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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (May 8, 1930)
THE DESERT MOON MYSTERY BY KAY CLEAVER STRAHAN ' . 1 1 — Mrs. Richer knew it, too. Her e«;c«se was, that she had chosen Martha because she was m pretty; that she had had no opportunity to judge her other characteristics. She insisted that she thought, with proper care, Martha would develop formally. I knew better. Sam knew it, loo. But, when I begged and besought him not to adopt her, be bronght out an argument food and conclusive for him. •‘If I don't adopt her, and take care of her,” said Sam, **who tiie heck would?” So adopt her lie did. And lie ■pent a small fortune on doc tors, specialists, for her- None of Uiem could do anything. It was, they said, a hopeless ease of retarded development. So, at twenty-one years of age, Mar tha, though the care and doc ioriug had given her a fine healthy body, had the mind of » child of five or six years— cot to6 bright a child, either. ^That was at best. At worst— iWell, no matter, entirely harm less, the doctors said; but 1 always bed my doubts. Saxo tried nil sorts of teach ers for her, too; bringing them from back east and paying them Bums to stagger. But, in the end, we found that Mrs. Sicker was better with her thah anyone else. She never pretended any particular love for Martha, but she took can •f her, and kept her sweet and Mean, arid put up with her tempers, when many a better woman'thnn Ollie Bicker would hove gone away in disgust. I am not saying that, if there is a Judgement Day, as many say and some believe, I’d care to be standing in Ollie Bicker’s ■hoes, if she is wearing them at that time! but I do say that, her gentleness, and her patience, through nil those years with Martha, should he counted to her credit, whether or no. CHAPTER III HUBERT HAND It was tliree years after Mrs. Ricker came to the ranch, bringing John and Martha, that Hubert Hand put in his appearance. He had got Mr. Indian Clint Chin, ns every body called him, to bring him up from Rat tail in his old •urrey. Hubert Hand,was some thing of a dude in those days, though he has well outgrown It since, and I remember yet bow comical he looked, sittiug •p there so stiff and fine in bis light gray overcoat nrul gray Fedora hat, with tthat big Italian nose of his protruding •uj and up, disdainfully, above bis little moustache, and ap parcntly above nil conscious ness of dirty old Mr. Indian Chat Chin and the rattle-trap Mr Indian Chat Chin stopped bis old nag at the entrance to the driveway, and Hubert Hand climbed carefully down and came up the road, swinging a walking cane like he was leading a parade. Sam and I, ns was our cus tom, went • walking down to *aect him lie took off his hat to me, and said to Sam, “I wish to •cc the owner of this ranch.’’ “Nobody ever mistook me for a fairy before," Sam said. “But go ahead. Your first wish w granted. What arc the other two?” Hubert Hand got out his card then. Besides his name it bad “Clover-blossom Cream ery, ’ and the San Francisco address printed on it. “Now Mr. Stanley;" Hubert Hand went on, after the cm bar raising minute of general introductions, “I am going to be honest with you—" “Hold on stranger," Sam in terrupted, “you’re not. You •re going to he as dishonest as t heck. Otherwise, you wouldn’t bother to tell me yon were going to be honest. (Jo ahead.” Hubert Hand laughed, but he I didn't like it. He went ahead, though, and explained that be had an Up-and-coming cream ery business in San Francisco, but that his physician had told him that he had to live in a high, dry climate with plenty of sunshine and no fog. He had. after inquiries and investiga tions, decided that the Desert Moon Ranch, altitude seven thousand feet, sunshine three 1 hundred and sixty-five days in the year, to say nothing of the marvelous view of the Carnet | Mountains, the hunting, the l fishing, and the pure snow water, would fill all his re quirements. “Thanks,” Sam Said “When I get ready to start a Cold Cure Sanatorium, I'll drop you a linp.” “You won’t do business, then ” Hubert Hand ques tioned, “I hadn’t beard anything I about doing business,” Sam said. Hubert Hand’s proposition was that he start a creamery, on the Desert Moon Ranch, and supply the valley with ice cream, butter, and other dairy products- Sam had the ranch, the cows, and the big iee plant. Mr. Hubert Hand bad the knowledge and the equipment. They could divide the profits. Next to sheep men, I guess there is nothing that cow men hold in lower contempt than they hold dairy farms. Sam was too much disgusted to swear very long. ‘•‘Bui do you realize, Mr. Stanley,” Hubert Hand in sisted, ‘‘that this entire valley lias to depend on Salt Lake City, or on Reno, for its dairy products?” ‘‘Listen