The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 7, 1897, Page 19

b - dresser—only one coniaining a pleasant TIIE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 1897. 19 ADOW LARKS sing in the air these days, whirring up from the tield furrows with little bursts of song, which they continue as they fly. This is the very height of their musical achievements and they reserve it to cele- ate the recurring spring season. A little lster, wken they have wooed and wo their mate and are dened with famil cares, they will still sing, but more sedatelv, from the rocks and the fence tops. Lateryet, in the autamn days, they will surprise you by whistling meloaiously from the treetops, for they are birds of many moods and resources. We owe them a debt of gratitude, for they stay with us and sing for usthe year round. They really cannot help singing, and as an earnest of their musical mission they carry, picked out in black in the brave yellow of their breasts, a tiny Iyre. It is hard to imagine what our fields would be without the cheery notes of these birds singine sweetness into the wheat and bar- ley and oats. The meadow larks set up housekeeping y in the season and mest on the ound, drawing down the tall g s a very clever fashion to conceal their 1i Lomtes. The small hen is herself quitea rand the pairs may often be heard of a summer evening induiging in soft musical dialogues, now and then inter- rupted on her part by an abrupt chan:eto a queer, little scc burden with which wssails her mate, sometimes keeping some time. it up fo he ken of the birdst bere on tue hills rings w vand the trees are gay with attering. It is curious how irds are to confiae themselves to svecial localities. [n my immediate T nstance, thera are no but less than a quarter of a mile above me there are great numbers of them. To reach them I strike over the hills and pass through an orchard where | hundreds of robins have their headquar- ters, but 1 do not find the robins until I come to this orchard, nor will I meet many beyond it. Just below me the red- shafted flickers throng. This woodpecker | Titmice and vireos, wrens, | is « handsome bird, but is no less a fellow than the high-hole, the yellow woodpecker of the Eastern States, grown more vivid in coloring under our favoring Californian | skies. 1 came upon cns by the roadside the other Iying with outstretched wings, apparently helpless, on the bank. I approached quite closely before he moved. effort, butonly a short distance, with both legs hanging hmply, as if broken. Thin to catch him I went in pursuit, but he flew off again and again, each time giving | alow, troubled cry. Ina minnte or iwo he was answered, and a ddzen or more of his feliows appeared upon the scene. Ido not think I ever before saw so many wo od- peckers together. Round and round their wounded companion they flew, calling softly and evidently directing their move- ments with evident reference to me. I approached again, and this time the disa- bied flicker let me come quite near, cer- tainly within a couple of vards, before he rose, surroundea by his comrades, and flew forward. They alighted witk him some distance away, and as soon as I moved all flew on again and I lost sight of him among the flock. The performance had every appearance of design, and I bave no doubt was irtended to accompiish just the result that I have recorded. The delicious spring days of the past | week have brought the small birds out in | great numbers. A flock of greenlets took possession of the willows a day or two ago | and have kept the thicket alive with mel- ody ever since their arrival. Indeed, 1 heard them long before I could detect their tiny shapes among the young foli- iage. These are still things, and only the birds that love the low, thick-growing trees and bushes have as yet come to us. There wili still be days when it will be necessary to hug covert | from driving rain and searching wind, and so the lovers of tall treetops and high places are lingering in the southland, waiting for more settled weather. goldfinches, flycatchers, juncos and such small deer abound, and there are a number of spar- rows—dear, small, lovable birds sober coats and winning ways. For some He flew then with no especial | the days of little | with | B gpatc reason the English sparrow, the one rowdy of the tribe, is not very numerous here- abouts this spring, though one or two pairs bave already begun building. We can spare Lthem, however, but not for a good deal would I consent to spare the aristo - crat of the whole