$i.oo a Year, in Advance.
" FOR GOD, FOR COUNTRY, AND FOR TRUTH.
Single Copy, 5 Cents.
VOL. XIII.
PLYMOUTH, N. C, FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1902.
NO. 15.
By Elizabeth
IIEY were at breakfast at the
little round table on their
little side porch. The sun
was shining; the morning-
;lories, so carefully trained by Lilia
herself, were waving their bright,
rainbow-tinted cups; the wrens, who
Iiad a nest under the eaves, were
chirping. George was softly whistling
for sheer lightness of heart, but Lilia
;was wrapped in silence. She gazed
meditatively and silently into space.
George began to take alarm. Silence,
especially at breakfast, was not Lilia's
normal state. Unless she went into
town to shop, she did not see George
from breakfast until evening. As she
had been married but four months one
week and two days to be as accurate
.as shc shedid not often go into town
to shop; and she always had so much
to say to George!
"What are you thinking about, my
iaear?" he asked, finally. lie was fond
of calling her "my dear;" it made them
fcoth seem so much older.
1 -"Ilats." was Lilia's reply. "I must
get one," she continued, "and I was
Wondering what kind. What would
yon advise?"
"Me?" exclaimed George, in ungram
matieal dismay. "I don't know any
thing about girls' hats!"
"You are an artist," said Lilia, "and
besides, you've always admired mine."
"Yes," said George. "Why don't
you get another one like them?" he
suggested eagerly.
Lilia laughed merrily. "What a
sight it would be! They've all been
-different. Imagine a composite hat!"
She laughed again, and.Jh.en she said
,Boberly, "But the fact remains that
. I must get a hat." I really must and
I wish you would come with me and
help me select it."
1 "By all means, my dear!" George
cheerfully replied. "Any time you
like; but you see how little I really
. know about even your hats."
"Well, you can tell me how I look
Jn the ones I try on."
1 George -laughed; and he laughed
iagain as Lilia, before leaving him a't
Hhe front steps, said, "Then you will
kneet me at noon to-day, and allow at
least an hour "
; "At least an hour? My dear girl,
Hoes it take you an hour, to buy a
hat?"
"It takes me two!" safd Lilia, im
pressively. "What are you laughing
at?"
"Hats!" retorted George, mirthfully;
but he met Lilia punctually at noon.
"Have you allowed an hour?" she
lasked, as they went together to what
she gravely told him was the only pos
sible place to buy a proper hat.
"An hour and a half." he replied, as
they went into the only possible place.
He wondered why it was the only pos
sible place; he had seen hats, pre
sumably proper, exhibited in many
-Other windows. He followed Lilia in
silence; he was suddenly curious as to
Ithe cost of girls' hats. Lilia's father
;was rich. George knew that until her
marriage she had not been in the
habit of giving the cost of her hats, or,
indeed, the cost of anything, very ser
ious attention.
I lie was very far from rich, and as he
looked at Lilia, accustomed all her life
to all the things that money can buy,
a fear seized him. He had told Lilia
once that he was a poor man, and she
had smiled a slow, wise smik and
said, "Oh, are you?" lie had been so
happily sure that she had understood
him, and that she had been willing to
forego some of the things that money
Can buy for the sake of those things
that money cannot buy. lie had been
into the only possible place to buy a
proper hat.
! She smiled at his grave face. "Don't
, look so solemn, my dear," she whis
pered. "The safety of the common
Wealth isn't at slake."
; She was so like her usual self now
that he cor.ld not be very solemn, and
her all too obvious lack of logic in
the buying of a hat interested him
deeply. "Don't 3-011 know what you
.want?" he inquired, during the ab
sence of the attendant, as Lilia tried
on a black hat, and then a white cne,
and then a brown one.
McCracken,
"Oh, dear, yes!" she cald.
"Then wlxy don't you ask for it?" he
said.
Lilia laughed softly. "I can't; I
never know just what it is until I see
it."
George stared at her in comic aston
ishment. "My dear girl "
"It's madness but it has some
method," said the dear girl, with
laughing eyes. "It is so delightfully
domestic and funny to have my hue;-,
band come with me to buy a hat,"
she added in a whisper, as the attend
ant returned with still a different'hat.
"That is very pretty and artistic,'
said George, judicially, as Lilia gazed
in the glass at its gray and black ef
fect against her golden hair.
"It is a dream!" said Lilia, conclus
ively, as the attendant again left them.
