cedent would have expected to find,
In the middle of a small pool slightly
upstream from the path level—a pock-
eted bit of water neatly screened and |
half hidden by a growth of low-
branching spruces—we saw a cone-
shaped whirlpool swirl into which a
good third of the stream flow was
vanishing. Below this pool an appar-
ently accidental heaping of rocks
formed a small dam which Kept tlhe
little reservoir full.
Without a word, Daddy Hiram and
the Angelic marshal plunged reckless.
ly into the stream and with their bare
hands tore away the loose-rock dain.
With the removal of the slight barrier
and the consequent clearing of the
course of the stream, the pocket reser-
voir immediately sucked dry, the inlet
of the cataracting pipe was exposed,
and the secret of the flooded Cinnabar
was a secret no longer.
The scheme which had been elab-
orated and set in motion to “soak”
Grandfather Jasper was a premedi-
tated “holdup.” The Cinnabar, in op-
eration and producing to its capacity,
was worth, so Beasley asserted, all
that my grandfather had paid for it
and more. But with the branch rail- |
road built to its very door. its value
would be doubled. Two alternatives |
had thus presented themselves to {he |
owners, who were Cripple Creek
mining speculators who had bought in
the stock at a low figure while the
main vein was as yet unexploited: they
could go on mining the cre and stor-
ing it against the time when the rail-
road, with its cost-reducing advan-
‘ages, should come along; or they
could suspend oper: tions for the same
length of time, setting the losses of a
shut-down over against the increased
profits when they should start up
again.
With our discoveries of the morning
the plan of the robbery became per-
fectly plain. Some giant of finance
among the speculators had evolved a
scheme by which the mine not only
might be shut down during the intcr-
val of waiting for the railroad to build
over the bench, but at the same time |
be made to yield a bumper crop of
profits.
Taking its various steps in their or-
der, the first move in the game was to
sell the mine to Grandfather .Jasper
while it was still a going proposition:
and this was done. But one of the
conditions of the sal (Beasley told us |
this) was that the selling corporation !
should continue to operate the mine, !
not as a lessee, but under a contract |
by which the operating company !
should receive a certain percentage of
the output; an arrangement which |
gave the holdup artists ample oppeor- :
tunity to prepare for the coup de main,
How these preparations were made,
and the secret of them kept from leak- |
ing out, still remained one of the un-
solved mysteries, though Beasley sug- |
gested that probably imported work-
men were employed, and that the work |
had been done under jealous super-
vision with all the needful precautions
taken against publicity. The tight
wooden box—which would figure as a
part of the shaft lining—had been
built, and into the box the creek had
been diverted by means of the small
dam and the underground conduit.
With the water admitted, to rise in
the box to the level of its intake in!
the creek reservoir, the trap was set
and was ready to be sprung.
Reyond this point there was a gap
we were obliged to bridge by conjec-
ture, but the inferences were all plausi- |
. ble enough. Doubtless the plotters
As for the hollow roaring noise |
which had followed the crash of the
explosion, and which still continued,
there was a good and sufficient reason
plainly visible from the pit's mouth, |
Some twenty feet down, and on the |
eastern side of the shaft, a stream of
water big enough to run a good-sized
hydro-eleetric plant was pouring into |
the perpendicular cavern, and it was !
its plunging descent into the bowels
of the earth which was making the
mimic thunder.
Beasley was the first to find speech.
“Where the blazes is all that water
comin’ from?’ he exploded.
“That's just what we're going to
find out!” I barked. “Can you and
Daddy handle my weight in a rope
sling?”
They both protested that they could
handle two of me if necessary, &nd a
had notified my grandfather that his
mine was flooded and was no longer
workable. Doubtless, again, he had
authorized them to buy the needful
pumping machinery and to install it—
which they did.
In this barefaced imposture the plot-
ters had conceivably builded some-
thing upon Grandfather Jasper's ad-
vanced age as an insurance against
any too-searching investigation; but
| beyond this they had carefully dis-
armed any suspicion that he might
otherwise have harbored by encourag-
ing him—in the actual purchase of the
| property—to take expert advice, and
sling was quickly rigged and T was |
lowered into the pit. At the nearer
view thus obtained, some of the mys-
teries were instantly made clear. The
reason why the wooden boxing disap-
peared below a certain point in the
shaft was that it had never extended '
any farther down.
ly a box with a bottom !—and all those
pipe-dream impressions which had
tried to register themselves on the
day when I had my struggle with the
suction-pipe octopus were instantly
translated into facts. I could have
sworn, then, that there was a bottom
It had been mere- '
by craftily priming him, by under-
statements of the facts, to trust them.
