Newspapers / The Roanoke Beacon and … / Sept. 3, 1909, edition 1 / Page 3
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V r A- IN A FRIENDLY SORT OF WAY. (When a man ain't got a cent, and he'a feeling kind o' blue, An the clouds hang dark an' heavy, an' won't let the sunshine through. It s a grea thing, oh, my brethren, for a feller just to lay His hand upon your shoulder in a friendly sort o' way! It makes a man feel curious; it makes the teardrops stnrt, An' you sort o' feel a flutter in the iegion of your heart. You can't look up and meet his eyes; you don't know what to When his hand is on your shouldci in a friendly sort o' way. Oh, the world's a curious compound, with its honei- and its gall, .With its enres and bitter crosses, hut a good world nicer all. , An' a good (Jod must have made it leastways that is what I say, When a hand ia ou my shoulder in a friendly sort o way. .Tames Whitcomb Riley. O oooooooocoooooocooccoococococoococnccoocoooccsccccQco 8 o o r a 8 Just an Iron Mod By C. A. STEPHENS. ooo OOOCOOC0O0C0O0O0O0OCCOC0O0O000OCO3CCC2w-CCOC0CCOOO 8 When tidings reached us that In i the great conflagration of last August Fernle and other, new towns of the Crow's Nest Pass region in British Columbia had been destroyed, my first thought was of an old school mate, named Murray Bartlett, who went West from Maine two years agd to embark in the lumber business in that vicinity. According to the reports first tele graphed, hundreds, if not thousands, of the people about Fernle had per ished; and for some time we feared that Murray and his young wife, whom we had also known well, were among the victims of the fire. I rejoiced, therefore, when twelve days later a letter came, written by Murray himself. "We are still alive," so his letter opens, "but it was touch and go with tis one day. I had seen forest fires before, but we never had anything like this in Maine. I could give you no idea of it if I tried the heat, I mean, and the great waves of flame that rolled through the sky! "Just one little thing saved our lives and the lives of eight others who took refuge in our house just one little iron rod. "That will sound so queer to you that I shall have to explain it. "Our house is on the Elk River, about five miles out of Fernie. I built It myself. It was just a shack of squared logs, thirty-two by twenty, with a shingle roof good enough in a new country for Elsie and myself. "I had trouble about getting a well there on account of ledges. For over a year I used to bring all the water we used in buckets from the river. The Elk River comes down a great valley between the mountains west of the Crow's Nest Pass and empties into the Kootenay, which is a large tributary of the Columbia. "But I grew tired of fetching water so far, Co last May I. put up a wind mill at the riverbank,' one of those small iron 'turbines' such as sell for fifteen dollars. A slender steel tri pod, or tower, thirty feet high, came with it. The only woodwork about it was the long pump-rod, and that . was broken coming up on the cars V- from Spokane. So I replaced it with ' a little Iron rod which I pieced to gether at the sawmills where I work. I mention this because I suppose we all owe our lives to that half-inch rod. If the wooden pump-rod had not happened to get smashed on the cars, well, y6u would not be reading this letter, that's all! ' "The windmill worked all right. got two hundred feet of pipe, and then nailed together a wooden tank in the kitchen, where Elsie found it a great convenience to have plenty of J- " water handy. "All through the last week of July it was very smoky. This whole Elk River valley was heavily wooded; and since lumbering began, there were miles and miles of dead, dry treetops and brush. Not a drop of rain had fallen for weeks. You can imagine how dry all this waste stuff became. It was like so much tinder Even the forests over the mountains were very dry. "On Saturday, August 1, I went to the mill, as usual, at seven o'clock I noticed that the wind was blowing pretty hard. But in the mill we were all busy with saw3 and planers. Not much attention was paid to things outside till toward noon, when two Welsh miners ran in and shouted that a big fire was raging on the other side of the river. While they were talking, five Chinese came run nlng down the river road, their pig tails streaming out behind them, they were so scared. They yelled to us in Vthe mill as they ran by and made ex cited gestures up-stream. "My house was up in that direc tion and without saying anything Inore to any one, I threw the belt off my machine, grabbed coat and hat and ran for home. The smoke was driving down so thick that my eyes smarted; the air, too, felt very hot, w nen i came in sight or my house. I saw Elsie out throwing water on the roof. "O Murray!' she cried, when she saw me. 'Help me wet the house down. They say there's a big fire coming this way! I'm afraid we'll lose our house!' " 'Not if we can both help it.' said I; and catching another bucket, I began throwing water. "The wind appeared to be rising; the gusts roared through the woods. That little windmill of ours was just whirling for all it was worth, and a smart stream of water was coming into the tank. I should say I threw fifty bucketful e the roof and on the walls. I meant to soak the whole f outside of the house if I could. The air was so hot and dry that the house Steamed like a boiling pot. "Just thee three or four lumber say, 3C o o o o o o o o o o o men came down the road, riding their team horses. " 'The fire's crossed the river up here in the woods!' one of them shouted to me. 