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Wie Lamp By ARTHUR STRINGER X W. N. U Service / -.1 THE STORT SO FAR Carol Coburn. Alaska-born daughter of • "bush rat" who died with an unestab- Bshed mining claim, returns North to teach Indian school. Aboard ship, she Is an- Boyed by Eric (the Red) Erlcson and Is rescued by Sidney Lander, young mining But I refused to stay put. There Was too much to be done. I didn't want to seem a slacker when every body was so busy. And in looking after the others I could pretty well forget the pain of my own flame blistered face. Where the rambling old school house had been was a stretch of •moldcring ashes with the skeleton like iron bed frames and a stove •r two standing there as melancholy as tombstones. And everything I •wned lay consumed in those ashes. All I had left were the few scorched clothes that hung about my tired bones. But I hadn't time to feel sorry for myself. A special train, I was told, was already on its way from Anchor age, to pick up our homeless school waifs and carry them on to the In dian orphanage at Fairbanks. From the pile of emergency clothing Katie commandeered for me an oversized pair of corduroy trousers, a patched plaid Mackinaw, and a caribou par ka that had seen better days. To *hese Doctor Ruddock (who'd given np his little wooden-fronted office as sleeping-quarters for Katie and me) added socks and pacs and an old bearskin cap that made me look like a lady-huzzar in a busby. "What are wo going to do?" I asked the ever-hurrying Doctor Rud dock when he dropped in, next day, to anoint my scorched epidermis with ambersine. "Toklutna's oil the map," he pro claimed. "Katie will stay on here, probably until the breakup, to look after the old folks." "Then where do I fit in?" I ques tioned with a sudden feeling of bomelessness. "You fit in very neatly," he said as he listened to my heart action. "I'd the Commissioner on the wire this morning and he agrees with me that this country owes you a berth. So you get the school job at Mata nuska." It took some time for this to sink in. "When?" I asked. "As soon as you get sense enough to take care of yourself," he said with a barricading sort of curtness. "I told you to rest up, after your fire shock, and you didn't do it. So roll up in that bunk and stay there until you get a release from me." He stopped in the doorway, with his dog-eared old medicine case in his hand, ns I none too willingly shook out the blankets of my floor bunk. "And there's a long-legged engi neer waiting outside to see you," he added as he watched me dutifully crawl into my bunk. "But ten min utes is his limit, remember." I had my second shock to digest. For the waiting visitor was Sidney Lander. lie stood very tall in that small ollicc-surgery. And my appearance must have startled him a little, since he stared down at me, for a full half-minute, without speaking. "Are you all right?" he finally asked. I had to laugh a little at his solemnity. "Just a little scorched around the edges," I said with an effort at levi ty. But my heart was beating a trifle faster than it should have been. "I flew over, as soon as I heard," he rather clumsily explained. He looked out the window and then back at me. "That was good work, sav ing those children." "But I lost my eyebrows," I re minded him. Lander walked to the window and I ack. "We've at least saved those citi zenship papers," he announced. I've Miown them to John Trumbull," he • xplaincd, "and Trumbull claims i ley're not backed up by the rec « rds. That led to an argument that tnded in a split-up. The Chakitana Development Company has lost its field engineer." "What are you going to do?" I asked. His laugh was curt. "I was tying up with the Happy Day outfit," he explained. "But Trumbull's just trumped my ace by buying up the Happy Day." "Does that mean you're going out side?" I asked, trying to make the question a casual one. "Not on your life," was his prompt reply. "We've got to wait until the records show who's right in this." "But that's my problem," I ob jected. "I happen to have made it mine," he retorted with an unexpected light of battle in his eyes. CHAPTER VII I began to understand the mean ing of what they call "the deep cold" before I set out for Matanus ka. For the snows of midwinter soon buried the ruins of our lost school. The storms along Alaska's one stretch of railway also brought slides and broken snowsheds enough to block the line and keep trains from moving for over a week. That cloud had the silver lining of giving me a chance to make over niy nondescript wardrobe, to which bi»" -hearted Katie added a sweater cf Scotch wool and a pair of wolf engineer. Lander, working for the Trum bull company, which Is fighting Coburn'i claim. Is engaged to Trumbull's daughter. Lander breaks with Trumbull. But the engagement to