Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 7, 1897)
THE COURIER. The old mill t mile or two south of the city stands stenciled against the fading line of western 'sunset, its slop ing roof seemingly touching the sky and its cheerless bulk casting far-away shadows across the fields. The lest rays of the evtning sun top the hill and Hood the open w indows'and doors of the mill until it looks like a huge tin lantern punctured full of light point?. Cobweb nets hang in tho corneri and float from rafter t rafter and everywhere oust of the prario has covere i the white lino powder thatsettles over every mill. An old circular i tone tests against enseal of tho building and broken bits of lieams and machinery show dimly in tho gathering duet. Birds ily in and out the windows, but their direction is mostly inward for it U night. A cat pokes her head out of a door, stretches backward on her fore-feet and creeps stealthily away through the long waving grass. A dog turfi9 off from the road toward tho place but heats a sound and stops short with head erect and one foot bait-raised. Then be turns back and hastens on toward tho city. For two men with bpggy, ill-fitting garments, dusty shoes and shapeless hats, whose faces even in the twilight are dark and forbidding, have made their way along the dtwerteel railway grade, and entered tho shadow of the old mill, dragging a heavy sack between them. The rim of crimson light above the hill sinks lower and lower and the shadows fall deeper until the ruined mill melts away in the gathering gloom while the low, vibrating hoot of an owl comes echoing from its silent depths. The husband of the family held quite a prominent place on the Burlington in those da) a and naturally tin whole household were wrapped up in the road. Its service, extensions, equipment and general prosperity made up their life. One evening the family entertained a few friends, In one corner the husband was talking with several gentlemen and the conversation had drifted back to lheir echool days, while the wifo bustled about to see if all were having a pleasant time. In passing tho corner where the gentlemen were talking, the word "algebra" 6truck her eats. "Algebra? Algebra? What town is that, Mark? Is it a new station on the Burlington? I never heard it before." "No!" replied the husband rather sourly, "it's the name of a new sleeper the Pul'man people Bent through this morning. Good name, don't-jou think?" II. G. SHEDD. THE MODERN POEM. He wrote a poem with intricate rhymes, With care, it was cunningly wrought, Embellished with words of delicate sound, And filled with ennobling thought. But the editor man sent it hurrying home, With a note of much' culture and grace, Saying "Write me a poem just two inches long-, I need it to fill some spare space." So he wrote a few lines of meaningless rot, And sent it post haste through the nud, And he found it next month at the foot of a page, Twas just the right length for a sale. William Reed Dunroy. ftSSSSS-SSS'5'55SS'iS-SiJ'iiSiJi5SiS) C.LHB8- I ( Officers of the State Federation of Woman's Clubs. President, Mrs. B. M. Stoutenborough.PIattsmouth. Vice-president, Mrs. J. E. Keysor, 2724 Caldwell street, Omaha. Secrotary, Miss Veeta Gray, Fromont. Treasurer, Mrs. M. F. Nichols, Beatrico. Auditor, Mrs. D. C. McKillip, Sownrd. Librarian, Mrs. G. M. Lambertson, Lincoln. WAMK O CLUU. Lincoln Clubs. l'RESIOKST. SECKKTAKY. When the lion and the lamb He down together it's 10 to 1 they get up together. Athenea Mrs. Will Green Mrs. Bello Hamilton Book Reiew Mrs. I. N. Baker. Mrs. Kelley Century Mrs. M. II. Garten Mrs. R. T. Van Brunt Faculty Club Mrs. Geo. E. MacLean Mrs. I. II. Burnett FortnigLtly Mrs. C. II. IinliotT" Mn. C. II. Gere HallinGrovo Mrs. II. M. Bushnell Mrs. Walter Davis Lotos Mrs. J. L. McConnell Mrs. Lucv A. Betsey Matinee Musicale Mrs. D. A.Campbell Mrs. J. W. Winger Sorocis Mrs. A. J.Sawyer Mrs. J. E. Miller Sorosis, Jr Mrp. Wm.T. Stevens Mrs. Fred Shephard Wednesday Afternoon The hostess act as president.. Mrs. Robert Wilson Woman's Club Mrs. A. A. Scott Mrs. Kelly Y.W.C. A. Magazine Club. ...Miss Wild The plaster lions near the door are peeling oil all down their backs sun burned I suppose. And tho tall maidens on whose tirsd heads re6ts the cornice need their fact-3 washed sadly. The inside of this building ho.vever is inoie hopeful. At Iea't there are enough interesting things to look at to distract one's attention f i oui the rooms themselves. I wandered past the beautiful col lection of old Roman copp?r ves sels and lamp?, green with age, through the Columbus room whero there is an array of portraits of Columbus and everybody and thing connected with bim, on into a second room where Ihoy keep bookp, maps.documents and articles that have anything to do with him or his time. Here are worm eaten doors of the housoCo'.umbus lived in, shortly after his marriage, rude affairs built like barn doors of planks running up and down and with a lock and key of hand worked iron not any too smoothly done, that made me think involuntarily of pirates and their massive treasure chests locked probably with rough kes like this. These doors and tho lock suzgeet a great deal of tho rude mechanic world Columbus lived in. One of the maps tell a tale of odd childishness among scholars. It is a map that King Henry of France had made for him by geographers. It wa3 probably cSbfid ered then a marvel of accuracy and scientific thought. But. imagination must have got the upper band of the staid geographers, for they made Aus tralia reach around tho southern point of Africa, across the Atlautie ocean and well to the west of Capo Horn, and with the idea that if the earth was round, the equator must bo higher up than the poles. They have written all the names in tho northern hemisphere upside down. Scattered over the map are trees to em. phasize the distinction between land and sea. These, too, po!nt up in South America, and down on tho other side of the equator. From the Columbus rcom I went to the zoology rooms where I speedily got iost among stulTed animals. My con sciousness tells me that Darwin is right when he says we are related to monkeys. For, after