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Show seals to grab wildly at her Infant, The uncritically asleep on the gentleman Just outside hosiery straightened up alertly, and, while his flr. By FRANCES WILSON i Copy rl hl, by Bobtu-Mrrll- Co.) l colleague smiled genially and indls crimlnately on us all, murmured, She moves! It was true. Some engine humble enough ami decrepit enough to draw the train to Ozark had been found. To be sure, it was almost time fer us to arrive, but what are schedules after all but an expression of a railroads ideals statements of what they fain would do. rather than what they ac contplish. If my mind still played about the idea of making up time. It was from the force of habit. Certainly the Ozark train never dreamed of making such an exhibition of Itself as would have been necessary to overtake its fleeing schedule. It ambled gently through the sunlit landscape, past cornfields all nicely done up in Psyche knots and aglow with topaz pumpkins; past a distant farmstead exhibiting an almost holy propriety, doors and windows primly closed, and nothing Jn sight save the shadows on the Jawu, and gradually came to a complete stop before a gen ernl store, where it paused for a social call. Onward It went again, more through smiling landscape, over little brooks, beside shadowy woodland stretches, hut never failing to stop courteously at each country store. Gradually the charm of that Journey sank into my heart, never to be forgotten. It was an exquisite pastoral given to us at first hand, lived and not read. The idea of a destination faded from my mind, the desire to arrive departed from me. The trip to Ozark was like life to be on the way was enough. One felt no desire lo reach the other end. I had long since deserted the elegant red plush scat for one on the steps of the back platform. As we stopped from time to time to distribute freight cars or cinders the men explored the surrounding country. I was wishful, but, being unable to rid myself entirely of an old superstition concerning trains the possibility of their careening off at a moments no tice I remained on the steps, contentedly watching the flurries of yellow and white butterflies that drifted about, the huge brown beetles that waddled along the track for all the w'orld like contractors out on a tour of inspection. I smiled back at the landscape that beamed on us all so genially, and bent my ear to the gaunt brown weeds, the burden of whose message was, Once I was young, but now I am old, as they waved back and forth in the breeze. At peace with life and time, I thanked God for the long, sweet dream of country ways, indifferent whether we trundled onward or tarried forever by the way. Verily, I had tasted the lotus, reached the land where it is always after- One was io come, so the letter said, round? In the midst of my triumph a ly way of Omk, and the brevity of protesting voice fell upon my ear. the instruction conveyed no hint of Dis yere aint youah train, lady. lt ticmcndous significance, no hint of Youah train, hits ovab yundah soin-air- . the fact that though the stage coach Guess yo don need to run! has practically disappeared from our This information, delivered by a colmidst, in the bobtail train its spirit ored porter, bad at least one redeemgoes marching on. Accustomed to a feature. It was accompanied by a ing world that takes a shameless pride In I no longer felt myself an Its flyers," in trains as inexorable as grin, and offense in the land. With a few proud time and tide, how was I to suspect snorts and hisses the great engine e that the bobtail train was a bit of dragged its train away, leaving the poesy set like a jewel in the pro to the Ozark train and me. sale present; that coming by way of platform 1 found it at last an archaic Ozark would involve & spiritual renas-b- e poignantly suggestive of the nee; that I should arrive at my of Itobert Fulton, coupled to days Journey's end with a heart quickened some flat cars loaded with cinders. and purified? Yet so It was, There was no engine In sight, but I emerged from the sleeper at X. one no longer wondered. Nothing now into a morning all blue and gold spar- seemed more probable than a roundkle, At the ticket window In the time- house filled with engines all haughtily worn station I fluttered anxiously in refusing to draw the train to Ozark. the background of several overatop-pin- From time to time loose-jointemen, Missourians who seemed to be and worn women with babes in arms Indulging a lazy zest for railroad in- and fringes of them clinging to their formation. Stonily I watched