Barbara Trumbull stays. Christmas day, a fire breaks out at the INSTALLMENT VI skin gauntlets, a trifle over-sized. She was, I think, genuinely sorry to see me go So when traffic moved again and I mounted my day coach I found it crowded to the doors with leather faced old sourdoughs and cud-chew ing trappers and Mackinaw-clad log gers, along with a homesteader's wife who carried an undersized pig in a slatted crate. I wasn't sorry when the conduc tor, pushing his way through that overcrowded day coach, blinked down at my still heat-blistered face and said: "Next stop Matanuska, lady." "Could you tell me," I asked one of the men at the station, "where I'd find Mr. Bryson, Mr. Sam Bry son?" His face, when he peered up at me, impressed me as both sour and sardonic. "I'm Sam Bryson," he said. "The school superintendent for this district?" I persisted. "I be," he retorted, plainly re senting my incredulous stare. "And ain't it fit and proper, seein' I hap pen to own that doggoned school house over there?" I meekly acknowledged that it was. And with equal meekness I "Next stop Matanuska, lady." told him that I was the new teacher sent on from Toklutna. "But you wasn't to turn up here till Easter," he said testily. "We ain't got nothin* ready for you." I showed him the Territorial Com missioner's letter, which he held close to his seamed old face, his lips moving as he labored through the undisputable message therein contained. "Well, you should've got off at Wasilla," he complained, "where you could've found lodgin' until things was ready." "But I'm here," I said with a smile that was entirely forced. And as he pushed back his wolfskin cap and stood scratching an attenuated forelock I quietly inquired: "Just where is my school?" He studied me with a lack-luster eye. "You ain't got no school," he pro claimed. "But I was sent here to teach," I contended, trying to keep my tem per. "Sure you was sent here to teach," acknowledged the old-timer. "But it ain't our fault we wasn't rigged out with a noo schoolhouse this win ter. Gover'ment's so danged busy with a heap o' highfalutin' plans for this valley it ain't got time to look after our needs. Spends a half-mil lion on that noo Injin school at Ju neau and lets us hillbillies scramble for our book-larnin' as best we can!" "Then what am I to do?" I asked, feeling more interested in my own immediate future than in the mis takes of governmental expenditure. "I guess you'll just have to siwash it," he said, "the same as us old timers did when we hit this valley." "Just how will I siwash it?" I demanded. "By froggin' through as best you can, the same as our circuit-ridin' sky-pilot does, without a meetin'- place. We was flggerin' on you cir culatin' round the valley homesteads andladlin'out the book-larnin' where it was most needed. Instead o' them comin' to you, you'll have to go to them." "Why can't that old schoolhouse be used?" "She needs a noo roof and noo floor sills." was the listless answer. "And I'm danged if I'm goin' to dig down for 'em." "Are you trying to tell me," I quavered, "that I'll have to go from farm to farm, like a mail carrier, and give my lessons in a kitchen?" "You've guessed it," he wearily acceded. "Only you'll be plumb lucky to be stretchin' your legs out in a warm kitchen I've got a girl ove" home right now, rarin' to git THE DANBURY REPORTER, THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1941 ■chool when the children are playing rotuu) I the Christmas tree. The school burns down. Carol proves the heroine, saving the chil e dren. The doctor orders her to bed. The Are left Carol without clothes and i without definite plans. polished up a spell on her readin' » and writin'. And if you ain't willin' to do your teachin' on the wing that- I away, until this valley gits a real t schoolhouse rastled together, I guess, lady, you're mushin' up the • wrong trail." There was no mistaking the flnali i ty of that statement. ' "But where am I to live?" I asked as I stared at the snow that stood so white between the gloomy green of the sprucelands. "We was figgerin'," he explained, "on settin' you up in the old Jansen shack. That's just over the hill there behind that tangle o' spruce. But you'd sure have some tidyin' up to do afore you got set there." He looked with a frown of disapproval at my sprawl of luggage. " 'Bout the best thing for you to do, lady, is to leg it over to the Eckstrom farm and see if they'd take you in for a day or two." I had, however, no desire to go wandering about that snowy world asking strangers to take me in. I wanted my own roof over my head. And I so informed the morose Mr. Bryson. Just then I became conscious of a strange figure making its way down the opposing hillside. It was a man carrying the carcass of a deer, a ragged and shambling man with a rifle and a tined head above