gazing at awkward walruses and suggestively po3ed snakes and lions, I felt real relief when I found some stuffed monkeys, and a little farther on monkey skeletons. They seemed so wholesomely like old friends of mine. The skeletons I could hardly have told from human skeletons. In the last room of the zoology alcove OKFICKKS OF THE CITV FEORKATlCHi. President, Mrs. Geo. L. MeiBsner, 151 D street. First vice president, Mrs. Ida Kelley, 839 North Twenty-third street. Second vice-president, Mrs. II. II. Wheeler, l.r17 II street. Jackson park is almost as good as a graveyard to make ono feel the Meeting character of the work of humanity. It gave me a sort of melancholy pleasure the samo feeling 1 have when I meet a funeral procession, to look over the ruins of the Columbia Exposition. Most of the park has been cleared up but there still remains in tho south part long rows of blackened stumps that used to be, I understand, Bolid masonry. One heavy masonary bridge across tho lagoon from the Court of Honor still remains. But it3 companion, sad to tell burned to the water and has been re placed by a more substantial structuro of planking. The stone part of the wall around the Court of Honor has peeled off into the water leaving a board fenco little more beautiful than the docks along the Chicago river. North and south of tho Court of Honor stumps mark the foundations or what were marble palaces once. Far to the south are a few dilapidated statue? that look very much like barn scare crows. Near the Court of Honor is what is left of two plaster animals of some sort, horses I should judge, from the remains. It was bard t j keep back the thought that always comes when I look at mammoth bones ond things like that, "This must have been alive 6oaie time." These remains are different of course from the ordinary pre-historical bones. Iron pipes and wooden laths may not be quits as suggestive of former life as decayed teeth a foot in width, but the suggestion is here. Some of tho plaster though cracked, still keep? tho form of a massive shoulder; and that helps. " The one thing of the fair that will probably be permenant is the group of brick foundations that were nece3sary to hold the machinery in the Machin- ery Hall. These are put down in cement and cannot be removed without being blasted. The Art Building is the one remain ing building from the Exposition and unless I guess wrong, it will not remain always. They have had to put up wire netting to keep on some of the fresco work now, and patches show all over the walU where holes have been plastered up. J found the Esquimo collection, etpjci ally interesting on account of the new gold field?. I tried to imagine myself washing gold in tho Klondike region. Beforo mo was lows rows of fur gar nientj, clumsy for hood and sho;a. It must bo cold there. Near tho door were ho mo odd looking wrap made of fish skin. Thoy were for damp weather. It must 1)9 foggy there. Across were snow shoos and dog sto'Jges mude without nails by tying wood toguthor with thongH.Thero must bo snow and ica there. Even the little E?quimo dolls told their story of climato. Their puintod. fiat wooden faces looked out froni fur hood and their bodies were mullled in fur oats. Tho prospect in such n climate was not altogether pleaeunt, even with a little gold duat thrown in. 1 did not seo why this Esquimo col lection was pla:cd in the zoology alcove, lack of room, perhaps. But it seemed almost an ineinuat'on against their standing in tho social scale. Vet, on ac count of the furs and lWh skins, the col lodion did not seom altogether out of place. Them seemed to bo Ics of tho human about it than about the other ethnological collections across the cor ridors. After seeing all U1030 stuped forms to illustrate the animals of the (liferent countries, I came int these ethnology rooms almost expecting to Fee etutfed Indians and Chinese. And indeed the museum has como as near this as ie pos piblo considering the difficulty there might be in getting men for fctulliig; for there aro e'nborato collections of clothing from the tlifle ent people, casts oftjpical faces, and mummies in all style?; the most respectable being of course the Egyptian. The Peruvian mummies in the collec tion hcie are not fo well preserved as tho mummies in the Univeis.ty of Ne braska miiRCum, but there are bettor collections of article? found with the mummies, corn, dishes. Hag, work Lox.'B and spindlcr. And of course there is a greater wriety of positions that the mummies Irive ta'een. They seem to hare been left in the positions they as sumed when they died and so give an impression much more vivid than that left by the Egyptian mummies who take things with the calm-born of the rich fields and broad stream of the Nile, and lie straight and composed, in the posi tion befitting civibzeJ mummies. One of the Peruvian mu mines is posed in an especially ghast'y way, with his head thrown up and back over his shoulder, and with his face contorted by a sar donic uncanny grin. I think there ib nothing quite to fascinating to me as mummits. I did not take theeamn interest in cthsr coKections. fJ ho bright parrot-fea'her ornament of the other South American Indians, the odd boats of tho West Indians and the beads and buckskin of the North Ameri can Indians were just ordinary curiosi ties. To tho outfit of a Navajo medicine man, with it hundreds of little charms and its hundreds of little leather bags of medicine, is tacked a naively sarcastic explanation: It would appear that he strove to unite the practice of 'native msgic with the art of the ordinary white medical practit:oner. It is e-aid that ho succeed ed in killing to many of hi patients that he was finally expelled from his tribe and driven from bis country." We are left free to infer why ho was so successful. By an odd coincidence the collection of beaded baby cradles is next to te col lection of Indian s:aIp-Iocks. I came to the cradles first. They were worn eome of them and rather dirty, but the care ful beading and tho line leather fringe along the edge were unmistakable evi dence or happy motherhood. Perhaps after all, I thought. I had not given the Indians due credit as human being.