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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (July 21, 1912)
3 THE SUNDAY OEEGOxMAS, , PORTLAND, JULY 21, 1913 . i m a TST-rv t T X"T 7T7T m in m . m m n m ..mm w m t m m m lAL 1LJJ W HJV4 And Its- Hir Own We Har in - Love With Germans' Future Ruler and Cbnsort Take Second Honey moon After Six Years of Unmarried Life Unexampled Royal Felicity Turns Dreary Military ' Station Into Bower of Ro manceConduct Amazes Prussia's Royal Natives. $Mm P Felicity Turns' Dreary Military . Station Into Bower of Ro- ' ; : mance-Conduct Amazes Prussia's Royal Natives. ' ItX Hy -ii'sr-'f v -uV V .7; iifAi- l ivrf : - -.i f ihkkl tv. -sVv.vV i?r , 'Vtn Aiy? !tVf 1ST " v-4 i 4 3 SI HfJftLVi f&y&ZS-ZiS J?S V??'-1'7 G,Zffrr BI HERBERT BATEMAJJ. AXZIG, July S. (Special Corre spondence.) Friedrlch T nr.eim, Crown Prince of Germany, is In love. For a married man -with four children this is serious, and Lang fuhrs natives, near here, are amazed. Langfuhrians are not censorious and they tolerate ordinary peccadilloes, but Friedrich 'Wilhelm's case is unexam pled. He is in love with his -wife. Crown Princess Cecilie, and all Lang fuhr. Danrlg and East Prussia knows the news. When Friedrich Wllhelm was sent to Randy Langfuhr to command the Death's Head Hussars, people punned tlresomely: "Not Langfuhr but Lang weil." "Langweil" means tedium, and the punneTS meant that a Prince who needs theaters, races and cocktails would die of boredom. Friedrich Wll helm merely returned his unvarying smile, while his pretty wife beamed. For the affectionate pair scented In rural Langfuhr raw material for a second honeymoon, far from heartless Berlin, where rigid police rules for- bld you flaunting abroad your marital affection. The heir, said the l"cal "Nachrich ten" soon after, has coma here for give our vulgarity to spoon. When Langfuhr's residents, it added, see in the twilight a slim youth walking down a lime-fringed alley with an arm round someone else's waist, they go home and report that they've seen the future Kaiser. Naturally these revelations disillu sion those who hold the heir's occupa tion should be war not love and that he should be scheming to outwit Pacificist Bethmann-Hollweg and raid Great Britain. Instead, the uxorious Prince does little at Langfuhr but plot means to rejoice his six years' bride. "Our Fatherlands' Ideal lover-husband," says again the local "Nachrich ten." With papa's Ingenuity, it adds, the Crown Prince has devised the dish. "Lomard a la princesse Cecilie," built up of lobster, mayonnaise sauce, truf fles, salted cucumber and parsley. When the Princess arrived at Lang fuhr she found a surprise in the shape of a St. Cecilia music-room, adorned with pictures of the patron, saint of harmony. There were copies of. F.aphael's Bo logna St. Cecilia, of Domenico's Louvre Cecilia, of his San Lulgi de Frances! frescoes and others. And on last St Cecilia's Day, which falls in November, there was a little Cecilia luncheon homard a la princesse Cecilia and other things. It annoyed the Kaiserin, a rigid Lu theran, who distrusts saints equally with Socialists and is not quite sure wherein they differ. So that with her birthday celebrations and her name day celebrations and her "saint and martyr's day," slim Princess Cecilie has a very bearable time.. The scene of the imperial second honeymoon is Villa Dlppe, Langfuhr a comfortable, smallish house, in style resembling the undistinguished sub urban palaces of any big city. As it originally had no park for love-sick couples to get love-sick in, two ad joining gardens have been tacked on to th small grounds. For receptions. JY r-"-t ' - Villa Dlppe has only two small rooms and one is full of the Prince's Indian trophies. But when Summer comes, re ceptions can be held in the Ollva Pal ace, close by, which is too damp, for permanent abode. For a honeymoon couple Villa Dippe has merits. It has darkling woods, sandy desolations where pine-trees overhang a tideless sea, desirable se questered spots where lovers may flee the vulgar eye and still more desirable spots where they can keep in the eye of the vulgar. Friedrich Wilhelm for the most part scorns to love secretly. Few days pass that ho does not loiter, arm in arm with his wife, along the lime-tree road from Langfuhr to Oliva. The lovers make for the palace orchard and vanish among the budding apple trees. Danzig's professors of the etiquette are scandalized. Their Imperial Highness, they groan, break the Irrefragable rule that royalties shall appear with aides-de-camp and Hof Frauleins. The Imnerial Highness, hint the professors. violate etiquette because they want to whisper graceful nothings which