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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (May 13, 1897)
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. INTERNATIONAL PRESS ASSOCIATION. A 1. A CJ AV A. iiu x naa seal lor the doctor from Bourron before six. About eight some villagers came round for the per formance and were told how matters stood. It seemed a liberty for a mountebank to fall .and they made off again in dudgeon. Uy ten Madame Tentaillon was gravely .alarmed, and had sent down the street for Doctor Desprez. The Doctor was at work over his manuscripts in one corner of the little dining-room, and his wife was asleep over the fire in another, when the mes senger arrived. “Sapristi!” said the Doctor, “you ■should have sent for me before. It was a case for hurry.” And he followed * the messenger as he was, in his slip pers and skull-cap. The inn was not thirty yards away, but the messenger did not stop there; he went in at one door and out by an other inio the court, and then led the way by a flight of steps beside the -stable, to the loft where the mounte bank lay sick. If Doctor Desprez were to live a thousand years, he would never forget his arrival in that room; for not only was the scene picturesque, but the moment made a date in his exist ence. We reckon our lives, I hardly know why, from the date of our first sorry appearance in society, as if from a first humiliation; for no actor can come upon the stage with a worse grace. Not to go further back, which would be judged too curious, there are subsequently many moving and decis ive accidents in the lives of all which would make as logical a period as this of birth. And here, for instance, Doctor Desprez, a man past forty, who had made what is called a failure in life, and was moreover married, found himself at a new point of departure when he opened the door of the loft above Tentaillon’s stable. It was a large place, lighted only by a single candle set upon the floor. The mountebank lay on his back upon a pallet; a large man, with a Qdixotic nose inflamed with drinking. Madame Tentaillon stooped over him, applying a hot water and mustard embrocation to his feet; and on a chair close by sat a little fellow of eleven or twelve, with - his feet dangling. These three were the ms wun me same inquiring, melan choly gaze. At last the Doctor hit cn the solu tion at a leap. He remembered the look now. The little fellow, although he was as straight as a dart, had the eyes that go usually wfth a crooked hack; he was not at all deformed, and yet a deformed person seemed to be looking at you from below his brows. The Doctor drew a long breath, he wa9 so much relieved to find a theory (for he loved theories) and to explain away his interest. For all that, he despatched the in valid with unusual haste, and, still kneeling with one knee on the floor, turned a little round and looked the boy over at his leisure. The boy- was not in the least put out, but looked placidly back at the Doctor. “Is this your father?” asked Des prez. “Oh, no,” returned the boy; “my master.” “Are you fond of him?” continued the Doctor. “No, sir,” said the boy. Madame Tentaillon and Desprez ex changed expressive glances. “That is bad, my man,” resumed the latter, with a shade of sternness “Every one should be fond of the dy ing, or conceal their sentiments; and your master here is dying. If I have watched a bird a little while stealing my cherries, I have a thought of dis appointment when he flies away over my garden wall, and I see him steer for the forest and vanish. How much more a creature such as this, so strong, so astute, so richly endowed with facul ties! When I think that, in a few hours, the speech will be silenced, the breath extinct, and even the shadow vanished from the wall, I who never saw him, this lady who knew him only as a guest, are touched with some affection.” The boy was silent for a little, and appeared to be reflecting. “You did not know him,” he replied at last. “He was a bad man.” “He is a little pagan,” said the land lady. “For that matter, they are all the same, these mountebanks, tumblers, artists, and what not. They have no interior.” But the Doctor was still scrutinizing the little pagan, his eyebrows knotted and uplifted. “What is your name?” he asked. “Jean-Marie,” said the lad. Desprez leaped upon him with one of his , sudden flashes of excitement. FELT HIS PULSE. only occupants, except the shadows. But the shadows were a company in themselves; the extent of the room exaggerated them to a gigantic size, and from the low position of the candle the light struck upward and produced deformed foreshortenings. The mounte bank’s profile was enlarged upon the wall in caricature, and it was strange to see his nose shorten and lengthen as the flame was blown about by draughts. As for Madame Tentaillon, her shadow was no more than a gross hump of