©Bfeigw«-I
"
Sm Ml WOI'I.D like to have
112 WfnW theChrlstmaa tlm«
I -i£"/ c —> W 1 remember now
»o well;
l||l ||i|. So many things for
f; Mt* ' J 111, gotten that would
rilgjmv I I be a Joy to tell;
VW \ \\ IIII] Not a sath'ring In
YVIIPiW v'/i a meeting house
VISA \\\ YVJ w ith a faded
Wwi Christmas tree —
\\ \\ Y V jP Such things are com
* ' mon cow-a-adays,
but didn't used to be—
Where the parson und his family, all for
Sunday meeting drest.
Of the presents hung upon it always have
the most and best!
Where the little ragged urchin, with his
face clad in regret,
Can look with wide-eyed wonder at the
things he'll never get!
There were no velvet cushions on our
nineteenth century chairs;
No fine am! padded tapestry where we
knelt to say our prayers:
No costly paintings on the w alls that some
how always stay.
In a sort of mocking elegance when the
guests have gone away.
No gaslight throwing diamonds In your
eyes at every turn,
Nor frappe from the punch bowl, tea from
costly silver urn:
No prancing steeds and butler, with furs
and furbelows,
To shield the rose-clad maidens from the
prying winter sr.ows!
But the old log house in Herman, that was
such a cozy home,
With Its shingle-covered arches that to
us was heaven's dome:
Its busswood tloor of puncheon, the pegs
beside the door,
Just enough to hang the wardrobe of the
family and no more.
The ride and the powder flask, with Its
curious catch and spring;
The belt with sheath knife in It, bullet?
molds and everything, .
Hung upon the dry, cracked rafter out of
reach of careless hands.
But ready, opportunely, when a sudden call
demands.
Along in liist December, when the woods
and fields were white.
And the owls were holding concerts of the
hooting kind at night,
There were hints of coming Christmas, and
a half unconscious awe
Settled on our youthful features In a way
you never saw!
Six of us in that household, I well may call
It seven,
But that one, a little three-year-old, had
strayed away to Heaven;
Six make even numbers, if we count it two
by two,
But I'll put the other In It for complete
ness; wouldn't you?
We were told to hang our stockings and
then to quickly leave—
This was early in the evening of that fa
mous Christmas eve—
And we scrambled up the ladder to the
chamber overhead,
To whisper speculations on the things
t hoi, had been sjid.
OutsfT ihe sionn was dancing In fantas
tic (lights amain,
Sowing crys.ai stars In showers against
the window pane;
Yet sheltered in iliat household we little
cared lor this,
When no harm would dare to venture be
tween 11.t and mother's kiss!
Very eur.y in the morning, while the stars
were shining bright—
For the clou Is had fled the scandal of dis
robing in the night!—
We sought our hanging stockings on the
b-.ri's of every chair—
The ours we wore the day before, for we
had no more to spare!
Compared with what we have to-day it
would be counted small,
But the gifts were ilch in kindness: for
each one gave his all;
The apples were like spheres of gold, and
all the little things
Were more to us : han diadems from
crowns of ancient kings!
The hands that filled our stockings on that
night so long ago.
The hearts that beat for those they loved.
are whiter now than snow
That scatters on this Christmas eve Its
crystal fleece of white,
Reminder of that household where In
dreams we live at night.
—Edward William £>utcher, in Banner of
Gold.
|WH£N~heV£
IWAS YO UN& <
Id X
J . -rff
JPJ * flf lands'first dinner
J\, y 1 under their own
F) fiW roof-tree. The
V. /<K lilt Mi pbim pudding had
F made theeireuitof
V the d i n ing-room.
fiii Every face at the
I'illiilf j festive boa it. re
■' ''/* *rti V * '}■'] fleeted good cheer.
|«|J As city editor
y / v''l, '* and society chron
icler of the Lone Star, the Pentlands
had met. loved, married and contin
ued to work side by side until their
joint earnings enabled them to build
this pretty Queen Anne Cottage; and
to the house-warming had been bidden
their Christmas eve friends tried and
true. Elizabeth Pentland's ambition
■was achieved; she possessed a home.
As she surveyed the table snowy in
white linen, glistening in silver and cut
glass, and eraught through the holly
and mistletoe the approving eoo of the
infant heir to Pentland "affections and
good-will," and the congratulatory
smiles of their guests, her happy face
lifted in gratitude.
"Thank God!" said Mrs. Pentland.
"this is one social event 1 am not called
upon to chronicle."
"Amen." said the city eelitor.