stranger,” Sam said. ‘‘I wouldn’t turn the Desert Moon into a place to slop milk around in if the entire valley had to depend on Hong Kong, China, for its ice cream cones. Forget it, and come in now and have some supper.” To my knowledge, Hubert Hand, from that day to this, has r.ever again mentioned, on the Desert Moon, anything that had to do with creameries. Neither, from that day to this, i has lie been eft the ranch for * more than a couple of weeks at a time. ‘‘By.the way,” he began, try'ng to make it sound unim portant, when we had finished supper, “I heard, in Telko, that you were something of a chess player.” “1 am, wnon i can get n game,” Sam said. “But chess players, in these parts, are as scarce as hen's teeth- My neighbor, thirty miles east of here, and I used to play regu lar, two nights a week. But the son of a gun struck it rich, and like most loyal Native Sons of this state, he moved to Cali fornia to spend his money. I’m teaching my boy. John—but he is just a kid. Here, lately, nbout all I’ve done is work out the puzzles by myself.” ‘‘I play a little,” Hubert Hand produced, right modestly. Sam jumped and got out his chess table, inlaid ebony and ivory, made special, and his ebony and ivory chess-men. Hubert Hand heat him the first game in about half an hour. They set up their men again. It took Hubert Hand over an hour that time to beat Sam, but he did it. “Heck!” Sam said, at the end of that game. ‘‘You’re hired.” ‘‘Hired for what?” ‘‘For whatever you want to call it, except the slopping of milk around. Send for your trunk and name your j«». Why didn’t you sny, m the first place, that you were a blank ety-blank crack chess player?” I realize, light here, that I am not going to be able to get through with this entire story, with Sam in it, and continue" to modify bis vocabulary into becks and blaukcty blanks. Wrong, I think it is; but it is true, that men out here do not talk like that. Sam cusses, swears and damns, just as naturally and as innocently as he breathes. The only real trouble about Sam’s profanity is that he uses up all his strong : words day bv clay in ordinary ; conversation; so, when oc- j easions arise that calls for something really emphatic, Sam hasn’t any words to do them justice. If the demands are not j too serious, lie reverts and finds a little “Pshaw!” or, “Shoot!” unusual enough to j meet the need. If it goes be- 1 yond that, he opens Iiis mouth 1 in silence and keeps it open, hoping for a word, until bis j pipe drops out and scatters j ashes and burned and burning tobacco all over everything- I pay no attention to bis profan* ! itv and small attention to his ! “Pshaws,” and “Shoots.” But when bis pipe drops, 1 get right down interested. to mum to Hubert liana: t lie accepted Sun's offer then and there. The next day he titled himself assistant ranch | manager, and named his salary i at two hundred and fifty dollars a month. Sam paid it without blinking; and kept right on managing the ranch, and everything on it, except, perhaps, myself, without any assistance, the same as lie had always done. CHAPTER IV Chadwick Canfield Chadwick Canfield, the other member of our household, who was present on the Desert Moon Ranch at the time of the first murder, came only two years ago last October. It was way past bedtime, after ten o’clock, but the radio was brand-new then, and we were all sitting up, listening to a fine program given by the Hoot Owls in Portland, Oregon, when the doorbell rang. Sam answered it. Chad stepped in. He was wearing white corduroy trousers, a long yel low rubber raincoat, and a I straw hat tethered to its buttonhole with a string. lie was carrying a ukelele under his arm and a camera in his hand. He took off his hat, dis playing a head full of pretty yellow curls, lie smiled, dis playing a sweet, gentle dis position. (If there is any better index to character than the way a person smiles, I have never found it.) “How do you do?” he said. ”1 have eoine to visit you.” By the time Sam got his pipe picked tip, John had got down the forty-feet length of living room and had Chad by both hands, and was introducing him as a friend lie had told us about, the friend he had made at Mather’s Field, during the war. The way of that was, John had saved his life for him clown there, and had never sinee been able to pet out from under the responsibility of it. John bad foound a job for him, after the armistice, and when Chad lost it, John had loaned him money to start out in a vaudeville act. lie did fine with that for three years, and was niakinp pood money on the Orpheum circuit, when he pot into an automobile accident in Kansas City and was laid up for months in the hospital ’ there- 11c went back to work j sooner than he should have, and spent three months in an I Oakland hospital with influen za. 