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About The Valentine Democrat. (Valentine, Cherry Co., Neb.) 1896-1898 | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1896)
i t M i rx4 i i t i Hj Uj I 1 n t mi w r i lr f Kj m J I Tr rT iw the fy j v l was Ik if- the feferS UR steamer had just cleared Singa pore My duty in engine - room done and I sitting with mate on the bridge watching the down w a r d sweeP of thc trie C1USK i L puis WU in mind of a ter sunset he was saying they al ways go by on the run And that was a pretty theatrical bit you had in the he said to my chief who Ihad joined us We had found ill ihe nuts but one off the connecting rod head had another half turn been made our engines would have been a scrap heap -Only oiiee has it happened before said my chief and there was a grand tableau as you call it but not in the engine room Our stem and three vall eyed junks were the actors It was up there jerking his head northwards There was nothing but a thousand odd miles of water and a dusting of islands between us and Hongkong The mate held a lighted match to the chiefs pipe and set him drifting on witli the current of his yarn You see it was years and years ago and I was second in a local boat Hongkong to Yokohama We were the rfirst to employ Ghina firemen We had been repairing and put on a fresh -crowd all except one Li Chin It was near monsoon time and the sec ond day out we were sitting as Ave might be here but there was no sun set on view It had been hazy all day -and we were watching the moon ris ing just past full it looked as if had bashed one side off the true It got up a haze big and blood red Hike a fire balloon at old Gremorne A miean staggering swell had set in so oily that it had no more go to it than Tthc slush in a greasers bucket We -were all pretty well hipped and morose being company for no one except the sea and that well that looked as if it wanted to be sick and couldnt Li Chin who was decent for a heathen Twas in charge below -My chief was sitting on the rails -and somehow he went over the side You know pretty well how things like that galvanize everybody Lose him No The oily swell saved him for the her own wake which was marked out like a dusty road at night through a billy country Well we came to where iie was yelling and got him out By iill law the old man ought to have got into a splutter but instead of that he said Look here Mr Gain well that was my chiefs name I knew something bad to happen in this cock eyed no-side-up looking weather but I dont believe this is the only thing to night And we all said together Thats just what I was thinking sir as they do at church when the parson pipes out Then send her ahead again and lets get it done with he said Give her steam Li Chin I shouted down the skylight Li Chin looked up and cluttered Hi no talkee talkee come chop Chop So I went down to him I was pretty green in those days and whatever came within a hairs ibreadth of happening made me feel as -squeamish as if it had come off Of course you grow out of that but then I felt my hair creep Our high pres sure connecting rod was on the down throw with only a single nut on She had the old style of engines remem ber -and when they went on a burst SCCCT JOfYTillXG THAT COMES OUT JJ they went handsomely no tinkering up new engines perhaps new ship may be even new hands However we began to screw up at least the chief did hed only trust himself Presently Jie shoved a nut under my nose That your trade mark- he asked The nut was chipped and scribed with bad -spanner marks which I repudi ated In what followed I can never quite settle Li Chins share in the program This was how we were after we had - juitiawwsresrar fixed all tight again Li Chin was lean ing through the eccentric rods with the lamp I was half in half out the crank pit and the chief was at my back He had the spanner All in a breath he dragged me backwards flat my head cracking on the plates and I saw the spanner gospit through the standards It didnt hit any metal but something soft Then he clapped his hand on my face and held me stone tight and some thing came down and rubbed by my chest scratching me no more and through his fingers I could see the crank moving but it had passed me If any one believes that engines havent souls just you stick him in the crank pit and let her go only dead slow and just to clear him That converted me He dragged me right out hissing in my ear Whip up on deck tell em to shoot on sight any who leave the stoke hole He slammed the iron door tween the boilers and us and turned on Li Chin who was still holding the lamp and had him by the throat before he could finish No bobbery all samee white man As I jumped past the starting plat form I saw one of the new stokers ly ing on his back his face a thing of hor ror That was the soft thing the span- ner hit and you know what size a con necting rod takes Both mates and the old man were on the bridge watching something ahead All in a sweat I sang out my message and the old man never asked why or wherefore but popped in the chart room and slipped a revolver in the second mates hand saying Its come to us then The mate didnt move so the old man yelped at him Why dye stand there Mac Are you white livered Now Mac was a Greenock man and he said Y ken I want orders frae you and Ill shoot your ain brother Just in a quiet and matter-of-fact way And Scott he would I know them Shoot anything that comes out of the stoke hole said the old man and Mac slid along whistling soft and quiet to his station Yes that was it An nie Laurie but it wasnt for her that he laid down and died Poor Mac he got sand bagged at New Orleans over a chit of a Yankee girl not fit to black his boots The old man grabbed me by