"How like a story." said Mrs. Weath
erell; "one of those good, old-fashioned,
wholesome love stories I am so hungry
to read. I'y the way. can anybody tell
us what has become of the old-fash
ioned love story?"
"Like the day of miracles, my dear,
it has passed." Elizabeth Pentland's ,
cynicism was acquired before she met .
the city editor.
"The telling, you mean; but love—
not a bit of it. It's as young' and as
full of vitality as this King of Love
Feasts —Christmas itself."
Mrs. Weatherell was one of those rare,
women at peace with self and the world,
despite the fact that the latter per
sisted in believing her wretchedly un
happy. As pretty a woman as one
meets in a long day's walk was Mrs.
Wetherell; nature and art fitted her to
shine in brilliant society. Hut Mrs.
Wetherell's beauty was of the spirit as
wel! as the flesh. Never was she known
to complain. The husband whom the
world dubbed a miserable failure was
still to her the Prince Charming who
won her heart when she was toasted
the loveliest girl in her "set."
At five and forty Mrs. Wetherell
judged all marital relations from her
own vantage ground—the love that is
eternal. It was this refreshing. Ar
cadian strain in her nature that at
tracted and held the affection of Eliza
beth Pentland, whose knowledge of
"men and things" had come from hard
knocks with the world.
"I am sick unto nausea," sighed Mrs.
Wetherell, "of the problems involved in
the modern love story. How refreshing
it would seem to meet once more in
print love on the old familiargrounds!"
"Fancy," laughed Miss Dashaway,
sketch artist of Good Form, "the tag
end of this century wading through
Jane Austen!"
"Notwithstanding the speed and
spirit of the times." said lieturn He
tram, a sculptor who had outlived his
contemporaries, consequently his fame,
"material for Jane Austen stories is not
wanting in our own day."
"No, not while you are with us. Be
tram," chuckled the city editor, replen
ishing the patriarchal chiseier's glass.
The ox-like eyes of the sturdy little
EAT PLAYING WITH THE TRIVIAL THING.
sculptor, dilating with the youth that
in art is never old, blinked knowingly.
"Hetram has a story he is bursting to
tell," cried the city editor. "Mrs. Weth
erell has given him the» cue. 1 wager
a choice public is about to be supplied
with a revised, annotated, up-to-date
edition of Jane Austen."
"Imagine a Jane Austen of the Latin
quarter!" smiled Mrs. Pentland, with
an encouraging nod.
"For onee the clever Mrs. Pentland is
in error," said the sculptor, settling
in his chair with the ease of a raconteur
sure of one telling arrow in his quiver.
"Nothing could be more remote from
the Latin quarter than this story which
the drift of the conversation makes so
timely. To be candid, my chief pur
pose in accepting Mrs. Pentland's hos
pitality was to recount Ilillliouse's ro
mance."
"lie was my best friend," continued
Hetram, encircling the table with a
second significant twinkle; "I may say
a lifelong friend. About a year ago
llillhouse was called to Harrington to
work on the equestrian statue of which
you may have heard. He took a studio
in a back bay house that had outlived
not only prosperity but gentility. The
studio confronted a formidable row of
dwellings in a very similar state. These
houses were occupied for the most part
by lodgers and mealers of various ages
und colors and conditions of servitude.
In intervals of inspiration, and they
were not infrequent with llillhouse, he
fell, between whiffs of his pipe, to spec
ulating on the duily occupation and the
heart stories of his heterogeneous
neighbors. One of his studio windows
looked almost impertinently into n
ball-room of the most imposing house
in the row. To Ilillhouse's surprise,
his mirror one day reflected its occu
pant, who riveted his attention with
a fascination almost as irresistible as
that which wrought the ruin of Paul
Pry." Hetram paused. The interest
in his auditor's eyes urged him on.
"She was a frail little woman," he
said, at length, "with a certain faded
splendor, the splenelor of a brilliant au
tumnal flower that defies drought
and frost, and wit h a color and perfume
of its own. holds sway long after its
garden companions lie withered and
dead. She rarely went out save in the
flush of the morning or late in the twi
light. Her room, like herself, bespoke
a faded splendor, discernible even from
Ilillhouse's studio. A window-garden
of old-fashioned bloom and a plentiful
ly-stocked bookcase that crowded the
small apartment almost to suffocation,
absorbed her days.
"Certain hours she was wont to sit
in the window, an open book in her
lap, her heavily-fringed gray eyes lost
In Invisible worlds. I know not whether
It was the style of her dress—the while
mull fichu, closed on the low bosom to
CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1898.
fall in graceful folds to thp hem of lier
voluminous dark skirt, or the outline
of the coiffure, so like the mode preva
lent when Hillhouse was the Beau
Brummel of his world—that attracted
his attention; but the sculptor soon
found himself modeling her delicate
profile, llillbouse, it goes without say
ing, was a bachelor, in whom the wine
of youth was scarcely let.s beady at oO
than in the flush of youth."
