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VOL. XIV. PLYMOUTH, N. C. FKID AY. MAY S, 1903: NO. 8. .
"' i ii i
OLD 1WMVQ
CIVE ME THREE GRAINS OF CORN, MOTHER.
r.y AMELIA KLANDF02U) EDWARDS.
In thc.e flays, when a portion of the world is undergoing severe f amine, tin's
m. which was inspired by the great Irisli, famine of 1310, when the potato crop
:d throughout the Emerald Isle, is of peculiar interest.
Jocm
fade
ive me three grains of corn, mother
'Only three grains of corn; j
It will keep the little life I have
Till the coming of the morn. "J
1 am dying of hungnr and cold, mother
Dying of hunger and cold;
-And half the agony of such a death
My lips have never told.
ft
It has gnawed like a wolf at my heart,
mother
A wolf that ia fierce for blood;
All the livelong day. and the night beside,
Gnawing for lack of food,
I dreamed of bread in my sleep, mother,
And the eight was heaven to see;
J woke with an eager, famishing lip,
lint you had no bread for me. ;
How could I look to you, mother
low could I look to you
For bread to give to your starving boy.
When you were starving, too?
For I read the famine in your check,
And in your eyes so wild, "
And I felt it in your bony hand,
As you laid it on your child.
The queen has lands and gold, mother
The queen has lands and gold; ,
Whih you are forced to your empty
breast '
A fikelcton babe to hold
Showing How One of
Empire Met His
By Claude
4i
T OW that is the position,"
sighed, Kitty. She leaned
her nrettv. tear-stained
.
Mrs. Chevenix laughed a little, then
pawned.
"I kuow what I should do in your
place," she rested her head back
against the chair cushions and gazed
at Kitty with dark indolent eyes.
"And' what would you do?" The
voice was fretfully eager.
"Amuse myself, my dear child with
cihev men."
"That I would never do," answered
Kitty with a fine burst of indignation,
" iind she' repeated firmly, "never
aiever."
She was a pretty little thing. Kitty
Gascoigne. A fair haired, fluffy little
person, with a pair of appealing blue
ryes and a soft babyish face. Plenty
of wit and character behind the curls,
though, and as warm hearted and af
fectionate a girl as one could wish to
ineot. She was the wife of George
Gascoigne, a man upon whom the pow
ers that be looked with high favor, a
man who was climbing slowly but
.surely the great ladder of success.
Mrs. Chevenix but everyone in
Simla knows Mrs. Chevenix. She is
the woman upon whom everything
turns, and whom all men adore a won
derful, dark-haired beauty, a clever
abater on thin ice, envied and hated of
women.
Yet Kitty Gascoigne and Olive Che
venix had struck up a warm friend
ship, possibly because they were such
opposites, this woman who loved her
husband and the other whose flirta
tions no man could number.
"George used to be fond of me," con
tinued the little wife; "he was perfect
ly silly during our engagement and
whilst we were on our honeymoon,
but directly we got back to his station
lie became absorbed in his work and
veu during this holiday at Simla he
studies blue books and native reports
anything but me."
"A good and faithful Civil Service
eervant," sneered Mrs. Chevenix, "gen
erally makes an impossible husband,
dear."
"If I'm" just as good looking as I
was, why doesn't he love me as much?"
"Because, Kitty, you have the most
dangerous rival a woman can have
ambition."
"Ambition?" repeated the other.
"Yes, ambition. Don't you under
stand that you have married a man
whose one idea is to be successful?
George wants to write his name in big
letters over some Indian province. He
yearns to hold the reins of power and
drive his chariot right up to the win
ning post. lie loves you, my dear, but
jou are only an incident in his life."
"I won't be an incident," cried Kitty,
7k
A bi.be that is dying of want, mother,
As I am dying now,
With a ghastly look in its sunken eye,
And famine upon its brow.
What has poor Ireland done, mother
What has poor Ireland done.
That the world looks on, and sees us starve,
Perishing one by one?
Do the men of England care not, mother
The great men and the high,
For the suffering sons of Erin's isle,
Whether they live or die?
There is many a brave heart here, mother,
Dying of want and cold,
While across the channel, mother,
Are n any that roll in gold;
There are rich and proud men there,
mother,
With wondrous wealth to view.
And the bread they fling to the dogs to
night Would give life to me and you.
Come nearer to my side, mother,
Come nearer to my side,
And hold me fondly, as you held
My father when he died;
Ouick. for I cannot see you, mother,
My breath is almost gone;
Mother! dear mother! ere I die,
(Jive me three grains of corn.
the Great Men of the
Complete Undoing:.
Askew.
with flashing eyes. "He ought to think
of me before everything."