family, the wWhite- crowned sparrow. Isaw the first one of the season yester- day, as [lay in the grass looking up to | Where massed white clouds drifted, now and again, across the blue roof which seemed to bend down to meet the green walls that inclosed me. It was like being | alone in 2 small world of my own, “blue sky overhead, green sky breaking under,” and into the midstof it all the white- crowned sparrow flew, perched upon a {low branch just above me and survey ed | me with calm, serene interest. My heart The plain slate- | colored bird, with his royal little nead, i: | favorite oi mine. There is a severe ele- | gance in the sober garb, a gentle, assured | refinement of manner and expression-that ‘esmnl-sn the bird’s position at once. He ‘ needs no credentials. You trust him in- stinctively, but when he bLegins to sing you at once welcome him in your affection. One never grows very intimate with the white-crowned sparrow. He hovers about and above you, and you may delight in | his grace and the beauty of his black-and- | white bead, but he is off if you approach too near, though not, I am sure, because he is afraid of you. He does not fly away; that phrase is much too abrupt to charac- | terize the gentle dignity with which he withdraws from your too near approach. Iiyou remain quiet he will presently re- turn to bis old position and begin to sing, but if you do not take this hint and main- tain adue reserve toward him, he will go off | altogether. It is better to humor him, | for he 1s a detightful companion, only too | glad to have a listener to his sweet, clear, but rather plaintive song. When [saw the white crown I knew I might look for his constant companion, the white-throated sparrow, for these birds are almost always together. I was not | gave a leap of welcome. disappointed, for during the afternoon I| encountered quite a flock of the white- throats among the cypress trees, This little bird is not so handsome as its royal friend. It hasa tiny white streak along the top of its head, and a yellow line before the eye. There is a!so a dash | of yellow in the wings and the throat is marked with a broad white patch. I also day, and got one or two fleetiny; glimpses of aplain littie bird that I took to be a Le Conte’s sparrow, but I could not get near enough to determine his identity. As 1 lay watching the white-crowned | sparrow my attention was attracted by a | small object stirring among the thick tangle of myrtle that clothes the banks of | the stream running among the willows far below. The distance was too great to permit making the objact out, even with the aid of a field-glass; so, creeping cau- | tiously down, I crawled in among the myrtle that, unmolested for years, had piled up upon liself in rank luxurious- ness, so that one could lie among it and be almost hidden. The object of my search disappeared as I drem near, but, keeping the spot in view, I crept on until at last, thrusting an investigating hand | among the tangied vines, 1 routed out New Fad of Recuperation Among Ladies of Fashion HE old form of rest cure, with| its dismal accompaniments of dark, Bl pictureless rooms, isolation from relatives and friends for a period of six weeks or two months, | its still more trying ordeal of over- feeding, is a thing of the past. It has been tried and found wanting. Those who were so unfortunate as to nave sub- | mitted to the rigorous, one might almost say heroic, treatment that was & part of it, came forth from it with nerves more | sensitive than ever, mentally unbenefited, | and physically changed only in the pos- | session of the extra pounds avoirdupois the overfeeding had induced. The super- | fluous flesh, however, did not mean more stiength, and it became a matter of re- ing when, after a few weeks of ordi- ary routine, the patient regained his usual size. This rigid form of rest—or, rather, torture cure, as some Who have taken it facetiously style it—has been suc- ceeded by a more agreeable as well as | more effective method of restoring tone to overtaxed nerves. This is what is known asthe partial rest, the leading of a comparatively pas- sive existence during possibly three days of each week for a month, or perhaps twi the period varying according to the cond tion of the patient. During these three days which are passed in bed no treatment is undergone, except such as relates tothe comaplete relaxation of mind and body. It may not be uninteresting to picture the details of this partial rest cure as it is taken by those whose means and leisure enable them