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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (July 3, 1930)
THE DESERT MOON MYSTERY BY KAY CLEAVER STRAHAN 11 Our road—and It is that, •ince Sam had it graded him self, and pays for having it kept up—runs north, straight as a string, with Sam’s fields and fences on one side of it, and sagebrush covered deserts on the other side of it, for ten miles to where it joins the Victory Highway. Sam has a sign at the junction with the highway; so no one has any reason for using this road un less he has business with the Desert Moon Ranch. We drove to the highway before we turned around. We had come back about a mile, when the wind, that always ushers in a storm in these parts, came bawling up, blow ing the sand and dust in thick clouds, Jerking and snapping the sage and the grease wood, chasing and bouncing the tumbleweed balls. The sky turned black. The thunder growled, mean as a threat, in the distance. John drove fast; but we barely made the ranch before the storm broke. When we came out of the garage doors, the first drops of rain, big as butter cookies, had begun to fall; and, just as we reached the front porch, the rain came pouring down as if all the sky were the nozzle of a big faucet and someone had turned it on, full force. j.ui3 wiu m uig ner m, Bam said, as we ran up the steps. “She’ll be there, high and dry, when we get in.” She was not. Chad and Hubert Hand had come in, and they acted as if, since wo had set out to get news of Gaby, It was a wonder we had not done it. Ma.'tha was awake, and sobbing because she could not have the fireworks. Mrs. Ricker was showing a little last minute sense by hurrying around and getting the house closed against the storm. She should have done it when the wind first came up. Sam went and touched a match to the fire, ready to be started, in the fireplace. I ran upstairs and closed the bed room windows, and turned the fans off. I don’t care for buz zing fans during one of our electrical storms. I had come downstairs, ready to take my rest, when I remembered the attic, with all its windows wide to the drenching rain. My corns had been hurting me all day; so, Chad being handy, I asked him to go and close the attic. He v/ent up the stairs, and almost at once came back to the head of them to call down that the attic door was locked. Ozie of my principles is, that if you ask a man to do any thing about the house for ycu, you do it twice yourself. I thought, again, how true that was. as I went on my aching feet up the stairs to prove to him that the door was not locked, never had been locked, and, likely, never would be. It was locked. Chad stood by, pleased as Punch, when it would not give to my shaking and pulling. He walked off. saying that he would see whether someone downstairs had locked it and had the key, or, if not, whether he could find another key to lit it. I stood there waiting. I put my hand in my pocket for my handkerchief. There was a key. It fitted the lock. I opened the door. About half way up the steps. Gaby was lying in a huddle of pink wrap. Her hat had fallen off. I thought that she was asleep. I spoke to her. She did not answer. I ran up the steps and put an arm around her, trying to lift her. Her head rolled to one side. I saw her throat. It was saffron color, with great blue black bruises at its base. I touched her swollen face. It was cold. For an instant, my only sensation was one of violent Overdone Grammar. 1 Heywcod Brown, in The Nation. It to the urge for elegance which lead* us into error. For a month I have kept careful but silent count and 1 find that •‘me" is almost nev er put In the wrong place. I am not nearing such over-technical er rors 43 “It* me,” for that, I hold, Is entirely permissible. Generally speaking there is a widespread pop ular belief that ‘ me” is always es sentially plebeian and vulgar. Mis takes arise in seeking to shew off with T and place it in spots where it by no means lias the right to go. "It was so good of you to take Mix and I to supper,1' says the nausea. I tried to scream. My throat had closed. I must have shut my eyes, lor I remember ! thinking that, if I did not open them, the dizziness would sweep me off into uncon sciousness. I opened them. I saw, there on the red carpet of the steps, something that shocked my reeling senses into sanity. Dropped all over the bright beaded bag lying there, were the burned tobacco and the ashes from Sam’s pipe. All of my horror concen trated into a frantic desire to get those ashes cleared away so that no one else could see them. I shook them from the bag to the carpet. I brushed them from the carpet into my handkerchief. Just as I got to my feet from my knees, Chad came up. “Call the others,” I said. “Gaby