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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 3, 1901)
r THE COURIER. JROyER & G!JQEJ?y, Tbe Undertakers a gmbalmer 325 So. llth St. .... Phone 71 DAYS IN BEAVER CANON. BV FLORA BULLOCK. For The Courier A friend of mice who makes a busi ness of goin camping every summer with a giddy party of middle-aged young folks, says it is not a good plan to visit the same region of the country twice. He did not say why, but I, knowing that it took tons of trout to satisfy the appetite and story.telling penchant of the party, thought the pleasant spot that had once endured their depredations might feel like the gentleman from Iowa who said of an other person in that Btate: "It is an out rage for the railroads to haul that man twice to the same place." New scenes have always the added charm that curiosity gives. And if one is feeling ready for strenuous enjoyment, mountain-climbing, bear-hunting and trout-fishing, let him by all means seek seme new corner of this wonderland. But when you flee in weariness of bones and spirit, without gun or fish-hook, 'devoid of malice or appetite, gasping for a breath of cool air, the great boon of restfulness is gained if you are set down at your Journey's end in a spot you know and love.There are old pictures of which the eyes never weary, and songs that carry everlasting balm and healing. I could hardly have borne the lone hours of lagging through dreary sandhills and glaring cactus waste had I not known that when evening came I should find coolness and quietude, a soft bed and a chance for a bath, in a valley surmount ed by hills whose very outline was pic tured in my memory. It is only two years since last I stood enclosed by this high horizon, but in two years one Buffers so much through change that it is comforting to find some of the things that remain. Again I may see the unforgotten hills east and west and north and south, the same rocky ledges, the red stratas, the bare elopes, the deeps of dark pine, the rock walled gorge, every dip and rise of the battlements that guard sunrise and sun set unchanged. I lie in the hammock and gaze, without a twinge of the nerve of curiosity, without a hankering to ex plore. For I have climbed old Lime stone once, and stood on that knob close by the five pines in a row; the Canon Beautiful is no mystery to me, for 1 have panted up its slippery slopes and slid gasping down again. So the bless ing to sit still and meditate on bygone exertions is attained. Until you have secured this tou will never know how utterly lazy it is possible for you to be come. The wise Mr. Bok, who instructs all femininity as to their sins of commission and omission, and relieves their distress on doubtful matters when they say their prayers to him, occasionally utters the very proper thing, I imagine his wife puts it into his head. He exhorts the sisters, when they go away for the sum mer, not to take the children to much lauded summer resorts, great hotels and watering places. He speaks of the beauties of farm life in the summer, of the joy of living near Nature. I am glad to rind that so wise a notable agrees with me. For, bless you. I knew the truth of what he says years ago when I went barefoot and wore a pink sunbon net. "Relax 8nd be happy. Drowse and be content, tie yourself, and see how good it is." Yes, and to put it plainly, get away from the racket and roar, escape from your friends and the necessity of being entertaining, be freed from the necessity of dressing up. A youthful Nebraska poet has written an ode or sonnet to his "old brown pipe" as a bringer of comfort It would not bold a comparison, I know, to my old brown wrapper, though that is not yet memonalized in verse. It is so de lightfully ugly that I should hate to have any town folks embarrassed by beholding me dressed in it. Consequently, town folks, inasmuch as I and my wrapper are seldom parted, ycur safe course is plain. The dogs and the chickens, the turkeys and cows and horses, the birds and my fow real folks who are my "seeing" companions here, hold the true philosophy of clothes. Comfort, not looks, is the sumtnum bonum. The lady who breakfasted across the table from me in the diner noticed my invalid order and inquired if I were go ing to Hot Springs. Not I. In the first place, that adjective grated on my sensi tive nervee; and then, why go from a place where there are people, to where there are more people, and you have to stay dressed up all day? Go to a farm, a ranch, a tent in the woods, take just yourself, if that is all you have, go to some place that will not arouse jou to great exertion, leave books behind you, for, as some one has said, if you can read a book when you are out of doors, there's something wrong with jou, I give you leave to stop reading this right here, then sleep and grow lazy and fat. Coolness, you may have difficulty in finding, this season. Everywhere the heat aetonished the oldest inhabitant. Ninety-seven degrees on the porch here broke the record. That night, I think, the mercury dropped to fifty-Eeven. The days are so warm, however, that I have taken to reading Hicks' Almanac for cold comfort. Imagine the effect of this: "We calculate, also, that these great planets (Jupiter and Saturn), being in the same celestial longitude with Earth, will segregate the solar energy, or warmth, to such an extent that much phenomenally cool weather will result the last half of June and the first half of July." And here is another crumb: "As in 1900, so for 1901 we predict that July