'John had wired money to ! him there, and had asked him. apnin, to come for a visit to the Desert Moon. But. since he had bad a standing invitation for years, and sinee he had sent no word that he was coming, John was ns much surprised as nnv of us that evening. Tie had walked over, he ex plained, from Winnemucca, a distarc-e of a couple or Hundred miles, lie had had money to buy a ticket no further than Wiunennicca. He bad a job them, for a while, dish-washing —a fine job he made of it- I’ll warrant-and had used his earnings to get into a solo game, hoping to win enough money to pay for his ticket. He had lost his money, his watch, his coat, vest, and shirt. The landlady at Winnemucea, he said, wanted his trunk worse than he did: and anyway, he never argued with Indies. She had allowed him to take the raincoat—a raincoat in this part of Nevada being about as much use to anybody as a life preserver to a trout—and the funny straw hat—fie had worn both in his vaudeville act—and the ukelele. Who wouldn’t be glad to let .anyone who wanted to take a ukelele anywhere, take it" The camera he had found on the road between Shoshone and Palisade. He had named it, “Unconscious Sweet" ness,” and called it “Connie” for short, and he was always plum daffy about it, taking expected and unexpected pictures of all of us at all hours and in all places, and pasting them in big albums with jokes and such written underneath. It is hard to give a fair description of Chad. He was a little, pindling fellow. Around Sam and John and Hubert Hand he looked about as dainty and trifling as the garnish around the platter of the Thanksgiving turkey. He seemed kind of like that, too; like 1 ho extra bit of garnishing that makes life’s platter pret tier and nicer—absolutely use less, maybe, hut never cUittery. Until after he earne, I had not realized how little real laughing any of us had done. We had been happy enough, amVcontent; but we had never been much amused. He amused us. He made us laugh. lie took the mechanical player off the old grand piano, and played it as wo had never before heard it played- He spoke pieces and sang funny songs until we held our sides with laughing. He was a ventriloquist, and a mimic besides. He could imi tate all of our voices to a T. lie had been with us about a week before any of us knew that. I was in the kitchen, one day, when I heafd someone come into the butler’s pantry “Mary,” Sam’s voice called from there, “you are fired Bounced. You haven’t made a cake in two days, nor dough nuts in three. You are getting too lazy and worthless for the Desert Moon—” I tottered; but, just before I fainted clear away, here came that grinning little ape dancing and kicking his heels in an airy-fairy dance, but still speaking in that gentle, drawl ing voice of Sam’s. I laughed until I had to sit down and lean on the table. 1 begged him, then, not to give it away for a few days; and the fun lie and I had, for the next week, would make a book in itself. Martha adored him. He played with her by the hour He made two dolls, Mike and Pat, for her. and he would let them sit on her knees while ha made them talk for her. (TO B* CONTINUED) SALVAGE SELVEDGES Save all selvedges when making frocks this year. They are the fa vored trim. Use them for bandings, for jabots, cuffs and collars. Q. Was there ever a cow with a window in its stomach? D. C. N. A. The cow with the socalled “window” in her stomach is dead She belonged to Pennsylvania State college whose veterinarian five years ago cut an opening into the rumen or largest stomach. When healed a rubber stopper was inserted to close the opening. Through this “window” samples of food could be taken out at any time for chemical analysis and the processes of digestion stud ied. The cow’s death was said tc be natural and not caused by this experimental work upon her. Q. How long have steeple chases been run in the United States? M W. A. The first steeple chase was run at Paterson, N. J., June 7, 1865, a three-mile handicap, over 27 jumps though the real beginning was an extra day's steeple chasing at Je rome park in November, 1869. Minding Ma Prom Answers. *maU Boy: Will yen light a 4gBret for me, mister? Old Gentleman: Light your cig aret kit you? «mair Boy: Yes; me muwer itoesnT «2cw me to play with Batches. -44 ... Mercury Dates from Old. Bom Chemical Markets Magazine When mercury was first used is feat conjecturable. A small vessc CBDtainlng mercury was found in i mre id Kurna, which indicate 5t«t it was valued as early as tr lf|k ** *Ath ceotwrv B. C. Certau It was known to the Phenlcians in the seventh century B. C. and Aristole in 320 B. C. specifically mentions it. Theophratus in the third century B. C. prepared mer cury from cinnabar by means of copper and