Show Ifl lWuiug tutOtVnt + GRANDMOTHERS STORY Ubir She Made a Hiding Place ota Brass Kettle It was a stormy day and the children were popping corn over the coals in the grate I Grandma sat with her < knitting work near the fire and the kitten wag chasing a great A liite fit y kernel around the I room with her frisky paws When I was a little girl and lived at the West said grandnia my brothers and I used to pop com in the ashes How could you do that said Tom I shouldnt think it would be popped at allo 0 wo didnt use coal a hes but s rap < < l a clear place in front of the great wood fire put the corn down in little heaps and then covered each heap care fully with hot ashes placing a live coal or go on top and in a little while they would come popping out all over the floorWhat What fun said Meg I wish we had a fireplace and rwood fire Grandma wtid Bess who had been reading frontier stories and was more interested in-terested in Indians than in popping corn at present having become tired of the occupation did you ever see any Indians In-dians in those days I saw one and he frisihtened me nearly out of my tenses 0 do tell us about it cried all the children in the same breath The corn is all popped now and it will be so nice to hear a story while we are eating it Wait till I count the stitches on my needle andthen if you will promise not tcrask me to fell it over again for a month at least I will tell you the story They promised and sitting themselves in a row each with a dish of corn in his or her lap waited impatiently for the stitches to be counted When our family moved to the West I began grandma 1 was only eight years old It was a pretty but lonely spot where our little log house was built in a clearing not far from the edge of the prairie If you went far enough into the I woods or across the prairie you could hear the wolves howl at night There were no roads for a great distance dis-tance only a path or trail as they called it and our nearest neighbor lived nearly a mile away When we first went there we had a great dread of Indiansor at least mother and we children had though father used to laugh at us saying that there were no hostile Indians in the region and the remnant of a coppercolored tribe which still lingered on the outskirts of the Stale would have to run the gauntlet of I dont know how many blockades to get at us But it was only a very few years be fore that they were scalping and committing commit-ting all sorts of depredations within a mile or two of the spot where we were living and my mother was continually on the lookout for them though she was Very careful not to say anything to frighten us children As for me I was a nervous delicate child and there was not a day during the first six mouths of our life in this new country that I didnt imagine that I saw one If a tuft of leaves stirred in the still twilight I was sure that it was a feather in an Indians cap If I heard k the cattle about in the tramping underbrush under-brush I was sure that a whole horde of Indians were coming to ransack the house If I looked out into the moonlight moon-light every shadow took the grim shape of a chief tomahawk and all If I peered up the wide chimney to see the sparks from the fire fly up to the stars on a winters win-ters night I never failed to encounter twinkling sly and terrible eyes gazing down into mine Did you truly inquired little Joe with his mouth agape with astonishment Why no Joe Grandma said she only imagined it all you know because f she was afraid explained wise Bess impatient I 1 im-patient the interruption Ana every nignt oeiore i went to Bleep grandma continued I heard all sorts of noises which I had no doubt were Indians trying to break into the house shaking the bolts of the doors or tramping about on the roof over my head But as time passed on those fears and imaginations gradually wore away and when summer came even I forgot all about Indians It had been a late cold spring The rain dripped off the caves and blurred the windows nearly every day j and when the sky was clear a chilly wind blew that frightencd back the leaves and blossoms blos-soms and stopped the birds songs in their very throats I C But when June came the weather was so lovely that we played out of doors the whole day long The flowers seemed tobe making up for lost time and crowded everywhere dressed in all sorts of pretty colors They peeped through the chinks of our log cabin climbed to its very roof in pretty graceful vines and made it as crude and clumsy as it was a perfect bower of beauty I was so wean after those long sunny days out of doors that I went to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow and heard no more shaking bolts or feet tramping overhead Mother no longer searched every nook and corner every crevice and closet before going to bed and we often left the house by itself in the daytime with doors and windows wide open and nothing but the sunbeams or perhaps a stray chicken had ever ventured ven-tured to stray within One warm afternoon in July mother and the boys went berrying leaving meat me-at home alone Father was at work on what we called the burnt land three quarters of a mile away I expected to be one of the berrying party but as 1 had been out of doors all the forenoon and was afflicted with a headache mother thought it would