Only rumors of what had occurred
at this visit reached Angels; but Beas-
ley could testify that my grandfather
had come and returned alone, and that
after the pumping demonstration had
been made he had seemed disposed to
pocket his huge loss and to call it a
bad day’s work.
The later developments were not
hard to figure out. Beasley was able
to tell us that the proposed railroad
branch to run to the new copper prop-
"erties in Little Cinnabar gulch was
now a certainty for the very near fu-
ture. Hence the time was fully ripe
for the recovery of the Cinnabar by
the plotters. No doubt they had con-
fidently assumed that a repurchase of
the property—not directly by them-
i some way.
! scrimmage, he’d scatter his men in the
{ woods and try to make me b’lieve that
selves, of course, but by an agent who
would figure as a disinterested third .
party—would be easy. Beasley sald
that there had been some talk of an
underrunning drainage tunnel, such as
Daddy and I had figured upon—this at
the time of the springing of the flood ;
trap—and that the cost had been esti- |
mated at half a million. Unquestion-
ably the robbers had assumed that an
old man who had already charged his
venture up to profit and loss would
sell for a song rather than to venture
again; and in this they were probably
well within the truth.
But at the moment when they were
ready to complete the circle of im-
posture, (eath—the death of Grand-
father Jasper—had stepped in to com-
plicate matters. Somebody—possibly
Cousin Percy—had corresponded with
whoever was representing the robber
syndicate, and by this means the plot-
ters had learned that they would now
have to reckon with an heir. How
Bullerton came to be employed by
them almost at the instant of his re-
turn from Scuth America we did not
know : but we could easily understan: |
that with the new complication which |
had risen by reason of Grandfather
Jasper’s death, it was highly neces-
sary for some emissary of the syndi-
cate to get on the ground quickly, pre-
pared to forestall by purchase, guile,
or, in the last resort by force, any a‘- |
tempt of the Dudley heirs to pry into |
things they were not to he permitted
to know.
Beaslev was able to explain.
“Ye see, it was a case o’ fish 'r cut- |
bait, and do it quick.” the marshal o=-
plied.
plained.
EE .. lls —————————
Th i
(1
“Now You're Talking Like a White
Man,”
you are white! What do you say to
© givin’ me a whack at the bossin’
The pushing of the fight for posses- ! 2
sion to the final and property-destroy-
ing extremity was another matter that
job?”
I took just one little glance at Dad-
' dy, and the mild blue eyes Said “yes.”
“But you've got me under arrest,
Mr. Beasley,” I pointed out, just to
see what he’d say. “You can’t very
well close a business deal with your
prisoner, can you?”
“Kill two 'r three birds with the one
rock,” he mumbled, cramming the
siruped half of his breakfast-finishing
corn cake into his capacious mouth.
“I'll chase you down to Angels and
turn you over to the majesty o’ the
law—the same bein’ by name old
Squire Dubbin. Then I'll jump my
job o’ sortin’ out the bad angels from
amongst the good angels and go out
and rustle your bail. Time old Bill
Dubbin’s chewin’ over the law in sich
| cases made and pervided—like he’s
{ Just
bound to do—I'll scrape up a bunch o
men and start ’em up hereaways to
begin on the repairs. How does all
that strike you?”
If my laugh was a bit grim there
was a warrant for it.
“It strikes me fair in the empty
pocket, my good friend,” I told him.
at this present moment TI
. ecouldn’t finance one solitary, lonesome
© carpenter—to say nothing of a gang
"of them,
with half a dozen steam-
' acters and boilermakers thrown in.”
1 0
Cinnahar—with no more water in it:
i you.
~Huh! workin’ capital, you mean?
That's about the easiest thing this side
Hades—with a mine like the old
than what can be pumped out—to back
I reckon your title to the prop-
: erty’s all right,.ain’t it?”
| Was Looking at Jeanie When | Ra- |
“If he could run you folks |
out, pronto, and get possession afore
anybody come along to ask a lot ©
| p’inted questions, he stood about one
chance in a dozen to lie out of it
If you-all got killed in the
you'd got done up trying to run him
oft?
“Would you have helieved him?” ¥
asked. grinning across the table at
Veasley.
“It'd a-been a question of vee-racity,
as the court says; with maybe you
| and Hi Twombly too dead to testify.”
At this, Daddy. who had been eat-
ing like a man half-starved, put in
his word.
“I reckon you can’t get at them
galoots higher up, Stannie, but if you
don't shove Charley Bullerton just
about as far as the law 'll allow, I'm
goin’ to call ye a quitter.”
At that moment Jeanie had' just
brought in another heaping plate of
the luscious corn cakes, and I was
looking at her when I replied.
