SULLIVAN REPUBLICAN.
W. M. CHENEY, Publisher.
VOL. VII.
| THE HUSKIN' BEE.
The huskin' bee wuz over, ez the sun was go
in' down
In a yaller blaze o' glory jist behind the ma
ples brown,
The gals wuz gittin' ready 'n the boys wuz
standin' by,
To hitch 011 whar they wanted to, or know
the reason why.
Of all the gals what set aroun' the pile of
corn thet day,
A-twistin' off the rustlin' husks ez ef t'was
only play,
The peartest one of all the lot—'n they wuz
pooty, too—
Wuz Zury Hess, whose laffin' eyes cud look
ye through and through.
Now it happened little Zui'3 - found a red ear
in the pile,
Afore we finished huskin', 'n ye orter seen
her smile,
Fur, o' course, she hed the privilege, ef she
wud onlj' dare.
To choose the fellow she liked best 'n kiss
him then 'n there.
■My! how we puckered up our lips 'n tried to
look our best,
Each fellow wished he'd be the one picked
out from all the rest.
Till Zury, after hangin' back a leetlo spell or
so,
Got up 'll walked right over to the last one
in the row.
She jist reached down 'a touched her lips
onto the ol' white head
O' Peter Sims, who's eighty year ef he's a
day, 'tis said;
She looked so sweet ol' Peter tho't an angel
cum to stay,
As how his harp wuz ready in the land o'
tarnal day.
Mad? Wall I should say I was; 'll I tol' her
goin' hum,
As how the way she slighted uie hed made
me sorter glum,
'N that I didn't think she'd shake mo right
afore the crowd—
I wuzu't goin' ter stand it—'ll I said so pooty i
loud.
Then Zury drappedher laffin' eyes 'n whis
pered to me low,
"I didn't kiss yo 'fore the crowd—'cause — I
'cause—l love ye so,
"N I thought ye wudn't mind it ef I kissed ol''
Pete instead,
Because the grave is closin' jist above his j
poor ol' head."
Well —wiuimin's ways is queer, sometimes,
and we don't alius know
Jist what's a-tUrohbin' in their hearts when
they act thus u so—
All 1 know is, that when I bid good-night to
Zury Hess,
1 loved her more 'n over, 'u I'll never love
her loss.
—T. V. Ryder , in Courier-Journal, j
TOOLE JED AND JANIE. :
He was neither n tramp, a drunkard,
nor a pauper, though a stranger encount
ering Uncle Jed might, at a casual
glance, have easily mistaken for cither
the grizzled, slouching figure in garments
much the worse for wear, frayed and
ragged liat-brim, and broken shoes often
bound about and held together with
twine and withes of bark. But a closer
inspection would have noted that the
lines on his face were not those which
dissipation leaves, and that despite his
unkempt appearance there was about him
an air of sturdy independence, as of one
who felt a right to his own place in the
world, while the small troop of children
that, mixed with :< shaggy dog or two,
unusually followed close at his heels,
chubby and robust as to face and form,
though somewhat disheveled and dilapi
dated as to garments and hats, showed
that, whatever his circumstances, he was
decidedly a man of family.
In fact, Uncle Jed, or more correctly
speaking, Jeduthan Cranston, was both a
householder and a land-owner, and his
excursions, so frequent as to almost seem
continuous, along the quiet country road,
through the bit of woodland, over the
long hill, and between the rolling fields
were in the nature of a progress from the
weather-beaten, little old house that
formed his residence to his "other place,"
something like a mile distant. To be sure,
neither estate was of great extent, vet
sufficient in the hands of an energetic,
thrifty man to have rendered him in
farmer phrase "free-handed." Hut Uncle
Jed's industry was never of the violent
kind. In a desultory sort of way he
managed to raise enough to fill the
mouths of the flock who filled the old
house till it seemed in danger of bursting.