"It is exactly what I want. Do you
really like it?" she added, with delight
ful anxiety and deference.
"Perfectly charming and very sim
ple," said George, critically.
"Yes, it is simple," Lilia said. She
glanced again at the hat; then a queer,
half-tender, half-amused expression
crept into her laughing eyes, and she
looked closely at George. She suddenly
remembered how serious his face had
been as they entered the shop.
"How hopelessly stupid of me to
come here!" she thought, in dismay.
"I actually forgot that I can't just get
things now and send papa the bills!
Still George doesn't know anything
about hats. I just won't get one now,
and the dear boy need never know I
forgot that I can't send big bills to him.
He is such a .sensitive goose about
money!" She smiled at her husband,
described with such indignant affec
tion, and said to the attendant:
"Thank you for showing them to
me. I'm sorry, but none of them are
quite what I want." '
"But, my dear," George began, "you
said "
"None of them are quite what I
want," repeated George's wife, decis
ively. "We expect some others next week,"
said the attendant, who had often
served Lilia. "Don't you like this gray
one?" she added, indicating the one
which George had been under the
strongest impression that Lilia did
like.
"It isn't quite what I want,", replied
Lilia. .
"I thought you said it was exactly
what you wanted," George remarked,
as they went into the street.
Lilia laughed. "I changed my mind,"
she said. "A woman always may, you
know," she further explained.
"Shall we go to some other place?"
said George, still mystified. "What
do you want, my dear?"
"Something to eat. I'm positively
famished!'Asaid Lilia.
"But aren't you going to buy a hat?"
asked George, in surprise.
"I think I'll wait until next week."
She looked up at him and added,
gentry, "Don't talk to me any more
about hats; you said yourself that you
knew nothing about them."
He did not talk to her about them,
as she sat opposite him at the res
taurant table, and she talked very
little to him about anything. She was
almost as silent as she had been at
breakfast; but she smiled at him in a
way that reminded him of the time
he had told her that he was poor, and
she had said, "Oh, are you?"
After luncheon he took her to her
car, and waited until it bore her from
his sight. As he started to return to
his studio he said to himself, "I won
der why she changed her mind about
that hat. She certainly said it was
exactly what she wanted." Then all
at puce he understood. "Could it hav?
been possible?" he thought, remem
bering her added tenderness. "The
dear girl!''
For a moment lie hesitated; then
quickly he returned to the only pos
sible place to buy a proper hat. The
proper hat in question was in the
show window. It was, as he said, very
simple. He went into the shop, and to
another attendant than the one who
had so recently shown Lilia the hat.
"How much is that gray hat in the
window?" he asked.
The attendant looked at the hat.
"Twenty-eight dollars," she said. "It
is a new hat from Paris."
"Lilia did know!" George said to
himself.
"It is very simple!" he gasped to the
attendant.
"Yes," said the attendant, "but it is
from Paris."
"What is it made of?" George asked
blankly, wondering how a coil of some
thing gray and soft, combined with one
strange black flower, could possibly
cost $2S.OO.
"Illusion," said the attendant.
"Illusion? What a name! Is illus
ion so expensive?"
"Oh, no; quite the contrary."
"Is it the flower, then, that is so ex
pensive?" "Oh, no," said the attendant, pity
ing his ignorance. "It is the style."
"The style?"
"The art in the making of it, I
mean."
"It is artistic," said the artist, as he
once more left the shop.
The price of the style fascinated
him to such an extent that he lingered
at the window and stared at the gray
illusion and the black flower.
"Twenty-eight dollars! Upon my
word! It's so simple I could draw it
with four lines," he thought, in his
mystification. Then a new and re
markable' idea came to him, an in
spired idea! He snatched out his pencil'
and a card and made a rapid sketch of
the Parisian hat. Then he went with
hasty strides from the only possible
place to another place, some distance
removed. He apparently desired to
leave far behind him the atmosphere
of Parisian style and its seeming
value.
With the sketch in his hand he ap
proached an attendant in this second
shop. "Can you make a hat like that?'.'
he inquired.
"Oh, yes." she said, easily. "It is
very simple. What color is it? What
is it made of?"
"It is gray illusion and a black
flower. Where does one get gray il
lusion and black flowers?"
"We can supply them," said the at
tendant. "Shall I show them to you?"
"How much will it cost to make it?"
George asked.
The attendant told him; he thought
it very little indeed, and his bewilder
ment increased.
