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THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. EEN a spotiess maiden offers ber heart and hand to a wan- dering hobo, Love is either blind or wears one eye In a aling. At least, this is my - g o bellef, founded on painful experience with the tender passion. Being obliged to resign from a canalboat at’ Keokuk, Ia., on account of ice, In the winter of 1885, I went South to save the price of @n overcoat, and accepted the position REAT PIG-STICKING SCENEFROM DRYDEN'S LOVE ROMANCE." Jablesfort : two kinds of heroes, and posthumous. ier are created as a re- It of the exigencies of modern A good story composed of s of scare head and human s needed for the front page, h a hero is born. It isn't t the man should have ing remarkable or even that id be in existence. A good re- with a ready command of Eng- ieh and a falr facility on the type- writer can anufacture three heroes n one evening, and not overwork at that. The creation of posthumous heroes is & little more difficult. No one objects to being & hero, especially when Mr. Sarnegie is around, but there seems to be & strongly rooted prejudice against beco posthumous, even heroically posthumous. Viewed simply by itself end as a pure abstraction, there isn't ing dead. But there may be a few people in the world who are desirous of possessing a laurel wreath, even if it has to be placed on their coffins, and for their sakes we shall attempt to outline in as graphic a manner as pos- sible the formula for the accomplish- ment of high-class, blown-in-the-bot- tle heroism. Leonidas Hobson Jones was oné of the common people. He came of a family that had always paid its debts and never renigged on'its taxes. They had aleo been among the most strenu- ous critics of the way ‘other’ people at- tended to thelr affairs, especially peo- ple who had more monev than they did. In glowing terms they would de- pict the shortcomings and general worthlessness of the criminal rich and the corruption and malfeasance rife among those high in political power. It may be seen from this that they were emphatically of the common peo- % f ¢ Hard T Ty NS NSRS of assistant pilot on a furniture wagon at New Orleans. Another fellow drove, and I steered the. bureaus and bulky bedsteads up flights of narrow stairs built like well augers. In this genteel manner I amassed & neat but not® +it.. From that moment the love-stung ; Badle worshiped at my shrine. I was gaudy sustenance in fair weather; for when it rained my salary and meals paused at the same moment. > ‘When not cruising in the wagon I roomed at the home of a German wom- an-in an humble quarter of the city. She had a grown family, two of the girls being at hqgme. Lulu was nine- teen and reveled in a beau—a thin, pal- 1id person,-who wore in his shirt what I;believed, at that time, to be a dla- mond. Sadie ‘had seen but sixteen summers and. waded in the muck of as- many winters. Plump and rosy, and with a great rope of yellow halr hanging down her back, she pined in sécret. The mother dropped the flag on ‘anything-that looked like a beau, and in the . sanctity of home Bad dreamed of the misty future when she would trot in double harness with her ideal. Poor, deluded maiden! As an annex to the family there dwelt in a cracker box in the back yard two sickly runt pigs—Henrietta and Myrtle. Their abode was not a joy- ous one. Stunted in body and mind and fretful in conflnement, Henrletta and Myrtle grew peevish, morose and melancholy. They fought and squealed like married sisters living in one house, but the tragic finish was drawing on apace, On Sundays, in the evening and on rainy days, when the furniture wagon hit bottom and stuck fast, I loitered in the bosom of the German family. We always were there in a bunch, and I batted 800 or better in the en- tertainment class. My repertory in- cluded a cruise in a United States war- ship; and the marvelous tales of halr- breadth escapes and things that oozed from me won Sadie’s admiration and turned her golden plait a shade lighter. Also, I embroidered for her a silken star of great magnitude and beauty, such a star as the naval bluejacket wears on the crown of his flat cap. ‘With a set of tin hoops brought from the ship and some colored silk thread I built a multi-pointed star that made the entire household blink. At the same time, I enmeshed Sadie's budding passion, but was not wise to the fact I had started something that wouldn't stop. On the afternoon of that same day the mother invited ‘me to murder Henrijetta. The pigs in the cracker box could