The elder woman lost her sneer. Sho
also in the years that the locusts had
eaten had loved and been miserable,
and she was sorry for little Kitty.
"There's only one force in the world
stronger than ambition," she replied,
slowly, "and .that's jealousy. Make
your husband jealous."
"I will do it," she said, aloud, with
quiet decision, "to be happy again is
certainly worth a lie."
George Gascoigne was writing let
ters. Not ordinary letters by any
means, but missives addressed to some
very big men indeed missives these
men would read with attention, and
ponder over.
"Success," muttered the man to him
self "success at last!" He heaved a
deep, long sigh, and stretched himself
ns one does who throws off a burden.
To-day had brought George Gascoigne
good tidings. He was no longer the
man striving ho was the man there.
Promotion? Yes, but something more
than promotion the ripest, reddest kiss
of Dame Fortune for George Gas
coigne had arrived.
"I must tell Kitty!" He smiled a
little as he rustled up his papers. "She
won't understand a bit what it means
to me." he thought, "but she will like
the title and, by Jove, won't she play
the great lady splendidly? Dear little
Kitty!"
"Kitty's been a brick, a real little
brick. She's never bothered round as
other women do and talked chiffons
whilst I was trying to rule men, or,
anyway, to understand them."
"George, I want to speak to you for a
moment. Can you spare me a few sec
onds?" Kitty stopped her husband as
he was about to leave the drawing
room that evening. Husband and wife
had been dining alone, and even George
Gascoigne noticed vaguely how smart
Kitty looked for their tete-a-tete din
ner. She had a vivid spot of color on
each cheek, and her eyes glistened.
"Yes. if you have anything very Im
portant to tell me, dear," he answered,
"but lam rather busy this evening."
"I wonder when you are not busy,"
she retorted bitterly. "Well, George, I
will be as brief as I can. I want to go
home to England. May I go?"
"My dear Kitty" (his astonishment
was obvious), "why on earth do you
want to go home? You feel well?"
with quick anxiety.
"Oh, dear, yes. I always feel well.
I want to go home because oh, be
cause," she added recklessly, after a
long pause, "you would not miss me,
and another man would."
"Another man!" he looked at her as
on? who does not hear aright.
She stood her ground, though she
would have given worlds to revoke the
it,,
4-.
"Yes, George, another man. I know
you are absolutely indifferent to me
but, well, he loves' "me."
"He who?"
"Ah, that I will never tell you." she
cried, playing her part finely and with
a certain amount of artistic skill, "his
name must be a dead letter. But we
have both been true to you in word
and deed, George."
"Also in thought, I suppose?" ho In
terrupted, with a low, mocking laugh.
"I always remembered I was your
wife, George."
"How you must have cursed your
good memory," his face had grown
livid. "When did you first begin this
Platonic game?" he added, sternly.
"I will not answer any more of these
questions," she said with a rush of
desperate courage. "That is my secret,
and his. You Jiavo only xpurself to
thank for the situation. When we
were first married I adored and almost
worshiped you. It is your cold neglect
that has killed my love, and only my
own self-respect that has kept me
straight. Do you think a wife is only
a toy, who can be kissed and petted
when she is new and put to one side as
soon as her novelty has worn off? If
so, you have made the biggest mistake
in your life. A woman once awakened
to love needs love, and she gets it by
fair means or foul."
She ended her speech by suddenly
bursting into a passion of tears, and
covering her face with trembling hands
ran out of the room.
George Gascoigne leaned back in his
chair.
"The biggest mistake in by life," he
muttered between his clenched teeth,
"the biggest mistake."
He put his hands up to his burning,
throbbing forehead, and wondered dim
ly why all the furniture in the room
seemed dancing around him. He be
came conscious of the roaring noise of
loud waters and it puzzled him whence
the sound came. Then for a few sec
onds George Gascoigne saw red. Only
for a moment, for suddenly with a
thundering roar and crash the man's
house of cards fell to the earth, and
with a bable of empty words and silly
laughter George Gascoigne joined the
ranks of the foolish, the men of no
understanding, merry phantoms of
their dead selves.
So the servants found the great white
sahib, the man who was to have ruled
a province, he who understood the
beating heart of the strange brown
land and the complex mind of its peo
ple. A man who laughed shrill at them
and made ugly mouths, keeping his
eyes fixed on the door, shaking a
trembling finger in their fearful faces,
babbling vaguely.
It was to see this man they sum
moned Kitty Kitty who, sitting In her
bedroom,- was beginning to wonder
when the handle would turn and her
husband enter, ready indeed to throw
up her part and confess her deception,
plead for forgiveness on her knees.
