{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16926/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16926","id":"gutenberg_16926","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16926","summary":null,"tags":["British Columbia -- Anecdotes","Canadian wit and humor","Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories"],"text":"Produced by Alison Hadwin, David Yingling and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSKOOKUM CHUCK\nFABLES\n\nBITS OF HISTORY,\nTHROUGH THE MICROSCOPE\n\n(Some of which appeared in the Ashcroft Journal)\n\nBY\n\nSKOOKUM CHUCK\n\nAuthor of \"Songs of a Sick Tum Tum,\"\nand some others\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, Canada, 1915, by R.D. Cumming\n\n\n\n\n\nPreface\n\n\nIt is more difficult to sell a good book by a new author than it is to\nsell a poor one by a popular author, because the good book by the new\nauthor must make its way against great odds. It must assert itself\npersonally, and succeed by its own efforts. The book by the popular\nauthor flies without wings, as it were. The one by the well-known author\nhas a valuable asset in its creator; the one by the new author has no\nasset but its own merits.\n\nI am not contending by the above that this is a good book; far from it.\nSome books, however, having very little literary recommendation, may be\ninteresting in other ways.\n\nThere are several things instrumental in making for the success of a\nbook: first, the fame of the author; second, the originality of the\ntheme or style; third, the extent of the advertising scheme, and fourth,\nthe proximity of the subject matter to the heart and home of the reader;\nand this last is the reason for the \"Skookum Chuck Fables.\"\n\nIf the following stories are not literature, they are spiced with\nfamiliar local sounds and sights, and they come very close to every\nfamily fireside in British Columbia. For this reason I hope to see a\ncopy in every home in the province.\n\n                                                          THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nSKOOKUM CHUCK FABLES:                            PAGE\n\n  OF THE ROLLING STONE                              9\n\n  OF CULTUS JOHNNY                                 17\n\n  OF THE BOOBY MAN                                 24\n\n  OF HARD TIMES HANCE                              35\n\n  OF THE TOO SURE MAN                              55\n\n  OF THE UNLOVED MAN                               60\n\n  OF THE CHIEF WHO WAS BIGGER THAN HE LOOKED       66\n\n  OF SIMPLE SIMON UP TO DATE                       72\n\n  OF THE HIGH CLASS ESKIMO                         79\n\n  OF THE SWEET YOUNG THINGS                        89\n\n  OF THE TWO LADIES IN CONTRAST                    97\n\n  OF THE RUSE THAT FAILED                         100\n\n  OF THE REAL SANTA CLAUS                         107\n\n  OF THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW                      113\n\n  OF SICAMOUS                                     118\n\n  OF THE UBIQUITOUS CAT                           122\n\n\nBITS OF HISTORY:\n\n  OF THE FOOLHARDY EXPEDITION                     127\n\n  OF THE LAWS OF LYCURGUS                         133\n\n  OF JOAN OF ARC                                  138\n\n  OF VOICES LONG DEAD                             144\n\n  OF THE WHITE WOMAN WHO BECAME AN INDIAN SQUAW   151\n\n\nTHROUGH THE MICROSCOPE                            157\n\n\n\n\nOf the Rolling Stone\n\n\nOnce upon a time in a small village in Bruce County, Province of\nOntario, Dominion of Canada, there lived a man who was destined to\nestablish a precedent. He was to prove to the world that a rolling stone\nis capable at times of gathering as much moss as a stationary one, and\nhow it is possible for the rock with St. Vitus dance to become more\ncoated than the one that is confined to perpetual isolation. Like most\niconoclasts he was of humble birth, and had no foundation upon which to\nrest the cornerstone of his castle, which was becoming too heavy for his\nbrain to support much longer.\n\nHis strong suit was his itinerate susceptibility; but his main anchorage\nwas his better five-fifths. One of his most monotonous arguments was to\nthe effect that the strenuousness of life could only be equalled by the\nmonotony of it, and that it was a pity we had to do so much in this\nworld to get so little out of it.\n\n\"Why should a man be anchored to one spot of the geographical\ndistribution like a barnacle to a ship during the whole of his mortal\nbelligerency?\" he one day asked his wife. \"We hear nothing, see nothing,\nbecome nothing, and our system becomes fossilized, antediluvian. Why not\nsee everything, know everything? Life is hardly worth while, but since\nwe are here we may as well feed from the choicest fruits, and try for\nthe first prizes.\"\n\nNow, his wife was one of those happy, contented, sweet,\nmake-the-best-of-it-cheerily persons who never complained even under the\nmost trying circumstances. It is much to the detriment of society that\nthe variety is not more numerous, but we are not here to criticise the\nlaws that govern the human nature of the ladies. This lady was as far\nremote from her husband in temperament as Venus is from Neptune. He was\ndarkness, she was daylight; and the patience with which she tolerated\nhim in his dark moods was beautiful though tragic. It was plain that she\nloved him, for what else in a woman could overlook such darkness in a\nman?\n\n\"You see,\" he would say, \"it is like this. Here I am slaving away for\nabout seventy-five dollars per month, year in and year out. All I get is\nmy food and clothing--and yours, of course, which is as much necessary,\nbut is more or less of a white man's burden. No sooner do I get a dollar\nin my hand than it has to be passed along to the butcher, baker, grocer,\ndressmaker, milliner. Are our efforts worth while when we have no\nimmediate prospects of improvement? And then the monotony of the game:\neat, sleep, work; eat, sleep, work. And the environs are as monotonous\nas the occupations. I think man was made for something more, although a\nvery small percentage are ever so fortunate as to get it. Now, I can\nmake a mere living by roaming about from place to place as well as I can\nby sitting down glued to this spot that I hate, and then I will have\nthe chance of falling into something that is a great deal better, and\nhave an opportunity to see something, hear something, learn something.\nHere I am dying by inches, unwept, unhonoured and unsung.\"\n\nTo be \"blue\" was his normal condition. His sky was always cloudy, and\nwith this was mingled a disposition of weariness which turned him with\ndisgust from all familiar objects. With him \"familiarity bred contempt.\"\nOne day when his psychological temperament was somewhat below normal the\npent up thunder in him exploded and the lightning was terrible:\n\n\"Here I am rooted to one spot,\" he said, \"fossilized, stagnant, wasting\naway, dead to the whole world except this one little acre. And what is\nthere here? Streets, buildings, trees, fences, hills, water. Nothing out\nof the ordinary; and so familiar, they have become hateful. Why,\neverything in the environment breeds weariness, monotony, a painfully\ndisgusting sameness. The same things morning, noon and night, year after\nyear. Why, the very names of the people here give me nervous\nprostration. Just think--Cummings, Huston, Sanson, Austin, Ward, McAbee,\nHobson, Bailey, Smith, Black, Brown, White--Bah! the sound of them is\nlike rumors of a plague. I want to flee from them. I want to hear new\nnames ringing in my ears. And I hate the faces no less than I do the\nnames. I would rather live on a prairie where you expect nothing; and\nget it--anything so long as it is new.\"\n\nNow, that which is hereditary with the flesh cannot be a crime. The\nvictim is more to be pitied in his ancestral misfortune, and the monkey\nfrom which our hero sprang must have been somewhat cosmopolitan.\n\nOf course his wife had heard such outbreaks of insanity from him before,\nso she only laughed, thinking to humor him back to earth again with her\nlove and smiles.\n\n\"Conditions are not so bad in Bruce county as you paint them,\" she said,\n\"and if you do not go about sniffing the air you will not find so many\nobnoxious perfumes. Why, I _love_ the locality; and I like the people.\nAnd I like you, and my home; and I am perfectly satisfied with\neverything. Things might be a great deal worse. You should have no\ncomplaint to make. You have a steady situation, a good master, a\nbeautiful home, plenty to eat--and then you have me,\" she exclaimed, as\nthough her presence should atone for all else in the world that he did\nnot have. And perhaps a treasure of this kind should have been a\nvaluable asset, and an antidote against all mere mundane cares.\n\n\"Look out through the parlor door,\" she continued. \"Could anything be\nmore beautiful? The sun is just setting. The lake is asleep. See the\nreflection of the trees beneath its surface. How peaceful, how restful!\nMy mind is just like the lake--perfectly at ease. Why do you not control\nyour storm and calm down like the lake? Look at the tall shadows of the\ncontented firs reaching away out across its bosom. How like a dream.\"\n\n\"Bah! Don't mention lake to me. I hate the sight of it. I have seen it\ntoo long. It is too familiar. It is an eyesore to me. I am weary of it\nall. I want a rest. Here comes Brown now. Let me hide in the cellar. It\nwould be hypocrisy to remain here and smile welcome to him when I hate\nthe sight of his physiognomy and detest the sound of his name. No, he\nhas gone by. He does not intend to call. Thank heaven. Five minutes of\nhis society would be equal to ten years in purgatory. New sights, new\nscenes, new voices, new faces; all these are recreation to a mentally\nweary constitution.\"\n\n\"I would consider it a crime to leave this beauty spot,\" said his wife,\n\"and it is a sin against heaven to decry it.\"\n\n\"Then I am a sinner and a criminal,\" said the hereditary crank, \"because\nI hate it and am going to leave. I will take fifty dollars and go, and\nif I do not return with fifty thousand I will eat myself. I have said\nall there is to say. Those dull, uninteresting faces give me the\nnighthorse. I am going to-morrow. Of course you remain, because it is\nmore expensive to travel double than single,\" he snorted, \"and I have\nnot the plunks.\"\n\nHe embarked into the big world a few days later with his wife's warm\nkiss burning his lips--faithful even in his unfaithfulness. She was\ncheerful for some time, thinking that he would return, but the magnetism\nwhich attracted him to the woman whom he had picked from among the\nswarming millions was of very inferior voltage.\n\nHe wandered about Canada and the United States for about two years. He\nhad many ups and downs. On the average he made enough to induce his soul\nto remain in his body in anticipation of something better. To do him\njustice he remitted all odd coin to his wife in Bruce county, and he\nwrote saying he was perfectly happy in his new life. He awoke one\nmorning and found himself in the \"Best\" Hotel, Ashcroft, British\nColumbia, Dominion of Canada, and the first thing he saw was the\nsand-hill. He thought Ashcroft was the most desolate looking spot he had\never seen. It looked like a town that had been located in a hurry and\nhad been planted by mistake on the wrong site.\n\nHe fell in with a Bruce county fellow there who was running a general\nstore, and they became very friendly. He secured employment from this\nfriend, who proved to be a philanthropist.\n\n\"I have a proposition to make to you,\" the friend said one day.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked the iconoclast.\n\n\"Buy me out,\" said the philanthropist. \"I have all the money I can\ncarry. When the rainy day comes I will be well in out of the drip, and\nmy tombstone will be 'next best' in the cemetery.\"\n\n\"But I have no bank balance,\" said the aspirant eagerly. \"I have no\ndebentures of any kind; I have not even pin money.\"\n\n\"Bonds are unnecessary,\" said the friend. \"Besides, when I sell you this\nstock and building you will have an asset in the property. I will sell\noutright, take a mortgage for the balance, which you will disburse at\nthe rate of five hundred dollars per year. You can do it and make money\nat the same time. You will kill two birds with half a stone. Why, in\ntwenty years' time Rockefeller will be asking you to endorse his notes.\"\n\nThe sale was made and the hero jumped into a store on Railway Avenue\nwithout a seed or cell, and in a short time the moss began to grow so\nthick upon him that he had all the sharks in B.C. asking him for a\ncoating. And then he wrote for his wife, whom he missed for the first\ntime. The letter ran thus:\n\n        \"Ultima Thule, B.C., March 1st. 1915.\n\n\"My Dear Wife:\n\n\"You will see by the heading of this letter that fortune has cast me off\nat Ashcroft, and I must congratulate myself for initiating that rolling\nstone 'stunt.' I have stumbled upon the richest mine in B.C. The gold\nis sticking out of it in chunks. The auto that you will play when you\narrive will be a 'hum dinger' and no mistake. I am enclosing my cheque\nfor $500. Buy out Tim Eaton and bring your dear self here, for I am\nlonely without you.\n\n  \"Your hitherto demented husband.\"\n\nShe read it fifty times, placed it next her heart and pranced about like\na five-year-old. \"Now, just where is Ashcroft?\" she soliloquized. None\nof the Bruce county aborigines seemed to know, so she consulted a world\nmap, and she found it growing like a parasite to the Canadian Pacific\nRailway away in among the mountains of British Columbia.\n\nBut this was nothing. She would have risked a journey over the Atlantic\nin an aeroplane if it were a means of uniting her with the man who was\nthe only masculine human in existence so far as she was concerned--the\nman whom she had singled out and adopted from among the millions of his\nkind. When they met the union was pathetic, but it was lovely. To make a\nwoman happy, who loves you like this, should be the consummation of a\nman's domestic ambitions.\n\nIt was pointed out to him afterwards that, after all, the moss did not\nbegin to grow until he had settled down in Ashcroft. So he lost his\nknighthood as an iconoclast.\n\n\n\n\nOf Cultus Johnny\n\n\nOnce upon a time at Spence's Bridge, County of Yale, Province of British\nColumbia, on the Indian reserve, there lived two Indians named Cultus\n(bad) Johnny and Hias (big) Peter. They were friends until Peter got\nmarried, and then the trouble began, because they both wanted the same\nklootchman. They had been fishing for some time for the same fish, in\nthe same pool in the Thompson river, and had each been favored with very\nencouraging nibbles. One day, however, Peter felt the tugging at his\nbait somewhat stronger than usual and with one jerk he pulled out his\nfish. Peter had stolen a march on his rival. The priest married them\nwhen Johnny was at the coast, fishing at New Westminster for the\ncanneries. When the intelligence reached him he sat down in the bottom\nof the boat and for a few moments imagined himself at Spence's Bridge\ngiving Hias Peter a Jack Johnson trouncing. To Cultus Johnny the strange\npreference of this woman for his rival seemed like unmitigated\ndiscrimination. Why, there was no comparison between the two when it\ncame to worldly icties. Peter had nothing: he had no illiha, no icties\nof any kind; he was broke morning, noon and night. Johnny had a sixty\ndollar saddle, a five dollar bridle, a two and a half quirt and the best\ncayuse in Spence's Bridge, and worth seventy-five dollars. Peter had\nnothing but the wage he earned working on the C.P.R. section, which had\nbeen just enough to supply him with his daily muck-a-muck (food) before\nmarriage. How he calculated to feed two with the one basket of o-lil-ies\n(berries) which had been only large enough for one, did not seem to\nworry the community, as such things were taking place every day and were\na common occurrence, and the klootchman always seemed to survive the\nordeal. And it must not be forgotten that Johnny had a seven and a half\nStetson hat while all Peter could afford was a two bit cap.\n\nIt will always remain a mystery why one Indian should be more\nvoluptuous, or gather more icties about him than another, when none of\nthem have any visible assets from which to derive an income. Unless it\nbe that the more voluptuous Indian works every day of his weary, aimless\nlife, spends nothing, and hoards the residual balance like a miser,\nlives on the old man before marriage, and on his klootchman after, we\nare unable to arrive at a solution. No one knew by what means Johnny had\nacquired all his wealth. Perhaps he had bought all his luxuries on\njaw-bone from one store while he paid cash for his muck-a-muck in\nanother. There is one thing certain, the honest Indian is always the\npoorest, and in these days of the high cost of beans and bacon and rice,\nhe has to be poorer to be more honest. Now it came to pass that one day\nJohnny balanced his saddle, horse, quirt and Stetson hat with Peter's\nnothing and argued that all the weight was in his own favor. The keeka\n(girl) had made a mistake. And to a man who measured everything by\nworldly icties this was sound argument, for the only big thing about\nPeter was his avoirdupois--barring his heart, of course. In the heat of\nhis argument Johnny determined to deprive Peter of his sacred property.\nAnd among the Indians this is not nearly so hazardous or hopeless or\ncriminal an undertaking as it may seem through an Anglo-Saxon\nmicroscope. Although a wife is considerable of an asset to a white man,\nshe is not so to an Indian; and it may be to his advantage that he is\nmore or less philosophical about it. The cultus Indian was at Lillooet\nwhen this skookum tumtum (good thought) occurred to him. He was cutting\nfire-wood with some of the Statlemulth (Lillooet Indians) in an effort\nto heal the wound in his left chest which had been left gaping since his\nrecent defeat in battle. He went back to Spence's Bridge as fast as his\nseventy-five dollar cayuse, his sixty dollar saddle, his five dollar\nbridle and his two and a half quirt could carry him, and presented\nhimself to his kith and kin. The old man gave him a warm hand-shake.\nThey killed some fatted chickens and had the biggest time that the\nrancherie had ever known. Peter and his schmamch (wife) were there and\nold acquaintances were renewed. Johnny's strong suit with his ancient\nflame was his personal icties; and when Peter was otherwise engaged he\nasked the girl to elope with him to Kamloops or Lillooet. The next day\nwas Sunday and Peter was going out with others on a cayuse hunt which\nhad been planned some time before. He invited Johnny because it would\nnot be safe to leave him in possession of the fort, and in charge of\nsuch a valuable, though fickle, asset; for a great number of the Indian\nwomen are fickle.\n\nBut Cultus Johnny declined the invitation. He was tired, and wanted to\nrest. Besides, he had a bridle to finish which he was plaiting from the\nleather cut from the legs of an old pair of cow-boy boots which he had\nfound; it would be worth ten dollars when finished. In spite of his good\nintentions Johnny spent the whole day in idleness at the home of Mrs.\nPeter; and, as it is no insult among the Indians for a buck to propose\nan elopement with his neighbor's wife, because it is a very common\nbusiness transaction among them, Johnny again suggested the escapade.\nThe woman only laughed and seemed to enjoy the flirtation. But she would\nneither consent nor refuse. Hias Peter did not return that evening, and\nthe next day Johnny was at the works with greater cannonading, and with\nmore skookum tumtum than ever, and this time he was braver. He was just\non the point of putting his arm around the keeka's waist when the door\nopened and Peter darkened the opening. They looked at one another for a\nfew moments like two panthers about to spring at each other's throats.\nHias Peter had a hias gun, and he raised it to his shoulder and glanced\nin a very savage and threatening way along the barrel toward Cultus\nJohnny's heart. Johnny dropped to the floor and begged for mercy. Now it\nrequires some courage to shoot a fellow-being down in cold blood,\nalthough the punishment may be well deserved, so Peter lowered his\nrifle.\n\n\"Klatawa!\" (Go!) he commanded. \"Hiak!\" (Quick!) he shouted. Johnny\ncrawled on his hands and knees towards the door, and as he was creeping\nover the threshold Peter gave him one awful kick that sent him rolling\non the ground outside. And turning to the woman: \"Fooled!\" he roared. \"I\nwill shoot you down like a coyote next time,\" he said. As the Indian is\na man of few words, he drew himself up to his hias (large) size in front\nof her. But the woman pleaded that she was not to blame. Johnny had\npersisted in his attentions to her, and she could not drive him off. \"If\nyou want to get rid of him, shoot him,\" said Peter.\n\nNow, among the Indians, when you covet your neighbor's wife, or have\nbeen too familiar with her, and you are caught with the goods, you do\nnot fly into a far country for fear of your life. You still hang around,\nand the worst you can get is perhaps a pounding from the jealous\nneighbor; and the sweet environment is worth the risk.\n\nJohnny's skookum tumtum was somewhat out of commission for a while. When\nhe met Mrs. Peter on the street after that they grinned at each other a\nfew times without speaking; and by and by, when they thought Peter was\nout of sight, they would stop and talk for a while. He asked her again\nto fly to Kamloops with him, and she seemed to be swinging on the\nbalance. Johnny dwelt upon his worldly assets--his saddle, his bridle,\nand all his skookum icties. Peter soon realized that his wife was eating\nat his table and living in another man's tumtum, but he kept on chewing\nhis beans and bacon and dried soquas (salmon) in silence, and, but for\nthe intervention of Providence, Peter might have followed in the\nfootsteps of Paul Spintlum.\n\nOne day Cultus Johnny and his sister went across the river to fish. They\ncast their nets directly across from the rancherie, beneath an\nangry-looking, hungry, threatening, overhanging gravel bed. He and his\nfather and his father's fathers had fished there time out of memory. The\nold men of the village were squatted here and there weaving nets for the\nfishing season. Squaws were bringing in bundles of tree branches on\ntheir backs for firewood; others were scraping the flesh from raw\ndeer-skins, stretched on frames which leaned against buildings. Some\nyoung fellows, among whom was Hias Peter, were rolling up driftwood from\nthe river. Children were capering about, laughing and shouting. Dogs\nwere barking, cats mewing, roosters crowing. There was nothing but joy,\nand peace, and harmony. It was just such a scene as may be witnessed on\na bright sunny day at any Indian village in the dry-belt at any time.\nSuddenly there was a rush and a roar and a plunge of waters. The whole\nmountain across from the rancherie had fallen into the river with one\nmad roar like thunder, and the water was thrown up upon the village and\nits helpless inmates. In a moment the peaceful scene was one of death\nand torture. Men, women and children were struggling helplessly in the\nwater and trying in vain to reach the higher benches. At the next moment\nthe water receded and carried many back struggling into the channel of\nthe river. Hias Peter found himself, with others, struggling among logs,\ntimbers and debris of every description. Just before the water receded\nhe saw his wife and heard her yell for help. He seized her skirt and\ndragged her to safety, clinging to a friendly sage brush. For a moment\nPeter thought that, so far as he was personally concerned, she was\nscarcely worth saving; but it is very unnatural to allow a fellow being\nto drown before your eyes and make no attempt to save him. And perhaps\nour worst enemy could rely on us for protection under similar\ncircumstances. But where was Cultus Johnny and his sister all this time?\nThe whole world lay on top of them, and that is all we know. They were\nnever seen again.\n\nMrs. Peter looked across the river and sighed.\n\nMr. Peter looked across the river and gave a grunt in his own language.\n\nA million tons of earth were holding down Cultus Johnny.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Booby Man\n\n\nOnce upon a time in Ashcroft there lived a \"gink\" who was very much\nwrapped up in himself. At a local social function he took the prize one\nday for being the most unpopular man in the community; and this caused\nhim to sit up nights, and study himself as others saw him flitting\nacross his unattractive and uneventful stage. The winning of this prize\nspoke to him with greater accent than could the exploding of a\nsixteen-inch German gun, and it sent a quiver through his entire\navoirdupois. It was not only an appalling revelation to him to know that\nhe was unpopular, but it was a disgrace to his pedigree right back to\nthe days of Samuel De Champlain, so he began to paw the bunch grass and\nseek revenge. First he dug among the archives of history for a solution.\nThere must be some reason for this disgraceful blur on his life pages.\nWhy was he the most unpopular man on these sand downs? Why was he an\noutcast? Why was he the Job of Ashcroft society? Now, just why was he\nunpopular? Had he boils, like Job? Was he an undesirable citizen? Was he\na German, or an Austrian, or a Turk? Was he inflicted with some\nloathsome disease? Was he a plague? Had some false reputation preceded\nhim into the community? Had he a cantankerous disposition? Was he\nrepulsive in appearance? Was he mean, stingy? Was he stupid, ignorant,\nuneducated, brainless? No, personally he could not plead guilty of\nacquaintance with any of the above disqualifications. Among the archives\nof his past Ashcroft history he found some tell-tale manuscripts, the\ncontents of which had never appealed to him until after the booby prize\nepisode. In plain English, he found written facts which were as bold as\nthe violation of Belgian neutrality. Incidents which had seemed very\ncommonplace and unworthy of notice before, now loomed up on those pages\nand presented themselves to him as giants of the utmost importance. For\ninstance, in looking up the records connected with the forming of the\nAshcroft Rinks he found that he had not been consulted in the matter.