not do at all for me togo to-go out again under the hot sum You wont be afraid to stay in the house alone will you Mary said she I dont know what could possibjy harm you I wish you would feed chickens about 4 oclock Bo sure to take the I c gingerbread out of the oven in about ten minutes and dont let pussy get her nose into the custardpies which are cooling in the window I wasnt afraid the least bit in the world The sunshine was streaming in at the open door the birds were singing in the bushes outside and the speckled kitten was chasing her tail i around the kitchen Who would think of being afraid or even lonely when everytmng was so bright and pleasant I took the gingerbread out of the oven It was what folks called a tin kitchen an affair with several shelves which stood I before the blaze in the fireplace Everybody I Every-body used it in oldtimes before stoes were plenty Then I covered up the fire with ashes that it might not go entirely out When it was time to boil the teakettle for supper sup-per you could rake the ashes away and then there would still be hot coals under them Then I sat down and rocked by the cool window where a breeze blew in through the morningglory vines and fell into a sort of doze Butit was soon in and before bumblebee came in not long a wakened meMiiuL glancing out of the I window Ibeheld a sight which fairly flue my blood with honor L1W1rr i It wa a tall Indian dressed precisely as I had seen Indians dressed in pictures making long but leisurely strides toward the house He had a sort of topknot feathers on his head like that of one of our cropple crownhens and I could see that his long brown arms were quite bare and looked like copper in the sunlight What should I do Where could I hide myself My heart was beating so violently that felt almost suffocated and I stood for a mOment in the middle of the floor unable to move or think But there was no time to be lost He was coming so near that I could almost see his face now and what oh what if he should fmd me when he got into the house It did not once occur to me to bolt the doors but if it had there would have been hardly time for the bolts were very heavy and it was as much as I could do to move them and then the windows were all open too and though they were very small the Indian might have squeezed through one of them at a pinch I ran wildly toward the bedroom and was about to creep under the bed But no that would not do I thought His long arms might reach me there Then I rushed through the kitchen into the shed and looked about me in a perfect frenzy Suddenly the huge brass kettle which had been my grandmothers caught my eye hanging from a beam overhead and quick as thought I climbed first on to fathers workbench which stood underneath under-neath thus obtaining a footing on a wooden peg which was driven into the wall I managed to swing myself onto the I beam and from thence let myself down I into the kettle which was large enough to hide me completely I had never accomplished such a feat before j but I was a light and nimble child and in my fear and excitement it seemed easy enough to perform The kettle had not ceased to move after my leap into its brassy depths I when the Indian entered the door I I was sure that he would see it and gave myself up for lost I was really paralyzed para-lyzed with fear and if I tried to scream I do not think I could have done so But he evidently did not look up in that direction He stood stockstill in the middle of the floor for a moment or two uttering some indistinct words in his gut term Indian tongue Then I heard him stride into the kitchen and thence into the bedroom Then I heard him tramp ing about overhead He had climbed the ladder into the loft But in a few moments he was back again investigating the pantry Mother had been doing a whole weeks baking that morning and the shelves were filled with nice brown loaves of bread custard and berry pies a great milkpan full of cookies and the gingerbread which IJIad just taken out of the oven Judging from the sounds which I heard in that direction I thought he must be eating and every once in a whilethere came a deep grunt of satisfaction satis-faction as if he had found something that he liked very much Then for a little while there was a deep silence and then to my great relief he stole very quietly and swiftly out of the house and away taking the same path by which he came I peeped out of my hiding place and saw him disappear in the distance Then a mist came over my eyes and I lost con ciousness I had been expecting every moment that he would espy the kettle which was so huge that it generally attracted at-tracted attention and proceed to investigate inves-tigate and now my own relief was so great that I was entirely overcome When I recovered my senses I heard my mothers voice calling me C Mary Mary where are you 0 mother screamed my brother Cyrus who always repaired to the pantry I pan-try the minute he got into the house just look here All the bakings gone pies n everything and theres crumbs all over the floor Theres been Injunherc I gasped from my perch overhead I should think so said my mother whQ gazed into my white face the very I picture of consternation How in the I world did you get up there child Just then my father came running in quite out of breath Have you seen anything