"George, George!"
A sharp, wild cry burst from her
when she entered the drawing room
and came face to face with the appall
ing thing who stood there laughing,
laughing, but she got no answer to her
agonized cry, no return to her frenzied
caress.
"George, my darling, my husband!
It was a lie; I never loved any one but
you! I only spoke as I did to make
you jealous to win your love back to
me!"
The wretched girl flung herself on
her knees before the man, pouring out
her confession. .
"Kitty, Kitty'"
He put his hand on her soft curls.
She caught and kissed his fingers hope
fully. "Ye3. darling, yes," she answered,
"tell your Kitty that you forgive her."
"It's a very funny thing, Kitty," he
replied in a slow, inane voice, pointing
to a dim corner in the drawing room,
"but the Viceroy is standing there bow
ing to me. But I don't quite remem
ber what I want to say to him, and I
know you are in a hurry to catch the
train to England, so shall we run away,
dear? Ha, ha!"
To the sound of his loud laughter
Kitty fainted dead away.
"I could have told you from the
first what would happen," a man re
marked a few months later to Mrs.
Chevenix. "No man alive could work
his brains as poor George Gascoigne
did without a breakdown. Talk of
high pressure and overwork why, the
Government ground the poor devil in
its mill, ground him to chaff and such
a man of men, too! WThere is the poor
chap now, by the way?"
"Kitty has taken him home,' replied
Mrs. Chevenix nervously she was al
ways nervous. on this subject. "They
have got a pretty little house at Ascot,
and she nurses and watches him with
most rare devotion, and the doctors
hope in time "
"That he'll recover to find his career
ended and his life work spoiled," an
swered the mart bitterly. "Better to
live on a merry fool."
The woman shuddered, for none
knew better than Olive Chevenix
whose hand was responsible for this
little Simla tragedy. New York Times.
The Marble Quarries.
At frequent intervals you see the old
disused Roman quarries disused prob
ably on account of the poor color of
the marble. As you climb higher, you
hear constant reports of blasting; at
first a deep "boom," followed by a
sound like the rattle of musketry, vast
ly multiplied by the echoes.
The first visible sign of the operation
is the sight of the masses tumbling
down the mountain side, thirty and
fifty ton blocks looking like peb
bles. The distances are enormous, but
the animated black specks one knows
to be men are clearly silhouetted
against the surrounding whiteness.
Something like a black ant suddenly
makes its appearance and blows a son
orous blast on a horn; other horns
numbers of them take up the warning
note, the sound gradually dying away
in the distance. Then more ants are
visible swarming to the shelter of a
bomb-proof or casemate. After the
last horn has ceased sounding not a
soul is to bo seen; then comes the
boom, the rattle and the falling peb
bles, and. presently the ants swarm
out again, apparently from all sides,
and proceed to drill more holes and
put in freeh blasts. The men must
love the sound of that horn, for it
means a ten minutes' loaf for them.
E. St. John Hart, in Pearson s.
Valuable Marbles Found.
The British Museum has lately come
into possession of some interesting and
valuable marbles which were found
buried in a "rockery" in an estate in
Essex. .One is an Inscription from a
monument erected in Athens in honor
of the volunteers from Cleone who
took part in the battle of Tanagra
against the Lacedemonian and Eus
boeans, 457 B. C. The inscription was
published in the Archaeologia of the
Society of Antiquaries in 1771. Stuart
is supposed to have picked up the in
scription in Greece when he was pre
paring that publication. He sent it
to Smyrna to be taken by ship to Eng
land. There it was lost. It seems,
however, that It w;as brought to Eng-.
land by a navy captain, who' gave it
to a friend, who, in turn, gave it to a
well-known antiquarian, Thomas
Astle.' It was on the latter's estates
that the fragments were found. They
had doubtless been thrown away by
some unappreciative descendant. In
the same estate, a few days later, a
fragment of the Parthenon frieze was
discovered. It is supposed that this
was brought to England at the same
time as the inscription. Thomas Astle
was once a trustee of the British Mu
seum. London News.
A Lesson in Economy.
Here is a lesson in economy. A rich
man died the other day. In his last
talk with his rather extravagant son,
he said:
"Son, let me tell you that it is good
to be able to die comfortably. It isn't
everything to be able to live comfort!
ably. Here am I passing away, ram
abli to have the most expect phys
icians and surgeons and the deftest
and most experienced nurses. They
have eased my path to eternity. I
would have experienced excruciating
tortures had I not been able to pay for
the finest scientific knowledge and ten
der care. Let it be a warning to you
live comfortably, but don't forget
that you must be able to die comfort
ably." New York Sun.