vinegar and called it liquid silver. Also at this time there are records of the Almadcn mines of Spain—still the richest in .he world. Pliny used mercury for he purification of gold. Vitruvius alued his gold so greatly that he ive a recipe for its recovery from «:rn draperies by amalgamation th mercury. There is little record of the use mercury down through the early centuries, except for the extraction of gold and silver and for the gild ing of ornaments. We soon find, however, a record of its medicinal properties and Paracelsus ur>ed mer cury (probably in the still commer cial form of mercury and chalk) as “grey salve.” He knew calomel, corrosive and white precipitate, using them for skin diseases. Q. Please give a biography of 1 Jane Addams. V. W. A. Jane Addams. the American philanthropist, was born in Cedar | ville. 111., September 6, 18G0. She was graduated from Rockford col | lege in 1881, following which she studied in Europr and in the Unit ed States In 1889 Miss Addams established Hull House, a social set tlement in Chicago. For a time she acted as inspector of street clean . ing. Miss Addams is well known ; as a lecturer and an author. i Q. Are stocks sold on stock ex j changes taxable?—L. L. P. A. The seller of stock always has to pay the state and federal tax of 2 cents per share. There are nc other taxs except an income tax on the earnings of the holder as tc ownership such as a tax on tangible property. INGRATITUDE. An open fop. hU sharpest thrust, In battle’s licrce tcray, I’ll ever meet whene'er I must, To do the best I may. Who strikes in anger, reason fled, And then repents him well, I'o such I ii e'er extend a hand E’en in his prison cell. Gut ever as the starting of A never-ending feud, ■Sliall I regard discovery Of base Ingratitude. The meek are blessed, It is said. Inheritors cf earth; A saying which but iilleth me With quite unholy mirth. We’re taught, 1 know, in every casi To turn the other ch’-rk; A teaching only fit, I ’k. For captive men, or k. Such doctrines fellow, >.. ,o willl But let me play the role, Ingratitude doth e'er invite from out a shallow soul. for meaner than bass enmity Is this degraded thing; And nothing but reprisal may For me remove its sting. —Sam Page. Agonies of Contract. JYom St. Louis Poet Dispatch. If something isn’t done about con tract bridge pretty soon nobcdy will be speaking to anybody else. That is what a writer in the Satur day Evening Post foreshadow*. Auction was 1:0 mean performer in promoting acrid controversy, blasphemies and tears,.but such di versions were mostly restricted to the family. Not so with contract. Perfect strangers bandy epithets across the table right off the reel in which such terms as idiot and imbecile are mere preliminary ges tures. From the discussion so beili cosely headed Clubs and Daggers,” we gather that there are 0,379 recognized contract authorities, no two of whom agree as to what the original bidder imparts to his part ner. The authorities themselves, it seems, are “variable as the shade by the light, quivering aspen made.” Conventions sealed with finality in a book published, say this after noon, are hanged, drawn, quartered and cremated in the volume com pleted the next morning. And since contract is nothing short of war, pestilence and famine, except part ners understand literally and pre cisely what every bid means, the present confusion is necessarily spreading desolation over the hearthstones We indulge the hope that we are no stony-hearted visitor from Mars looking disinterestedly at the irate, profane men and haggard, wilted wemen entangled in the coils of contract bridge. V/e feel that we can bleed as quickly and freely for '.he sorrows of humanity as anyone. But the agonies of the contract ad dicts leave us unmoved. Why any rational person ever tries that abominable game a second time is beyond our intellectuals. Once is enough, it seems to us, for any wayfarer who desires to live on terms of amity with Ills contem poraries during the brie! fitful ever. - -♦ ♦ Youthful Canvassers. From the Boston Globe. A painful state of things has been turned up by the Travelers’ Aid so cieties. Reports have been pouring into these various bodies, which ire organized to help stranded tayfaring folk on their way, of young people, scarcely more than boys and girls, who have belonged to traveling magazine crews. These are periodical crews which make a specialty of house-to-house sub scriptions. For this purpose they recruit young people, sometimes not more than 15 or 16 years of age, to sign up for canvassing. The crew is carted about in a motor truck, lodged at a cheap | boarding house and turned loose on the community, the boys being sent to the housewives and the girls to the business men. The story they are made to tell is that