is here—murdered.” I stuffed the handkerchief filled with ashes into my pocket, and, for the first and last time in my life, I fainted dead away. CHAPTER XVII suicide The next thing that I knew I was lying on my back listen ing to someone screaming, above the voices of Sam and Mrs. Ricker. I realized that those awful sounds were com ing from my own throat. I tried to stop them; but I could not. I put my hands to my throat to make it stop the noise. Sam’s voice came, clear and strong then—real, like a light in the dark. I sat straight up. The screams ceased. “What," I managed, “is the matter?” “Everything on God’s earth, that could be,” Sam answered. “But Mary. Drink this, Get some sleep. Nothing to be done, now. We’ll need you, to morrow. Some water, Mrs. Ricker—” He shook a powder in my mouth. Mrs. Ricker held a glass of water to my lips. When I opened my eyes again, it was gray dawn. I saw that I was in Mrs. Ricker’s room. She was sitting by the window tatting. Yes, tatting; darting the shuttle back and forth, back and forth, with her long, white fingers. I watched her for a full minute before memory seized me, and I cried out with the pain of it. “Sh-h-h,” she warned me, in a whisper. “You’ll wake Martha. She is asleep on the couch.” I got out of bed, shook my skirts down and fastened my corsets under my dress. I felt in my pocket. The ball of handkerchief was still there. I went into the hall bath room, washed my face and hands, and drained the last crumb of tobacco with the water out of the washbowl. I washed the handkerchief, scoured the bowl and went back to Mrs. Ricker’s room. As I opened the door, she warned me against waking Martha. > “Was the shock too much for her?” I asked, going and standing beside Mrs. Ricker so that we might talk in whispers. She stopped to pick a knot out of her thread be fore she answered me. “I didn’t allow her to go upstairs. She followed Chad out of the house and saw him shoot himself. He died within ten minutes. It was terrible for Martha I. had to hold her, while Sam gave her the nar cotic_” “No, no,” I protested. “What —what are you saying? Not Chad? What was it you said I about Chad—” | “He walked out and shot himself, through the head.” She pulled the thread looser on her shuttle. | I rushed out of the room, away from her. I staggered down the stairs into the kitchen. i Sam, Hubert Hand, and beautiful blond from Mr. Zlegfeld’; show. I hasten to add that thi beautiful blond Is entirely fictional She exists, of course, but the au thor of this essay is not the ‘‘you of the sentence. And she may add ‘Between you and 1 she's a goo< I kid and I would hate to see her g< out with anybody who wasn’t a per feet gentleman." Gladwys, you see, was frightenei as a child by a grammar lesson, Sh didn’t qiute get the idea. It is he notion, and the notion of all the in sufficiently educated, that there i something fundamentally coarse an< crude about "me.” It is not a lady’ 1 pronoun. And so Gladwys alway | jonn all jumped up irom cneir chairs and started toward me. John reached me first, and put an arm around me. “Chad—” I began, but I couldn’t get any further. “There, there, Mary. Pour her some coffee, dad. Quick! Here, sit here. Turn on that fan, Hand. Get some water—” “No, no. Tell me. Mrs. Ricker said—It isn’t true. It— it can’t be true. Not our Chad—” Sam answered, gruffly, to keep the choke out of his voice. “It is a damn shame, Mary; but, it is true. The boy shot himself, not fifteen minutes after we found her. Wait,” he went on quickly, “before you think anything. I want to tell you what 1 have told the others. It is God’s truth. That poor boy is as innocent of any connection with the murder as I am.” “Sam!” I managed, and hid my ugly, twisted old face down in my arms. I will say that the men did pretty well, just sitting quiet, and leaving me alone, and letting me have my cry out. It seemed to me I never was going to be able to stop; but they didn’t bother me with comforting, they let me get clear through to the sniffling and swallowing stage. I was the first one to speak. “What,” I said, “are we going to do?” _ _t__ A _ .1 . _ 1 — A WU cUC tu WU a 1UI, Mary,” Sam said. “We are going to keep Chad’s name clean. Sure,” in answer to my protest, “we all know. But, Just the same, I’m mighty thankful that I have his alibis for him, myself. A suicide looks bad, you know. That is, it would until we find Canne ziano. This is his work.