Novel Time Piece.
'A Geneva correspondent to a foreign
journal states that a number of manu
facturers in the Neufchatel canton
have taken to the manufacture of
clocks and watches on the decimal sys
tem. Chambers of commerce and other
trade organizations are also supporting
the change. The Cantonal Commercial
Chamber at Chaux-le-Fonds has issued
a notice calling for models, drawings
and designs for appliances and
"works" applicable to the decimal ad
justment of clocks and watches with
the least possible departure from
forms now in use. The decimal divi
slon of time has been advocated for
some years by writers in several
French scientific periodical.
RETURN OF THE FEMININE .CIRLi'
Back from a century's yesterday
The feminine girl, equipped anew. .
Slip.3 down from the shelf where late sb
" lay
And smiles at the world and at me and
you,
Claiming the welcome she knows her due,
She plants her banner on hill and shore;
We know by her ruffles' frou-frou
The feminine girl is awake once more.
i
The masculine maid has had her day
With her gown serene and her mannish;
shoe.
The frivolous frock resumes its 'sway
And high heels click on the avenue. V
' In daintiest garb she comes to sue
For the tickle favor she won of yore;
By the grace of ker dimples she'll dar
and do.
The feminine girl is awake once more.
She turns from the kiss of the sun away, '
Lest she blush too deep when his glances
woo.
The while her strenuous sisters play
On the windy links, she waits perdu
'Neath a shady tree, with a swain or two;
At a h?zard of hearts she'll nobly score
By the light that glimpses her lashe?
through.
The feminine girl is awake once more.
Give thanks, O man! and truthfullysay
Wouldn't you rather, ten times o er,
Be led by a ribbon than held at bay?
The feminine girl is awake once more.
Jennie Betts Hartswick, in Puck.
Miss Hope "What is the best way to
retain one's friends?" Mr. Sage
"Don't give 'em away." Kansas City;
Journal. t
"Miss Screecher's voice is not what
It's cracked up to be." "Nonsense; it
seems to be cracked up all right."
Baltimore Herald. ,
"I suppose his gout comes from high
living." "Shouldn't wonder. Their
flat's in the fourteenth story." Phila
delphia Bulletin.
Philosophic Murphy (after recover
ing from a twenty-foot fall) "Well, I
had to come down for nails, anyway."
Glasgow Times.
"They say Bascom was disappointed
In iove." "Yes." "Wonder why the
girl wouldn't marry him?" "She did.
Indianapolis Sun.
.While others still the Eastern girl
Do make their pride and toast,
But "Central" really is the one
We call upon the most. ' S
New York Times.
Stilphrco "Well, now that you're
married I suppose your wife expects
you to live up to your ideals." Tide
mann (sadly) "No, her ideals." Brook
lyn Life.
Friend "What is your new novel
about?" Novelist "Oh, I 'couldn't tell
you that. You see, the publishers are
going to offer a prize to any one who
discovers the plot." Judge.
"Did it hurt?" asked the dentist.
The patient looked at him reproach
fully. "Now, doctor," he said, "do I
look like a man who would yell just for
amusement?" Chicago Post.
He "What makes you smack your
lips in that peculiar manner?" She
"If you don't like the way I smack my
lips perhaps you had better smack
them yourself." Chicago News.
The life line in a woman's hand
Enables us to trace
Her destiny: likewise, when scanned,
The wrinkles in her face.
Philadelphia Record.
He "What a lovely fan you have,
Edith." She "Yes, my papa gave it to
me. It camefjom Paris and is hand
paintedJr "He "Indeed! And how:
ttWIy it matches your complexion!"
Pick-Me-Up. j
Spartacus "They tell me that some
royal dwellings are surrounded by
guards standing so close together as to
resemble a fence." Smartacus "A
sort of picket fence, I suppose; yet in
reality they are only palace aides."
Baltimore American. , -
OriRin of the Buuylp.
In the fifties, when the gold fever
was still high, a walrus came ashore
near an Australian town, the creature
was captured and sold to an enterpris
ing digger, who constructed a booth,,
put the walrus in It, and wrote over;
the concern in flaring letters, VThe
Bunyip has arrived." The show was
a great financial success, but the
change of environment did not suit the
spurious bunyip. In two or three!
days, in spite of a compulsory diet ofj
fresh fish, he diad, and the body was
sold to the curator of the local mu
seum. Mr. Stock suggests that this
unfortunate walrus may have been
stuffed and labelled "The Bunyip."'
Certainly the popular idea of the bun
yip has much in common with the wal-j
rus, and many legends have grown upj
from less likely, beginnings. The Aea-
Bemy. -' ' ' " " "
J