\nHis name was missing from that interesting page of Ashcroft history.\nHowever, when the time arrived for the forming of a company to finance\nthe erection of the building, great interest was taken in his bank\naccount, and the promoters knocked very early one morning at his door\nseeking endorsement to purchase shares in the joint stock company which\nwas about to be born. At the meeting for the election of directors to\ntake charge of the affairs of the company he was again surrounded by the\nsame zero atmosphere. He was not even nominated as a prospective member.\nHis name had never been suggested. He was never consulted when anything\nserious was the point of debate. It had not occurred to him to become\nincensed at this frigid zone attitude on the part of his associates. He\nhad not been expecting any handout, so he was not disappointed. He had\nbeen too much absorbed in his own personal affairs, too much wrapped up\nin himself, and could detect no grounds for offence. At the annual\nelection of officers for the Curlers, although a member for ten years,\nit had never occurred to any in the association to suggest his name as a\nprobable pillar for the upholding of the business portion of the club.\nAgain his presence was not suspected, and he may as well have been in\nIceland. Although present incarnate, he was to all intent and purpose\nonly in the invisible spirit.\n\nWhen the hospital idea was being introduced the social thermometer in\nthe vicinity was again standing at the zero point; and he remembered\nthat he had never had the honor of being invited by the society to any\nof the annual pioneer banquets. He had received the alien \"hand-out\"\nupon all occasions, and had the same status in the community as a\nChinaman. Of course, being hitherto so much wrapped up in personality,\nhe took no notice of his social mercury, which always stood at its\nminimum. And then, as the management of the various institutions had\nbeen placed in hands which were, undoubtedly, more able and willing to\ncope with the difficulties than he, and as everybody seemed satisfied,\nthere was no occasion for him raising his voice in protest throughout\nthe dumb wilderness. Being personally very much occupied with his own\nstamp mill, and the percentage of the pay-rock, he was just as pleased\nthat no local burden should be placed across the apex of his spinal\npillar. But now he had arrived at a point where the road divided. New\nscenes must be introduced into his play--new machinery installed.\nThrough the microscope he saw that present conditions could not be\nallowed to prevail. He was losing much valuable mineral over the dump.\nHe was angry. The sensitiveness of his nature had received a shock; he\nhad been shown up as the most unpopular man in Ashcroft. It was time for\nhim to have the mercury brought near to the fire. The next time prizes\nwere being handed around his arm would be the longest, and his voice the\nloudest; and they would not be booby prizes neither. He had known men of\na few weeks standing only, rise to the very apex of popularity, while\nhe, with his ten years initiation, had not yet developed brains enough,\nin the estimation of the Ashcroft people, that would justify them in\nplacing in his charge the management of the most trivial social affair.\nWhat had he done that this measure should be constantly graduated out to\nhim? Well, things would be different. He would \"can\" personality and\ntake up the \"big mitt\" of public things. But how was this revolution in\nthe private disposition of a man to be accomplished? He had discovered\nthe result, but not the cause; so he began rooting among the sage brush\nof the sand downs for the foundation stone of his social submergence.\n\n\"I have it!\" he shouted one day. \"If one wishes to make a puncture in\nthe affairs of this world one must assert himself; one must smite the\ntable top with one's fist every morning before breakfast. One must\nassume such an atmosphere that the whole community will be cognizant of\none's presence, to-day, to-morrow, and all the time. One must assert\none's personality. I have been asleep, stagnant, dormant, an Egyptian\nmummy. I have allowed others to take the cream while I have been\npassively contented with the whey. I have allowed others to elbow me to\none side like a log languishing in the eddy of a river. Henceforth I\nwill be in the centre of the stream. I will rush down with the torrent\nand be \"It\" in the Ashcroft \"smart set\" illumination.\n\n\"There will be no public works in future that does not bear my\nsignature. In a word, I will assert myself, lock, stock and barrel.\"\n\nSo he hit out upon a new highway with the determination to be popular.\nHe neglected his own stamp-mill that the work might be carried out to a\nsuccessful issue. He engaged others to take charge of the tail race and\ndump, with which he would not trust his brother on previous occasions.\nIn fact, he left the steam of the mill at high pressure to look after\nitself that he might have an unhampered course in the asserting of\nhimself. He invaded immediately all the dances, carnivals, dinners and\nparties. He was both Liberal and Conservative in politics. He was the\n\"guy\" with the \"big mitt\" and the vociferous vocabulary at all the local\nfunctions. He even joined the church. He tumbled into popularity as\nquickly as the Kaiser tumbled into the European war; and he elbowed his\nway into the run-way for all offices. Previously bright stars were\ndimmed by the brilliancy of his superior luminosity. He became a\nparasite at the local stores and clubs, and was a wart on the grocer's\ncounter. He became a whirlwind of popularity. He was as much in the\nadvance as he had before been in the rear, and, if there was any German\ntrench to take, he was always first to jump into it. He had the big\nvoice in every local eruption. Every time he batted he made a home run.\nHe even made initiative suggestions for schemes which were more or less\namalgamated with reason and insanity. It is said that he was first at\nthe dances, and first in the hearts of the ladies. It is certain he was\nthe first to invent the sewerage system idea; and the patents were\napplied for before the final endorsements had been secured.\n\n\"I will make the man swallow his words who awarded me that booby prize,\"\nhe thundered; and he was going the right way about it. He imposed his\nindividuality with emphasis. He was taken by the hand and dragged along\ncheerfully. He found himself coveted and envied now, where, before, he\nhad almost been denied citizenship. He was now a qualified voter, where,\nbefore, he had been disfranchised. He found himself in the front ranks\nof all social movements, for he had asserted himself with an accent. It\nwas a case of applied personality with him, and it was developing just\nas he had anticipated. Of course it was a superficial personality; it\nhad no intrinsic value, but it answered the purpose. He received many\nimportant appointments. He was created secretary to the School Board,\nsecretary to the Ashcroft Rinks, secretary to the Hospital, secretary\nto the Ashcroft Hockey boys, secretary to the Ladies' Knitting Guild,\nsecretary to the Ladies' Auxiliary. In fact, he was unanimously chosen\nan official in all the local public works which had no salary attached\nto them. But then, he was gaining in popularity, and what did it matter\nif his office was filled to overflowing with exotic paraphernalia, he\nwas reaching that apex to which he had aspired, and the emolument was a\nmere bagatelle. The booby prize, after all, had been the foundation of\nhis success.\n\nSo things went on and he became the most talked of man in the town. When\nany difficulty arose he was the first to be consulted. The town found it\nnecessary to come to him for information on every local scheme that had\nits birth in the local cerebrum, for no one else was capable of handling\nany emergency and carrying it through to a successful conclusion.\n\nJust about this time the sewerage epidemic took possession of the town,\nand became an insane contagion. Meetings were held at various places to\ndiscuss the matter, and at last the government agent allowed the court\nhouse to be used gratis for that purpose. Of course our hero and two\nother victims were appointed commissioners to investigate. His salary\nwas the same as he received from his various secretaryships.\n\nIt was proposed to mortgage the town for forty years to the provincial\ngovernment for its endorsement to local bonds, and the commissioners\nwere empowered to have the alleys and necessary places surveyed with a\nview to ascertaining the magnitude of the undertaking, and the amount of\nthe collateral which it would be necessary to raise in England, upon the\nendorsed bonds, to push the work through to a successful conclusion. The\nvictims set to work with full knowledge of the stupendous responsibility\nwhich had been slung, yoke-like, across their shoulders. Surveyors were\nengaged, and an expert calculator was summoned to give an estimate of\nthe cost of such an undertaking. The estimate was placed at $75,000.00.\nThis enlightenment gave the community a volcanic eruption; an epidemic\nof \"cold feet\" took possession of them, and they retired to warm these\nextremities at their respective air-tight heaters. In the meantime the\ncommissioners had guaranteed payment to the experts whom they had\nengaged, and their personal notes were urgently requested. The expenses\nwhich they had incurred amounted to about five hundred dollars. When the\nvouchers were hawked about town for endorsements they received the \"high\nball,\" and the victims found it necessary to \"make good\" from their\npersonal rainy day deposits. The unpopular man took a sly glance back at\nthe ancient happy hunting-grounds antedating his booby prize days.\n\nIt was just about this time that an agent of the Independent Trust\nCompany drifted into town \"incidentally,\" and became acquainted with the\nboys. He made it known in a sort of casual way that he was disposing of\nshares in the said company, which were valued at more than they were\nworth--that is, were worth more than their valuation. To keep up the\n\"bluff\" the unpopular man bought a thousand \"plunks\" worth of shares.\n\n\"Now,\" said the shark, \"since you have shown so much confidence in my\ncompany by purchasing shares, you can prove your patriotism more fully\nby placing a substantial deposit with the Independent Trust. This will\nhelp maintain the company on solid footing, and ensure you higher\ndividends on your stock. I will give you my personal guarantee that your\nmoney will be safer, and more productive than it would be in the Bank.\"\n\nThe \"boob\" seized the bait like a trout in the Bonaparte, and made a\ndeposit of five thousand dollars. Shortly afterwards the company went\ninto liquidation, and his six thousand dollars sailed away with the\nworthless liquid into the sea of oblivion.\n\nAbout this same time, when his popularity was at its zenith, and was\nrivalling that of Dr. Cook, the fake discoverer of the North Pole,\nanother shark came down with the rain selling the most marvellous\nmoney-making scheme ever offered to the public of British Columbia. This\nwas X.Y.Z. Fire Insurance shares, which he was disposing of at a great\nsacrifice.\n\n\"Let me sell you some shares in the only 'real thing' that has been\noffered to the public since the flood,\" he tempted.\n\nThe victim was so much under the shark's influence that he was\nhypnotized.\n\n\"Certainly,\" he said. \"Write me down for five hundred 'doughbaby's'\nworth.\"\n\n\"You mean a thousand,\" said the shark.\n\n\"No,\" said the \"gink,\" timidly, \"I have only five hundred in my sock;\nthat will be as much as my pack will carry.\"\n\n\"Exactly; that is just right. You see, you are buying a thousand dollars\nworth of goods with only five hundred dollars worth of cash. The shares\nare fifty dollars each, with a cash payment of twenty-five dollars, and\nthe balance subject to call. This balance will never be called for,\nbecause on no occasion has an insurance company been known to call in\nits balance of subscribed stock; and the X.Y.Z. is not going to\nestablish a precedent in this respect. You will have twenty shares for\nfive hundred dollars. In other words, you will draw interest on one\nthousand dollars, and only have five hundred invested. Was ever a\nbusiness so philanthropic in its foundation?\"\n\nOur hero grabbed the bait like a pure-bred sucker, and handed out his\nlast asset.\n\nA few weeks later the company was in the hands of receivers with all its\nassets vaporized. The popular man found himself on the \"rocks.\" Being\npopular for a short time had proved a very expensive expedition for him.\nThe retreat rivalled that of the Kaiser's retreat from Paris. It was so\nsudden that the town heard the thud and felt the jar. The unpopular man\nrealized that it is wiser to remain in one's natural element even if it\nis necessary to sacrifice many of the first prizes. Perhaps it is\nbetter to go after the prizes for which we are qualified, than to aspire\nto elevations which we are unable to hold intelligently.\n\nThe unpopular man backed himself up into his burrow, and for a time the\nsilence around town was embarrassing.\n\n\n\n\nOf Hard Times Hance\n\n\nOnce upon a time on the foothills in the environs of Clinton, Lillooet\nDistrict, Province of British Columbia, there lived a \"mossback\" who was\nas happy as the 22nd day of June is long in each year. At initiative\nconclusions he would be classified with the freak species of humanity,\nbut beneath his raw exterior there lurked rich mines which the moss kept\na secret from the inquisitive, avaricious world.\n\nHe owned and operated an extensive ranch from which he encouraged enough\nvegetation to feed himself, his pigs, his horses, his cattle, his\nchickens, and his dog; and this, apparently, was all they derived from\nthe great, green earth. But the asset side of our \"mossback's\" yearly\nbalance sheet always made the liability side ashamed of itself. The\nasset increased annually, and the hidden treasure grew to alarming\nproportions. This growth was carefully salted away at the appropriate\nsalting-down season, when the pork barrels were brought out of the dark\ncellars, dusted, scrubbed, and refilled with the carcasses of those\nanimals which had been his companions for the greater part of a year. He\nwas a standing joke with the \"hands\" on the ranch, for he was the most\ndilapidated of the whole gang, although the owner, and was reputed to be\nwealthy.\n\nBut he was a man with a purpose in life, and that was more than a great\nmany could say. He was chronically eccentric. When he first located on\nthe homestead which had since become so valuable an asset, he had\ndetermined to live with one purpose in view, and that was to expand\nfinancially with the toil of his hands and the sweat of his brow, and\nthen, when he had acquired sufficient sinking fund, to emerge suddenly\ninto the limelight of society and shine like a newly polished gem. So he\nwandered up and down the trail which his own feet and the feet of his\ncayuse had worn through the woods, up the creek, along the face of the\nmountains, and away down to the limy waters of the Fraser on the other\nside of the perpetual snows.\n\nThere was a fascination for him on this old trail; it had become as part\nof his life, of his very soul. Sometimes he would be rounding up cattle.\nSometimes he would be hunting mowich (deer), or driving off the coyotes.\nAll his plans and schemes were built on trail foundation. He could not\nthink unless he was tramping the trail through the woods, and down the\nvalleys. Here is where all his castles were constructed; and, from the\ntrail observatory, he saw his new life spring into being, when the time\nwould be ripe.\n\nIn time the coin grew so bulky that it became a burden to him. It had\ngrown very cumbersome. He might at any time resurrect himself into that\nnew world of his, but there was no occasion for haste; he was very happy\nand contented; besides, it would mean leaving the old trail and things.\nHe had his balance banked in a strong box which he buried in a hole\nunder his bed, and the fear grew upon him that some mercenary might\ndiscover its lurking-place and relieve him of the burden of\nresponsibility. This was the only skeleton which lurked in the man's\ncloset. It was the only cloud in his sky; the rest of the zenith was\nsunshine and gladness. To the neighbors and itineraries he had been\npreaching hard times for twenty years, although the whole earth\nsuspected the contrary. He became known throughout the width and breadth\nof Yale, Lillooet and Cariboo as \"Hard Times Hance.\" Although\ndiplomatically reserved and unsociable, he was more popular and famed\nthan he suspected. Peculiarity is a valuable advertisement.\n\nHis outward appearance and mode of life certainly justified the above\nappendix to his personality, and it was so blazoned that it could be\nseen and heard all over British Columbia. He had but one competitor, and\nthat was \"Dirty Harry,\" who at one time frequented the streets of\nAshcroft. No other name could have distinguished him so completely from\nthe other members of the human family.\n\nHis overalls, which were once blue, had become pale with age, and had\nadopted a dishrag-white color; and one of the original legs had been\npatched out of existence. His Stetson hat, which had left the factory a\ndeep brown, now approached the color of his terrestrial real estate. His\n\"jumper\" had lost its blue and white \"jail bird\" stripe effect, and was\nnow a cross between a faded Brussels carpet and a grain sack. To save\nbuying boots he wore his last winter's overshoes away into the summer,\nwhile his feet would blister in discomfort. Braces were a luxury which\nhe could not endure, so he supported his superfluously laundried\noveralls with a strand of baling-rope which had already served its time\nas a halter guy. His feet had never known the luxury of a factory or\nhome-knitted stocking since he had graduated from the home crib, but\nwere put off with gunny sacking which had already seen active service as\nnose bags for the cayuses.\n\n\"If one wishes to acquire wealth in this world,\" he would say, \"one must\nmake a great many personal sacrifices.\" So he lived on and waxed wealthy\nat the expense even of the simplest of domestic comforts.\n\nThe improvements with which he had enhanced the value of his ranch were\nmuch in keeping with his personal appearance, and they could be\nrecognized as brothers with the least difficulty. The fences, which had\nrefused to retain their youth against the passing years, had their aged\nand feeble limbs supported with thongs and makeshifts of every\ndescription; and where their pride had rebelled against such\ningratitude, they were smothered beneath the limbs of fallen trees,\nwhich had been felled on the spot to serve as substitutes. His flumes\nwere knock-kneed and bow-legged, and in places they had no legs at all.\nTheir sides were warped and bulged with the alternate damp and drouth,\nheat and cold. The lumber was bleached white, and porous with decay. It\nwas with difficulty they could be persuaded to remain at their\nwater-carrying capacity. The ditches were choked with willows and maples\nto such an extent that they were abandoned only in spots where they\nasserted themselves, and refused to convey the necessary irrigation\nstream. Here they would burst their sides with indignation, and had to\nbe repaired. The barns, stables and chicken-houses had for years been\nthreatening to collapse unless supplied with some stimulant; so numerous\nfalse-works had been erected, outside and in, to retain them within\ntheir confines. The harness, which had originally been made of leather,\nbetrayed very little trace of this bovine enveloper, but was composed\nchiefly of baling-rope and wire which had been picked up at random on\nthe ranch as the occasion demanded. The various sections of the wheels\nof his wagons remained in intimate association with each other because\nthey were submerged in the creek every night; the moisture keeping the\nwood swelled to its greatest diameter. One day's exposure to the drouth,\nwithout the convenient assistance of the creek water, would have been\nsufficient to cause the wheels to fall asunder. In this respect the\nunsuspecting creek was an asset of incalculable value. The boxes of his\nwagons could boast of nothing up to date, that was not possessed by the\nwheels; and in many cases the tongues and whiffletrees and neck-yokes\nhad been substituted by raw maples or birch secured on the ranch. His\nunwritten law was to buy nothing that would cost money, and to import\nnothing that could be produced on the farm even if it was only a poor\nmakeshift substitute. No part was ever replaced until it had gone\nhopelessly on strike, and necessity was his only motive power when it\ncame to repairs. The general conditions were suggestive of the obsolete.\n\nIn the midst of all this ruin and decay, however, there was sunshine,\nand the heart of Hard Times Hance was warm and buoyant, cheerful and\nhopeful, and even if he did live upon the husks which the swine did eat,\nhe derived from his life a great deal more pleasure than the world gave\nhim credit for. He had his future to live for. He had his life all\nmapped out, and that was more than a great many could boast of. For\nbreakfast he had mush, for dinner he had beans and bacon, and for supper\nhe had bacon and beans and Y.S. tea. And he was just as happy eating\nthis fare with his knife as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of\nBritish Columbia could be with his cereal, consomme, lobster salad,\ncharlotte russe, blanc mange, cafe noir, or any other dainty and\ndelicate importation. Bananas, oranges and artichokes had no place on\nhis bill-of-fare. Besides, after he had eaten a meal he had no space for\nsuch delicacies. And he could always wash his meal down with the famous\nY.S. tea stand-by; and, on top of this, a few long draws at his\nkin-i-kin-nick (sort of Indian tobacco) pipe. And then there were no\nrestrictions upon his mode of feeding his face. He could eat with his\nknife with impunity. There was no etiquette-mad society digging him in\nthe ribs, and jerking on the reins in protestation at every one of his\nnatural inclinations; and he could use his own knife to butter his\nsourdough bread. For a man who expected to emerge into the sunshine of\nsociety, he was giving himself very inadequate training. He was as near\nthe aboriginal as it was possible for a white man to approach. He was a\nSiwash (male Indian) with one exception--his love of the coin. But then,\nhe had an object in this ambition; and a fault, if it is a means to a\nworthy end, must be commended. He had this propensity developed to the\nmost pronounced degree. It was a disease with him, for which there was\nno cure. In outward appearance he was a typical B.C. specimen of the\nobsolete \"coureur de bois\" of eastern Canada during the seventeenth\ncentury.\n\nThe interior of his \"dug-out\" was more like an Indian kik-willy (ancient\nIndian house) than the dwelling of a modern Anglo-Saxon. The walls were\ncomposed of the rough timbers, and the chinks were stuffed with rags and\nold newspapers. A few smoke-begrimed pictures were hanging on the walls,\nand a calendar of the year 1881 still glared forth in all its ancient\nuselessness, leading one back into a past decade. If he broke the rules\nof etiquette by eating with his knife, he also smashed those of modesty\nby utilizing his air-tight heater as a cuspidor, for it was streaked\nwhite with evaporated saliva.\n\nHow this crude bud ever anticipated blooming out into a society blossom\nwas a conundrum. Perhaps he had some secret method buried in the same\nbox with his hoarded coin. His long evenings were passed reading the\n_Family Herald and Weekly Star_ and the _Ashcroft Journal_ by\ncandle-light; for those were the only papers he would subscribe for. His\nbed consisted of, first, boards, then straw, then sacking; and it had\nremained so long without being frayed out that it had become packed as\nhard as terra firma. His blankets had not seen the light of day, nor\nenjoyed the fresh cool breezes for many long years. His one window was\nopaque with the smoke of many years' accumulation. Although his chickens\nhad a coop of their own where they roosted at night, they ran about the\nfloor of his \"dug-out\" in the daytime looking for crumbs that fell from\nthe poor man's table; and his cat, through years of criminal impunity,\nwould sit on the table at mealtime and help himself to the victuals just\nas the spirit moved him. A stump had been left standing when the cabin\nwas built; it had been hewn at the appropriate elevation of a chair.\nThis was near his air-tight heater, and his favorite position was to sit\nthere with his feet propped against the stove and smoke by candle-light;\nand sometimes he would sit in the dark to save candles. His other\nfurniture consisted of \"Reindeer\" brand condensed milk and blue-mottled\nsoap boxes, which he had acquired at times from F.W. Foster's general\nstore at Clinton.\n\nHard Times Hance was living on first principles; but then, if a man\nwishes to save any coin in this world he must make great personal\nsacrifices; and so he was perfectly happy in his temporary aboriginal\ncondition. There were no restrictions upon him. He was even outside the\ncircumference of any ministerial jurisdiction, and had never been\ncautioned about the hereafter. Like an Indian, he moved just as the\nimpulse seized him. How this man expected to submit to the personal\nrestrictions and embargoes imposed by modern fashions and society was\nknown only to himself. The song of the forest had been his only concert;\nthe whisper of the creek his sole heart companion. When occasion\npermitted he would wander the entire day on the high mountains, at the\nend of his trail, hunting for game, and little caring whether he found\nit or not, so long as he had the wild and congenial environs to admire\nand embrace. What was city life in comparison with this?