Evening Star Newspaper, November 21, 1896, Page 15

STUDENTS IN PARIS : The Latin Quarter as Viewed by an Outsider. VARIED PHASES OF LIFE THERE ——— How the Youth of France Manage to Acquire an Education. ——_-—___ THEIR FUTURECAREERS Special Correspondence of The Evening St PARIS, November 10, 1896. E VERY NOW AND then we say in our art of the city ‘Let's go over to the Latin quarter.” To be frank, it is gen- eraliy after ditner, when the soul ex- pands and the heact takes courage. Is it that we are very Philistine on the north side of the river? We think not. We read, we patron- fze the drama and the fine arts, and we rejoice in the establishment of an Ameri- can “University Dinner Club,” which 1s to have its inauguration on Thanksgiving day this year. And yet a proposition to spend an evening in the Latin quarter thrills us like an invitation to the Bowery. It must be that college life and “college men” in France are different from those at home. The cabs rattle and jolt over the Belgian blocks on the way to the river, as we Trilby. plunge into dark and narrow streets. electric lights and wood pavements of Modern, cosmopolitan and frivolous Paris are left behind. Crossing the Seine some one exclaims at the beauty of the dark and silent river, with Its bridge on bridge, all sparkling with its lights both white and red. Then we dash on interminably again into the night, through narrow thor- oughfares which have no traffic, silent and Mysterious. Some voice breaks tremulous- ly into song. “Comrades! Comrades! Ever since we were boys.” it rings false, and we are only comrades in adventure. The fact is we are a bit afraid of the rol- licking youth we are about to meet. The Latin quarter daunts us, and the student: ball is livelier than our native Moulin Rouge. There is a blaze of light; the cabs deaw to the curb; policeman line the entrance- way; give up your canes and umbrellas as The an evidence that you have not come to fight: two francs admission, down a flight of steps, and you are in the sought-for pandemonium. The vast hall is absolutely trowded with young men and women, ncing, or attempting to dance, pushing, disputing, promerading with their arms around each other's waisis, hugging, kiss ing. hair-pulling, a mingling of peace and War gir! wherein there is no rest. There are ho weep, girls who pout, girls who Types of Students. fawn on their youn men, as well as haughty girls, triumphant girls, girls with their round-moon faces beaming; and there are young men who stalk morosely and young men who pose majestically as well as those who whoop and jump like Indians, uttering blood-curdling yells. Where the Elite Sit. At one side of this hall, which is the largest dance floor in all Paris, there is 2 grand orchestra that plays extremely well. Around the walls there is an elevated strip of something like a promenade half bal- cony, with stools and little tables, where the elite sit, reposing from their frolics, and the timid visitor takes refuge here. Waltz, quadrille, polka! Dance succeeds Already. to dance and everybody dances. Every- body yells and whoops while dancing. It is not as at the Moulin Rouge, where 1,500 People stand around a half dozen groups THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER: 21, 189¢~24 PAGES. of formers as they step through wee eeeneee impudent and unenthusiastic. Here young men dance as well. And these young men who foot it with working girls, who make a spectacle of them- selves to the tourists of the whole world, these young men who emulate their Tril- bys in high kicking and are not ashamed to sit in public with their washerwoman’s daughter—they are the hope of France. ‘The hope of France, the youth of France, the “college men” of France are here be- On the Harcourt Terrace. fore you, dirty faced, sickly bearded, as fancifully garbed as organ-grinders’ mon- keys. Their parents and guardians can well trust them with wine and spirits. They intoxicate themselves with noise, activity— and dancing. This ball is open every night through their university career. We from the north side struggle through the mazes of the Bal Bulller and reason philosephically on all these things. It is our chief delight to bring one of our “col- lege men” from home, new fledged, on his first trip abroad, fresh from the morning tub, the tennis court, the river boat, the foot ball field, the giee club and the un- dergraduates’ dances; and we note how his feart sinks at the sight of his French brother. “Take me away! Take me away!” In a Beer Hall. + You will say that a rowdy dance hall ts not the Latin quarter, and that it is wrong to illustrate ar. institution by its one great blemish. We remark this to ourselves as we seek the next most highly celebrated center of the quartier. It is a brasserie, beer restaurant, the same which saw the drug clerk Nuger killed in the last students’ riots. As the cabs draw up to the Bras- serie d'Harcourt we reflect that we are in a true and representative neighborhood, for do not the students’ committees always meet at the Harcourt, and are there not a thousand tales and songs about the place? Take a seat near the end of the hall and you will see the typical life of the quartier for sure. Up at the right a black-whiskered student —aged twenty-three—with a tall, flat- brimmed stovepipe hat of the vintage of 1830—a very popular hat—stands on a chair, holding aloft a cane from whose crook dangles a beer mug. He is making a speech, and the girl whom