—’* “But, Sam,” I said, “if he wasn’t let out of San Quentin until yesterday morning, he couldn’t possibly have got ’way up here that same even ing.” “We’ve told Sam that, a thousand times,” Hubert Hand said. “All right, all right,” Sam said. “But if I ever get that long distance call through, you’ll find that Canneziano was released a day or two early. She met him yester day—” “How’d he get up here, Sam?” I questioned. “You re member there were no tracks on the road except the sedan tracks—” Hubert Hand snapped me short. “Did you have a pas senger up from Rattail, yester day, John?” Sam spoke, before John could answer. “Son,” he said, “did you, by any chance, as a favor to one of the girls, bring that skunk here yesterday?” “I did not, dad.” “ He got here, then, as I’ve said all along. Horseback, across the deserts. And he murdered the girl. By God, he’ll hang for it, if it takes my last dollar. He killed Chad, , too, as much as if he’d shot him down. We aren’t over looking a couple of murders, not here on the Desert Moon. Not right yet. She went out ! to meet him yesterday, I tell you. She brought him into the house, for some purpose; through the back way and up into the attic.” “Without anybody seeing or hearing them?” Hubert Hand questioned. “Nobody was looking nor listening, as I remember. You know damn well that, with the doors shut, nothing can be heard from room to room in this house—let alone up stairs to downstairs. I tell you, he killed her there on the stairs, and he made his get away—” “If you think that,” I said. “Why aren’t you out hunting him?” “Hell!” Sam exploded. “Why ain’t I out hunting last night’s lightning? The girl had been dead anyway two or three hours—more likely longer, when we found her. He had that head start on us. And he could ride. God, how that skunk could ride; no mercy for a horse! He’s gone. He went straight across the deserts, hell bent for Sunday. He’ll need food. He’ll need i strings along with I where there > is any doubt and even if there isn't. This would not be the best of all • possible worlds if every man from porter to president exchanged the ’ morning's greetings In a finished . Harvard accent. 1 suspect that life l would be easier and more natural if > nobody ever undertook to hold his fellows up to grammatical and lin guistic perfection. In fact, if no 1 more eyebrows were ever arched we > n ight all speak with far more forth - right vigor. The naturul man will find his way more readily to elo s quent and truthful expression than 1 the one who lives in constant terror 5 of the lash of ridicule. 5 Some of the most iascinatina talk I water, worse, i ve teiegrapnea to every town within twc hundred miles of here. Thej ; are watching. I’ve ’phoned i every ranch. I’ve kept that ’phone hot for six solid hours I’ve got posses at every water hole—” “Listen, Sam,” I said. “You shouldn’t have doped me up with that sleeping powder. Be cause, unless after he murdered her, he walked ; downstairs, with none of us seeing or hearing him, and into the living-room or the kitchen, and put the key in m3 pocket, Canneziano is not the guilty man.” Sam’s pipe fell out of his mouth. I shivered. During al.’ of his talk, I had clear for gotten about those pipe ashes dropped all over the beaded bag. It was Hubert Hand whc put the question to me about the key. He made me fee.' guilty. My explanation to therr that the key had been in thf pocket of my dress, the dress I had been wearing sines morning yesterday, had the feeling of a confession. “Still,” Hubert Hand said when I had finished, “that does not, necessarily, disprove Sam’s theory. If Cannezianc was let out of prison in time tc get here yesterday, he could have murdered her, as San insists, and he could have given the key to some of us tc put In your pocket. Chad, for instance, or—” “No!” Sam thundered. “That boy, I tell you, is as innocent as I am.” The telephone bell rang. Hubert Hand and John fol lowed Sam into the living room. I stayed where I was. 1 had to have a minute to think The ashes on the bag? The key in my pocket? Sam? “Mary Magin,” I told my self, “for twenty-five years, ever since Sam Stanley took you, a snivelling, pride-broken deserted bride, into his house, and gave you a chance tc make a life for yourself, you have never seen him do a mean trick to man, woman, child, or beast. You never ever heard of a questionable noi an unkind action of his. Anc you never will, for the simple reason that the ingredients for anything but honor an< de^pney aren’t in him. If they were, he would not be San Stanley, any more than bear, soup would be bean soup if if was made out of gooseberries and ginger. That being the one certainty you have, at this minute, you had better hang on to it tight; stop thinking and guessing; keep youi mouth shut; and you won’t gc far wrong. Good resolution? are easy to make. So is lemon meringue. Both are almos* impossible to keep. I went right on thinking. II Sam, I thought, had found if necessary to murder Gabrielle Canneziano, he had probably done it to keep something worse from happening Sickened at myself, for that thought, I