"Just such a chap as our own Be
tram," interposed Pentland.
"Hillhouse's faith, devotion I may say,
to the ?deal in life, as an art," continued
Betra.r., "has survived the gross mate
rialism of the times with which ad
vancing age found him curiously in
and out of tune. Away back in the
golden youth lay his romance—a ro
mance that unconsciously shaped and
colored his life, lending a perennial
freshness to the man, which he strove
to impart to his work. As the delicate
features of his unknown neighbor grew
under his deft touch the chords of mem
ory awoke, and Hillhouse had begun
to revel again in that golden past, when
suddenly his model moved.
"A carriage with the livery of an
exclusive world had drawn up at her
door. A lady muffled in sable alighted,
and soon Hillhouse beheld his little
neighbor in the arms of a stranger.
It was the first visitor that had come,
in Hillhouse's time, to that modest
door. The next day it snowed steadily;
but about three in the afternoon his
neighbor surprised him by appearing
at the street door, bonneted. With
rapid strides she disappeared down
the avenue—to appear before he had
smoked three pipes at her favorite seat
in the window. The light fell strong
ly on the profile, which now seemed
rejuvenated by some inner glow. Hill
house snatched the clay and made haste
to finish the interrupted sitting. He
had not worked long, however, until
he was sharing his model's quiet mirth.
"A street fakir had evidently in
veigled her into buying a mechanical
toy, such as abound in the streets of
our large cities during the holiday sea
son. Far into twilight this stately au
tumnal flower sat playing with tiie
trivial thing; and the footprints of
time magically vanished from her
sweet face, as she repeatedly pulled the
string, and the grotesque wooden
monkey, with its multi-colored jacket,
slid up and down the yellow pole.
Through the veil of snowflakes Bill
house continued to watch his neighbor,
and as her smiles at the monkey's an
tics broadened his guffaws filled the
lonely studio with companionable
echoes. Suddenly there was a rift in
the lute. The incorrigible monkey
was perched at the top of the pole
and refused to budge. In vain the sor
ceress cast her spell. The toy fell
from her hands a wreck; disaster, dire
distress, beclouded her face. Not a
shadow escaped Hillhouse. In a jiffy
he had seized his hat and was knocking
it her door.
" 'I have observed from my window—
I am your neighbor,' he exclaimed, lo
cating his eerie den across the way—
'that you have met with an accident.
I am not without some mechanical
skill, and I thought I might be of serv
ice.'
"She opened the door wide for him
to enter In the dignity of her pres
ence the shabby gentility of her sur
roundings vanished.
" 'You are kind, sir,' she said. 'To
morrow' is Christmas.'
" 'Ah! so it is,' said Hillhouse. 'I had
forgotten.'
" 'I promised to take Christmas din
ner yesterday after long years of sep
aration. There is a little boy in the
family, and I thought the toy would
amuse him.'
" 'And so it will,' laughed Hillhouse,
'as it has you and me.'
"She colored like an old-fashioned
garden pink, and her limpid gray eyes
dropped as he picked up the mutilated
monkey. In less time than it takes to
tell, this grotesque representative of
the 'missing link' was restored to its
pristine agility.
" 'How can I thank you?"
" 'By telling me some day.' said Hill
house. 'that your young friend's en
joyment of the toy has been greater
than ours.'
"Some days elapsed before Hillhouse
had the courage to knock a second time
at his neighbor's door. In the inter
val lie had learned a little of her his
tory. It was not without a purpose that
he scanned the bookcase until his eyes
lighted on a strangely familiar volume.
"'I sec Miss Foxglove is an admirer
of Lucilc,* remarked Hillhouse.
" *lt belongs to the pact.'
" Then it has not been opened for
some time?'
"Miss Foxglove's gray eyes turned
within.
" 'A quarter of a century,' she said.
"He took the volume from the shelf,
and with strange misgiving turned the
leaves until arrested by a much under
scored canto, from which fell a faded—
foxglove.
" 'With a smile whose divinely deep sweet
ness disclosed
Some depths in her nature he never had
known."
"The eyes of Lavinia Foxglove met
his.
" 'The volume has never been opened.'
she said —suddeu pallor in her queenly
presence —'since an old, old friend bor
rowed it, returned it —and then
then —'
"'What happened?'
" 'He went away.'
"'And then?'
" 'The world changed.'
