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Show the shot occasional glances of her eyes. ΄ She ling had Yes, you can, driver of the | us the wi whole tox It road. shouted the | oxen gently, got slowly you can give won't } t your As and the team once mon way the mifited drummers climbed into their trap, the girl, in the 3, but it in old cart to ardor of her suddenly adopted hero ‘h we ain't going to d τ y a jugtul. Get u, worship, could not refrain from turn and be quick about it ‘ing around again to triumph ovel | To this the youth made no immedi -) them. When the men werefairly seat ate reply; but he began to forget about | ed, and the reins gathered up for | the girl, and to feel himself growing | prompt departure, the smaller man 1] As for the girl, she had stepped | turned suddenly and threw a_ large ] ; ] f , res d to “show off” stone with vindictive energy and dead and to mz very manifest to the city ly aim seemed to unit person all th: n her scorn for her companion “Look out!” shrieked the girl; and to p rsuade he r cheeks and eye were flaming, and the young countryman turned aside ΤΟΝΙ he drummers were rot slow to rej just in time to eseape the full force To be sure aught herself back || ond to the challenge which βὮθ οἳ the missile. It grazed the side of them from under ber hig head, however, with such violence old conditions |; fashed at irocped Hds us stirred in he as to bring him to his knees,and the Ah, there, my beauty!” said the blood spread throbbing out of the long y resentment, akin to | she felt whenever—as would hay | driver, his attention for a moment di- cut like a scarlet veil, The drummers ] erted from the question of right of pen at times—stk 1e could not help rec whipped their horse to a gallop, and ognizing that Jim-Ed and his affairs }| Way His companion, a smallish man disappeared. were not without a passing interest in ] striped trousers and fawn-colored The girl first stopped the team, with her eyes yvereoat, sprang lightly out of the a true country-side instinct; 1d she Now ap, with the double purpose of clearshe began to grow particu Was at the young man's side, sobbing arly angry at h m because, as she = the read and amusing himself with anxious fear, just as he staggered thought, “he hadn't nothing to say | vith Liz The saucy smile with blindly to his feet. Seating him on the fer himself hich she met him turned into a Sadly to his disadvan cart, she proceeded to stanch the compared his simplicity lage she ywn, however, as he began brutally bleeding with the edge of her gown and honest dif fidence with t*e bold | kicking the knees of the oxen to make Observing this, he protested, and de hem stand over self-asser tion 1 wumillarity of clared that the cut was nothing. But the 1 patient brutes crowded into she would not be gainsaid, and he young fellows with whom sh he ditch. had come in cor tact during the yielded, apparently well content under Whea there! winter Gee, Buck! 566, Their impertinences had | her hands. Then, tearing a strip from offended her grievo isly at the time | Bright!” ordered the youth, and the her colored cotton petticoat, she gentbut womanlike she permitted her | am lurched back into the road. At ly bound up the wound, not artisticalelf to forget that now, in order to e same time he stepped over the ly, perhaps, but in every way to his | acce ntu ate the cart beam and came forward on the deficiencies of the ; satisfaction. an whom she was unwilling to think | of side of the team. “If ye hadn't gi'n me warnin’, Liz, | Ye'd be quit that, mister!” he that there stun’d about fixed me,” he remarked. she reiterated to her | xclaimed, with a threatening note in elf. with a( voice imulated scorn, “but | The girl smiled happily, but said tive the lout a slap in the mouth, nothing, He -wny, he wouldn't ow a ‘lectric car from a Waterin ] ake him get out of the way,” After a. long pause he spoke again. cart An’ soft too, takin’ all my sa he man in the trap. “Seems to me ye're like what ye hout £ivin Π e no lip back, no more’: ut the man in the fawn-colored used to, Liz,” said he, “only nicer, a busy. Liz was much to his if | was his m ther!” sight nicer; an’ y’ used to be powerful 4 nice, I allow there couldn't be anothBut the young man presently broke Jump in and take a ride with us, er girl so nice as you, Liz, An’ what in upon these unflattering reflections my pretty,” said he ever’s made ye quit lookin’ down on With a sigh he said slowly, as if half to himself But Liz shrank away, regretting her me, so sudden like?” cative glances ncw that she saw “Jim-Ed,” she replied in a caress“Lands, but I used to set a power ek f men she had to do with. ing tone, “ef y’ ain’t got no paper colful store by ye, Liz!” He paused; and at that “used to” lar on, ner