Newspapers / The Roanoke Beacon and … / July 18, 1902, edition 1 / Page 1
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I' fj I I I I 111 I IV I Ti I fc fl i .vi 13a III $. 00 a Year, In Advance. " FOR OOD, FOR COUNTRY, AND FOR TRUTH." Single Copy, 5 Cents. VOL. XIII. PLYMOUTH, N. C, FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1902. NO. 19. rv: t -II tar : f It 1 1 tti ? 1 KING DROUGHT. -My road is fenced with the bleached white bones, And strewn with the blind white sand, Beside me suffering dumb world moans, On the breast of a lonely land. On the rim of the world the lightnings mi play The heat-waves quiver and dance, And the breath of the wind is a sword to slay, And the sunbeams each a lance. I have withered the grass where my hot hoofs tread, I have whitened the sapless trees, I have, driven the faint-heart rains ahead, To hide in their soft green seas; I have bound the plains with an iron band, I have stricken the slow streams dumb. To the charge of my vanguards who shall euir.d? Who stay when my cohorts come? The dust storms follow and wrap me round, The hot wind;? ride as a guard; Before me Ihe fret of ihe swamps is bound. And the way of the wild fowl barred. IT was late in the autumn, when Mrs. Kinch, a raw-boned, tall, an gular woman, came with her two children to the neglected log house that had once been the home of Her mit Peters. She had rented the eighty acres from him, paid for six months in advance and meant to "work it," because her twenty years of woman hood in the backwoods had made of her a better farmer than most men. But even her dull hopes and worn-out fancy suffered a temporary shock when, after driving live hours from the little river town of Horning over SETTING fallen trees and through shallow pools that blocked the unused forest road, she came upon the squalid hut, the abandoned fields and the utter desola tion of her new "home." Her son Zeke was a scrawny lad of twelve, dress'.nl in threadbare jeans, weazen from hardship, silent and alert. Her -daughter Maria, puny even for tyu I U - ; 1 I drop the whips on the loose-flanked steers, I bum their necks with the bow; And the green hide rips and the iron sears Where the staggering lean beasts go. I lure the swagman out of the road To the gleam of a phantom lake; I have lain him down, I have taken his load, And he sleeps till the dead men wake. My hurrying hoofs in the night go by, And the great fiocks bleat their fear, And follow the curve of the creek burnt dry, And the plains scorched brown and sere. The worn men start from- their sleepless rest With faces haggard and drawn; They cursed the red sun in the west, And they curse him out of the dawn. They hr.ve carried my outposts out and out, But blado of my sword for a signal I am the Master, the dread King Drought, And the great West Land is mine! Will II. Ogilvie, in Macmillan's Magazine. C3 years, was prettier, but her flimsy cal ico and faded shawl seemed already too slight a covering against the cold breeze which moaned through the leaf less trees and blew the fog of the river into her peaked face. It was a cheerless house-warming they had that first frosty night, but by dint of heroic lifting, dragging, chopping and sweeping the one-horse wagon was unloaded of its burden of old household goods, the pallets were stretched on the moldy floors, the old horse was stabled and fed, and the coffee pot was steaming on the rusty stove. Then began the oft-repeated struggle to establish a home for her self and her little ones. It was too late to put in a crop, and the best the widow could do was to stock her shanty with piles of fire, wood for the coming winter. Zeze, keen with the woodsman's inbred instincts, left the tree felling and the housekeeping to Maria and. his mother. His father's heavy rifle, a rusty axe and a scarred BarloAV knife, became his implements, HIS TRAP. and never a day passed that ho did not bring home a few rabbits or squir rels. Before the first snow Hew he had whittled some rude "figure fours." and at last, creeping down to one of his traps by the river, he found an impris oned otter. That settled Zeke in his choice of activities, for he worked far into the night, long after his tired mother and sister had gone to sleep, hewing, hack ing and whittling at the rude flat boat which he hoped to make from the worm-eaten planks of a dismantled chicken house. In the morning he dragged the results of his labor to the river's brink, and there for days he toiled like an inspired elf till the clum sy vessel seemed fit for launching. His mother, well aware of the practical value of his bent, and little Maria, al ready a precocious little housewife, helped him to shove the boat into the deep and sullen current of Black River. His little sister cheered as he pushed out into the stream, and proudly tested the efficiency of his heroic handiwork. But the mother, ill shod and poorly clad, went back to woodchopping and toiled till her body turned hot with the fever, and the axe fell from her hand. Then she went into the loghouse quak ing with the ague, and to bed helpless and almost delirious with the malady of the lowlands. From that day Maria, big eyed like a gnome, baked and washed, made coffee, scrubbed and slaved that her mother might thrive and that Zeke might ply his lonely trade from the gray dawn