would sound absurd to frigid ladies-in-wait-lng and dluillusioned aides-de-camp. And sometimes Prince enud Princess arrive in an automobile and march off fondly on foot, leaving a yawn- rhuiiffenr to flap his arms ana ing princess for wish that he too had a wife. Wheresoever Friedrich Wilhelm goes, thither also goes Crown Princess Ce cilie. Even when he "works." But the Prince appears so seldom in the regi mental commander's office that his coming causes surprise. Instead, he pays the barracks so many "surprise visits," that the soldiers are surprised when he does not pay one. Along with him comes faithful "Frau. Kegl mentskommandeur," tastes the war riors' leathery bread and asks if they like it. The flattered warriors swear that they do like it and secretly pray that "Frau Reglmentskommandeur may send them a plate of "Homard a la princesse Cecilie." When this loving pair are partea, they wither and pine and lose their charm. Friedrich Wilhelm looks like a soldier, somewhat puffed up like Im perial papa, not ft little ancestor Fred erick the Great. And Crown Princess Cecilie dons a tired, petulant, mother-of-four-children air. But their smiles irradiate the landscape the moment they meet They are infantile, ex pansive smiles, in no way related to the scientific, gracious grins of Europ's other royalties. They have been born, not made; and they beam forth con stantly, ever the same, whether all Danzig is watching or whether the only sight-seerer is some rustic Paul Pry, who crouches in a ditch In the hope of seeing Germony's future War Lord snatching a modest kiss. Altogether it is a Daphnis and Chloe idyll and disillusioned Langfuhr is pleased to see romance restored to the wizened earth. It Is so pleased that it condones the blot on the romance that the two are respectably married. So when they appeared at a local pro duction of "Rosenkavalier." all East Prussia turned up to greet them. As usual Prince and Princess beamed their Ineffaceable smile and when Crown Princess Cecilie dropped her glove, two bald heads so collided in picking it n that aches resigned in Denzig a week thereafter. So pleasant has it all proved that the pair have planned more delights of the same sort after the Prince is re leased from Langfuhr. The Crown Prince has long sighed for a more modern dwelling than the marble pal ace at Potsdam, which was built over a century ago. Architects reported that to modernise it satisfactorily would cost an enormous sum. So a new home fs to be built overlooking the Jugfern Lake. It will be an Imposing place with ample accommodation for the royal couple, there secretaries and employees. But above all the Crown Princess is bent on making it home like and snug inside and convenient for lovers' strolls outside. To this end she goes personally from time to time, to superintend the architect and landscape gardeners, fortified by the experience of her pleasand Langfuhi days. the ranchr asks the speculated som as to whether it was a grand Jury Indictment, a family row, or Just a plain case of embezzlement but we never got any satisfaction out of him. That is. he didn't volunteer any details, and I reckon a man would come about as near questioning htm as he would to asking the Sphinx for the time o' day. Some of the boys got kind of preju diced against him because he carried a little, testament and would get it out and read It nights and mornings. Nat urally you don't expect a man to oe strong on religion who has to leave his right name back East for safe keeping and borrow a nom de plume to write on the fly-leaf of his Bible. Of course, in this country it's bad taste to be too critical, but that sort of thing gives' a man a bad start "However, the boys soon otfim see William's religion wasu 1 -bluff. First off. we laid a trap for him, and every morning when he went out to hook up his four-mule team one of the boys hung around within hear ing. I reckon If there is anything on earth that can rasp a man's temper it's lining up four of those warty little dod tailed Jinnies before breakfast But our .h.mn didn't bring results. Whatever William mav have thought about muies, he didn't say it in the usual way, at least One morning I watched him hitch the whole four and start off with out breaking the tune of "Lead, Kindly i.irtt hi. waa whistling. After that we eave it up. When he got his first month s pay William sent a letter off to rnoenix. and in a few days we got notice 01 a box of express at Cave Creek. For- a man to send for a box by express on payday is usually an Interesting coin cidence, and we were a little uncertain about it William was away for a week on the north range, and hadn t lert any orders about the box. Finally one of the