Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The Columbus journal. (Columbus, Neb.) 1874-1911 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 27, 1909)
J - - i." , ,v7 . . - ."If I i CHICAGO'S NEW LIBRARIAN , ' l . -: -t- - . . . - . ., . . -.. fclli-v v m TT , TiA aA i TAW r Hr-l II ' I X , 1 1 J J - - I LX I J ' a 1 'A M5. ; -? 1 U - WJLd JL - T ' 'a - ' "" v v Pilgath Gubb's Auto-House By Ellis : Parker Aidhor of Tigs is Pijs Etc- ILLUSTRATED By PETER NEWELL rJwll f Among the citizens of Betzville Pit gath Gubbs stands out pre-eminently for thoughtfulness, and it is largely because be once had a grandfather. That grandfather of hia is why Pil gath i6 so far-seeing. In every action of Pilgath's life he remembered his grandfather, and many of. us would he better off if. we did the same. The reason Pilgath dug his well right alongside ofr his barn was be cause he remembered that once his grandfather had fallen off the barn and had broken his arm, and Pilgath figured that if he should happen to fail off his barn he might break his arm, too, but that if he had a good, deep well alongside his barn and fell iff the barn into the well instead of onto the hard ground, the water would break the fall. It was 30 feet from the top of the barn to the ground, and the well Pilgath dug was 40 feet deep, and so, one day, when Pilgath did fall off1 the barn into the well, he went tdown 20 feet into the water, and was so nearly drowned that it took five hours and three quarts of whisky to bring him to. He saw immediately that if he fell off the barn into the wa ter a few more times he would be totally drowned to death, so he fixed that by pumping all the water out of the well and plugging up the spring in the bottom. After that there was no danger of his being drowned, but the next time he fell off the barn be fell clear to the bottom of the well, 70 feet, and broke two arms and a col lar bone. Pilgath was a .very thought lol, foresighted man. When Pilgath got married and start ed to build a house he remembered that his grandfather had once built a house, and then had sold the lot the house was on and had moved his house onto another lot, and that mov ing the house was a lot of work. So Pilgath. being a thoughtful, foresight ed man, decided he would have no trouble of that kind, and that he would build his house so that if he ever wanted to move it he could move it without any trouble at all. The only way he could think of to do this was to have the house mounted on wheels, and have a good, strong automobile engine built under the front porch, with a tank of gasoline in the attic over the girl's room. He saved quite a sum on the wheels by using eight old millstones that he had inherited from his grandmother on his father's side, and he got a fine old storage trattery at less than cost from Aunt Rhinocolura Betts. who had used it for her rheumatism. There wasn't any electricity in the battery, but Pilgath figured be could get it filled As Soon as the Rain Slackened a Bit t He Took a Look Around, and He t Saw the House, About Twelve Miles Out on the Prairie, Revolv- ing in Circlet. when moving time came. The crank, to crank up the engine, stuck out at ne side of the porch, and was soon covered with Virginia creepers, so the lioase looked like an everyday house. No one would have thought it was an antohouse. The last person in the world to think it would have been Pilgath's sec ond wife. Her name was Arbutus Ann, aad she was a timid little thing, and crawled under the bed every time it thundered. She was so afraid of thun Wer that she crawled under the bed every time a wagon rumbled across the Two Mile bridge, and when traf fict was heavy, at fair time, she staid .under the bed permanently, and Pil eath had to bring her meals to her on a tray. Last Wednesday at four o'clock a terrific thunder storm struck Betz ville. and Arbutus Ann went under the ed. Pilgath was in the barn, but he started for the house on a run, for r he knew how frightened Arbutus Ann would be, but when he was half way to the house there was a tremendous stroke of lightning that almost blind ed him. At that he sprinted harder than ever, although the rain was pouring down so that he could not see a yard in front of his nose. o He ran swiftly, but in a few minutes he be gan to get scared, for he had not reached the house, and, he let out a few more laps of .speed. And still he did not reach the house. Then he was certainly frightened, - A very simple thing had happened. The lightning had hit the chimney and had knocked off a brick, and the brick had fallen on the crank handle and had given it a turn, which cranked up the engine, and the lightning had at the same instant buried itself in the storage battery, filling it with electricity, so that it began to spark regularly and explode the gasoline in the cylinders, and the house had moved away from where it had been. The house had an excellent engine, and it