he has forsaken for his histrionic effort is pulling at his coattaiis. | A little further on are three young men engaged In the delightful occupation of painting a comrade’s face sky-blue, he struggling and cursing meanwhile. Oppo- site you will note four bloomer girls, all smoking cigarettes. The long room is filled fh students and young women. chat- ting, laughing and scolding. The atme phere is full of vivacious hubbub. Thi are drinking Munich beer and eating Frankfort sausages, Frenchmen that they are. They are howling and pounding on the tabi ‘They are breaking crockery. And they will keep it up till 2 a.m. The Brasserie d'Harcourt is a precious place to send one’s son to. Romance Departed. The life of the Latin quarter is changed from that described in the early pages of “The Englishn:an in Paris," when students were lodged in romantic and odorous old apartment houses, and amused their days by walking the streets costumed after the fashion of the heroes of their favorite ro- mances. It is changed from the times of Henry Murger and the Bohemian ways of A Girl Student. his immortal characters. And when Rob- ert Louis Stevenson came to Paris, two generations later, he found that he must pretend a lot of romance; that you cannot get good wine for twenty cents a litre, and that the grisette was, even then, an “ex- tinct mammal.” The romance has very much departed from it, its Bohemianism has run to seed, and the effects of such a life upon young France is fairly noticeabie to the observant. But the Latin quarter still exists. The students, their brasseries, their ill-smelling hotels, their cheap dinners, where the wat- ery soup is lukewarm enough to be swum in by the suspicious pearl-white fish that follows, and where the greasy be-sauced boiled ‘meat, stuffed through with slimy fat, comes in its due turn, with faded, cheesy-smelling vegetables. There are the schools, the museums, the monuments. The Paris student still exploits his reputation for all it is worth. The Latin quarter, in which he lives and moves and has his bleat- ing, has been cut through by great streets and boulevards The march of improve- ment has damaged the completeness of his stage-setting. But he and it both still ex- ist to give a flavor to the city and to bring into being the great men of France. The Original Latin Quarter. The original Latin quarter—Latin was then the synonym of learning—is one of the oldest of all Paris. It grew up where the Roman city had first spread over to the left bank of the Seine from the primitive island. It is the broad, straight Boulevard Saint-Michel, run through the midst of narrow, grimy streets by Baron Haussmann under Napoleon III, that properly marks off the Latin quarter, so far as it has any boundary. There are plenty of schools and scholars yet further on to the west. But they are an intrusion toward the noble quarter of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. This is the quarter of the old church tower of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, or “of the meadows.” The tower is all that is left of the great abbey and its church, built shortly after the year 1000; and the meadows were for the monks and all clerks or scholars to walk and wrangle in. The twenty thousand students of Dante’s time were further east and nearer to the river, where there is still the little crooked Rue du Fouarre of which the poet speaks. It was then the College of the Sorbonne began taking the lead of the old abbey of Saint-Victor, the College of Navarre, and all the other forty-two colleges of the mediaeval university. And it has ever since remained the center of French university life. The immense new building, just off the Boulevard Saint- Michel, is also the chief center of the en- tire University of France, which is a na- tional institution, with teaching faculties in many different cities. Naturally the Paris schools draw to them- selves as many students as are able to leave the provinces, so that the little world of the Latin quarter really represents young France. With them are joined the several thousand students of the art schools, among whom American girls pro- fessing to study art have lately made ir- ruption without yet being recognized or un- derstood by the French students. The lat- ter, in this old Latin quarter, which is their own, pig along together, leading a life half new, half old, amid scenes half new, half eld, where human nature plays curious pranks, tricked out in its old garments with new patches. Of all the schools clustering here together, several of the handsomest are only lycees or institutions for the secondary teaching, that is, for the necessary Latin, Greek, mathematics, history and science, which prepare for the higher studies of the uni- versity. These are boarding scheols; and their students stand out with the most comical distinction from the free and law- less rovers.of the maturer university and art and technical schools. The higher stu- dents know no rules, no hours, no surveil- lance and no Umits. but empty pockets and the fear of disgrace at their examination. The boarding-school boys, on the other hand, are led about like tender maidens. If a boy begins his Latin at eight years of age, he will be through about sixteen, and will be popped immediately into the university. Frum a bird in a cage, he suddenly becomes a hawk set free. He may sit on the “terrace” of a cafe, smoking cigarettes and drinking hot sp!ced wine, to cast a jeering eye