Newspapers / The Roanoke Beacon and … / Dec. 11, 1903, edition 1 / Page 1
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1L r Y 1 'iW ii ra i !i i i i i i v, j i ivn fcj :mjc i ji tin i K'l 1 . LH ilS fi fci ! - - , . : , , - irrza Si.oo a Year, in Advance. " FOR GOP, FOR COUNTRY, AND FOR TRUTM." Single Copy, 5 CeotA. VoL. XIV, 'PLYMOUTH, N. C, FRIDAY, DECEMBER It, 1903. NO. 38. r y THE KNIGHT OF The mm ro1!ed up from an east of red, The world; was fresh and' fair, "When summoned loud from his truckle-bod The Knight of the Golden Hair. Thf y garbed hira stout in his doublet worn. They laced his scarlet shoon, 'And forth he strode in the dimpling morn. His trencher he scraped in minutes ten (Twas a bowl of mush, I wis, But faith and forsooth, the best of men Ifave flourished on fare like this). Than away, away, for be could rot stay; Good-by to the breakfast-board; thousand ventures, abroad by any. Were waiting his knightly sword. " Edwin BOB PEEPLES' WHISTLING CA Dy ALFRED J. W'XXinrmOB PEEBLES, a long. lank 11 Westerner, "was sitting in If L3 11H l)aicota borne watching 54? jrjf cat that was struggling &&fcfcStl back to conscious life, Peebles having chloroformed her to gain a private end that he had in view. -Aa the cat finally opened her eyes she looked at Bob inquiringly, as if she would ask: "What is the matter, with me? I feel quee The man, too. looked inquiringly at the brute, a3 if he would say: "Well, have you any re marks to make? I am listening." The" cat was not feeling well. She Ktill was dizzy from the effects of the drug, her head ached, and there was a peculiar feeling of fulness in her throat.. So she looked at Bob Peebles and gave vent to her emotion in a vocal no tee. The animal was somewhat disap pointed and more surprised at the re sult of her effort. She had intended to impress her feelings in a long-drawn meow, which would tend both to main tain her established reputation as a songster and to unsettle and agonize tho people of the neighborhood. In rtead, the sound she made was a pro traded and peculiar whistle. Her f ?el jpys were hurt, ami she sat up to think about, the matter. Had the execrable man deprived her of her gifts as a vo calist She looked at Peebles reproach fully and beseechingly, and then tried her voice again. Despair seized her; a :whlstle was the only result. But if the cat was made unhappy by this nurpising exercise of her vocal or gans. Bob Peebles was not. As he lis tened to the shrill warble he seemed fairly abandoned to bliss. lie laughed, he threw his. arms wildly in the air, he got up md walked the room, laughing all the time. "All right!" he said. "That's all right! You may not b? much of a songster, my beauty, but I guess you'll To. Hereafter you'll necessarily live en milk, but I'll live on the fat of the land, or I'm no prophet." "The- cat wildly clawed at her throat and whistled in response, and, in h's happiness. Bob Peebles stooped and stroked her. It did not take long for the people of Firesteel to learn that Mr. Peebles had ' a whistling cat. The quadruped her self served as an advertising agent of the fact With her change of voice had come no corresponding change of her ft line nature, and naturally she still felt an inclination to join in mid- ; night concerts, and did so. At first she 'showed some disposition to fall off fences or housetops irr her surprise at -.the sound she emitted when she had Intended to make a remark in choicest cat language, but gradually she ap peared to come to the conclusion that it perhaps was a. bad cohl that ailed her, and she lot it go at that. Still, it was noticeable that she yet clawed at her nSck at odd times in an unsatisfied and inquiring was'. . 0a fke morning after the first feline concert In which Peebles' cat joined, Tom Bowker met Bill Collins and said to him: 'Say, did you hear that queer noise minghV in the strains of the cat or chestra last night sort of a cross be tween the croak of a frog a.nd the squawk of a bluejay." "Ye?, I heerd it," Bill responded, "but it seemed to be more like a combination of the wr.rble of a canary an' the dyln gasp of a locomotive." This brief conversation gives a fair Idea of the altitude of the populace to ward this nightly phenomenon, but as the people learned that Bob Peebles ac- : tnally had a whistling cat, surprise merged in quiet and persistent curiosity ' and a constant stream of sightseers haunted his dwelling. I But, although Mr. Peebles' whistling cat was a recognized popular 'success THE GOLDEN HAIR. lie vanquished many a wily foe, And hacked him limb from limb Ah, tiger and lion he laid full low In the depths of the woodshed grim. In, all the waste of the yard was naught He did not bravely dare; .Dragonsi and giants and troll he sought, This Knight of the Golden Hair. At last, when the west with pink was soft, And the sun rode high no more, Ho caotive fell to a spell he oft Had battled in vain before. Assailed by a host of drowsy charms lie yielded ta maie deep. And locked secure in his mother's arms Was seized by the wizard Sleep! L. Sabin, in Woman's Home Companion, WATERH0U5C. ! he himself did not appear lo be