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