found another war of thinking, not much better It did seem to me remem bering the pipe ashes on top of the bag, that Sam musf have been there on the stairs at some time after she had been murdered and before ] had found her. He must, ther be keeping some secret con cerning the murder. It did look as if, considering his talk he must be shielding the murderer, with every ounce of his horse-sense and in genuity, both of which he hac plenty. But who would hr shield to that extent? Chad alive or dead? No. Martha'; Yes. But Martha could nof have done it. John? Not un less there was something to if than one of us dreamed ol Hubert Hand, or Mrs. Ricker' No. Danny? I thought not Myself? I couldn’t be sure. The men came back into the kitchen. Sam looked ten years older than he had looked ten minutes before. “It was San Quentin,” he said to me. “Canneziano was positively not released from there until nine o’clock yes terday morning.” “That,” I said, “lets him out.” (To B* CONTINUED) 1 ers I know are men and women w itb scarcely a shred of grammar. Sure ly it is more important to talk in a wise and interesting manner tbar to speak correctly. ‘ Why not dc both?” you suggest. It can be done, but there are barriers. Too great a preoccupation with form Is apt tc war against the substance. And Every Hour, Too From Tit-Bits. ‘‘Did your husband follow my di rections? Did he take the medicine I left for him religiously?" “I'm afraid he didn't, doctor. In fact he swore every time I gave him a dose.” I OF INTEREST TO FARMERS ll BEST VEGETABLES If you have over wished for some guiding hand to help you to select the best varieties of vegetables for growing in your state and the sur rounding territory, as you turned through the richly illustrated cata logs of the seedsmen and read the : growing accounts of excellence In ! quality and yield of each and every vegetable obtainable, here is some help for you. Is your choice bush 1 beans? Well, then, select Pencil Pod Black Wax or Wardwell’s Kidney Wax for wax or yellow podded var ieties and Bountiful or Stringless Green Pod for the green podded kinds. Kentucky Wonder Wax and Kentucky Wonder are the recom mended Dole beans. Burpee Im proved Bush, Fordhooks Bush and Henderson's Bush obviously are the bush limas, while the following are the pole limas, King of the Garden Pole, Early Leviathan Pole and Car pinteria Pole. Lii la beans require a longer growing stason than ordinary beans and pole limas need a longer maturing season than the bush limas. Ail of us are interested in tiie best in tomatoes and cabbage. There is a wide selection possible in tomato varieties. The recommended sorts in clude Bonny Best, Earliana, Mar globe, Stone, John Baer and Great er Baltimore. Two tomatoes de signated as wilt-resistant are Mar globe and Marvelosa. The former is a red one and the latter pink in col or. As for cabbage, choose Copen hagen Market, Golden Acre and early Jersey Wakefield for early cab bage. Late Flat Dutch and Danish Ballhead are good late cabbages. Carrots, beets and turnips find a place in every garden. And how much more enjoyable they are if the best varieties are planted. Satis factory carrots are Chantenay, Ox Heart, Danver’s Half-long and Am sterdam Coreless. Choose either Crosby’s Egyptian or Detroit Dark Red beets mi the table and for pickling. Purple Top White Globe, Purple Top Strap Leaf, Early Milan and Early White Flat Dutch are the names of the best turnips. Per haps parsnips should have been added to this list, therefore we men tion Hollow Crown and Guernsey varieties. PROFITABLE LATE LAMBS Corn belt farmers who are handl ing larm flocks appreciate fully the advantage which early lambs have on the spring market. In some sec tions late lambs, particularly those born in April and May, are neither desirable nor wanted. They come too *#te to be marketed in May and ^une, when the price is best for spring lamb, and stomach worms and extreme heat make summer feeding unprofitable. But out in the short-grass country, which lies be tween the corn belt and the ranges, the late April and May lambs have found considerable favor with many farmers. Feed crops are not always certain in the short grass country. Should a feed crop be raised the late lambs are ready by harvest time to utilize the crop to good ad vantage. Should the crop be a fail ure the owner has feeder lambs for sale at a time when a good demand exists for them. Late lambs have many advantages over early lambs in such sections. Ewes carrying late lambs can be wintered more eco nomically with regard to both feed and housing. Creep feeding of lambs is not necessary, as the lambs can be easily grown on their mothers’ milk and grass. The short grass country is more arid than the east ern sections of the country