| Show ALOE IK I A BAM With Nothing at All to Disturb He Says Nye FREE SHAVE IN A WOOD SHED Some Hotel Thouhts and an Incident in Which a Lanre Hirsute Blonde Figures FOR THE SUNDAY HEUALD By special arrangement with the authorl j i QUUTH HUrumMsON luin This piece is written in the presidents room of the Bank of South Hutchinson f The president is not here however I Neither is the cashier nor the teller nor the first or second bookkeeper nor the h 1 r HIS SALARY AS PRESIDENT foreign or domestic correspondent or draftsman whose duty 4i it is to make drafts md cut holes in them so that you cannot raise the draft to the third power You will wonder why i am here all r alono in a bank and in a state where I am so well known and you will naturally natu-rally say that it is an odd situation and you will wonder how soon I am going to stop writing and knock off the door of the vault but I shall not toy with the vault It is open There is no one to defend it J can take my time The police po-lice of South Hutchinson will not disturb dis-turb me I could do business here all o day and clear into the night and no one would annoy me Down the street there is a three story brick block with brown stone trimmings trim-mings and covering half a square It is called the Indiana block It probably cost 400000 In it a mamma hornet is building her nest She and I own the town How quiet it is The hum of industry in-dustry and the sharp metallic report of the city council have died away and the r last echo of the exploded boom has long Pr since been smothered by the deep silence si-lence Even as the hot and hungry torrent and the dry and ashy deluge smote tho business interests of Pompeii and hushed the great heart beat of industry and life and social activity so the lightning sought out and perforated the shiny and distended boom of South Hutchinson and tqday while the mocking bird whistles in the peach orchard far away and the shorthorn buhlbuhl is calling to her mate in the blnegrass pastures across the heaving prairies myself and the mamma hornet in the 400000 brick and stone block are practically controlling con-trolling the business course of the town From the front door of my bank I can see tho steam laundry of South Hutchinson Hutchin-son but no steam escapes from the waste pipe No gleaming white shirttails shirt-tails crack defiantly in the crisp zephyrs of Kansas No hot soapy air of industry indus-try and prosperity comes from the broken windows and sagging doors No strange 1 mysterious health garments or singular t 13 distorted and unnatural lingerie distended dis-tended by the lascivious breeze hangs on the broken and ragged clothesline Near by stands the blacksmith and carriage shop of South Hutchinson but the village smithy and the red fire of his forge have gone out together On his door is written in blue paint by means of a rather passe broom E S Gone to the Upper Congo valley to shoe a passlo of elephants Will t be back in a few moments The air of the shop is still and depressing depress-ing Where once the melody of the anvil rang out and the soft and seductive seduc-tive odor of the scorched foot of the bronco filled tho glad morning now allis all-is hushed The red glow has died away I in the giant heart of the forge The smithy washed his great big honest hands in the water trough and pulling down his sleeves to conceal the bright red beard upon his massive forearms ho went away Rust and ruin are giving place to the activity and crush and hurry of trade Excuse me a moment while 1 step into the cashiers room and pay myself off as president of the bank I will be back in a moment Down a street or two farther is the barber shop and bath works of South Hutchinson but even the voice of the barber is stilL I couldnt if I tried for weeks express the full meaning of the term quiet any more powerfully than that Here and there about the door the quick eye of the visitor may see the shorn and grizzled locks of the honest boomer of other days but the lather is fl dry in the old sink and the last echo of the loud smelling hair oil of the happy past has died away in the bosom of the poorly planned acoustics of the past Even the low hoarse death rattle of the bathtub has ceased in its silent throat and the gas leak with its hands across its breast and its feet in the soap dish recks not of the flight of gathering years The hotel is also quiet Wait till 1 close the safe and we will go over to the hotel a moment No one rushes to the door to pull the handle off your valise and check it for you No one stands behind be-hind the richly caparisoned counter tog to-g c you a dripping pen with one leg amputated and a dead cockroach on the other Yon can select your own room nowvit1t1 bath and southern exposure expos-ure too if you wish it The police will not bother you You can bathe in the aquarium in the dining room if you fee like it and there will be nothing said about it in the papers The hotel piano o is not going now The huge Perchern saleratus blonde of the effete east is not playing White Wings She has went away Sho has taken with her also hers her-s wad of hydrophobia They decided de-cided to flea together You will see her II boon at Coney Island and tipping up one side of the United States wherever I she treads the writhing streets I saw her on a bobtail car last summer She was standing up and holding a damp I dog for it was a rainy day She was holding on by a strap and starting the gathers in her skirt a good deal Her dress waist was made with a little jackrabbit jack-rabbit tail to it which hunched up more and more as we moved along and extended ex-tended out over the dashboard as I may say like the tin anticaterpillar overskirt over-skirt on the giant elms of Boston Common Com-mon Her hair also was becoming disarranged disar-ranged and one could see a sediment of saleratus on her flushed scalp She did not know whether to let her hair comedown come-down or asksome total stranger to hold the dog At that moment the car gave a great lurch and with a sob she sat down in the lap of a man with a raspberry nose and deeply dyed anthracite whiskers whis-kers As I came away she was still sitting sit-ting there and mingling with the dead museum black of his long jute beard I saw the loosened masses the great wealth of insincere and antique oak hair which belonged apparently to the sal eratus blonde But she is not here now Neither is the precocious