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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 17, 1896)
the couxm. !: s-' . THE LINLN LIFE: iCSS'N. !SW ." 30 OCCUPIES MIDDLE GROUND BETWEEN THE "OLD LINE" OR OLD FASHIONED LIFE COMPANIES AND "AFTER DEATH ASSESSMENT"OR CREDIT SYSTEMS. ITIS3UESA CLEAN PLAIN POLICY ON THE FIVE YEAR DISTRIBUTION AND FIFTEEN YEAR SELF SUSTAINING PLANS For full information apply to W. R. Proctor, Sec'y at home office rooms 304-5-6-7, Farmers and, Merchants Insurance block or to Fred S. Clinton or Allen S. Green , general agents. JKe Blue Thirg. radship to tind him a BIuh Thing, too. Sho failed to reply for a month a month filled with indigo ara besques, and spectral womon weaving fatalities of tho Ring and Sno.vball pattern. When she did write sho for cot to mention tho Blue Thing. Other things had become or importance. Sho had just discovered tho first arbutus. Her letters told of the discovery at pic turesque length. This was obviously An Adventure in Acstheticisra. The Fraud had never seen the Other Fraud. There were times when ho wished he had never heard of ber, or of her poems which happened to strike a chord. (He was a literary editor.) But until she inveigled him into buying the the method to render the Fraud frantic Blue Thing he had never actually sworn wjth longing. His next, beseeching, at her, boldly, above his breath, and brought recognition. She had been 3,000 miles away. hunting Blue Things, sho wrote, and It was her Blue Thing that she raved had discovered some, but nono to bo of firet in one of those letters of friend- mentioned with her own, and she could ship wherewith she basely rewove her Uot make up her mind to send him one spell at least once every six weeks. As less perfect. Before he could answer he read, tho scene she suggested became finished as a cameo to bis inward eye. The long-raftered, weaving room in the old eastern Virginia farm-house tho this considerate letter, there camo a second, brief and rapturous. "I have found it," she wrote; "it is even better than mine, and if I were not so poverty antique, hand-made wooden loom, tho stricken just now I should be tempted shapeless, talkative woman in home- to keep it myself. But as it is, I will bo spun, shuttling her threads of blue and generous, it is yours." white in the country sunshine, and- but hero the Other Fraud came in and blurred things. He had ber picture, it is true, yet he had not the slightest idea what sho looked like. Tho picture looked serene and somewhat 6aintly. But she couldn't be the other Fraud if she looked that way, and she was un- The Fraud received this communica tion at the office. He was as happy as a lover with his first hope of Her. In an hour a grateful epistle, onclosing the necessary coin of the realm, thun dered southward. Tho Other Fraud always left hurry to slaves. It was an other six weeks before she managed to doubtedly tho Other Fraud; and never get the Blue Thing expressed West, more so than when she unconsciously The sun of May strove to enter the beguiled him into imagining that he Fraud's dark den as he hastily cut tho wanted a Blue Thing, too. strings and stood at last on tho thresh- "A genuine, hand-woven, old, old- hold of possession, fashioned 'Ring and Snowball Kiverlid," Yes, it was a delightful Blue Thing, she hastened to write. "It is adorable, There wore the indigo arabesques, and my Jear Fraud, and it is mine. Can there were the sincerity and the creamy you conceive of the old-fashionedness, background. The Fraud draped it over the quaintness, the sincerity of this bit tho foot of his Led and contemplated it, of weaving? It is as genuine as a wall leaning back luxuriously in his big old hanging of William Morris's, a book- chair. He was thinking of how certain cover of Cobden Sanderson's. Tho blue- men of his acquaintance were going to black indigo designs wander over tho envy him his bookcase curtain. He had creamy background as imaginatively quite finished His pipe before a terrible as Moorish arabesques. Since ester- suspicion intruded. He started up and day it has been the delight of my room looked around at his shelves dear, and tho curtain of my bookcase. And shabby, overflowing. Then ho critically all this charm, all this gratification of considered ?no Blue Thing. After five tha eyes and tne intellect for only some minutes or so, he carried it, trailing half-score coin of tho realm." This wa9 across the Hoor, and tossed it over tho her way of referring lo money, it will bookcase. If tho bookcase had been be understood. She meant to convoy, three times as large it would have made subtly, that tho Blue Thing had cost a very satisfactory curtain. The Fraud her 310. draped tho foot board with it again. This letter, of course, inspired th eAs a bookcase curtain it was largely Fraud with an unquenchable desire to out of the question. And ho had never pospess a Blue Thing of his owu. He thought of it as anything else. It is ought to have looked at the complete difficult for men to readjust intentions, set of Carlyle on his top book-shelf, During the ensuing weeks bis official which he had bought because of her absentmindedness increased. He could Carlyle letters, and whose beautiful, not discover poets and read proofs with raggedy-edged pages he had never had the Blue Thing a wanderer in the desert the moral energy to cut. He should of his den. He spent the day devising certainly have given a thought to the new uses for it. In the evenings he ex-drunken-legged spinet in tho corner perimented. There was either too much which was always staggering under its of the Thing or there was not enough of burden of magazines. He