no glas’ di’mon’ pin, I al Come, come,” coaxed the man, 1e@ girl opened her eyes with angry low ye’re a man. An’ maybe—maybe don't be shy, my blooming daisy. apprehension Vell drive you right in to the Corye’'re the kind of man I like, Jim But be went on: Ed.” rs and set up a good time for you.” “An’ I set still more store by ye To even such genuine modesty as i, grasping her hand, he slipped an now, Liz, someways. Seem like I jest Jim-Ed’s this was comprehensible. couldn't live without ye. I always did about her waist and tried to kiss s. As she tore herself fierce- Shyly and happily he reached out his feel as how ye was too good, a sight hand for hers. They were both seatly too good, fer me, an’ you so smart; ed very comfortably on the cart-beam, an’ nowI feel it more’n ever, bein’ ’s so he did not consider it necessary to ye’ve seen so much of the world like. move. Side by side, and hand in hand, But, Liz I don’t allow as it's right an’ they journeyed homeward in a gloriproper fer even you to look down the fied silence. The oxen appeared to way ye do on the place ye was born guide themselves very fairly. The in an’ the folks ye was brung up sunset flushed strangely the roadside with,” hillocks. The night-hawks swooped in My!” thought the girl to herself, the pale zenith with the twang of “he’s got some spunk, after all, to git stirr and | tia ill cont of life in ιτ m of Wyer’s δι e went away vernacular f kee in’ company and now, in a in a fact New | t ne 4 with the monotony | THE DRUMMER SPRAWLED INTO THE DITCH LIZ AND JIM-ED } By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS | || (Copyright, by Joseph B, Bowles.) “ The oxen, lean and rough-haired, one of them carroty red, the other brindle and white, were slouching {nertly along the narrow backwoods road. From habit they sagged heavily on the yoke, and groaned huge windy sighs, although the vehicle they were hauling held no load. This structure, the mere skeleton of a cart, consisted of two pairs of clumsy, broad-tired wheels, united ‘by a long tongue of ash, whose tip ‘was tied with a rope to the middle of the forward axle. The road looked dggocent of even the least of the country roadjnaster's well-meaning attempts at repair—a , circumstance, indeec. which should perhaps be set to its credit. It was made up of four deep, parallel ruts, the two outermost eroded, by years of jocrneying cart wheels, the inner ones worn by the companioning hoofs of mary a \yoke of oxen, Down the center ran a high and grassy ridge, intolerable to the country parson and the country doctor, compelled to traverse highway in their one-horse this wagons. From ruts and ridges alike protruded the imperishable granite bowlder, which wheels and feet might polish but never efface, On either side of the roadway was traced an erratic furrow, professing to do duty for a drain, and at intervals emptying a playful current across the track to wander down the ruts. Along beside the slouching team slouched a tall, lank, stoop-shouldered youth, the white down just beginning to stiffen into bristles on his long upper lip. His pale eyes and pale hair looked yet paler by con- pace. Immediately the ox-team over- took her. As the oxen slowed up she stepped to the right to let them then walked on, thus pass, and placing the | cart between herself and her unde sired companion. The youth looked disconcerted by these tactics, and for a few moments could find nothing to say. Then, dropping his long white lashes sheepishly, he murmured: “Good-day, Liz.” “Well, coolly, “Won't ye a lift treaty in Jim-Ed!” replied the girl, ye set on an’ let me give home?” he asked, with enhis voice. “No,” she said, with finality. “Td ruther walk,” Not knowing how to answerthis rebuff, he tried to cover his embarrassment by exclaiming authoritatively: “Haw, Bright!” whereupon the team slewed to the left and crowded him she considered rather withering smart- ness; “but I ain't a-goin’ to.” “Ye'll be tired afore ye git home,” he persisted, encouraged by finding that she would talk back at him. “James-Ed A’ki'son,” she declared, with emphasis, “if ye think I'm a-goin’ to be beholden to youfer a lift home, ye’re mistaken, that’s all.” After this there was silence for some time, broken only by the rattling and bumping of the cart, and once by the whirr of a woodcock that volleyed across the road. Young “That's with α smitten chords. he Then he relapsed into silence. For half a mile he slouched on without a sfllable, save an occasional word of command addressed to the team, Coming to another boggy bit of road he seated himself dejectedly on the cart, and apparently would not pre- sume to again press unwelcome assistance upon his fellow way-farer. Quite uncertain whether to interpret this action as excess of