shoulders, with now and again a hemisphere of head. The chair legs were spindled out as long as stilts, and the boy sat perched atop of them. It was the boy who took the Doctor’s fancy. He had a great arched skull, the forehead and the hands of a musi cian, and a pair of haunting eyes. It was not merely that these eyes were large, or steady, or the softest ruddy brown. There was a look in them, be sides, which thrilled the Doctor, and made him half uneasy. He was sure he had seen such a look before, and yet he could not remember how or where. It was as if this boy, who was quite a stranger to him, had the eyes of an old friend or an old enemy. And the boy would give him no peace; he ■seemed profoundly indifferent to what was going on, or rather abstracted from it in a superior contemplation, beating gently with his feet against the bars of the chair, and holding his hands folded on his lap. But, for all that, his eyes kept following the Doc tor about the room with a thoughtful fixity of gaze. Desprez could not tell whether he was fascinating the boy, •or the boy was fascinating him. He busied himself over the sick man: he put queijons. he felt his pulse, he jested, he grew a little hot and swore: and still, whenever he looked round, •there were the brown eyes waiting for and felt his head all over from an ethnological point of view. “Celtic, Celtic!” he said. “Celtic!” cried Madame Tentalllon, who had perhaps confounded the word with hydrocephalous. “Poor lad! la it dangerous?” “That depends,” returned the Doctor, grimly. And then once more address ing the boy: “And what do you do for your living, .Tean-Marie?" he inquired. “I tumble,”' was the answer. “So! Tumble?” repeated Desprez, “Probably healthful. I hazard the guess, Madame Tentaillon, that tumb ling is a healthful way of life. And have you never done anything else but tumble?” “Before I learned that, I used to steal,” answered Jean-Marie gravely. “Upon my word!” cried the Doctor. “You are a nice little man for your age. Madame, when my confrere comes from Bourron, you will com municate my unfavorable opinion. I leave the case in his hands; but of course, on any alarming symptom, above all If there should be a sign of rally, do not hesitate to knock me up. I am a doctor no longer, I thank God; but I have been one. Good night, madame. Good sleep to you, Jean Marie.” CHAPTER II. UOIUK UKSPKEZ - always rose early. ; Before the smoke : arose, before the i first cart rattled over the bridge to the day’s labor in the fields, he was to be found wandering in his garden. Now he would pick a bunch of grapes; uuw ue wuuiu eat a Dig pear unaer tne trellis; now he would draw all sorts ot fancies on the path with the end of his cane; now he would go down and watch the river running endlessly past the timber landing-place at which he moored his boat. There was no time, he used to say, for making theories like the early morning. "I rise earlier than any one else m the village,” he once boasted. "It is a fair consequence that I know more and wish to do less with my knowledge.” The doctor was a connoisseur of sun rises, and loved a good theatrical effect to usher in the day. He had a theory of dew, by which he could predict the weather. Indeed, most things served him to that end; the sound of the bells from all the neighboring villages, the omell of the forest, the visits and the behavior of both birds and fishes, the look of the plants in ‘his garden, the disposition of cloud, the color of the light, and last, although not Uast, the arsenal of meteorological instruments in a louvre-boarded hutch upon tho lawn. Ever since he had settled at Gretz, he had been growing more and more into the local meteorologist, the unpaid champion of the local climate. He thought at first there was no place so healthful in the arrondissement. By the end of the second year, he pro tested there was none so wholesome In the whole department. And for some time before he met Jean-Marie he had been prepared to challenge all France and the better part of Europe for a rival to his chosen spot. “Doctor,” he would say— "doctor is a foul word. It should not be used tc ladies. It implies disease. I remark it, as a flaw in our civilization that we have not the proper horror of disease. Now I, for my part, have washed my hands of it; I have renounced my laur eation; I am no doctor; I am only a worshiper of the true goddess Hygeia. Ah, believe me, it is she who has the cesius. And here, in this exiguous hamlet, has she placed her shrine; here she dwells and lavishes her gifts; here I walk with her in the early morning, and she shows me how strong she has made the > peasants, how fruitful she has made the fields, how the trees grow up tall and comely under her eyes, and the fishes in the river become clean and agile at her presence.