of an Indian In-dian he gasped One has been seen running toward the river laden with stolen sto-len property quilts and coats and things they say I didnt know but that he had been making ravages here as you were all gone berrying w hen I piped up and told my story but when father stood on the bench and took me out of the kettle I fainted again in his arms On investigation it was found that the Indian had not only taken all the bread and cake in the house but had seized upon a gray patchwork quilt fathers winter overcoat and a bright scarlet petticoat of mothers The silver spoons and a heavy silver tankard the very one that is standing on the sideboard side-board nowwere all in plain sight but he probably had no idea of their value and so left them untouched All the men in the settlement immediately imme-diately turned out in pursuit of the thief but they did not not capture him And he was never seen or heard of in that region re-gion againSusan Hartley SQwcll in Golden Days PARLEY PRATT the city polltax collector collec-tor has just been arrested for polygamy Coming west on a diningcar on the Fort Wayne Pennsylvania road the other day the passengers were putting in the time waiting for a late breakfast conversing convers-ing on all kinds of topics Two men were in a seat talking when one said Nine oclock is a later breakfast than I am accustomed ac-customed to I always eat breakfast at 7 The other man a splendidlooking young fellow said after a yawn I never eat breakfast till 10 oclock Tho man with whom he was talking said You must take it pretty leisurely about getting to business and then the nicelooking young fellow said Business I have no business I have nothing on earth to do I and never had a thought of doing any thing and never had a care I have an income Everybody that was within hearing turned and looked at the great strapping fellow who had nothing on earth to do and he fell away below zero in everybodys estimation We pitied the fellow from the bottom of our heart Nothing to do No ambition no nothing but to get up an appetite for the next meal by drinking bitters no business to take hismind from his lazy lifeCurrent How to Simplify Housekeeping From an admirable address delivered at a social science meeting by Mrs Gray of Wyandotte Kansas and published by the Womans Tribune we make the following fol-lowing pertinent extracts Love for the work is natural to women as a domestic instinct and is only lost by overwork and failure to do what seems imperative duty or a morbid fashion introduced in-troduced by the foolish vicious or idle Love for housework may be regained often by careful thought and courageous resolution Men as a rule do not complain of their work They go to shop orfarm or office cheerfully or manfully and faithfully year after year They have their trials and sick headaches head-aches and are usually silent over them They rarely come home and tell us that the saw was dull and that they had to stop all the machinery and sharpen it j that the ploughshare broke in the middle of the furrow and they had to go two miles and buy a new one or that a bore entered the office and wasted all the morning Everybody who comes into the world ought to feel that they have their work to do and should be willing to do every day a good days work and not shirk it When a woman gets married she knows he has a house to keep and has no business busi-ness to get married unless she expects to keep house and having once accepted the position of housekeeper if not fitted for it proceed at once and cheerfully to fit herself To misplace a kitchen fork or spoon may burn to a cinder the most carefully prepared pre-pared dish The convenient holder lost frqm its nail may burn the cake or ruin the pie and incense the cook A cook table full of drawers where flour spices rollingpins and cakecutters are kept with hakepans hanging over it will save you miles of travel and hours of time A small shelf near the stove kept for an extra pepper and saltdish has saved me fifty miles of travel I think in ten years Only in one day count the number of times you go from cooktable to stove seasoning sea-soning various dishes and you will see what this means I I can go to the pantry with a waiter twenty by twentyfive inches in size and with two trips lay the table fora family of five or eight persons With the same waiter I can clear that table in three trips and bring in dinner from the kitchen at two more I have counted thirty hips made for an equal mealmade by women who could read and write tooW At the sewing machine paste on the cover the query Is it necessary or really beautiful Is it worth my time or thought for something else Measure every yard of sewing by that rule You will be surprised how many tucks less there will be and how almost entirely ruffles will vanish In closing alloAV me to beg of you in the struggle with dust and dirt sewing machine and cook stove society and literature lit-erature to never forget or neglect the supreme privilege or duty of mother hood No equal attainment is given to men To be the mother of kings was great To be the mother of men manly full framed cleanly of soul and body is a divine work One beside which all other sinks into insignificance This makes us heirs to the ages See to it that lesser no work defrauds our children and condemns us |