and as such is not as susceptible to the rav ages of stomach worms. Heat does not affect such lambs to a great extent because they are not on fat tening feeds. The successful opera tion of a flock under such a plan suggests the use of hardly fine-wool ewes and the same kind of pure bred mutton rams of good type and quality that are used in the corn belt for the production of the early lamb. The small llock of 50 to 150 ewes is impractical under this meth od because the distance from mar ket demands that the economical movement of the lambs, either as feeders or when finished, be made in carloads lots. Many farmers are using this general plan with con siderable success. NIGHT SPRAYING Spraying at night is not a pleas ant task but may sometimes be necessary. Information provided by the spray service and other agencies of the various states has to a large extent defined the time limits ior effective spraying. This information often shows the time effective spray ing to be surprisingly short. Unfor tunately rain or wind frequently re strict the time when spraying may be done to even narrower limits of time than those prescribed by the spray service. In order to insure himself against variable weather conditions the grower is forced eith er to provide himself with extra equipment for spraying or to double up cn the use of his available equip ment. Many growers have solved this problem by srpaying at night as well as during the day. By the aid of good lights furnished by some of the more powerful headlights the task of directing the spray be comes almost as easy as it is in the daytime. In orchards where the con tour of the land is fairly level and the surface not too rough, night spraying seems entirely feasible. Some growers in the middle w’est and other sections are using this means to keep down the overhead cost which would result from the installation of extra equipment. TWO-WAY FARM INCOME A switch to beef production is one of the remedies proposed for the increasing butter storage. Over much of the corn belt dairy herds have displaced beef cattle during the last live years, dairy expansion having been accelerated by remunerative prices for cream. A partial switch to beef on a yearling basis could be made with celerity and economy by putting beef-bred bulls into some dairy herds, thereby cutting down milk production and putting farm revenue on a two-way basis. Re cent experiments demonstrate that the progency of Angus bulls and Holstein cows make creditable fat yearlings at the 700 to 800 pound stage where dairy conformation is MAN’S VALUE IN EGGS One authority says a man is com posed of the same ingredients eggs are made of and that the analysis of one average man equals the analysis of 1,200 eggs. Another au thority says 1,000 eggs. There is a difference in the sizes of men and •ggs. There is no way of making a bad egg better. It's at its best just as the hen lays it in a clean nest. The poultryman only has to keep it Dican and send it to market with eggs of its own size and color in an attractive carton appropriately la beled. That’s the poultryman's luck —his product is as good as it can be without his putting his hand on it. Eggs are a finished product. If not conspicuous. By this means ex cess buiter production could be checked and iurther depletion of beef supply arrested, lhe experi ments have been solely with An gus bulls, but a Shorthorn or Here lord cross would serve the same pur pose. Adoption of this policy would check the sacrilice of innumerable milk cows ol the boarder type that do not pay lor their leed at the pail, but give sufficient milk to feed a calf susceptible 01 development into a fat yearling worth round $100 to the butcher, lhe major problem in corn belt agriculture is utiliza tion of annual production of pasture cured roughage and coarse grains, the urban outlet for hay and oats having practically vanished. Re source to this method of curbing swelling milk production will create a job lor cows that must otherwise be sacrificed, will utilize farm prod ucts such as hay and coarse grains, and will create for Angus, Short horn and Hereford bulls a demand that has all but disappeared in con sequence of liquidation of the range cattle industry. BLST SELLING ASPARAGUS Many an asparagus grower can get fen additional 50 cents pre crate by using more care in grading. First of all, a suitable container for your market. Practically all markets now show a decided preference for the pyramid crate containing one dozen two-pound bunches. Most large ship pers mark “Net weight two pounds" on their wrappers or labels but act ually pack tnem to weigh two and a hall pounds, and apparently it pays to have the overweight bunches. Sizing is highly important as there is a big premium on large