"She took the volume Hillhouse hand
ed her to read in the lines the foxglove
had stained the confession she had
waited in vain to hear from the lips of
the borrower so long ago."
"You don't mean to tell us," cried
Miss Dashaway, "that there lives in
this age a man stupid enough to ex
pect a woman to look in a book for a
proposal ?"
"But that happened a quarter of a
century ago," laughed Mrs. Pentland.
"True," said Betram, "and the poor
lout supposed that the girl had eagerly
devoured every word underscored,
while she naturally laid the volume
away and never looked at it again until
Hillhouse opened it and bade her read
the lines which embodied his proposal.
Not having heard from her, he went
away in a moment of pique and never
returned. From time to time he heard
of her conquests, but it seems they were
but flirtations which he strove in vain
to forget. Youth passed away, as did
her family ties, until she was left alone
in the world, with a mere pittance that
1 cut her off from the gay circle in which
she was once so brilliant an ornament."
"Well, she must be a moss-grown
foxglove," laughed Miss Dashaway. "1
thought the species extinct. Fancy a
modern woman pining over a delin
quent lover, burying herself in a ball
room with an Angora cat and a window
garden!"
"How dors it come, Betram," said,
Pentland, "that your quasi-Austen hero
ine escaped clubdom?"
"No reflection on club women," re
proved the hostess. "To forget history
there is nothing like helping to make
it."
"Bravo," cried the telegraph editor.
"I can understand Miss Foxglove,"
said Mrs. Wetberell, giving the story
teller a sympathetic smile. "She was
born too early to grasp the spirit of
the new movement and adjust herself
to its exactions. Being an offspring
of the old order of things, she clung
instinctively to a belief that her heart's
desire would some day be fulfilled.
As she waited, opportunity slipped by."
"If 1 recollect rightly." said Froth
ingliam, "everything had plenty of t>me
to slip by in a Jane Austen story."
"But isn't it time for the cleric?"
smiled Mrs. Wetberell. "Jane Austen
without the clergy is Ilamiet without
tlie prince."
Betfam's glowing eyes took in the
guests who had followed his story with
the bantering old friendship admits.
"To-morrow at high noon," said he,
"Bev. Dr. Broughton will await you at
tlie 'Bed Brick church,' and after the
ceremony Lavinia and 1 will beat home
at the studio—its latch string, you
know, is always out —where we hope
to dispense 'Christmas cheer through
out the year.' "
"The deuce!" cried the city editor.
"You said the chap's name was Hill
house."
"And so it is," smiled the sculptor—
"Beturn Hillhouse Betram." Lida
floss McCabe, in Detroit Free Press.
WHAT li 10 MISSED.
Diggs—Old Adain was a lucky man in
one respect, anyway.
Biggs—ln what respect?
Diggs—Eve never gave him a box of
bargain-store cigars for a Christmas
present. —Chicago Daily News.
I*ntrlotinin.
"Aw. you know, you may celebrate
Christmas as best you know how," f-aid
the supercilious Englishman, "but you
cawn't come up to the old English plum
pudding you know."
"Sir," said the patriotic American,
with asperity, "our homemade, or still
more the bakery-made, mince pies can
produce as fine a line of nightmare? as
any English plum pudding ever boiled."
—lndianapolis Journal.
A t'liink Movement.
"Xfrs. Jinks is as sharp as tacks."
"What has she done lately?"
"She has bought everything she
needs, so that her relations can't give
her useful Christmas presents."—Chi
cago Becord.
Soon I.enrn Ilctter.
When young we always think It ouoer
That Christmas comes but onre n year:
Rut when we pay for Santa Claus.
We see the force of Nature's lr Vs.
—J. J. O'Connell, In t'tjek.
I |j ONE OF CUBA'S MANY 1 1
| ll PROBLEMS. ! |
|? II | W
aC General Greene Must Organize a Police Force at Havana jt He Asks
w
Y; |j Superintendent McCullagh to Aid Him. | nm/
11 -Copyright, U>9« j
I-t
"As soon as we are in possession of
Cuba and have pacified the island it
will be necessary to give aid and di
rection to its people to form a govern
ment for themselves," said President
McKinley in his latest, message to con
gress.
That one sentence hints at many mo
mentous problems. The "aid and di
rection" it will be necessary to g-ive the
Cubans will, eventually, cover every
thing from the formation of a proper
legislative and executive government
for the island and its provinces in the
sanitation of the cities and villages.
There must be a complete regeneration.
The reforms cannot be half-way.