For the rest if a pane of glass chanced
to get. broken there were plenty of
hats lying about with which to replace it
and if the barn door threatened to part
from its hinges a rail propped against it
could keep it in position, all of which
seemed to trouble the plump, placid wife
of his bosom as little as it did I'ncle Jed
himself. Perhaps had his farms been ad
jacent his working hours might have been
less intermittent, but his jaunts from one
to the other were apt to be broken by
periods of repose, if the weather invited,
under the shade of a roadside tree or a
perch on the rail £«nce that enticingly
LAPORTE, PA., FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1889.
bordered the way and .a long colloquy
with whoever chanced to be working
within conversation range or would spare
the time for discussions that ranged in
subject from national politics to local
gossip.
Withal lie was a good citizen and neigh
bor—honorable, honest, kindly, prover
bially slow in the payment of his own
debts, but always ready to become se
curity on the note of a friend. Children
and dogs gravitated to him naturally, and
his horses and cattle, never any of them
lean from overwork, rubbed around him
unafraid, lie was supposed to hold some
nebulous theories as to paternal govern
ment, fragmentary memories of the stern
rule of a grim old lather. He had even
been known to exhort a neighbor with
cause of complaint against his numerous
youngsters to"( Jet a good gad and sock
it right to'em," but under no circum
stances was he himself ever known to prac
tice Solomon's advice. And having lived
a lifetime in one locality the people, most
of whom had known him as boy and
man, were so accustomed to his easy-going
ways, liismany oddities and eccentric
ities that they regarded him hardly more
of criticism than a natural feature of the
landscape. With years the sturdy boys
and girls grew into sturdy men and
women and from sheer force of necessity
swarmed out from the old home-liive.
Hut Uncle Jed, a little more stooped and
grizzled and slower of step than of old,
and with garments thai seemed never to
wax older, yet gave no sign of renewal,
still took his leisurely way between his
farms and held still more extended con
versations across the fences, as one who
was relaxing the cares and anxieties of
life.
Returning to tlie neighborhood after
an absence of some years I chanced one
June afternoon upon my old friend halted
under a roadside beech in the cool
shadow of the little stretch of wood,
i one of his favorite resting places, and
with his old-time companions, a dog and
a child, beside him. Stopping for a lit
tle chat I casually inquired if it were one
of his grandchildren. "No," he an
swered, in his slow, soft drawl. "David
an' Luke an' Sary an' Lijc an' Mary Jane
an' Carline all hev children more or less,
: but this is none o' theirs. You sec ours
j an all grown up now and gone but just
! Keubon an' Elias an' Nathaniel an' Jim,
an' they're only oil an' on as it happens.
An' mother an' me we'd had little shavers
around the house .so long that it seemed
real lonesome without any, it just did,
and little Janie here, her ma's dead, an'
her pa—well, he's sort o' onsiiddy like,"
with an expressive wink to me, "so she's
come to live with us, she just lies, an'
we like her, an', well, I guess she likes
us." And with a smile that softened and
illumined his grizzled old face he looked
down to meet an answering smile of con
fiding affection in the blue child eyes
raised to his.
When at last I had started on I heard
Uncle Jed say: "Come, Janie, the sun is
almost down; you and I must be going
on for the cows." At a little distance 1
paused and looked back through the
green wood vista at the two figures. The
old man with the child's little hand
clasped in his, his frayed liat brim bent
toward her, and her diminutive pink
calicosunbonnet turned and lifted aslant
as to him. So with the shaggy dog close
beside them and the sound of their voices
floating back in a gentle murmur they
went their way along the quiet country
road between the ripening meadows toward
the sunset.
"That child never should have been
allowed to there," was the comment of
Mrs. Klnathan Sharp, before whom I
chanced to refer to the little circum
stance a few days later. "They ain't lit j
to bring up a child."
"They certainly have had experience
in that line," I observed.
"Experience, I should think so!" in a j
tone of the severest scorn; "their own
came up absolutely hap hazard and with
out any kind of discipline, and this child
will come up in the same way and never
be taught the first principle of order or
neatness or regular habits of industry. 1
did think of taking her myself, but be
fore I had fully decided they had her and
T suppose are letting her run wild as they
did their own."