was geared high. It was geared to run about 50 miles an hour on the first speed. As soon as Pilgath realized this he doubled his speed, for he was afraid the house might meet with an acci dent He felt perfectly secure as to the wheels, for it is harder to punc ture millstones than rubber tires, but he had an inkling that a frame house traveling at 50 miles an hour should have some one at the steering wheel. As soon as the rain slackened a bit he took a look around, and he saw the -house, about 12 miles out of the prai rie, revolving in circles, and he start ed for it with his tongue hanging out, but just before he reached it the nous took a new tack and started south by west at 50 miles an hour, and in two minutes it was out of sight over Reynold's hill. Pilgath said he never .was so proud of anything in his life as the way that autohouse took that hill on first speed. When he got to the top of the hill he could only see a cloud of dust In the southwest, about 52 miles away. He said that cloud of dust assured him that the storm had been merely local. Pilgath wants to announce that if anyone finds a house running around loose, with a wife under the bed in the first bedroom at the top of the stairs, to the left as you go up, that wife is his. He says any doubt on the subject may be removed by mak ing a sound like thunder. Hammer ing on a tin waiter will do. If, at the sound, the wife backs so far under the bed that she can only be reached with a broom, there need be no doubt that her name is Arbutus Ann Gubb. The finder will please feed her until called for. (Cop3Tight. 1909. by W. G. Chapman.) Fine Brazilian Oranges. Travelers and connoisseurs who have tasted all the fruits of the world are of one voice and rapt opinion in pronouncing the oranges of Bahia, Brazil, the sovereign lord and king of all fruits. The dreamed-of apples of Hesperides no more touch the realiza tion and surprise these oranges bring than a crow touches a channel-crossing flying machine. The Bahian orange is not only a gastronomic sur prise, but a startling awakening of the mind to something new and strange. Like the first touch of love's young dream, one cannot all at once realize that life and the world could contain anything so deliciously sweet and perfect New York Press. Notes from the Basswood Bugle. Our school teacher is just cuttin' a wisdom tooth. By jing! nobody is more entitled to one than she is. Hod Peters's youngest swallered the coal-stove shaker the other day, and Hod says he ought to grow up to be quite an athlete, as he has so much iron in his system. A mail sack which was throwed off from No. 6 the other night knocked down Amariah Tilson's barber pole, three blocks up the street, and upset Grandma Whipple, who was on her way home from the sewin circle. Grandma says free mail delivery is a good thing, but there is such a thins as gettfn' too free with it Judge. Easy. "George Washington never told a lie." "Aw, that was easy; there wasn't no ball games them days." Of Course Not.' The end-seat hog is back again. Ho gets the choicest seat: :dw, sausage made of end-scat hoss. Would not be fit to eat. The Flounder. Some authorities say the flounder is only a codfish with a flattened head. SiSZZVi?AZS TRADE WINDS IN TWO OCEANS Peculiar Action of Air Currents Most Noted in the Atlantic and Pacific. Constant winds are usually called trade winds. Whea the surface -beat d is, roughly speaking, a whole zone, as' is the case of the tropics, a sur face wind will set In toward the heat .M tropical zone from both sides, and. -ItiBg. will ascend, and then separat- will flow as upper currents in op Ite directions. Hence a surface it will flow from the higher lati- toward the equator, and an up- current toward the poles. If. then. earth were at rest a north wind prevail in the northern half of Jfea globe, and a south wind in the Itat m half. But these directions are fcniifiril by the rotation of the earth jm Its axis from west to east In vlr wt of this rotation objects on the ituta's surface at the equator are car jrioi round from the cast at the rate f 17 miles a minute. But as we re jeote from the equator, this velocity ts ksatiaiially diminished; at latitude SO degrees It is only eight and a halt miles per minute, or half of the veloc ity at the equator, and at the poles it is nothing. A wind, therefore, blow ing along the earth's surface to the equator is continually -arriving at places which have a greater velocity than itself. Hence the wind will lag behind, that is, will come up against places toward which it blows I. e.. will become an east wind. Since, then, the wind north of the equator is under the influence of two forces one drawing it west it will, by the law of composition or forces, flow in an intermediate direction, that is. from northeast to northwest All ob servations confirm this reasoning From the great services that these winds render to navigation they have been called the trade winds. It is only in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans that the trade winds have their full scope Rapid Telegraphy. In recent trials of the Pollak-Virag high-speed telegraph between Berlin and Konigsberg, a distance of 430 miles. 