to reap its full benefit, The appearance of the patient as she lies in bed propped up by downy pillows is & pleasing one. it is true there are dark hollows about her eyes that tell of mental exhaustion and & certain pallor that betokens lack of strength, but her cheerful demeanor does not give one the impression of an invalid and ber cheerful surroundings do not suggest the sick- Joom. She wears a soft silk dressing jacket of some becoming color trimmed with knots of ribbon here and there and filmy lace at the neck and falling over the | | hands. Her hair is arranged in aloose knot on the top of ber head and confined with a ribbon corresponding in hue with that in ber jacket. A few flowers are pinned upon her breast. The appur- tenances of the bed and the room are of the daintiest. Flowers sent by loving friends are upon a table near her and also her favorite books. There is no formida- ble array of medicine bottles upon the tonic. Bhe eats nothing she does not like, nor more than she can enjoy. How does she pass her time? She is | entertains—nothing that faigues.” She permitted | takes Ler Krench ‘or German lesson as | its enforced | 1o occupy her mind with what pleases and | usual, Madame, her teacher, requiring o | AN N ) noticed the skylark sparrow that same | | a most ingenious way. to our mutual discomfiture, a varabond hen who, obeying a wild impu!se of almost lost heredity, had escaped from some chicken-yard below ana stolen a nest in this wooded tangle, There i* not much romance about a hen'snest. We destroyed that long ago, when we took to raising chickens that we might eat them; but there is, after all, something appealing in the thought of this clum crotesque, often-thwarted creature, following the deepest instinct of nature, stealing away to this secluded spot in the vain hope of eluding her com- mercial destiny. Who can say that that lowly nest among the myrtle represented less brooding mother-love, less tender, anxious, patient yearning, less fond hore for the future than centered about the tiny home of the pair of ruby-throated humming-birds that nested yonder in the sw etbrier last summer? Should we despise the white-crowned sparrow, I wonder, if we could bring it tamely about our dooryard to look to us for food and shelter and become sp lessly subservient to our ends? Ab, that little *iI" hides the very pith and point of the matter. The gentle .little songster will not be tamed, even for the seeds and crumbs. His is a noblsr spirit, & diviner spark. A lifetime of the cage and the seedcup would not reconcile him to the loss of freedom, and this is a large part of what makes him so dear to us. We love best, after all, that which we do not con- trol. The physical difference between the hea and the songbird is by no means so great or so far-reaching in its effect upon us as the moral difference that sep- arates the two. ADELINE KNAPP. The Bouncer, a Top-Loft Actor of Heavy Leads AY low! Here comes de bouncer!” At the words four grimy littl L= hands shot out simultaneously as if 10 recover two dice which iay upon the floor of a nook in one of the recesses in the gallery of one of San Francisco’s povular-priced theaters. A little crap game between four gamins of the street had been in progress there, and the warning to “Lay low!” was none too soon, for the special ofticer of the houe 1mmediately descendei upon the crap-shooters. “What are you doing here?’ demanded this factotum of the theater. “Nawthin’” piped four shrill voices in wonderful unison, while four little dirt- begrimed faces, that had been flushed and excited a few moments before by the passion of play, were now upturned to meet the lowering gaze of the bouncer with an air of injured innocence stamped upon them. The quartet was dispersed and the offi- cer sought new fields to conquer. While the bouncer of such theaters as Morosco’s Grand Opera-hou e and the Orpheum are almost unknown to those who occupy places in the lower house, he is really an important functionary in these places. While he isa man of few i | THE MIGHTY MAN OF THE ORPHEUM. | her very little mental exertion. She reads — nothing that calls for much thought, but something light and pleas- ant. Occasionally she takes up some fancy work that lies by her. At the first | indication of fatigue the maid draws the | | curtains, shutting out the sunshine which | has been allowed to stream into the room, | and the patient takes a nap. Her inti- mate friends are not excluded. Theydrop in and chat with her awhile, keeping her | pleasantly informed of