on his companions of last year, who file before him, two by two, like geese led down to water. They are on their weekly holiday walk, like an orphan asylum. All are in the hated uniform which they have worn from eight years of age, shoes blacked, coats brushed, buttons brightened, gloved, caned, washed and combed. They have had their weekly compulsory foot bath; they have changed their stock- ings and will change their underclothes next week; their exercises are written; their dormitories are in order, and there will be jam for supper. Once or twice each month these boarding-school youths go out on something like a bona fide holiday, but a parent or guardian must come to take them in the morning and return them at night. They accept the mocking smiles of their old friends with patience. Another year or two will make them also free. And so they walk with furtive eyes that look aslant at ladies on the promenade. If the surveillance of the boarding-school boy in the Paris Latin quarter is curious, the complete liberty which this same boy obtains at one great leap into the university is stranger still. At sixteen he was less than a boy—he was an infant. At seventeen years of age, if he has been at all lucky with his studies—or at nineteen, at the latest—he becomes a man, complete, not to be judged, not to be questioned. His father grins over his escapades. His mother sly- ly gives him money—and advice. He leads over again, as nearly as modern conditions permit, the life his father led before him. In his university career the Paris student is as free as any bird, and he ts not disinclin- ed to warble. Phases of Life. In his gayer hours you may picture him among a crowd of companionable young devils—male and female—bawling his stu- dents’ songs along the otherwise silent Seine. Or you may think of him as he ap- pears at mid-Lent, when the Latin quarter participates In the washerwomen’s parade which so interests all Paris. Such are the students in their public life. If you should see them at their studies they would look like any others. They are, as a fact, bound to study fairly hard; for most of them depend for their career in life on passing the university examinations. This is an indispensable preliminary to nearly every profession in France, from druggist and veterinary surgeon to civil engineer and teacher in the high schools, not to speak of medicine and law and the officer's They also to career in the army and navy. have their clubs, which all seriousness. There is the vast General Associ students, with its branches in all th of France, having a university facul There is the Catholic Association, with its large number of students, who turn their backs on the infidelity which triumphs in the persons of their very university profes- sors. There is a Democratic League, in love with the French revolution, and’ the Socialist League has its own large circle of followers. But all these are hid aw corner: STERLING HEILIG. a een THEY HOOKED A SEA LION. persuade The Tale of Two Fishers and Their Wonderful Bite. From the Xazuma (Wash.) Post. Last Monday, while Comrade Ewing and son William were fishing in a small boat just inside the bar at the mouth of the bay one of their big hooks, to which was at- tached a small line, accidentally caught a “fish,” which started off at a terrible pace before William could get a twist on the line to stop it. When he did eventually suc- ceed in making the line fast, the stopped instantly, but a moment later the fish” popped out of the water, and, with bellows that echoed and re-echoed along old ocean's shores, made for the small boat at | a 2.02 gait, bellowing and lashing the water | Consider the | case of the two handsome orphans, a long | in awful rage at every jump. ways from land and home and kindred, and only a couple of oars apiece with which to defend themselves from the rage of a “fisn,”” which they now discovered to be a sea. lion of the thousand-pound varicty. It was a case where something had to be done in a hurry, and they hustled the oars into the water and splashed the bosom of the mighty deep until the boat rocked as if in a mighty storm, while their yells out- rivaled anything they had ever put up. Anyhow, the wild circus so astonished the sea lion that he turned tail, and, instead of wrecking the frail boat, he “dug down" into the water and fled out over the bar. But in his rapid flight ne soon took up the slack in the line, and, finding the hook still fixed In his anatomy, and proving a great drawback to his peace of mind, he seemed te forget, through pain, his scare of the previous moment, and made another grand rush for the boat, bellowing like mad and beating the water into a great foam. But the beleaguered fishermen were “onto their job” and raised such a pandemonium of sounds upon his approach that he again fled; and so the “retreat and fall back” fight raged for about an hour, and then the lion “broke” for the “deep blue sea,” much to the gratification of the entire boat's crew, who had been engaged in more prolonged, energetic and exhaustive labor than they had bargained for. It was a big fight with a big “fish,” ard while they were not at all alarmed during the scrimmage, two-thirds of the partici- pants are willing to make affidavits that they don’t hanker after such fish as sea bea especially when so far, away from land. oo_____ Sportsman’s Paradine. From the Philadelphia Ledger. South Africa seems to be the sportsmen’s paradise, even {f the