the arm Look here he said pointing out three sails wallowing along between us and the moon Thats the little game your friends below are after Their friends are coming to join in And by thunder so is our stem He turned on the chief mate like a flash You jump down with Mac into the stoke hole and make every pig tail heathen stoke her up to the blow off Wipe em out if theyve any lip Scoot He was tramping up and down like a terror I never dreamt that a man with a wife and family looked like a demon You he cried to me jump below and dont let the engines move a hands breadth till I ring her Then let her rip I only went below the skylight and told the chief from there I didnt care to pass that thing on the platform again And besides I wanted to see what was going to happen I was all on the jump like a white faced girl so I staid looking out The steamer was wallowing in he trough like a lame duck All the crew had turned out forward after fixing up the turned in China firemen The three junks came on in a line abreast down the wind There was a heathenish feeling about everything that red lop sided moon making a big crawly snake on the oily water the three junks sliding along and us laid silent There were three things I remember The slap of the water under our stern the rattle of the junks sails flapping against their masts and our old mans fist he was pounding time on the rail The she began to blow off All at once he roared out Port hard a port and rang her full speed and we began to move Lord in three minutes we had got our pace The junks had turned after us at first but they seemed to guess some thing was wrong for one sheered off Presently wed done the half circle and headed stem on to the other two Then I reckon they realized The first broke out into lights and shouts she was right under our bows and you could hear her split like dry firewood Her big battened mainsail rattled on our focsle head like a shower of canes The sea itself seemed to yell all round us as we steamed through the cargo of drowning pirates I looked over the rail wed hit the other and smashed one side off and as SHE WAS RIGHT UNDER OUR BOWS we pranced by I saw her men sliding off her deck like a spilt cart load of turnips as she heeled over Her masts caught our after boat and tore it away Then she beam ended and slumped After hitting the first junk the old man had been ramping up and down the deck like a mad fellow The third junk had got some dis tance away but it was of no use after her we went our old man roaring and morning We made the heathens stoke us back to Hongkong and jail I went to the hospital completely knocked over You know Aberdeen Yes well you know that old house against the town hall an eating house his widow keeps that now and if ever youre stuck up say as you know one who sailed with him And if youre flush Black and White Japanese Swords The Japanese whose civilization was old before ours began have pffcvSucec beautiful examples of the art The Japanese nobleman car ried his swords as the insignia of his rank He wore one on each side thrust into the folds of his sash These swords have been handed down as heirlooms from father to son and it was not unusual for families of an cient lineage to have as many as fif teen hundred of them marvels of cost ly and artistic workmanship in their possession The scabbards are richly lacquered and bound about with a silk en cord in a curious pattern The blade is curved and the round guard is pierced to carry a small dagger This guard called a tsuba is decorated with curious designs and so great is the ingenuity of the Japanese metal-workers that among the thousands of swords they have produced it is impossible to find two guards exactly alike They are prized so highly by collectors that large sums of money have been paid fre quently for an antique sword only that it might be ruthlessly torn apart to se cure the guard St Nicholas Irrigation by Windmills It was found that in the Arkansas valley water could be obtained by shallow wells ranging in depth from eight to twenty feet This is raised by hundreds of windmills into hundreds of small reservoirs constructed at the highest point of each farm The uni form eastward slope of the plains is 0 J5 WHAT DAVE I DONE shaking his fist at her then all at once he quieted and conned us like a Thames steamboat skipper And we hit that junk clean in the stern and rode over her from end to end It was sickening to see the strug gle in our wake I ran and asked him if we werent going to save some of them He knocked me clean off my- feet I was silly for more than ten minutes and when I pulled together we were still running ahead My chief was binding up my head and the old -man was staring astern All at once he screamed Lord what have I done and chucked up his arms and fell bade He never spoke more but went out next seven feet to the mile The indefatig able Kansas keeps the mills in active operation and the reservoirs are al ways full of water which is drawn off as it is required for purposes of irrigation These small individual pumping plants have certain advan tages over the canal systems which prevail elsewhere The irrigator has no entangling alliances with compa nies or co operative associations and is able to manage the water supply without deferring to the convenience of others or yielding obedience to rules and regulations essential to the orderly administration of systems which sup ply large numbers of consumers The original cost of such a plant exclusive of the farmers own labor in construct ing his reservoirs and ditches is 200 and the plant suffices for ten acres The farmer thus pays 20 per acre for a perpetual guaranty of sufficient rain to produce bountiful crops but to this cost must be