cntire j ly satisfied with her efforts. He sat in j the sunshine by his house one day and watched the cat as she washed herself after the manner of her species. As he watched, he thought, and at last his thoughts were expressed in a mono logue. "You do well enough for an ama teur," he saidt addressing the cat, "but I don't believe you'd be worth a whoop as a professional. Now, if you could whistle some notes not necessarily a tune, but enough notes to make a pleasin variety." Bob Peebles stopped talking. After a moment of reflection he arose, went over to the cat, and, on his index finger, took some measurements of her throat. "I b'lieve," he said, "that by using a longer tube I could get room for 'bout three or four notes." Then he took the cat upon his arm, and with a frown of reflection upon his brow went.into the house. Three days later a wave of excite ment overran Fircsteel at a report brought in by Sile Stewart. "A mob of cats," he said, "started up a concert outside of my window last night, an' I was preparin to applaud them with a stovekook when I noticed some peculiar sounds, an' there stood that cat of Bob Peebles', an', b'gosh, gents, you kin b'lieve me er not, the blame critter was whistlin' a tune. Yes, sir; 'twas short, but 'twas a tune. I didn't exactly remember the name of the tune, but 'twas one all right." Thereupon all Firestcel adjourned to Bob Peebles' house to satisfy itself and was convinced. At this juncture of affairs Mr. Pee bles became unwontedly energetic. First of all he constructed a house-like structure on his wagon. Then, turning artist, he painted on its sides in great, nivaggling letters: . : THE CELEBRATED CAT : : PHENOMENON. : : IT ACTUALLY WHISTLES. : : Tho Itemarkable and Only : : ' Feline That Does. : : Admission. 25 Cents. : : ItOBEllT PEEBLES, Prop. : Then Peebles went on the road as a showman, tho whistling cat being the show. The exhibition was a notable success. Money came fast to the pro prietor, and it was a poor afternoon and evening when it did not take in $40 or ?")0. The doctors made some trouble for him in the towns where he exhibited the cat by urging that he permit them to examine her vocal or gans, but he insisted that they might dislocate its whistling apparatus by their researches, and so managed to hold them o!T. Thereupon the doctors talked, and so some suspicion was cast on his show. However, the people still paid their money to see the cat, and so Bob was satisfied. He was in the very heydey of his prosperity when he returned to Fire steel, where the cat had begun to whis tle. He housed the animal in his little dwelling and then sallied forth to meet the .inhabitants in his new role of a conquering hero. He' rather overdid the part, and this it was that led to his downfall, for, although his old neighbors did not object to his prosper ity, they did object to his throwing it in their faces. One evening he was sitting in Or mund's place of business, and, as usual, was talking about his remarka ble cat and its still more remarkable owner. After a while Doc Lee, Tom Bowker and Bill Collins got up and went out, one at a time, but as eight or ten of the boys were left he paid no attention to that and Just kept on brag ging. It- irtut have Tieen an hour r. two before they returned and sa? down, looking rather mysterious, but Bob did not mind them; he went right along with what he was saying: "I tell you, gents, when that Tank ton audience of 3000 people came to look at- the cat " "Oh, blame the cat!" Tom Bowker said that, and Bo? looked at him reproachfully before he continued: "As-1 was saying, when rudely inter rupted, gents, the cat " "I'm sick of your dratted cat. It doesn't amount to a whoop, anyway." The boys, except Doc Lee ami Bill Collins, didn't know what Tom meant by these interruptions, but they were middling sick of the cat themselves, and so they welcomed them. Bob could soe on their faces how they felt, and h' recognized . that the time had come for him to defend his source of income, so he said: "That's the most remarkable cat " "It's nothin' of the kind." "It's the only cat ever known that whistles instead of yowling; positively the only feline that warbles like a can ary an' chirps like a silver-throated nigh tin " "The deuce it is! I've got a plain, or dinary yaller cat of no special peder gree, an' that never was advertised at all, that kin whistle all 'round your cat an' not half try." "You you what's that you say?" "I've got a cat that I've been tryin' to give away that kin whistle better than yours kin." "How much money you got that says so?" "Well, I've got a hundred or two." "I'll bet you a thousand that your cat can't whistle in the same day with mine," Bob didn't expect the proposition would be taken, but that amount just sized up the pile that Tom had brought with him for the emergency, so he said "Done," and the money was put up. Peebles would have been very well satisfied to have had that end the mat ter, but it didn't, for Doc and Bill then offered to bet five hundred each, and he, hoping that he had a sure thing, and knowing that he must main tain the reputation of his cat anyway, took the bets. Some of the other boys, too, got an idea or so, and within ten minutes Bob had put up $2900,' which was pretty near the total of his avail able capital. Then Tom went out and got his cat, which looked as if it had lost eight of its nine lives and was considering the advisability of letting the other go, and the crowd immediately adjourned to Bob Teeble's house to decide the matter. Bob set his cat in one corner, and Tom placed his in another, and they drew cuts to see which should stir his felino up first, that being the manner in which Bob had been accustomed to make his pussy whistle. Well. Tom had to take the first try, and when he punched his cat it let out a whistle that would have stood for successful competition with a locomotive.