what is passing in | her circleduring her three days’ seciusion. | This one day is an example of theothers | passed in bed. On the fourth day the lady rises as ustal and attends to the multifari- ous duties that await her. she takes the three days’ rest again, and continues it each week during the period prescribed by her physician. Of course this luxurious mode of recuper- ating requires more or less constant attendance. Unless one has a special maid it incurs a severe tax upon the sec- | ond girl, who can scarcely be expected to attend to her usual duties as well as assume those of a nurse. To hire an attendant in a case requiring no serious care Seems an unnecessary expense. A lady in this city who occasionally takes | this partial rest for the restoration of her nerves has met the emergency in | Her little girl of | 6 vears (who is tanght at home) is pressed into service, but in such a manner that it | becomes a pleasure nota hardship to the | child. It is in fact made a kind of play. I Instead of pretending to be a baby in | mamma’s attire and assuming the airs and conversation of one she plays nurse. | In order to make the child enter the more earnestly 1nto the *'new game” the mother has made a nurse's costume. A black alpaca apron 1s worn over the blue or pink gingham dress; a tiny white shirt front covers the waist, with black tie at the reck, and on the head is placed a jaunty mull cap. Nurse Faithful, =s the littie one is dubbed, is a quaint figure as she moves softly about with a dignity and earnestness suitable to her calling. No nurse ever felt more fully the responsibil- ity of ner calling. She has entire charge of mamma, whom she addresses as Mrs. B. She receives the flowers and ar- ranges them tastefully in glasses or vases; gives the time; assists in serving her patient at meals, and sbakes the pillows as deftly as an older nurse. She also reads to her invalid, though lier choice of books 1s limited to those containing words of one syliable. Mamma is not the little nurse’s only patient. With swift foresignt she has brought in her doll’s bed and placed it beside the larger one. Isabella, who has lost an eye, and Elsle, whose arm is broked, are placed therein and their imaginary wants attended to as carefully as the real ones of her patient. Through- out all she enjoys the play and gives the patient just the diversion her tired brain inches to the people who fill high-priced seats, he is a giant, seventeen feet high, | to the gallery gods and is feared and | hated by them accordingly. The bouncer grows in importance step by step as he mounts the stairway lead- ing from tbe parquet of one of these thea- { ters to the galleries. There he is Czar. “Wot de cop says goes!” said a gamin | of the theater-loit to me, and from the | gallery point of view be told his whole conception of the special officer in a nut- shell. The bouncer is also an important per- son in his own mind. If he were not his tasks would be more difficult, for it takes The next week | a whole lot of self-confidence to be a suc- cessful bouncer. The man’s troubles be- gin with the first rusk made by an eager crowd when the gellery doors of cne.of these theaters are thrown open, and they continue until those same doors are closed upon the back of the last departing *'god” after the play is over. When the rush for the galleries begins the bouncer’s discriminating eye must separate the lambs from the goats; for there is such u thing as caste even in the top lofts of a popular priced theater. However a good patron of the hous» Chimmie de Tough may be, he cannot enter the sacred precincts of the galleries of such places as are dignified by the name of *‘the family circle.”” *“Chimmie” may put on his best clothes and eat a whole package of Sen Sen drops in order to hide the lurking odor of gallons of bad whisky which he has consumed, and may tuck his best girl under his arm and put up a bold “front” to the bouncer, and vet not be able to enter the Mecca of his ambition—*de family circle.” For the bouncer is inexorable. He keeps a little list of those patrons of his theater galleries who are prone to misbehave themselves during a performance, and he treats them accordingly. The well-regu- lated “ten-center,” who is centent to sit stillin his seat and express his approval or disapprobation of a play in “ohs!” and “ahs!” is allowed to enter ‘“the family circle.”” He who is ordinarily inclined to roughness, but who can be recalled to or- der by a tap or two of the bouncer's stick, is sent to the “nigger heaven,’” while there are others who are not permitted to enter the theater at all. . Last Sunday night an urchin with great blue eyes and a face that bespoke ignor- ance of all things bad, save dirt, accostea Aaron Powers, press agent of Morosco’s. “Say, mister,” he said pleadingly, as he tugged at Powers' coat, “I'm on de dead square, I am; but de cop has trun me down an’ won't let me go into d’show. I never did nawthin’. Youse knows I'm strate, 'cause 1'se sold yer papers. 