\n\nAt last the day arrived when he realized that he must develop wings, so\nhe wrapped himself up in a cocoon; and while the metamorphosis was in\nprocess of development he had ample time to study Hamlet's soliloquy. It\nwould mean a divorce from everything he held dear; a parting with his\nvery soul. It would mean the most sorrowful widowhood that could be\nimposed on man. It would be equivalent to leaving this earth and taking\nup his abode in Mars. He must sacrifice his love for the creek and the\ntrail. He must renounce his freedom and go into social slavery. It was\nthe emerging from the woods into the prairie; the coming from darkness\ninto the light; a resurrection from the dead. In future he must tread\nthe smooth cement walk between cultivated lawns and plants, instead of\nclimbing the rude, uneven trail obstructed by fallen trees and\nsurrounded with vegetation in its wildest and most primeval forms. He\nwould walk the polished mahogany floor with patent boots, instead of\nthe terrestrial one of his dug-out with obsolete overshoes.\n\nBut it must be. For years he had been preparing and planning. The object\nof his past had been a preparation for a better future; and why not?\nOthers enjoyed the good things of this life, and why not he? Had he not\npaid the price. Others reaped where they had not sown; he had sown, yes,\nsown in persecution, now he would reap in envious joy. He had lived the\nfirst half of his life in squalor and darkness, that the latter half\nmight be clean and cheerful. When he had set out in his young days to\nlive his pre-arranged history it was with an ambition to be wealthy, no\nmatter by what means it should be acquired, so long as it was honest.\nNow he was wealthy. He had been poor; now he was rich, and money would\nput the world at his feet, which henceforth had been over his head. He\nhad been an animal; from now on he would be human.\n\nBut in his enthusiasm of development he forgot that he had grown\nattached to the wild, aboriginal life; that the parting might snap\nthongs and inflict wounds which even time would not mend or cure. At\ntimes the creek would sing, and the trail would speak, but he banished\nthe tempters from his mind to make room for his illuminating prospects,\nand his wings continued to grow towards maturity. He struggled and freed\nhimself from the cocoon. He went to Vancouver a caterpillar and returned\na butterfly, and the earthquake which accompanied his debut was equal\nto that which destroyed San Francisco. He had sold his farm, which\nincluded the creek, and the trail, and the dug-out, and his salt pork\nbarrel, for a song, and with his coin and icties about him, and in his\nlately acquired form, he invaded Clinton with an accentuated front. The\nstreet was lined with people as though a procession had been going\nby--all the sweet and familiar sounds and sights had been sacrificed\ncriminally, and he was on his way to sip honey from flower to flower.\n\nHe sounded about Clinton for some time for a suitable anchorage on which\nto materialize the plans and specifications of his mansion, but he did\nnot drive a stake, because Clinton was very much inferior to his \"class\"\nideal; it had no electric light, and no water system. So he migrated\nsouth to Ashcroft, and there he pre-empted a large lot and made\narrangements for the foundation of his castle. Out of the ground in a\nshort period arose one of the most up-to-date bungalows. While the\nbuilding was in course of construction Hard Times Hance, who had\nrepudiated this headline, moved about in his dress suit, stiff hat, silk\ngloves, and a cane, and gave such orders to the contractor as he saw\nfit. He was looked upon as the most remarkable freak that had ever\ninvaded the dry belt. And he sprang into society spontaneously. The\npeople clamored for him. Progressive socials were arranged in his honor\nat all the leading social centres in their eagerness to cultivate his\nsociety. Some had faint recollections of having seen him at times,\nothers claimed to have heard of him at his hermitage, but they all\npretended to have known him personally and thoroughly, and many even\nsuspected that he possessed more, intrinsically, than he had revealed\nsuperficially. He was the lion of the hour, and he did not forget to\nhand around the coin in his efforts to retain the position which he had\nsecured.\n\nWhen his mansion was turned over by the contractor, and had been\naccepted by the architect, he issued invitations to one of the most\nmagnificent social functions which had ever erupted at Ashcroft. Those\nwho were invited were flattered, and those who were not called were\ngrossly insulted and wondered what disqualified them. They danced the\n\"tango,\" and the \"bango,\" and the \"flango,\" and all the \"light\nfantastics\" until their feet went on strike, and their ear drums had\nbecome phonographic and reproduced the music with a perpetual motion\nwhich could not be stopped. Every lady was eager to reveal the dancing\nsecrets to mine host, and before the evening was over he could waltz,\ntango, and do many of the up-to-date ridiculous \"stunts.\"\n\nAnd then they dined on a French dinner. It was cooked in French style,\nand they ate it in French; and then they drank French toasts to the King\nof England, the Governor-General of Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and the\ngentlemen drank to the ladies in general all over the world. Then the\nladies proposed a French toast to \"mine host.\" Not one of them could\nspeak French, although a few of them could repeat, parrot-like, the\nwords \"Parlez-vous Francais?\" but they only knew it as a \"foreign\nphrase\" which sounded extremely cultured.\n\nAnd the menu was as follows: \"Canape of Anchovies,\" \"Celery en Branch,\"\n\"Potage a la Reine,\" \"Consomme au Celeri,\" \"Calves' Sweetbreads a la\nRothschilds,\" \"French Lamb Chops a la Nelson,\" \"Cafe noir,\" etc., etc.\n\nIn the midst of all this foreign celestialism mine host forgot the\ncreek, the trail, the dug-out, the beans and bacon, and the\nkin-i-kin-nick pipe; and he prided himself on his rapid and agreeable\ntransition into swift channels of life. He was taking to society as a\nduck takes to water.\n\nIn mode of living, as well as in personal appearance, it was the\ngreatest metamorphosis that had ever taken place in a human being in the\nmemory of man. It was a miniature \"Log Cabin to White House\" episode. He\nfurnished his castle with the most elaborate fittings and ornaments that\nthe world could produce. He had steam heated rooms and electric lighting\nfrom cellar to attic. Every floor was carpeted with the most expensive\nof imported Brussels. The walls were most elaborately painted and\ndecorated. To secure a final footing in society he had acquired a\ncollection of obsolete paintings, which were very unattractive and\nvulgar, and could only have been of value as heirlooms to some private\nfamily. These were conspicuously displayed on the panelled walls, in\npartnership with other more or less modest busts and imaginary\nlandscapes. His ceilings were frescoed and figured in most extravagant,\nbut unappealing designs. It was plainly seen that the building had been\nerected more to satisfy the taste and please the eye of the architect,\nwho had received an unrestricted contract, than for acceptance by the\npurchaser. The furnishings were very much in keeping with the fixtures\nand fittings, and his musical instruments were all electrically-automatic\nmachines; and his \"canned\" music filled the halls and stairways from\nmorning till night. There was no modern convenience or indulgence that\nhe did not lasso and drag home to his castle.\n\nBefore, he had wallowed in the one extreme of society, but now he lolled\nat the other. While before he had been neglected and despised by his\nfellow rivals, he was now courted, and admired, and feasted almost to\ndeath: so much does the possession of the coin-asset change people's\nopinions with regard to others.\n\nHis auto was the envy of all the chauffeurs and private car owners in\nthe interior, and there was great rivalry among the licensed drivers as\nto who should secure the position as his private chauffeur. One engineer\noffered his services gratis to have the privilege of sitting behind such\nwind-shields.\n\nHard Times Hance persuaded himself that he had reached his \"Utopia,\" and\nthat his past forty years of loneliness and savagery was the price he\nhad paid for the present heaven-rivalling blessings.\n\nA man of his standing in society could not long remain in single\ndormancy; he was therefore besieged by many of the fair sex. This was\nvery pleasing and flattering to him, although he concealed his\nappreciation. Of course a palace such as his, without a wife, was like a\ngarden of Eden without an Eve. He had no one to use the electric vacuum\ncleaner on his linoleums and tapestries. He had no one to meet him when\nhe reached home to take his hat, and gloves, and cane, and place them on\nthe hall rack. He had no one to kiss and afford companionship throughout\nthe long evenings, no one to arrange for social entertainments and meet\nand welcome the guests; no one to direct and manage the culinary\ndepartment, and place the furniture in appetizing arrangement. Of course\nhe had the Chinese cook, but he was stale and without spice. There were\nmillions of qualified candidates in the world, looking for partners, who\nwould be more than pleased to have the opportunity to manipulate his\nvacuum cleaner.\n\nNo sooner had he made up his mind to organize a family partnership\nconcern than he set out to have the necessary forms of contract drafted\nand prepared. A great many fair ones nominated themselves as candidates\nfor election, but as he was living under Christian methods he could only\naccept one--which was annoying--no matter how eager he may have been to\nMormonize himself. They fluttered around him like moths about an\nelectric arc, and they even deserted their former pre-emptions for the\nnew float prospects. In due course the successful candidate was\nintroduced to the Legislature as a new member.\n\nThe nuptials over, they migrated in the fall with the swallows to\nCalifornia, on their honeymoon, and, after escaping the earthquake,\nreturned to their happy and beautiful home. There was a great eruption\namong the marriageable prospects of Ashcroft, because many of them had\ndropped a real bone into the water in snapping at the illusory shadow.\n\nAn indignation meeting was arranged at which it was resolved that the\nleast prepossessing and most unlikely of the nominees had secured the\nwinning majority. But love is a very contrary commodity, and a defect\nmay be a virtue in the eyes of a hero-worshipper; and \"My Lady\" was\nserenely happy in spite of her unpopularity with her rivals. Hard Times\nHance had sprouted from pauperdom and had bloomed into princedom, and\nhis newly acquired partner placed the final mouldings and decorations to\nhis life.\n\nThey gave frequent balls and banquets, and the most select society in\nthe environs clamored for admittance. To his wife the prince was a\nmodern Aladdin. She had but to wish and the wish was granted. \"Eaton's\"\ncatalogue was her Bible, and it was her only food between meals;\npackages arrived daily with the regularity of the _Vancouver Province_.\nShe had a standing order there for hats, dresses and kimonas, to be\nrushed out the moment the fashions changed. While before Hance had taken\na pleasure in saving, he now had a mania for spending money; and their\nmerry marriage bells continued to ring for a few sweet years without\nceasing.\n\nBut gradually the spell wore off the self-made prince. The little creek,\nthe long trail, the deep woods, the dug-out, and the salt pork barrel\nloomed up occasionally before his mind's eye. In absent-minded dreams he\nwould find himself wandering among the stock on the range at his old\nranch; or he would be drinking water from the creek in the\nold-fashioned, natural way; or chasing a deer at the other end of the\nlong trail. His wife's sweet voice would recall him to the immediate,\nand in her presence he would regret his meditations. But it would be but\ntemporary. What profits a man to gain the world, if he lose his peace of\nmind? \"What! I unhappy among all this kingly paraphernalia, and with a\nqueen wife?\" he would ask himself, going down into the basement to\nreplenish the furnace. With every shovelful of coal he would curse\nhimself for his feebleness of mind.\n\nThe charm was beginning to wear off. The sound of the singing creek and\nthe wild wood noises were beginning to knock at his door. He was\nbeginning to long for the old, wild life--the life of the wild man of\nthe woods. He was like a coyote in confinement, walking backward and\nforward at the bars seeking release. He was a fish out of water gasping\nfor its natural element, and his soul was languishing within him.\n\nHe made desperate but vain efforts to enjoy his beautiful environs, and\nfor a long time he sustained the \"bluff.\" The piano became a bore to\nhim; its music was not half so sweet as the creek song. The tapestry was\nnot half so pleasing to the eye as the green foliage of the trees had\nbeen; his cement walk not so agreeable to his feet as had been the long,\nwild trail. The \"icties\" which had cost him thousands of dollars became\nto him like so much junk, and his beautiful home became a prison--so\nmuch does man become attached to mother earth. Among all this junk one\njewel still continued persistently to shine, however, and that gem was\nhis wife; she was all he had left, next his heart, to balance against\nthe thousands of dollars which he had squandered. A man's best comfort\nis his wife, and Hance had fallen into the trap in the usual man-like\nway.\n\nHis attraction for the modern in society had dwindled down to a single\nitem--his love for his wife; and between this fire, and the fire of the\nold life, he remained poised. Of course it would be madness to suggest\nthat she return with him to the woods and adopt the Adam and Eve mode of\nsociety, so he kept his skeleton securely locked up.\n\nHe had sold his farm for a song, but now he found it could not be\nre-bought for real money. The situation was hopeless. There was no\nretracing of steps. But still the old sounds could not be divorced from\nhis ears; and the old salt-pork barrel was an unpardonable culprit. If\nhe could only sit once again on the old stump which had not been hewn\naway in the centre of his dug-out, it would be a source of joy to him.\nIf he could only smoke the old kin-i-kin-nick pipe, his appetite would\nbe satisfied.\n\nOne day he climbed into his auto and made a bee-line for the old ranch.\nHe would have a rock on that old stump if it should cause a scandal in\nsociety. But the spot where the dug-out once stood was now bare. The\ncabin had been burned to the ground by the new proprietors. He went home\nlike a whipped cur. A link in his beautiful past had vanished. An\nimpassable chasm, of his own making, yawned between him and his desire,\nand he cursed the day which lured him away from his natural, green\npastures.\n\nOne day he disappeared entirely, and when he did not return for several\ndays, and his wife was insane with grief, a search party was sent out in\nquest of him. They found him camping on the old trail, dressed in his\naboriginal attire, eating beans and bacon with his knife, and chewing\nvenison Indian fashion.\n\n\"This is the only square meal I have had since I left the woods,\" he\nsaid, when they captured him; and he filled his pipe with kin-i-kin-nick\nand puffed the sweet, mild fumes. He had returned to his natural\nelement.\n\n\"I have been rounding up stock,\" he said, \"and I shot this buck just\nover the hill there. Here, dig in, it is jake.\"\n\nHe had to live among the steers, and the coyotes, and the wild trails in\naccordance with his early training; original things were his food.\nSociety, and his wife, demanded that he remain on the surface, but his\naboriginal inclinations lured him to the woods; so, during six months of\nevery year he was an Indian to all intents and purposes. Early in May he\nwould load a cayuse with beans, bacon, canned milk, frying pan and\nblankets, and with this treasure he would take to the hills and bask\nthe livelong summer among the junipers, the firs, and the spruces; and\nhe would eat huckleberries, choke-cherries and soap-o-lalies, and smoke\nkin-i-kin-nick until his complexion assumed the tan of the Chilcoten\nIndian.\n\nThe lure of the limelight had been great, but it had worn off just as\nsoon as he had a surfeit of its false glories. He found that beans and\nbacon eaten with a knife were sweeter and more wholesome than \"blanc\nmange,\" \"consomme,\" or \"cafe noir\" cooked in French style, and served by\na French chef.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Too Sure Man\n\n\nOnce upon a time, in the town of Lillooet, county of Lillooet, Province\nof British Columbia, there lived a man who was so sure of his footing\nthat he closed his eyes and floundered along in the dark. When people\ntold him there were chasms in front of him, or that there was ice on the\ntrail ahead, he would not believe them, but put his fingers in his ears\nso that he could not hear, and thus became deaf and blind to his own\ninterests. The people pestered him so much about his folly, and he\nlearned to hate them so much for their interference in his personal\nmatters, that he crossed the names of all his friends from his list of\nsocial possibilities, would recognize none of them, and refused to speak\neven when addressed; he thus became a blind, deaf and dumb mute. The\nresult was that he ultimately slipped upon the ice on the trail, and\nfell into a chasm and has not been seen since. It was in the first days\nof the Lillooet quartz discoveries. Gold had been mined from Cayuse\nCreek, Bridge River, and the Fraser River, in uncountable ounces, in the\nfree state, by the placer or hydraulic process of mining, for a great\nnumber of years, but the source of supply from which the free gold had\noriginated had not yet been located. It was even doubted if there was\nany source of supply, although it was generally conceded that all gold\nwas originally pilfered by the streams and rivers from the hard\nquartz-rocks of which the great mountains of Cayuse Creek and Bridge\nRiver were formed. While some of the miners contented themselves with\nmaking wing-dams, turning streams from their natural courses, and\nscraping about the mud and gravel of the exposed beds for the pure, free\ngold, picking up nuggets at sight and capturing the \"dust\" with\nquicksilver, others, looking for bigger game, climbed the high\nmountains, tore the moss from their sides to expose the rock, and\npounced upon every piece of \"float\" which would indicate the possible\nexistence of a \"mother lode\" somewhere near at hand or higher up.\n\nThe Too Sure Man of this story was one of the latter. He had found a\npiece of \"float rock\" with a shining speck in it near where the nigger's\ncabin now stands on Cayuse Creek in the vicinity of Lillooet, and he\ntraced it to the very spot where it had dropped from the mountain above.\nThere he discovered a ledge several feet wide full of shining specks,\nand he traced it with his eyes right to the bed of the creek.\n\n\"All mine! All mine!\" he shouted.\n\nNow, he was a poor man, and he had a family--which made him poorer; but\nthe sight of this precious piece of \"float\" with the gold sticking out\nof it, and the possession of this enormous ledge of gold-bearing quartz\nmade him a millionaire in an instant. Here was a whole mountain \"lousy\"\nwith gold, all his! Why, Solomon or Vanderbilt would be so small in the\npuddle that he would splash mud on them with his superior tread in the\nsweet \"very soon.\"\n\nNow, the B.C. law prevented him from staking off the entire Lillooet\ndistrict for himself, so he took in a friend (who luckily died before\nthe crash came), and they appropriated as large a portion each of the\ndistrict as the Government at that time would allow. Both of those men\nhad good, steady, paying jobs at the time of the discovery, but the next\nday they threw down their tools--work was too cheap for them. The only\nthing that prevented them from buying an automobile right away on the\ninstalment plan was the fact that the auto had not yet been invented.\nHowever, they had to do something to elevate themselves from the common,\nso they became extravagant in their domestic curriculum. Having no\nmoney, the stores had to \"carry them.\" And then they had their\nassessment work to do on the mine to enable them to hold the claim. They\nhired men to do this and gave them promissory notes payable by the claim\nat an indefinite period. When a man ceases work and begins to live on\nhis \"rainy day\" money, or on the storekeeper, it does not take very long\nbefore he accumulates a burden greater than he can carry. When he begins\nto totter he tries to pass some of the load over to others, and it is\nusually the storekeepers who are willing to assist him to the limit if\nhis assets are in good retrospect. And what could be a greater security\nthan a whole mountain full of gold? So the storekeepers assumed a large\nportion of the Too Sure Man's burden. And their loads became heavier\nand heavier. One day a company came along, attracted by the noise that\nhad been made, and bonded the claims for a few hundred \"plunks\" down and\nthe balance of one hundred thousand dollars in three months if they\ndecided to take the claims over. The offer was gladly accepted, although\nthey wondered why the company hesitated. This few hundred dollars\nenabled the Too Sure Man to tide his family through the winter with warm\nand expensive clothing from the T. Eaton Co., of Toronto, Ontario, while\nthe local grocery man's burden got heavier and heavier. It was during,\nall this time that the people had been cautioning him for his personal\nbenefit. And it was during this time that the Too Sure Man closed his\nears, and his eyes, and his mouth, and became a blind, deaf and dumb\nmute. When the three months were up the company decamped, forfeiting\ntheir few hundred dollars, and then there was \"something doing.\" The Too\nSure Man opened his eyes and his ears and his mouth all at the same time\nas far as ever he could. The claim had proved a failure, there was no\ngold, and only a slight trace on the surface. The local storekeepers,\ngroaning under their load, asked him to relieve them, but he might just\nas well have tried to lift the mountain that held his worthless quartz\nledge. It was just at this point of our story that he slipped on the ice\nand fell into the chasm. He disappeared, bag, baggage, and family; and\nin truth it was the only course open to him.\n\nTo remain and work off his debt and sustain his family at the same time\nwith the increasing pressure of the high cost of living holding him\nunder, would have been an utter impossibility. The impending shock\nkilled his partner, for he died before the crash came. The Too Sure Man\nhas a burden in Lillooet supported by others which he can come and lift\nat any time, and welcome.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Unloved Man\n\n\nOnce upon a time in Ashcroft a bachelor fellow realized abruptly that he\nhad never been loved by one of the opposite sex, although he had reached\nthe age of two score and two, and had a great longing to have one\nincluded in his assessable personal property. Now, as truth is stranger\nthan fiction, the discovery staggered him. What was wrong? What\nmachinery required adjusting? He had the sensation of a boycotted egg,\nand was in danger of spoiling before reaching the consuming market. So\none day he perched himself on the sandhill and began to survey the\nenvirons for a solution to the problem. Why should he be denied this one\nsweet dream? Just think of it--no one had ever sympathized with him in\nhis utter loneliness of bachelorhood. No girl had ever called him her\n\"snooky ookums,\" and he had never had the opportunity of calling any\nfair vision his \"tootsy wootsy.\" The horror of the situation was\nsufficient to stagger an empire. No girl had ever waited at the\npost-office corner for him. No girl had ever tapped on his office window\non Railway Avenue and smiled back at him on her way home from the meat\nmarket. No girl had ever lingered outside for him that she might have\nthe pleasure of his society home to lunch. He had to walk the bridge\nevenings and Sundays alone, while others went in limited liability\ncompanies.\n\nOnce, when he was ill, no angel had volunteered to smooth his pillow,\nand a Chinaman brought up delicacies left over from some other person's\nprevious meal. He had no silent partner. None of the girls knew he had\nbeen ailing, and when he told them weeks after they feigned surprise.\nThere seemed to be an unsurmountable stone wall between him and the\nsweet things of this world. So, day after day, in his leisure moments,\nhe would pace the brow of the sandhill seeking in his mind for a\nsolution to an issue that seemed unfathomable. Was he ugly? No. Was he\nrepulsive? No. Was he a woman hater? No. Was he a criminal? No. Had he\noffended the fair sex in any way? No. Was he poor? No. Did he belong to\nthe human family? Yes. With what disease then was he afflicted? Was it\nheredity? Could he cast the blame upon his ancestors? Up and down the\nThompson valley he searched and searched but he could find no\nanswer--even the echo would not speak. Other fellows seemed to have no\ndifficulty in getting themselves tangled up in the meshes of real\nbeautiful love nets. Even the young bucks who had no visible means of\nsupport for their own apparently useless avoirdupois, picked up the\nlocal gems before his eyes and had them hired out at interest to supply\nthe new family with bread and butter. And all this in the face of the\nfact that _he_ was one of the most prodigious admirers of womankind that\never left his footprints on the sands of Ashcroft.\n\n\"The most flattering appointment a man can have is to be chosen the\ncustodian of one woman,\" he said to himself. \"Life, to a man, is nothing\nif barred from an association of this kind.\"\n\nAt last in despair he wrote to a correspondence paper, and put the whole\ncase before them.\n\n\"I am a young man, aged forty-two, unmarried. I want a solution to the\nproblem why I am unmarried. I have tried and failed. I have had Cupid\nworking overtime for me, but he has failed to pierce any of the bosoms I\nhave coveted. No woman has ever loved me, and although I am aware that\nit is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all, I\nmay say that this affords very poor manna for my hunger.