2.800 distinctly .recorded words were transmitted In five minutes. Henry E. Legler of -Milwaukee A sumes New Position at Salary of $6,000 Annually. 'Chicago. Freer use of books and better facilities for getting them are two of the reforms which book lovers may expect to follow shortly upon the advent of Henry E. Legler, who has en tered upon xhis new duties as public librarian of Chicago. The former Wisconsin newspaperman, who Is the administrative head of Chicago's pub lic library, lost no time In going' to work to earn the $6,000 salary the board voted him. Arriving in 'Chi cago on an early morning train from his home in Milwaukee; Librarian Leg ler hurried, at once to the beautiful building on Michigan avenue which is to be his -workshop and began at once to knuckle down- to his task. The new librarian consented to out line his plans -only after expressly 35 33VcW PAmonm 8f El?VYi&Z &. CZ.v3JeAt.0 IA cor fcicMT ay w. A-fiTTenSQi HMSHAGTOA'S MClAtJZ, e-5) souast vaetfoAr vS8i-l t--f?JWy-.1 is-an l--oS2j.$i KSx BS5ssfe? w&ft" "-y. IJKftgOT &sffl Henry E. Legler. providing that nothing he should say might be construed as criticism of his predecessor. "The principal aim of a librarian is to get the books under his charge into the hands of the people who want them with the greatest degree of fa cility commensurate with proper pre servation of the books themselves, declared Librarian Legler. "As rapidly as the finances will al low I believe in extending the free-delivery stations. The number of branch libraries ought also to be increased. Free home delivery has been tried in a few cities, but it is not yet necessary for Chicago and does not compare with other and more urgent needs for what money Chicago has to ex pend on its public library. With the help of the school officials it is our hope that the circulation of books in the juvenile department may be in creased to a great extent. "More liberal privileges, it would seem to me, may be extended to card holders. Elsewhere it is not an un usual custom for patrons of public li braries to be allowed the right of taking out two or three, or even more. hooks at one time on one card, pro viding they do not attempt to monopo lize books for which there appears to be widespread demand. Here, I am told, the holder of a card may take out only one book at a time. I think that system may be changed with duo regard for the convenience of all con cerned. "The general trend everywhere also appears to be toward increasing the freedom of admission to book stacks. However, I want to make it clear that whatever changes I recommend will be only after careful consideration and after obtaining the consent of the trustees." Recently Mr. Legler refused an of fer to take charge of the St. Louis public library and he also refused an offer to become New York state li brarian. He was for many years a newspaper reporter, then became sec retary of the Milwaukee school board, and for five years has been in charge of Wisconsin's state library commis sion, which handles hundreds of trav eling libraries. fc3 AAHf G TON W . -' ' DOGS ON POLICE FORCE Oak Park, Chicago's Fashionable Sub urb' Is Guarded by Two Canine Thief Catchers. Chicago. Oak Park, the fashionable western suburb at Chicago, is guarded by dog police. Daring robberies in the village are responsible for the One of the Police Dogs. addition of the dogs to the force and it is a noticeable fact that since the two dogs, "Nick Carter" and "Jesse James" have been on' the force that hold-up men and burglars have not been so busy. The dogs are trained to follow a trail over any kind of a road, whether it be an oiled thorough fare or a common country road H. G. Strumpfer of Hammond, Ind. is the owner of "Nick" and Jesse." He says they will rid Oak Park ol crooks. Old policemen, however, are skepticaL Whittle. Whistling Is a fixed habit in man. but it can be overcome. The man on the tugboat is only an overgrown willow-whistle boy. The boy is spanked into a knowledge that there is a sea son and a time when whistling may be. indulged without rousing the ire and edging the nerves of the neighbor hood. There is a certain legal spank ing which may fit the seat of the pres ent noisemakers. Chicago Post When a man is sick he expects the rest of the family to drop everything and listen to his groans. VSHINGTON. In the novel of "Ivanhoe," Isaac the Jew tells the knight that he knows it is the custom of the Christians to put on pilgrims' garb and to walk barefooted for miles to worship dead men's bones. There is something of a sneer in Isaac's tone and Ivanhoe rebukes him with a truly heroic. "Blasnhem- er.' cease!" I don't, know howjnany thousands of Americans go yearly