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Show Prescience. Still the sky was gray and grim, By the winters breath congealed; Bare and gaunt were bush and limb, White and bleak were moor and field. But beneath the frozen sod Stirred a host of blossoms, shy, Saying, with triumphant nod: Spring is nigh! Through the grove a rustle crept; Neighbor unto neighbor spoke; 41 Dryads who for long had slept In their cells of bark awoke, Felt a subtle, eager thrill, Stretched their arms, by rigor numb. Passed the word o'er vale and hill: "Spring is come! Blind, Insensate things! I thought, All the world is loe and snow; Yours a hope too dearly bought. As a few short days will show. Spring, you prate? When deep amid Frost and drift lie leaf and spear! But, behold, e'en while I chid Spring was here! Edwin L. Sabin, in New England Maga -- zine. the door a full hour before rising time. I cried. Hello! Whats up? Oh, sah, he said, thrusting in his woolly head, Mr. Williams is dead! I ran to Williams room. The doc- tor was there. . gently with his handkerchief. Then moving back he caught sight of the mask Just over the white face. Here, he called to the boy who was waiting outside the door, take that thing down and thro it overboard! Its like a fiend gloating over his prey! He shuddered as he spoke. No, I said quickly, Its mine; Williams gave it to me last night. And taking the mask I carried it to my room. When my detachment came a few weeks later I went to my home In Washington, taking the mask with me. I hung it up, as Williams had done, over my bed. I no longer felt any repulsion towards it, but almost . " Now do me a favor and take him off my hands. volting it was. first to speak: The doctor was the 'Heavens, Williams, overboard! What the deuce are you he said, if that thing were mine. Id pitch it going to do with, it? Oh, said Wiiliams, well pleased -- I cant make it out, he said slowly; he died of strangulation smothered to death. When I first saw him I thought hed been murdered, and twenty-poun- d dumb-bel- l in both hands looked for prints of fingers on his came back to the mask. throat, I really did. He wasnt the Lifting 'he iron bell high above sort of man for apoplexy. Ills death my head I hurled it with all my came from natural causes all right strength upon the red, grinning face. enough only theyre so unnatural 1 It struck squarely, and the mask was cant understand' them at all. Poor shattered into a mass of dust and and. there were tears in fragments. fellow! i. his eyes and mine--p- oor fellow! My brother looked on in affright. What Is that dirt doing on his Are you mad? he cried. face? I asked. No; let me tell you, I said. I dont know, said the doctor. But my brother laughed when I had : off And see? he it Its dust, wiped ended, and said that it was night- . Williams gave me the mask the night before he died. He had picked it up at some shop near the dock, the day our ship left Shanghai. In passing he had caught sight of it in the window, and, attracted by its awful hideousness, had entered and asked Its price. Two dollars, the shopkeeper told him. As you can see, the mask is not wholly new. I bought it from the servant of an Englishman a few weeks ago. The Englishman was found dead in his bed strangled, doubtless the gentleman heard of it It made quite a stir. His friends said he had been murdered; but the English doctor said no, he had died in his sleep; there had been some trouble of the throat which had made it close up. , It was unwrapped in the smoking room that night, and the silence which fell upon the crowd when the mask was laid bare told more plainly than speech how hideous and re- - and holding a lamp, stood looking at me, half alarmed, half amused. Nightmare, I heard him say, Do you often have them like this? I heard you kicking like a steer in a stall and came to see what was. up. I leaned from the bed. The mask was lying, face up, on the floor. Climbing out of bed, I staggered across the room, and, taking up a mare, that was all. My face was dirty, covered by the dust which had gathered on the inside of the mask, but when I showed him this proof he only said: The mask fell on you, thats all, and thats what started you off on the dream. Among the fragments of the mask, I found, next morning, a thin piece of rice paper, closely covered with red characters. Taking it to a Chinaman who kept a shop near by, I asked him to translate it. He did so, and I wrote it down. I, Rung Wong, known of men as The Strangler, made this mask from the powdered bones of my victims, mixing them with clay, and molded it into the shape and likeness of him that sits beside me in my sleep and whispers in my ear the names of those whom I must kill. It has been promised to me that when I die my soul shall enter into this mask and still do the dee'ds which I did while living. He who sits beside me In my sleep hath said it. affection. One night, the last one of my holidays, I awoke with a strange smothered feeling. There was a chill upon my