added 2 per acre as the annual price of maintaing the system Century Grandma Stowe At Hartford Conn where the aged Harriet Beecher Stowe lives they tell a good story which the Boston Commonwealth reports of her preco cious grandson A neighbor found him swinging rath er too vigorously an another neighbors front gate and warned him that Mr Smith might not like it Whereupon the independent young gentleman re marked that I dont care for Mr Smith or his ox or his ass or anything that is his Do you know who wrote those words asked the friend deeply shocked Oh was the nonchalant reply I dno Grandma Stowe I sup pose Times Have Changed A Maine paper notes as evidence of the change that has come over methods and men that whereas in old times the paymaster on the Kennebec ice fields never used anything but cash and brotherly love in making payments he now keeps a loaded revolver on his table as a precaution against the possi bility c bold thieyes trying to snatch his pile f greenbacks Women of fairness are very rare they have been so spoilt by flattery THE ROSE Facta Concerning the Origin of One of Our Sweetest Flowers Some indication of the origin of the rose both in time and in country is probably given in its name This un doubtedly comes to us through the Lat in from the Greek rodon a word which is now agreed to be in the wider sense oriental not Greek But to which of the two great families of lan guages it belongs is less certain Heyn maintains it to bo Iranian that Is of the Aryan family of the older tongue of Persia and Bactria and Per sia might unquestionably put forward strong claims to be the true native country of the rose But Prof Skeat who has the majority of modern au thorities on his side declares it to be a pure Semitic word the Arabic word ward a flowering shrub thus de noting the flower of flowers par excel lence It is worth noticing that the Persian word gul similarly meant at first only a perfumed flower but has come to be used of the rose alone Ut rosa flos florum sic est domus ista do morum is the emphatic way in which the inscription over the lovely chapter house at York claims it as being the very flower of architecture Both theories however of the name agree witii nil other indications that we can trace in placing tiie original home of the rose much as that of our earliest forefathers in the central or western central district of Asia but instead of spreading only in a westerly directicn the rose took apparently a more catholic view of the earth and expanded impartially east and west without showing any reluctance about longitude while disliking the more vio lent changes of temperature implied by uu extension of latitude It has been ound by travelers as far south as Abys sinia in one hemisphere and Mexico in the other but it never seems voluntar ily to come very near to the equator Northward however nothing seems to gtop it since it has conquered Iceland Greenland and Kamtchatka In Iceland so in fertile in vegeta tion that in some parts the natives are vompelled to feed their horses sheep and oxen on dried fish we find the rosa rubiginosa with its pale solitary cup shaped flowers and in Lapland bloom ing almost under the snows of that se vere climate the natives seeking moss es and lichens for their reindeer find the roses msiialis and rubelia the for mer of which brilliant in color and of a sweet perfume enlivens the dreari ness of Norway Denmark and Swe den Quarterly Review Cane or Lamp Which It is a curious fac t says Popular Science that there are more inven tions made in connection with walking canes than with anything else man makes use of Some time ago a man patented a cane which was practically a portable drug store being hollow and filled with vials containing all the medicines handiest in the emergency of sudden illness or injury But now some one else has fairly outdone him and has contrived a cane which is at the same time an electric light The cane is hollow and the interior is filled nearly to the top with the necessary chemical solution The knob is really an incandescent bulb with an ornamental and pro tective covering of nickel or silver which either unscrews or flies open at a touch upon a spring The poles of the battery extend into the hollow of the cane but not far enough to reach to the acid But when a light is desired the cane is held knob downward the acid attacks the zincs and the electricity generated lights the bulbs They give out a really surprising amount of light and last nearly two hours There is no waste of material when the light is not in use as no Electricity is generated except when the cane is turned upside down and the acid so brought in contact with the zincs So a single filling may last for weeks or months When the bulb is burned out or the zincs are eaten away or the acid loses its strength the owner can easily reload the cane as the supplies can be bought for a trifle This wonderful cane weighs only about a pound and is made to resem ble an ordinary ebony walking stick of the usual length with nothing about it to indicate that is is a lamp as well They Were Not Welcome He was short round and rubicund with merry blue eyes and a stout fringe of sandj gray hair showing under the old fashioned derby His chin was be whiskered but the clean upper lip de noted shrewdness and determination despite the soft curves at the corners He bustlod into the car at Polk street struggling cheerfully with a huge oil cloth valise She followed and was tall gaunt and careworn although her expression of childish expectancy made the old face almost young She wore a turned merino gown and on her faded bonnet bloomed a bunch of brave new daisies We soon learned that they were goin to sprise Henry Yaint los the apples father