they are trying to earn money for college education. Those who or ganize such things feel that is a persuasive line. From more than 30 cities scat tered through 13 different states, upwards of one hundred different complaints have come to the Trav elers’ Aid societies of young people, usually girls, stranded and at the end of their resources. Those who hang on to the crew are sometimes in a state of virtual peonage, earn ing just enough to pav their keep. No doubt the societies will do ivhat they can to discourage such exploitation, but it will be just as well for people in homes and of fices to help out by withholding patronage from a system not very much removed from the ways of or ganized mendicancy. ---♦ ♦ Q. Hew can I make indelible :ome autographs that are written in pencil? N. T. A. The Bureau of Standards sug gests spraying with the fixative used by artists for preventing the smudg ing of crayon and charcoal draw ings. The fixative is a weak solu tion of bleached shellac in alcohol. The color is so pale, and the film of shellac left on the paper is so thin I that it can not be notice!. Be i careful not to close the book or turn the pages before the alcohol evaporates and the shellac loses its tackiness. Artists’ supply houses sell a cheap tin sprayer, but an old atomizer for spraying the throat can be used. The solution should be well rinsed out of the tubes with alcohol if you wish to use the ato mizer again. Q. Where is the largest electric light in the world? W. L. A. It is in the Metropolitan Sound Studios In Hollywood. It has a fifty-thousand watt globe in it, containing enough tungsten fila ment for 156.000 ordinary sized house lamps. It is said that it can throw a concentrated beam of twelve million candle power. LETTER ON RICE GRAIN London—A letter of greetings was recently received by F. O. Roberts, minister of pensions, written on a single gTain of rice. It came in a lass tube, accompanied by a mag nifying glass, from Delhi. India. On it was inscribed: “May God bless a long, happy, and prosperous life.” Odoriferous From Tire Humorist. Waitress: Don’t you like your col !• !:ge pudding, sir? i Diner: No, Miss I’m afraid there j is an egg in it which ought to have I been expelled. When Food Lots of folks who think they l.avo "indigestion” have only an acid condition which could be corrected In five or ten minutes. An effec tive anti-acid like Phillips Milk of Magnesia soon restores digestion to normal. Phillips does away with all that sourness and gas right after moats. It prevents the distress so apt to occur two hours after eating. What a pleasant preparation to take! And how good it is for the system! Un like a burning dose of soda—which is hut temporary relief at best— Phillips Milk of Magnesia neutral izes many times its volume in acid. Next time a hearty meat, or too .Ich a diet has brought ou the 'east discomfort, try— ©f Magnesia Popular English Novelist Sir Henry Kider Haggard (1S56 1925), English novelist, was horn at t'radenlmin hall, Norfolk. At the time of the first annexation of the Transvaal (1 >77) lie was on the 6tnff if the special commissioner, Sir Tlicopliilus Sliepsfone. ilnd then be came a master of the High court here. After the cession of the Transvaal to the Dutch lie returned to England and read for the bar. Haggard was knighted in 1912. He lied in London on May 14, 1925. "Oh ‘Promise 3Me” At some time in her life ) Cupid pleads to every at tractive wom an. No mat ter what her feature* are, ft woman who Is sickly cannot \ be attractive. | Sallow skin, V pimples, suru> en eyes, life less lips — these are repellent. DR. PIERCE’S GOLDEN MEDICAL DISCOVERY is just the tonic a run down person needs. It enriches the blood, soothes the nerves and imparts tone and vivacity to the entire system. In liquid or tablets, at drug store*, Send 10c for trial package of tab lets to Dr. Pierce’s Clinic, in Buffalo^ N. Y., and write for free advice. Puppy Has Ostrich Meal An Alsatian puppy with the ambi tions of on ostrich has been saved from the consequences of his appe tite at the Royal Veterinary college in London. From his stomach were recovered (77 nails of various sizes, two screws, three bolts with nuts, one holt, 1(7 brads, one stud, a piece of steel drill and a lump of coal, the whole weighing 13 ounces, A* Eobby Saw It Plumber—I came to tlx that old ml) in the kitchen. Bobby—Mother, here’s a tnua wants to see the cook, I guess.— Capper’s Weekly. backache and pain when she came into worn r.nhood. I knew Lydia E. Finki.um’s Vegetable Compound would help her be cause 1 used to take it myself at her age. Now she does net have to stay home from school and her color is good, she eats well and does not complain of being tired. We are recom mending the Vegetable Com pound co other school girls