'It's a hot one! You'd better be on the move!' " 'What do you think, Elsie?' said I. . "Let's save our house!' she ex claimed. But neither of us realized what was coming; if we had, we should have run with the others. "We went on soaking the house and wetting the ground round it for ten or fifteen minutes more, the smoke getting thicker all the time. We heard a woman crying up the road and pretty soon saw her coming try ing to run, carrying one child in her arms and pulling another along by the hand. When she saw us throw ing water, she turned in and came to the door. It was one of the Hun garian miners wives and we could not understand much that she said, save that a great fire was coming. I did not know what to do about hav ing her stop there; for in case our house burned, it was wasting time for her to tarry there with those children. "While Elsie was talking to her another woman, a stranger to us, came running, and with her waB a boy ten or twelve years old. They also turned in; and close behind them a badly frightened old China man made his appearance from over the river. He, too, ran to the door and pushed inside, jabbering ex citedly. I gave him Elsie's bucket and set him to passing water from the tank to me. "Thus far there bad been no fire in sight, merely a storm of thick smoke and ashes driving past. Then all at once flames appeared every where in the woods, on both sides of the river and all about us! Such a fierce wave of heat made itself felt that we all ran inside and shut the door. It was so hot that I knew the house would soon dry and burn un less I kept it wet. "I set a box o top of a table, grabbed an ax and cut a hole through the roof large enough to put my head and shoulders out. ElSIe and the Chinaman passed up buckets of water to me and I sluiced the -roof. If the shack had been a large house I could not have done much, of course, but being so small, I kept the roof wet and a sheet of water running off the eaves to the ground. "Within three minutes it grew so hot that I could not keep my head out at the hole. Waves of clear flame swept overhead. Hot, blazing cin ders came in at the hole; I had to soak a blanket and stuff it in to keep the fire out. "We heard pitiful cries at the door and Elsie opened it a crack. There lay two more Chinese, who had crawled there through the smoke and fire; their clothes were burning, their very hair was singed! We pulled them in at tho door and threw water on them. "The roar of the fire and the wind outside was now awful like a great furnace roaring up its chimney. But soon above it all we heard a fright ful squealing. Four horses, with which some teamsters had been draw ing a load of lumber up the river, came galloping along the road, with broken harness flying. The luckless beasts either saw or smelled the water on our house. Instinctively they rushed to the door and crowded their bodies against the dripping house. Elsie looked out at the door. " 'O the poor creatures!" she cried. 'Shall I let them crowd in?' " 'We can't,' I said. 'There's no room!' But one of them thrust his head In as she spoke. "I rushed to push the door to, but the horse pushed harder than I could hold. He forced his way in among us, his mane all afire, his whole coat smoking! We had to get out of the way and make room for him. But I managed to shut the door. Two of the other horses perished just out side; the fourth ran a little way down tbe road and fell and died there. "There was hardly space to stir inside our little front room. The horse squealed and groaned from his Counterfeit But the worst enemies of religion are not those who turn away in disgust from its perversions. "Not they are profane who reject the gods of the vulgar, but they who accept t.hem," says Lucretius. Yet It may be partly a question of words. If men stop their ear's to shut out harsh and jarring sounds, it will not do to conclude that they hate music. They may love it all too well to listen. And, if I hold up some theological daub, and tell them that it is a portrait of Deity, will it be strange if some take me at my word, and cry out, "Then we are atheists?" Yet when did man ever deny or doubt the reality of the universe, merely because science gave absurd or inadequate explanations? Charles G. Ames. burns; the stench of his borrxt half was dreadful. "Then came another of those aw ful waves of 'fire. The- heat of it nearly suffocated us. I knew the house must soon catch and burn and soaking a table-cloth for my head, I got up to the hole in the roof and began throwing out water again as fast as Elsie and the old Chinaman could pass it to me. With every third or fourth bucketful I soaked that tablecloth and kept it over my head and shoulders. When the gusts of flame came I had to draw down till they passed. "The gale had been blowing from the west, but now the gusts seemed t come from every quarter; they were like whirlwinds, sucking this way and that. Most of all, the wind mill worried us. If that stopped whirling the1 water would stop com ing into the tank. Then nothing could save us. The water was our only hope. When these counter gusts began to come the windmill would stop and whiffle round and Elsie would cry out, 'It's stopped! Oh, it's gone!' Then up at the hole I would strain my eyes to see if the wind mill had blown down. "Often I could not see it for smoke. I expected it would blow down, for it