\"\n\nHe received this answer:--\n\n\"Young man\"--(emphasis was placed upon the young)--\"you are too slow.\nYou are asleep, stagnant, dormant, hibernating. The whole world is\n'beating you to it.' Get over your baby superstition about love, and\n'get busy.'\"\n\nThe letter dropped from his fingers as though it had been his monthly\ngrocery bill. \"Heavens!\" he exclaimed, \"here is the solution to the\nwhole mystery.--Forget love and 'get busy.'\" Instead of expecting to be\nloved, he would love. If he could not get one who would want _him_, he\nwould get one he wanted himself.\n\nNow, he had had such an admiration for the fair sex as a whole, that he\ncould not concentrate his attention on the individual one. He had been\ntrying to extract a cinder from the eye of the opposition when he could\nnot see properly owing to having a large obstacle in his own eye.\nHowever, he proceeded to \"get busy.\" But what vision would he \"get busy\"\non? Every woman had an attraction peculiar to herself, one of which\ncould not be said to extinguish the other. And then, most of them were\n\"staked off.\" One fellow or another had \"strings\" on every one he\napproached. But he kept on fishing with all his might. In the meantime\nit came to pass that the girls continued to cast their spells upon\nalmost anyone but him; even the itinerant stranger who just chanced\nalong \"hitting the high spots,\" and \"travelling on his face\" came in for\nlarge portions of the \"sweet stuff\" that was being cast lavishly abroad.\n\nIt seemed cruel that he who had such an admiration for those on the\nother side of the house, and who had such an ambition to own one as an\nasset, should be so unmercifully neglected. His efforts to catch a wife\nby the legitimate method, according to his idea, had ended like a\nfishing expedition in the off season in the Thompson river. About this\ntime he found that the nomads were catching all the fish. He made up his\nmind to become a nomad and be a wanderer on the face of the Cariboo\ndistrict. He could not love.\n\nHe resigned his position in Ashcroft and migrated up the Cariboo road.\nHe invaded Lillooet, Clinton, 150 Mile House, Soda Creek, Quesnel,\nBarkerville and Fort George. To secure a wife he became an itinerant.\nWithin the space of a year he was back at his position at Ashcroft more\nlonely than ever. It was of no avail--he was hoodooed. He could not\nlove.\n\nAt this juncture he made another and final discovery, and it was the\nmost important one he had made at this period of his renaissance. He\nfound out that \"get busy\" had two meanings. It meant \"forget love of all\nkinds and go to it in a business-like way.\" This had been a chronic case\nof a man, in his ignorance, who was prospecting around the hills of this\nBritish Columbia of ours for a metal that had no existence. He did not\nknow that ninety out of every hundred marriages resulted merely from\nconvenience, or a mere desire to be married on the part of the man, and\nthe love of a private home on the part of the woman; that nine out of\nthe remaining ten were marriages in which one of the parties only was\nthe love-giver, and that the remaining one was the ideal, in which love\nwas mutual and beautiful. This Ashcroft bachelor fellow was a\nsentimental monstrosity. He was imbued with the superstition that one\nmust love, and be loved, before one could marry. No aphorism could be\nfurther removed from the truth. The glaring realism dawned upon him that\nit was quite possible for a person to flounder through this world and be\nentirely immune from the love epidemic; that few people ever marry the\none they do really love, that some are never sought after by one of the\nopposite sex during their whole life, only in a business-like way; that\nmodern society was too busy to entertain such a silly superstition as\nlove--that Cupid was a dead issue. He had been waiting until he fell in\nlove or till someone fell in love with him, and thus opportunity had\nbeen knocking at his door all those years in vain. When he had joined\nthe iconoclast society, and had shattered this pet idol of his, he began\nto look around for a wife in the same manner as he would for a car of\nAshcroft potatoes--and he soon \"landed\" one branded with the \"big A.\"\nAnd the amusing part of it is they lived happily--all of which goes to\nprove our contention that those who love before marriage are not always\nthe happier after their nuptials; and sometimes it is a mere matter of\nmaking the best of a bad bargain, and you will be perfectly happy though\nmarried, even if your stock in trade of the love commodity is very much\nimpoverished.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Chief who was Bigger than He Looked\n\n\nOnce upon a time in the Thompson valley there lived a mighty warrior\nkookpi (chief) called Netaskit. He was chief of all the Shuswaps. His\nname had become a household word the entire length and breadth of the\nPacific coast, and the tribes along the Fraser river and the Pemberton\nMeadows had knowledge, through many sad experiences, of his bravery and\ndaring. Among his own people his word was law, and to show the white\nfeather in the face of an enemy meant certain court martial and death at\nhis hands. Although his subjects feared him, they respected him beyond\nbelief; and to serve him was considered a great honor. It is not our\npurpose to convey the impression that this kookpi was cruel,\ntreacherous, cold-blooded and selfish only, and a man who had no other\nambition than war and the spoils of war. No, if he was a fiend on the\nbattlefield, he was a lamb at home. He had a soft side that battled with\nthe concrete in him at times. His weakness was his insane love for\nwoman, and in his own kikwilly house (home) he was as timid as the\nsmumtum (rabbit). His respect for Cupid had as much avoirdupois as his\nrespect for Mars. His love for his wife was an insane love--it far\noutdid his love for his chiefdom. And he had a wife who was worthy of\nhim and as faithful to him as he was to her--she adored the very skins\nhe wore across his shoulders. Being happily united himself, and having\nsuch a respect for Cupid and the fair sex, he passed a law that no man\nor woman should take unto themselves a partner for life until thoroughly\nsatisfied and convinced that the love flames between them would be of\neverlasting duration, and were genuine.\n\n\"Woman,\" he said, \"was made to be loved, and not enslaved. My\nconsideration for the welfare of our women exceeds that for our men,\nbecause man is so constituted as to be more able to take care of\nhimself.\" So much was this old prehistoric chief away ahead of his dark,\nheathen times. But this masculine weakness of his was nearly his undoing\nwith his warriors, as we shall see.\n\nOne day a rumor went abroad that the Statlemulth (Lillooet Indians) were\nmaking their way through the Marble Canyon, and down Hat Creek, to\nattack the Shuswaps on the Bonaparte, in revenge for some misdemeanor at\nsome former time, on the part of the latter. It was just about the time\nof the year when the Shuswaps were in the habit of invading the Fraser\nriver at Pavilion for their winter supply of salmon; and, to be cut off\nfrom this source of revenue would mean a great deal to the Bonaparte\nIndians. The invading army must be met and the entire band put to death,\nor made prisoners.\n\nTelephone messages in Indian fashion were flashed from kikwilly house to\nkikwilly house, and in a couple of days the entire strength of the\nShuswaps was gathered in a great army with Netaskit at its head. The\nmarch began at an early hour the following morning, and the enemy was\nmet near the mouth of the canyon where they had called a halt for the\npurpose of hunting and putting up o-lil-ies (berries). In a moment the\nair was filled with war whoops, and the arrows flew thick and fast. The\nwomen took to their heels and ran the moment the fray began, and they\ndid not stop until they reached Squilachwah (Pavilion) near the Fraser\nriver. The smumtum and the groundhog betook themselves to the high\nmountains, so great was the battle, and their fright--and it is only\nwithin recent years that they have ventured back to that spot. The\nbattle raged loud and long. Netaskit was in the thick of the fight and\nclaimed that he had killed twenty of the enemy with his own bow. Many\nwere wounded and slain on both sides; but the Shuswaps won the day, and\nthey led home in triumph fifty prisoners. And now comes the most\ninteresting part of our story. A counsel of war was held, and it was\ndecided that the prisoners should be put to death the following day.\nWhen the time arrived, the unfortunate men were brought out, bound with\nthongs hand and foot and placed in line near the big chief's wigwam.\nFifty victors were lined up in front of them with their bows and arrows\nready to shoot at the word of command from their chief, who was pacing\nup and down in his dignity and anger. Suddenly the love demon took\npossession of him. He thought of his love for his wife--her love for\nhim. He pictured to himself his possible death and the agony of his\nwidow. He pictured her death and his own agony of mind at his loss. He\nshuddered as the messages flashed through his mind. He looked at the\nunfortunate victims--he thought of their women--sweethearts, wives.\n\n\"Halt!\" he shouted to his men. And turning to the wretches before him he\nsaid:\n\n\"Statlemulth! listen. You have committed a great wrong in making this\nexpedition against the Shuswaps. The Ko-cha Kookpi (god) is very angry.\nYou should be shot dead but you can save yourselves. Listen. I will\npardon every man of you who can produce a wife or a sweetheart who can\nprove to my satisfaction that her love for you is greater than the voice\nof the Thompson, and fiercer than the roar of the Fraser.\"\n\n\"Never!\" shouted the tribesmen, and every bow and arrow was turned\nsimultaneously upon the chief.\n\n\"Slaves! Cowards!\" thundered the enraged and fearless kookpi, like a\nmountain lion in pain. In a moment every bow and arrow fell by its\nwarrior's side.\n\nAs the consequence of this act on the part of his subjects is of no\nimportance to this story, we will leave it to the reader's imagination\njust what sort of punishment was doled out to them. It is safe to say,\nhowever, that Netaskit was too wise a kookpi to order the death of so\nmany brave followers, as this means of gratifying his wounded pride\nwould simply mean the weakening of the tribe, and would put his own life\nin jeopardy.\n\nA message was sent to the Lillooet illihae (country) with the glad\ntidings, and at the close of two days a swarm of smootlatches (women),\nand keekas (girls), rushed into camp breathless, and began hysterically\nsearching for their respective sweethearts or husbands among the\nprisoners. The scene was more than poetic; and it was pathetic in the\nextreme. It was a scene that had not occurred before on the broad\nsurface of the earth--those fifty distracted squaws rushing into the\njaws of death in their eagerness to rescue the ones without whom life\nwould be empty, useless, aimless. It is said that it melted the heart of\nthe very rocks about the place, so that to this day the surface of the\nearth at that spot betrays evidence of having at one time been running\nlava.\n\nThe captives were lined up before the kookpi's kikwilly house, and the\nlittle army of love-mad squaws, awful in their primitiveness, rushed at\nthe line, selected their respective skiuchs (men), and clung to them,\nhugged them, kissed them wildly in the awful heat of their passion, each\nin her eagerness to save one at all hazards for her own selfish, but\nnatural self. And no power on earth could tear them asunder. It melted\nthe hearts of the victors so that they called out with one voice: \"Go,\nyou have won!\" and as they moved away shouting, and laughing, and\ndancing, Netaskit was seen to weep, so great was his respect for Cupid.\n\n\"O woman! woman!\" he was heard to exclaim. And this is the reason there\nis so much harmony between the Statlemulth and the Shuswap to-day.\n\n\n\n\nOf Simple Simon Up To Date\n\n\nOnce upon a time in Ashcroft there lived a \"Simon\" who had no knowledge\nof the purchasing value of his salary asset. He did not know that its\nbuying powers were narrowed down to bread and butter and overalls; and\nas a consequence he was victimized down into a very precarious financial\npredicament, to say nothing about the valuable and most vigorous and\nproductive years of his life, that were thrown into the scrap heap of\ntime, and had to be cancelled from his list of revenue-producers.\n\nWhen you contemplate a steady wage asset of one hundred dollars per\nmonth coming in with the regularity of clockwork and as sure as the\nfirst day comes around (and the months go by very quickly), you think\nyou are in a fair way to make some of the local financiers look very\ncheap in a few years to come. Why, this means twelve hundred dollars\nevery time the earth circumnavigates the sun, and is sixty thousand\ndollars in fifty years, which is not very long to a man if he can start\njust as soon as he passes the entrance and can build on no intervening\nlay-off by getting on the wrong side of the boss. But when we offset\nwith our liabilities, such as tobacco money, moving picture money, car\nfare, gasoline, rent, taxes, repairs to the auto, and other trifling\nincidentals such as food and clothing, we find at the end of the lunar\nexcursion that there is no balance to salt down on the right side of our\nledger, and our little castle becomes submerged because it was built\nwith its foundation on the shifting sands.\n\nBut for all that, if a man and his money could be left alone--if money\nwere not such an envy-producer--if a man with money had not so many\nfriends and admirers and strangers who love him at first sight--all\nmight yet be well; and though he might not outclass some of the most\ncorpulent magnates, he might in time acquire considerable moss in his\nown private, insignificant, Simple-Simon sort of way. But the laws of\nnature have willed otherwise, and the strongest of us know that it is\nneedless to go into litigation with the laws of gravitation, or\nspontaneous combustion.\n\nAmong the workings of nature (which some people say are all for the\nbest), there is a class of men who have, rather truthfully, been called\n\"sharks\" on account of their fishlike habit of pouncing upon suckers\nunawares and without the legal three days' grace being given, and of\nloading them into their stomachs--finances and all--before the person\nhas time to draw and throw his harpoon. It all happens while you are\ntaking a mouthful of tea, or while you are reading the locals in the\n_Ashcroft Journal_, and when the spell leaves, you find that you have\nendorsed a proposition with a financial payment down, and the balance\nsubject to call when you are very much financially embarrassed indeed.\n\nSimple Simon was one of those men who move about this world unprotected\nand without having their wits about them. He was not a sawfish, or a\nswordfish. So one day when he was walking up Railway Avenue--it was just\nthe day after he had told someone that he had five hundred dollars of\nscrapings salted down, which was earning three per cent, at the local\nbank--a very pretentious gentleman, spotlessly attired, accosted him:\n\n\"Pardon me. Are you Mr. Simon?\"\n\n\"I have that asset,\" said Simple, wondering how the aristocratic\nstranger had known him.\n\n\"I thought so. I knew at a glance. The fact is, I have just been\nspeaking with Mr. C. Quick.\" (This was a lie. Mr. C. Quick was one of\nthe money magnates of Ashcroft, but had not hired out his name as an\nendorsement)--\"and he recommended you to me as one of the leading men of\nthe town.\" (This was a ruse, but it hit the bull's eye, and at the final\ncount was one of the most telling shots.)\n\n\"I am pleased to meet you,\" said Simple. \"And so am I,\" said the shark.\n\"As a matter of fact, I only approach the better part of any community,\"\nhe continued, pulling in on the line. \"To tell you the truth, Mr. C.\nQuick said you were the only man in the town who had both foundation and\nsubstantial structure from your roots up,\" and he laughed a broad sort\nof \"horse-laugh,\" and slapped Simon on the shoulder.\n\n\"You see, with a proposition such as I have there is little use going to\nany but men of the greatest intelligence--those are the ones who\nunderstand the magnitude and the security and the ultimate paying\ncertainties of the proposition which I have to offer you. You may\nconsider yourself fortunate. It is not everyone who has the opportunity\nto get in on the ground floor, as it were, on a sure thing\nmoney-accumulating business. By the way, where is your office?\"\n\nSimon led the shark to his private dug-out on Brink Street, and showed\nhim into one of his cane-bottomed thrones, while he himself sat on the\nyet unlaundered bed.\n\n\"Of course you understand all about joint stock companies, trust fund\ncompanies, municipal bonds and debentures,\" said the magnate, unrolling\na bundle of unintelligible papyrus showing assets which did not exist,\nand spreading them out on the bed in front of his victim. The whole\nsystem had been premeditated and had been systematically worked out.\n\"Now,\" said the shark, pointing at long and encouraging figures, \"those\nare assets and these are our liabilities; and besides we have a million\ndollar Government endorsement. Now, the fact of the matter is this. You\nhave a few dollars. I have a few dollars; Tom, Dick and Harry have a few\ndollars, and so have Jessie and Josie. Now, those little private funds\nwhich we all cherish and fondle, and hug to our bosoms, and jingle in\nour pockets, are of no use to us. They are dead. Of course they are\nearning three per cent, at the B.N.A. or the Northern Crown--what bank\ndo you deposit with?--of course, it does not matter; there is no\ncompetition among them; they pay you three per cent. and charge you ten\nper cent. Now, we are very much different. We give you all your money\nwill make--if it is ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, or one hundred per cent.\nSee?\n\n\"Now, the fact of the matter is this: as I said before, those small\nindividual fortunes are of no use to us individually; they have no\nearning power; they will not buy anything. But, put them all\ntogether--ah! the result is magical. You see, it is the aggregate that\ncounts. Now with this theory in view, our company gets to work and\ncanvasses the country and it gathers together thousands of little,\nuseless, insignificant, unproductive funds like yours and mine and joins\nthem together into one vast, giant aggregate which we call a trust fund.\nI see it is appealing to you. It could not be otherwise. Now, with this\naggregate, you, and I, and everyone can own vast estates, buy forty-year\ndebentures, lend money on approved security, buy real estate, the\nunearned increment of which will net in some cases two or three hundred\nper cent. interest, besides an increased valuation on the original sum\ninvested.\"\n\nPerhaps every living man in the Dominion of Canada and the United States\nwho betrays the least pretensions to having any money in his possession\nhas heard a harangue of this kind many times in his life, and it is just\nas certain that the first time he heard it he was stung. Now, Simon was\nno exception to the rule, which proves that we are not all swordfish.\nHe felt himself being hypnotized, magnetized, charmed. He pictured\nhimself as personal owner of lots, houses, acres--a joint owner of vast\ntracts of land along the G.T.P. or C.N.R.; and the shark showed him a\nfacsimile of the certificates that would be issued to him when his\nshares were paid up in full. They were very neat and legal-like, and a\nman should be proud to own one of them.\n\n\"You see,\" said the magnate, as he realized that he had the victim\nfalling into his trap, \"we do not require to sell any more shares; we\nare doing well enough now, and some say we should leave well enough\nalone. But, a corporation of the nature of ours cannot rest on its oars;\nwe must reach out for greater and better things, and to accomplish this\nwe must have more capital. The fact is, a proposition has just been put\nto us, the nature of which I am not just now at liberty to divulge, but\nit is a sure winner. But it takes capital, as I said before, and we are\ncompelled to sell some more stock. And, after all, it will be you and I\nwho will benefit, and a hundred or more favored ones who have small\nsavings which are netting them nothing at present, and the principal of\nwhich is rusting in the bank at three per cent.\n\n\"Now, to come down to business. Will you join us? Now, I am not going to\npress you. There are hundreds too willing; but remember, you will regret\nit if you lose this chance of a lifetime. Opportunity is knocking at\nyour door; seize it by the fore-lock.\n\n\"The proposition I have to put before you is this: We are selling\nshares at one hundred dollars each, but if you have not the cash now, we\nwill allow you six, twelve and eighteen months on the balance with a\npayment of five hundred dollars down if you buy twenty shares. The\nreason we are able to make such liberal offers is that we receive the\nsame terms in buying up debentures.\"\n\nSimon was completely victimized. His tormentor might just as well have\naddressed him in Latin, for he knew so little about debentures, joint\nstock funds and the intricacies of high finance that he could not follow\nthe promoter and was completely dazzled with the obscurity and eloquence\nof the language. And then the magnate spoke so rapidly that only\nlightning could keep up with him. The result was that Simon fell into\nthe trap and was pinched. He not only gave away all his rainy day money,\nbut he burdened himself with a debt, which, to a working man, was a\nmountain, and more than he could carry. He sold his house to meet the\nnext two payments, and just as the third payment came due the company\nwent into liquidation, and it consumed all their available assets to\ndiscover that there was nothing left for the shareholders. And Simple\nSimon began life over again.\n\n\n\n\nOf the High Class Eskimo\n\n\nAway up in the great northland, even further north than the northern\nboundary of British Columbia, there lives a race of people who form, and\nhave formed, no part of the great human civilization of the world which\nhas been, and is going on in the more moderately climatic regions of the\nearth. For centuries they have lived apart, and have taken no notice of\nthe big world which has been, and is living itself to death far from\nthem down in the indolent south, where the sun could shine every day in\nthe year--where it did shine every day that it was not cloudy, and where\nthere was no long, dreary, dark midnight of at least four months'\nduration; where the sun did not dip beneath the horizon at about the\nbeginning of October, and disappear, not to be seen again until the end\nof March; where, in some parts, there was no snow, while in others only\nfor a few weeks during the year. No snow! no ice! Can you imagine such a\ncondition? And up there it is almost the Eskimo's only commodity. He\neats it, drinks it, lives in it, sleeps on it, and his castle is built\nof it. And he endures it year after year, from his babyhood to his gray\ndays, and there appears no hope for him. Bare ground is a curiosity to\nthe Eskimo; and there are no spring freshets. Their bridges across their\nstreams are formed of ice; the very salt sea is covered with it; and\nthey venture out on those great floors of ice in search of the polar\nbear and the right whale which form almost their only food, and supply\nthem with their only source of clothing, heat and light. In the midst of\nhis narrow and cramped circumstances the Eskimo can laugh at times as\nheartily as any other human, and he has grown extremely low in stature\nto accommodate himself to the small opening which gives access to his\nigloo (house). The average man or woman does not exceed much over four\nfeet. No other explanation seems to have been offered by science for the\nextreme dwarfishness in stature of this curious race of people.\n\nLike the polar bear--almost their only associate in those northern and\nfrozen wilds--the idea never occurred to this people to migrate south\nwhere the earth is bare and warm, and is clothed in a green mantle;\nwhere the sun shines every day; where the land is flowing with milk and\nhoney; where peaches and water melons grow, and where it is not\nnecessary to go through a hole in the ice to take a bath. No, this\nstrange people, whose food is ice, whose bed is ice, whose home is ice,\nand whose grave is ice, are part and parcel of the snowy north; and they\nlive on, apparently happy and contented with their hard life and\nuncongenial environment. Where the white man begins to be uncomfortable,\nthe Eskimo begins to be at home. Where the white man leaves off the\nEskimo begins, and his haunts penetrate away into the far north--into\nthe land of perpetual ice and snow. Where we go only to explore he\nbuilds his permanent abode.\n\nBut this is not a history of the geographical distribution of men; it is\nto be the story of an Eskimo who went astray according to the moral\nideals of his immediate tribesmen.\n\nOnce upon a time there lived in this northland of which we have been\nspeaking a young native who had mysteriously arrived at the conclusion\nthat the life of an Eskimo was a very narrow and fruitless existence\nindeed, and that the conditions under which they lived were totally\ninadequate to supply the demands of a twentieth century human being. In\nthe midst of the other members of the family he assumed an attitude of\nweariness and contempt for his associates and environs. \"One may as well\nassociate with a polar bear,\" he soliloquized. \"Man was made to\naccomplish things; the Eskimo is no further advanced in the scale of\nliving, organic beings, to all intent and purpose, than the polar bear,\nor the walrus. He is born, lives, eats, sleeps, hunts, kills, dies, and\nis buried in the cold frozen earth, if he does not fall through a hole\nin the ice into the bottomless sea. To the south of us is a great\nhealthy world where men live; where they have discovered all that the\nworld has to give, and where they enjoy those things to the utmost;\nwhere they read and write and take records of their doings. Me for the\nsouth!