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Show THE VERACIOUS tfATUHAIEST. Moro Anecdotes That Enrich tho Store of Animal- Achievement. Tho controversy now raging- between the rival schools of nature writers, led respectively by the veteran John. Burroughs Bur-roughs and he Rev. William J. Long, Interests all lovers of animals. It has also lto amusing side. Mr. Burroughs started out not long ago to reform the gentle art of riature writing. His platform ls that fiction Is all right as fiction, but that fiction la out of placo In nature writing. Mr. Long aosents, but rejoins that facts are not fiction simply because Mr. Burroughs does not know them. The result of Mr. Burroughp's crusade for reform to date Is that Mr. Long io Btlll doing business at the old stand, that the veteran naturalist-reformer geta an occasional hard rap, and that the public Ib getting considerable amusement out of the controversy. Naturally, the professional humorists have been quick to see the amusing features fea-tures of the situation. .Charles Battell LoomiH ls the latest of the funmakers to take advantage of. the controversy for somo entertaining- remarks on- animal stories, nature writing, fiction and literature. liter-ature. The vehicle of Mr. Loomle'o remarks Is- the story of "The Reasoning of Little Rhody." The narrator of the story ls HoneM. John Barton, a Connecticut farmer, who says In a. preliminary way: "I suppose a story to get into print 'must have a certain amount of literature litera-ture in it, and literature and imagination imagina-tion are pretty well mixed up;-but when it comes down to the habits of animals, why, I could tell stories of things, showing thought In animals things that I've observed myself and that would look well lni print, although they might rile John Burroughs, who ls a llttlo Inclined' to dbubt a thing- if he did not see it himself." Then Honest John incidentally tells how ho once saw "a huge rat drawing a train of six smaller rats, the coupling being- talis In mouths and.the freight an egg between each four extended legs, the animals all being- on their backs excepting ex-cepting the motive power " Honest John continues- "PrAhnhlv .Tnhn, TCii rrrtii n-Vi a n'inll on that there were never more than two rats in such a procession, and. I don't deny'that Long would add1 a touch -of Improbability to-the true picture by setting set-ting it down as a fact that the eggs were shipped by still another rat, who made out a bill of lading for them, and that on their delivery a receipt was given for them by the rat to whom they were delivered1. That's the literary touch, and It Is easy to dlsaaasoclate it from the fundamental facta" But to get to Little Rhody. Little Rhody is a bantam hen that belonged to Mrs. Barton. Little Rhody mode friends with the locomotive engineers of the road that runs through the Barton farm, and centered her affections upon old Bill Newton on No. 34, who got Into the habit of throwing- her a handful of corn every' time his engine went by. One day Little Rhody discovered a big rock on the track Just as No. 3-1 was whistling around! the curve. Sho ran and flew at his red bandanna until he g"vo it to her. Then she flew to the track, stopped the train and saved Bill Newton New-ton and a tralnload of passengers. Said Honest John Barton: "Now, if the bird had picked that handkerchief up on the track and had flown with It, you might Impute It to an antic disposition; disposi-tion; but when you reflect that first she saw the stone on the track and then remembered re-membered that I was near at hand and wore a red handkerchief, and that she heard the whistle and realized that tho man who brought her corn was coming, and that her daily supply would be cut off forever If she didn't get word to him (for I don't go so far as to say that it was love for the engineer that impelled her) when you reflect that she got the flag and waved It I say that if that Is a mere coincidence, as Burroughs would be apt to say it was why, if that was a coincidence, then statesmen act by instinct in-stinct and do not use reason. "I can't tell why and wherefore," concluded con-cluded Honest John. "I'm no psychologist. psycholo-gist. I'm content to give the bare fact with no literature added. You Just let John Burroughs tell Bill Newton that It was all a chance, and I'm afraid that Burroughs would hear strong language, tnr "mil enn't uriA enouch that'fi rnr1 about Little Rhody. "Mr. Burroughs and Mr, Long can draw lots to see who gets the honors, and If Mr. Burroughs should lose; he should) remember that the waj of the reformer Is hard. Chicago Inter Ocean. |