boys drove down after it He came back disappointed. The box dion 1 nave any glass neck sticking out of the top as usual. It was square all around, and marked 'books.' "William put his books up on the shelf In the cook shack and invited us all to help ourselves. There wasn't any great rush after we had read over the titles. Most of them had names, that a man would have to get explained to him so he would know what he was reading about One or two was In some dago language. There was one book, by that man Emerson, that I did read a good bit of. The only trouble with him is you have to keep thinking hard all the time to keep up with. him. I never could read him more than a half hour without having to take a nap to rest my think apparatus. But Will lam would pore over that book by the K.i.r. On Sundays he could take a Arizona, Naturally, wil hammock, and v Xew; of tho.a haok UD THOMPSON, foreman 01 mo Lazy H ranch, acknowledged my reauest for a bed by a nod in the general direction of the bunk room, and resumed his reading beside the soot etreaked lamp. Across the table the title of the pamphlet he hld stood out distinctly. I could not refrain from a derisive whistle. Bud laid the pamphlet on the table and slipped a little lower In his chair. "I suppose you are wondering why I am reading that sort of literature, eh? If you're- not In a hurry about turning in. I'U tell you about it "It all started with a cow hand we had named William not Bill, nor Billy Just William. I remember the day he blew In on the Overland from the East I was loafing around the super intendent's office in Cave Creek, when he came in looking for a Job. The sup. gave him one look and shook his head. I don't need any office help now he says. " "How about stranger. "The boss looks him over sharp, from his black derby and fat peachy cheeks down his 40-inch waist to his straight legs and soft kid shoes. For a moment he hesitated, and I knew what was in his mind he was trying to get a men tal picture of that figure doubled up In six inches of 'dobs dust helping to wrangle a range yearling. - -How about it Bud,' he asks, turn ing to me. "have we any place this puntlpman could fill? -v eidn't miss the sarcasm In his words, and I knew my cue was to let the stranger down easy, but Just men an idea popped Into my head. - -That Juan Mexican we've got driv ing the chuck wagon ought to be fired again he's getting slack, as usual. rnlunlprs. -Th. boss nodded. That's the only thing we have mule skinning on the chuck wagon he's getting slack, usual.' I volunteers. -I ll take it." says the stranger. -The superintendent pulled a book r,r Ma riAsit. 'What name? he Asks. "For a moment the stranger hesitat ed, then he loks the boss straight in the eve. "Smith William Smith will do.' he says solemn-like, The boss nodded. 'All right Will' - h aiva And William It was from that day. That's as near as vr knew anybody come to getting familiar with him. It wasn't that he was stuck up was about the humblest mortal I ever saw but he had a sort of dignity about him that a man Just naturally respects. "Of course. It was a plain case of having seen better days, but that didn't .muse any special comment That's the way many a good man has made Jala start la and have more fun than most folks could with a twenty-dollar bill at Coney Island. "It wasn't long till William got his waist line down so his Sunday clothes fit him like a bean bag. He began taking long rides horseback, and once in a while he would tackle one of the outlaws out In the corral. He learned the cowman's trick of how to fall when he's throwed. and took his punishment like a man. After a few months of that his shoulders began to come up square and his legs to sag like the rest of us. One day he roped a fresh 3-year-old buckskin and rode him down to Cave Creek and asked the boss for a job on the roundup. He got it and the Mexican went back on the chuck wagon. "I rode range with William for two years. I sort of took a shine to him, and I guess the reason was because he never had much to say. Somehow there's no place a quUt man fits in bet ter than out on the open range. Gos slpln' and talk Is for towns. When a cowman feels himself bustln' with talk he sings a few hundred verses of some fool song to his horse and don't hother other people. "All the time you couia see vvuuam was stuaymg every ouay no mc. He got to be the best 'mixer' on the ranch In spite of his quiet ways. He would ride 20 miles to a scnooinouse literary or preaching, and he had a way of getting acquainted and never making himself conspicuous. Sometimes when we wouia db na- lng together he would talk. 