The illusion and the flowers were
produced. The attendant's curiosity
was violently aroused, but she was
properly businesslike. George actually
began to look upon the buying of a
ghTs hat as his distinct vocation. He
selected a black flower with the air of
a connoisseur, and with his artist's
eye chose tho exact shade of gray il
lusion. "How long will it take to make it?"
he inquired.
"I could do it before to-night," the
attendant replied. "Will you call for
it, or shall I send it?"
"I'll call for it," George said.
He did call for it, and he examined
it with an elaborate care that would
have convulsed a less well-poised at
tendant. To his inexperienced eyes it
was exactly like the original hat of the
only possible place save in price.
He bore it proudly home, and not
until he reached the front gate and
heard Lilia playing the piano in the
little drawing-room did he wonder
what Lilia would say. He had been
so borne along on the waves of in
spiration that, like many inspired per
sons, he had not stopped to determine
his exact route. Actually he faltered.
He was overwhelmed by a sense of
his own appalling audacity! What
would Lilia say? He felt shy of ap
proaching her with the hat, and was
indeed meditating upon the feasibility
of concealing the box in the shrubbery,
when Lilia herself, hearing his steps,
came out into the fading light to meet
him.
She had never more eagerly awaited
him than on that day, never than on
that day more happily wandered
about the little house, which alto
gether was scarcely larger than her
father's drawing-room, and which
yet hold a glory that all the money in
the world could never have bought.
Lilia had never until that day so
keenly realized the brightness of that
glory.
She came smiling into the twilight,
looking like a lily in her white gown.
"Oh, my dear" she began; then,
seeing the hapless hat-box, stopped.
Hat-boxes have never been recom
mended for unobtrusiveness. She
could hardly have avoided seeing it
"My dear boy, what la the world iJ
that?" she demanded. v
naltingly, George told her. He told
her more than he realized, and she
laughed until her eyes were wet and
shining. She insisted upon seeing the
sketch, and took immediate posses
ion of it.
"You are a goose!" she told and re
told George. "A perfect goose! Do
you suppose I care how much money
you have? Do you suppose I care
whether my hats come from Paris or
not under the circumstances? Really,
you are a goose but I am very fond
of you. To think I missed seeing you
get that hat! What fun It must have
been!"
She tried on the hat, and she ex
plained to him so fully and so warmly
that she did not care whether she
had any hats at all, or he had any
money at all, that he could not under
standand she admired the hat pro
fusely. "It is a perfect dream!" she said;
and certainly she looked far more
charming, all flushed and bright-eyed,
in it than she had looked in the Par
isian original.
Lilia keeps it very carefully and she
never tires of relating its history.
"No," she always concludes, "I don't
think George will ever again have the
courage to select a hat for me, even
though I. positively loved the one he
did select. Oh, I have had a great
many other hats naturally and some
of them were from Taris, but no other
hat that I have had ever gave me such
complete and happy and unusual sat
isfaction as that absurd Taris hat that
was really not Parisian at all."
Youth's Companion.
Good Things Go Begging.
Washington is known as the abiding
place of men who have gone daft on
inventions and patents, and yet it is
astonishing to know by what narrow
margins some people escape making
fortunes. Professor Alexander Graham
Bell tried again and again to persuade
Senator Don Cameron to buy for $10,
000 a one-third interest in his telephone
inventions. Cameron thought Bell a
wild dreamer, refused to put up a dol
lar, and even went so far as to give
orders that the inventor should no
longer be admitted to his office. That
one-third interest is to-day worth not
less than $20,000,000. There were
many long and weary days that Pro
fessor Bell scarcely knew where he
was to get the money to carry through
his inventions, and he haunted the ho
tel and Capitol lobbies constantly, en
deavoring to get some one interested
in what he felt and knew would make
fortunes.
There is scarcely a day that some
inventor is not haunting Senators and
Congressmen with appeals to help
them get through some fortune-is-just-sight
patent, and tiie struggles that
Professors Bell and Morse went
through in getting their inventions be
fore the public demonstrates the fact
that a good thing Is about as difficult
to sliove along as some worthless clap
trap. Washington Post.
Wanted Lots of I.ove.
Librarians nave some peculiar ex
periences, especially In the down-town
districts, where the poor children are
often sent by their elders to draw
books. The other day a little chap of
perhaps five and of some foreign ex
traction toddled into a down-town
branch and, holding up a grimy card,
said to the young woman in attend
ance: "Please, my sister, would like a book
of love."