\" he shouted, and he made up his mind to migrate at the first\nopportunity and be in the swim with men. \"I must learn to read and\nwrite and think, even if I have to forget my own language,\" he declared.\n\nNow, it came to pass that as he was soliloquizing as above one morning,\na girl appeared before him. She was so muffled up in furs that only an\nEskimo could distinguish whether the bundle was male or female. She sat\ndown beside him and placed her short, stubby, muffled arm as far around\nhis neck as it would go, and in this attitude she coaxed, and begged,\nand prayed, and argued with him, thinking that she might resurrect him\nto himself again. But when she found that his mania was for the south,\nshe wept as only woman can weep the whole world over, even in the far\nnorth where the tears are in danger of freezing to her cheeks. But he,\nin his brutish, advanced-thought sort of way, pushed her from him.\n\n\"If you love me you will help me to go,\" he said. \"If you love me you\nwill stay,\" she responded.\n\nHe rose and moved towards his igloo; she followed. He crawled like a\nbear through the thirty feet or more of narrow tunnel which led into the\nhut proper. She did likewise. In the igloo he threw himself down on the\nice floor among the squalor and quantities of bear meat in various\nstages of decomposition. The smell from the whale-oil lamp almost choked\nhim. The girl sat down and continued to cling to him.\n\n\"Let me go to the south and I will make a lady of you,\" he said. \"I will\ngive you gold and silver and feather beds. These environs are not fit\nfor a bear to hibernate in. Just think of our branch of the human family\nexisting and suffering up here among the ice and snow for thousands of\nyears and not having advanced one step from the hovel in which we were\nfirst produced? Is the Eskimo destined to everlasting failure--perpetual\ndegeneration? Must you and I be satisfied and consent to endure this\nanimal existence to the end of our days because it is our only heritage\nfrom our ancestors? No! I say, a thousand times no. I am ashamed of\nmyself, my ancestors and my entire race,\" he shouted, and the girl\nalmost trembled in fear of him. He must surely be demented. But she\nstill clung to him, thinking that her enchanting presence might cure\nhim. Thus love can be a very warm thing even up among the cold ice and\nsnow. Their cold, half frozen cheeks came together and she kissed him.\n\"Stay,\" she murmured, coaxingly, as only a woman can.\n\n\"I will take passage south,\" he continued unheedingly, \"and will plunge\nmyself into the midst of the big, busy, warm world, and will gain with\none bound that social condition which it has taken the white man\nthousands of years to attain.\"\n\nNow, after all, was this man not right, and is the Eskimo not to be\npitied?\n\nThe girl, seeing that her whole world was about to vanish from her, left\nthe igloo weeping, and again crawled like a bear through the narrow\ntunnel to the colder world outside.\n\nOne day when the sun was just about to make its appearance above the\nhorizon, and the long night was nearly at an end, two half starved and\npartially frozen white men burrowed their way into our hero's igloo and\nasked for food and shelter. The night had been long, dreary, dark and\ncold, and the approaching return of the sun was welcomed like a\nprodigal. Is it a wonder then that the Eskimo worships the sun? It seems\nhis only hope, his only comfort; and it would seem to him, more than to\nany other, the source of all life, his only friend in his dire need. The\nEskimo offered the two strangers some meat, which they devoured\ngreedily; and then they told a long, pitiful story. They were explorers.\nTheir ship had been crushed hopelessly between masses of ice. Fifty had\nstarted on the long journey south. Provisions gave out. Men had dropped\noff daily. The trail was one long line of frozen corpses stretched out\nin the dark and silent night. They two alone had survived, so far as the\nstrangers were able to tell. It was the usual tale of woe which befalls\nthe Arctic or Antarctic explorers. Beginning happily, hopefully,\nbuoyantly; ending in misery, sorrow and death. The strangers wanted a\nguide to lead them to the south--to civilization and warmth. They had\nnot known what it was to be comfortable for two years; and they had not\nseen one square inch of bare ground during that period.\n\n\"Oh, for a sight of mother earth!\" they shouted. \"We would gladly eat\nthe soil, and chew the bark from the trees.\" Thus one does not\nappreciate the most trivial and simple but indispensable things until\none is deprived of them for a period of more or less duration.\n\nOur hero agreed to guide them so far as his knowledge extended--even to\nthe very gateway between the north and south lands--if they would\nguarantee to guide him from that point into their own big, beautiful\nworld further on; they taking the helm when his usefulness as a guide\nwould be exhausted; and he explained his ambition to them.\n\nSo, one morning when summer was approaching, and the sun, for the first\ntime in the year was sending her streamers above the horizon, and when\nhis sweetheart Lola stood with arms outstretched over the cold snow and\nice towards him, pleading and sending forth her last appeal to his stony\nheart, he walked out across the white table-land towards the south, and\nwas soon a small black speck in the far horizon.\n\nWhen the strange expedition reached Dawson they discarded their\nhibernating costumes and substituted more modern ones, not so much\nbecause they were out of fashion, but because they rendered them\nsomewhat uncomfortable. At this point the white men grasped the helm and\nthe Eskimo followed. At Fort Fraser our hero discarded more of his\nclothing, and at Quesnel he became determined to strip himself. \"I\ncannot stand this heat,\" he said; \"why, it will kill me.\"\n\n\"Heat? Kill you?\" exclaimed his two companions. \"Why, the thermometer is\nscarcely above the freezing point. If this moderate climate makes you\nuncomfortable, what will be your condition in California? Why, you will\nmelt away like a candle beside a red-hot stove.\" And thus they joked\nwith him, not taking him seriously. So they sailed along and in due time\nreached Ashcroft. The Eskimo perspired to such an extent that his\ncondition threatened to become dangerous. The slightest covering of\nclothing became a burden to him, and it was only with the greatest\ndifficulty that his companions could prevent him from stripping himself\nnaked. They persuaded him that he should return before it was too late,\nbut he would not hear of it. \"I have made my nest; I will sit in it to\nthe bitter end,\" he said. They boarded the midnight train, and in a few\nmoments he was fleeing to the sunny south a great deal faster than ever\ndog team or sledge had taken him across the frozen plateau. And the\nfarther south he went the more he suffered from the heat, until he was\nin great danger of melting away. And then the truth dawned upon him; it\nhad never occurred to him before. He was a fish trying to live out of\nwater. He discovered that what his mind had pictured, and his heart had\nlonged for, his constitution could not endure. He was doomed to live and\ndie in the frozen north. Oh, those savage, unprogressive, half-animal\nancestors! And for the first time he thought of his igloo, his dog\nteams, the polar bear, and the little woman who had pleaded with him to\nremain; and he saw her standing as he had left her with outstretched\narms, while her very heart tissue was being torn asunder. \"Oh, for the\nice and snow and the long, dark night,\" he exclaimed; \"anything but this\nawful heat.\" When they reached San Francisco he was almost insane, and\nhis condition became critical; and, as if to punish him for his folly,\nthe heat became intense for a few days. They rushed him to the sea\nshore and he plunged into the water, and refused to come out again.\nThose were the most congenial surroundings he had found since he left\nthe frozen north. He was in such misery that he did not have time to\nenjoy the wonders of civilization which he had risked so much to see.\nThus does distance lend enchantment to the view. This was an instance of\nhow a man had grown up with his environment--had inherited qualities or\nweaknesses applicable to his surroundings, had breathed the air of one\nplanet so long that the atmosphere of another was poison to him. He had\nenvied others a lot which it was constitutionally impossible for him to\nemulate. And he wept for his hereditary infirmities and failings. Could\na man be blamed for regretting his ancestors and cursing the fate, or\nthe necessity which drove them into those northern fastnesses at the\nearly stages of their existence? Here again the white man was to blame,\nfor he, in his eagerness and greed, had seized upon the cream of the\nearth for himself and had driven all inferior or weaker peoples to all\nthe four corners of the globe. And of all the unfortunate, subordinate\nraces, the Eskimo was the most unfortunate, and their condition savored\nof discrimination on the part of the powers that governed or ordained\nthings.\n\nAs our hero had only one ambition while in the north--an insane notion\nto go south--he had only one ambition while in California--an\noverpowering ambition to go north.\n\n\"Oh, for a mantle of snow, and a canopy of ice!\" he shouted. \"And, oh,\nfor one touch on mine of my Lola's cold, sweet cheek. Oh, for the\nfrozen, hopeless northland, even if its condition means the perpetual\ndoom and obliteration of the whole Eskimo race!\"\n\nThey shipped him north as fast as steam could carry him, and from Dawson\nhe went on foot, becoming day by day more and more his natural self.\nWhen he neared his igloo he found his Lola standing with outstretched\narms to welcome him even as she had mourned his departure, and he\nrealized for the first time that the love and companionship of one woman\nis worth more than all the riches and wonders of the world put together.\nThey embraced each other with the grip of a vice, in the awful power of\ntheir natures, and their affection was as genuine as the most civilized\nvariety. And there he threw himself on the earth and hugged the snow of\nhis dear northland.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Sweet Young Things\n\n\nOnce upon a time in Ashcroft a very foolish young man married a very\nfoolish young lady. They were foolish in so far as they had entered a\nmatrimonial partnership without the preliminary requisite of love. He\nmarried because he wanted a wife, as all good men do; she married\nbecause she wanted a home, as all good women do. But, as we have said,\nthey married too hastily in their eagerness for those mere mundane\npleasures. Each had been known to lie awake many nights before their\nmarriage summing up the situation, and putting two and two together;\nbut, as they were both liberal in their political views, and had no\nconservative opposition, the two and two always made four without a\ndecimal remainder, and the house voted for marriage with an overwhelming\nmajority. So they became legally united before they were morally mature\nfor love, and before they had formal introduction to the great things of\nthe world. After the solemnization of their marriage they adjourned to a\nbeautiful little home which had been made to order; and it was guarded\nby a beautiful garden of Eden.\n\nFor a short time everything went merry as the Ashcroft curlers' ball.\nHer happiness was all he lived for, and his comfort was the only excuse\nshe could find for living. Nothing was too good for his Maud; no man\nwas like her Manfred. They each congratulated themselves that they had\nhooked the best fish from the Thompson. There was nothing in the world\noutside of their own sweet lives. How others could live outside of\n_their_ sphere was a mystery to them; and the hugs and kisses which they\ndid not treat themselves to daily would be of no commercial value as a\nlove asset.\n\nFor the first few weeks they spent their evenings with their tentacles\nwound around each other so tightly that they would have passed for one\nanimal; but they had not been welded by that permanent binding quality\nwhich is essential to perpetual happiness. Their natures seemed to\nblend, but it was only a case of superfluous friendship between them.\nThey had no reason to fall out, no excuse to quarrel. They had one mind,\none ambition, and they had agreed, mutually, to salt down a few \"plunks\"\neach payday for their anticipated gray days. In fact, they seemed better\n\"cut out\" for each other than many who marry loving desperately and\nsavagely.\n\nIn a few sweet years they had a few sweet children, and life was one\nsweet dream. But they did not love each other, and without oxygen the\nlights ultimately became extinguished. But this was only because the\nironies of fate had discovered that they were too happy, and that\nsomething must be done to damage their heavenliness.\n\nThe honeymoon might, otherwise, have lasted all their long lives without\ninterruption. But fate decreed that the clouds should gather from the\nnorth, south, east and west to obliterate their sun. It happened in the\nshape of two monsters in the form of Flossy and Freddy. Flossy and\nFreddy were float rocks. They had been picked up by Maud and Manfred on\ntheir face value and welcomed to the family circle. They had been\nassayed at the provincial assay office and found to contain a valuable\npercentage of real collateral; so our hero and heroine could not be\nreproached for taking them into their arms and allowing them the freedom\nof their home pastures. But, ah! this is where the evil one sneaked on\nto the happy hearth-rug--they took the strangers into their arms. They\nwere all young; and, moreover, human. What could they do when the\nfailings of their ancestors of a million years took them in an iron grip\nand led them in a hypnotic spell toward the brink of ruin? They were as\nhelpless as the Liberals in B.C. politics in the year 1912. We have\noften quoted that every one must love one of the opposite sex at least\nonce in a lifetime, and our hero and heroine were not immune from this\nstern gravitation law, because they were only human after all. What was\nthe consequence? Maud fell hopelessly in love with Fred, and Manfred\nlost his conscience, his manhood, his heart, his soul, his brains, his\njob and his salary over the Flossy vision. They had fallen foul of a\nstrong Conservative party, and civil war broke out. The former happy\ncouple looked upon each other as intruders, as disturbers of the peace.\nWhile before they could not get close enough, now they could not get far\nenough apart. Manfred would enjoy his evenings at the ball or opera\nwith Flossy, while Fred would entertain Maud, much to her pleasure, at\nhome. The wife hated to see her husband come home at all, but she went\ninto hysterics when Fred arrived. When Fred and Flossy were away, or\nabsent, goodness knows where, the once happy home was like a lunatic\nasylum, in which the mania with the inmates was a total disregard of\neach other, and where language was unknown. The husband and wife drifted\nfurther and further apart. They ceased to smile, ceased to know each\nother, ceased to see each other. They were like a lion and a tiger in\nthe same cage.\n\nAs time went on the once happy home became a horrid prison. The children\nbecame detestable brats who were stumbling-blocks to their ambitions.\n\nManfred cooked his own meals, or ate at the \"French\" Cafe. Maud had to\npurchase food and clothing from the local emporium with money she had\nsaved up before marriage while waiting table at the \"Best\" Hotel.\nFinance became frenzied, for Manfred spent both principal, interest and\nsinking fund on his affinity. Starvation and the cold world were staring\nthem in the face, for the wolf and the collection man were howling at\nthe door. The city cut off their light and water supply for non-payment\nof dues, and were about to seize the property for arrears; so they were\non the water wagon and in darkness, but still they would not regain\nconsciousness.\n\nThe usual course of events did not apply in this strange case. There was\nno jealousy floating on the surface on the part of the husband and wife.\nMaud ignored Manfred's insane attitude towards Flossy because she had\nthe same love-blind sickness and could see no one but Fred. Far from\nbeing jealous, Manfred viewed his wife in the light of a white man's\nburden which he could not shake off. Christian's burden was fiction\nbeside it. Flossy was the only star in his firmament--the only toad in\nhis puddle.\n\nThe children were neglected, and ran wild in the bush. It was as though\nsome great Belgian calamity had overtaken the household and had riven it\nasunder. The garden lost its lustre, irrigation was discontinued, the\nfruit trees lost their leaves prematurely; the very willows wept. The\npickets fell from the fence unheeded; the stovepipe smoked, and the\nchickens laid away in the neighbor's yard. The house assumed the\nappearance of a deserted sty. Divorce was suggested inwardly--that\nmodern refuge to which the weak-minded flee in seeking a drastic cure\nfor a temporary ailment; and all this disruption in two hearts which had\ntripped along together so smoothly and pleasantly. Surely love,\nmisapplied, is a curse. It is surely sometimes a severe form of\ninsanity. If so, those two were insane, just waiting for the pressure to\nbe removed from the brain. And, theirs was a pitiful and unfruitful case\nindeed. They were--\n\n        Thirst crazed; fastened to a tree,\n        By a sweet river running free.\n\nIn the meantime Fred and Flossy were having \"barrels\" of amusement at\nthe expense of the demented ones. Fred and Flossy were perhaps in the\nwrong in causing such an upheaval in a very model household. But they\nwere young, and the mischief had taken root before they suspected that\nany such danger was in existence. When the awfulness of the situation\ndawned upon them they looked at each other one day in the interrogative\nand agreed that the poisonous weed should be uprooted. But since it had\ngrown to such proportions it was difficult to arrive at a means by which\nthe evil could be strangled. Now Fred and Flossy loved each other, and\nthe lady was just waiting for the gentleman to put the motion, so that\nshe would have an opportunity to second it.\n\nThe thirst-crazed husband and wife, however, were too blind to observe\nthat anything unusual existed between their two friends, and they\ncontinued to float down that smooth but awful river to destruction.\n\n\"Why does she not die?\" whispered the demon within the man.\n\n\"Why does he not fall into the Thompson and get drowned for\naccommodation?\" questioned the evil one in the heart of the woman.\n\nAt last the eruption became \"Vesuvian,\" and the ashes from the crater\nthreatened to re-bury Pompeii--we mean Ashcroft. Thoughts of suicide as\nthe only means of relief bubbled up at intervals.\n\n\"Give me love or give me death,\" they shouted when the fever was at its\nhighest.\n\nIt is impossible to say just how this war would have ended if an\nunforeseen neutral incident had not brought an influence to bear which\nmade a continuation of the conflict an impossible and aimless task.\n\nOne day the deaf, and dumb, and blind husband and wife were sitting by\nthe neutral hearth as far apart as it was possible to be removed and yet\nbe able to enjoy the friendly heat of the neutral air-tight heater. The\nneutral cat jumped up on the husband's knee, but in his belligerent mood\nhe dashed it to the floor. The wife picked it up and stroked its sleek\nfur. The neutral children were out in the garden abusing the flowers and\nbreaking pickets from the fence; and one had an old saw and was sawing\nat the trimmings of the cottage like a woodsman sawing down a cedar at\nthe coast.\n\nThere was rustling of a lady's skirt, and the tramp of hurried feet on\nthe garden path outside. The next moment the door was pushed open and\nFred and Flossy dashed in, laughing like to split their sides.\n\n\"You tell them,\" said Fred.\n\n\"No, you,\" said Flossy, blushing deeply.\n\n\"No, you,\" said Fred, and he seized Flossy's hand.\n\n\"Well, you know, Fred has--\" she began.\n\n\"To make a long story short,\" said Fred, \"we are to be married, and the\ndate has been fixed for June.\"\n\nWhen Vesuvius buried up Pompeii the people could not have been more\nhorrified than the belligerent husband and wife. They looked at each\nother for the first time in six months. The man pitied the woman, and\ncursed himself for crossing swords with her. The woman at once\nrecognized her husband as a hero, and was ashamed of herself. They each\nwaited for the other to make the first confession, but it was left to\nboth. They sprang into each other's arms and became welded for life in\none beautiful but awful squeeze.\n\nThe fright had cured them. It had opened their eyes to the realization\nof the ridiculousness of the situation, and revealed the criminality of\ntheir past behavior.\n\nThe volcano ceased to pour forth lava. The earth-tremblings became\nstill. The sun peeped out from behind the clouds. Manfred got back his\njob on the railway. The water and light arrears were paid up. The fence\nwas repaired, and the garden irrigated. The children were called in from\nthe woods and curried down. Kisses and smiles took the place of scowls\nand curses. The sideboard was replenished, and the hens were persuaded\nto work for their own family. Even the willows ceased to weep; and, oh,\nmy! but it was a beautiful resurrection. And thus Paradise was gained\nagain.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Two Ladies in Contrast\n\n\nOnce upon a time in Ashcroft two ladies were thrown into the same\nsociety; because in Ashcroft there is only one class. When any function\ntook place the glad hand was extended to one and all. For every dollar\npossessed by one of the ladies' husbands the other husband had five.\nMrs. Fivedollars was very extravagant in her dress and domestic\ndepartment, and Mrs. Onedollar was very envious and ambitious. The\nhusband of the one dollar variety was more or less of a henpeck because\nhe could not multiply his income by five and produce a concrete result.\n\nIt was a very predominating mania with Mrs. Onedollar to shine in\nsociety with as great a number of amperes as her rival; and this\nambition gave rise to one of the greatest domestic civil wars that\nAshcroft has even seen. Mrs. Fivedollars had no envy. There was no\ncorner in the remote recesses of her heart rented by this mischievous\ngoddess. She made no effort to \"outfashion\" fashion or to outshine her\nneighbors. What she displayed in dress did not extend beyond the natural\nfemale instincts for attire. Of course she had no cause to be envious,\nbeing by far the best dressed lady in town without undue effort. Mrs.\nOnedollar viewed the situation from a social apex, and the more she\nstudied the situation the more she realized that the world was\ndiscriminating against her. From being the best of friends, they\ndeveloped into the most deadly of enemies.\n\nNow, it came to pass that the husbands of those two ladies were the best\nof friends. They met frequently in the \"Best\" and \"Next Best\" hotels and\ndrank healths in the most harmless and jolly manner. They often met at\ntheir places of business and exchanged ideas. They had business\nrelations with each other which terminated to the advantage of both. To\nquarrel with each other, to them, was much the same as to quarrel with\ntheir bread and butter. They had absolutely no ambitions with regard to\ntheir personal appearance. They had a suit of clothes each; when that\nwas old or shabby they got another one. But, in this respect, man is\nvery different from woman. All man wants is covering; a woman must have\nornament, and she must equal, if not outshine, her neighbor. The tension\nbetween the two ladies became greater until it was almost at the\nbreaking point. Several attempts had been made by the distracted\nhusbands to unscrew the strings which they knew were about to snap, but\nthe result was nil.\n\n\"The vixen,\" said the one. \"The hussy,\" said the other; and when two\nladies develop the habit of calling each other such queer pet names, a\nreconciliation seems very remote indeed.\n\nThe climax came at the annual Clinton ball. This was one of those\nhistoric functions to which everyone is extended a hearty invitation,\nand it is one of the great events of the season. The entire Lillooet,\nYale and Cariboo districts participate--it is a regular meeting of the\nclans. And that year was no exception. All our friends were there,\nincluding our heroes and heroines. The music was throwing its waves of\ndelightful chords through the hall and over the heads of the throng of\ndancers. Something happened! No one knew just what it was, but in the\nmiddle of the floor two ladies were seen tearing each other's hair and\ndraperies. Heavens! it was our two heroines. The tension had reached the\nlimit--the strings were broken. In a moment our two heroes were on the\nscene, and each one seized his bundle of property and rushed with it to\nsafety. The two ladies were bundled into their autos and hurried home to\nAshcroft in the middle of the night.\n\nThe next day a council of war was held by the two husbands and it was\nunanimously agreed that something must be done.\n\n\"I have it!\" exclaimed Mr. Fivedollars. \"Now, listen. I will take you in\nas a partner in business. I will give you twenty years to pay your\nshare, and we will dress our wives exactly alike.\" The plan was adopted,\nand the result was phenomenal. Mr. Onedollar had at last multiplied his\ninsignificant unit by five and had a concrete accumulation. The two\nladies dressed themselves alike extravagantly, and all rivalry ceased.\nThey became great friends again and lived happily ever after. And all\nthis disturbance and discord of human hearts was over a miserable bundle\nof inanimate drapery.