=
IG. EDNA
FERBER
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY CLARK AGNEW.
Co ht by
Doubleday, e & Ce.
WNU Service,
».
(Continued from last week.)
SYNOPSIS
BR ilpteducing “So Bi
k DeJong) in his infancy. And his
her, Selina DeJong, daughter of
n Fawis, gambler and gentleman
er life, to young woman-
in Chioago in 1888, has been un-
éonventional, somewhat seamy, but
1ly Shioyebie t school her
am Julie Hempel, @aughter of
st Hempel, butcher. Simeon is
in a quarrel that is not his own,
: lina, nineteen years old and
isiicaly destitute, becomes a school-
CHAPTER JI—Selina secures a posi-
gion as teacher at the High Prairie
ool, in the outskirts of Chicago,
fying at the home of a truck farmer,
Pool. In Roelf, twelve years
, son of Klaas, Belina perceives a
fizared spirit, a lover of beauty, like
CHAPTER IIIL.—The monotonous life
& country school-teacher at that
®, is Selina’s, brightened somewhat
the companionship of the sensitive,
artistic boy Roelf.
CHAPTER ]IV.—Selina hears gossip
cerning the affection of the “Widow
Fasricovers,’ rich and good-looking.
for Pervus DeJong, poor truck farmer,
who is insensible to the widow's at-
tions. For a community “sociable”
lina Jiepares a lunch basket, dainty,
ut not of ample proportions, which is
uctioned,” according to custom. The
smallness of the lunch box excites deri-
n, and in a sense of fun the bidding
) mes spirited, DeJong finally secur-
it for $10, a ridiculously high price.
Over their lunch basket, whic elina
nd DeJong share together, the school-
Seacher arranges to instruct the good-
PAatures farmer, whose education has
neglected.
CHAPTER V.—Propinquity, in their
itions of “teacher” and “pupil,” and
lina’s loneliness in her uncongenial
urroundings, lead to mutual affection.
ervus Delong wins Selina’s consent
$0 be his wife.
CHAPTER VI—Selina becomes Mrs.
eJong, a “farmer's wife,” with all the
rdships unavoidable at that time.
irk is born. Selina (of Vermont
stock, businesslike. and shrewd) har
plans for building ue the farm, which
re ridiculed by her husband. Maartje
ool, Klaas’ wife, dies, and after the
requisite decent interval Klaas marries
he “Widow Paarlenberg.” The boy
oelf, sixteen years old now, leaves
is home. to make his way to France
and study, his ambition being to be-
ome a sculptor.
CHAPTER VIL-—Dirk is eight years
@1d when his father dies. Selina, faced
with the necessity of making a living
for her boy and herself. rises to the
sion, and, with Dirk, takesa truck-
fos
of vegetables to the Chicago mar-
. A woman selling in the market
place is an innovation frowned upon.
CHAPTER VIIL.—As a disposer of
the vegetables from her truck Selina is
a flat failure, buyers being shy of
dealing with her. To a commission
dealer she sells part of her gtock. On
the way home she peddies from door
to door, with indifferent success. A
J 0)ceman demands her license. She
as none, and during the ensuing alter-
cation Selina's girlhood chum, Julie
empel, now Julie Arnold, recognizes
er.
CHAPTER IX.—August Hempel, risen
to prominence and wealth in the busi-
ness world, arranges to assist Selina
in making the farm something more of
a paving proposition. Selina grate-
fully accepts his help, for Dirk's sake.
CHAPTER X.—Selina achieves the
success with the farm which she knew
was possible, her financial troubles
ending. At eighteen Dirk enters Mid-
west university.
CHAPTER XI—Dirk goes to Cornell
university, intending to make architec-
ture his life work, and on graduation
enters the office of a firm of Chicago
architects. Paula Arnold, daughter of
Julie, enters his life. He would marry
her, but she has a craving for wealth
and takes Theodore Storm, millionaire,
for her husband. The World war begins.
CHAPTER XIIL.—Paula, despite her
marriage and motherhood, continues
interested in Dirk, their friendship be-
inning to cause gossip. She urges
Birk to give up the profession of archi-
tecture and enter business for the
eater financial reward possible. Dirk
ton, feeling his mother would not
approve of the change. -
She interrupted him with a little
ery. “I know I did. I know I did.”