—Rheuma tism!” he would cry, on some malapert interruption. “O. ves. I helleve w» Hr have a little rheumatism. That could hardly be avoided, you know, on s river. And of course the place stands a little low; and the meadows art marshy, thera’s no doubt. But my dear sir, look at Bourron! Bourron stands high. Bourron is close to the forest; plenty of ozone there, you would say. Well, compared with Gretz, Bour ron is a perfect chambles.” The morning after he had been sum moned to the dying mountebank, the Doctor visited the wharf at the tail of his garden, and had a long look at the running water. This he called prayer; but whether his adorations were ad dressed to the goddess Hygeia or some more orthodox deity, never plainly ap peared. For he had uttered doubtful oracles, sometimes declaring that a river was a type of bodily health, sometimes extolling It as a great moral preacher, continually preaching peace, continuity, and diligence to man’s tor mented spirits. After he had watched a mile or so of the clear water running by before his eyes, seen a fish or two come to the surface with a gleam of silver, and sufficiently admired the long shadows of the trees falling half across the river from the opposite bank with patches of moving sunlight in between, he strolled once more up the garden and through his house into the street, feeling cool :nd renovated. <TO BS COXTINOSI). I AFTER TWENTY YEARS. Mira liaicom Found She Was Still Beautiful. He did not call on her that first even ing, though he walked past the gate four times, unaware of the fact that behind one of those slanting shutters a pale woman stood watching him pass and repass, says Lippincott’s. The nun in her self-elected cell had and made use of means of communication with the world, in the shape generally of Jimmy the choreboy. She knew whose was the tall figure on the side walk. She stood at the window when she could no longer see him; she heard his slow footsteps go by for the last time and die away. Half an hour later she went upstairs to her bedroom. Be tween its two windows hung a long, old-fashioned mirror, with carved can delabra on either side. She lighted the three candles in each. The mirror showed a tall, slim figure, a face as col orless as an anemone, an abundance of auburn hair carefully arranged. Mira Bascom studied this reflection closely. Then she unlocked a black-walnut chest which stood In a corner and lifted out its contents till she came to a mass of pale muslin, which diffused an odor of lavender as she shook it out. It was a white gown with lilac sprigs, made with the full skirts and sleeves of a bygone fashion. She put it on, fastened the belt of lilac ribbon] which still fitted exactly, and, standing again before the mirror, loosened slightly the bands of her beautiful wavy hair and pulled it into little curls about her face. It was a vision of youth which looked back at her from the glass. Not a thread of gray showed in the hair; the fine lines about the placid eyes were invisible. The skin had the dead whiteness of things kept from the sun. But as she gazed a del icate flush overspread her face, her red-brown eyes lit up till their color matched her hair; she smiled in startled triumph. She was still beau tiful. Then a swift change came over her. She blew out all but one of the candles and. turning her back on the mirror, took oft her gown with cold, shaking fingers. ARE MAKING FACES, THAT IS WHAT THE DEMO CRATS ARE DOING. Meantime the Republican* Are Going oil with Their Uutlc*—They Are Push ing the Tariff anil tllmetallle Confer ence anti Making Good Progreu. Too. / (Washington Letter.) The Bryan and Bailey factions of the democracy are continuing to make faces at each other across the hall of the house of representatives at Wash ington. The followers of Representa tive McMillan who wanted to keep up the combination made with the Popu lists last fall and support the sock leas Simpson in his attacks upon Speak er Reed, were mercilessly spanked by the Baileyltee in caucus the other day. The populist leader appealed to tho Democrats for their co-operation in hts joust at Speaker Reed, and a few of the Bryan followers had the temerity to respond to the call when “Speaker” Bailey adjourned the house, called a caucus in five minutes and after read ing the riot act to the Bryanltes voted them down two to one and adopted a resolution ordering them to desist from further co-operation with the Populists, at least in the matter then under consideration. Those Democrats who were at first inclined to exult over their party’s suc cesses in the recent municipal elec tions, are finding the figures cold com fort. In Chicago they were unable to at all Increase their vote and only held their own in numbers by reason of the fact that a large number of those who always vote against them in nation al elections co-operated with them on this occasion on purely local issues. This was found to be the case every where. National issues cut