The upbuilding of Santiago has be
gun under a very capable man. Ha
vana comes next. This great city must
be supplied with laws and compelled
to respect those laws To this end,
Gen. Francis Vinton Greene, who is in
military charge of Havana, has
nvked John McCullagh, superintendent
of elections for the Metropolitan dis
trict of New York, and former chief of
police of New York city, to come to
Havana and advise him as to the or
ganization of an efficient police force.
McCullagh has been a New York po
liceman for 28 years. His life work
SUPERINTENDENT JOHN M'CUI.LAGH,
has been enforcing the law and guard
ing' the property of the citizen, lie has
been a success.
Superintendent McCullagh does not
goto do the active work of organizing
a police force in Havana, lie goes to
give Gen. Greene, on whom the bur
den of organization will rest, the bene
fit of his experience. It is quite as
necessary to police Havana as it is to
maintain a military occupancy of the
island until such time as the Cubans
can govern themselves And with this
necessity comes an opportunity for or
ganizing a police force along proper
lines and with proper ideals. There are
no politicians—the bane of every police
force in this country—to be consulted.
There are no questions of party or per
sonal expediency to be met. Simply,
the propositicn is one of gaining the
best possible results with the materia!
at hand.
Many difficulties will present them
selves. Laws must be made before
they can be enforced. Precedents will
not apply. The conditions are unique.
It will be hard to suppress gambling,
foi- instance, in a community where
every man and nearly every woman is
a gambler, where lottery tickets have
been sold openly on the street corners
with the sanction and encouragement
of and for the benefit of the govern
ment. It will be hard to suppress bull
fighting and cock fighting where the
natiw considers the right to fight bulls
and the right to fight cocks coexistent
with Ihe right to breathe. Vice that
has been winked at for years will
struggle desperately to retain its pres
tige. There will be dissatisfaction.and
maybe mutterings of rebellion. Hut if
the method is wise, the desired end w ill
be attained.
A police force to govern Havana
properly must be formed on military,
or at least, semimilitary lines. There
must be a man in supreme control. He
must lie a commander in chief, the
arbiter, the director in all things. The
organization must work through him
and he must work through the organ-
ization. An esprit du corps must be
established and fostered that thai I
make the organization a vital fore®
through its very belief in itself and its
loyalty to its leader. Men must know
that merit shall be the sole test for
preferment. They must be held secure,
in their positions. They must be edu
cated to deal with conditions foreign
to those presented to any police force
in this country and to do t{jeir duty
without fear or favor.
The policing of Havana is a complex
problem, but it. is reasonable* to sup
pose that if the men who are chosen
to maintain law and order are given a
full understanding of what is expected
of them, held to strict accountability
for every regulation, and protected
when they are right, the organization
will develop into an overwhelming
force for good, stable and equitable
municipal government.
Superintendent McCullagh said to the
writer before he left for Havana: "It
would not be proper for me to detail
any plans I may have or the organiza
tion of a police force in Havana until I
have seen and consulted with Gen.
Greene. We are old friends, and shall
not be long in coming to an under
standing. it must be remembered.
though, that I am not at all familiar
with the various conditions that pre
vail there, and I want to make a study
of the problem on the ground. I have
a very clear idea of what should be done,
but it remains to be seen whether my
ideas will conform, in their entirety, to
the local exigencies. I have long cher
ished a plan of police organization
along military lines that 1 think would
be of vast service in certain cities.
"If we can get proper material at
Havana, the opportunity for organizing
and maintaining a good police service
are exceptional. It must not be for
gotten, however, that whatever is to be
done must be done gradually, in order
that the people may accustom them
selves to the new order of things. I
do not doubt that, under (Jen.
Greene's supervision, the city will be
adequately protected by a well-orgau
i/.ed police force before long."
SAMUEL G. BLYTHE.
Johimon si nn Inventor.
It may not be generally known, but
it is a fact that John S. Johnson is
ably the inventor of the detachable
tire. As long ago as 1890 he made a
detachable tire and fastened the outer
covering to the rim by means of little
hooks placed about an inch or two
apart. This was when he was working
in a repair shop in Grand Rapids, Mich.,
and before he came out as a tvorld-beat
er in the record-chasing game. lie did
not think to have the. tire of his make
patented, else he might have had a for
tune, for the detachable tire has
brought riches many times over to
those who brought it out.
Aii Odd Tom lint one.
Ilenrj Jacobs, nn eccentric citizen of
Lincoln. Kan . has erected in memory
of his son James, who died in 1891, a
white marble tombstone, cut in the
shape of a satchel. Voung James was.
of an unsettled disposition and traveled
n great deal. The old gentleman's id« &
was to commemorate the fact in the
tombstone.