I glanced around Mrs. Sharp's faultless
room and could but contrast her im
maculate housekeeping with that which
had held sway in Uncle Jed's domicile
and mentally confess the prospect of
Janie's learning aught of orcier or system
there was scant, indeed. I hope Ido not
underrate the worth <>f systematic train
ing, the lifelong value of early formed
right habits; still us 1 looked at Mrs.
Sharp'* cold face and caught the faint
acidity of her tone there came to my
mind a memory of the smile that had
flashed like a ripple of heart sunshine
betwixt Uncle Jed and his little charge;
and with a vision of Janie's delicate face,
her soft blue eyes and sweet, sensitive
mouth I could but wonder—l hope I was
not heterodox—if of the two an atmos
phere of kindly, warm affection might
not be as conductive to the growth of the
little human plant as the most perfect
system of precepts and rules without it.
The same September Uncle .led sick
ened with a fever. On his first visit the
doctor looked grave, and as the days
passed his face grew no more hopeful.
In his delirium the old man was still
going over the familiar round of his life.
Sometimes on his way to the "other
place" dragging his weary feet over the
heavy and burning sand, sometimes stop
ping to rest under the old roadside
beach, and wherever in his fantasy he
wandered little .lanie, the companion of
his latter days, was beside him. And
net only in fancy but in reality, for
through those weariful days the child
clung closely to her old friend, stroking
his hand with her light touch, pressing
her soft cheek against his, so scarred and
furrowed and parched, answering when
111 unconsciousness he called her name,and
watching him with a dismal pain i:i her
soft blue eyes.
Hut there eume a ilny when little Jmiie
lay stricken with the same fever, ami
when the doctor fell the swift but weak
pulse throbbing in the small, white wrist
he shook his head again. It maybe that
the sanitary condition of the old house
was bad, though it had never before af
fected those beneath its roof; possibly,
as Mrs. Sharp intimated, their nursing
might have been improved, but it was
the best that those who tendered it knew
how to give, and who of us can do more?
And it might have been in that conflie
with disease that the most skilled nurse
would with the doctor have had to own
defeat. Her fever was not of the violent
type of Uncle Jed's. For the most part
she lay quiet; sometimes crooning frag
ments of hymns that she had learned in
Sunday-school or Scripture text.-. TV-t
ever with it all the tide of life ebbed
lower and weaker.
And at lust one day, one sunny antumn
day, clad with the glow and ripeness of
the year, an unwonted hush seemed to
rest over the weather-worn old house.
The doctor made his usual visit, but it
was a brief one, and his medicine-case
remained unopened. Now and then a
neighbor ran in with a quiet, step,
speaking iu half whispers, and the group
of big, broad-shouldered sons made no
pretense of work, but hung about the
house with a strange dejection apparent
in their attitude and faces.
Slowly, so slowly to they who sat under
the impending shadow the day wore away
till late afternoon. Uncle Jed had fretted
for Janie and they had lifted her from
her little cot and laid her beside him.
Soothed by her presence he sank into a
half-doze, half-stupor. Presently he
roused himself. "Come, Janie," he
said, "the sun is almost down, it is time
we were going to the other place for the
cows. Bruno! Bruno!" And the old
dog lying inside the bed roused tip ami
beat his tail loudly on the floor, respon
sive to the call of the master he would
never follow again.
Then lie dozed away again for a little
while and when he woke the same fancy
was still in his mind. "How long the
way is,"' he murmured; "let us rest a
little. I never used to get so tired. It
must be lam getting old. Yes, I'd had
little shavers around me so long I missed
'em, and 'twas lonesome going about
alone, but you like togo with me, don't
you, Janie?"
Shi- nestled closer to him anil slipped
her arm about his neck. "Yes, I'ncle
.led," she whispered, "I liko'to go with
you."
(11 n few moments he spoke again—
very faintly this time. '"Come, little
•Tanic, we must lie going. llow late it
grows; the sun is almost down."
He put out his hand so thin and wast
ed and with all the sunburn faded from
it now—and she slipped hers—small,
white and chill—into it as if for the
starting.