to Mount Vernon to pay a visit to the re pository of a dead man's bones, but the number is something enormous. If George Washington never had lived at Mount Vernon, never had vis ited there, never had died there, and had been buried in the antipodes there would be excuse enough for the visits to the place of seventy times seven the number of the pilgrims who go yearly down the Potomac to stand on the towering hill and to look off down the valley. It is with an utter shame that it is confessed that after four years' residence in Washington one man American horn and with some lurk ing pride of patriotism in his make up never until recently went to the place where the father of his coun try and the exponent of the American school teacher's ideal of truth lies buried. Mount Vernon is the ultimate ob ject of the voyage down the Potomac. There are other objects every paddle wheel stroke of the way, for the hills on either side are hills of rare beauty crowned with trees that saw the rev olution and that in the fall are wear ing the raiment which belongs to the kings of the forest. On the boat going down there was a young German gentleman, who had married an American wife. He was much more interested in thn hnnntu of the Potomac's banks and in the history of the country beyond the banks and in the life history of George Washington than was she. The German asked his American wife If George Washington was born at Mount Vernon." She answered that he was; which he wasn't, not by many miles. He asked her many other questions, to each and every one of which, but with unening inaccuracy, she made answers. This was a traveled American girl. There is a fairly well-grounded belief that she met and captivated her German husband while she was doing Europe in an automobile or was rhapsodizing on the Rhine. Some day, perhaps vedy likely, in fact she will go back to her husband's land and will listen to his telling of his American trip, and in the enthusiasm of the nature which he made manifest on the Potomac he will tell the "his toric truths" concerning George Washington which he learned from his American wife. It may be that some of the Germans who know something of the life of the American gen eral who was the friend and fellow soldier of Steuben will come to think, as some Americans have come to think before this, that a little American history might be included in the course of study of the average American girl, and that not a dollar should he spent on her passage money to Europe until she knows without stop ping to think whether it was George Washington or Abraham Lincoln who crossed the Delaware, and who, something later, forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. This may seem to be a matter that is beside the mark, but, while the listener had none too thorough a knowledge of American history, there were some things said on the boaUplying down the Potomac that if they had been "said by an eighth-grade school boy ought to have brought him a flogging. Mount Vernon has been written about by pretty nearly everybody who has seen the place. It hasn't fallen to, the lot of everybody to see it in' the fall. It is a nc ' 'e place, a fitting resting ground for the first American. It seldom falls to man's lot to see such he roic trees. There is a giant oak which stands sentinel over the first burial place of Washing- which he thought worthy , enough to uy. The light wasn't good on the afternoon in mind and all that one pilgrim could make out of a book's title, above which was written Washington's name, was the Po m : iiwV4 LSSKF i Ek9JB WkWAmmt K ?vv,. : Ui 9 it fe-NiN? ;.?; JWTSSSI K ' . . .V '.. S lX X Wx &$ v$ '??! r'X3'.' & ?&i. &??' 'fcvV f &3&aQ H I llffgl HS-r.t-HmV xB I mmmm ggf7i;7yt;(y y I l rV g5" ii 3i:aPf lajjllli ,MmMt 4 - -lOUA,-r -KgAZr0V orv g ton. The body was removed from the base of the oak about 75 years ago. It never should have been removed. It is said that Washington selected the place where bis body now lies and left instructions that one day the change of sepulcher should be made. The oak which guarded the first grave must have been standing for three centuries. The view from the place is inspiring enough to enkindle the eyes of a dead man. The view from the new tomb is fine in its way, but it is as noth ing to the grand sweep of river, hilltops and for ests which moves before the eye from the place where Washington slept for 20 years. Hundreds of visitors go to Mount Vernon daily. They peer into the tomb and then straightway go to the house. There is an inter est, of course, which must attach to any of the belongings of Washington, but it seems to be a legitimate matter of regret that of the thousands who go to Mount Vernon the interest in the mir ror which Washington used when he shaved and in the spoon with which he ate his porridge, if he ate porridge, is far greater than in the forest trees under which he walked and in the garden whose hedges of