“We'll see about the shoving a bit
later, Daddy. The first thing to do
is to put the old Cinnabar in shape to
shell us out some money. I'm broke,
you know.”
(Continued next week).
HOME BREWERS, ATTENTION.
Do you know where there is a good
supply of sawdust? If you do, stake
out your claim upon it, for should you
‘be a farmer it may some day enable
' you to economize on the hay and grain
. which your live stock ordinarily con-
sume, or if you are just one of the
great army of consumers, perhaps
you can save some of the cold, hard
cash which you are now paying out
for raisins, cracked wheat, malt, hops
and various canned “whatnots” which
| bear on their labels some such warn-
ling as “Do not add a yeast cake or
you will get an alcoholic kick.”
Outside of the relatively small
quantities used in refrigeration, cold
storage and in packing crockery and
other fragile products sawdust has
, long been of little use; in fact, it is
regarded as an almost hopeless waste
which marks the sites of old saw mills
and clutters up carpenter shops and |
wood-working establishments. But
recent investigations by the United
' States Forest Service have shown that
When I made this admission, Beas-
ley, the last man in the world from
whom help could come, I should have
said, looked me squarely in the eyes.
“Stannie Broughton—if that’s your
name—you ain't so dad-blamed crazy
as you look and act,” he remarked.
“Money’s what talks. Are you aifin’
to swing onto this thing with your own
hands ?—for keeps, I mean; not to sell
it out to the first set 0’ minin’ sharps
that comes along?”
“Sure !—you said it; I'm going to
keep it and work it—after I get out
of the jail where you're going to
land me for pinching that inspection
car and getting it smashed. Why
else did I start out blindfolded to hunt
for a girl a horse and a dog?”
He let the latter half of my reply
go without comment; charging it up
to some last lingering remains of the
craziness, perhaps.
“Well, let's see ahout where you'd
crack your whip first,” he invited.
by proper treatment sawdust can be
made to yield useful and marketable
products.
When sawdust is mixed with dilute
sulphuric acid and cooked under pres-
sure with steam the wood fiber, or
cellulose, is partially converted into
glucose, a simple sugar which is both
wholesome and nutritious. This glu-
cose may be dissolved out with water,
the solution neutralized with lime and
boiled down to the consistency of mo-
lasses. By adding this molasses to
the partially dried sawdust a product
closely resembling bran is obtained,
which makes an excellent cattle food.
Experiments in which this material
was used to supplement the usual live-
stock diet have met with marked suc-
cess, and it appears quite likely that
a product made from sawdust will be
contributing to our meat supply.
The processing of sawdust need not
be stopped at the point where glucose
is produced. By allowing this sugar
to ferment alcohol is formed, which
can be separated and concentrated by
the well-known process of distillation.
While made from wood residue, this
is not wood alcohol by any means, but
' the variety which used to make opti-
mists of pessimists and spendthrifts
out of misers.
Alcohol, however, has a great many
! uses besides that which the Volstead
act forbids, and if its production were
. discontinued a good many industries
“That part of it is easy,” I laughed. |
“What I don’t know about the prac-
tical end of the mining job would load
a wagon. I'll pitct out and hunt me
up a real, for-sure miner, of course.”
“Nothin’ so awfully crazy about
that,” he granted. Then: “What's the
matter with Hi Twombly, here, for
your boss miner?”
“Not a thing in the wide world—
except that he can’t be because he is
going to be my partner in the deal.”
“Now you're talkin’ a whole heap
like a white man,” said the desperado-
ish one. “Dog-goned if I don’t b'lieve
would be stricken with paralysis.
Ether and chloroform, which are
so indespensable in modern surgery,
are produced through the agency of
alcohol. Next to water, it is the best
solvent known, and the manufacture
of perfumery, flavoring extracts, var-
ious medicines, varnishes and dyes
are to a large extent dependent upon
“it. But what promises to be the most
important role of alcohol in the future
is that of motor fuel. It is growing
increasingly evident that we must
have some other fuel to supplement
our dwindling gasoline supply, and al-
cohol appears to be the most logical
substitute.
FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN.
DAILY THOUGHT.
Good breeding is the art of making peo-
ple you don’t like particularly uncomfor-
table.—Pluck.
Between the two legal holidays, al-
most forgotten until the day is fair-
ly upon us, comes dainty St. Valen-
tine’s day, filled for each generation
with the romance and witchery of
love’s young dream with its old, old
story; old yet forever new. The moth-
er with young sons or daughters is not
allowed to forget the day, and if it is
not the ever popular masquerade par-
ty it is some other sort that is expect-
ed, and suggestions for the “other
sort” are usually welcome along with
the new ideas as to table decorations,
menu, and favors, ete., for the occa-
sion.