humility or as a severe rebnke, the girl picked her way as best she could, flushed with a sense of injury. When the mud was passed, the young man absent-mindedly kept his seat. Beginning to boil with indignation, the girl speedily lost her confident superiority, and felt humiliated. She did not know what to do. She could not continue to walk humbly beside the cart. Bhe situation was profoundly altered by the fact that the young man was riding. She tried to drop behind; but the team had aninfinite capacity for loitering. At last, with head high in the air, she darted ahead of the team and walked as fast as she could. Although she heard no orders given by (heir driver, she knew at once that the oxen had quickened their pace, and that she was not leay- ing them behind. Presently she found herself overtaken; whereupon, with swelling heart and face averted, she dropped again to the rear. She was drawing perilously near the verge of that feminine cataclysm, tears, when Fate stepped in to save her from such a mortification Fate goes about in many merry disguises. At this juncture she pre |} sented herself under the aspect two | | | ; | | | | | | | half-tipsy commercial of travelers James-Ed A’Ki’son, If Ye Think I’m A’goin’ te Be Beholden to You Ye’re Mistaken, trap laugh loud approval. She struck at her insulter with clenched hand; but she did not touch him, for just then something happened to him. The long arm of the youth went out like a cannon-ball, and the drummer sprawled in the ditch. He nimbly picked himself up and darted upon his assailant, while the man in the trap shouted to him encouragingly,— “Give it to him pretty, Mike.’ But the young countryman caught him by the neck with long, vise-like fingers, inexorable, and, holding him thus helpless at arm's length, struck him again heavily in the ribs, and hurled him over the ditch into a blueberry thicket, where he remained in dazed discretion. Though of a lamb-like gentleness on ordinary occasions, tie young countryman was renowred throughout the settlement for the astonishing strength that lurked in his lean frame. At this moment he was well aroused, and Liz found herself watching him with a consuming admiration. He no longer slouched, and his pale eyes, like polished steel, shot a menacing gleam. He stepped forward and took the horse by the bridle. “Now,” said he to the driver, “I've gi’n ve half the road, an’ if ye can't drive by in that I’m a-going to lead ye by, ‘thout no more nonsense.” “Let go that bridle!” yelled driver, standing up lashing and the at driving a single horse in a light open him with the whip. trap. They were driving in from One stroke caught the young man the settlement, in haste to reach the down the side of the face, and stung hotel at Bolton Corners before night- It was a rash stroke. fall The youth hawed his team “Hold the horse's head, Liz,” he vigorously till the nigh wheels were eried; and leaping forward, he reachon the other side of the ditch, leay- ed into the trap for his adversary. ing a liberal share of the road for Heeding not at all the butt end of the them to pass in. whip which was brought downfuriBut the drummers Were not satisously upon his head, he wrenched the fied with this. After a glance at the driver ignominiously from his seat, bashful face and dejected attitude of spun him around, shook him as if he the young man on the ox-cart, they had been a rag baby, and hurled him decided that they wanted the whole yiolently against a rotten stump on road. When their horse's head the other side of the ditch. The stump almost touched the horns of the off gave way, and the drummer splashed ox, they stopped. into a bog hole. “Get out of the way, there!” cried Nothing cows a man more quickly the man who held the reins, inso- l than a shating combined with a duck lently ing. Without a word the drummer At any other time Jim-Ed would hauled himself out of the slop and have resented the town man's tone walked sullenly forward. His companand words; just now he was thinkion -joined him; and -?s, leading the lag about the way Liz had changed, horse and trap carefully past the cart, delivered them up to their owners “I've gi'n ye the best half o’ the with a sarcastic smile on her lips. road, mister,” he said, deprecatingly, Then she resumed her place beside “'n’ I can’t do no better fer ye than that.” Stubbie and Fish— it is ul whe ithe cart, the young man flicked the we have ME bin spearin’ Fun yew could wish hed where the Suckers hole through thee ice of thee Ned Corn through thee hole be vid maiking th bettom all covered with gold! then while i waited for Sucker: s 2 come Stub whac ked the ice up above and Yelled sum! that is tl 16 way that we scare them across where we have scattered the corn on the π 10ss! stub he was yelling