Little Lord Fauntleroy who usually frightens people aeay from a hotel He also has gone You will not see him here now You can almost enjoy yourself it is so destitute of him The kicker also has gone He did the best ho could for the last few days that ho was here and then he found that one man could not do the matter justice unless un-less he got r clerk who could speak several sev-eral nguages So he went away and now you can only see the freckles on the front of the counter where he has kicked against his bill Kansas generally and Hutchinson proper are in a more hopeful condition than for many years past The abundant abun-dant rains have guaranteed a good crop already and a good crop in Kansas makes the granaries of the globe laugh and hold their sides with ill concealed joy Hero also may be seen not only industry in-dustry but thrift James Garvey the railroad rancounter and after dinner speaker also a good before dinner con versationist said yesterday that a neighbor of his advertised this spring for 100 men to catch driftwood on shares He soon got a nice little crew at work and has built up a good business which i is almost devoid of the disagreeable ele1 ment of risk It is as safe as the industry indus-try so popular on Madison avenue and Fifth avenue which is conducted by the bright youth of New York and which consists iu stealing valuable cats and then waiting For a reward Sometimes a dog which is distasteful to ie husband hus-band is offered to one of these boys with a two dollar bill in addition if he will drown it He keeps it until the wife offers five dollars for its return and then he sneaks it around to the house thus racking seven dollars on a 27ounce dog A A BEAUTIFUL MAUVE BEARD sometimes Lot booming seems to be I pretty well over and now that the law has gone into effect reserving 160 acres of land in each county for agricultural I purposes there is nothing in the way of prosperity I Pueblo Colo is going to have a mineral min-eral palace that will certainly astonish and delight everybody with its luxuriance luxuri-ance taste and beauty Abundance of money has been produced and the building build-ing will be open by the middle of June It will be the finest exhibit of minerals no doubt in the world and the building will be worth going hundreds of miles to see The dome is said to be the second sec-ond only in size in this country and the decorations are most beautiful The arts and sciences will also have a part of the building The Gold King the Silver Sil-ver Queen and King Coal will be beautiful beauti-ful and costly figures of great size and will be in session during the entire time The palace is Egyptian in style with American door handles Among other minerals to be exhibited will be native gold silver platinum mercury copper magnetic ore chromic iron celibate pyrites galena nickel ore quartz feldspar calamus mica beryl tourmaline pearline garnet malachite i Hittite hornblende serpentine asbestos asbes-tos wavettite brucite baryta gypsum calc spar talc stalactites free silver talc stalagmites fluor spar sulphur graphite alum borax bluing salt coal lime cement green and dry hides stove I wood and plastering hair There will also be pilasters of white and colored marble alabaster onyx agatized wood and obisidan Other things will be added from time to time It is really going to be a most wonderful collection of the rich minerals of the most wonderful wonder-ful state in this most wonderful republic repub-lic I I had a strange and wild experience last month I had been in the hills of North Carolina four days and a beautiful beauti-ful mauvo beard had sprung up like abed a-bed of asparagus all over my face because be-cause I was not within eight miles of a barber shop 1 got on a late train at Biltmore The Biltmore station was formerly a hog incubator but it was found that the air was so bad that the piglets died off and so it was condemned and made into a depot I sat there threo hours and all that I could find to read was TI copy of The American Beekeeper for 1879 and it had been used to clean the lamps with But I read all of it Part of it I memorized There was a barber shop at Biltmore but being Sunday it was closed while the proprietor scrubbed the clotted blood off the floor I do not shave myself yet though I am going to try it this summer sum-mer So I took the train bearded as I was like a pard as I heard a poet get off the other day I stopped overnight at Kiioxville but left before the shops were opened in the morning That evening I had to argue in the hall at Dayton 0 and would get there at 815 p m So I saw no chance to cet shaved I fppI naturally great pride in my personal appearance ap-pearance it is au i have wnen one has been endowed that way I do not think it is wrong to add to ones per onal beauty by shaving every five days I spoke to Joe Harris a member of the Tennessee legislature about this and he said it was rathertough to lecture with a TenNightsinaBarroom beard and would I mind letting him shave me at the junction where we had to wait thirty minutes I thought moment 1 I and then I said I believed I would venture vent-ure He was very kind He did not dot do-t as a general thing but he wanted to do me a favor and he had a nice razor that came as a prize to each subscriber of The Little Hustler a monthly childs paper We got off at the junction and retired to the woodshed of a pleasant little cafe near by The rest of the passengers came along also All of East Tennessee not otherwise engaged came too Some left their work and came They were still coming when we got through The effects of the anaesthetic wore off as I approached Lexington and my face pained me a good deal but I looked better bet-ter every one said Mr Harris deserves my thanks and I heartily tender them I can truly say that I was never more delightfully shaved in my lifeby a I member of the legislature Since then I have bought some razors and as I write these lines I am nerving myself up to try one of them Napoleon I said that the men who won victories and conquered the world shaved themselves I have got some now shaving soap that smells like the upper drawer of Cleopa tras clothes press and I have a bright new strop with a red case for it and a beautiful pad of shaving paper and a hunk of alum to staunch the blood if I cut the core out of my Adams apple by mistake Tomorrow if the sign should be right I will shave myself |