'Bud, he says to me solemn-like one day, 'why Is it all you men constantly indulge in profanity when you have no more in tention of blasphemy than I haver " 'Well,' I says, after thinking it over, 'I reckon 11 is u " raised, most of us, not casting any as persions on the old folks either. It seems to be sort of a custom we vo Bul into. When a man ain't strong on rhetoric he Just punctuates with cuss words.' " 'And it never hurts your conscience r he asks. " ' , I That was sort of a stunner, i naa never thought about It that way. I reckon some of us would be better' off If we had been brought up like you was, I answers, no iuuab 0.1. And I might have been better off u I had got some of your bringing up,' he says. "Bud. he goes on humble-like, 'I've lived all my life and never knew the difference between profanity and blasnhemy. I've studied since I was old enough to read I suppose I know a thousand books and I never knew one man. When I left school I had the rule for everytning, i s-neas. I thought I had, anyhow. But nobody ever told me how to deal with the exception that proves tne ruie. He went on as if he had forgot I was listening. "I thought I was somebody in those days. Some one who heard my senior thesis at college called it brilliant Somehow, of late I have come to hate that word. Its always me brilliant bauble that leads the unwary astray; It's good-for-nothing iron py rites that is the bane of every prospec tor. My folks banked on me to win. I was to be the big man in the family. UnderstandT "He broke off there, and somehow he didn't seem to get started again. We rode along for miles without speak ing, but I guess neither of us changed the subject We were doing a little quiet thinking of our own the kind that don't Just fit Into talk. "One Spring, February it was, we were camping on the North Fork, away up The weather hadn't begun to break yet and there was still little skiffs of enow occasionally, and the nights were stinging cold. One day we met up with a nester one of those boys with a prairie schooner and a half-starved team that's always on the trail look ing for some Garden of Eden he has heard of where he can take up a lit tle land.' , "Of course thera wis a .woman along. and we soon saw they were In trouble The woman was sick, and they didn t even have bacon, let alone any ap petizing grub. We helped them what we could and told the nester he had better head for town, but he said his wife was too sick to move Just then. "One morning he came hurrying into camp Just as we were rolling out He was a thin, bent lime aao, u iiumo and beard all faded out in the sun, and now he was crying like a child. He seemed to pick out William as the one to e-o to in his trouble. 'Could I get one of you to go to the nearest town. he asks, she wants sne waiiLcu uo iy get a a preacher.' '"Is your wile worse r x puu iu. " 'It ain't her,' he says, 'she died last nio-ht ftr -the little one came. She was afraid it might go too I promised her I would have it Daptizea ioaay. She was funny about religion, mat way.' He sort of choked up. 'I don't know, as you can make It I'm afraid the little feller Is going too. "I hadn't been noticing William, but I happened to glance at mm as tne stranger finished. He was stanaing nVAr thA little -man with his fists clenched and sweat pouring down his face. I never before nor since saw such a look on a human countenance. All at once his expression cnangeo. xie laid his hand. on the bent trembling shoulder before him. " 'I am a minister of the gospel,' he says, solemn. "I have often wondered about that speech of William's. To us who had known' him all along and never sus pected him of being a parson, some how it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Even as he stood there in his old, battered sombrero and flan nel shirt and chaps It wasn't hard to understand why he had always been sort of one apart, and no one had ever crossed the line. In spite of his gentle ways. "I suppose that was one of the strangest baptisms ever performed. William took the water from his big canteen, and the cook scoured up one of his dough pans for a baptismal font They laid the little red-faced chap on a blanket under the pinons, and then we took off our hats and stood around awkward while William went through the little ceremony. Somehow I had never heard William's voice sound Just like It did when he finished that about Suffer the little children to come unto Me.' "The nester was right the little chap didn't live. William had Btayed with them, and along about midnight he came Into camp and rolled up be side me. 