1t was anoder kid dat trun de spitball at de bald- head, but de cop t'ot it was me and tole de map in de box office 10 give me de mar- ble heart, an’so I can’t go into @’ show. S+e? I wants youse to square me.” requires. Touched by the appeal, Powers got the | gamin with the pathetic blue eyes past the ; box office, and the urchin was happy on bis way to his heaven in the theater loit, when the chief bouncer pounced upon him. “What are you doing here?” the officer demanded of the youngster, as he grabbed him by the collar. “Please mister, urchin gasped. “Squared nothing! Come along to the box office and get your money back!'’ and, impelied by the strong arm of tie bouncer, the gamin proceeded to the ticket seller's window, where the 10 cents he had paid foradmission was returned to him. “Sorry, Mr. Powers,” the bouncer said to the press agent, as the latter began to tell of the cherub’s plea, *‘but this is about the toughest kid we ever had in the gal- lery.”” And “Innocent Biue Eyes’ was ignominiously shovad into tne street. The bouncer earns his salary. From the beginning to the end of a performance he is about the busiest man in the house. I was talking to Jackg Tillman, the burly special officer of the Orpheum, the other night, when he suddenly, with a hurried “S’cuse me,” darted away and made a dash for the gallery. He returned in a few minutes a little breathless, but otber- wise unperturbed. ““What was the matter?”’ I asked. “Oh, I had to throw out a couple of sail- ors who got gay,” he said indifferently. The gallery has a keen aporeciation of the ridiculous, and once its risibilities are aroused even the bouncer finds it difficult to control 1t. Attimes it is like the woman who Lad an overweening desire to Jaugh at a funeral. The other night while a most pathetic scene was being enacted upon the stage of one of the local theaters, the eallery broke out suddenly in one loud guffaw. The bouncer rushed to quell the disturbance. He found the cau-e of the undne merri- ment in a quiet man who sat munching candy in the front row. Theman had been sitting quietly on one of the rear seats, with his hat on, when he saw a gcd who had been occupying one of the reserved seats in the front row leave the house with the air of one who was leaving it for the night. This man made a slide for the place and secured it. Hav- ing taken his seat he removed his hat, in accordance with the rules of the house I'm squared?” the positions. Then the disturbance in the sallery began. The man’s head was as bald as a billiard ball, save for a little fringe of hair ihat skirted his collar. A gamin directed the attention of the gallery to the shining mark, and immedi- ately the gods broke into & wild storm ot laugbter and showered innumerable spit- balls at the luckiess baid head. Before he could restore the gallery to order the bouncer had to induce the man to seek a less conspicuous place and to resume his hat. The gallery god is a stickler for bis “rights.”” He goes on the hypotnesis that he “has paid to see the show and he is going to see it.”” He is no respecter of persons. A woman with a big hat in front of him is a black beast to the god, and no regard for sex impels him to keep his dis- regard for all such to bimself. Bouncer Tillman had to arrest a man the other woman's hat that offended him. *Now, look a-here,” the gallery god said, as Tillman escorted him down the stai j'dis ain’t right—see? I asks de loidy tree limrc‘ perlite to take off her tile, an’ pe wuan't do it—see? An’ who tell wudn’t get mad?” Hugging one’s best girl in the gallery is not considered good form by the bouncers. It'sa pose that doesn’t go. The other night a young Barbary Coaster, aressed up *“to kill,”” with his governing those who occupy such exalted | night for insisting on the removal of a | going people that the bouncer has tode a While there are times when he must be a diplomat, there are others when he must be a bruiser, and ‘there has been many a lively go between “de cops” of San Fran- cisco theater lofts and obstreperous patrons of the houses that