stories told about the country are only half true. A recent ac- count says the country ts simply teeming with big game. Buffaloes are in immense numbers, one herd which was seen recently being at least 1,000 strong. Buck are also extremely plentiful, while zebra and quag- ga and lions are too numerous to be pleas- ant. Wild fowl are in myriads, from a black duck with a white patch on its wings down to a sandpiper. eS The Sexes in Burmah. From the St. Louis Republic. The new woman should take her way to Burmah. There, travelers say, is the only Place on earth where true equality between the sexes exists. In spite of this,* it is claimed, no women are more womanly than the Burmese women whose gocd sense en- ables them to see the line where they ought tostop. In the higher classes a woman has property of her own and inanages it her- self. In the lower classes she always has a trade and runs her business on her cwn responsibility. The sexes choose their cwn operations, and It is curious to see the men sometimes sewing on embroidery, while the women have nearly all the retail trade of the island on their hands. eo At the Very Top. From Life. “Yes, sir. Twenty years ago Tillinghast began as a train boy, selling newspapers and candy, but he gradually worked up rn- tl now he is at the top of. the railroad lad- ler,”” “What railway is he receiver of?’ in | “pull” | ROYAL WILD TURKEY A Visit to the Haunts of the Original Thanksgiving Bird. METHODS FOLLOWED BY POT HUNTERS 1 How to Bag a Turkey 4x} a Sports- manlike Manner. —_+ LOTS OF PATEENCE HE WILD TUR- key is an American to the Very tip of his broad, powerful gray wings. But the shy- est of all birds is ab- solutely incompatible with civilization, and he has retired year by year until now only the most secret places in the Alle- ghenies and the vast dismal swamps of 7 the southern states give any hope for the persevering turkey hunter. The wonder 1s that the bird still exists at all, for ever since the white men came all manner of nefarious schemes have been concocted for his destruction. Let a “gang” of turkeys, say, ten or twelve, the adults of a couple of families, show themselves a few times on the edge of their almost impenetrable swamp dwelling and there will not be wanting pot hunters to spy on them for months till the roost of the big birds {a “located” on some high veteran pine, scarred with lightning, rais- ing its arms, Laocoon-like, from some little island hidden in the marsh and thicket. Then, on a night when the moon is fat and red and round, the murderers wade through miles of the morass and peer above into the pine until they dimly per- ceive the dusky forms crouched on the more horizontal boughs. Not until the position of every turkey is determined does the massacre begin, and then the bird near- est the ground {is selected to be ruthlessly shot. After that the one next above re- ceives the old muzzie loaders’ charge of buckshot, and so on to the highest. If this order be followed the whole flock may be shot down, but let a wounded bird come fluttering down from above by one of his poor perking, quitting neighbors—the iower one takes flight and the whole flock is off in a moment. An Effective Trap. The mountaineers may catch glimpses now and then in their wood chopping of gray, disappearing wings and learn that a flock is constantly about a certain ridge. A big pen of rails is built, with no opening large enough to admit a turkey except a_single hole dug under the-bottom stick of the pen, then enticing trails of corn are laid from various parts of, the ridge and the ravines on either side, some of the corn trails about a half a iile leng, but all converging to this gpening under the pen, and a tempting pile of grain is left just inside the trap. Gn tome unfor- turate day the turkeys find the trails and feed up in tne right direction, running one by one quickly in front, of gach other, picking up the « which are dropped @ foot or so apart, until they come to the pen. 3 Presently one can stand the temptation no longer and squeezes pres, the rail through the hole. The sight of the daring one gobbling up all that corn i# too niuch for the nerves of the outsiders; and in a Royal Wild Turkey. few moments the whole gang is inside. And now comes the absurd part of the business. When the birds have stuffed themselves and have turued to leave up go the long necks through the slips in the 1 pen on every side, frantic ciawings and flutterings shake the stout rails, but not a single idiot of the lot cver by any chance squeezes back out of that hole under the lowest rail which admitted him. Another Objectionable Device. Instead of a pen, the trails may be led to a blind, when the habits of a particular flock have been studied closely enough to make it worth while to sit in ambush from daylight on and wait for them. Thirty feet in front of the ambuscade of artistically arranged cedar boughs, a narrow trough in the ground is filled to the brim with corn and grain. If all goes well, the birds come up on the scanty trail and begin to eat greedily altogether at the ‘trough, their long necks interlaced while they peck away for dear life. If an old four-bore muzzle loader, stuffed up with about three ordi- nary charges of heavy shot, is kept trained on the trough until this thrilling moment, there is a good chance that a pull of a trigger will blow the heads off of a large part of the gang. These are the ways a turkey ought not be hunted, or rather, butchered. To hear of them one might take the wild turkey to be an exceedingly foolish fowl, and on these particular occasions he undoubtedly is; but they are only the startling and tn- rrequent lapses of great mind. Taking him “by and large,” an old turkey gobbler is the quickest, swiftest, shyest and most knowing animal with wings or without. He can run like a greyhound. smell like a deer, see :ke an eagle, and fly like a wild turkey. 