seemed as if nothing could stand those gusts. But every time, when the smoke cleared a bit, I saw the faith ful thing whirling again. How it stood it I don't know; but it did, twirling first this way, then that. If It had been of wood it must have burned with that first wave of fire. "I kept dipping my hands in the water-and splashing my face; but I was blistered and smarting, although la the excitement I hardly noticed that. The log3 at the north end of the shack took fire three times, but watching my chance, when the gusts slackened, I rushed out and dashed water on them. White steam rolled up in clouds off the whole house. "At length the counter gusts were so conflicting that the windmill stopped pumping for some minutes. The clouds of smoke and fine ashes, too, were now so thick that we could not see down to the river. Elsie i3 a plucky girl, as brave as need be, but for a moment or two she was in despair. " 'It's all over with us, Murray, she whispered, for she knew as well as I that the house must burn if the windmill stopped. "But just then I caught sight of it again, twirling round in the smoke, the tail bobbing this way and that. It looked lopsided, it was getting such rough usage and I could see that it wabbled as it started to turn again. But turn it did; and a moment later Elsie came running from the kitcbe and shouted up to me that water was coming once more. But I can tell you that those were anxious moments for us! "It went on much like that for nearly two hours; and then I began to notice that the fire and smoke were thinning out for the very good rea son that everything combustible had burned up, evergreen trees and old stumps clear down into the ground, with nothing left but ashes. So great had been the heat that when once it was gone it was all gone, with no coals nor brands left to smoke or smolder. "Miles away we could see that the conflagration was still raging, but round us it was over. Terribly deso late, too, the whole region looked, with all the green forest gone. The outside of our shack was actually charred black. "What with that burned horse and all, we were in such bad shape inside our shack that I got them all out of doors as soon as the ground' was cool enough to step on. Two of the Chi nese had their clothes nearly burned off them, and were in a sad condi tion, whimpering from their burns. The children, too, were crying and the women lamenting that they had no home left and nowhere to go. "We soon learned' that Fernie had wholly burned, as also the lumber mills and nearly everything else along the river. Luckily we had flour and other groceries -in tbe kitchen. Elsie began cooking; and we fed and did what we could for our queer refugees for two days, till the relief trains began to come in from the outside world. "But that afternoon, as soon as we were able to stir out of the house, Elsie and I went down to the river bank to look at that windmill.- The paint was all blistered ?u the vanes and the tripod. It 'limped' and squeaked as it turned, far the oil had burned out of the cogs. It was a wreck, yet it still turned and kept water going up to the shack. "Elrjie shed tears over it. " 'Oh, you poor dear, brave thing!' she cried. 'I know you're nothing but a piece of iron, but I should like to pat you!' " Youth's Companion. Europeans have discovered that American sirup barrels, once used, are better than new ones. They are used especially for the pickling of meat, and if of hard 'wood, even in the, United States, bring better prices J than new ones. Q vs. Genuine. ) 0 o 0 ) 0 t" 0 0 i) 0 0 -Mistress of the "''in '" ' 1'""'" ijs MRS. TAFT, Who, as Wife of the President, is Official Leader Under the New Regime. Improved Box Couch. Box. couches have passed the ex perimental stage and are now be coming quite popular. One of the most recent designs Is shown below, containing a novel improvement pat ented by a New York man. In this box couch the box used for holding the garments and other articles is at tached to rods so arranged that the box is lifted- up from the bottom of the couch when the top of the latter is raised. It thus becomes an easy matter for the person using the couch to readily reach the box to get at the contents. In addition it becomes un necessary to move the couch away from the wall in order to raise the top. The box couch is thus rendered more convenient and saves disagree able stooping and bending. Wash ington Star. Rather Away From It. You cannot lead men into truth by tricks. Aeson. A Steep Declivity of the - ' In - i , A t 'i 'U Dr. Gc:i!, an American explorer, lias just returned to this country after a caravan journey along the entire length, eighteen hundred miles, of thla great rampart. Lomond nays that whenever a laborer on this wall rebelled ho was built into, tho structure as a warning to the others. White House. Gold -From Sunken Ship. In the most boisterous part cf Mount's Bay, and almost unapproach able except by sea, lies Dollar Cove, where for the past three months a treasure seeking expedition, sent down by a London syndicate, has been quietly working. The company of seekers .some three or four weeks ago suspended operations in order to get more powerful pumps and gear. These are in working order, and al though the salvors have little to say about the matter, they appear to be hopeful of success. In the year 17S8 a Spanish ship went ashore there with about twenty tons of specie aboard. Everybody who lives on the coast is familiar with the appearance of the dollars, as large numbers have been washed up on the beach from time to time. Gold pieces are said to have been discovered recently by people walking on the beach. London Chronicle. Never Got Started. Mr. Morse,having bought a new bi cycle of the most Improved pattern presented his old one to Dennis Hal loran, who did errands and odd jobs for the neighborhood. "You'll find the wheel useful when you're in a' hurry, Dennis," he said. The young Irishman was loud in his thanks, but regarded the wheel doubtfully. ,"I mistrust 'twill be a long time before I can ride it," he said. "Why, have you ever tried?" asked Mr. Morse. "I have," said Dennis, gloomily. "A friend lint me the loan o' his whiles he was having the moomps. 