had pur- it He festooned it over his mantel chased this once, fancying it must be shelf, but it swept to the coal bucket like the one in her den, on which her and kept the late fire to itself. He stately great-grand mothers had tinkled cleared his table of its ungodly accumu in other centuries. But be neither lated treasures and flung the Blue looked nor thought. The Other Fraud Thing over it. It lay in fold on the could make even life desirable with the floor. It hid the waste basket. It wound magical tip of that golden pen of hers, itself around his feet, and entangled the He answered the letter, invoking her in legs of his chair. The next evening he the name of their four years' com- removed it and tossed it carelessly over his big chair. Then ho put on his dressing-gown and occupied the chair. The effect in the mirror opposito was that of tho magician in Frank Stock ton's fairy tales. Now, the Fraud had a certain aspect of dignity to maintain. Ho thought about it at tho office next day and concluded that, whilo the Thing might make a good rug, as a chair-cover it robbed him of self-respect. That evening was devoted to converting it into a thing to walk on. But at mid night it again decorated the foot of his couch. It was too big for a rug and not big enough for a carpet. By this time it had worn him out. He wrote to the Other Fraud confessing the situation, and asking her how big tho bookcases usually were down South. She was be wildered. Sho said her Blue Thing had made a quaint little curtain, and she very much wished to know how small they made bookcaseB out West. She also said that he might throw it careles sly over a divan. Now, tho Fraud had not a divan in the world. Nay, more, he had not een room for the begin nings of a divan in that den of his. This also he wrote. "Why not," sho answered sweetly, "make a window curtain of it, and put a band of solid blue top and bottom?" Arranged in this way it would bo even more delightful than ever, 9he thought. This was the moment when tho Fraud wore. He forgot that sho could not know how he had but the ono window by the desk, and that was not of much use to him, owing to the architectural peculiarities of tho adjoining buildings. Ho threw her pleasant little note of sug gestions into the waste basket, and, carefully averting his eyes from the cause of his trouble, rushed from tho room. He camo homo that evening, his soul filled with the peace of resignation. He had resolved to struggle with the Thing no mors. Perhaps, in tho dim days to come, it would find a reason for itself. In the mean time, it could drape the footboard of his bed, uncoerced. Ho concluded to read "The Melancholy of Stephen xVllard." Its calm despair seem ed suitable. Perhaps Stephen Allard also had uncut Carlyles, and staggering Kpinets, and impishly arabesqued Blue Things. True to his conclusions, he settled down with this volume for com rade; but its dark bluo cover unsettled his mind. It was not long before he re tired in the hope of sleep and forgett'ng. During the night it became colder, and he drowsily reached down for his over coat, which had frequently served such temporary emergencies. In the dark ness he drew up the Blue Thing instead and slept beneath it unconsciouely. An early message from the office, in the morning, hurried him away, and he did not notice this. But the housemaid, who came in to clean up as soou as the street door closed on him, noticed it im mediately. For weeks her fingers had been itch ing to put the Blue Thing to its legiti mate use. And now, for the first time, she had an excuse. She was an Eng lish girl, and her old grandmother at home, in Hertfordshire, covered her bed with Blue Things like that. She pulled and patted and coaxed the Fraud's couch into a thing of comfort. Then she crowned it with iho "Kiverlid" and made it also a thing of beauty. When she stood tho great white pillows againBt tho headboard, it was tho pic ture of what a bed should be. The Hertfordshire girl backed to tho door admiringly. It seemed to her as if she had created this work of art. Severa' times during the day sho stole to tho door to feast her eyes on it. It made her homesick. When the Fraud camo in the so lution of tho problem dawned on him jiko a daybieak of tho soul. It had never entered his head to put the Blue Thing to so uniquo a uec any more than it had occurred to tho Other Fraud. Upon recovering ha presence of mind, and emerging from bis trance of admiration, the Fraud rang for tho English houso maid. When she timidly entered, with a sidelong glance at the beautiful bed, he gave her a coin of tho realm, but he did not see fit to break his impreesivo silence. Therefore, to this day she does not know what merit tho .oin awarded. And she has not tho remotest idea that he considi rs her by far the cleverest woman in America. The Other Fraud doe not know of al this. Sho is raving over an old pink delf teapot at present, and the Fraud is making tho effort of his life not to buy a pink teapot, too. But ho knows that it is ueeless, and that ho is really saving coin of tho realm for this, and not for a new top-coat, as ho touching!) imagines during his inteivalsof sanity. The Collector. Jones Failed? Why, I understood that Snooks was a very wealthy man. Brown He was; but he undertook to keep a yacht. Jones Ah, yes; his lloating debt was too much for him. SHE II BT TAKING IHE &' Actual time traveling. 31 hours to Salt Lake. 61 hours to San Francisco. 63 hours to Portland. 77 hours to Los Angeles. -FROM LINCOLN, NIB City office, 1044 O street. See the new Photochromes at Craa cer & Curtice Co.'a, 267 South llta street, the newest thine In picture. H 31 13