asparagus. The sizes in the bunches should be kept uniform and then bunches of the same sized stalks should be packed together in the same crate. According to the Unit ed States department of agriculture grades, Very Small means stalks of less than one quarter inch in diam eter; Small means one quarter to nine sixteenth inches. Medium means nine sixteenth to three quart er inenes. The Large grade sells for double the price of the small. Ungraded asparagus packed loose in the crate without being bunched sells for relatively low prices. Strange as is may seem, producers still persist in sending muddy asparagus to mar - ket, although it is almost certain ta reduce prices from 50 to 75 cents pei crate. Although canners prefer white asparagus the fresh market has shown an ever increasing preference for green asparagus in recent years and other things being equal the greenest asparagus will outsell the white, purplish or partly green. POULTRYMEN, READ THIS During the last seven years many experiment stations have been ex posing glass substitutes to very rigid tests. These studies have been made from the two-fold standpoint of ac tual value in poultry raising and correct installation ior years of ser vice. The tests have proved that these window materials have a very beneficial effect upon growth; in preventing leg weakness in baby chicks; on hatchability; increasing egg production and health in the laying flocks. The reason for these benencial results is found in the fact that reliable glass substitutes let through the ultra-violet rays of sunlight which glass and many oth er materials keep out. In their stud ies, the experiment stations have found that glass substitutes give years of service when proper instal lations are made. They have also found that these materials wear out if needlessly exposed to summer weather when glass substitutes are not needed. In bulletins issued by these stations, recommendations are made that where the glass substi tutes are made in a wire mesh base, they should be tacked to irames so hinged that they are always in a vertical position. These frames should be hinged to swing in and to the side, or up under the roof, or they should slide down into a box arrangement in front or in back of the openings. Excellent ventilat ing conditions are thus provided, and at the same time the glass sub stitutes are given adequate protec tion when not in use. Poultry keep ers who can not follow these sugges tions should remove the frames cur ing the summer months and store them under cover. -M STICK TO PROVED SIRE As a rule, when a sire has been used in a dairy herd for two years, it is sold to the butcher. Frequently, this results in making one of the most sa-ious mistakes that can ba made in building up a high produc ing herd. If you are trying to im prove your dairy cows through the grading process, you should be con stantly on the lookout for an old bull, one that has been used long enough for his daughters to have proved themselves to be better pro ducers than their dams. An old ball is not necessarily better than a young one, but if he is healthy and manageable, has a good pedigree, and his daughters have proved themselves to be better producers than their dams, one runs no risk in buying such a sire. He has proved what he can do, and may be confidently relied upon to repeat his past performances. A young bull of equally good pedigree may prove equal to the old. but there is nc giuarantee of that. This is why an old bull, if he can qualify as a slra of high producing daughters, should be sought and bought by those who are anxious to improve th/:ir heads as rapidly as possible. Don’t dis criminate against such a bull even if he is fciir or five years old. Keep cn the lookout for his kind. Very often such bulls can be bought at a low price, and some people shy at them for that very reason. Never hesitate to buy a well bred, tried bull that has proved his value as a breeder, provided, of course, he is healthy and of reasonably good dis position. -- » » INTERESTING DAIRY FACT Many records on the performance of dairy herds show that the feed cost of keeping the dairy cow is al most invariably 55 per cent of the total cost of supporting her. they are fresh, they are salable, or rather, in these days of cold storage marvels, if they taste fresh, they are salable and advertise themselves and their grower. Eggs are a recom mended food for deficiency diseases Doctors order them for everybody. It would be interesting to know what changes in the demand for eggs would come about if poultrym i? knew as well how to advertise their producct as the patent medicins manufacturers know. - ♦ »- ■ ■■ — ■ WHY NOT APPLY IT A dressing of fine manure applied to the lawn will improve the grass next year, i wsriy