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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 19, 1899)
p THE COURIER. ed Wyoming, Lead, Spearflsh, and Dead wood, South Dakota. Mrs. Edward Fitzgerald, Mr. Paul and Mies Lillian Fitzgerald roturnod on Tuesday from Grow Agency, Montana, where they have been visiting the boad of the family for a fortnight. Mrs. Geo. W. Brown of South Bond, Indiana, arrived in Lincoln yesterday, she will apond a few wooka witb her eon W. S. Brown Oil G stroot. Mrs. V. A. Harris, hor daughter. Mrs. II. G. McVickor and MaBtor Hugh and Will McVickor loft Monday for a three weeks outing in Colorado. Ex-governor Thayer left on Wednes day to deliver an address before the old Bottler's association of Thayer county the county which is his namesake Mr. and Mrs. Bert Richards, Oliver and Margery Richards and Henry Guile loft this week for an outing of a fow weeks at Estcs Vark, Oolorado. Tho East Lincoln Congregational church gavo a picnic Wednesday at Pet tibone'a farm for the Epworth Leagu ers of that church. Hair Droesing, Shampooing, Scalp Treatment, Manicuring, and Switch Work. Anno Rivott and Agnes Rawlings 14:i South 12th stroot. MrB. W. 1. Brundago roturnod to her hnruo in Friond this week after a week's visit with her sister, Mrs. Ingorsoll. Sonator Hayward of Nebraska City who fainted from tho effects of heat and over exertion is rapidly recovering. For the noxt thirty days we will sell Gas, Electric, and Combination Fixtures at 20 per cent off. Korrmeyor Plumbing and Heating Co. Mr. H. II. Piorco, formerly of Lincoln but no-v of Peoria, III., was in the city a few-days this week. Mrs. J. F. Lansing and Mrs. James Manahan have returned from a tour to tho Pacific coaBt. Mr. and Mrs M J. Waugh havo re turned from an extended visit in Pino, Colorado. Mr. and Mrs. T. S. Allen returned WedneRday from a short outing in Col orado. Mr. and Mrs. J. Speier have returned from a live week's visit in Colorado. Mr. Oliver Lansing haB returned from Luzon and is visiting his parents. HM Dunn, dentist; rooms 26-27 Burr blk The Great Rock Island Route is placing Interchangeable Mileage Books on sale at all coupon offices west of Missouri river. These books are good on 37 different railroads and will be a great advantage to commercial men and travelers. The not rato is 2c per mile in Kansas, Missouri, Nobaeska, Okla homa and Indian Territory. TIME IS MONEY. When you are traveling, due con sidoration snould be given to tho amount of time spent in making your journey. Tho Union Pacific is tho best line and makes tho fastest timo by many hourb to Salt Lake City, Portland and Cali fornia points. For timo tables, folders, illustrated books, pamphlots descriptive of the ter ritory traversed, call at City Office, 1044 O st. E. B. Slosson. Gen. Agont, Goraldino The American peoplo uro kickers. Harold Your father is a good Amori can all right, "What do you think of tho newly organized Chair Trust?" askod Gilgal, "It should bo sat upon," ropliod Gil-foylo, THE WAY OF THE WORLD. IWIT.r.A OATIIRIt. O! the world was full of the summer time, And the year was always June, When we two played together In the days that were done too soon. Ol every hand was an honest hand, And every heart was true, When you were king of the corn-lands And I was queen with you. When I could believe in the fairies still, And our elf in the cotton-wood tree, And the pot of gold at the rainbow's end And you could believe in me. Speckle Burnham sat on Mary Eliza's front porch waiting until she finished hor practicing. Apparently he was not in a hurry for her to do so. He shuffled hiB baro feet uneasily over the splintery boards when the dragging, hopeless thumping within quickened in tempo to a rapid, hurried volley of sounds, telling that Mary Eliza's "hour" was nearly over and that she was prodding the lagging moments with fiery im patience. Indeed, cares of state were weighing heavily upon Speckle, and he had some oxcubo for gravity, for Speckle was a prince in his own righs and a ruler of men. In Speckle Burnham's back yard wore half-a-dozen drygoods boxes of large dimensions, placed evenly in a row against tbe side of the barn, and there waB Spb. kle's empire. It had long ben a cherished project of the boys on Speckle's street to collect their scat tered lemonade stands and sidewalk booths and organize a community; but without Speckle's wonderful executive ability the thing would never hare been possible. In the first place, Speckle had the most