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Ruse That Failed\n\n\nOnce upon a time in Ashcroft there lived a lady who had the wool pulled\nover her husband's eyes to such an extent that he had optical illusions\nfavorable to the \"darling\" who deceived him. His most alluring illusion\nwas a booby idea that his \"pet\" was an invalid, and she kept pouring oil\non the joke to keep it burning, and pulled the wool down further and\nfurther so that hubby could not see the combustible fluid she was\npouring into the flames. Her illness was one of those \"to be continued\"\nstory kinds--better to-day, worse to-morrow--and she \"took\" to the\nblankets at the most annoying and inopportune moments; and every time\nshe \"took\" an indisposition she expected hubby to pull down the window\ncurtains and go into mourning. But he, the hardhearted man, would\ncontinue to eat and smoke and sleep as though no volcanic lava were\nthreatening to submerge the old homestead. His sympathy was not enough;\nhe should stop eating, stop sleeping, and stop smoking--he should be in\ndirect communication with the undertaker and negotiating about the price\nof caskets.\n\nHis wife had the misleading conviction that when she was ill her case\nwas more serious than that of anyone else. In fact, no one else had ever\nsuffered as she suffered; their ailments were summer excursions to the\nantipodes compared with hers, and when hubby argued that all flesh was\nsubject to ills and disorders, that almost every unit of the human\nspecies had toothaches and rheumatics, the argument was voted down\nunanimously by the suffragette majority as illegitimate argument.\n\nGradually hubby became convinced that his wife was an invalid, and he\nwent into mourning as much as a man could mourn the loss of a joy that\nhe had grasped for, and just missed in the grasping. He enjoyed the\nsituation as much as a man could who had discovered that he had\namalgamated himself with an hospital which was mortgaged for all it was\nworth to the family physician. Out of his salary of seventy-five dollars\nper month sixty-five was devoted towards the financing of the doctor's\ntime payments on his automobile; the balance paid for food, clothing,\nwater, light, and fuel, and supplied the wolf with sufficient allowance\nto keep him from entering the parlor in the concrete. But the\nphilosopher, as all men must ultimately become, concluded to make the\nbest of his bad real estate investment. He resigned himself to a life of\nperpetual, unaffected martyrdom. After all, it was his personal\ndiplomacy that was at fault--he should not have bought a pig in an\nAshcroft potato sack.\n\nDuring the first year of their matrimonial failure they had rooms at the\n\"Best\" Hotel, and the girls carried breakfast to the bride's room seven\nmornings of every week at about 10.30, where the \"invalid\" devoured it\nwith such greed and relish that they became suspicious and talked \"up\ntheir sleeves\" about her. Three days each week she had all meals carried\nup to her, and the girls wondered how she could distribute so much\nproteid about her system with so little exercise. The extreme\nhealthfulness of her constitution was the only thing that saved this\nwoman from dying of surfeit. The only occasions on which she would rise\nfrom her lethargy was to attend a dance or social of some kind given at\nWalhachin or Savona--she did not avoid one of them, and on those\noccasions she would be the liveliest cricket on the hearth, the biggest\ntoad in the puddle, while the husband was pre-negotiating with the\nphysician for some more evaporated stock in the auto. How she ever got\nhome was a mystery, for she would be more disabled than ever for weeks\nto come. Of course she had just overdone her constitutional\npossibility--she said so herself, and she should know.\n\nWhispers went abroad that she was lazy, and they became so loud that\nhubby heard them over the wireless telephone. He became exasperated. \"My\nwife a hypocrite? Never! The people have hearts of stone--brains of\nfeathers--they do not understand.\"\n\nOne day--it had never occurred to him before--he suggested that they\nconsult a specialist in somnolence. But she would not hear of it; there\nwas nothing wrong with her; all she wanted was to be left alone. In a\nshort time hubby began to consider her in the light of a \"white man's\nburden,\" and had distorted visions of himself laboring through life with\nan over-loaded back action.\n\nOne day the hotel proprietor advised him of a contemplated raise in his\nassessment to re-imburse the business for extras in connection with\nelevating so much food upstairs, which was not part and parcel of the\nrules and regulations of the house in committee. Besides, the\naccommodation was needless.\n\n\"Needless!\" exclaimed hubby. \"Would you degenerate a lady and gentleman\nwilfully. I will leave your fire-trap at once and cast anchor at the\n'Next Best.'\" The proprietor argued that his competitor was welcome to\nsuch pickings, so he made no comment on the debate.\n\nThe \"Next Best\" was \"full up,\" as it always is, so they carried the\nliving corpse out on a stretcher, and hubby went batching with his\nburden in a three-roomed house on Bancroft Street. When it became\nhubby's duty to cook the meals and carry half of them to bed for his\nbetter half every morning before breakfast he began to taste silly and\nsmell sort of henpeck like. He persisted humbly, lovingly,\nself-sacrificingly, henpeckedly, however, until one morning his sun rose\nbrighter than it had ever done before and he saw a faint glimmer of\nlight through the wool that was hanging in front of him.\n\n\"Perhaps there is such a commodity as superfluous personal sacrifice to\none's matrimonial obligations,\" he soliloquized. \"Perhaps this spouse of\nmine with the pre-historic constitution can be cured by an abstract\ntreatment. Is she ill, or is she playing a wild, deceitful part? Is she\nsitting on me with all her weight?\" He was willing to allow her the\nusual proportion of female indisposition, but a continued story of such\nnightmare proportions was beginning to unstring his physical telephone\nsystem. So, to we who have no wool over our eyes, this was one of the\nmost pitiful and criminal cases of selfish indolence, perhaps coupled\nwith a belief that a husband, through his sympathy, will love a woman\nthe more because of her suffering. No supposition, of course, could be\nfarther from the concrete--a husband wants, requires, admires, loves, a\nhealthy, active working-partner. Failing this the husband as a husband\nis down and out.\n\nWhen hubby began to realize this an individual reformation was at the\ndawning. The very next morning no breakfast arrived by private parcel\npost.\n\n\"Harry,\" she exclaimed, \"bring me my porridge and hot cakes; I am\nstarving.\"\n\n\"If you are starving get up and eat in your stall at the table,\" said\nHarry, sarcastically, although it pained him.\n\n\"Harry!\" she shouted, \"you selfish beast!\"\n\nFor diplomatic reasons Harry was silent.\n\nHarry made an abrupt exit without waiting for adjournment, and went up\ntown. A new life seemed to be dawning upon him. It was the emancipation\nfrom slavery. He went into the drug store, into the hardware store, into\nthe hotels and all the other stores--he talked and laughed as he had\nnever done before.\n\nIt was 3 a.m. the following morning when he found himself searching for\nthe door-knob in the vicinity of the front window. Having gained an\nentrance, he was accosted by his wife, who exclaimed: \"Harry, you\ndrunk?\"\n\n\"Well, y'see, it was the pioneer shupper,\" said Harry, and he tumbled\ninto bed.\n\nThis was Harry's first ruse. His next move was an affinity. He would\ncease to pose as a piece of household furniture--a dumb waiter sort of\nthing.\n\nAt that time there was a vision waiting table at the \"Best\" who had most\nof the fellows on a string. Harry threw his grappling irons around her\nand took her in tow. This went on for some time without suspicion being\naroused on the part of the \"invalid,\" but the wireless telegraphy of\ngossip whispered the truth to her one day when she was wondering what\ndemon had taken possession of her protector. She dropped her artificial\ngown in an instant and rushed up Railway Avenue like a militant\nsuffragette. Just about the local emporium Harry was sailing along under\na fair and favorable wind, hand in hand with his new dream, when he saw\nhis legal prerogative approaching near the \"Next Best\" hotel. He\ndislodged his grappling-hooks in an instant, stepped slightly in\nadvance, and feigned that he had been running along on his own steam.\nBut she saw him and defined his movements. They met like two express\nengines in collision, and what followed had better be left buried\nunderneath the sidewalk of the local emporium. There were dead and dying\nleft on the field, and they reached home later by two rival routes of\nrailway.\n\nThe stringency endured some days, which time she huffed and he read\nCharles Darwin. At the end of that period the ice broke, as it always\ndoes; the clouds rolled away, and the sun began to shine, and they began\nto negotiate for peace. They had a long sitting of parliament, and it\nwas moved and seconded, and unanimously carried, that each give the\nother a reprieve. It meant the amalgamation of two hearts that became so\nintertwined with roots that nothing earthly could pull them asunder. It\nwas the founding of one of the happiest homes in Ashcroft. He left his\naffinity--she left her bed. They became active working partners. Long\nyears after he told her of his ruse. She laughed.\n\n\"You saved me,\" she said.\n\nHe endorsed the note, and they had one long, sweet embrace which still\nlingers in their memory.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Real Santa Claus\n\nI.\n\nCHRISTMAS EVE\n\n\nOnce upon a time it was Christmas eve in Vancouver, B.C., and the snow\nwas falling in large, soft flakes. The electric light plants were\nbeating their lives out in laborious heart-throbs, giving forth such\npower that the streets and shop windows had the appearance of the\nphantom scene of a fairy stage-play rather than a grim reality; they\nwere lighter than day. There was magic illumination from the sidewalk to\nthe very apex of the tallest sky-scraper. Being Christmas eve, the\nstreets were thronged with pleasure seekers, and eager, procrastinating,\nChristmas gift maniacs. They were all happy, but they were temporarily\ninsane in the eagerness of their pursuit. They all had money, plenty of\nit; and this was the time of year when it was quite in order to squander\nit lavishly, carelessly, insanely--for, is it not more blessed to give\nthan to receive?\n\nThe habiliments of the hurrying throng were exuberant, extravagant and\nostentatious in the extreme. Everyone seemed to vie with every other,\nwith an envy akin to insanity, for the laurels in the fashion world, and\nthey were talking and laughing gaily, and some of them were singing\nChristmas carols. They did not even seem to regret the soft wet snow\nthat was falling on their costly apparel and soaking them--they seemed\nrather to enjoy it. Besides, they could go home at any time and change\nand dry themselves--and, was it not Christmas, the one time of the year\nwhen the whole world was happy and lavish? The persons of the ladies\nwere bathed in perfume, and the clothing of the gentlemen was spotless,\nsave where the large, white snowflakes clung for a moment before\nvanishing into fairyland. Vancouver was certainly a city of luxury, a\ncity of ease, a city of wealth, and it was all on exhibition at this\ntime of approaching festival. Everyone was rich, and money was no\nobstacle in the way of enjoyment.\n\nBut we have seen one side of the picture only. We have been looking in\nthe sunlight; let us peer into the shadows. There was a reverse side. A\ngirl of about thirteen years of age was standing at the corner of\nHastings and Granville offering matches for sale to the stony world. She\nwas bareheaded, thinly clad, shivering. Her clothing was tattered and\ntorn. Her shoes were several sizes too large, and were some person's\ncast-off ones. It was Christmas, and no one was seeking for matches.\nThey were all in search of gold and silverware, furs and fancies, to\ngive away to people who did not require them.\n\n\"Matches, sir?\" The solicitous question was addressed to a medium-sized,\nmoderately dressed man who was gliding around the corner and whistling\nsome impromptu Christmas carol; and she touched the hem of his garment.\nThis unit of the big world paused, took the matches, and began to\nexplore his hemisphere for five cents. In the meantime he surveyed the\nlittle girl from head to foot, and then he glanced at the big world\nrushing by in two great streams.\n\n\"Give me them all!\" he said with an impulse that surprised him, and he\nhanded her one dollar. \"Now, go home and dry yourself and go to bed,\" he\ncontinued. He did not stop to consider that she might not have a home\nand a bed, but continued on his way with his superfluity of matches. His\nhome was bright, and warm, and cheery when he arrived there, and his\nwife welcomed him. \"I have brought you a Christmas present,\" he said,\nand he handed her the matches. When she opened the package he found it\nnecessary to explain.\n\n\nII.\n\nCHRISTMAS\n\nIt was Christmas, and the snow was still falling in large, soft flakes.\nIt was about ten inches deep out on the hills, among the trees out along\nCapilano and Lynn Creeks, but it had been churned into slush on the\nstreets and pavements of Vancouver. The church bells were ringing, and\nour gaily clad and happy acquaintances of the evening before were again\nthronging the streets; but to-day they were on their way to church to\npraise the One whose birthday they were observing. Our friend of the\nlarge heart was also there, and so was his wife--two tiny drops in that\ngreat bucketful of humanity. The match vendor was also there--another\nvery tiny drop in that great bucketful. \"What! Selling matches on\nChristmas day?\" remarked a passer-by. \"You should be taken in charge by\nthe Inquisition.\"\n\n\"Matches, sir?\" said the tiny voice, and she again touched the hem of\nour hero's garment. The big-hearted man looked at his tender-hearted\nwife, and the tender-hearted wife looked at her big-hearted man. \"Yes,\ngive me them all,\" he said again, and he handed her another dollar. He\nwas evidently trying to buy up all the available matches so that he\ncould have a corner on the commodity. \"Here,\" he continued, \"take this\ndollar also. Buy yourself something good for Christmas, and go home and\nenjoy yourself.\"\n\n\"I have no home, and the shops are all closed,\" she said, brushing the\nwet snow from her hair.\n\n\"No home!\" exclaimed the lady, incredulously, \"and the world is\noverflowing with wealth and has homes innumerable. Is it possible that\nthe world's goods are so unevenly divided?\"\n\nThe girl began to cry.\n\n\"Come and have your Christmas dinner with us,\" said the lady.\n\nThe girl, still weeping, followed in her utter innocence and\nhelplessness.\n\nDing-dong, went the merry bells. Tramp, tramp, went the feet of the big,\nvoluptuous world. Honk, honk, went the horns of the automobiles; for it\nwas Christmas, and all went merry as a marriage bell.\n\nThe fire was burning brightly. The room was warm and cozy. The house was\nclean, tidy, and cheery. It was a dazzling scene to one who had been\naccustomed to the cold, bare, concrete pavements only.\n\n\"My!\" exclaimed the girl as they entered. It was a perfect fairyland to\nher. It was a story. It was a dream.\n\n\"Now, we are going to have the realest, cutest, Christmas dinner you\never saw,\" said the lady, producing a steaming turkey from the warming\noven. The girl danced in her glee and anticipation. \"But first you must\ndress for dinner. We will go and see Santa Claus,\" smiled the\nfoster-mother. She retired with a waif, and returned with a fairy, and\nthey sat down to a fairy dinner.\n\n\"What a spotless tablecloth! What clean cups and saucers, and plates and\ndishes! What shining knives and forks! What kind friends!\" thought the\norphan. \"I had no idea such things existed outside of Heaven,\" she\nexclaimed aloud in her rapture.\n\n\"It is all very commonplace, I assure you,\" said the man, \"but it takes\nmoney to buy them.\"\n\n\"And yet,\" philosophized the lady, \"if we are dissatisfied in our\nprosperity, what must a life be that contains nothing?\"\n\nDing-dong, went the bells. Tramp, tramp, went the feet of the big world\noutside. Honk, honk, went the horn of the automobile; but the happiest\nheart of them all was the little waif who had been, until now, so\nlonely, so cold, so hungry, so neglected. They were the happiest moments\nin her whole life. Her time began from that day. But that is many years\nago. The orphan is a lady now in Vancouver; and every Christmas she\ngives a dinner to some poor people in honor of those who adopted her and\nsaved her from the slums.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Retreat from Moscow\n\n\nOnce upon a time four Ashcroft Napoleons, known locally as \"Father,\"\n\"Deacon,\" \"Cyclone,\" and \"Skookum,\" invaded Vancouver to demonstrate at\nan inter-provincial curling bonspiel that was arranged to take place at\nthat city. Their object was to bring home as many prizes and trophies as\nthey could conveniently carry without having to pay \"excess baggage,\"\nand donate the balance to charity. It was decided later not to take any\nof the prizes, as it was more blessed to give than to receive, and they\ndid not only give away all the trophies, but they gave away all the\ngames as well--games they had a legitimate mortgage on--and they were\nglad to see the other fellows happy.\n\nAs a man often gets into trouble trying to keep out of it, so the\nAshcroft chaps lost by trying to win; and here it is consoling to know\nthat all a man does or says in this world sinks and lies motionless in\nthe silent past, for in this case it will only be a matter of time when\npeople will cease to remember. But to leave all joking aside, we beg to\nadvise that the adventurers were dumped unceremoniously into Moscow by\nthe C.P.R. officials at about three good morning and had not where to\nlay their heads. You could not see the city for buildings; but even at\nthat embryo hour of the morning the streets were not entirely deserted.\nSome people seem to toil day and night, for there were dozens of forms\nmoving hither and thither like phantoms in the powerful glare of the\nelectric illuminations. Being Ashcroft people our heroes were accustomed\nto city life, and the embarrassment of the situation soon evaporated.\nThey bundled themselves into a nocturnal automobile which was no sooner\nloaded than it \"hit\" the streets of Vancouver like Halley's comet. It\nwent up and down, out and in, hither and thither. It tried to leap from\nunder the invaders, but they kept up with it. It went north forty\nchains, east forty chains, south forty chains, and thence west forty\nchains to point of commencement. It went here, then there, and\nultimately arranged to stop on Richards Street (named after our John),\nat the foot of the elevator of the Hotel Canadian. This was the end of\nsteel for the auto, the rest of the journey had to be made on foot via\nthe elevator. It is a very pleasant sensation to have the floor rise and\ncarry you with it to the third landing, and it only takes three seconds\nto make a sixty second journey. At the third floor, after having been\nshown their stalls for the night, the bandits went out on an exploring\nexpedition while the stable man let down some hay.\n\nThey located the fire escape, as it is always better to come in by the\nfront door like a millionaire and leave by the fire escape in the dead\nof the night when the stableman is asleep at his post.\n\nEarly next morning, at about ten o'clock, they invaded the dining-room\nas hungry as hyenas, and had a lovely breakfast of porridge and cream,\nham and eggs, toast and butter, tea or coffee. To encourage the coffee\nsomewhat the Deacon \"dug\" his front foot into the lump-sugar bowl and\nextracted a couple of aces; and the other mimics followed suit with two,\nthree, and four spots. The breaking of this fast cost forty-five cents\nfor the meal, and fifty-five for the waiter just to make the \"eat\" come\nto even money, and they were too large socially to take away small\nchange economically. Every meal they put into their waste baskets\nnecessarily extracted one day from the other end of their excursion via\nthe fire escape, and that is one reason why they returned so soonly.\nCyclone, having drawn on his personal account at a Vancouver branch of\nthe Ashcroft bank for enough to pay his next meal and car fare, and\nSkookum having jotted down the usual morning poetic inspiration on the\nsublimity of the situation, the army, led by Father, marched full breast\nupon the curling rink building. There were no knights at the gate to\ndefend the castle, nor did the band meet them at the portal--neither did\nthe Vancouver curling club. Their arrival, strange to say, created no\ncommotion; they did not seem to have been anticipated. Things went along\nas though nothing extraordinary had taken place.\n\nThe appearances at the rink, however, were intoxicating, which largely\nmade up for the invisibility of the receiving committee. The rink was\nsomewhat larger than the town hall at Ashcroft, and the great, high,\narched, glass ceiling was studded with electric lights like stars in\nthe heavens. Extensive rows of seats for spectators encircled the entire\nroom, and in the centre, the arena was one clear, smooth sheet of hard,\nwhite ice. Several games were in progress, and they saw their old friend\n\"Tam\" playing with his usual Scotch luck and winning for all he was\nworth.\n\nAshcroft selected the ice upon which the first blood was to be\nsprinkled. The battle began on schedule time, and as they had\nanticipated, they won without a single casualty. As a result of this\n\"clean up,\" a private conference was held that night by the Vancouver\nand other clubs behind closed doors, at which it was moved, and\nseconded, and adopted, that Ashcroft was a dangerous element in their\nmidst, and that drastic measures must be set in motion at once to arrest\nsuch phenomenal accomplishments or the bonspiel would be lost. All\nunconscious of the conspiracy against them, Ashcroft spent the afternoon\nriding up and down the moving stairs at Spencer's, led by the \"Deak,\"\nwho had had previous practice at this amusement. Curling to them was as\neasy as this stairway, and as simple as eating a meal if you cut out the\ntipping of the waiter. That night they took in a show which was a \"hum\ndinger,\" and should have endured a life-time. What a sweet life it was;\nnothing to do but live, and laugh, and curl, and win; if it would only\ncontinue indefinitely without having to worry about the financing of it!\nNapoleon \"had nothing\" on Father, and he felt that he could even \"put it\nover\" on the local star. But something happened the next day. Whether it\nwas the private conference, or the moving stairs, or the Pantages, or\nwhether it was that Ashcroft became more careless with success, and\nVancouver more careful with defeat, will never be known. They pierced no\nmore bull's eyes--and sometimes they missed the entire target. They had\nevery qualification essential to the successful curler but talent. They\nhad the rocks, the brooms, the ribbons, the sweaters--they even had the\nwill. It is strange with all those requisites that they could not win.\n\nThe retreat from Moscow took place three days later, and they went\nstraggling over the Alps in one long string. As though the mortification\nof defeat was not enough, a huge joke was prepared for them by the\nreception committee of the local curling club, and lemons have been at a\npremium in Ashcroft ever since.\n\n\n\n\nOf Sicamous\n\n\nThe Okanagan Valley, in the Province of British Columbia, is bounded on\nthe north by the mosquitoes at Sicamous, and on the south by the\nforty-ninth parallel of north latitude, which is the United States; and\nto one who is accustomed to the sand and the sage, the general aspect\nthroughout gives a most pleasing rest to the eye. A trip to the Okanagan\nis like one sweet dream to the inhabitants of the dry belt--a dream that\nis broken only once by a dreadful nightmare--the mosquito conquest at\nSicamous; but you forgive and forget this the moment after you awake.\nThe mosquitoes at Sicamous are as great a menace to that town as the\nGermans are to Europe.\n\nThe train for the valley, when on time, leaves Sicamous, on the main\nline of the C.P.R., at about ten, good morning, but sometimes she waits\nfor the delayed eastern train. This happens very frequently on\nSundays--for who or what was ever on time on a Sunday? Sunday is the\nlazy man's day--the lazy day of the world--the day on which we creep\nalong out of tune with things.\n\nNow, when you get side-tracked at a C.P.R. station in the Rocky\nMountains waiting for a delayed eastern train, you may as well throw all\nyour plans into the lake, because they will be out of fashion when you\nhave an opportunity to use them again, and you will require new\nones--the train may come to-day and she may not come till to-morrow.\nBut, if that station chances to be Sicamous, and it is Sunday--and it\nmust be raining heavily, for when it is raining there are no\nmosquitoes--you will not regret the delay, and you will be very much\ninterested if you have an eye for the unique, or if you have the\nslightest inclination to be eccentric you will be reminded that--\n\n        There are friends we never meet;\n        There is love we never know.\n\nHere people--strangers and friends--meet and nod, smile, talk and depart\nten or twelve times every day. You will wonder how people can talk so\nmuch, and what they get to talk about--people who meet accidentally\nhere, only for a moment, and will never meet again, perhaps. Almost\nhourly, night and day, cosmopolitan little throngs jump from trains,\nchat a few moments among themselves, or with others who have been\nwaiting, and then allow themselves to be picked up by the next train and\nrushed off into eternity--that is, so far as you are concerned, for you\nwill never see them again--and some of them were becoming so familiar.