his stooping shoulders. It was Sock-Eye Schlupp. "I'll be hornswizzled if it ain't Klondike Coburn's gal," he said. "What're you doin' back in these parts?" I told him why I was there. "Where you goin' to bunk?" he demanded. "They tell me I'm to live in the Jansen shack," I explained. "They're plumb locoed," said Sock-Eye. "You sure can't den up in that pigsty." "I'm north born," I reminded him. "Mebbe you are," he retorted. "But this is a plumb lonesome val ley for a chalk-wrangler t' take root in. I reckon you'd better come along t' my wickyup until things is ready for you." That, I told him, would be out of the question. "I s'pose you knowyoung Lander's swingin' in with me?" he said with the air of an angler adjusting a gaudier fly. That, I knew, made it more than ever impossible. "And if that Jan sen shack's not ready, I'll have to make it ready." "Quite a fighter, ain't you?" he observed. After a moment's silence, he add ed: "I'll give you a hand over t' that lordly abode o' yours." He left me standing there, to re turn, a few minutes later, with a hand sleigh borrowed from the sta tion agent. On this, with altogether unexpected dispatch, he piled my belongings. Over them he draped the deer carcass, thonging the load together with a strand of buckskin. "Let's mush," he said. I took a hand at the towing line, and, side by side, we made our way along the trodden snow, as crisp as charcoal under our feet. The valley seemed strangely silent. But I felt less alone in the world with that morose old figure beside me. "Why is Lander swinging in with you?" I asked. "Seein' this valley ain't bristlin' with hotels," answered Sock-Eye, "he deemed my wickyup good enough for a college dood until they could build him up-to-date livin* quarters at the Happy Day." "But I theught outsiders bought up the Happy Day," I ventured. Sock-Eye stopped to gnaw a cor ner from his chewing plug. "They sure did," he admitted. "And left young Lander out on the limb. But, as far as I kin make out, that hombre ain't no squealer. And I reckon Big John Trumbull'll find him as full o' fight as a bunch o' matin' copperheads." We went on until we came to a solitary small figure standing knee deep in the roadside snow. It proved to be a Swede boy in an incredibly ragged Mackinaw, with a blue woolen scarf wrapped around his waist as high as his armpits. His eyes, I noticed as Sock-Eye asked him about a short cut to the Jan sen shack, were even bluer than his encircling sash. "But ol* Yansen ban dead," he announced. "He ban dead of the flu over three months ago." | "Which same makes room for you, little cheeckako," snorted my grim eyed trail breaker. But I stopped to ask the sash i wrapped youth his name. I liked the feeling of warmth he carried under that cocoon of wool and rags. "Ah ban Olie Eckstrom," he said i with the friendliest of smiles. It wasn't until we came to the edge of a clearing that Sock-Eye stopped for breath, i "There be your wickyup," said ! Sock-Eye, with a wave of his mit- I tened hand. I (TO BE CONTINUED) Government to Encourage Greater Food Production | vjm Prepare for Increased Aid to Democracies; Newspaper Men From Small Town 'Make Good' in Washington. By BAUKHAGE National Farm and Home Hour Commentator. WNU Service, 1343 'H* Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON.—Before long the government will take steps to give the American farmer an incentive for raising more animals and in creasing the egg and milk output for this arsenal of democracy, it can be safely predicted at this time. Fur thermore, with the incentive will un doubtedly go some type of guaran tee, as in the case of the manufac turer, that the farmer will be pro tected at least from possible loss in such undertakings. At most, he might even be guaranteed a profit. Here is the background of the situ ation, details of which government officials are not ready as yet to make public: Food is as much a munition of war as guns. The United States in pledging its aid to democracies is starting to send food supplies to them. Important Food-Weapons. One of these food-weapons is wheat. We have plenty of that grain. The department of agriculture esti mates that at present there are more than 525,000,000 bushels in ex cess of domestic needs. Another food weapon, and a vital one for fighting men, is the proteins —meat, milk, milk products, poultry and eggs. Rationing of these prod ucts is becoming severe in England. American agriculture does not have surpluses of these things. But farms are the factories where they can be produced, and we do have surpluses of one of the chief raw materials for the process, namely, corn. Pres ent estimates indicate that the corn surplus will reach 700,000,000 bush els by October 1. How many more cows, pigs and chickens do we need in order to be able to feed ourselves as well as