disreputable back yard in the community. It would have been quite out of the question to have littered up any other yard on the street with half-a-dozen drygoods boxes and the assorted chattels of the'r- respective occupants. But Speckle's folks had been farming people, and regarded their back yard as the natural repository for such en cumbrances as were In tbe way in the house; and Speckle was among them. Speckle had offered his yard bb a pos Bible 6ite for a flourishing town, and the other boys brought their drygoods boxes and called the town Speckleville in honor of the founder. Now it must not be thought that Speckleville was a transient town, such as boys often found in the morning and destroy in the evening. Speckle's espe cial point was organization. No boy was allowed to change hiB business or his place of business without due per mission from the assembled council of Speckleville. Jimmy Templeton kept a grocery stocked with cinnamon barks, soda crackers, ginger snapB and "Texas Mixed" a species of cheap candy which came in big wooden buckets; these he pilfered from his father's store. Tommy Sanders was proprietor of a hardware store, stocked with bows and arrows, sling shots, pea shooters and ammuni tion for the same. "Shorty" Thomp son kept a pool room with a table covered with oue of his mother's com forters. Dick Hutchinson ran the dime museum where he foarloBsly handled live bull snakes for the sum of a few pins and exhibited snapping turtles, pocket gophers, bullets from Chatta nooga, rusty firearms and a piece of a rope with which a horse thief had been lynched. Reinholt Birkner was tho son of tho village undertaker and was a youth of a dolorous turn of mind and insistod upon keeping a marble shop whoro he made little tombstones and neat caskets for the boys' deceased woodpeckoraand prairie dogs, and for such of the museum specimens as Bought oarly and honored graves. Spocklo, by reason of invontivo gonius and real estate monopoly, held all the important offices ia town. He was mayor and postmaster, and he con ducted a bank, wherein he compelled tho citizens to deposit their pins, charg ing them heavily for that privilege and lending out their own funds to them at a ruinous usury, taking mortgages on the stock and business houses of such unfortunates as failed to meet their obligations promptly. His father was a chattel broker in the days when money changed hands quickly in the country beyond the Missouri, and from his tenderest years Speckle had been initiated into the nefarious arts of tho business. But although his threats many a time caused poor delinquents to tremble, I never heard of him ac tually foreclosing on any one, and I can assert on good authority that when Dick Hutchinson's father failed in business, causing great consternation throughout the villiage, Speckle went to Dick privately and offered to lend him a few hundred pins gratis to tide him over any present difficulties. But certainly Speckle had a right to be autocratic, for it was Speckle's fe cund fancy more than his back yard that was the real site of that town, and his imagination was tho coin current of therealm,and made those drygoods boxes seem temples of trade to more eyes than his own. A really creative imagination was Speckle's one that could invent occupations for half-a-dozen boys, me tamorphose an express wagon into a street car line, a rubber hose inta city water works, devise feast days and circuses and public rejoicings, railway accidents and universal disasters, even invent a Fourth of July in the middle of June and cause the hearts of his fel low townsmen to beat high with patriot ism. For Speckle, by a species of in nocent hypnotism, colored the mental visions of his fellow townsmen until his fancies seemed weighty realities to them, just as a clever play actor makes you tremble and catch your breath when he draws his harmless rapier. And, like the play actors, Speckle was the willing victim of his own conceit. What matter if he had to peddle milk to the neighbor women at night? What matter even if he were chastised be cause he had lost the hatchet or for gotten to dig around the trees on his father's lots? Tomorrow he was the founder of a city and a king of men! So the inhabitants of Speckleville had dwelt together in all peace and concord until Mary Eliza Jenkins had peered at them through the morning-glory vines on her back porch and had envied these six male beings their happiness; for al though Mary Eliza was the tom-boy of the