2 : You may have spent two hours in crawl- ing on your hands and knees over a moun- tain open, or in moving with noiseless foot- steps, each one of which is considered with careful deliberation, and a single, sudden turn of your head, snap of a twig or gleam of sunshine on your gun will send a whole gang a mile away and up the mountain. Upwards it always is. When a wild turkey does not like the looks of things he wants the rockiest and roughest summit of the particularly highest headland of the top- most ridge of a whole range, and he gen- erally gets it. If it is steep, he runs, and he can run up faster than you can fall down. If it is a gentle rise, he thrashes the air with his mighty wings clear up ob- Structing treetops, and then away he sails with velocity that belongs to a twenty pound feathered cannon ball. The Genuine Sportsman. Take a dog along, if you will, and when the gang is busy feeding, your cur may surprise them so quickly as to make a flush. Off they will fly, scattering in every direction, no two birds together. If it is af- ternoon they will want to get together for the night, and in a few hours you hear far off, a plaintive qu-urck, qu-urck, qu-urck; qu-urck, qu-urck, qu-urck—seven notes, the last three coming shorter and sharper. Now, if you are one of the rare individ- uals who can make and manipulate a tur- key call, take from your pocket the well- worn hollow bones of a wild gobbier’s wings, be still as death and imitate that queer invitation. You will probably be con- scious that it is answered, and have some delicious sensations; nay, it may even come nearer and lead you to madly strain your eye nerves trying to see through entirely opaque underbrush. But unless those tur- keys are very young and foolish, or are hens, this will be all. An old gobbler will have thought it all out long before he steps within range and silently fly away, leaving you to wonder why the answer don’t keep on coming. The thoroughbred and glorious way to kill a turkey is to go out alone fh the moun- tains with your Winchester ahd a half-a- dozen cartridges and just look for the noble old fellow. Not that just looking will do; to make much of a success you must listen for him, feel for him, taste for him and smell for him, too, and above everything else, wait for him. Get into just the wild- est and most secluded glade you can climb to, where the only harvesters of the chest- nuts and hickory nuts are the squirrels, where the tea berrées, huckleberries and wild grapes grow only for the pheasants and turkeys; where the wild cat screams at night, the fox pounces on the rabbit, the black bear hunts for bee trees and the big horned owl is the villain in many nocturnal tragedies. Keep in the underbrush, but look out into every open glade. Take note of what there is for a turkey to eat, and see if the dry leaves are scratched up. In Parsult of the Game. Walk about a mile an hour, and don’t put your foot down unless you know what kind of a noise it is going to make. Don't be sure {t is a squirrel you hear scampering over the leaves until you see him or hear his chatter. See everything that your eyes can take in and keep them looking stead- ily on points in distant leaf-colored slopes until they see many things that did not appear at first. Stop sometimes and don’t move anything but your eyeballs for fi full, silent minutes; never make any sud- den move, consider whether the last night's frost has fallen on this area of ruffled and torn-up lea where plainly strong to have been laying there the rich, dark earth or the sweet remains of the chestnut crop. Whea you decide thai t ratching has teen done this morning. see where it be- gan, and remember what ground lies in the Cirection to which it tends. Then follow, moving more slowly and carefully. Com to a steep mountain side, sheering to the sycamore-fringed river; do not dare to go directly down. Sidle quickly off on a better grade, and then, having circled over a | swift breath half mile, work be to where the trail should meet the river m ow Take care! Drop at full length, @ li tle eautious because of the haste; the they are, strutting forth from the undet growth by the stream after washing down the chestnut breakfast with coid, cl | mountain water. They come up the ill to- | ward you, and you lie like a stricken man, | with your rifie following every movement | of 2 great black gobbler, father of the flock, though he is stil 300 yards away. | Motherly, mild-mannered hens and young | gobblers are in his train, sippi | from the grass, picking at rag we ing a grasshopper, with hi ruffling into make-belic never for a moment are One, two or three of their tall r | aly stretched aloft, full of cars, in statuesque suspicion. gobbler straightens Sal yes and w the ld 2d, poised four feet from the ground, trim, zr |. Pow erful; the sun glinting on the dark trides- cent feathers of his back and lower neck. Now you decide he is in range. Your | thirty-eight caliber bullet strikes his nople | breast with a muffled thump and the gi wings wildly beat down the dry | while your magazine is emp! the dark forms shooting off | wooded mountain side. He is @ royal creature, this wild turkey, and you may hope to see an old gobbler tip the scales at twenty or twenty-five poun? Slung over your shoulder by the foot, head dangles against vour heels. 