\nThey are voices and faces flitting across your past; they are always\nnew, always strange, always interesting; they are laughing, chatting,\nsmiling, scowling, worrying. There are fair faces and dark faces,\npleasant faces and angry faces, careless faces and anxious faces, and\nfaces that are thin, fat, long and short. The voices are as varied as\nthe faces. There is the sharp, clear voice and the dull voice, the\nangry one and the pleasant one. There are young and old, beautiful and\nugly, scowls and smiles, the timid and the fearless--the black, the\nwhite, and the yellow; and there are faces that look so much like ones\nyou know at home that you are just on the point of asking them how the\nboys and girls have been since you left. If they had known that they\nwere the actors on a stage, and you were the audience, conditions might\nhave been improved--artificially; they might have acted better, with\nmore \"class,\" but the interest would have been injured; you would have\nbeen robbed of a genuine entertainment. Those people went north, south,\neast and west; they went to the four corners of the earth. The sound of\ntheir voices and laughs go up into the tree-tops, up into the hills and\ndown into the lake, and they are echoed back to us; and that is the only\nrecord that is ever taken, of this interesting drama; and then the\nvoices fade away east--fade away west.\n\nBut you hear the elaborate puffing and snorting of a locomotive as\nthough laboring under its great load of humanity; there is a loud\nwhistle from somewhere, and then another; two engines are speaking to\neach other; then the bell rings, the engine sweeps by, and the whole\nearth trembles--it is the delayed eastern train. There is a great\nscramble for entrance. Chance acquaintances are forgotten in the\nindividual excitement. The steps to one car are blocked by one man who\nhas enough baggage for ten, and one worried-looking young lady with a\nbaby is afraid she will lose her train. The train pulls out with a\n\"swish, swish\" of escaping steam under great pressure from the engine,\nand the station is robbed of half its population. The familiar faces\nhave disappeared, but a new throng has been cast into your midst--new\nfaces, new smiles, new voices, new scowls; and the chatter is renewed\nwith vigor when we have found ourselves, and are located in several\nlittle isolated bunches. But the Okanagan local is here waiting for our\nscalps. There is another scramble of men, women, children, bag and\nbaggage, for seats, and we are off. The little station platform is\ndeserted and silent but for the clatter of the wheels of the baggage\ntruck. The tree tops sigh, the lake murmurs, but they cannot hold us, we\nmust hurry to the great beyond--the whole world depends upon our\nindividual movements.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Ubiquitous Cat\n\n\nOnce upon a time I had a very curious experience which had a very\ncurious ending.\n\nI walked into a strange person's house, uninvited, for some mysterious\nreason perfectly unknown to myself.\n\nSitting promiscuously around an old-fashioned fire-place, in which\nblazed a cheery fire, were a man and woman and four small children; and\non a lounge, partly hid under the eiderdown quilt, lay a pure white cat,\nhalf asleep and half awake, and at intervals casting sly glances at some\nof the children. The cat seemed to all intent and purpose one of that\nhuman family.\n\nNow, although the cat can be abused like a toy doll by the children\nwithout losing his temper, yet he has the most curiously composed\ndisposition of all the domestic animals. Although extravagantly\ndomesticated, and although he shares our beds and tables with impunity,\nyet he is, to the mouse, as cruel and treacherous as a man-eating tiger.\n\nHowever, we did not take up our pen to discuss cat psychology. Upon\nentering the strange person's house so unceremoniously, I sat me down\nupon a vacant chair, also uninvited, and began to make myself at home.\n\nThe strange persons did not seem to take any exception to my strange\nbehavior, but, kept on talking as though nothing extraordinary had\ntaken place in the human social regulations. I was more interested in\nthe cat than I was in the people, and I could not keep my eye from him,\nhe was so much like our \"Teddy\" at home.\n\nAt last I convinced myself that it _was_ Teddy.\n\n\"Where did you get that cat?\" I asked.\n\n\"Why, we have always had him. We raised him. He sleeps with the children\nevery night, and gets up with them in the morning--when he is here,\"\nsaid the mother.\n\nOur Teddy had the same weakness, and I was so positive that this was he\nthat I called him by name.\n\nIn a moment he came to me and was on my knee--it was indeed Teddy.\n\nNow, here was one of the most unique situations on record.\n\n\"This is my cat,\" I said demandingly.\n\n\"It is ours,\" said the chorus of children's voices.\n\nIt suddenly occurred to me that Teddy was in the habit of leaving home\nand would be absent for several days at a time. Could it be possible he\nhad two homes? Did this cat actually accept the affections and\nhospitality of two distinct families, at the same time, without once\nbreathing the truth or giving himself away?\n\nI went home puzzled to my wife and said:\n\n\"Do you know, Teddy is not all ours?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nI was just about to tell my strange story when I awoke, and, behold, it\nwas a dream.\n\n\n\n\nBITS OF HISTORY\n\n\n\n\nOf the Foolhardy Expedition\n\n\nThe people who inhabited this globe during the year 1725 undoubtedly\nobtained a different view of things terrestrial than we do who claim the\nworld's real estate in 1915, because they had no telegraph, no\ntelephone, no electric light, no automobile, and no aeroplane. How they\nmanaged to live at all is a mystery to the twentieth century biped.\nFancy having to cross the street to your neighbor's house when you\nwanted to ask him if he was going to the pioneer supper, and just think\nof having no \"hello girl\" to flirt with. The condition seems appalling.\nBut what they lacked in knowledge and in indolent conveniences we beg to\nannounce that they made up in foolhardiness which they called bravery.\nWell, if it can be called brave to make a needless target of oneself to\na bunch of savage Indians, why then they had the proper derivation of\nthe term.\n\nFrom one of Francis Parkman's admirable works we have seized upon the\nscene of our story, which was acted out at the beginning of the\neighteenth century, namely, 1725. The Indians seem to have been very\nhostile in those early days in the immediate vicinity of the early New\nEngland provinces; and we are convinced some of the white men were very\nhostile as well. Of course we, in our day, cannot blame them--they had\nno telephones, autos, electricity, \"hello girls\"--they had to be\nsomething, so they were hostile towards the Indians.\n\nDunstable was a town on the firing line of Massachusetts, and was\nattacked by Indians in the autumn of 1724, and two men were carried off.\nTen others went in pursuit, but fell into an ambush, and nearly all were\nkilled. But now we will follow the words of Francis Parkman, who has a\ndelightful way of relating his stories.\n\n\"A company of thirty was soon raised.\" They were to receive two\nshillings and sixpence per day each, \"out of which he was to maintain\nhimself\";--very little to risk one's life for; but in those days it was\nno concern with a man whether he was killed or not. Besides, it was\nworth something to get killed and have Francis Parkman write about you\nmore than a century later. Perhaps they anticipated this perpetuation of\ntheir names and deeds.\n\nHowever, \"Lovewell was chosen captain; Farwell lieutenant, and Robbins,\nensign. They set out towards the end of November, and reappeared at\nDunstable early in January, bringing one prisoner and one scalp.\" It\ndoes not seem to us to have paid the interest on the investment of two\nshillings and sixpence per day, \"out of which he was to maintain\nhimself,\" and, for anything we know to the contrary, perhaps the captain\nwas getting more than this--it has not been recorded. \"Towards the end\nof the month Lovewell set out again, this time with eighty-seven men.\nThey ascended the frozen Merrimac, passed Lake Winnepesaukee, pushed\nnearly to the White Mountains, and encamped on a branch of the upper\nSaco. Here they killed a moose--a timely piece of luck, for they were in\ndanger of starvation, and Lovewell had been compelled by want of food to\nsend back a good number of his men. The rest held their way, filing on\nsnowshoes through the deathlike solitude that gave no sign of life\nexcept the light track of some squirrel on the snow, and the brisk note\nof the hardy little chickadee, or black-capped titmouse, so familiar in\nthe winter woods.\"\n\nNow here is where the foolhardiness of the expedition begins to appeal\nto us. Supposing just here they had met five hundred crazy Indians with\nfive hundred crazy bows and arrows? And they must have expected it. They\nwere searching for Indians. Perhaps they were seeking martyrdom? But the\nNew Englander of the frontier was nothing if not foolhardy. They mistook\nit for bravery, and there must have been some bravery amalgamated with\nit, because a man must have a certain quantity of that rarity before he\ncan lend himself out as a target at two shillings and sixpence a day,\n\"out of which he was to maintain himself.\"\n\nNow, if you have patience to follow you will learn that they ultimately\nmet the very thing which you expect--which they must have expected.\n\n\"Thus far the scouts had seen no human footprints; but on the twentieth\nof February they found a lately abandoned wigwam, and following the\nsnowshoe tracks that led from it--\" Right into the lion's jaw, as it\nwere. Perhaps they were anxious to be shot to get out of their\nmisery--\"at length saw smoke rising at a distance out of the gray\nforest.\" They saw their finish, and their hearts were filled with joy.\n\"The party lay close till two o'clock in the morning; then, cautiously\napproaching, found one or more wigwams, surrounded them, and killed all\nthe inmates, ten in number.\" They were to pay dear for this, as anyone\ncould have told them. \"They brought home the scalps in triumph, ... and\nLovewell began at once to gather men for another hunt.... At the middle\nof April he had raised a band of forty-six.\" One of the number was Seth\nWyman, ... a youth of twenty-one, graduated at Harvard College, in 1723,\nand now a student of theology. Chaplain though he was, he carried a gun,\nknife and hatchet like the others, and not one of the party was more\nprompt to use them.... They began their march on April 15th.\" After\nleaving several of their number by the way for various causes, we find\nthirty-seven of them on the night of May 7th near Fryeburg lying in the\nwoods near the northeast end of Lovewell's pond.\n\n\"At daybreak the next morning, as they stood bareheaded, listening to a\nprayer from the young chaplain, they heard the report of a gun, and soon\nafter an Indian.... Lovewell ordered his men to lay down their packs and\nadvance with extreme caution.\" Why this caution? \"They met an Indian\ncoming towards them through the dense trees and bushes. He no sooner saw\nthem than he fired at the leading men.\" Naturally. We should have said\n\"leading targets.\" \"His gun was charged with beaver shot and he severely\nwounded Lovewell and young Whiting; on which Seth Wyman shot him dead,\nand the chaplain and another man scalped him.\" As yet they had only\nentered the lion's den. \"And now follows one of the most obstinate and\ndeadly bush-fights in the annals of New England.... The Indians howled\nlike wolves, yelled like enraged cougars, and made the forest ring with\ntheir whoops.... The slaughter became terrible. Men fell like wheat\nbefore the scythe. At one time the Indians ceased firing; ... they\nseemed to be holding a 'pow-wow'; but the keen and fearless Wyman crept\nup among the bushes, shot the chief conjurer, and broke up the meeting.\nAbout the middle of the afternoon young Fry received a mortal wound.\nUnable to fight longer, he lay in his blood, praying from time to time\nfor his comrades in a faint but audible voice.\" One, Keys, received two\nwounds, \"but fought on till a third shot struck him.\" He declared the\nIndians would not get his scalp. Creeping along the sandy edge of the\npond, he chanced to find a stranded canoe, pushed it afloat, rolled\nhimself into it, and drifted away before the wind. Soon after sunset the\nIndians drew off.... The surviving white men explored the scene of the\nfight.... Of the thirty-four men, nine had escaped without serious\ninjury, eleven were badly wounded, and the rest were dead or dying....\nRobbins, as he lay helpless, asked one of them to load his gun, saying,\n'The Indians will come in the morning to scalp me, and I'll kill\nanother of them if I can.' They loaded the gun and left him.\" The\nexpected had occurred. Most of them had been killed. Anyone could have\ntold them this before they set out--they could have made the same\nprophecy for themselves. And after all they had accomplished nothing but\ntheir own deaths. The story of their return rivals that of Napoleon's\nretreat from Moscow. Of the whole number eleven ultimately reached home.\nWe leave it to the reader to determine whether this was an exhibition of\nbravery or foolhardiness, or a mixture of both.\n\nWe congratulate ourselves that we did not live on the frontier of New\nEngland in the year 1725.\n\n\n\n\nOf the Laws of Lycurgus\n\n\nLycurgus reigned over a place called Lacedaemon, which is a part of\nGreece, about the year 820 B.C. Now, this is a great many years ago, and\nis further back into the archives of history than most of us can\nremember. There is no doubt, however, that this great ruler, Lycurgus,\nwas crazy, or he was one of those persons whose brains cease to develop\nafter they have left their teens. He certainly secures the first prize\nas a \"whim\" strategist. In spite of his insane eccentricities, he was\nallowed the full exercise of his freedom. Had he flourished in 1915 A.D.\ninstead of 820 \"B.C.\" (which does not mean British Columbia), the asylum\nfor the insane at New Westminster would not have been strong enough to\nretain him. Lycurgus did one redeeming thing--he founded a Senate;\n\"which, sharing,\"--we are following Plutarch--\"as Plato says, in the\npower of the kings, too imperious and unrestrained before, and having\nequal authority with them, was the means of keeping them within bounds\nof moderation, and highly contributed to the preservation of the State.\nThe establishment of a Senate, an intermediate body, like ballast, kept\nit in just equilibrium, and put it in a safe posture: the twenty-eight\nsenators adhering to the kings whenever they saw the people too\nencroaching, and on the other hand, supporting the people, when the\nkings attempted to make themselves absolute.\"\n\nNow, what in the world possessed this despotic imbecile to form a\nsenate? His action in this can only be accounted for in the light that\nit was one of those unpremeditated whims of a narrow-minded faddist. One\nnaturally wonders what the newly created senators were doing while the\nking was imposing his insane laws. This body was formed for the\n\"preservation of the state.\" The wonder is that there was any state\nleft, for the king paralyzed commerce, smothered ambition, choked art to\ndeath, and placed a ban on modesty. Further than having been \"formed,\"\nthe \"Senate\" never again appears on the pages of the \"Lycurgus\" book.\n\nPlutarch, who lived in Greece about the year 100 A.D., nine hundred\nyears after the subject of his biography, relates the forming and\nimposing of those laws with the utmost faith, and the most implicit\ninnocence; which goes to prove that the Grecian idea of government, with\nall its knowledge, had not advanced much, at least up to the time of\nPlutarch.\n\nAnd now for the laws.\n\n\"A second and bolder political enterprise of Lycurgus was a new division\nof the lands. For he found a prodigious inequality; the city overcharged\nwith many indigent persons, who had no land; and the wealth centred in\nthe hands of the few. Determined, therefore, to root out the evils of\ninsolence, envy, avarice, and luxury, and those distempers of a state\nstill more inveterate than fatal--I mean poverty and riches--he\npersuaded them to cancel all former divisions of land and to make new\nones, in such a manner as they might be perfectly equal in their\npossessions and way of living.\n\nHis proposal was put in practice.\n\n\"After this he attempted to divide also the movables, in order to take\naway all appearance of inequality; but he soon perceived that they could\nnot bear to have their goods taken directly from them, and therefore\ntook another method, counterworking their avarice by a stratagem.\"\n\nNow, this seems to be the only law to which they made objection; and\nthis proves that the love of personal \"icties\" has very deep roots.\nPerhaps the influence of the \"senate\" sustained them in this, for\nqualifications for a senator, even in those days, must have called for\nmen of some means, and they, when the shoe began to pinch their own\nfeet, would not care to divide up their sugar and flour with the rank\nand file. It does not appear, however, that they had any say in the\nmatter, and, beyond the statement that they were formed for a purpose,\nthey seem to have taken no part in the affairs of state; if they had,\nLycurgus and his laws would never have been made part of history.\n\n\"First he stopped the currency of the gold and silver coin\"--thus he\nparalyzed industry--\"and ordered that they should make use of iron money\nonly; then to a great quantity and weight of this he assigned but a\nsmall value.... In the next place he excluded unprofitable and\nsuperfluous arts.... Their iron coin would not pass in the rest of\nGreece, but was ridiculed and despised, so that the Spartans had no\nmeans of purchasing any foreign or curious wares, nor did any merchant\nship unlade in their harbor.\" Even Plutarch sees nothing suicidal in all\nthis voluntary isolating of themselves from the main arteries of\ncommerce.\n\n\"Desirous to complete the conquest of luxury and exterminate the love of\nriches, he introduced a third institution, which was wisely enough and\ningeniously contrived. This was the use of public tables, where all were\nto eat in common of the same meat, and such kinds of it as were\nappointed by law. At the same time they were forbidden to eat at home,\nor on expensive couches and tables.... Another ordinance levelled\nagainst magnificence and expense, directed that the ceilings of houses\nshould be wrought with no tool but the axe, and the doors with nothing\nbut the saw. Indeed, no man could be so absurd as to bring into a\ndwelling so homely and simple, bedsteads with silver feet, purple\ncoverlets, or golden cups.\" Thus he smothered art and personal ambition,\ntwo of the most requisite essentials to a people on their onward and\nupward trend to civilization and success. \"A third ordinance of Lycurgus\nwas, that they should not often make war against the same enemy, lest,\nby being frequently put upon defending themselves, they too should\nbecome able warriors in their turn.\"\n\nAnd thus he made them defenceless against their enemies.\n\n\"For the same reason he would not permit all that desired to go abroad\nand see other countries, lest they should contract foreign manners, gain\ntraces of a life of little discipline, and of a different form of\ngovernment. He forbade strangers, too, to resort to Sparta who could not\nassign a good reason for their coming!\"\n\nImprovement with Lycurgus means retrogression with us. He wished,\nperhaps ignorantly, to arrest the progress of civilization and\nsubstitute a slovenly ideal of his own. His purpose was to cancel the\ncivilization which the race had gained during thousands of years of\neffort, and bring it back to a semi-savagery. But the world was too big\nfor him. It had things in view which were too great for his small,\nhampered mind to have any suspicion of. No doubt he was sincere in his\nlittle, infinitesimal way; but it is a blessing for the world that his\ninfluence was confined to a very small corner of the then civilized\nworld, and that others of broader views succeeded him to manage the\naffairs of states and nations. With all deference to old Plutarch, the\nbiographer of Lycurgus, we wish to say that however grand the laws of\nthis man may have been as ideals, they were utter failures when brought\ninto practice.\n\n\n\n\nOf Joan of Arc\n\n\nSome people say the world is getting no better, but if we take a dip\ninto history and consider the conditions which prevailed there from the\nearliest times up to only a few hundred years ago, we will find a race\nof human beings which in no wise resemble the present output except in\nform and stature. And our own forefathers--the people of the British\nIsles, the Anglo-Saxons who are to-day leading in the social world--were\nnot one iota better throughout those pages than many of the smallest and\nmost unpretentious of obscure tribes living here and there in ignorant,\nlocal isolation. One of the strongest points in our argument is the fact\nthat history, as we have it, is composed of the clang of battles and the\nprivate lives of kings and despots. The ordinary, everyday life of the\npeasant people--the working classes--the backbone of the nation, so to\nspeak--was beneath the consideration of the historian throughout all\ntimes. The only virtue, in his estimation, was a strong arm--a large\narmy to murder and destroy property. And the life of the historian must\nneeds reflect that of the people. There is no doubt that in a great\nmajority they were of a cruel, murderous nature. We get rare glimpses,\nhowever (at intervals of sometimes hundreds of years), of the doings,\nmanners, and customs, likes and dislikes of the common people, that we\ncan rely upon as authentic; the rest is poetry and legend, and,\nalthough typical, are relations of incidents that did not really occur.\n\nThere is no doubt that, although it has been withheld, there was a great\ndeal of virtue, which blushed and bloomed unseen, amid all this blood\nand war.\n\nAs though by accident the historian who immortalized Joan of Arc has let\nslip a few words in connection with this heroine's early life that are\nmore valuable to us than page upon page of some of our so-called\nhistory. \"Jeanne d'Arc was the child of a laborer of Domremy, a little\nvillage on the borders of Lorraine and Champagne. Just without the\ncottage where she was born began the great woods of the Vosges, where\nthe children of Domremy drank in poetry and legend from fairy ring and\nhaunted well, hung their flower garlands on the sacred trees and sang\nsongs to the good people who might not drink of the fountain because of\ntheir sins. Jeanne loved the forest; its birds and beasts came lovingly\nto her at her childish call. But at home men saw nothing in her but 'a\ngood girl,' simple and pleasant in her way, spinning and sewing by her\nmother's side while the other girls went to the fields--tender to the\npoor and sick.\"\n\nThis is a little domestic scene of the year A.D. 1425, and how homelike\nand real and familiar it all is. What a sweet peace spot, among all the\nbloodshed and horror that was going on throughout France at that time.\n\nJoan of Arc is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable characters in all\nhistory. She was born at Domremy, France, in 1412, and was executed in\n1431. Before she had reached twenty this girl had practically freed\nFrance from the English, or at least put the country upon such a footing\nthat a few years accomplished its freedom.\n\nThe superstitions of the times are no doubt responsible to a great\nextent for the success which was attained by this Maid of Orleans. \"The\nEnglish believed in her supernatural mission as firmly as the French\ndid, but they thought her a sorceress who had come to overthrow them by\nher enchantments,\" and so on. The fact remains that this innocent\npeasant girl of eighteen years of age freed France from the English and\naccomplished things which no man of France at that time was able to do.\nEither the French generalship of the times was very incompetent or the\narmy was very much demoralized--at all events they had been awaiting the\nadvent of a leader who was both determined and fearless, for skill does\nnot seem to have been a requisite--and this appeared in the person of\nJoan of Arc.\n\nIt is difficult to believe that an entirely inexperienced person of this\nkind could take charge of an army of ten thousand men and lead them to\nvictory when the best trained generals of the time could do nothing and\nsuffered defeat at every turn.\n\nWith the coronation of the King the Maid felt that her errand was over.\n\"Oh, gentle king, the pleasure of God is done,\" she cried, as she flung\nherself at the feet of Charles, and asked leave to go home. \"Would it\nwere His good will,\" she pleaded with the archbishop, as he forced her\nto remain, \"that I might go and keep sheep once more with my sisters and\nmy brothers; they would be glad to see me again.\"\n\nBut the policy of the French court detained her. France was depending on\none of its peasant girls for its very national existence. The\nhumiliation of the thing should make all good Frenchmen blush with\nshame. So she fought on with the conviction that she was superfluous in\nthe army, and a slave to the French court. It does not appear that she\nwas even placed upon the payroll, or that she received reward of any\nkind for her services--and there were no \"Victoria crosses\" in those\ndays. She fought on without pay; rendered all her services for\nnothing--perhaps for the love of the thing. During the defence of\nCompiegne in May, 1430, she fell into the hands of one Vendome, who sold\nher to the Duke of Burgundy. Burgundy sold her to the English--her\nremuneration for her self-sacrificing, voluntarily-given services.\n\nAnd now comes the tragic part of a most pathetic story enacted out at a\ntime when the name civilization, applied to the French and English, is a\nmockery. \"In December she was carried to Rouen, the headquarters of the\nEnglish, heavily fettered, and flung into a gloomy prison, and at\nlength, arraigned before the spiritual tribunal of the Bishop of\nBeauvais, a wretched creature of the English, as a sorceress and a\nheretic, while the dastard she had crowned king left her to die.\" She\nwas not even granted a legal, judicial trial.