Suddenly she raised a warning finger.
Her eyes were luminous, prophetic.
“Dirk, you can’t desert her like that!”
“Desert who?” He was startled.
“Beauty! Self-expression. What-
ever you want to call it. You wait!
She’ll turn on you some day. Some
day you’ll want her, and she won’t be
there.”
Inwardly he had been resentful of
this bedside conversation with his
mother. She made little of him, he
thought, while outsiders appreciated
his success. He had said. “So big,”
measuring a tiny space between thumb
and forefinger in answer to her half-
playful question, but he had not hon-
estly meant it. He thought her ridicu-
tously old-fashioned now in her view-
point, and certainly unreasonable. But
the would not quarrel with her.
“You wait, too, Mother,” he sald
pow, smiling. “Some day your way-
ward son will be a real success. Wait
ti11 the millions .roll in. Then we'll
see.”
She lay down, turned her back de-
liberately upon him, pulled the covers
up about her.
“Shall 1 turn out your
and open the windows?”
“Meena’ll do it. She always does.
Just call her. . . . Good-night.”
He knew that he had come to be a
rather big man in his world. Influ-
ence had helped. He knew that, too.
But he shut his mind to much of
Paula’s maneuvering and wire-pulling
—vefused to acknowledge that her
lean, dark, eager fingers had manipu-
light, Mother,
jated the mechanism that ordered his
career. Paula herself was wise enough
to know that to hold him she must not
Jet him feel indebted to her. She knew
that the debtor hates his creditor. She
lay awake at night planning for kim.
scheming for his advancement. then
suggested these schemes to Lim so
Geftly as to make him think he himself
hed devised them. She had even rea-
tized of late that their growing inti-
wacy might handicap him If openly
commented on. But now she must see
him dally, or speak to him. Her tele-
phone was a private wire leading only
to her own bedroom. She called him
the first thing in the morning; the last
thing at night.
Her voice, when she spoke to him,
was an organ transformed; low, vi-
brant, with a timbre in its tone that
would have made it unrecognizable to
an outsider. Her words were com- |
monplace enough, but pregnant and
meaningful for her.
“What did you do today? Did you
have a good day? . . Why didn’t
you call me? . . . Did you follow
up that suggestion you made about
Kennedy? 1 thank it’s a wonderful
idea, don’t you? You’re a wonderful
man, Dirk; did you know that? . . .
I miss you. Do youl . . .
When? Why not lunch? . . .
Oh, not if you have a business appoint-
ment. How about five o'clock?
«. +»! +» No, not there. Oh, I
don’t know. It's so public
Yes. . . Goodby. . . . Good-
night. . . . Good-night. es
They began to meet rather furtively,
in out-of-the-way places. They would
lunch in department store restaurants
where none of their friends ever came.
They spent off afternoon hours in the |
dim, close atmosphere of the motion- '
picture palaces, sitting in the back
row, seeing nothing of the film, talk- |
ing in eager whispers that failed to
annoy the scattered devotees in the
nitddle of the house. When they drove
it was on obscure streets.
Paula had grown very beautiful, her |
world thought. There was about her !
the aura, the glow, the roseate exhala- |
tion that surrounds the woman in '
love. |
Frequently she irritated Dirk. At |
such times he grew quieter than ever;
more reserved. As he involuntarily
withdrew she advanced. Sometimes he
thought he hated her—her hot, eager
hands, her glowing, asking eyes, ner
thin, red mouth, her sallow, heart-
shaped, exquisite face, her perfumed
slothing, her air of ownership. That
was it! Her possessiveness. Some-
times Dirk wondered what Theodore
Storm thought and knew behind that |
impassive flabby white mask of his.
Dirk met plenty of other girls.
Paula was clever enough to see to
that. She asked them to share her
box at the opera. She had them at
her dinners. She affected great in-
difference to their effect on him. She
suffered when he talked to ore of them.
“Dirk, why don’t you take out that
nice Farnham girl?”
“Is she nice?”
“Well, isn’t she? You were talking |
to her long enough at the Kirks’ |
dance. What were you talking about?”
“Books.”
“Oh. Books. She's awfully nice
and intelligent, isn’t she? A lovely
girl!” She was suddenly happy.
Books,
The Farnham girl was a nice girl.