go the route no longer, and a tearful family council decided on Henrletta! I never had assassinated any swine; but, with the prestige of my warless war record and the silken star gleaming like a halo on my brow, I agreed to shed blood. So they brought the doomed Henrletta to me in the kitchen, where the family as- sembled, a prey at once to furtive pain and fresh pork. Grasping the piglet around the mid- dle in one hand, as though she were a sausage, my faithful penknife flashed, and Henrietta vielded up about one spoonful of life’s crimson fluid. I phere redolent of hard work, and the fact was Impressed upon him early in his career that the chief end of man was to labor unceasingly, whether he wanted to or not. Therefore it was without any mis- givings about the dignity of/labor that he entered upon his life work. If isn’t necessary to say what that particular work was. All work Is pretty much alike, except that some kinds are hard- er. than others. It's always the work that the man who is telling .about it heppens to be-doing at the time that is"the hardest. ' Thus a writer of his- torical novels envies'the hodcarrier and the man who shovels snow off the side- walk looks with longing eyes at the job of the man who has to work only sixteen hours a day to pay the taxes and the Interest on the mortgage. Re- turning to our point, if it hasn’'t been hopelessly dulled, we would say only that Leonidas had to work for a living. e scalded the remains in a small dinner pot, scraped and dressed them, and split the immature spine from snout to tail with the penknife, the only weapon employed in the crime, The Job was done beautifully if I do say her unconsciqus hero in everything, ‘plig-sticking included; and none but her modest self knew the sweet story of untold love. As an Ideal I struck high C in two long jumps. Any man who could in & single day merge the fine arts of the anclents with the abattoir instincts of Armour & Co. stood out from the com- mon herd a beacon of love and hope ‘ and happiness eternal. - All'T knew was that from day to-day Badie sat as usual in the home,circle, listening to my les, jokes, repartee and bonmots, “'mostly about furniture fn misfit houses. I never saw her alone, and never thought of doing so; for that matter; but all the while the silken star stunt and the autopsy I held on Henrietta were getting. in_ their fatal work. At length there came a day when the furniture wagon palled on my thirst for conquest, and I shipped as cook on a Northern tugboat bound up- river. A farewell party in my honor was pulled off in the German family. The mother, Lulu and her pallid beau, his alleged diamond, the married sister, her baby and husband, who worked in a shot tower, and a few social nelgh- bors assembled to see me off. We lap- ped up several scuttles of suds and I never was in better form. Not until later did I recall Sadie was not among those present. In fact, I failed to note her absence. At the break-up of the party 1 dispbrsed to the tugboat and slept in a bedless bunk below the wash of the tide. . - Early next morning a sad-faced messenger arrived with a note from Lulu concerning her little sister. BSa- die had cried all night and until 2 o’clock in the morning. The reason she sidestepped the farewell party was because she loved me and feared she would break down and show fit. The note wound up with a request for me to return at once to Sadie. This great trouble, sprung so suddenly, inspired me to show the note to the coarse, able seamen on the tug. I wanted advice. Some of them looked curiously at me and others laughed, but when I proposed to go back they grew alarmed and tried to dissuade me. Just the same, I went, and found the old lady alone in the sitting-room. She treated me with deference and respect. “‘What seems to be gnawing Sadle?” I asked, being impervious to Cupid’s dart, and therefore fluent of speech. “I don't know,” sald the mother. “Sadle 1s such a funny girl. She didn’t appear to care for fellows till she had the spell last night.’ “You don’t think I've trifled with her?” “No, indeed,” replied the mother, much distressed. ‘“‘She’s in the kitch- en. Go and talk to her.” In the kitchen Sadie stood at the table with her bare arms reposing on a pile of dishes in the-center of a than a year or two when his parent on his father’s side became tired of liv- ing and decided to try the rest cure in the family mausoleum. This left Leonidas with a large family and a still larger financial problem on his kands. Almost any man can support himself if he is moderately industrious and refisonably thrifty, but when it comes to providing the bread and but- ter and now and ‘then a little jam on the side for three or four other people the situation 1is materially . altered. That was the kind of a game that Le- onidas was up against, but he never faltered, not he. He merely shaved an extra dollar a week off his already microscopic expense account and put in an additional two hours a day at the regular union charge for overtime. By dint of great effort he managed to keep the family ball rolling until some of the younger members of the outfit began to be old enough to help a little. When this time arrived Leoni- lish n and Off the Bread ) By Charles ' Iu}! pan. Bhe had been weeping, and a smothered sob racked her bosom when she saw me. aware that washing dishes exercises & morbidly unwholesome effect on girls of 16, I took Sadie by the hand and towed ‘her gently into the back yard. This was indeed a bad break, for when the.troubled maiden: beheld Myrtle biting splinters in the - bot- tom of the cracker box the scens con- Jured up visions of the departed Hen-_ rietta and the part she had played in our young lives. The poor child broke down utterly. She laid her head on my shoulder and* cried. In me there arose a series of sensations the exact location of ' which I do not now recall. " I felt shocked and foolish by turns, and.yet guiltless of intent in. bringing about such & calamitous episode. For want of bet- ter action I feebly stroked Sadie’s de- Lacud. dishwatery hand and begged er to cheer up. Sadie was pretty and nice and all that, and her distress filled me with vast anguish. How I mentally cursed the silken star and Henrietta, the victim of th subtle wiles will never know. ‘“Why don't you stay here?” she asked, commandingly. ‘‘You've trav- eled enough and seen all the werld; and we like you. Some day & boat wul sink and that will be your end.” I explained the reasons for my base of operations .but the’plan did not suit Miss Sadfe. “If you will stay here In New Or- leans,” she went on softly, sweeétly and tenderly, “my brother-in-law will et you a job in the shot tower, where you can earn enough to keep us both.” Had a large shot tower fallen on the back of my neck it couldn’t have jarred any more. My works stopped, ike those of a watch dropped from a height, and when the works resumed it occurred to me I was confronting a crisis. The first and only formal proposal of marriage ever slammed at me had landed and I was taking the full count. Holy smoke! With the skill of the quick and ready liar I handed the girl a fragrant bunch of paper flowers. “Sadle,” I said, “it makes me dizzy to toil in shot towers. Moreover, I'm under contract to go on the tugboat, and if I desert now I'll be hanged by the neck until dead. Could you stand that?” ¢ A mist of tears clouded the blue eyes, quenching the love beams there, and I hastened to pass another bou- quet over the footlights. “But when I've cooked everything they have in the boat then will I come back to you,” I promsed. She took that as my pledge to be her sturdy oak, and Sadie would be my clinging vine. Then I plastered a chaste and rapid salute upon her blushing cheek, deeming it my duty, and hiked out for the river front, bound to the maiden who loved me for my deeds alone. At this point,« gentle reader, we Jump a lapse of twenty years, during which I heard no more of Sadie. A few days ago I straggled back to New Orleans and fell to thinking of the little blue-eyed girl with the golden P s NSRS let-up in the dim distance, but he never made a worse mistake in his whole life. No sooner had his brothers and sisters arrived at an age that would permit of such a step than they forthwith butted headlong into the an- clent and honorable state of matri- mony. Marriage is a serious business always, and it proved especlally so in this case for Leonidas. He had had some kind of a vague idea for a num- ber of years that he would like to take a little flyer at matrimony himself and had postponed the evil day only until his brothers and sisters could help Rim take care of his aged mother. N that they showed no disposition to re- Heve him of a portion of his burden he realized that he was up agalnst It for keeps. It wouldn’t have been half so bad if any one had seemed to realize what kind of a lone hand Leonidas was playing, but no one was wise. On the contrary, kind friends from time to time bore to his unwilling ears critical £ " fijchpw]‘@ma Dryden braid. Somehow, men'will de thoss things. Maybe it's vanity, Howaver, home was broken up, but:I found Lulu in the neighborhood. She