the clock, skirts, sauntered in and disposed whose long, gaunt finger was creeping themselves about with a lack of haste closer and closer to the decisive hour, that was ominous. I vain I searched tormented by visions of the Ozark their faces for some fixed intention of train giving a last wild shriek and de- departure. Their intentions seemed to parting without me. In the midst of be in the air. my fidgety despair the foreground Two drummers, one stout, creased shifted with the deliberation of a stage and of slovenly appearance, the other scene and I found myself next the spare and groomed, looked as if they wicket. had once meant to, but had given it Even in the preoccupation of that up, and plunged into the morning pamoment the severity of the ticket pers for forgetfulness. At last there so me. was a face final Why impressed agents rustling of the papers as unutterable a gravity at so natural a they threw them aside, their news exquestion? Had I perchance outraged hausted. The Ozark train remained some canon of railroad etiquette by immovable, and they began to eye asking w hen the train for Ozark would each other with interest, brightening leave, and, if not, what could be the as they recognized that they were of meaning of the lurking dignity in his the same brotherhood. glance? Puzzled, but not daunted, I Hosiery? queried Falstaff, guided turned away. by heaven knows what occult sign, as he leaned toward Cassius Interestedly. There was, it seemed, time fo? the shook his head. Cassius I lunch counter, a taste for which Just outside hosiery, one might say. have unflinchingly preserved in spite of tough steaks and stale sandwiches. Shoes! was his neat reply. InvolunFor me there has always been a gla- tarily I smiled we all smiled cheerily mor about them, and I was soon dang- until I happened to remember the dark ling happily from a revolving stool, tradition on which all girls are awaiting wheat cakes and coffee, star- brought up, concerning strange men profile on railroad trains, and retreated to the ing immodestly at the god-lik- e of the youth who presided over the platform to recover my dignity. A cash register and humming to myself man in a blue blouse, with a face besmirched into Rembrandt effects, was from sheer contentment. The coffee and cakes were hot, the fussing about the wheels. noon. Rusted from disuse? I ventured. profile all too perfect. In the glow shouted the conductor. Ozark! I produced by the three I quite forgot Then, emboldened by his smile There was a proud, official ring Jn his that these joys were en passant until promise to keep the secret; but tell voice that seemed to say, Didnt I tell my eyes happened to fall upon the me, now,, honestly, does it ever go? you? and I began to gather up my He seemed to consider. large, plain face of a clock on the opinvoluntarily exchanging Yes, it always goes, sooner or la- possessions, posite wall. It was the sort of a clock of a sympathy with Falstaff glance that one simply could not doubt. One ter. You see, it depends upon the and the man just outside hosiery. knew that it had always done its duty, freight whenever the crew with the Somehow, in that trip we all always would, and in a trice I had freight comes down, it goes. out seemed to have put roots, and the And when does it arrive? ceased to dangle and was standing bea shock of upcame rude with arrival That depends upon the amount of fore the god, adjuring him by the nine-forta passionate resentheaval, provoking train to Ozark to make haste freight and how much switching their ment at the necessity for getting off with my change, to strike the mystic is to do. and separating. We did not speak, but I turned away softly. Then I bekeys, pull the stop and gather my each, I am sure, knew what the other dimes and quarters from the drawer thought me of the ticket man. felt. In the turmoil of life we had It is almost eleven, I remarked found a veritable via sacra. We were prestissimo, an it please him. He was not, I must confess, visibly affected with deadly calmness. He looked ina little bit better men and women by my objurgations. He, too, eyed me terested. Why, so it is. Oh, well, the for having come by way of Ozark. frigidly, and performed his solo on the crewll be along soon now. Scheduled cash register a tempo. for nine-forty- , he added comfortingly. Extinct Stars Still Visible. A big, puffing, assertive monster of It is a fact, startling as it may Ah, well, what matter? The sky an engine was at that moment bring- was blue and the air electric, and seem, that many of the stars we see ing a train to a stop on the