She was the kind of girl one should
fall in love with and doesn't. The
Farnham girl was one of many well-
bred Chicago girls of her day and
class. Fine, honest, clear-headed,
frank, capable, good-looking in an in-
definite and unarresting sort of way.
Hair-colored hair, good teeth, good
enough eyes, clear skin, sensible me-
dium hands and feet; skated well,
danced well, talked well. Read the
books you had read. A companion-
able girl. Loads of money but never
spoke of it. Traveled. Her hand
met yours firmly—and it was just a
hand. At the contact no current dart-
ed through you, sending its shaft with
a little zing to your heart.
But when Paula showed you a book
her arm, as she stood next you,
would somehow fit into the curve of
yours and you were conscious of the
feel of ner soft slim side against you.
He knew many girls. There was a
distinct type known as the North
Shore girl. Slim, tall, exquisite; a
little fine nose, a high, sweet, slight-
ly nasal voice, ear rings, a cigarette,
luncheon at Huyler’'s All these girls
looked amazingly alike, Dirk thought;
talked very much alike. They all
spoke French with a pretty good ac-
cent; danced Intricate symbolic
dances; read the new books; had the
same patter. They prefaced, inter-
larded, concluded their remarks to
each other with, “My deah!” It ex-
pressed, for them, surprise, sympathy,
amusement, ridicule, horror, resigna- |
tion. “My deah! You should have
seen her! My deeah !”—horror. Their
slang was almost identical with that
used by the girls working in his office.
“She’s a good kid,” they said, speak-
ing in admiration of another girl. They
made a fetish of frankness. In a day
when everyone talked in screaming
headlines they kmew it was necessary
to red-ink their remarks in. order to
get them noticed at all. The word
rot was replaced by garbage and gar-
bage gave way to the ultimate swill.
One no longer said “How shocking!”
but, “How perfectly obscene!” The
words, spoken in their gweet clear ;
voices, fell nonchalantly from their |
pretty lips. All very fearless and un-
inhibited and fre That, they told
veu, was the main thing. Sometimes
Dirk wished they wouldn't work s0 |
hard at their play. They were for-
ever getting up pageants and plays
and large festivals for charity; Vene-
tian fetes, Oriental bazaars, charity
balls. In the programme performance
of these many of them sang better.
acted better, danced better than most
professional performers, but the whole
thing always lacked the flavor, some-
how, of professional performance. im
these affairs they lavisdied thousands
in costnmes and decorations, receiv-
ing in return other thousands which
they soberly turned over to the cause.
They found nothing ludicroas in this.
Spasmodically they -went into husi-
ness or semi-professional ventures, ge-
fying the conventions. I'wula did ‘uw
too. She or one of her friends were
forever opening blouse shops: starting
Gifte Shopp~s: burgeoning into tea
rooms decors ed in crude green and
vermilion and orange and black; an-
nouncing their affiliation with an ad-
vertising agency. These adventures
blossomed, withered, died. They were
the result of post-war restlessness.
Many of these girls had worked in-
defatigably during the 1917-1918 pe-
riod: had driven sevice cars. man-
aged ambulances, nursed, scrubbed.
conducted canteens. They missed the
excitement. the satisfaction of achieve-
ment.
They found Dirk fair game, resent-
ed Paula's proprietorship. Susans and
|
Junes and Kates and Bettys and Sal. |
lys—plain old-fashioned names
modern, erotic misses—they talked to
for !
Dirk, danced with him, rode with him, .
flirted with him. - His very unattain-
ableness gave him piquancy. That
Paula Storm had him fast. He didn't
care a hoot about girls.
“Oh, Mr. DeJong,” they said, “your
name's Dirk, isn’t it? What a slick
name! What does it mean?”
“Nothing, I suppose.
name. My people—my father's peo-
! ple—were Dutch, you know.”
“A dirk’s a sort of sword, isn’t it,
or poniard? Anyway, it sounds very
keen and cruel and fatal—Dirk.”
Ee would flush a little (one of his
assets) and smile, and look at them,
and say nothing. He found that to
be &ll that was necessary.
He got on enormously.