and whackin’ like Sin, ; when a B lack Sucker cum hipering in! i maid a jz ib with my spear oful quick— next thing i knew i had fell in thee Crick! it was so cold that 1 yelled very loud, bawling mybest to the ice-cutting crowd! stubbie w as whacking away like the deuce he couldn't HEER me—it wasn’t no use! | Oh i jest knew i wood DIE in that place being sucked under, clean down 2 thee race! so i Yelled louder than ever and then, some one called back from the ice-cut- ting men! next thing a Feller cum rushing along | fishing me ; out with a Pole, big and strong! The galleons (the name is a corruption of galley and is from the Greek, but the origin is lost) were variously designated, says a writer in Scrib- ner’s. Williams.) | Sports for the Buccaneer. I I Byron Spearin’. Spanish Galleons Laden with Riches acknowledged, An’ what And from a thick by | maple on the edge of a clearing a hermit-thrush fluted slowly over and over his cloistral ecstasy. did.” short “Gee, Buck!” he drawled, prodding the near ox lightly in the ribs. And the team lurched to the right to avoid a markedly obtrusive bowlder. “Haw, Bright!” he ejaculated a minute later, flicking with his whip the off shoulder of the farthest ox. And with sprawling legs and swaying of hind-quarters the team swerved obediently to the left, shunning a mire-hole that would have taken in the wheel to the hub. Presently, coming to a swampy spot that stretched all the wav across the road, the youth seated himself sidewise on the narrow tongue connecting the fore and hind axles and drove his team dry-shod. It was a slow and creaking progbut there seemed to be no ress; hurry, and the youth dreamed gloomily on his jolting perch. His eyes took no note of the dark-mossed scrubby hillocks, ihe rough clearings blackened with fire, the confused and She Gently Bound the Wound. ragged woods, λ they crept past in Atkinson chewed the cud of gloomy procession somber But suddenly bewilderment. At length he roused as the cart rounded a turn tn the road, himself to another effort. there came into view the figure of a “Liz,” said he, plaintively, “y’ ain't girl traveling in the same direction The young man slipped from his , been like ye used to, sence ye come back from the States.” perch and prodded up the oxen to a “Ain't I?” she remarked, indifferbrisk walk ently. As the noise of the team approached “No, Liz, ye ain't,” he repeated, her, the girl looked around. She with a sort of pathetic emphasis, as was good to see, with her straight vie us young figure in its blue if eager to persuade himself that site had condescended to rebut his accugray homespun gown Her hair, in sation. “Y’ ain't been like ye used eojor not far from that of the red ox, to at all. Appears like as if ye was rich and abundant, and lay in a coil so gracious that not even though: us folks in the settlement wasn't good enough fer ye now.” the tawdry millinery of her cheap At this the girl tossed her hes4a “store” hat could make her head crossly look quite commonplace Her face was freckled, but wholesome and “It appears like as if ye wanted .o comely. A shade of displeasure be back in the States ag’in,” he continued in a voice of anxious interropassed over it as she saw who was behind her, and she hastened her steps gation. perceptibly. But presently she re- | “My lands,” exclaimed the. girl, membered that she had a good five | “but ye’re green!” miles to go ere she would reach To the young man this seemed her destination; and she realized | such an irrelevant remark that he that she could not hope to escape by was silent for some time, striving to flight. With a pout of vexation fathom its significance. As his head she :esigned herself to the inevitable, sank lower and lower, and he seemed and dtopped back into her ‘former ; to lose himself completely in joyless δο, ” gloomily. “'’Course [ ain't. spose I hadn't oughter said trast with his thin, red, wind-roughened face. In his hand he carried a long-handled ox-whip, “goad in the butt of it. bu off such a speech as that, an’ te rake me over the coals, too!” But aloud she retorted: “Who's a-lookin’ down on anybody, Jim-Ed A’ki-son? An’ anyways, you ain’t the whole of Wyer’s Settlement, be ye?” The justice of this retort seemed to strike the young man with great force, jato the ditch. Soon he began again. “Yo might set on, Liz,” he pleaded. “Yes, I might,” said she, with what le There were “register ships,” maybe yew froze— think that i wasn’t most mi! but the Ice formed awl over m= Clothes! when i reeched home Mother sprang to mi side, then she hanged onto my Shoulder and CRIE D! Gosh, that ain't nothin’ to worry about after a feller is SAVED and gits out! there was a piece in thee Paper that sed i went in under—clean over mi hed! then it ran on for