the fighting democracies? That is a hard question to answer. The department of agriculture calls it an "imponder able." It also admits that if every body in this country right now were getting a square meal we would not have enough of the protein foods to go around. Hence, the plans-in-the-making to encourage American farms to "manufacture" proteins in the in terest of national defense. • • • Rural Newspaper Men 'Make Good' in Washington Two small town boys, both trained on weekly newspapers, have made good in the radio world in Washing ton and neither of them can get the country out of his blood and is proud of it. One is a lanky, red-haired Hoosier, Robert M. Menaugh, and the other, scholarly looking D. Harold Mc- Grath, who grew up in the Cripple Creek mining district in Colorado. They are the superintendents, re spectively, of the new house and senate radio galleries. "My favorite newspaper," says Bob, "is the oldest in Indiana and the one I used to work on. It's the Salem Democrat." McGrath, who has owned two weekly newspapers, says: "I have made seven auto trips from coast to coast in the last seven years and I noticed that the weekly newspaper is on a much more solid basis than it was when I was a publisher 25 years ago. I still think the weekly is the best read news publication in America." Bob is the veteran of the two in radio because it was the house of representatives which first recog nized that radio men needed the same facilities that the members of the long-established press gallery have if they are properly to cover the doings of congress. So in May of 1939 the lower chamber appropri ated money for a superintendent and an assistant and amended its rules so that radio newsmen had their own little corner—a pew railed off from the visitors' gallery right next to the newspaper men's seats above the speaker's rostrum. Senate Follows Suit. The senate, being a more ponder ous body, followed suit some months later. When the question came up to the speaker of the house as to who would be his choice for the superin tendent on his side of the Capitol, there wasn't any question about Bob Menaugh's qualifications. He has been a well-known figure around the Capitol ever since he came to Wash | Farm and Homilies ... By Baukhage The cotton and steel shortage in Britain is threatening morale. A shortage of corsets—made of cotton l and steel—is expected. A woman doctor has come out with the sugges tion that a roller towel can be used as "ersatz." But a male doctor pro tests. He says the battle lines are not the only ones that must be se curely held if the nation's morale is to be preserved. ington with Representative Crowe from his own Indiana district. Although his family roots go clear back to the beginning of Salem, Ind., history, there is an ancient tale which makes him a little uncertain as to who he really is. It seems that four generations ago two little boys were stolen from two different families, the Menaughs and Hins leys, by the Indians. One was four and one was five. Later, a trapper reported that he had heard that one of the boys, he didn't know which, had died. Still later, the other boy returned to the village. But which boy? Six years has passed. The little fellow had an Indian name and he had forgotten his own. Both fam ilies claimed him and finally a pub lic trial was held and he was award ed to the Menaughs. Bob is a great grandson of that boy. High School Start. Bob started newspaper work in high school, buying an old press and setting the type himself. Later he worked on the Salem Democrat, the oldest newspaper in Indiana. He says that his greatest thrill came in speaking on the first national broad cast celebrating the opening of the radio gallery on June 26, 1939, an honor shared by your correspondent. McGrath, head of the senate side started work in 1910 at the age of 16 as a reporter, succeeding Lowell Thomas on the Victor (Colo.) Rec ord. The Record was a four-sheet daily and McGrath was to have other reportorial training in Boise and Wallace, Idaho, before he got the urge to own a weekly. He paid a hundred dollars down and fifty dollars a month for the Kellogg (Idaho) Record. Equip ment, one job press, one Cotrell flat bed newspaper press and lots of hand type. "Mrs. McGrath and I," he says, "learned to peg type and with the help of one printer got out the paper until I joined the army in 1918." After the war he secured the Je rome County (Idaho) Times which he ran until he sold out in 1922. He came to Washington with Senator Schwellenbach of Washington and was with him until he took over the gallery job. • « » Minority Party in U. S. Is Still Important I walked along the corridor of the Capitol building, turned down a nar row hall, got into a still narrower elevator and went up to the second floor. Opposite the elevator door is the office