Between the girls he met in society
and the girls that worked in his of-
fice there existed a similarity that
struck and amused Dirk. He said,
“Take a letter, Miss Roach,” to a slim
young creature as exquisite as the
girl with whom he had danced the day
before; or ridden or played tennis or
bridge. Their very clothes were fault-
less imitations. They even used the
same perfume. He wondered, idly,
how they did it. They were eighteen,
nineteen, twenty, and their faces and
bodies and desires and natural equip-
ment made their presence in a business
office a paradox, an absurdity. Yet
they were capable, too, in a mechanical
| sort of way. Theirs were mechanical
jobs. They were lovely creatures with
the minds of fourteen-year-old chil-
dren. Their hair was shining, perfect-
ly undulated, as fine and glossy and
tenderly curling as a young child's.
Their breasts were flat, their figures
singularly sexless like that of a very
i young boy. ‘They were wise with the
wisdom of the serpent. Their legs
were slim and sturdy. Their mouths
were pouting, soft, pink, the lower lip
a little curled back, petal-wise, like
the moist mouth of a baby that has
just finished nursing. Their eyes were
wide apart, empty, knowledgeous.
They managed their private affairs
like generals. They were cool, remote,
disdainful. They reduced their boys
to desperation. They were brigands,
desperadoes, pirates, taking all, giving
little. They came, for the most part,
from sordid homes, yet they knew, in
some miraculous way, all the fine
arts that Paula knew and practiced.
They were corsetless, pliant, bewilder-
ing, lovely, dangerous.
Among them Dirk worked immune,
aloof, untouched. He would have been
surprised to learn that he was known
among them as Frosty. They admired
and resented him. Not one that did
not secretly dream of the day when
he would call her into his office, shut
the door, and say, “Loretta” (their
names were burbankian monstrosities,
born of grafting the original appella-
tion onto their own idea of beauty in
nomenclature — hence Loretta, Imo-
gene, Nadine, Natalie, Ardella), “Lor-
etta, I have watched you for a long,
long time and you must have noticed
how deeply I admire you.”
It wasn't impossible. Those things
happen. The movies had taught them
that. Dirk, all unconscious of their
pitiless all-absorbing scrutiny, would
have been still further appalled to
learn how fully aware they were of his
personal and private affairs. They
knew about Paula, for example. They
admired and resented her, too. They
despised her for the way in which she
openly displayed her feeling for him
(how they knew this was a miracle
and a mystery, for she almost never
came into the office and disguised all
her telephone talks with him). They
thought he was grand ‘to his mother.
Selina had been in his office twice, per-
+ Italian furniture,
with Paula’s aid.
It’s a Dutch : aig
had spent five minutes chatting socia-
bly with Ethelinda Quinn, who had
the face of a Da Vinci cherub and the
goul of a man-eating shark.
Selina always talked to everyone.
She enjoyed listening to street car con-
ductors, washwomen, janitors, land-
ladies, clerks, doormen, chauffeurs, po-
licemen. Something about her made
them talk. They opened to her as
flowers to the sun. They sensed her
interest, her liking. As they talked
Selina would exclaim, “You don’t say!
Well, thet terrible!” Her eyes would
be bright with sympathy.
Selina had said, on entering Dirk's
office, “My land! I don’t see how you
can work among those pretty creatures
snd not be a sultan. I'm going to ask
some of them down to the farm over
Sunday.” :
“Don’t, Mother! They wouldn't un-
derstand. I scarcely see them. They're
just part of the office equipment.”
Afterward. Ethelinda Quinn had
passed expert opinion.
ten times the guts that Frosty’s got.
1 like her fine.
rible hat! But say. it didn’t look fun-
ay on her, did it? Anybody else in
that geivp would look comical. but
she’s the kind that could walk off wilh
anything. 1 don't know. She's got
what [I call an air. It beats styic.
Nice, too. She said I was a pres
Httle thing. Can yon beat it! At thay
&e's wight’ | cernly yam.”