six inches or more warning us fellers 2 keep on thee Shoart there is so Blamed Litel News in this town they must write every small Incident down! privileged merchantmen, so called from being registered at Cadiz; Stub is a Dandy to scare fish around, leeving his Friends in thee River 2 “avisos,” dispatch and mail ships with DROWND! regular monthly sailing between ports, next time i go spearing fish on that which seldom carried treasure, but scene, were eagerly sought for by the in- i will take sumone whose hearing is Keen! formation in their mail bags of galthere is won thing i forgot, most, 2 say— leon movements; the “azogues” were | that there Black Sucker i speered, go? the quicksilver ships that carried from away Spain the mercury necessaryfor smeltLife. ing and resining in the mines of MexEvery man’s life is a book, but oc ico and Peru; the “flota” was the fleet which sailed from Cadiz to Car- casionally I meet a man who reminds me of a book I got one Christmas tagena, in what is now Colombia; and Upon ope ning it, I found the insides the Spaniards called all ships ‘galleons” which sailed annually to Vera to be a pack of playing cards! Life is so sweet that even the poor Cruz in Mexico. The English called them variously “treasure ships” and est beggar would keep his. “plate fleets” from the fact that much One day of noble thinking and gen of the treasure carried was in the erous acts is worth a life of selfish form of rough metal plate and pig. A comparison of the value of the cargoes carried by the flota and galleons is interesting. Of gold, to the 3,000, 000 crowns carried by the galleons, ness and deceit. Our liy es are but the turnpike te the station of Death. The loom of life never takes a holi day. It weaves on and on, by nigh' the flota carried but 1,000,009; of sil- and by da y, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday ver, the galleons carried 20,000 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Satur crowns, the flota 10,000; of jewels, so day and again, continuously, until ip called, the galleons carried usually | wears itself out and breaks down ot about 20,000 crowns’ worth of pearls, disease 0 r old age! 300,000 crowns’ worth of emeralds, And of this mysterious Life we 20,000 or 30,000 crowns’ worth of ame- | know not hing, except that it is pre thysts and other less valuable stones cious beyond all else. (these figures include, however, the The man who lives right, lives the East Indian ships), the flota carried longest—if not in years, in satisfac none; of wools, the galleons’ cargoes tion! approximated 40,000 or 50,000 crowns’ The man who sins and pays for it worth, the flota none; of quinquina, | on this earth, and pay he must, be the galleons 20,000 or 30,000 crowns’ the existence of a fu worth; the flota none; of Campeachy gins to doubt woods the galleons 60,000 crowns’ ture hell, believing that hell is on worth, the flota none; and of skins and earth to-day for those who suffer fot wrongdoing. leather the galleons about 70,000 It is against the greatest lawof life, crowns’ worth and the flota a like quantity. The register ships from the law of retribution, that a man de¢ Buenos Ayres usually carried a cargo of skins and leather valued at| 200,000 crowns and 600,000 crowns’ worth of indigo. This difference in value did not last for long after the | treasure ships began to be the prey of all mankind, then the cargoes were | shipped indiscriminately provided only the vessels were strong and fast or in large fleets. Truth. Men differ, and will always differ, as to what truth is in this or in that matter, but that man finds truth who wrong an d efcape punishment! We are born with one whose love and care is the greatest thing of life, but we m ust die alone! Too many gauge iife merely as 8 span in which to “eat, drink and be They merry for to-morrow ye die.” forget that life is eternal in the many, if brief in the individual, and that before the many has been placed duty that demands a task well done. Bea true cog in the wheel of eternit The eccentric John Edwin sai that man’s ingress into the world was naked and bare, his progress marked seeks it; he serves truth who follows by c area an ar nd trouble and his egress unit fearlessly; he serves his fellow men known. If we do well here, we shall who does all this with humility and | do well there! with tolerance.—Henry 8. Pritchett. When you hear something stop at your door with a rumble and oar, Costly City Government. throw away your bottle of cherries and It costs nearly as much to pay the salaries of the municipal servants of climb up. It’s the water-wagon! New York city as it does to support the entire army of the United States. The salaries amount close to $70,000,000 annually. Vlas «ἃ revery, at him out |