she inquired He displayed three enormous red ones Reckon the younguns eyesll shine he chuckled At Twenty second street a fashion ably dressed couple entered the coun try people started the old ladys eyes filled and she nervously pulled off a cot ton glove exposing a work worn hand My son she breathed and raised a radiant face to his His sentiment however was curbed by convention ality and while lie greeted mother and the gov good naturedly he ig nored the expectant lips and only press ed the hand Gertrudes greeting was polite and cold A look of astonishment and pain set tled on the old mans face Go right up to the house Henry said awfully sorry but Gcrt and L have an engagement the girlll take care of you until we get back They got out at Twenty eighth street and at Twenty ninth the old man sig nalled the conductor I guess well go back to the Corners mother I low weve made a mistake Passing out she murmured They wuz ashamed they wuz ashamed Looking back as we jogged on we saw the quaint figures waiting for the up car His blue eyes were no longer mer ry and on her faded cheeks were traces of tears Boston Post A Subterranean City It is generally believed that human beings cannot flourish in fact can hardly support existence without an ample supply of fresh air and sun light Yet it appears that there is at least one civilized community which gets along very well although deprived of this advantage A writer in Popu lar Science News thus describes the city In the salt mines at Wielicska in Galicia a population of 1000 working people men women and children has dwelt for centuries in health and contentment several hundred meters below the earths surface Galleries have been hewn from the glittering mineral and houses a town hall assembly rooms and even a the ater built entirely of the same- The little church with its statues- all of rock salt is accounted one oi Europes architectural wonders Well graded streets are met with and spa cious squares lighted by electricity In some cases not an individual in successive generations of these mod ern cave dwellers has ever beheld the light of day and yet their average longevity is said to be remarkable Salt of course is unfavorable ta the propagation of microbes and its hygienic properties are proverbial Could a sanitarium be constructed ot this material we might witness sur prising results in the treatment of con sumption But what if some hidden water course should one day work its dis solving way into the subterranean city Marvelous Light A marvelous triumph of science is reported from Vienna says the Suns London correspondent It is announced that Trof Rontgen of the Wurzburg University has dis covered a light which for the pur poses of photography will penetrate wood flesh and most other organic substances The professor has succeeded in pho tographing metal weights which were in a closed wooden case also a mans hand which shows only the bones the flesh being invisible It is said the process is simple The professor takes a so called Crookes pipe viz A vacuum glass pipe with an induction current going through it and by means of rays which the pipe emits photographs on ordinary photo graphic plates In contrast with the ordinary rays of light these rays penetrate organic matter and other opaque substances just as ordinary rays penetrate glass He has also succeeded in photograph- ing hidden metals with a cloth thrown over the camera The rays penetrated not only the wooden case containing the metals but the fabric in front of the negative The professor is already using his discovery to photograph broken limbs and bullets in human bodies Two Hats and No Head M Lablache the famous singer was very absent minded While at Naplesi on one occasion King Humbert was also there and expressed a desire to make his acquaintance On entering the ante chamber in the palace M La- blaehe found that the gentlemen pres ent were all personal acquaintances of his and asked to be allowed to keep his hat on as he was suffering from aj severe cold A lively conversation wasj cut short by the entrance of a chamber lain announcing that the King would receive M Lablache at once In the momentary confusion the singer forgot that he was wearing his hat took hold of another which had been placed on a chair near him and went before his majesty who at the sight of him burst into a fit of uncon trollable laughter Utterly confused M Lablache asked humbly to be in formed of the of reason the Kings mer riment Let me ask you a question first replied the King which is your hat the one you are wearing on your head or the one you cany in your hand Confound it all replied La blache joining in the laughter truly two hats are too many for a fellow who has lost his head Origin oJ Windfall The origin of the expression wind fall which is used when one wishes to refer to a streak of good luck dates back to the time of William the Con queror At that time it was a criminal offense to cut timber in the British forests without royal consent All that could be gathered for fuel or other pur poses was such limbs as the wind should happen to break and cast to the ground On this account the peasants hailed a great windstorm as a blessing because it was apt to cast enough of windfalls for winter firewood From this old time forestry eustom comes the modern application of the expression Just Escaped Madam said the new boarder tone of your family came very near dyin last night Indeed I had not heard that any one was ill Who was it The man in the room next to mine who played the cornet till 3 a m He stopped just in time to save his life Detroit Free Press A man always gets the impression that perhaps bis family would love him more if be made more money i U V xt 1 h i A ui i