All unconscious, “Take a letter, Miss |
Quinn,” suid Dirk half un hour later
In thie midst of this fiery furnace o
femininity Dirk walked
Paula, the North shore girls, well-bre
and professional business women |.
occasionally met in the course
business, the enticing littie nywphs hi
encountered in his own office, ali prac
ticed on him their warm and perfumed
Wo;
“Say, she’s got
| haps. - On one of- these oecasions she | tell her that he would be comfortable
on the big couch in the living room, or
that he would take a room at the Uni-
¢ versity club. She always declined. She
would take a room in a hotel, some:
times north, sometimes south. Her
holiday before her, she would go off
roaming gaily as a small boy on a
Saturday morning, with the day
stretching gorgeously and adventure
gomely ahead of him, sallies down the
street without plan or appointment,
knowing that richness in one form ot
another lies before him for the choos
ing. A sociable woman, Selina, savor
ing life, she liked the lights, the color.
the rush, the noise. Her years of
grinding work, with her face pressed
down to the very soil itself. had failed
to kill her zest for living. She prowied
into the city’s foreign quarters—
Italian, Greek, Chinese, Jewish.
She loved the Michigan boulevard
and State street shop windows in
which haughty waxed ladies in giitter-
“Ing evening gowns postured, fingers
elegantly crooked as they held a fan,
a rose, a program, meanwhile smiling
Did You set her ter. condescendingiy out upon an envious
worid flattening its nose against the
plate giass barrier.
She penetrated the Black belt, where
Chicago's vast and growing negro pop-
uniation shifted and moved and
stretched its great limbs ominousiy.
reaching out and out in pretest and
overfiowing the bounds that irked it.
Her serene face. and her quiet rannner,
her bland Interest and friendly .look
protected her. They thought her a
' social worker, perhaps; one of the
unscorcled |
uplifters. She bought and read the
' Independent, the negro newspaper in
| which herb doctors advertised magic
! roots.
She even sent the twenty-five
cents required for a box of these,
‘ charmed by thelr names—Adam and
' Eve
wiles. He nioved among them cool and |
' queror, Jezebel Roots, Grains of Para-
| dise.
serene. Perhaps Lis sudden success
had had sowetliing to do with this
and his quiet ambition for further suc
cess. For he really was accounted
sdccessful now, even In the spectacu
lar whirl of Chicago's meteoric finan
cial constellation. North-side mammas
regarded his income, his career, and
his future with eyes of respect and |
i wily speculation. There was always u
neat little pile of invitations in the
mail that lay on the correct little con-
sole in the correct little apartment
ministered by the correct little Jap on
the correct North-side street near (but
not too near) the lake, and overlook-
ing it.
The apartment had been furnished
Together she and
Dirk bad gone to interior decorators.
“But you've got to use your own
taste, too.” Paula had said, “to give
it the iadividual touch.” The ajar
ment was furnished in a good deal o
the finish a dar
cak or walnut, the whole massive an
yet somehow unconvincing, The effeet
~ was soniber without being impressive, |
There were long carved tables
on |!
which an ash tray seemed a desecra- |
tion; great chairs roomy enough for
lolling, yet in which you did not re
lax; dull silver candlesticks; ves:
ments; Dante’s saturnine features
sneering down upon you from a cor |
rect cabinet,
books.
bedroom, dining-room, kitchen, and u
cubby-hole for the Jap.
Dirk did not spend much of his time
in the place. His upward climb was a
treadmill, really. His office, the apart-
ment, a dinner, a dance. His contacts
were monotonous, and too few,
His oflice was a great splendid of-
fice in a great splendid office building
in LaSalle street. He drove back and
forth in a motor car along the boule-
vards. His social engagements lay
north. LaSalle street bounded him on
the west, Lake Michigan on the east,
Jackson boulevard on the south, Lake
Forest on the north. He might have
lived a thousand miles away for all
he knew of the rest of Chicago—the
mighty, roaring, sweltering, pushing,
screaming, magnificent hideous steel
giant that was Chicago.
Selina had had no hand in the fur-
nishing of his apartment. When it was
finished Dirk had brought her in tri-
umph to see it. “Well,” he had said,
“what do you think of it, Mother?”
She had stood in the center of the
There were not
{ room, a small plain figure in the midst
of these massive somber carved tables,
chairs, chests. A little smile had
quirked the corner of her mouth. “I
think it’s as cosy as a cathedral.”
Sometimes Selina remonstrated with
him, though of late she had taken on a
strange reticence. She no longer asked
him about the furnishings of the
houses he visited, or the exotic food he
ate at splendid dinners. The farm
flourished. The great steel mills and
factories to the south were closing in
upon her but had not yet set iron foot
on her rich green acres. She was rath-
er famous now for the quality of her
farm products and her pens. You saw
“DeJong asparagus” on the menu at
the Blackstone and the Drake hotels.