tmtil the night fogs rose from the dark, mourning river. But though the girl waxed frailer and sadder and the boy brought home many pelts of squirrels, otter and even a few mink, the wasted mother felt the first breezes of spring wafting in at her open win dow and was not able to face even the thought of plowing her narrow fields for the spring corn planting. She noticed that Zeke, always taciturn, said less and less. Wlien she praised him for his success and sought with caresses. to make amends for the busy, almost heartless days when she was well enough to work, he would shuffle out of her gaunt" embraces and vouch safe no boyish stories of his work along the river. She guessed that he had some secret, and for the first time sensed the sweet sting of a mother's tender jealousy. If she had known that since the early days of her illness her boy had kept up a singular partnership with a bearded stranger who slept in the woods like a hunted animal, she would have won dered more. For coming down to a trap from which his quarry had in variably escaped, Zeke one morning had found a stranger calmly pocketing the captured rabbit. "I'll give it to you, kid. If you fetch me some bread and coffee, said the man, glowering at the scared boy; ?'but don't tell nobody you saw me. If you do I'll lift every dang hide or feather you ketch." The boy only stared, but the man smiled at his amazement, and said: "Tell you what I'll do, kid. If you fetch me some bread and coffee every day, I'll watch them traps o' yourn at night!" And as the man gently held out the rabbit Zeek agreed. Thereafter he stole many handsful of ground coffee from home, filled his pockets with bread and was glad of his compact when he saw his traps, reset and baited at night, yield a double harvest of fresh meat and peltries. If the secret burdened his little conscience-the young trapper bore gamely to his pact, for he knew that the time was come to put in the corn, and that it would not be put in. Upon his frail shoulders depended even the hope of providing flour and bacon and medi cine for his mother. What must hap pen when the rent came due, was an ominous problem which even the worn mother dreaded to confront. If they only had a few neighbors, some plan might be contrived for planting a crop; but the nearest house was in the out skirts of Horning, and for twenty miles upstream there were no dwellers but isolated trappers and lumbermen. It was late in March when Zeke, mounted on the scraggy horse, with his pile of pelts behind him, set out for town. He drove a famous bargain with the furrier, traded some hides for quinine, provisions, powder and ball, and a pair of shoes for little Maria, and was about to set out for home with nearly $11 in his pocket, when in the wagon yard where he had left his horse, he saw a placard. Twenty-five Dollars Reward for Information Leading to the Arrest of Jason Man ning, Lumberman, Who Mur derously Assaulted Marshal Topping Last December. De scription: Tail, dark, full beard, etc. t-fi . , 1 It was Zeke's mysterious partner! The boy stealthily tore down the plac ard, stuffed it into his pocket and trotted homeward with a new light in his shrewd gray eyes. The next morning before daylight he was at his deadfall in the Moccasin bend. His partner, bending over a trap, was dis entangling a fat raccoon. "Morning, Zeke," he growled, without looking up. "Mornin'," said the boy, tittering like a little mannikirt as he delved into his jacket pocket for the placard. "Is Marshal Topping dead?" gasped the man, his face gray and his eyes leering with ugly venom at the lad. "Nope." "Yer goin' to give away on me, air you?" "Nope." "Sure you ain't, Zeekie," whined the man, doubtingly. "Topping hit me first. I didn't mean to " "I ain't a-goin' to peach on you! What d'you take me for?" The boy's sallow face grew red with anger. Then he grinned, and, laying his small, brown talons on Manning's sleeve, said: . "Do suthin' for me, Mr. Manning?" "You bet your life, kid. I'll do any thing you say. Spit her out!"- "Come up and put in the corn fur mammy?" "Is that all? With all them corn cakes thro wed in? Why, Zeke, it's a puddin':" John II. Raftery, in the Chicago Record-Herald. A Missing Adjective. What Arternus Ward wou"ld have de scribed as a high-handed outrage in Utica was perpetrated recently, the victim being a gentleman who prided himself on his grip ofthe English lan guage. A treacherous friend induced him to undertake to name four adjec tives ending in "dous." "Why," be gan the expert cheerfully, "hazardous, stupendous, tremendous." At this point he stopped to think. He is still think ing. To the three certainly three more may be added jeopardous, pferopo dous, and nefandous -though the third is obsolete, as well as ugly and un necessary. Some six mor,e have been suggested, but they find inadequate support in the latest dictionaries. Lon don Globe. Wise Distribution of Time. Once when dining quite by chance with Dr. Creighton, the late Bishop of London, at a certain club, Lord Rose bery remarked : "Ah! my Lord Bishop, what a nuisance this dinner is! Two things I absolutely dread a long dinner and a long sermon! I think that a sermon and a dinner, however good either may be, ought never to last more than a quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes at the