was pleased and likewise scared to ses me,“since I was supposed to be dead. A boati that salled the day I left-twenty years : before went under with all hands/ - My friends thought I‘took the derelict and had mourned me all.these years: Still, with my corpse eliminated, the meeting “was a_happy oné. A'spasm of ‘pain crossed Lulu's face when we ' shook hands and she got a flash of my $18 diamond ring. Did that sparkling gem remind her of the pallid beau, who, . like myself, proved fickle? Heaven' forbid! It shocked me some to learn that Sadie had mairied two years after my death, but I.couldn’t blame her for that. Lulu directed me to the place and I went to call'for old time’s sake, . Sadle knbw me in a minuts and- . biushéd as she led me by the hand, 83 I had led her into the back yard twenty years ago, only our sentiments, time tempered, were vastly different. For an hour ‘we talked, avoiding the shot tower, and then the subject of love's young dream came up and we both laughed. “My, but I was ltnak on the men From the ‘tone I.inferred Sadie was married’one. That's different.” Mean- . while Sadie dispatched ‘flest couriers childrén for - my.- inspection. .She brought put the silken. star I made "t twenty years ago .and-the’sight:of: it - pleased 'me much. - I was glad about the star and a warm spot glowed in‘my " breast, for the woman,who had not fér- gotten it _ Soon ‘the. children' came whooping in, led by a ‘plump and rosy girl. with the golden’braid down her back—the Sadie of twenty. years:ago. My thoughts grew lumpy and & wistful ‘look ‘stood in’ the ~mbther's eyes when I'took the little fat hand and caressed it 5 “This is Henrletta, my eldest” the woman sald simply. s ‘a Like one stricken dumb, I.bent my head in silent awe and wonder.. That well-spring of human devotion was too deep for my rope.: Right there dawned the copiviction ‘that the first opening buds of true love, larded with.pork and mustard in the:virgin breast, can;never, never dle; for Henrietta, you ' remem- ber, was ‘the name of-the pig.whose death gave birth to'my romance. And, oh, how lightly had'T cast aside the fit- ful god, who comes. not at set com- mand! At once I became :a Blighted Being and waddled ‘away without another word for one more look at the sHot- tower. There wds 1, old and beefy and bald, plugging“on alone through life. Twenty years of bliss.gone.forever, and years of misery, perhaps, yet to come. The - shot ~tower - still stood where I spurned’ it In'the burning past. Moss and ivy draped “the tall stone shaft, and the base had gone to ruin.. A po- liceman told me the imstitution on which I might have reared a happy about the quality and cut of his clothes and his lack of a truly gentlemanly and Impressive bearing. Leonidas might have pointed out to the critics that it is extremely difficult to bring up a family on a small income and be a gentleman at the same time. In ad- dition to his other troubles the mem- bers who had been added to the fam- ily circle through the various entang- ling matrimonial alllances which the brothers and sisters of Leonidas had- contracted were unable to understand why he couldn’t earn money for the support of six or seven as well as of three or four. When the second gen- eration began to put in its appearance it was up to Uncle Leonidas to see that the deficits in the family exchequer were met, as well as to provide the requisite amount of silver spoons and mugs and lace caps and other frills and furbelows of infant existence. But why continue this recital any longer! It is a common tale of a very common, not to say vulgar, person, and can be of no possible interest to really genteel persons. Leonidas stayed in the game as long as possible and then acon not stuck on them now #nce:she) had “into thé neighborhood. to round upithe % home had been closed down more than fifteen years. Of course, it helped Being I set out digging up the'past. The old some, and yet I am not satisfled. Lurk- ing there.in the shadow of that busted shot works, the might-have-been rose up to reproach me. Dimly, as In a fos, I saw a phantom doorway. Above the door a phantom sign: -“C. Dryden, +Esq. Fancy Sewing and Pork Butcher.” Beyond the portal a circle of little l‘:ce- and a glowing fireside at $11 per mn. Too soon- the picture faded, giving way to the dull horrors of a sunny front room for a single gent; references given and reguired; bath optionmal, Where these bleeding lines wers writ- ten. Oh, well; what's the use? Lat the dead past stay dead. I don't care. There must be something wanting in the sentimental side of