- Bob's face showed that he was sur prised and middling anxious, but he put on a bold front and gave his cele brated cat a punch to remen. ber. She let loose a genuine cat-yowl that was a success in its way, but nobody could have mistaken it for a whistle. The loo... on Bob's face when his cat did that . was something saddening to remember, and the animal herself looked both surprised and disappointed, for she had been accustomed to the adulation of the masses, and she real ized that her effort had not been crowned with success. She tried again, and it seemed almost as if she would shed tears when she heard the result. After tho faithful creature's second attempt Bob Peebles acted as if he were almost dazed by grief. He looked at Tom Bowker's cat and tLen at his own; then he looked at the crowd in a dispirited way, gulped, and said: "Take the money, gents; it's yours. But after you've got it would would you have any objections to my to my looking in your cat's throat?" k "None at all," says Tom Bowker, reaching for the money in the stake holder's hand, "but you'll have to allow that it's settled, and " Just then something curious hap pened . to Bowker's cat. It gulped, gasped, threw itself on its back, and clawed the air madly. At first the boys thought the creature was going Into a fit, but after a little it straight ened up and appeared to be all right. They had to chloroform the animal to let Bob Peebles look into its throat, but this was soon done, as he hap pened to have some of the drug on hand, and after he had taken a long look he sighed and said: . "It's all right, an' the game's on me, but I don't see yet how the blame crit ter did it." Outside of the house, later, Tom Bowker and Bill Collins held an ani mated conversation. - "I told you," said the latter, "that their throat? ought to be of the same size." "Well, it's all right, ain't it?" the for mer responded. "He didn't swallow it till after he'd whistled the money into our hands." "He might," Collins replied, but he Was feeling too jubilant to argue the case just then, and so the matter was dropped. Bob Peebles never recovered his grip, and his unique position in the world of business was permanently lost. Ho still hangs about tho old town,, but he is a broken and disappointed man. His cat died. The recover of its voice gradually wore on his nerves, and it soon passed away, the victim of a pop. ularity that waned. New York Times. JOURNALISM AS A CAREER; View of Whitelaw Held, Editor of the Xew York Tribune. There has never been a time, I think, in the history of colleges iri this coun try, said Whitelaw Reid in an address before the students of the Stanford University, when so many of their students were looking toward the pos sibility of a newspaper career. There is a feeling on the one hand that the professions are overcrowded: aud on the other, that the newer fields to which applied science and business beckon offer at the outset slower ad vances and less attractive experiences. The idea of being brought into con tact with all forms of public life, of seeing great transactions and watch ing the actors in them, of writing from day to day the history of a marvelous age all this naturally fascinates the ardent and aspiring mind. It is true, too, that the joung man of good qualifications gets quicker re turns in newspaper work than else where. If he studies law, three or four years or more must be taken out of his life after his graduation before he can enter upon his vocation; and then he has the cheerful prospect of starvation for as many more before clients begin to find him out. A similar delay confronts tho medi cal student, and patients often display a like backwardness about coming for ward to the young doctor's office. But the college graduate who once gets a chance assignment on a busy day, in a city editor's book, may find himself with as many more as he cares for within a fortnight, and may presently secure a modest salary that with health and industry at once puts him beyond want. Then there arc fascinations in the sense of influence, in the power to reach the public attention or shape public opinion, even in the facility for coming in contact with important men and getting somewhat behind the scenes in transactions that interest the whole community. The notion is spreading, too, that a newspaper is beginning here, as long since in France, to take