no fig ures at all in the municipal elections While in the state of Rhode Island in which the national questions were the leading issues the Republican vote in creased 20 per cent over that of the presidential eleotion of 189G. I 1? UlHl Tariff and bimetallism, those two great issues of the campaign, have been prominently at the front during the present week in Washington. And those people who doubted or professed to doubt the sincerity of the profes sions of the Republican party on either of these subjects have found that they were mistaken. A thoroughly protec tive tariff, one which looks after the interests of the farmer and the work ing man; that is what the new Dlngley aot is to be when it gets upon the statute books, what it is, in fact, to day, for the probabilities are that it will be little changed by the senate. Earnest and intelligent efforts in be half of international bimetallism—that is what this week’s work means upon that subject. The appointment of the commission whose names have already been given the public assures prompt, vigorous, and, it is to be hoped, suc cessful work. The Bimetallic CommlMlon. The appointment of Senator Wolcott of Colorado, ex-Vlce-President Steven son of Illinois, and Hon. C. J. Paine of Massachusetts as commissioners to pave the way for an international con ference has been cordially commend ed. Until this week nobody knew definitely what the president’s plans were in regard to this question. It was known that he was extremely anx ious to take the proper steps toward carrying out the pledge of the party looking to international consideration of the silver question, but Just how he proposed to bring this about or to take the initiative, nobody was able to say. It now appears that, as usdal, he has chosen the wise plan and one most likely to be successful. Not only has he chosen the plan most likely to be successful, but the one likely to be most successful. By this is n*eant that if he is able to carry out the plans thus inaugurated the international con ference will be brought to the doors of every American voter. President Mc Kinley’s hope is that it may be prac ticable to hold this conference in the united states anu in tne city of Wash ington. If this shall happen p.ery American citizen will have the full benefit of the discussion which the ,'e arises. It will be as though the meet ing of the representatives of the great nations was brought to his own door yard. With press associations carry ing the full proceedings of the confer ence and the hundreds of special cor respondents in Washington comment ing upon the proceedings in the pa pers which they represent, every citi zen who feels the slightest interest In this question would be able to follow the proceedings and study them in their proper light, thus knowing for himself that the work was well done. The commissioners who are to go abroad to try to bring about an agreement for a conference are highly commended by members of all parties as especially judicious selections. Mr. Wolcott, by reason of his long study of the ques tion and discussion on two previous trips abroad of this same subject, will be of much greater value than any man who. has not had these experiences; ex-Vice-President Stevenson repre senting the silver element of the de mocracy and well known by reputa tion and in person abroad will instantly command attention, while Mr. Paine, as a close student of this subject will prove equally useful and influential. It does not follow that these men who are selected for this work are to be the representatives of the United States in an international conference if they are successful in bringing one about; on the contrary, it is expected that other men will be selected to represent the government in that conference. Progress of the Tariff. The people who are assuming that the tariff bill is likely to drag through the summer and keep the business of the‘country in an unsettled condition awaiting final action, are to be disap pointed. The next week or ten days at the furthest are likely to see the bill perfected by the Republican mem bers of the finance committee and it Is likely to get into the senate before the month ends. Prospects now seem to be good for a final vote upon it in June and its completion in time that it may go into effect at tho beginning of the fiscal year July 1st. The changes made by the senate com mittee are much less, in extent and importance than had been expected. The pressure for a reduction in the du ties on wool has not been successful thus far and the chances seem to be that they will not be. The demand of the sugar trust for changes in the schedule advantageous to them has been promptly rejected. The wall of the standard oil trust and of sundry other corporations of this character have passed unnoticed. These Demo crats and Populists and other enemies of the Republican party who had