1 | wild monarch, eloquent of the woods and mountains and their innermost secrets, fed only by the most delicate wild fruits and crystal spring water, formed for the high- est beauty and strength known to Amer- ican birdkind, with a flesh more delicious than his stall-fed cousin, because of the gamy flavor imparted by the wild food. To # man who has killed and eaten a Nover- ber wild gobbler, Thanksgiving day has a meaning which must be blank to other mortals. CHARLES D. LANIER. A High Example. nt rag weed ied vainly at toward the From Life. Willie—“I should think you would be ashamed to have your mother put you to bed.” Bobbie—“I don’t know why I should. She does the same thing to father.” - eee From Puck. Maid—‘“And she threatened to take the crockery out of your wages?” Cook—‘‘She did; but, sure! I’ve bruk more now than me wages comes to. From Life. The best way is to A POINT IN ETIQUETTE. n I give him flowers if I've not bin interdooced ter him?” o, it ain’t good form even to reckernize a man wot yer don’t even know. get ackwainted with the Dutch grocer where he buys his ‘taters an’ herrinks, an’ let the interduction come through him!” | OLD. CISSE’S THANKSIVNG BY LOUISE R. BAKER. The fog rested over the little station and came quietly into the “gentlemen's wait- ing room” with every fresh arrival. These early comers had no intention of going off on the train; they were known jocosely as the “cowboys,” and their duty was to haul milk to the station once or twice a day. The cowboys, grouped about the coal stove on this foggy morning, were in earn- est conversation. There were omincus shakings of wise old heads, intermittent giggles from the witty youngs:ers, solemn and emphatic stamps of we'l-shod feet, whistles, mutterings and now and then a hearty espousal of a clever idea. “No, 'tain't no use for an old man to be cranky, it don’t pay. Thar comes a time when a body's got to be looked after whether he likes it or no, and his own people's the ones to do it. If an old feller’s son can’t put up with him, how’s the neigh- bors gunno do it?” This somewhat lengthy speecif on the part of Farmer Gibbs met with universal approval. “That's it,” said Williams, “and he was comfortable. No person in tne county could a been kinder and more like a reai datter to old Cissel than the boy’s aunt. It's said as the Cissels never git sorry, but it’s against reason if down in his Leart somers Bub Cissel ain't sorry ‘bout all this rumpus. And while the law of tne land allowed the place to be handed over to a sixteen-year-old boy to be carried on in the name o’ the urcle who bought up the mortgages, thar’s a higher iaw'’n the law o’ the land that gives John Cissel a right to live his life out in the home place.” “The Cissels is the quarest sort o’ family I ever seen,” remarked Burdette. “The neighborhood's taken hot sides with the old man, but nary one of us knows who's in the right and who's in the wrong. All we know 1s that the furse occurred out in the Cissel barn; that the hoss was in it. Some state as the boy knocked the old man down, and others state that in the fracas the hoss rared and thataway the old man was knocked down, but neither the old man nor Bub has give out the facts o° the case. We jest know that the old man rode over here on the hoss and is puttin’ up wharever they'll let him in and a-offer- in’ the hoss for sale. They state as Bub says that the hoss can’t be sold; that it was bought up by his ma’s brother aud is his’n, but the old man is offerin’ the critter right and left.” “That's a good horse,” said a youthful cowbey in a ruminating way. “A first- rate hoss, fur's I kin jedge. Nary white foot on him; long and lean, shaped like a reg'lar trotter, and he kin go. That ho: is wuth more money’n the times’ll bring. “Yes, feed's scare said Shacklett. “It's a powerful good hoss won't eat his head off this winter.” “But ‘tain’t every day a feller can pick up a hoss like Cissel’s,” continued the en- thusiast. “‘’Twould pay to keep the critter over winter, feed him well and carry him to town in the spring. He'd fetch a fancy price in town this spring. But a hundred and fifty dollars is considerable money to git hold of nowadays. “But how "bout the raffie?” another of the youngsters inquired eagerly. “I heered they was speakin’ o’ puttin’ the hoss up to a hey was speakin’ of it,” said Will- jams, “but the old man wouldn’t hear on it. He says how a rafile ain't nothin’ but a lottery business and the lottery’s forbid, printed and nailed up in every post othice in the United States. He says he’s been cheated out of a home, but that ain't no reason for him to swindle the neighbors cut of a dollar a piece all but the one man and give the one man a hoss for a dollar. He says as he can git more’n a dollar for his hos! “That sounds well enough,” said Bur- tte, “but when it comes to bein’ tured | out yer bed to show you wasn't wanied longer, then, I say, lottery or no lot the raffie’s the only thing to come at “That were true about the bed, *hen?” ired Shacklett. S$, and it seems hard, but Ann Earp couldn't afford the extry expense. She as she ain't sure he has the right to sell of a jodgin’, havin’ the tick took off