A long, long silei.ee followed, the
eloek in an outer room ticked loudly, the
sunset rays crept long and level across the
unenrpeted floor; with bowed heads the
sturdy sons went out one by one, tread
ing 011 the toes of their clumsy boots; a
little knot of neighbors gathered around
the doorstep; the wife of many years
swayed back and forth in the chair
wherein she li id once rocked her babies,
sobbing softly. And by a way in old as
th« world, yet strauaeiv unfamiliar
—traveled hy generations, but still as
unknown way—the two friends, on<
whose years had covered so long and th«
other so brief a span, had gone beyond
th»- sunset .—Chicago Timet.
The Indians of Alaska.
The Indian of Alaska is a different
person, and the Indian problem in Alaska
is quite unlike that which presents itsell
in the case of the aborigines known as
the North American Indians. Whethei
they had the same origin is immaterial.
Environment has created a marked dis
tinction. Laziness is wholly unknown tc
both native men and women in Alaska.
They are noted for their desire to accu
mulate, and there is one Indian Princess,
so-called, in the village here who is really
worth 810,000 in silver, in furs, and in
blankets. They are all shrewd and cun
ning in their pecuniary dealings with
each other and with the whites. They
are notorious liars when it comes to pro
tecting any one of their own race from
any apprehended harm, but they will
neither steal from each other nor from
the whites. About 1500 of these people
wintered at Sitka during 1888, and there
is a permanent population of about 50(1
in the village this summer, and while no
j white person yet thinks of locking a
door, day or night, in the past eleven
months I have not heard of a single in
stance of larceny. Families of natives go
| off in their canoes 150 miles to remain
j and work all summer at the salmon ean
! ueries, leaving a great deal of stuff be
hind in their huts and houses, and when
they return in the fall, find everything as
safe as when they left them.
No tribal relations exist among them.
What are called chiefs are simply patri
archs or heads of families, and hence,
the iirst important problem in the task of
civilizing them, by breaking up their
tribal relations, does not exist to vex the
authorities. Not only that, they arc eager
to adopt the white man's ways, good as
well as bad. They have totally aban
doned their native dress, except on fes
tive occasions, when they sometimes, not
often, appear in it. Mr. Duncan, at
.M' tluklmtla, ou Amelia Island, has es
tablished a saw-mill and a planing-mill,
where he manufactures thousands of
packing cases which are sold to the sal
mon canneries. This is an industry that
is available for these people, and while
giving thousands of dollars every year,
under the plea of industrial training, as I
have already pointed out, the Govern
ment so far, has profited nothing from
the methods which have been success
fully pursued at Amelia Island.— Neic
York Times.
Big Birds in the Transvaal.
Most of the larger birds that I have
seen iu the Transvaal, Africa, are evident
ly of great bodily powers, which their
ample wings sufficiently indicate. These
are half vulturine in form as well as in
habit. My companion and 1 wounded a
bird of this description one day with the
gun (with which he had full liberty here),
i don't know its name, but here is a de
scription: Body and neck pure white,
wings black, flat bill 7 1-2 inches long,
legs 21 inches and 5 1-2 feet from tip to ,
tip of the wings. We brought him home
and had him going about the green for
days. One day we discovered him ''bolt
ing'' a snake about two feet long (by de
scription the African cerastes, a rather
evilly disposed species, one of the cobras)
and three days afterward we found him
dead.
Next in size to this bird is the Kaffi:
crane, which is dark-blue in plumage. ■
This is much of the build of the forinei
bird with this exception—its bill is more
.if a beak, short and strong. Next conies
the vulture, truly of the fowl-feeding
race, for he is not long in picking the
bones of any oxen that die. It used to j
be a fine of twenty pounds for shooting
this bird in the Free States, they were
considered so valuable in removing putre- |
scent animal remains, and I believe their I
services are essential yet. We have half
a dozen different kinds of hawks, some
resembling our English birds of prey in j
size and habits, but of much finer plum- j
age. — Neicc/utle Gh ron iclc.
A Watchmaker's Rare Task.