hoped to be able to make political capital by charging that the tariff bill was favor able to corporations and trusts are dis appointed. And they will continue to be disappointed. O. H. WILLIAMS. EuImm Revival. The wholesale merchants of Kansas City report that they received larger and more numerous orders in the month of March than they received in any month of last year. In nearly every branch of trade there is more activity, with indications that things will grow better from this time forward. Such reports as these are the best evidence that a healthful revival of business is at hand. Many retailers have not yet experienced any substantial gain in business, but their trade is less rapidly affected by improved conditions. The wholesalers first feel the effects of re stored confidence and the release of hoarded money. Such evidence as they give refutes the taunts of those who demand spectacular results, as if there had been any promise that the new ad ministration would witness an Imme diate revival of all the interests that flourished before the great depression. The most hopeful change is that indi cated by the gradual increase in the volume of trade, for that denotes natu ral and conservative enterprise. There is nothing fictitious about the improve ment in business conditions, whatever the scope of that improvement may be. But When it is Bhown that in a single state 100,000 more men are employed now than were employed before No vember last, and when large dealers make like comparisons between the trade at this time and that before the presidential election, the pessimists and the sneerers should be silent.— Kansas City Journal. “Inexcusable Cowardice." The men who style themselves "sil ver Republicans” have told the country why they refused to vote on one side or the other on the Dlngley bill when that measure passed the house. “We took this course," said Representative Hartman, of Montana, “to prevent the diversion of the great issue of current politics from silver to the tariff. Our object was to emphasize the tact that the tariff is not and can not be made the main issue, and to give warning that the silver people will not accept the tariff as the paramount question of the time.” According to the same authority another reason for the refusal to vote was that the joint caucus of the Populists of both branches of congress and a private conference of the Teller ites urged this inaction. This is presumption and cowardice of a particularly inexcusable character. A handful of men arrogate to them selves in their prejudice and blindness the right to dictate to the great body of congress what is and what is not an issue, without having the courage or capactiy to reveal their position in a manly and practical way.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Trouble for Two* rvf nonnlo VimtA #n prosper since the election of McKinley. One of these classes is composed of sil ver advocates, the other the trusts. The election of McKinley and the rejection of the free silver proposition started similar action by some other nations which had been looked to as support ers of the silver theory, and the friends of free coinage have witnessed with dismay the transfer of Japan, Russia and China to the gold standard col umn. The trusts have also fared as badly. The railroad corporations, the sugar trust, the standard oil trust and many minor organizations of this character have received stunning blows within the f^w months since the elec tion of 1896, and will suffer still more when the new tariff law goes into ef fect and deprives them of the advan tages which they have enjoyed under the Wilson law. WiUon'n Wall. Ex-Postmaster-General Wilson, in continuation of his protest against the new tariff bill, has evidently persuad ed himself that the measure will in some way be injurious to the farmers. He doesn’t tell why or how, but he hints at an explanation in this vague and uncertain way: "For thirty years the farmer was de luded by the cry of a ‘home market/ and of the benefit in store for him from ‘bringing the factory to the farm.’ Factories were built up. but he saw them filled, not with living consumers of his products, but chiefly with ma chinery of iron and steel.” Mr. Wilson's sneer at the “home mar ket" idea is distinctly that of the free trade theorist who imagines that it is better for the American farmer to sell one bushel of grain to English buyers than it la to sell three bushels to Amer ican consume™. The fact that the home "market absorbs 80 per cent of our agricultural products counts for nothing with Mr. Wilson. Ho doesn’t consider that this market needs or de serves any protection, and he would neglect it or impair Its purchasing power by forcing Its industrial ele ments into wage-cutting competition with foreign labor. The farmer’s real interest lies in a system that will main tain and expand the domestic demand for his produce, and this is to be found In a tariff that will open the mills, pro vide employment for labor and encour age the extension of native enterprise. Agricultural prosperity cannot exist without Industrial prosperity. They are dependent on each other. When one thrives the other will thrive with It, and the man who attempts to con vince the farmer and the mechanic that their Interests are conflicting la an enemy to both.