platform. there was the long stretch of the sta- twinkling in the sky at night, may As the last passenger alighted I pre- tion platform on which to practice have ceased to exist centuries ago. sented myself at the steps, glowing fascinating eccentricities of gait, could Some of these stars are so distant with triumphand half inclined to wave one but manage it subtly enough to that even light takes hundreds or thousands of years to travel from my handkerchief at the ticket man and escape the attention of the loungers. was well on It the of to noon when the toward them to us; and the rays which enApollo Curtsey derisively cash register, for had I not achieved the patient occupants of the train for able us to see them may have coldwere Ozark official of a the startled face in that train by premonitory left them thousands of years ago. We ness and discouragement that might jolt that caused a weary mother who see them, not as they are but well have sent me some other way was dozing at full length on one of the as they were long ages ago. old-tim- day-coac- h g d 18-mi- le y . to-da- y to-da- y DISH FOR THE GODS EULOGISTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE SAUERKRAUT. St. Herrmann of Pilaen the Patron Saint of Delicacy So Much In Favor in America and the Home Land. The sharp sting of these brisk fall mornings warns rich and oor alike that the sauerkraut season is dawning. In a thousand smiling fields, the busy sickle of the husbandman lays low the billowy grass. Tomorrow, in a thousand tubs, vata and caldrons, vinegar and massage will convert the stalka into savor) kraut. A month hence, and let the candidates and the campaign go hang every third dinner table In America will groan beneath gigantic pyramids of the emperor of all delicatessen. Those Americans who have visited To-day- Munich know well the noble statue at the head of the Kartoffeisaladstrasse, raised by grateful ' Iiavarla to the memory of St. Hermann of Piisen, inventor and protagonist of sauerkraut. The genial old saint, a amile upon hla face, is seen stirring a large kettle of kraut with an oar of gilt bronze, and so lifelike is the carving that Ihe traveler, standing by, ran well nigh scent the perfumed steam and hear the flutter of angelic wings. In these unro-mantUnited States we have no public monuments to Hermann, and his very name, Indeed, is unknown to all save a few cognoscenti; but, nevertheless, and notwithstanding this neglect, the delicious victual he gave to the world is firmly enshrined In the hearts of the American people. Stewed gently in Rhine wine it tickles the oesophagi of the opulent; boiled In plain hydrant water it nourishes the son of toil. It is at once a viand, a passion and a public institution. Two. days are required to cook sauerkraut properly. On the first day It should be dredged out of the barrel, sponged, aerated and freed of thistles, and then boiled for an hour and 20 minutes. In the pot with it, and submerged beneath the surface of its bubbling juices, there should be one pigtail or eight Inches of sparerlbs for each hundred linear yards of kraut At the end of the process of boiling the heavenly mess should be given a dash of Rhine wine not bogus California wine, but real Rhine wine and placed in some dark and damp cellar, pit, cavern or catacomb to cool. Next day, at high noon, it should be brought out, warmed quickly over a brisk fire, dumped upon a hot plate, garnished with mashed potatoes and consumed. Sauerkraut thus prepared is a palei Vandyke brown in color and utterly indescribable in aroma and flavor. Once eaten by a man of true refinement it will haunt the dim corridors of his memory so long as breath animates his senseless clay. lc His Inspiration. Tell me, said the soulful lady to the hack poet, what is it that makes you turn out your poems? The hack poet tw'iddled his fingers, much embarrassed. For instance, cooed the soulful lady, take that delightful thing of yours, Whiffs from the Ineffable, in the current number of the Art Set. What was it exactly that caused you to write that? Oh! I do so want to know. Was it a mysterious impulse to which you yourself cannot give a name, or a perfectly definite, easily traceable something the divine afflatus, in short the the Super-ItchTell me, I pray you. It was neither, confessed the embarrassed poet; It was a coal bill. bea-ootlf- ul ? The Proper Thing Now. That oldest girl of mine is finally engaged. The young man called a a: notification committee last night." And how did you receive the news? Got the family together and cheered: for 83 minutes by a reliable clock. |