A Boston watchmaker recently had a
rare task. It was the putting in order |
of two watches, each of which had cost ;
32500. The case of each of these
watches is of pure gold and its works
number fully 400 pieces. On the larger j
dial there arc four smaller dials; one
showing by a diagram of the sky the
changes of the moon, a second dial each
month, a third dial the day of the month,
and a fourth dial the day of the week.—
Neu> York Tribune.
Terms—sl.2s in Advance; 81.50 after Three Months.
CURIOUS FACTS.
Indiana has a double-headed baby girl.
Damson" originally came from Damas
j cus.
The number of writers of the Bible is
fifty.
James McCosli, the metaphysician, is
seventy-seven.
German student life differs very ma
terially from the student life of all other
nations.
A white kangaroo, the first ever
j known, is on exhibition at the London
| Aquarium.
In France the doctor's claim on the cs
' tate of a deceased patient has precedence
of all others.
The total number of bodies registered
! as buried in cemeteries used by London
I is 1,276,875.
A letter can now be sent round the
1 world in sixty-nine days, via Vancouver,
. British Columbia.
A Londoner advertises that ho is
| "Porous Plaster Manufacturer to Iler
Majesty the Queen."
A new and expensive whim in jewelry
is to have diamonds bored and strung
upon a cL..;.. like pearls for a necklace.
One of the wonders of Paris is a well
' 21)50 feet in depth. Hot water rushes
| out of this well in a stream 11 1 feet high.
A Kanawha (W. Ya.) fisherman
caught a jack-salmon that had swallowed
one bass and had another half way down
its throat.
John Bright said that he owed his
quick imagination to his life-long habit
of reading poetry every night before go
ing to bed.
A murderer was convicted at Welling
ton, New Zealand, by bits of newspaper
used by him as wadding and found iuthc
wounds of his victim,
t S. Landman, of AVaynestown, lud.,
has a calf without tailor eyes and Rob
ert Jones has another that has the skin of
an elephant and no hair on its body.
The most northern electric light in the
world is at llernosand, Sweden, on the
Gulf of Bothna, above the (52d degree of
i latitude. Light is needed there at 2:30
I r. M.
The Berlin newspapers chronicle the
fact that the heat of the present season
has been greater than ever recorded since
1710, the year when regular observations
were first taken.
The great bell of Ilung-wu, which has
long lain half buried in the ground, has
at length been lifted by foreign machin
ery and hung in a pagoda built of iron
by a foreign firm. According to proph
ecy, this bell was never to be lifted
until China had entered upon a new ca
reer of prosperity.
In the Town Library (Stadt Bibliothek)
of Nuremberg is preserved an interesting
globe, made by John Sclioner, professor
of mathematics in the gymnasium there
A. I). 1520. It is very remarkable that
the passage through the Isthmus of Pan
ama, so much sought after in later times,
is on this old globe carefully diliueated.
On the sides of the Jesen Fiord, on the
west coast of Norway, mountains rise
perpendicularly to a height of several
thousand feet. Recently stones and
rocks, some of which are said to have
been as large as a house, began to fall on
one side of the fiord. The avalanche
continued for more than two hours, and
the crash was heard ten miles away.
How He Got the Taxes.
A man named Frye, who lived on
Tinker's Island, used to be the town col
lector of Mount Desert. If he didn't get >
his money the first time lie called, he had
an original way of helping the delinquent
to remember that he would come again.
Taking apiece of chalk from his pocket,
he would write the word "Tax" on the
woodwork of tin; room in large letters,
and the authority of the official is said to
have been acknowledged so well that the
chalk was allowed to remain theie till
time or the payment of the tax had
rubbed it off.— Leicislon (Me.) Journal.
Electricity on the Dinner Table.
A Brazilian inventor to whom a patent
has just been issued proposes to remedy the !
annoyance suffered from the shaking of
dishes upon the table on shipboard by
means of an electrical contrivance, llis
idea is to use an electro-magnetic device.