formal cut were planted with his own hand. Indoors at Mount Vernon everything is dead; outdoors everything Is alive. The forest and garden are instinct with Washington; the con tents of the house are as dust. There Is a real interest, however, in the library of the old home. In the main the books are simply copies of those which were on the shelves in Washington's time. The originals, as I understand it are in several libraries of the country. There are two originals, however, which are open at the title page, so that if the light be good, one may read Washington's name written in his own hand and the title of the book word "Sentimental." The wonder was, and the poor light was responsible for its remain ing a wonder, if the father of his country had not In his quiet hours been reading "A Sentimental Jour ney." If the gentle Martha had peeped into the pages and had re proved George because of what she saw there one can imagine his ready answer that the book was written by a holy priest of her own chosen church. The man with the megaphone on the Washington "rubberneck" wag ons tells his audience of passengers as they roll by the Metropolitan club house: "This is the club of the nobs." In another minute, as the big sight seeing bus passes another clubhouse the megaphone man says: "And this is the club of tho cranks." "The club of the cranks," as this in formation howler calls it, is the Cos mos club, and a most interesting or ganization it is. Its membership is com posed of scientists, some physicians and clergymen, a few lawyers and two or three newspaper men. The scientists are in the great majority. It costs a pretty penny to join the Metropolitan club and to pay the dues and to live the life of the organization. The initiation fee at the Cosmos club is rather small, and the dues are light, but there are scores of members of the Metropolitan club, "the club of the nobs." who willingly would pay twice or thrice the Metropolitan's initiation fee and the Metropolitan's dues if the expenditure could gain them admission to the club where the "cranks" foregather. Every Monday night is called "social night" at the Cosmos club. Of course the clubhouse is open at all times, but on Monday evening the members make a special effort to be present and there is always a large gathering in the great, sweeping rooms of the house where once lived Dolly Madi son. They don't intrude "shop" upon you in the Cosmos club. The members are a genial body of men and they have many guests from all parts of the world. They find out what the guest likes to talk about and then some one who knows the sub ject is promptly introduced to him. There are few world subjects upon which you cannot get an expert opinion in the Cosmos club. The members, of course, have their hobbies and they ride them. In one corner of a room there will he an astronomical group, and there will be another corner with a fish group and another cor ner with a bird group and another corner with, it may be, a mushroom group. It isn't all science, however, in the Cosmos club. The members play billiards and pool and bridge, and they have a fine time of it generally and at no great expense, for it is one of" the hard facts of earth that men de voted to science have little money. Learning doesn't bring high pay in the market. INVENTER OF GRAHAM BREAD - Sylvester Graham the First to Popu larize Article of Diet That Bears Hit Name. The housewives of America make many loaves of graham bread during the year, but few of them know the history of this article of food, nor have they ever taken the trouble to learn why and how it came to be first prepared. Sylvester Graham, a native of Suf fleld. Conn., was the man who in vented the bread, andit has borne his name ever since. Graham was the pioneer "crank" on the food question, and he popularized his theories throughout the country. While lecturing under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Temperance so ciety in that state, about 1830, he con ceived the idea that Intemperance could be prevented and totally cured if the man who wanted alcoholic drink would confine himself to a purely vegetable diet He argued in public and private that by following up his course of treatment and using only vegetables in the diets, drunkards could shake off the clutch of alcohol and become proof against the habitual craving for strong drink. Graham was himself in delicate health at the time he discovered his vegetable theory, so he started In to try his theories on himself. After practicing his preaching for some time he announced in public on vari ous occasions he had met with re markable results in his own case, and detailed the improvement in his con dition occasioned by his following a vegetable diet. He followed up bis studies along the line of dietetics, with the result that he finally advocated -a strictly vegetable diet as a cure for all the diseases which human flesh is heir to. ir- 1 r - fc