\n\nSome say that her sentence was at one time commuted to perpetual\nimprisonment, which proves that there was a glimmer of humanity hid away\nin some corner of the world, knocking hysterically in its imprisonment\nfor admission. \"But the English found a pretext to treat her as a\ncriminal and condemned her to be burned.\" And at this juncture it may be\nwell to say that we have good reason to be proud of ourselves to-day,\nand ashamed of our ancestors.\n\n\"She was brought to the stake on May 30th, 1431. The woman's tears dried\nupon her cheeks, and she faced her doom with the triumphant courage of\nthe martyr.\" During her last awful moments, as she left this world with\nthe torture of the flames slowly consuming her body, what were the last\nimpressions of this girl of nineteen who left home and happiness to free\na people who allowed her to be thus tormented to death? \"A court was\nconstituted by Pope Calixtus III., in 1455, which declared her innocent\nand pronounced her trial unjust. And through the whole civilized world\nher memory is fittingly commemorated in statuary and literature.\" But\nthis is poor consolation and does not undo the mischief. So far as Joan\nof Arc is concerned, she is still burning, scorching, suffering at that\nstake, and the world and the English are her torturers, still tormenting\nher, while the man she made king stands looking on indifferently,\nheartlessly. All the honor and statuary that ever had creation on this\ngreen earth cannot atone for this crime of \"civilization\" on the\ninnocent. But it is only one blot of many with which the world moves\non, branded indelibly to its unknown end; and beneath a pleasant\nexterior we know, but try to hide, those blots, with apologies for our\nancestors. And yet some say the world is getting no better. Out of this\nchaos of blood, crime and heathendom we sprang with all our pride and\ngreatness, and with such a record it behooves us to be rather humble\nthan high-minded, for crime and disgrace are lying at our very\ndoor-step.\n\n\"The story of Joan has been a rich motive in the world of art, and\npainter and sculptor have spent their genius on the theme without as yet\nadequately realizing its simple grandeur.\"\n\n\n\n\nOf Voices Long Dead\n\n\nThe following is not history, although we have placed it under this\nheading. It is the literal translation of a poem by Theocritus, a light\nin the ancient literature of the Greeks. Although the actual incident\nnever occurred, it is typical of what was going on among that long dead\npeople, and it is of as much importance to us as the most valuable\nrecord of history, and is of vital interest when viewed in retrospect\nfrom the year 1915, because it gives us a rare glimpse into the domestic\nmanners of a people who lived when all the present civilized world was\nin the hands of savages--and how modern it all seems. The scene might\nhave been enacted yesterday even to the smallest detail.\n\nImagine yourself in the city of Alexandria about the year 280 B.C.\n\n\"Some Syracusan women staying at Alexandria, agreed, on the occasion of\na great religious solemnity--the feast of Adonis--to go together to the\npalace of King Ptolemy Philadelphus, to see the image of Adonis, which\nthe Queen Arsinoe, Ptolemy's wife, had had decorated with peculiar\nmagnificence. A hymn, by a celebrated performer, was to be recited over\nthe image. The names of the two women are Gorgo and Praxinoe; their\nmaids, who are mentioned in the poem, are called Eunoe and Eutychis.\nGorgo comes by appointment to Praxinoe's house to fetch her, and there\nthe dialogue begins.\"\n\nWe are following the translation of William Cleaver Wilkinson.\n\nGorgo. Is Praxinoe at home?\n\nPraxinoe. My dear Gorgo, at last! Yes, here I am. Eunoe, find a\nchair--get a cushion for it.\n\nG. It will do beautifully as it is.\n\nP. Do sit down.\n\nG. Oh, this gadabout spirit! I could hardly get to you, Praxinoe,\nthrough all the crowd and all the carriages. Nothing but heavy boots,\nnothing but men in uniform. And what a journey it is! My dear child, you\nreally live too far off.\n\nP. It is all that insane husband of mine. He has chosen to come out here\nto the end of the world, and take a hole of a place--for a house it is\nnot--on purpose that you and I might not be neighbors. He is always just\nthe same--anything to quarrel with one! anything for spite!\n\nG. My dear, don't talk so of your husband before the little fellow. Just\nsee how astonished he looks at you. Never mind, Zopyrio, my pet, she is\nnot talking about papa.\n\nP. Good heavens! the child does really understand.\n\nG. Pretty papa!\n\nP. That pretty papa of his the other day (though I told him beforehand\nto mind what he was about), when I sent him to shop to buy soap and\nrouge, he brought me home salt instead--stupid, great, big,\ninterminable animal.\n\nG. Mine is just the fellow to him.... But never mind; get on your things\nand let us be off to the palace to see the Adonis. I hear the queen's\ndecorations are something splendid.\n\nP. In grand people's houses everything is grand. What things you have\nseen in Alexandria! What a deal you will have to tell anybody who has\nnever been here!\n\nG. Come, we ought to be going.\n\nP. Every day is holiday to people who have nothing to do. Eunoe, pick up\nyour work; and take care, lazy girl, how you leave it lying about again;\nthe cats find it just the bed they like. Come, stir yourself; fetch me\nsome water, quick! I wanted the water first, and the girl brings me the\nsoap. Never mind, give it me. Not all that, extravagant! Now pour out\nthe water--stupid! why don't you take care of my dress? That will do. I\nhave got my hands washed as it pleases God. Where is the key of the\nlarge wardrobe? Bring it here--quick!\n\nG. Praxinoe, you can't think how well that dress, made full, as you've\ngot it, suits you. Tell me, how much did it cost?--the dress by itself,\nI mean.\n\nP. Don't talk of it, Gorgo; more than eight guineas of good hard money.\nAnd about the work on it I have almost worn my life out.\n\nG. Well, you couldn't have done better.\n\nP. Thank you. Bring me my shawl, and put my hat properly on my\nhead--properly. No, child (to her little boy), I am not going to take\nyou; there is a bogey on horseback, who bites. Cry as much as you like,\nI'm not going to have you lamed for life. Now we'll start. Nurse, take\nthe little one and amuse him; call the dog in, and shut the street door.\n(They go out.) Good heavens! what a crowd of people! How on earth are we\never to get through all this? They are like ants--you can't count them.\nMy dearest Gorgo, what will become of us? Here are the Royal Horse\nGuards. My good man, don't ride over me! Look at that bay horse rearing\nbolt upright; what a vicious one! Eunoe, you mad girl, do take\ncare!--that horse will certainly be the death of the man on his back.\nHow glad I am now that I left the child at home!\n\nG. All right, Praxinoe, we are safe behind them, and they have gone on\nto where they are stationed.\n\nP. Well, yes, I begin to revive again. From the time I was a little girl\nI have had more horror of horses and snakes than of anything in the\nworld. Let us get on; here's a great crowd coming this way upon us.\n\nG. (to an old woman). Mother, are you from the palace?\n\nOld Woman. Yes, my dears.\n\nG. Has one a tolerable chance of getting there?\n\nO.W. My pretty young lady, the Greeks got to Troy by dint of trying\nhard; trying will do anything in this world.\n\nG. The old creature has delivered herself of an oracle and departed.\n\nP. Women can tell you everything about everything. Jupiter's marriage\nwith Juno not excepted.\n\nG. Look, Praxinoe, what a squeeze at the palace gates!\n\nP. Tremendous! Take hold of me, Gorgo, and you, Eunoe, take hold of\nEutychis!--tight hold, or you'll be lost. Here we go in all together.\nHold tight to us, Eunoe. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Gorgo, there's my\nscarf torn right in two. For heaven's sake, my good man, as you hope to\nbe saved, take care of my dress!\n\nStranger. I'll do what I can, but it doesn't depend upon me.\n\nP. What heaps of people! They push like a drove of pigs.\n\nStr. Don't be frightened, ma'am; we are all right.\n\nP. May you be all right, my dear sir, to the last day you live, for the\ncare you have taken of us! What a kind, considerate man! There is Eunoe\njammed in a squeeze. Push, you goose, push! Capital! We are all of us\nthe right side of the door, as the bridegroom said when he had locked\nhimself in with the bride.\n\nG. Praxinoe, come this way. Do but look at that work, how delicate it\nis! how exquisite! Why, they might wear it in heaven!\n\nP. Heavenly patroness of needle-women, what hands we hired to do that\nwork? Who designed those beautiful patterns? They seem to stand up and\nmove about, as if they were real--as if they were living things and not\nneedlework. Well, man is a wonderful creature! And look, look, how\ncharming he lies there on his silver couch, with just a soft down on his\ncheeks, that beloved Adonis--Adonis, whom one loves, even though he is\ndead!\n\nAnother Stranger. You wretched woman, do stop your incessant chatter.\nLike turtles, you go on forever. They are enough to kill one with their\nbroad lingo--nothing but a, a, a.\n\nG. Lord, where does the man come from? What is it to you if we are\nchatterboxes? Order about your own servants. Do you give orders to\nSyracusan women? If you want to know, we came originally from Corinth,\nas Bellerophon did; we speak Peloponnesian. I suppose Dorian women may\nbe allowed to have a Dorian accent.\n\nP. Oh, honey-sweet Proserpine, let us have no more masters than the one\nwe've got! We don't the least care for you; pray don't trouble yourself\nfor nothing.\n\nG. Be quiet, Praxinoe! That first-rate singer, the Argive woman's\ndaughter, is going to sing the Adonis hymn. She is the same who was\nchosen to sing the dirge last year. We are sure to have something first\nrate from her. She is going through her airs and graces ready to begin.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd here the voices die away in the remote past. How difficult it is to\nbelieve that this dialogue took place more than two thousand years ago!\n\nAs a last glimpse of such a beautiful, modernly remote gem of\nconversation, we will give a few more words to show what those ancient\ngossipy ladies thought of their husbands.\n\nThe following are the last surviving words which Gorgo gave to the\nworld:\n\nGorgo. Praxinoe, certainly women are wonderful things. That lucky woman,\nto know all that; and luckier still to have such a voice! And now we\nmust see about getting home. My husband has not had his dinner. That man\nis all vinegar, and nothing else; and if you keep him waiting for his\ndinner he's dangerous to go near. Adieu! precious Adonis, and may you\nfind us all well when you come next year!\n\nHe might have been a husband of yesterday!\n\nFor how many years have the husbands been coming home from work daily to\npartake of a meal which an attentive and tender wife has prepared for\nhim? This was twenty-two hundred years ago.\n\n\n\n\nOf the White Woman Who Became an Indian Squaw\n\n\nThe early history of the northwest frontier of Massachusetts is fraught\nwith blood-curdling tales of savage invasions against the home-builders\nand empire-makers of that once troubled boundary between the French of\nCanada and the English of the New England States, but there is not a\nmore pitiful story than that which has been recorded touching the\nWilliams family of Deerfield, who were captured by the Indians during\none of their inroads in the year 1704. John Williams was a minister who\nhad come to Deerfield when it was still suffering from the ruinous\neffects of King Philip's war. His parishioners built him a house, he\nmarried, and had eight children. The story of the Indians' invasion, the\ndestruction of the village, and the capture of over one hundred\nprisoners is admirably told by Francis Parkman in one of those excellent\nworks of his dealing with the old regime of Canada and New England.\n\n\"A war party of about fifty Canadians and two hundred Indians left\nQuebec about mid-winter, and arrived at Deerfield on the 28th of\nFebruary, 1704. Savage and hungry, they lay shivering under the pines\ntill about two hours before dawn the following morning; then, leaving\ntheir packs and their snowshoes behind, they moved cautiously towards\ntheir prey. The hideous din startled the minister, Williams, from his\nsleep. Half naked, he sprang out of bed, and saw, dimly, a crowd of\nsavages bursting through the shattered door. With more valor than\ndiscretion he snatched a pistol that hung at the head of the bed, cocked\nit and snapped it at the breast of the foremost Indian. It missed fire.\nAmid the screams of his terrified children, three of the party seized\nhim and bound him fast, for they came well provided with cords, as\nprisoners had a great market value. Nevertheless, in the first fury of\ntheir attack, they dragged to the door and murdered two of the children.\nThey kept Williams shivering in his shirt for an hour, while a frightful\nuproar of yells, shrieks, and gunshots sounded from within. At length\nthey permitted him, his wife, and five remaining children to dress\nthemselves. After the entire village had been destroyed and the\ninhabitants either murdered or made captive, Williams and his wife and\nfamily were led from their burning house across the Connecticut River to\nthe foot of the mountain, and the following day the march north began\nwith the hundred or more prisoners.\"\n\nThe hardships of the prisoners, and the crimes of the victors during\nthat long and arduous march north through snow and ice, forms a chapter\nof pathos in the early history of those eastern states.\n\n\"At the mouth of the White River the party divided, and the Williams\nfamily were separated and carried off in various directions. Eunice, the\nyoungest daughter, about eight years old, was handed over by the\nIndians to the mission at St. Louis on their arrival there, and although\nmany efforts were made on the part of the Governor, who had purchased\nand befriended Williams, to ransom her, the Jesuits flatly refused to\ngive her up. On one occasion he went himself with the minister to St.\nLouis. This time the Jesuits, whose authority within their mission\nseemed almost to override that of the Governor himself, yielded so far\nas to allow the father to see his daughter, on condition that he spoke\nto no other English prisoner. He spoke to her for an hour, exhorting her\nnever to forget her catechism, which she had learned by rote. The\nGovernor and his wife afterwards did all in their power to procure her\nransom, but of no avail.\n\n\"'She is there still,' writes Williams two years later, 'and has\nforgotten to speak English.' What grieved him still more, Eunice had\nforgotten her catechism.\" But now we come to this strange\ntransformation, unprecedented, we think, which made an Indian squaw out\nof a white woman. \"Eunice, reared among Indian children, learned their\nlanguage and forgot her own; she lived in a wigwam of the Caughnawagas,\nforgot her catechism, was baptized in the Roman Catholic faith, and in\ndue time married an Indian of the tribe, who henceforth called himself\nWilliams. Thus her hybrid children bore her family name.\n\n\"Many years after, in 1740, she came, with her husband, to visit her\nrelatives at Deerfield, dressed as a squaw and wrapped in an Indian\nblanket. Nothing would induce her to stay, though she was persuaded on\none occasion to put on a civilized dress and go to church, after which\nshe impatiently discarded her gown and resumed her blanket.\"\n\nCould a sadder instance of degeneration be written in the annals of the\nhuman family? \"She was kindly treated by her relatives, and no effort\nwas made to detain her. She came again the following year, bringing two\nof her children, and twice afterwards she repeated the visit. She and\nher husband were offered land if they would remain, but she positively\nrefused, saying it would endanger her soul. She lived to a great age, a\nsquaw to the last. One of her grandsons became a missionary to the\nIndians of Green Bay, Wisconsin.\"\n\nThis is one of the most drastic instances of a woman's devotion to\nhusband, and mother love for children driving her back to the forest of\nher ancestors, and making her sacrifice all that her race had gained for\nher during thousands of years. Thus the most natural and primitive\ninstincts of the human race will prevail against all our arts, science\nand accomplishments.\n\n\n\n\nTHROUGH THE MICROSCOPE\n\n\n\n\nThrough the Microscope\n\n\nLife is full of impossibilities.\n\nAfter all it is not money we want so much as something to do.\n\nEvery man should have an accomplishment of some kind.\n\nSome music is like a jumble of misplaced notes.\n\nIf you have reached forty and have done nothing, get busy.\n\nWe sometimes lose dollars by being too careful with our cents.\n\nWe should try to arrange ourselves so that we will appear as plausible\nas possible to posterity.\n\nWe must have something to worry about or we will become stagnant.\n\nMusic should be rendered slowly and softly so that each note may have\ntime to tell its story before the next one comes on the stage.\n\nWhen we are young our time is all present. When we are old there is no\npresent, but our time becomes the aggregate days and years.\n\nWe sometimes get into trouble trying to keep out of it.\n\nIt is not what we would _like_ to do, but what we _can_ do.\n\nLet us take our medicine philosophically.\n\nA dollar looks larger going out than it does coming in.\n\nWhat is that we see falling like grain before the reaper? It is the\ndays, and the weeks, and the months, and the years.\n\nEvery dog wonders why the other dog was born.\n\nWe are so constituted in temperament that one may love what the other\nhates.\n\nA face is like a song, it has to be learned to be thoroughly\nappreciated. You have to acquire a taste for it, and when it is once\nmemorized it is never forgotten.\n\nMost of our best words are derived from dead, heathen languages.\n\nIf you have married the wrong man, or the wrong woman, cheer up and be a\nphilosopher over it. Philosophy is a good substitute for love if\nproperly applied.\n\nIf you do not go about sniffing the air you will not find so many\nobnoxious odors.\n\nIf you have a mental wound of any kind, do not mind; time, the great\nhealer, will cure it.\n\nWe despise the ancient heathen, yet in some cases we have risen from his\nashes.\n\nA woman dresses for appearance, not for comfort.\n\nAn ounce of domestic harmony is worth a ton of gold.\n\nWe should adjust ourselves as much as possible to circumstances.\n\nIt is better to be a dummy than to be a gossip.\n\nEvery man thinks _his_ dog is an angel.\n\nIt is not always the one who can afford it who keeps the hired servant.\n\nSince we can grow a new finger nail, why cannot we grow a new finger?\n\nThe mouse is destructive only from man's point of view.\n\nWhen a man reaches forty he usually settles down to make the best of\nthings.\n\nSometimes we are called cranks because we will not be sat upon.\n\nThe passing of time so quickly would not be so regrettable were life not\nso short.\n\nA good book has no ending.\n\nIt is nothing to win a girl if you do not win her love also.\n\nThe passing of time so quickly takes the pleasure out of everything.\n\nIf you are popular, anything you say will rise into the air like a\nZeppelin. If you are unpopular anything you say or do will sink into the\nocean of oblivion like a Titanic.\n\nIt is a pity we have to do so much to get so little.\n\nIt sometimes pays to accept a few cents on the dollar and let it go at\nthat.\n\nSometimes men become so parasitical to their occupation that, were they\nto lose it, they would drown.\n\n\"Help ye one another.\" It pays.\n\nOur mistakes keep us perpetually on the convalescence.\n\nWoman is equal to man--sometimes more than equal.\n\nWhile the years are with you freeze on to them as tightly as ever you\ncan.\n\nThe \"Give-in-to-nothing-or-nobody-for-anything\" spirit nurses a great\ndeal of evil.\n\nIt takes forty years for a man to become a philosopher. Some never\ngraduate.\n\nOur generation is to be pitied. It is living in the most extravagant age\nthe world has ever known.\n\nWhen the church does not ameliorate the objectionable dispositions of\nits adherents, it has failed in its mission.\n\nIt is diplomacy to be on friendly terms with all men.\n\nPolitics are sometimes dangerous things.\n\nBe cheerful under all circumstances.\n\nThe human race has mounted a treadmill which it must tread or perish.\n\nThe strenuous industries of this world are man's unconscious efforts to\npreserve his increasing numbers from annihilation.\n\nCourtesy in business is the best policy.\n\nIt takes three men's wages to sustain one family in an up-to-date\nfashion.\n\nUnder the circumstances, it is almost necessary to be greedy and\ngrasping.\n\nTo be perfectly healthy we should adopt the exercises followed by our\nancestors in climbing among the trees.\n\nIt is not how much you can do or how quick you get through it, but the\ncare that you take and how well you can do it.\n\nIt is not the gift but the giving.\n\nIt is quality, not quantity, that counts.\n\nDo not measure a person's length by your personal prejudices.\n\nThe man who never had an enemy is too good for this world.\n\n\"You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.\" You can\nsend a boy to college, but you cannot make him think.\n\nThe dog hates the cat, and the cat hates the dog, but when they are\nfriends there are no truer ones.\n\nJust take the world as it is; take things as to be had. Your friends may\nnot be quite so good, your foes not quite so bad.\n\nIt is the aggregate that counts.\n\nThe almighty dollar is getting smaller every day.\n\nIt is fashionable to be lazy.\n\nMoney is man's passport through the world.\n\nThe one who is most jealous is the one who is least in love.\n\nPoetry is something that was written by someone who is dead.\n\nLife is one thing after another--getting in between man and his money.\n\nSome men are so small that they could easily go through the eye of a\nneedle.\n\nOften the man who is the most mean in buying is the most extortionate in\nselling.\n\nSome husbands have to prove their love by sending their wives off for a\nmonth's holiday every six weeks.\n\nThe cat is one of the most cleanly of animals, yet she has never been\nknown to take a bath.\n\n\"It is an ill wind,\" etc. The harder the times become to others, the\nbetter they become to the sheriff.\n\nGermany wants to reap where she has not sown.\n\nMisery likes company. It is consolation to know that everybody else is\nhard up during these hard times.\n\nIn our life struggle we are obliged to sacrifice many of our pet\nambitions.\n\nIf a person is not naturally inclined he cannot be influenced by\nargument.\n\nWhen the war is over it will be an easy matter to estimate the German\ncasualties. She had about sixty-five millions.\n\nThe present seems to be a thing of the past.\n\nAn honorable defeat is more commendable than an empty triumph.\n\nOne half of the war in Europe does not know what the other half is\ndoing.\n\nSometimes finance gets men into positions for which they are not\nqualified.\n\nWe must abandon that ancient superstition that a dollar has any\nfinancial value.\n\nWhere a cat and a canary are brought up together, the cat ultimately\ngets the canary.\n\nIf a man does not support his country during the war, what can he expect\nafter the war is over?\n\nThere is not a misunderstanding but that can be adjusted amicably if it\nis gone about in the right spirit.\n\n_Your_ business is not the only important one.\n\nIt is a pity the cat would not always remain a kitten.\n\nWith the bank man it is more a matter of figures than it is of dollars.\n\nTo man, money is like a train going into a tunnel. It goes in at one end\nand out at the other, and leaves nothing.\n\nNever judge a person's way by what the other people say.\n\nThere are only two sides to business: what I.O.U. and what U.O.I.\n\nWhere there is abundance there is likely to be waste and lack of\neconomy.\n\nA one dollar contra is often used to stave off a hundred dollar account.\n\n\"Every crow thinks that _its_ bird is a white one,\" and every man thinks\nthat _his_ wife is the right one.\n\nThe hieroglyphic signature is often taken as a sign of perfect\ncommercial attainment.\n\nSome people give and take; others are all take.\n\nBlessed is the man who has no family, for he shall inherit wealth.\n\nUnlucky is the man who has children, for verily I say unto you, they\nkeep him broke.\n\nThe good Samaritan who lends his friend a dollar, sometimes loses both\nthe friend and the dollar.\n\nThe poorer a man the greater his misfortunes.\n\nA great many children go to school to learn to read novels.\n\nIt takes as long to become a man as it does to become a philosopher.\n\nLife is far too short judging by the time it takes to collect some of\nour accounts.\n\nFirst, steel made millionaires, then railways, then oil, then pork; and\nnow it is the automobile.\n\nWhen two or three women are gathered together no man can tell when the\nend will be.\n\nThe well-fed philosopher is likely to have a well-fed philosophy; the\nunder-fed one an emaciated variety.\n\nHabitual melancholy is not always a mental derangement; it is very often\na constitutional weakness.\n\nLive and--let your indorser--learn.\n\nThe further you get into the world the less time you have for poetry,\nphilosophy and sentiment.\n\nThe doctor is a man whom we don't want to do any business with.\n\nYou seldom meet an enthusiast who is not a crank also.\n\nIndividually, dimensions are determined by the proportions of the\nobserver.\n\nThe modern attitude is a contempt for economy. Conservation is a\nbugbear.\n\nYour neighbor is not a freak because he does not fall in line with your\nway of thinking.\n\nWhen you have gained your equilibrium, you usually find that it was not\nworth while getting mad after all.\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's note:  In \"Of the Foolhardy Expedition,\" there is\nextensive quoting of a text, and the quotes are not always matched.  The\npunctuation was left as printed.]","title":"Skookum Chuck Fables: Bits of History, Through the Microscope","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":37121}