street, the instincts of her sex were strong in her, and that six male beings should dwell together in ease and hap piness seemed to her an unnatural and a monstrous thing. Furthermore, she and Speckle had played together ever since tbe days when he had been father to all her dolls and had rocked them to sleep, and until tho founding of Speckle ville he had openly preferred her to any boy on tbe street, and she bitterly re sented his desertion. Once, in a moment of rashness, the boys invited her over to a circus in Speckle's barn, and after that Speckle knew no peace of his life. Night and day Mary Eliza importuned him for admittance to his town. She hung around his back porch bb soon as she was through practicing in the morning; she nudged him and whispered to him as she sat next to him at Sunday school; she waylaid him while he was taking hiB cow out to pasture and sprang upon him from ambush when he was taking his milk in the evoning, even offering to accompany him and carry one of the tin pails. Taking his miik was the prime curse of Speckle's life and he weakly accepted her com pany, especially to tbe house of tho old woman who kept the big dog. When Speckle went there alone be usually played he was a burglar. Now Speckle himself had really no objection to granting Mary Eliza na turalization papers and full rights of citizenship, but tho other boys would not hear of it. "She'll try to boss us all just like she bosses you," objected Tommy Sanders. "Anyhow, she's a girl and this ain't a girl's play. I suppose she'd keep a dressmaking shop and dress our dolls for us," Bnorted Dick HutchinBon con temptuously. "Put it any way you like, she'll spoil the town," said Jimmy Templeton. "You began it all yourself Temp. You asked her to the circus, you know you did," retorteclSpockle. Poor Speckle! He had never heard of that old mud-walled town in Latium that was also founded by a boy, and where so many good fellows dwelt to gether in jovial comradship until they invited some ladies from the Sabine hills to a party, with such disastrous results. On this particular morning Speckle had come over to, if possible, persuade Mary Eliza to desist from her appeals, and ho sat in the sunshine gloomily awaiting tho interview. Presontly a triumphant "ono, two, throe, four," and a triumphant bang announced that her hour of penal servitude was ovei for the day, and she dashed out on the porch. "Well, have you made them?" he demanded. Speckle braced himself and came directly to the point. "I can't make them, Mary 'Liza, and they say you'd get tired and spoil tbe town." "O stuff! What makes them say that?" "Well, it's 'cause you're a girl, I guess," said Speckle reflectively, wrinkl ing the big, yellow freckle on his nose that was accountable for his nickname. "Girl not bin'! I,d play I was a nun, and that's all you do. M. E. Jenkins that's what I'll have over my store. I've got the signs already made. 'Del monico Resteraunt, M. E. Jenkins, Prop.' Come, Speckle, you know I can skin a cat as well as you can and I can beat Hutch running, can't I now?" "Course you can. I'd like to have you in, Mary 'Liza," remonstrated Speckle. "O well, I don't care so much about getting in your old town anynow, only my father keeps the bakery and I could have cookies and cream puffs and candy to sell in my store, chocolates and things, none of your old Texas Mixed, and I thought I could be a good deal of use in your town." "Say, Mary 'Liza, do you mean that? I guesB I'd better tell them. I guess I'll tell them tonight," said Speckle, with a new interest. "O do, Speckle, and do get me in!" cried Mary Eliza, as she hopped glee fully about on one 'foot. "You know you can if you want to, 'cause it's in your yard. And wo can have Straw berry for a ring horse when we have circuses. His tail ian't all rubbed off like your Billy's and ho can be a pony in the Bide show, too." Speckle did not reply ut once. Ho was wondering whether Mary Eliza could raoet tho large demands on the imagination requisite to citizenship in Speckleville. He was not wholly cer tain bb to tho enduring qualities of feminino imagination, but he did not know exactly how to express his doubts, S3 ho remained silent. "What are you thinking about now?" demanded Mary Eliza. "O. nothing. I'll Boe them about it tonight.' "And if they don't let me in I'll know it's all your fault," called Mary Eliza threateningly, as she dashed into the r Y y r .Mw.-.-..MjT1glBIMff jtl (nmmmmi 1 B (l 1 1, 11 11 I, A. 'i. 1 gpflgiftXV