no the hoss, and she couldn't go on -vaitin’ for the money nohow: she couldn't keep her own family in meat, much less a boarder thai wasn’t payin’. Yes, old Cis- sel stayed in yer one night, sat thar cn the bench. He didn’t sleep none, the night telegrafter says, and holler-eyed rext mornin’. Then the Washingtons took him in; but they’s worritin’ about the board money a’ready- : “Rub hears the talk; he knows how ‘tis. If he can’t stand the old man in the hous why don’t he come forward and pay hi board elsewhere?” : oe Williams stamped his foot. “That's it, he said, impressiv “Why don’t he? Because Bub Cissel won't allow to nobody that he can't stand the old man in the s if the old man can’t stay let him find what home he can it it. The old man’s stubborn, but out of . ain't no more’n human if the straits in hasn't weakened him down considerable. Some folks say if Bub was to come along and offer to fix things up the old m wouldn't make no objections, But the boy got the Cissel stubborr along with h mother’s tarnal perseverance. wood cut enough o' chicken fe quills for to make a twenty-five The sunlight was something beautiful to see as the cowboys shoved their milk cans | into the car and began to disperse around the station; it lay along the fence rails in brilliant streaks and on the frosty ground were silver sprigs and silver ston: ven the half-frozen road dirt lay in ridges of crusted whiteness. It looked as if there would be a right good freeze soon and a thy winter. Walking across the frosty road, on his way from the store to the station, was old Cissel. He was a tall old man with a stoop in his shoulders that was becoming more and more pronounced. His beard was rough and straggly, the ragged lining of his coat showed at the pockets; he needed Bub's aunt to see to him, the pitying neighbors said. He looked up and spoke gravely and po- litely to Shacklett. Then his face bright- ened perceptibly. “Want to buy a_hoss, Shacklett?” he inquired. “I can sell you as fine a hess as you'll happen across in the country. I've got to sell him. 1'll rell him dirt cheap to you, Shacklett. im wantin’ money. The world ain't got no use for a man without money. I'll let you have the critter for $125. You'd best take me up, eh?” He tried to speak all through in a business-like way, in the manner of an in- dependent man offering his wares for sale, but his voice faltered when he said that the world hadn't any use for a man with- and the fear showed itself in his eyes. “A hundred and twenty-five dol- lars ain't much for a hoss like Hawk, ch, Shacklett? i “No, ‘tain't much,” acquiesced Shacklett; “put times is hard. I tell you what you do, Cissel,” he laid his hand upon Cissel’s shoulder, “you git on that thar hoss, r body rides him better’n you, though you's most eighty; you jest git on that hoss and ride him home; the feller in the county that wants the hoss worst is Bub.” Cissel threw off the kindly srasp and drew himself up. “I reckon,” he said, “as Williams'll be glad to buy the hoss on the present terms. I was speakin’ to him terday.” “I'm an old man, too,” said Shachlett, “and I know thar ain’t but one place on earth for old men. You'll be sorry for it { by and by, Cissel; and the boy'll be sorry, too. You don't want the boy to be sorry when it’s too late, when it ~on't ao him nor anybody else no g00d Old Cissel stepped forward with a lurch, steadied himself, straightened his shoul- ders. “The Cissels,” he said, stubborn! “never gits sorry.” Shacklett shook his head in dismal dis- approval, and went over and climbed into his milk wagon. He shook his head again on the way home, with the lines hanging loose over the neck of his mare. “It’s the | boy's place to come forward,” he muttered; “he’s young. It's too hard for to expect | an old man to give up to his own boy. But | Bub’s got the mother’s perseverance; she cut enough o° chicken feathers off the quill for to make a twenty-five-pound bed.” The Washingtons kept old Cissel six weeks before Mrs. Washington spoke in all | earnestness and severity about the board | money. “Some’n’s got to be done,” she said, emphatically. “Times is hard. Ann Earp kep’ you four weeks, and she ain’t had a cent from you yit; the hoss is eatin’ his head off in Cramer's stable, and you're owin’ me six weeks’ board. Now and then I have kep’ a boarder to help along, but I've al'ays been paid at the end o° the week. Of course, if you was to sell the hoss at once, I ain’t sayin’ you mightn’t stay on; but you’vé “been yer six weeks tomorrow evenin’, and you ain't no nearer sellin’ him than when you come. Wash- in'ten was.sayin’ yesterday, it’s all fullish- ness yeu settin’ a price on the hoss; you Absolutely Pure. Acream of tartar baking powder. Highest of all in leavening strength.