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.
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