most." "Well, well," said Dr. Creighton, musingljT, "could we not arrange mat ters this way, my lord? Knock, say, ten minutes off the sermon, and put it on to the dinner." From "Men of the Moment." The Tell-Tale Tongue. When the doctor is called to a pa tient, he says: "Let me see your tongue," but it is not for the same reason that society is now showing that unruly member when asked the same question. The latest fad com peting with palmistry is "glossomani cie," or. "linguisologie," meaning no less than the delineation of character from the shape of the tongue. According to the new scheme a big tongue indicates frankness, a short tongue concentration of ideas. Long and broad tongues indicate capacity to talk but not speak the truth; short ness and narrowness are the signs of Machiavelian lying. Advertising in Prosperity. There is no community in which scores of business men are not losing splendid opportunities by their lack of knowledge of the power of advertis ing. This is a prosperous time, and a certain amount of trade will find its way to nearly all establishments. To the courageous advertisers the volume of trade is greater,' and by advertising freely at this time, when they can well afford it, they insure to themselves a profitable business when a duller time shall ccme. Interesting Inscriptions. In the historical subterraneous prison of Tiberius, in Capri, some inscriptions have been discovered which prove that this was the prison of Commodus's wife and sister, a fact which increases the interest in this already famous prison. JUS KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON. I. If the day looks kinder gloomy An' your chances kinder slim; If the situation's puzzlin', An 'the prospect awful grim, " . An' perplexities keep pressin' 'Till all hope is nearly gone. Jus' bristle up, and grit your teeth, An' keep on keepin' on. II. ' Fumin' never wins a fight An' frettin' never pays; There ain't no good in broodin' ia These pessimistic ways Smile jus' kinder cheerfully When hope is nearly gone, An' bristle up, and grit your teeth, An' keep on keepin' on. III. There ain't no use in growlin' An' grumblin' all the time When music's ringin' everywhere. An' everything's a rhyme Jus' keep on smilin' cheerfully, If hope i3 nearly gone, An' bristle up, and grit your teeth, An' keep on keepin' on. ) New Orleans Democrat. Here's a book that telis about the best method of getting accepted." "What is it a bank-book?" Detroit Free Press. Sammy (admiringly surveying his lately arrived twin sisters) "Did you get them cheaper by taking the two, papa?" Smart Set. . Shopper "I want a shoe' that is both comfortable and stylish." Salesman "Very sorry, madam, but the age of miracles is past." Judge. "And so they have made up their quarrel?" "Oh, yes! As soon as she saw she was wrong, she concluded to accept his apology." Puck. "The old man's been writin poetry steady for six days." "Why what's he doin' that fer?" "Wants a Govern ment office." Atlanta Constitution. Blobbs "Scribbler is writing a his torical novel." Slobbs "Are you sure it's historical?" Blobbs-" Well, I dare say the plot is." Philadelphia Record. "Let's walk through life together." Her ardent lover cried, . "I don't see that I auto " The cruel girl replied. New York Sun. She "I want you to see my new piano the next time you call." He "When do you expect to get it?" She "Oh, in about six months." Chicago News. Arthur "I would marry that girl but for one thing." Chester "Afraid to pop the question?" Arthur "No. Afraid to question the pop." Town and Country. Mamma (at the Zoo) "What do you think of the s baby leopards, Elsie? Aren't they handsome?" Little Elsie "But do they always come in the same pattern, mamma?" Puck. No honest statesman ever boomed Some plan for public benefit That some shrewd schemer did not seek To make a profit out of it. Washington Star. "Why didn't your church call that eloquent young preacher, after all?" asked Mildred. "Oh, it turned out that he knew nothing of ping-pong," an swered Amy. Pittsburg Chronicle-Telegraph. "Is Mr. Green at home?" asked the caller. "No, but he will be in very soon," explained Mrs. Green. "He haa been planting flowers this morning, and has just gone down to the florist's. You see, they sent the four-o' clocks up, but neglected to send the key to wind them with." Judge. The Bill Collector's Trick. The newest form of terrorizing their victims adopted by th2 bill collectors is a paper that looks exactly like a legal summons to the uninitiated, and reads much more like one. The per son who receives such a document would believe that action had been begun against him, whereas the docu ment is really no more than an an nouncement that an action will be be gun in case payment is not made. This device is used by a firm of col lection lawyers on Broadway and is plainly an abuse of a summons which may get them into serious trouble if ic. be not legal, according to the opinioa of lawyers who have seen the papers. Whether the trick be effective or not, it is likely that it will not be con tinued long after the papers have been seen by the bar authorities. New, York Sun. "
The Roanoke Beacon and Washington County News (Plymouth, N.C.)
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July 18, 1902, edition 1
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