of a small town editor. The office was not a newspaper office and the editor was not editing nt the moment—he has to do that by remote control most of the time nowadays for his newspaper is lo cated in North Attleboro, Mass. He is Joe Martin, minority leader of the house of representatives and be ginning his second term as chair man of the Republican national com mittee. The subject of our conversation had to do with what a minority party does when a national emergency ex ists and partisan politics is supposed to be forgotten. Chairman Martin told me the Republican party has plenty to do. "The Republican party has two big jobs ahead of it today," this Scotch-Irish Yankee said. "The first job is to keep congress from getting ahead of the people." I asked him just what he meant. "I've been out in the country," he answered, "and I know the people don't want us here in Washington to do anything that will get the na tion into war. If it weren't for con tinual unspectacular work on the part of the minority, especially in committees, the country would be in far worse shape then it is today." But a still bigger task lies ahead, Joe Martin told me. "Our second job," he said, "is to prepare for the situation when the chaos of the World war which has produced the present emergency is over. Then it will be the responsi bility of the Republican party to get back the democratic processes which are being sacrificed today by the emergency grants of power to the executive." Of course, Chairman Martin be lieves the country will turn to the Republicans then, as what he calls a stabilizing force. Meanwhile, he says they must continue to police the majority party policies. Probably before this reaches the public the entire administration of the defense program will be changed. The Office of Production Management whose official birth was celebrated with so much fanfare as the organization which was to run the whole defense program, is now about to become just one of half a dozen departments of the new set-up. I OTfstS> p Transfer No. Z9272 A CARDINAL, robin and barn swallow join with the red-, wing, chickadee, meadow lark,] bluebird and indigo bunting in ( bringing color to your lawn or gar-, den. They come in natural size i on this transfer, ready to be traced; to plywood, wallboard or thin lum-, ber. Cut them from the wood with] jig, coping or keyhole saw and) paint according to suggestions on, the pattern. Then place them in; trees or on bushes to brighten the 1 out-of-doors. • * • General cutout directions are on transfer. Z9272, 15 cents. Send order to: AUNT MARTHA Box 166-W Kansas City, Mo. Enclose IS cents (or each pattern desired. Pattern No Name j Address ! l Music Around the Clock In the state of Bikaner, India, all music is grouped into morning,j afternoon and night pieces and it' is against the law to play a com-] position outside of its "hours.". Thus, for instance, a person wish-, ing to play or hear a night piece at one in the morning has to wait| until the next night, which begins' at four the following afternoon, j 7ri*msTiX\ due to Constipation/ Dr. Hitchcock's All-Vegetable Laxative Powder an Intestinal tonic-laxative —actually tones lazy bowel muscles. It helps relievo that sluggish feeling. 15 doses for only 10 cents. Large family size 25 cents. At all druggists. Contagious Example Nothing is so contagious as ex ample; and we never do any great, good or great evil which does not] produce its like. We imitate good actions from emulation, and bad' ones from the depravity of our' nature, which shame would keep prisoner, and example sets at lib-' erty.—La Rochefoucauld. II RHEUMATIC PAIN EgkC-2223 I™? 6m AT DRUGGIST We Can EXPERT BUYERS 9 In bringing us buying Information, as 10 prices that or# being aiked for what we Intend to buy, and at to the quality we can expect, the advertising columns of this newspaper perform a worth whllo service which saves us many dollars a year. • It Is a good habit to form, the habit of consulting the advertisements every time we make a purchase, though w« have already decided |ust what we want and where we are going to buy It. It gives us the most priceless feeling In the worldi the feeling of being adequately prepared. • When we go Into a store, prepared beforehand with knowledge of what is offered and at what price, we go at an expert buyer, filled with self-conD dence. It Is a pleasant feeling to have, the feeling of adequacy. Most of the unhapplness In the world can be traced to a lack of this feeling. Thus adver tising shows another of Its manifold facets —shows Itself as ao aid toward making all our business relationship* more secure and pleasant. liiiiiiimniiti
The Danbury Reporter (Danbury, N.C.)
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April 10, 1941, edition 1
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