my make-up. Either I am not a ladles’ man or else -I lacked the nerve to take a chance Which'is it? B Thoughts for publication, thus ending a Hobo career where some others be- gin t (Copyright, 1306, by Charles Dryden) addition to making the poor fallow pay his own funeral expenses, his:brothers and sisters stuck the estate for the crape and flowers with which to give the proper touch to his last appear- ance. The day after the funeral his mother awakened to the fact that onidas was the only genuine, simon- pure hero who had ever acted a part on this earthly stage. By dint of con~ stant” repetition she has su.ceeded im impressing the same profound truth om the rest of the family and also on the neighbors. Every year they put flow- ers on the grave of Leonidas and weep silently and softly because they didn't appreclate him while he was living. Being one of the common people, the truth which Leonidas’ story teaches is of necessity a very common truth. It is simply that not only & man’s valet, but every one else who knows him, re- fuses to Invest him with the garb of heroism. The only way to cinch the laurel wreath is to behave yourself fairly well and die at a convenlent time. Then some one will surely crown you in proper fashion. iything particularly heroic about be- ple. Leonidas was born into an atmos- He hadn’'t been in the game more das thought that he could see a little comments that they had overheard died quietly and unostentatiously. In (Copyright, 1904, by Aldert Britt) o A " DDEN: THE STRANGE REASON FOR LNARD RIMMIE A : AMASTER EAD)DEN§ BLACK L v T . ke EYE AND OTHER MYSTERIES. NSFEXD. (33 E son” 1 says, “did you notting to do wit tings dat is not llke has two of de finest. Dey is cut out de kids guch foolishness dat I gets what he teaches you—only forget it. T cI'uu and short on worry—dat was tak- " ;’&.clnd less og' m‘:m and :: ever see a political re- odder tings, and you'll live to be & good for team wolk; one of 'em never made grouty—it's because dey teaches any- Want you to be a great scholar—only ing tings easy and looks like dey was him President. former wit a double chin? Did you ever know a tariff tinker who could sing a song or make a 3 ch? Be careful, Kiddie,” I [ “or you'll pget s ting on de brain and den you'll have nothing else & and your frens will fly from you like you was a yellow fever. Have old man wit a digestion and bank account.” I had to give me son a straight talk because I seen de danger he was In, and knew dat if I didn’t put him right at de beginning he might toin out a reformer and break his fadder’'s heart. Dis was de way of it: Kiddie comes home from his school for a week-end once a mont, and he’s wit us now. I was asking him how his loining was getting on, and he says It was all to de good, for he sure would make de foot- ball team. But he tells me dat he had been g0 boddered in his coco by some- ting a upper class teacher said he was way off in his Indoors practice wit de dummy he has to tackle low so0 as to get de sclence of trunning & runner bard enough to put him out of de game. A “What was it he said, Kiddie?” I asks. “No teacher has a right to bod- der de coco of de school boys so much as dat. What was he saying?” “I hears it from one of de big boys —for I don’t loin dat study yet—po- litical 'conomy. But de big boy comes to me, and he says dat New York has no Benator in Washington, and I ought to be 'shamed of meself. So I poked him in de nose, and I got dis black eye; and I want to know why dis is so—dat de teacher says New York has no Senator in Washington.” “You done right to poke him in de nose, my son,” I says, *because dat But It's a pity*some one doesn't poke de teacher in de nose. He's de mug what should get tirty days in jail. No Senator from New York! Me son, we & speech in his life, and de odder never made anyting else. Can you beat ‘em?” If it wasn’t ‘dat I has such a good job where I am J'd go to dat school and teach dat e—political ’con- omy. I know politics; I know dat it is a trade dat {s governed llke every odder trade or commerce, dat it is gov- erned by de law of supply and be- damned. Where a good Senator is called for dere is a good supply of ‘em on hand; where only a second-rate ar- ticle is wanted, of course, de supply gets a bit moldy and fraszled. But New York? What? We wants de best In de market and we gets it. I tells me son someting like dis, and yet he is woozy on de proposition, for he says dat de same teacher told. de big boys dat Senators should represent all de people of de States. On de level, did you ever hear such rot like dat? One of