Sometimes Dirk’s friends twitted him
about this and he did not always ac-
knowledge that the similarity of names
was not a coincidence.
“Dirk, you seem to sce no one but
just these people,” Selina told him in}
one of her infrequent rebukes. “You
don’t get the full flavor of life. You've
got to have a vulgar curiosliy bout
people and things. All kinds of pco-
in the same little circle, over and over
and over.”
“Haven't time. Can't afford to take
the time.
“You can’t afford not to.”
Sometimes Selina came into town
for a week or ten days at a stretch,
and indulged in what she called an
orgy. At such times Julie Arnold
would invite her to occupy one of the
guest rooms at the Arnold house, or
|
many |
Tiny foyer, large living-room.
roots, Master of the Woods,
Dragon’s Blood, High John the Con-
“Look here, Mother,” Dirk would
protest, “you can’t wander around like
that. It isn’t safe. This isn’t High
Prairie, you know. If you want to
go round I'll get Saki to drive you.”
“That would be nice,” she said, mild-
ly. But she never availed herself of
this offer.
She would go over to South Water
street, changed now, and swollen to
such proportions that it threatened to
burst its confines. She liked to stroll
I, [1
i
j
: /
/ Nl
ia Hy i
(/
She Liked to Stroll Along the Crowder
Sidewalks.
along the crowded sidewalks, lined
with crates and boxes and barrels of
fruits, vegetables, poultry. Swarthy
foreign faces predominated now.
Where the red-faced overalled men had
been she now saw lean muscular lads
in old army shirts and khaki pants and
scuffed puttees wheeling trucks, load-
ing boxes, charging down the street in
huge rumbling auto vans. Their faces
were hard, their talk terse, Any one
of these, she reflected, was more vital,
mere native, functioned more usefully
and honestly than her successful son,
Dirk DeJong.
“Where 'r’
“In ‘th’ ol’
“Tough.”
“Best you can get.”
“Keep ‘em.”
beans?”
beanery.”
(Continued next week.)
Failures Caused by
Lack of Initiative
One of the greatest improvements
of the automobile is the self-starter,
now found on all but the cheapest
kinds of cars, which need to be
cranked by hand.
The device suggests the reflection
that a very large proportion of the hu-
man family require something of like
nature.
They lack initiative, voluntary ef-
fort; they need cranking in the form
of orders or directions before doing
anything worth while.
‘The men and women who succeed
best in life and get the most out of it
are of the self-starter type. They
don’t wait to be told or advised what
ple. All kinds of things. You revolve ' to undertake, but proceed of their own
accord to do things.
The great inventors, such as Illison,
| are all of this sort, says the Sacra-
Dirk would offer her his bedroom and :
mento Bee. They are originators, not
mere followers or imitators, and they
rank among the chief benefactors of
the world.
So it is in business, literature, art,
the various industries, and, in fact, all
occupations. Success in each is de-
pendent chiefly upon originality or in-
itiative.
TRAPPING ANIMALS.
Much has been said ‘about trapping,
much has been done in regard to bet-
ter trapping laws, but still a lot more
remains to be done. What we should
have is a humane way of trapping.
When an animal is caught in a trap it
will free itself by gnawing its foot off,
or twisting its leg off. In the latter
case, it must of necessity pull out its
own sinews. Just imagine the agony
that will impel an animal to endure
such pain! An animal caught in a
trap in extremely cold weather is like-
ly to freeze to death before the trap-
per ends its agony. The trapper,
without sympathy sets out traps that
in some sections require three or four
days to reach on his rounds. The an-
imals that do not succeed in gnawing
themselves free suffer indescribable
torture.
A trapper accidentally caught in
one of his own traps if in the big
wilds, but fortunate enough to be res-
cued before death arrives, knows the
fierce agony of being held by the re-
lentless iron jaws, miles from human
habitation, with death staring him in
the face. To prevent animals escap-
ing from the ordinary single-jaw trap,
a frightful double-jaw trap has been
invented, so that it can never pull out
the part held between the double jaws
of the trap, but said traps are prohib-
ited in Massachusetts.