the old place of the lawyer's office as a path to en try on public service. The very name by which (for want of a better) foreign newspaper writers have taken to designating themselves, "Publicists,". seems to many to hint 'at a more at tractive pursuit than defending a rogue or prescribing pills and potions. English Synonyms. There arc no actual synonyms in our language. No two words mean exact ly the same, not even words which have come into the English from other languages, and which in their original forms mean the same thing. The word sympathy, which we get from the Greek, and the word compassion, which we have from the Latin, are exactly parallel. Both mean, by de rivation, "fellow-feeling." In the Eng lish, however, a distinction has grown up. We may feel sympathy with either joy or sorrow, but be feel compas sion for pain or grief. These gradations and variations in words are what give the speaker his opportunity. It is because of them that the habit of using' slang or often- repeated phrases weakens tbe expres siveness of our words. The right or the wrong use of a word makes a sen tence elegant or stupid. The school girl says that a girl, a book, a pud ding, the play, or the weather is "love ly," and the word stamps her as silly when the use of the right adjectives would indicate that she had at least some sense. The Household. When women form' a mutual admi ration society it is seldom muta. f HE MAN WHO TRIED TO PLEASE. Once on lime there was a wan isruo acre? Trade mistakes, And all the people stared at aim and sak& "For pjty sakes. It must be very nice to find oae'a life a grand sweet song; 'To be so very proper that yoa ner caa go wrong. But soon he grew so lonely that he knew not what to do, For conversation always ceased when b came into view: His most surpassing qualities each praised with all his heart; But each seemed quite relieved when lie was ready to depart. So he bought himself a parrot the project caused him pain, And studiously set to work and learned a word profane; And still he wasn't happy, for the gossip raised a fuss. And said, "Ain't he deqeitful! Why, fcc'i human, just like us." Washington Star, j No one should ever judge that mao by the company he keeps." "Why?' "He's the warden of our JaiLM Xroy Budget. She "Which do you prefer, a blonde or a brunette?" He "Both! a blond girl and a brunette veranda." Indian apolis Sun. f.Vhen invited to weddings? We oft contract debts By sending our presents Instead of regrets. Philadelphia Rceord. "What kind of lead pencil is best for writing a love letter?" asked the Wash ing maiden. "Soft," replied the prac tical man, with a laugh. Chieago News. Mrs. K nicker "Is Mrs. Amos a weJI informed woman?" Mrs. Bocker "Yes, indeed; her cook has lived with all the other families in the neigh borhood." New Yorker. "We had planned an ideal life; lo?e in a cottage and all that, you know." "Well, why did you not carry it out?" "The man who owned the cottage in sisted on rent in advance." Houston Tost. ' Maud "You can't make me believe an opal is an unluckj sione. 1 was wearing one when I first met Henry." Irene "It certainly brought good luck to you. What was Henry wearing?" Chicago Tribuue. She "They don't seem happy to gether. He once told me tuat bis ,wife was the light of his life." He "Ah but the light was alwas going out." She (catching the idea) "And leaving him entirely in the dark." Puucb, Young Short was only five feet two, ' His girl was six fect one, And, though they oft would bill and coo, No kissing e'er was done. The parting he would ne'er prolong But hastily wouid say: "So long!" . .f hi'.adeiphia Record. Embryo Artist "What do you think of that for a painting? You wouldn't believe that is the first thing I ever completed, would you?" Careful Crit ic"! might think so, but wouldn't say so for anything. 'Boston Tran script. "Our minister gave voice ta some great thoughts in his talk this morn ing," said the good de com "Yes," replied the village librarian, "thoughts, in fact, that have been thought by some of our greatest thinkers."-Chicago News. 'I should think you would be ambi tious for political distinction." "No," answered Mr. Cumrox,"I don't care for it. My daughter has studied paint ing and her picture of me are fnnny enough without calling the aid of any professional cartoon lscM Wash ington Star. Mrs. Patty- "Do you rea:iy think Dr. Duckman is a skilful, physician? Mrs. Giblin (the .patient) "I xion't know bo much about that. Bat b- has such n disquieting way with him! When I said I hoped I shouldn't be buried alive, he saiu he'd look out for that. Wasn't that thougbtfm of hiuir Boston Transcript. ... , Graceful A cqn iecraee The esteemed Washington Post, after comparing the various pronunciations of the word chauffeur, recommends "show-furr." Let it go at that Chi cago Tribune. . Flowart That Can li XtMI1et. There are only two Cowers that will withstand dlsUllatton-the rose and th range Cower. - 44
The Roanoke Beacon and Washington County News (Plymouth, N.C.)
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Dec. 11, 1903, edition 1
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