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Show Joys and Tribulations of a Trailer A Moment's Halt. FAYETTE VTIXE, ARK. SUNDOWN; the evening crisp and clear and the Ozarks still clothed in the red-brown garb of autumn, uncertain of the nearness of winter. Two miles beyond the city, against the sloping hill nestled Gayeta Lodge, the home of Charles J. Finger, Fin-ger, whom all readers of good books know for his writings on American frontiers, South America, Africa, along the Gold Coast and the seven seas. A strange man, this Finger, a modern Marco Polo, born in England Eng-land in the latter '60s who contrived con-trived while yet in his 'teens to wander from his native land and go adventuring with no thought save to see and hear and know things that lure restless souls to the frontiers of other countries, to the wild coasts of distant countries. Educated for a career in music, steeped in the world's operas, trained for the concert stage, he answered only the call of the open road and went wandering. At the peak of his young manhood h e turned up in St. Louis, took up railroad rail-road construction, accepted the management of a group of lines penetrating the new country, married mar-ried and prepared to settle down to a stationary life among directors, stockholders and business builders, but still clinging to his music for after-hour recreation. In the midst of this new environment, en-vironment, which was never to his liking, Charles Finger, his head filled with romantic reflections born of his youth, turned to writing writ-ing the stories he had lived in days gone by. William Maroon Reedy, then at the zenith of his fame as editor of the St. Louis Mirror, began be-gan to buy manuscripts of the railroader. rail-roader. It was not long after Finger turned his attention to the written word that Reedy sought out his occasional contributor and made him a regular feature of the Mirror's index. So thoroughly at home was Finger in the literary pool under Reedy's direction that he became associate editor of the weekly and as well the confidant of its founder. Death of the Mirror. Into the discard, gradually, to be sure, but in the end completely overboard, went the railroading ambitions of the man who from childhood had been exploring for his ideal. The final dramatic decision de-cision was brought about when Reedy, upon deciding to take a vacation, put Finger in charge of the Mirror with absolute editorial authority during this absence. From that vacation Billy Reedy never returned. Death had overtaken over-taken him on his brief furlough fur-lough from the desk where for many years he radiated with brilliance. bril-liance. Without Reedy, there could be no permanent Mirror. Finger, quite aware of the relation that the founder bore to the paper, assisted in the termination of the publication, closed its eyes, as it were, and joined the mourners, legion wherever men of brains gathered. Inoculated with the impulse to carry on with naught but the pen for his guerdon, Finger withdrew from his railroad and commercial connections, gathered up his wife and five children, moved bag and baggage to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and settled down for good. He put his three sons and two daughters through the University of Arkansas, Arkan-sas, meanwhile slowly accumulating accumulat-ing a few hundred acres of farmland. farm-land. He built houses and barns to conform with his views of what a homestead should contain of creature comforts. Squire Is Hospitable. We four, Luana, Stephen, Gypsy, a Scotty dog, and the writer, all old friends of the Fayetteville sage, unannounced, but by the grace of God not unwelcome, filed across the threshold of his Arkansas home and sat in a semi-circle around the oak logs glowing among the andirons that with his own hands Charles Finger long ago had placed in the hearth. Not the least bit disturbed by the arrival of invaders, the Finger family opened their hearts, ofler-j ofler-j ing a program that would have kept us at Gayeta for a full week. ' "One day," said Stephen, who is i the Lord Kitchener of Our Rum-I Rum-I ble Home, "and we sleep under ! our own roof, departing tomorrow ! 8f'er breakfast." And so it was. I Squire Finqer, with true apj.re-' apj.re-' elation fnr dramatic incident, es- corted Stephen and me into a ! stone spring house where a fif-i fif-i teen-pojr:d gobbler, his eyes closed i in the last sleep, hung in the cool I aimorphtre essential to the air con-j con-j c:'.in:.;:.g of a tur!:ey intended for ! tiie 1 r. h , e . i "This r.r.tior.r.l bird for tonisbf ! banquet," ouo'.h the Squire, "with crer.berries from a r,".:rby bog, and hard cider crushed from ap-rlcs ap-rlcs from yr-'i'T hil'ride . . ." 1 V. NL" Service. |