The librarian suppressed a smile
and gave him "Children of the Abbey."
The next day he returned with the
book tucked under his arm and re
marked: "Please, my sister would like an
other book with more love in it than
this one has." New York Times.
Kelic Ir'or Historical Society.
Warren Upham, Secretary of the
Minnesota State Ilostorical Society,
has received Avord from Washington
that the society will probably secure
for its museum the steering wheel of
frigate Minnesota. Senator Clapp in
troduced a joint resolution in Congress
directing the Secretary of the Navy to
turn the wheel over to the Minnesota
society. It is now in the navy yard in
Boston. The frigate was dismantled
last December. It was one of the Gov
ernment's war vessels during the Civil
War. It was in many historic con
tests, and the record of its cruises is
an interesting one. Secretary Upham
hopes to be able to secure a detailed
history of the ship for the historical
society. St. PauUMinn.)Pioncer Press.
How a Woman Talks.
Nearly every woman can talk faster
than she can think. New York Press.
A REALIZED IDEA
It's often very hard to find
A man who has good sense, r
A man possessed of breadth of mind- ,
Most people are so dense.
I know a man who is the jnost
Hard-headed I have met;
To talk to him you'll have to post
Y"ourself on things, you bet.
Ilis information of all sorts
Is at his finger's ends
Statistics, Shakespeare and reports
All in his talk he blends.
His business judgment's superfine;
The tips he s given me ,
Show that his views are just like mine
I like sagacity.
In politics he's hard to beat,
His logic's clear and sound;
To hear him argute is a treat,
He covers all the ground.
The books he reads are what I call
The proper mental food;
I think if people read at all
They ought to read what's good.
Religion well, that's where he's strong-,'
I hold a, certain creed,
'And this man backs it right along
As what all people need.
On any subiect you can name
Opinions he has got
That any one who holds the same
Knows hit the proper spot.
In short, as I before have said,
You'll very seldom spy
A man with such a level head
lie thinks the same as I. '
Chicago News. 1
"D'Auberre took great pains with hla
latest painting." "So did the critics,'
when they viewed it." Baltimore Her
aid.
"I dream my stories," said Hicks.;'
the author. "How you must dread go
ing to bed!" exclaimed Cynicus. Tit
Bits. "Do you ever have any quarrels la
your woman's club?" "Oh, no; we call'
them 'debates.' "Philadelphia Bul
letin. In counting life's worries
'Tis little things that tell.
'All girls with small brothers
Know this very well.
Philadelphia Press.
"Has the count come here .t(
Ted-
marry an American girl?" Ned "It
looks that way. His creditors paid hisj
passage over." Town Topics. 4
Mrs. Nebb "Why do you think Mrs
De Peyster is mentally unbalanced?"
Mrs. Keeptab "Well, she permits hefi
husband to sit on her sofa pillows.'8
Ohio State Journal.
A lucky man the iceman is,
His chance for failures slim;
While others work to earn their bread
The weather works for him!
Cincinnati Observer. 1
Grindicus "A man can't get an edu
cation nowadays without money.''
Sporticus "In other words, you claim
that the tree of knowledge sprouts
from the root of all evil." Harvard
Lampoon.
Little Elmer (who has an inquiring
mind) "Papa, where do those pessi
mists that we are always reading about
live?" Professor Broadhead "On an
island of egotism in the midst of ai
sea of woe." Smart Set.
Lady "What on earth, Mary, have
you been doing with that dog? He is
dripping with water." Mary "It's all
Master Tom; he's been and tied him
to the end of a pole and cleaned the
winders with him." Tit-Bits.
Willis "They tell me there was ai
very pathetic rcene in the criminal
court to-day." Tommas "Yes, every
body ivas in tears, except the court
crier. I don't believe that man ever
slied a tear in his life." Boston Tran
script. Two young ladies were talking the
other day about a third who had just
become engaged to a widower, who
plays the comet and has four children.
"What could be worse," exclaimed one,
"than four children and a cornet?"
"Nothing," said the other, "except, per
haps, six children and a trombone."
Tit-Bits.
Found u Bear Trau ICO YArs OI.l.
Levi A. Brown, while looking over,
the ruins of the old Sweet saw mill,
near Gloucester, 11. I., found under
a shelving rock a bear trap more than
100 years old. The trap is double
springed, its saw teeth open more than
nine- inches, and it takes two men:
to set it. A short chain with a ring;
is attached.