To the underside of the dishes will be at
tached small pieces of iron, and on the
table will be laid long strips of soft iron '
to which wires leading to a battery will
be connected. The use of this electro
magnetic appliance will not mar th ■ ap
pearance of tables, and certainly it
should prove effective Timet-Dtmocral. i
NO. 50.
FUN.
The chambermaid of an apartment
hotel is a suite thing.
Wall decorations are not proud if most
of them are stuck up.
The potato is said to be deteriorating,
but it made many a masli in its better
| days.
There are those who like the English
sparrows. We refer to the cats.— Boston
i llerald.
AVisdom does not always come in the
yellow leaf, but you'll generally find it in
the seer.
Everybody dislikes the dentist—at
least they (how their teeth whenever
they go into his office.— Burlington Free
: Press.
Upson Downcs—"l've come to you Ba -
: ker, after a little advice." Barker Or
! per—"Well, here's some: never ask for
: any."
1 Omaha Teacher—"l would like some
' one of the class to define the meaning of
\ vice versa." Bright Boy—"lts sleeping
i with your feet toward the head of the
I bed."— Omaha World.
"Mary," said her mother, severely, "if
I am not mistaken I saw your head on
George's shoulder. What sort of an at
titude is that for a young lady?" Mary
i (ecstatically) —"Beatitude!" Philadel
\ ph ia Press.
She—"Do you think of me daily?"
He—"l should snicker, my dear little
j sugar-coated angel. Think of you daily ?
I You bet; and now tlia' the days are
longer, I sometimes thinu of you twice
i a day."— Terns Sifting*.
A city child, wandering over a farin
' yard with his father, was greatly fright
ened at the sight of a good-sized gobbler.
"Why, my boy, you don't mean to say
that you're afraid of a turkey when you
ate one only yesterday." "Yes, pa, but
this one isn't cooked."
Personal Earnings.
The newspapers are recording the fact
that .Mr. 11. M. Flagler gave Dr. George
| Shelton, of New York, 637,000 volun
tarily as a fee for medical services to his
daughter. Forty years ago this would
! have made a large fortune for any mau,
one that lie would have felt justified in
l retiring from business on.
But the value of personal services and
fees has grown with everything else in
| recent years. It is interesting to note
what vast sums professional people have
earned simply by their personal labors,
without counting business investments of
: any kind.
Patti, the only Patti, has undoubtedly
cleared a couple of millions by that
wondrous bird warbling of hers. No
! body who ever lived has ever earned so
much. Bernhardt, Booth and Joseph
Jefferson have each rounded up a million
dollars during their professional careers.
ISo probably has Henry Irving. It is
said that Henry Ward Beecher earned a
j million in his lifetime from preaching,
j lecturing and writing.
Among doctors and lawyers, too, the
S sums earned by those in the first rank
! are enormous. General Butler's law
practice amounts to from $150,000 to
6200,000 every year. In oue single case
he received a fee of .SIOO,OOO. The
earnings of one law firm in New York,
Butler, Stillmau fc Hubbard, foot up
6950,000. The head of this firm is
William Allen Butler, who wrote the
poem of "Flora McFlimsy." He dropped
into poetry in his youth, but wisely
dropped out again end into something
that paid vastly better. Helping people
quarrel is a far more paying investment
than rhyme stringing. The business of
this law firm is chiefly the reorganization
of railroads. They sometimes receive
650,000 for one fee.
Among doctors the figures arc not so
high, but still there are millionaires
among them,too. Dr. William A. Ham
mond had for many years in New York
an annual practice worth $45,000. He
will still retain much of it, now that he
has gone to reside in Washington, "as a
matter of sentiment."
In business the sums earned are equally
large. The President of the New York
l-ii'e Insurance Company has a salary of
650,000. The Equitable Life Insurance
Company pays its President SIOO,OOO a
year. Several railroad Presidents get
:<50,000. A New York house that makes
specialty of the sale of roasted coffee
pays its buyer 650,000 a year. He saves
that much to them. The general man
ager of a varnish house in Brooklyn also
receives {350,000 a year. So that it pays
better in the long run to have a success
ful private business than iy b« President.