have never been recorded among notable fistic encounters. For your true-biue bouncer has the ‘‘scrapping blood” royal |in his veins, and when thines are even had rather use his fisés than his club. But the bouncer has kis club with him all the time, and the gallery gods know it, and they respect the club, 1f not the man. They know the officer has the law and the numbers on his side, and itis only when they get drunk that the top-lofters ques= tion the authority of this monarch of the theater gelleries, and when they do this they invariably land in the City Prison. For ‘‘de bodncer ruies de roost!” An Elk Par[ “Iownan elk farm. As far as I know thers is not another such farm in the world,” saysa writer in Topeka Capital. | “There may possibly men who hold elk in | captivity and who keep them for breeding | purposes to a certain extent; but to have regular farm, where there is nothing but elk, where they are looked after, kept in condition and treated just the same asany cattle—that is a thing which I do not be- lieve any one has done before me. *‘My farm is one of the most picturesque parts of Colorado, 1 a valley sixteen | miles east of Meeker. It is 163 acres in extent, and through the length of it runs a splendid trout stream, well known throughout the surrounding States under the name of the Big Beaver. My farm is in the very heart of the White River coun- try, a tract which is' not excelled in the United States for the variety of ‘its big game. Indeed, it is often called the Para- | dise of the Sportsman. “Someidea of the extent to which I work | my farm may be gained from the fact that |each year I raise from my eik alone | enough hay to bale up 130 tons, and |'garner from 300 to 500 bushels of grain. On this farm, which is 6500 feet above the level of the sea, the elk roam through the timber land and across tbe roliing mead- ows just as though they were not captive. But they are safe enough, neverthele: for I have them fenced in with a five- | strand barb-wire fence. “In my time I have followed many lines of work and farmed in different parts of the country, but I have never found any such experience as I am now passing through. The elk is such a strange ani- { mal; but in time they get to be justas | gentle as milch cows. It has been four yearssince I first took ! the notion of taming the elk and raising | them, just as other people raise cattle. It | took me a year to get the farm in order, | to capture the six animals with whieh I | started and to place them in the ineloced ranch. Up to that time I did not know | whetherthe idea was feasible; I was afraid that I should have a great deal of trouble in domesticating them. “In their native tracts the elk of all s'zes ann ages seem to be perfectly able to take card of themselves and their horns. But when once they get on a farm they seem to forget all tn The young steers, especially, get info no end of trouble and break their horns in the most distressing manner. As these broken hornsand badly spreading prongs injure the general appearance of the herd, I have contrived a means of reg- ulating and controlling the horn’s growth, This is done by means of a box-like wooden frame, light and easily carried by theelk. The horns are guided in their growth by this frame, and it also keeps the animal from getting into bad places in L] e 2 (] THE BOUNCER 'JZ\E POPULAR 1DEA 0! M £ PIUNCER_ AT THE GRAND. “steddy”’ swinging to his arm, accosted George Delmas, the head bouncer at Morosco’s. He was one of those who had been put on.the tabooed list of the special officer. +Now, look-a-here, Del,” he said, “my guurl is here wid me, an’ I want te gointo de fam'ly circle, see! If vou'll let me go in I’ll be on de dead square.” Delmas allowed the twain to take seats in “the family circle,”” but he had to pull them from their places during the second act. They had gone to sleep in each other’s arms and were snoring away to- gether as if to beau the orchestra playing down below. But it is pot always with such easy- the timber belt. Then, too, when the horns sre still in the miik they are very soft and easily damaged. They have to be watched with the greatest caution, and iron rust must be mixed with their food, as it has a strengthening quality.” The most valuabie fur is that of the sea otter. One thousand dollars has been paid for a single skii of tbis animul not more than two yards long by three-quar- ters of a yard wide. ——e—. The most unheaithy city in Europe is Barcelona, Spain. The number of deaths there at present exceeds the number of births,