—Lalest United Slates Government Food Report. Roya Baxixe Powner Co., New York. might a got a hundred and twenty-five dol- lars by the raffie, but you ain't gunno git a hundred right down from a farmer. What you can git for the hoss that's what he's wuth.” “The hoes comes from good stock,” said the old man, faintly. “If any one wanted @ fine trotter—" “No matter who's wantin’ a fine trotter, they ain't wantin’ it at a fancy price,” said Mrs. Washington. “Of course if you must keep the hoss, then it’s Bub’s place to keep the two o’ you. If he won't let you stay at the farm, he ought for to make arrangements about yer board. Laws!” she added, looking keenly into the old man’s face, “I should think as the boy’ll be mighty sorry after while if he Goes nothin’ now.” “The Cissels,” said the old man, brokenly, hey never gits sorry.” “I don’t want to do nothin’ mean,” said Mrs. Washington, “but the boy ought a come fawward now if ever. Tomorrow's Thanksgivin’.” The old man rose and went out of the house. He walked very slowly across to the station and lingered about. But the people evaded him; nobody wanted to buy a horse, and most of the cowboys were be- coming weary of his entreaties. “If he'd had the raffle he'd been all right for awhile,” they said. “The world ain't got no use for a man without money,” muttered old Cissel. “He can't buy a chaw o' tobacco, nor nothin’. He was feverishly anxious to sell his horse that eve of Thanksgiving. Bright and early on the morning of Thanksgiving day the horse was sold, very quietly, before many people were around. The purchaser arrived for him at noon, but Cramer insisted upon being paid for the horse's keep before delivering him to his new master. Old Cissel’s hands trembled as he counted out the dollars for Hawk's keep. “He's a fine hos: new owner rode away; “z one can find in the coun "s got to take what they can git for a hoss nowadays: "tain't no use settin’ a price.” Some people who saw old Cissel go! into Ann Earp’s said that he walked as if he were growing young again, but bis for- mer landlady’s face was and unap- proachable as she answere] his knock. “I have come to pay the bill,” announced the old man, whereupon Mrs. Earp’s face relaxed, and she invited him into the warm dining room, “Pore people,” she said, apol cally, as she received the mc s sometimes forced to do hard things; but if you've sold the hoss I'll be glad to vive you the room again. The room in question was back dining 100m. The door between it must be warm, too. Old Cisse] bow but he did not accept nignly of whe board,” ain’t 5 shington. aid ye gunno leay “You ain't m call cried what for money mys was put id y unno sell the so early I wouldn't said a word. ton t half like it if I let you go.” other arran “I jest git my “Ty « supper, th He left the house after sup “Goin’ back to Ann Washington, sv 0 have took off again when the hoss spent. Well, I reckon it’s best to be shed of him now.” The old man sat in the gentlemen's wait- ing room until very la lated several times up: horse, he was told that he somethi He wa n the at ng to be thankful for; wut look- very old. Zub best t » him ef he wants him,” a the cowboys among themselves de's holdin’ out pretty study for a seventeen- year-old boy. When ol sel quitted the station he did not go to Mrs. Earp’s, as Mrs. Wash had prophesied; he went up to ihe brid and stood there loo! & down mechanically at the railroad track. There had bee ight falls of snow, enough ground several brought out th ‘The old man, lea bridge, heard the but he knew t brought his hands out of his and folded them upon thi rail of the iream, mpty pocke He lo ly, “that I've been able to p: Earp, $10 for just debt hoss and the Washin’ton. "Tain’t no use settin’ sis to on a hoss; what you can git fe what he’s wuth. Forty sound, young horse. 1 hard as that?” Then he must have heard th zh bells distinctly, for ther were two strings of them upon a ho springing and dancing behind hi t have heard the energetic “Whoa!” and the tingling and jingling of the sleigh bells shaken afresh. ned as if he heard nothing 4 d had fallen 0} arms; he shifted feet a littie to make a surer prop as he prepared to spend his second night withont a home. The old head was lifted gently by a pi of strong hands; some one said “Fath Cissel turned ir But the old man drew Leaning heavily against the bridge railing he an- nounced that the “hos: sold, given away. “You're cold,” said the boy, git in thar. You're goin’ wh teok care of. I heered all abou Durn the fool that robbed you!” He helped the old man into the sleigh and drew the robes about him: then he whistled to his horse and the sleigh bells resumed their jingling. The sudden change from the homeless and destitute feeling of spending the night upon the bridge with no future prospects whatever, with the knowledge that it was Thanksgiving day and that he could only be thankful over the fact that his pockets meant that each honest ¢ been paid, the sudden change from all to the comfortable seat in the sleigh with the spirited horse rushing him on to warmth and light and home was too much for old Cissel. He sat in the sleigh beside Bub, whimpering like a little child. The boy learned over and very quietly saw that the robes were rightly placed. Then old Cissel reached out his hand and touched his son's coat sleeve. “When a man gits to nigh’ on to eighty, Bub,” he y, “he ought to have sense enough to know that young blood’s hot. Though I’m the first Cissel that ever done it, I'm gunno ‘low I'm sor; The boy turned about. “No, you're not, father,” he cried, quick] you're not to ‘low you're sorry; you're not to be sorry; it’s me that’s both sorry and asham: “No, Bub; no, Bub;” returned old C dogged ‘tain’t thataw They sat in silence for sel, long time. The sieigh was turning in at the farm gate, the miconlight was over everything, the glow the window was visible when old Cis- from si oke again. nary one of us he said, fervently. “It's Than We're both jest overpowerin’ gi From Life. “Do you suppose,” thundered the trate father, “that J am going to give my con- sent to the first man who asks my daugh- ter to marry him?” “I don’t see why y the suitor. “She did replieé