Many animals have been caught by
the only foot they possessed, the other
three feet having been lost in former
traps. Beaver, caught in traps sunk
in shallow water in the runways that
lead to their houses, frequently lose
all their paws in their battle for life.
The spring-pole method of capturing
animals is used to prevent them from
escaping by self-mutilation. It con-
sists of a flexible sapling bent down-
ward and held in that position by an
easily unloosened contrivance, and the
trap is fastened to the sapling by a
chain. When the animal is caught its
struggles to free itself unloose the ar-
rangement that holds the sapling
down, whereupon the trap and animal
caught therein are jerked upward.
Perhaps the animal hangs in this cru-
el position for several days before
death. Bears are caught by the paw
in a heavy trap, fastened by a chain
to a log that can be freely dragged
about, barring entanglement, which
will prevent the animal going too far
away. The savage teeth of the trap
hold the paw. Meantime the trapper
has an opportunity to shoot his quar-
ry at leisure.
But it must be emphasized that the
practice of trapping, however limited
the indulgence, has a deteriorating ef-
fect on the moral character of all who
engage in such a cruel pursuit or pas-
1 time. :
The liberty allowed either a youth,
or an adult,’ is an absolute power
| which always corrupts unmistakably.
| Boys develop either a love or a hate
for animals, according to the direction
their teaching takes. The boy who
has been taught to respect and care
for an animal will develop a sense of
responsibility and a degree of moral
exaltation that are humanizing to a
high degree. Animals will regard
him in turn as their benefactor. The
list of pet animals we may have is a
long cone. If a Shetland pony, a don-
key or a goat, be too large, then the
cat, the fax, the woodchuck, hens,
ducks, opossums, the raccoon, the rab-
bit, the squirrel, pigeons, pheasants,
parrccs and partridge.
The trappers deal in torture for
cash, the manufacturer sells luxuri-
ous, torture-tainted articles for cash,
the dealer connects the trade and its
horrors with his customers for cash,
the woman buys these dreadful arti-
cles for cash, to gratify her vanity.
Thus thirty millions of tortured ani-
mals are yearly sacrificed for the sake
of selfishness, greed and vanity.
Furs, if we must have them, should
be taken by discarding the processes
of torture. Any one of a humane dis-
position must be filled with infinite
sadness to walk along any of the prin-
cipal avenues of our cities in winter
and see the thousands of furs worn,
knowing with what terrible cruelty
such furs are obtained.
Under State law in Massachusetts,
all traps must be removed at the close
of the open season on fur-bearing ani-
mals.—By James A. Peck, in Our
Dumb Animals.
‘Real Estate Transfers.
William L. Foster, et al, to Beryl
F. Riddles, tract in State College;
$800.
Mary A. Crider, et bar, to Ray F.
Bullock, tract in Liberty township;
$5,000.
W. S. Furst, et al, Exr., to James C.
Furst, tract in Bellefonte; $1.
W. S. Furst, et ux, to J. T. Storch,
tract in Bellefonte; $1.
J. T. Storch, et ux, to James C.
Furst, tract in Bellefonte; $1.
Harry Reese, et ux, to Emma C.
Dann, tract in Spring township; $600.
Paul R. Emerick, et ux, to Mary A.
Martin, tract in Walker township;
$825.
Irving G. Foster, et ux, to Newton C.
Neth, tract in Ferguson township;
1.
Irvin R. Walker, et ux, to Esther A.
Neidigh, tract in Ferguson township;
$550.
Howard W. Stover, et ux, to C. L.
Eyster, tract in Penn township; $1700.
James I. McClure to Thersia Mec-
Clure, tract in Bellefonte; $1.
F. B. Bower, et ux, to John A. Boy -
er, tract in Haines township; $350.
W. Bright Bitner to John F. Mye.s,
tract in Gregg township; $200.
Trustees of the Presbyterian church
of Pine Grove Mills, to William H.
Fry, tract in Ferguson township;
$4,600.
Donald Snyder, et ux, to Marion J.
McCulley, tract in Spring township;
$600.
J. Howard Musser, et ux, to Fred J.
Holber, tract in State College; $1,500.
Russell Miller, et ux, to Samuel
Coble, et ux, tract in Spring township;
$200.
Anna T. H. Henszey, et bar, to
Alumni Association of Upsilon Chap-
ter of Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity,
tract in State College; $2,400.