will be more than ordinarily cool, but that August will bring us into a desert of dryness and heat." Evenings I take the fieldglass and gaze at the innocent stars whose con junctions, oppositions, elongations and connivances in general are declared by the Reverend Irl to be the cause of all our woes whatever they may chance to be, and I am seized with wonder. Beau tiful Venus, speeding after the sun down behind the mountain, glorious Luna, Saturn and Jupiter, whose moons I see plainly, are their comings and goings so baleful or beneficent? If we have taken the star-wise man at his word, however, it might have been better for the pig and thereby hangs a tale. This is another forecast for July: "Heavy gales, thunder, hail and local downpours of rain may be looked for from 25th to 29th. A general and rapid change to much cooler will take place at this period." This in spite of the statement that August will be a desert of dryness and heat. But anyhow here's congratulations to Mr. Hicks. Wednesday, the 25th, was a most wonderful day in the canon. Forty promises of rain loomed, gleaming ice bergs, at first, expanded, shot out like a long fan to the zenith, grew thin and passed away. I watched them all day cue of my lazy habits and wondered that there should be so many clouds and no rain. The sun went down in glory. Against the deep blue of the sky shone 41,880 1-4 YARDS OF SUMMER WASH GOODS Last Sunday our Dress Goods Buyer made another flying- trip, this time to St. Joseph, Mo., buying- the en tire stock of Summer "Wash Fabrics from the well known wholesale firm, The RICHARDSON-ROBERTS DRY GOODS CO. The invoice calls for exactly 41,880 yards of all new goods, including- Fine Plain Colored Batistes, in all light colors, New White and Black Batistes and Dimi ties now so popular , Fine Fresh Dimities, Handsome Printed Lawns, Linen Colored Batistes, Fine Printed Tissues, Good Cotton Challies, Camille Lawns, Flor entine and Holly Batistes, also hundreds of other small lot pieces. Here are Wash Goods for evening- dresses, for fine street dresses, for wrappers, for dressing- sacques, for waists for kimonas, comforts, cutains, in fact ever' pur pose to which "Wash Goods can be used. The reg-ular prices of these good are 10c, 124c, 15c, 18c, 20c, 22c and 25c a yard. We intend this to be the Greatest Wash Goods Sale ever held in the United States at this season of the year. The goods are now on sale FOR C A YARD. tJQptiAA out every form and Bhining color that cloud could assume from the grim blue black line along the east to the silver and snow and jasper, and the crimson and orange overhead and to the west. In a clear blue ground shone the moon above all. You have seen it so. No word of mine can picture, but it may re call. It is not for that I praise any man. The next day, the 25th, wa9 equally wonderful, because without clouds at least I saw them not until the storm came there arrived on schedule time, at noon, the heaviest flood that ever cleared the fences and swept the logs down Beaver creek. This stream is nominally a clear little brook odp can jump across. In less than an hour, while the rain fell in "bunches" and there was no time for thunder, the creek be came a great copper-colored torrent fifty feet wide, full of great logs, fences, bridges, heavy stones, uprooted gardens. Here it gathered in the big brass kettle down by the wash house, and the week's washing iteelf went down the boiling waters. Just that morning a "prairie schooner" from Nebraska passsd. The pilgrim said he had deserted that God forsaken land; the green valley here pleased him, and he admired our large garden as the finest he had seen. I shall not tell you what grows or grew there, for it would be cruel to all who live where pea vines are parched. But you should have seen the havoc at least the sight would have done good the soul of the Reverend Mr. Hicks great good. It was hard to tell the corn from the turnip3, or a cabbage from an onion. The fences were gone, only enough left to hold the blackbirds when they came after the waters had sub sided and held a caucus over the loaded currant bushes, and the situation in general. Down the creek was still great er destruction; barns, haystacks, fence? went with the rush. No one in the canon had ever witnessed such a flood before. Not to forget the pig, he and bis pen went at the first wave. The good wife mourned him as several dollars lost but behold, through the downpour, bis pigshlp rooting cheerfully on the hill in the pasture. When he cams into the yard again he was the cleanest porker I ever saw, with feet like a blush rose; but he was also the meanest. A door be would not go into, and after an hour of chasing he was finally coralled, by dint of a rope caught on his hind hoof and an unceasing prodding. I realized then, as never before, what "pig-headed" means, and I shall hereafter use the term with nice discrimination. That night the almost full-faced moon and the innocent stars looked down as gently as ever on Beaver creek. I hope.l that their baleful or beneficent influ ence might be felt with somewhat more moderation down in the land I hail from. M Bar-K Ranch. Newcastle, Wyo. Another Guess Coming. In a primary school, the other day, the teacher sought to convey to her pu pils an idea of theNise of the hyphen She wrote on the blackboard "Bird's nest," and, pointing to the hyphen, asked the school, "What is that for?' After a brief pause, a young son of the Emerald Isle piped out, "Please ma'am, for the birds to roost on." The Mirror. i- VMi2JJsi2&XJZeSS!i?