—Mail and Express. Save the SIOO,OOO.OOO. A payment of about 1100,000,000 an nually to foreign countries for a pro duct adapted to our own soil and cli mate is plainly an industrial error. Within the last ten years attention haw been directed to this wasteful method of conducting business, and signs ar* multiplying that the proper remedies will be applied. Last year every pound of wheat and flour exported was re quired to pay for the sugar imported. Our exports of cotton were only doa ble the value of the sugar imported. The value of all exports of live and dressed beef, beef products and lard just about balanced that of the sugaf bought abroad. It 1b now known Be yond question that the sugar beet can be grown in many of our states and at a quality unsurpassed anywhere. The genius of Americans in the use of ma chinery is an assurance that the sugar beet factories will return good divi dends. What measure of protection should be granted by the government is a subject to be considered with care* Meantime, states and localities are dis posed to encourage the new industry with so many millions In It.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The Senate and the Honee. Generally speaking, whatever the house is enthusiastically In' favor of the senate regards with cool and critical calmness, and vice versa. In the earn* way, no matter how much in sympathy the congress may be with the execu tive, it is sure to guard Jealousy its rights-in all financial matters. It la said that President McKinley has a comprehensive plan of currency reform which he will recommend in his mes sage next December. As the President is an old hand in congressional mat ters—having in that a huge advantage over Mr. Cleveland—he ought to know that no congress will be likely to fol low the dictates of the President in any matter of taxation or finance. Already * -the men who hope to be on the house committee on banking and currency and the senators on the finance com mittee are saying that they understand* their own business, and propose to originate any currency scheme which Is presented to the country.—Illustrated American. . Factories and Protection Sentiment. The springing up of factories throughout the south has been fol lowed by a growth of protective senti ment and Republican membership in congress from that section. More than thirty votes from the south were cast for a protective tariff measure in the house, and the southern states had thirty-three Republican members in last congress, while in no preceding congress bad the party been represent ed by more than half that number from, that section. When Democrats from North and South Carolina, Alabama. Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas Join with the Republicans In supporting protective views and a protective tariff bill, there can remain no doubt of the growth of Republican principles in that section. 1 SSj ’ VwKj Five llad Months for Silver. The five months since the election have been bad ones for the silver cause. Japan, to which the silver people were accustomed to point as the most bril liant exponent of the advantages of the free coinage of silver, has adopted the gold standard at the ratio of 32 to 1. Russia, which was accounted a sil ver country, has announced that she is going to the gold standard. China, which, with her 400,000,000 people,was accounted In the list of silver users, announced through her officials a cur rency change which is equivalent to the adoption of the gold standard. Truly these are depressing days for the free silver theorists. The only persons who are express ing dissatisfaction with the new tariff bill are the foreigners and importers. Germany, Canada, England, and other foreign countries are scolding about the Dingley bill; so is the reform club, of New York, which is made up principal ly of importers. The Reform club o^ New York la spreading broadcast over the country j an offer of newspaper plate matter ! with which it proposes to attack the • Dingley bill. This Is not surprising. The Reform club is composed mostly of importers, who naturally want a low tariff, and are against protection. The chief objection offered to the Dingley bill is that it Is a bill. The people want it to become an act and that very promptly. Ex-Candidate Bryan called upon Vice-President Hobart during his re cent visit to Washington. It is ob served, however, that he did not call, upon prospective candidate Bailey. ■■ . -. . ■>■■