This suggestion is for a dinner
dance, and the decorations for a
change should be in delicate shell pink
and white instead of the conventional
red. Have, if possible, a wooden top
for the table made in the shape of a
heart. Cover the top with pink silko-
line covered with plain net; have an
18-inch ruffle fall from the edge over
the pink, finished with a tiny wreath
of the pink ribbon roses, with little
pink rose hearts falling down on the
ruffle every few inches.
For the centrepiece have two hearts,
one white, the other of pink carna-
tions or roses speared together with a
big silver dart. Under each plate lay
a doily made of the net and the silk-
oline edged with little roses. Use pink
and white china, pink candles and
rose shades.
For the place cards use the little
cupids, and dainty ballet girls in pink
that stand on the edge of the glasses,
the girls for the men and the cupids
for the women. Cupid is wearing a
pink sash upon which the name is
written. Over the table swing a big
ball of pink roses (paper) filled with
the favors and tied together with the
chiffon ties, so at the right moment the
hostess may “shower” her guests as a
charming surprise by simply pulling
the ties.
The next item of interest is the
menu for the dinner, and to follow
the prevailing ideas this should be
simple and more dainty than former-
ly. Of course, it is but a suggestion
at best, and the hostess may add or
take from at pleasure. Locality and
market accessibility always have to
be taken into consideration when plan-
ning a menu, as well as the abilities
of the cook and the conveniences, etc.
Grapefruit
Toast Fingers
Consomme
Hollandaise Sauce
Roast Turkey Cranberry Sauce
Maryland Sweets Baked Asparagus
Valentine Ice
! Cherry and Apple Salad, Nut Mayonnaise
Cheese Balls Nesselrode Pudding
Coffee
Bonbons in Pink Hearts
Caviar
Boiled Halibut
This is not a difficult dinner to pre-
! pare, nor is it a very expensive one.
Much of the beauty and daintiness is
added by the garnish and the serving
' of the dishes.
The caviar toast fingers are made in
‘the usual way, only cut in narrow
' strips and laid log fashion on the
! service doily. The valentine ice is
i simply a good pink orange ice. The
| nut mayonnaise is the regular heavy
{ dressing with a half cupful of finely
ground salted almonds.
| The cheese balls are made of cream
| cheese, to which has been added juice
{of an onion, sprig of finely chopped
i celery, olives, a teaspoonful of finely
| ground almonds, salt, pepper and
i enough whipped cream to make the
| balls the right texture to roll. They
! should be about the size of hazel nuts,
| Jorvine three beside each salad por-
ion.
| A suggestion for the after-dinner
amusement of the guests until the
| dancing begins is a game which might
“be called an “Hour with our Adver-
' tisers.” The hostess prepares papers
| enough to go round, each containing
i names of 20 well known advertisers,
and each guest is to write a story in
: ten minutes, weaving the ads. togeth-
‘er in any way they fancy, the best to
take the first prize. This makes a
lot of fun and fills up the time for
: those who do not dance.
Here is anather idea for an up-to-
date Saint Valentine’s luncheon which
could be used successfully. In the
centre of the table have an automo-
bile (a toy one, of course) with Cupid
as chauffeur, in motoring cap and
goggles, on the front seat. A little
hand-grip should take the place of his
quiver, and be fastened to his back by
little baggage straps. Brief tele-
grams of a business-like love-making
order can be folded neatly in the grip
—one addressed to each girl at the
table.
At each place have tiny desk tele-
phones, the lines of which may tangle
themselves up in the wheels of the au-
tomobile. Guests’ names may be type-
written on the outside of fat little
money-bags at each place, and frozen
hearts could be served as a final
course.
Half a century ago the average girl
was thrilled to receive a valentine,
which was merely written on note pa-
per, either an original offering or a
bit of poetry pilfered from the senti-
mental versifiers then most in favor.
Many a gray haired woman not only
remembers such offerings, but found
her life romance in one. Others did
not and, mayhap, are sorry. “You
never can tell.” One thing we know,
though, and that is that the day and
custom has its name from good St.
Valentine, a great and good man who
is buried outside of one of the gates
of Rome. From his love of all man-
kind one can understand why his mem-
ory should be kept green, but, consid-
ering the correct, not to say devoted,
life it is odd that he should be made
to stand for the oceans of amorous
sublimity that have circulated, and so
continue, on and before February 14.
Some suggest that the poetic pre-
tendings of the day are beneath no-
tice. Perhaps. But if these same
critics will cast an eye over the val-
entine’s fair past they will learn that
the most interesting valentines have
little of the truly literary quality to
recommend them. Sam Weller, labor-
iously spelling out a love-smitten
message to his Mary, was hardly like-
ly to appeal to a superior person.