face, and it seemed as though something cold and hard was pressed by the evident aversion with which tightly over it I tried to breathe, we regarded his purchase, I intend but could not to hang it over my bunk, and, when Putting my hand to my face I found I get home, Ill ship it out West to that it was covered by some large, RUNG WONG. a brother of mine; hes been writing smooth object. I tried, but could not But my brother, notwithstanding me to bring him some Chinese truck remove it. My hands ran quickly this, still laughs. Wilson Lyne in Boston Journal. dragons, masks, and that sort of over it. It was the mask. thing and I. fancy this ought to I could feel the distorted lips, the TURTLE AND BULLFROG MEET. please him. The mask was twice the size of a bulging eyeballs. I tried to call for human face; it seemed carved out. of help, but my mouth was closed by Blockade Raised by the Bullfrogs Rewood, and was painted bright red. the pressing mask. I was strangling; membering That It Could Jump. The eyeballs were large and pro- a red vapor danced before my eyes; In the pool of the bullfrogs, smaller truding; they were gilded, and holes, the pain at my temples was madden- turtles and alligators, at the Aquacut in the corners, made the ey ap- ing, and their throbbing sounded like rium, there is a log six or eight feet pear to be gazing fixedly in a side-wis- e the beating of a mighty hammer. long that the turtles like to climb on. I beat upon the face with my A bullfrog hopped on one end of this direction. There were, no other clenched fists; I fought to lift my log the other day Just as a turtle openings in the face. The forehead was deeply wrinkled; head from the pillow, but it was held climbed up on the other end; and, the nose broad and fiat, and the there as though a ton of iron were each moving along the log from the mouth, with thick, distended lips, was upon it. I thrust my fingers into the end at which it had mounted it, the drawn into a sneering smile. Alto- eyes and dragged upon the mask with two soon mfet, face to face, at the cengether the expression of the face was a maimans strength all in vain.' ter, and then they halted and settled And now a drowsy feeling came down and looked at each other. that which can best be described in the two words mocking and fiendish. upon me; I heard bells tolling in the There wasnt room for them to pass , That afternoon we weighed anchor on the log, and neither of them showand passed out of the harbor. Fair ed any, disposition to turn around and weather followed us all the way to go back and let the other go on, nor the Gulf Stream, where we struck did either of them show any disposifog, and afterward ran into a head tion to fight and put the ether off. wind which took three knots from They just sat there, facing each other our speed. The storm went down on on the log. the second day; the engines were They might have been sitting there put at quickened SDeed, and we ran until now if it had not finally come down the home coast toward Norfolk, back to. the bullfrog that he could where our orders called for us to jump. When this occurred to it the stop. bullfrog leaped Into the air and sailed One day more! The laughter and clear over the turtle and landed on the song grew louder, and the mess room log beyond; and so the problem was that night rang with the noise of solved, and the turtle and the bullfrog popping corks.' could each proceed on its way without But among us all there was none scrapping and with all due dignity. in .quite such high spirits as . WilAnd the turtle, its path now unobliams. He would be detached as soon started up at once, and prostructed, as the ship reached port and given ceeded placidly on its way along tho his three months Jeave, and he was log, but the bullfrog, when it had landto be married that very week. , ed, moved by curiosity or some other That night, the last one of the run, feeling or instinct, turned around on I sat late with Williams in his room. the log, and sat there, watching the As I was leaving he said: turtle, to see how the jump had struck Look here, old man, I dont know it, and what the turtle was going to, what to do with that fellow there do. New York Sun. I've more lugpointing to the mask. gage than I can handle. Now, do me The mask was shattered into a mass Willie's Scheme. a favor. Will you take him and treat ' Teacher and of dust. Willie, how would you find' ' fragments him kindly? from San Francisco to distance the Yes, I said; theres a girl here far distance; and now and then the New York? in Norfolk wholl be pleased to death low booming of a gun. Willie Dats an easy one, Miss. with him. Ill give him to her. Suddenly a yellow light flashed All right, said Williams; hes into my eyes through the holes in Mary; Id ask most any olejictor. the mask. The second after I was yours. Money is pretty tight with the man; sitting up In bed, gasping for breath, who has no loose change. NCxt morning my boy knocked on while my brother, in his night dress |