'Bud,' he says, 'we've got to lay off tomorrow. We've got two bury Ings up on the Fork and and I've got to preach the funeral.' "There was something in his tone that I couldn't get away from. It seemed to Bort of haunt me . so I couldn't sleep, and I must have laid for hours looking up at the stars. Wil liam was pounding around beside me, and I knew there was no sleep ahead for him. Finally. I couldn't hold In any longer. " William.' I says, 1 ain't curious about what's your private business, but I think you better tell me about this thing, whatever it is.' "He was quiet for a long time. "No not now he says finally, 'I want you to help me Judge.' "The next day we held the funeral, out under the blazing sun in the sand, and left a little monument of stones to mark the spot "I am not much of a Judge of ser mons, but somehow that talk of Wil liam's seemed to get to my vitals. Maybe It was partly the picture of that poor, bent faded-out little man going on toward the promised land leaving his own that way. But some how, it seemed to me William was preaching a little more than a funeral sermon. Now and then a note crept in that seemed to have a meaning of its own a sort of plea like the cry of a lost soul. There was more than one cow puncher that shed some good hon est tears that day and wasn't ashamed, of it neither. I don't know whether the rest of them understood, but when William finished, I knew I had looked into a man's soul and had seen things laid bare that no power In earth nor hell could drag from most """After the service William beckoned to me, and we rode away by ourselves. Bud,' he says, 'I am not going to bother you with theology, the theory of atonement, and. all that-but do you suppose the Lord would take me backr I looked at him close for a minute, a sudden feeling coming over me that after all, William's case might be Just plain insanity. "Take you back?' I queries. "'Bud he says, looking me square In the eye. '10 years ago I startad to redeem the world or to do my share of lt-and I failed failed miserably, ut terly. I was sent from one church to another always a poorer one.' He paused as if trying to comprehend the bitterness of the memory. 'Do you suppose the Lord wants a man back who was too proud to faij, and hadn't the spunk to tight; who ran away like a miserable craven and who swore before his God he would never preach again.' "I knew it wasn't advice he wanted so much as sympathetic listening. We rode along for two hours, him doing most of the talking, his ideas milling around like a herd on a stampede. When we came back in the evening he got out his testament and read that parable about the prodigal son. 'Bud,' he says, 'if words can brand a man. I reckon I've got that story seared into my soul.' I tried to head him off, knowing it wasn't good for his peace of mind to run on that way, but he kept it up. 'Bud,' he goes on, "when that little, miserable nester came to me with his trouble yesterday, some thing seemed to go out of me since then I've known it didn't matter about me. I don't want the fatted calf. I've lived on the husks of humility these three years they are good enough for me but do you suppose he wants me back ?' And then he would thresh it out all over again. "When we turned in for the night he was still thoughtful and troubled. Along toward morning I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard William'a voice in my ear. " 'Bud,' he says, his voice low ana tense, 'I have my answer.' "I am not naturally religious nor emotional myself, and I guess I don't understand those things, but I wUl al ways remember those word of Wil liam's. Somehow, I have always felt like I'd had a peep Into the gardens and promised lands he talked about and had shared the great triumph in the life of a man who had come through tribulations to a place close up to the throne. "That's why this annual report of the Rock River Methodist Conference of Ohio is popular literature around here. I know what you want to ask what all us worldly minded people are always thinking about It's funny how things work out. It's been five years- since he went back, and now, when it wouldn't matter a bit to W II llam where he was put they have gone and loaded on to him the biggest church In the district." (Copyright by Shortstory Pub. Co.) Proof of an Old Adaffe. The "First Cornet Band of Plain vllle" was giving its regular Satur day night concert on the four corners, just previous to calling on the mer chants for their weekly payments on the subscriptions for the new Instru ments. . The bass drummer, who was the 10 ca' cooper, in an absent-minded mo ment busted a bole in one side of his instrument but kept on the Job. Hi Hlgley, who was among the as sembled populace, listened on for a while after the accident and said the music was proof to him of the truth of the old saying that two heads are better than one. Judge,