'Twas free weeks I had it, an what wid practicing night an' morning, I niver got so I could balance mesilf standing still, let alone riding on it." Youth's Companion. Great Wall of China. , . , -llliM TO CORRECT First, never ustrf pose, as it cuts thel ton the exact shade with a very fine r.V around the rip or tear.V gether on the wrong siu stitch at a time from oiA buttonhole stitch to ano the rent is joined in thil scarcely .perceptible and w than if sewed through in The Housekeeper. PRETTY BABY BLAI A baby blanket that is looking that every young g Would welcome and is so quictli easily made as to be possible toj woman who can'do plain knitting is of pink and white zephyr donel garter stitch and bound in satin rl bon the shade of the colored zephyr! The materials used are a pound eight-fold white zephyr, four hanks o split zephyr, or Saxony and ribboni according to the size of nished blan ket. Knit on heavy wooden needles.. Wrap off both zephyrs into sepa: ate balls, then tie the ends togeth and wind the colored and white tc gether into one ball. ' Put eighty stitches on the needle and knit in plain knitting, or garte ; stitch as it is called, to any deslre length. About a yard long makes u good proportion. The edge of the blanket is bound with three-inch satin ribbon with a large bow in one corner, or it can bi finished In a crocheted shell the color of the split zephyr. New Haven Reg Ister. THE BABY AT THE TABLE. How annoying it is when baby carelessly lets bits of bread and milk fall upon the tablecloth! How irri tating it is to see all one's careful ironing reduced to nothing so soon! It is trying, no doubt. But why not arrange baby's place to prevent accidents? That is easily done, and without the assistance of a homely tin waiter, too. The least objectionable protector of the tablecloth is made of two oblong3 of butcher's linen, with an oilcloth Interlining. They may be sewed up just like, & pillow case, if you prefer, r you might like the Improvised tray better if each piece of linen were hemmed. Then two may be sewed together Just inside the hem, with one end left open for the insertion of the oilcloth. You will certainly like the arrange ment, and baby; will rejoice if you al low him to, instead of scolding him too often for faults that tiny hands cannot prevent. Children's eating bibs are made of Turkish toweling. Some of them are woven in the correct size and shape, but they may be made at home of the same quality, bought by the yard. They are cut the deshed shape and bound round, the edges and neck with a tape that loops over a bottom at thf back of the neck. Boston Post. Pineapple Salad Peel one-half ripe pineapple and shred except tha core; mix the shreds with an equal quantity of chopped celery and put on ice; just before serving mix in enough mayonnaise sauce to moisten and season the salad, and garnish with slices of lemon; serve ice cold. Cream Scones Sift one and one- half cupfuls flour into a basin, add one teaspoonful sugar and one tea spoonful baking powder. Rub in one heaping .tablespoonful butter, then make into soft pastewith some cream. Divide it in two pieces. Take one piece and roll it out quite thin and round, then roll out the second piece and cut them into eight pieces. Lay them on hot griddle and bake them for five minutes, turning them once. Ginger Mousse Dissolve one tea spoonful powdered gelatine in four tablespoonfuls water; add one-half cupful sugar and boil ten minutes, then pour slowly upon the beaten whites of two eggs, beat till cold, then fold in one cupful whipped cream; add one-half cupful chopped preserved ginger and turn into a melon mold. Pack in ice and salt for four hours. Serve with sauce made with the ginger syrup slightly thick ened. Parisian Charlotte Dissolve ono envelope gelatine, plain,- in two cups hot milk; beat four eggs and two tablespoonfuls sugar togeth er, add to the hot milk and cook until slightly thickened; then add one cup grated cocmut and a teaspoonful vanilla ai f yool; when beginning .to thicken b-? in one pint of whipped cream anaVyr into a mold lined with ladyfinibCrs; place on ice till ready to serve. Caramel Jelly Use one teaspoon ful of granulated gelatine, one-fourth a cup of cold water, one-third a cup of sugar cooked to caramel, one-third a cup of boiling water, two cups of thia cream, one-fourth a cup of sugar, one-fourth a teaspoonful of salt; soak the gelatine in cold water; cook tha caramel and boiling water to a thick syrup; add the softened gelatine, the Eugar, salt and cream and stir until the sugar Jsy dissolved, then straia Into molds. X . ....
The Roanoke Beacon and Washington County News (Plymouth, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 3, 1909, edition 1
3
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