our Senators represents de rallroads, and de odder de express companies. Isn't dey bet- ter dan de people? Has de people any rallroads for to be took care of? Has dey any express graft to be kept in order? What right have de people for to butt in and try to get a Senator? I tell you, boss, dat dis matter is gov- erned by de law supply and be- damned, and you can't get away from dat. If de people had a supply of rail- roads or express companies tucked .away in deir jean pockets, den it was not & nice ting for de boy to say. would be time for dem to set up a holler-for a Senator or two;.but while dey has only a supply of hot air where do dey come in on de proposition? But it isn’t dat de teacher teaches ting about de matter at all. Listen: You can’t keep your Uncle Bammy from de bunco men. He's too good a mark; he Is too easy, and when you start-out-to try to keep him off de Rialto and away from de sure- ting men who start to make yourself dippy.~ I tells me son dat he'll never be captain of his football team if he tries to dope out who is de people, and what dey is. De man dat tinks grand taughts about de people never will get & look-in at de temple of fame while dere is places wanted dere for de lad dat makes a new record for trunning de hammer or putting de shot. Leave politics for de politiclans— what do we pay ’‘em for? Don't go growling all over de lot when you are keeping a dog to bark for you. You never saw a man who has big ideas about de rights . of de people rooting’ at a baseball game, rowing a boat for fun, or coasting down hill on a sled filled wit kiddies. When I'd told me son dis he wasn't satisfled yet, and he says dat de teach- er told de class dat de people had a right to votes in de Senate as well as de railroads and de express companies. So I says: “Look hers, me boy, did de teacher say who was de people? Aln't 1 de people as much as him? If I wanted a job in .de custom-house wouldn't I get it? .Sure I would, be- cause Whiskers would tell our Sena- tors to give it to me, Whiskers carry- ing a cargo of sto and bonds in delr companies. Your tkacher Is like de rest of his kind-—he’s dippy. But don't be - hard.on him. Now dat I has-give you good advice, don’t be afrald to loin \ don’t let it sink in. I'm no great scholar, so you will always have some one handy to put you wise, place you next, tell you how tings really is. Take your teacher’s teachings, for dey will do you no harm now dat you knows what dey really means; and de teach- ers must earn a living, I suppose. But when you need to be told de trute about such tings, come to your dad. He'll never loin dose dippy tings, and can always be relled to keep his head clear and wise.” 1 was glad dat Kiddle had de game ut up to him early, when it would him little harm. Some folks don't of such tings as de teacher was saying until dey is too old to get over it easy, and den it's ta-ta to ease of mind and good digestion. What's de use of trying to make tings de way dey isn’t, when it's so easy to take 'em de way dey is? It's in de blood of some mugs to go dotty on reform and_ de rights of de people. Once when I was to Wash- ington wit Mr. Paul he takes me to de gallery where we could see de Sen- ate at wolk. I pipes 'em off, and Mr. Paul was piping me off. After a while he says, ““Chames,” he says, “can you pitylng de odder mugs—dose I puts down on de odder list. _Mr. Paul, he looks at me lists, and den he kind of laughs and he says: ““Which is which?” “Don’t ask me, sir,” I says. “I'd be ashamed to guess aloud such an easy one as dat.” Well, I was telling Mr. Paul what Kiddie told me of de teacher, and he tells it to Whiskers to get a rise out of him. He got it all right. Whiskers put up a stack of boodle for dat school years ago when it needed it in its business, and he was for going .dere by de next traln-and have. dat teacher fired. | ““He's no better dan a nannychist!” he says. “Tings has come to a pretty pass,” he says, “if ‘de morals of de youts of de nation is to be corrupted at de pump. I have seen In some of de papers de same wicked tings dat dat nannychist teacher says; dat New York is not represented in de Senate. ‘Who isn’t represented? Isn’t de con- servative, vested-interest class repre- sented, I want to know?* “Better in our beloved State dan In most States,” says Mr. Paul. lighted people made Dis beautiful incident occurred some hundred years ago, 50 you may have forgot it.” he grins and he says: “No, ‘Whiskers I haven't forgot it—nor has de citizen you refer to.” I wonder what dey was talkin aboutf (Copyright, 1905, byul:)dvud W. Towne se: