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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (April 13, 1913)
' THE SUNDAY 0REG03VIAX, PORTLAND. APRIL 13. 1913. Puh:ih v special srrsntnent with he Outlook, of which Theodor Koos)t u th contributing- iltor. coprrlirht. 1913. lv lh Outlook rompior- All rlht r--rrl. tnrludinir Tlht of trnltloo- I WAS a !ckly. delicate boy. uffered much from a.thma. and frequently had to b taken awar on trips to find a place where I could breathe. One of my memories is of my father walking up and down the room with me In hi arms at night when I was a very small person, and of sitting up Jn bed gasping-, with my father and mother trying to help me. I went very little to school. I never went to the public schools, as my own children later did. both at the "Cove school" at Oyster Bay and at the "Ford school" In Washington. For a few months I attended Professor McMullen's school in Twentieth street, near the house where I was born, but most of the time I had tutors. As I have already Id. my aunt taught me when I was small. At one time we had a French governess, a loved and valued "mam' elle." in the household, i When I was 10 years old I made my ifirt Journey to Europe. My birthday Van spent In Cologne, and In order to give me a thoroughly "party" feeling I ' remember that my mother put on full drrss for my birthday dinner. I do not think I gained anything from this particular trip abroad. I cordially bated It. as did my younger brother and sister. Practically all the enjoy ment we had was In exploring any ruins or mountains when we could get away from our elders, and In playing In the different hotels. Our one de sire was to get back to America, and we regarded Europe with the most Ignorant chauvinism and contempt. Four years later, however, I made an other Journey to Europe, and was old enough to enjoy It thoroughly and protit by 1U While still a small boy I began to take Interest In natural history. I re member distinctly the first day that I started on my career as xoologist. I was walking up Itroadway. and as 1 .LBsed the market to which I used sometimes to be sent before breakfast to get strawberries. I suddenly saw a dead seal laid out on a slab of wood. That seal filled me w ith every possible feeling of romance and adventure. I asked "where It was killed, and was in formed In the harbor. I had already begun to read some of Mayne Keld's books and other boys' books of adven ture, and I felt that this seal brought all these adventures In realistic fash Ion before me. As long as that seal remained there I haunted the neigh borhood of the market day after day. I measured it. and 1 recall that, not having a tape measure, I had to do my be.tt to get its girth with a folding pocket foot-rule, a difficult undertak ing. I carefully made a record of the utterly useless measurements, ana hi once begnn to write a natural hi-story of my own, on the strength of that seal. This, and subsequent natural hl.-tnrlcs. were written down in blank books In simplified spelling wholly un premeditated and unscientific. I had vague aspirations of in some way or another owning and preserving that seal, but they wcyer got beyond the purely formless stage. I think, how ever. I did get the seal's skull, and with two of my cousins promptly united what we ambitiously called the Roosevelt Museum of Natural His tory." The collections were at first ' kept In my room, until a rebellion on the part of the chambermaid received the approval of the higher authorities of the household and tho collection was moved up to a kind of bookcase in the back hall upstairs. It was the ordinary small hoy's collection of cu rio, quite lnconsruoiis and entirely valueless except from the standpoint of the boy himself. My father and mother encouraged me warmly in this as they always did in anything that would give me wholesome pleasure or help to develop me. The adventure of the seal and the novels of Mayne Keid together strengthened my instinctive Interest in natural history. I was too young to understand much of Mayne Rcld. ex cepting the adventure part and the natural history part these enthralled me. But. of course, my reading was not wholly confined to natural history. There was very little effort made to compel me to read books, my father and mother having the good sense not to try to get me to read anything I did not like, unless It was in the way of study. I was given tho chance to read books that they thought I ought to read, but if I did not like them I was then given some other good book that I did like. There were certain books that were taboo. For Instance. I was not allowed to read dime novels. I obtained some surreptitiously and did read them, but I do not think that the enjoyment compensated for the feeling of guilt. I was also forbidden to read the only one of Ouidas books which, I wished to read "Under Two Flags." I did read it nevertheless, with greedy and tierce hope of coming on something unhealthy: but as a matter of fact all the parts that might have seemed unhealthy to an older person made no impression en me whatever. I simply enjoyed In a rather oonfused way the ceneral adventures I think there ought to be children's book. I think that the child will like grown-up books also, and I do not be lwe a child's book Is really good un- 1-i erown-uns get something out of It. For instance, there is a book did not have when I wa a child be cause it was not written. It la Laura E. Richard's "Nursery Rhymes." My on children loved them dearly, and their mother and I loved them almost equally; the delightfully light-hearted lan from New Mexico Who Lost His Grandmother Out In the Snow." the adventures of "The Owl. the Eel and the Warming-Pan," and the extraor dinary genealogy of the kangaroo whose "father u a whale with. xv . Tmxsma - i sty s m fe cL ei&ti o& . feather in his tail who lived in the' Greenland sea," while "his mother was a shark who kept very dark in the Gulf of Caribee." As a small boy I had "Our Toung Folks." which I then firmly believed to be the very best magazine In the world a belief. I may add. which I have kept to this day unchanged, for I seriously doubt tf any magazine for old or young has ever surpassed it. Both my wife and I have the bound volumes of "Our Young Folks" which we preserved from our youth. I have tried to read again the Mayne Reld books which I so dearly loved at a boy, only to find, alas! that It Is impossible. But I really believe that I enjoy going over "Our Toung .Folks" now nearly as much as ever. "Cast Away In the Cold," "Grandfather's Struggle for a Homestead." "The William Henry Let ters" and a dozen others like them were first-class, good healthy stories, interesting in the first place, and in tho next p'a-e teaching manliness, de cency and good conduct. At the cost of being deemed effeminate I will add that I greatly liked the girls' stories Pussy Willow" and A Summer in Leslie Goldthwalte's Life." Just as I worshiped "Little Men" and "Little Women" and "An Old-Fashioned GirL" This enjoyment of the general side Even T might have been due to mere co incidence, it might have been be cause there are undreamed-of bonds between the quick and the dead, and it mlgtr have been that Bat Morgan- ston felt a blind consciousness of the future, when he turned suddenly to Frona Payne and asked. "Even unto death?- Frona Payne was startled for the moment. Her shallow nature would not permit her to understand the strength of ai strong man's love; such things had no place in her fickle standard. Tet she knew men well enough to repress her inclination to smile: so she looked up to him with her serious child's eyes, placing a hand on each brawny shoul der, and answered, "Even unto death. Bat, dear." And as be crushed her to him, balf doubtlug, he passionately cried, "If it should happen so, even in death I shall claim you, and no mortal man shall come between!" -How absurd." she thought, as he freed herself and watched him untang ling his dogs. And a handsome fellow he was as he waded among the tierce brutes, pulling here and shoving there, cuffing right and left, and dragging them over and under the frozen traces till the team stood clear. Nipped by the Intense cold to a tender pink, his smooth-shaven face told a plain tale of strength and tndomltabllitr. His hair, falling about his shoulders in thick masses of silky brown, was prob ably more responsible for winning the woman's fleetlna- affections than all the rest of him put together. Tet when men ran their eyes up and down his six foot two of brawn they declared him a man, from hla beaded moccasins to the brown of his wolfskin cap. But. then, thev were men. She kissed him once, twice, and yet 5r5 of life did not prevent my reveling In such tales of adventure as Ballantyne's stories, or Marryafs "Midshipman Easy." I suppose everybody has kinks In him. and even as a child there were books which I ought to have liked and did not. For Instance, I never cared at all for the first part of "Robinson Crusoe" (and although it Is unques tionably tho best part.-1 do not care for it now); whereas the second part, containing the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, with the wolves in the Pyr nees, and out in the Far East, simply fascinated me. What I did like in the first part were the adventures be fore Crusoe finally reached his Island, the fight with the Sallie Rover, and the allusion to the strange beasts at night taking their Improbable bath in the ocean. Thanks to being already an embryo zoologist. I disliked the "Swiss Family Robinson," because of the wholo impossible collection of an imals met by that worthy family as they ambled inland from the wreck. Even in poetry it was the relation of adventures that most appealed to me as a boy. At a pretty early age I be gan to read certain books of poetry, notably Longfellow's poems, "The Unto S TORY BY third time. In her shy. trusting way; then he broke out the sled with the zee-Dole, "roushed-up" the dogs as only a doa driver ran, and swung down the hill to the main river trail. Tin me ridian sun. shouldering over the snowy summits to the south, turned the tiny frost particles to scintillating gems, and through this dazzling gossamer Bat Morganston disappeared on nis Journey down the Tukon to rorty-Miie. lown there ne was accounted a King-. In virtue of the rich dirt which was his after the dreary years he had spent in the darkness of the Arctic Circle. Daw son had no claims upon him. He did not own a foot of gravel in the dis trict, nor was he smitten with its in habitants the che-cha-quas that had rushed in like Jackals and spoiled the good old times when men were men and every man a brother. In fact the only reason for his presence, and a most unstable one at that, was Frona. He had harnessed his dogs and run up on the ice to renew the pledges of the previous Summer, and to plead for an early date. Well, they were to be mar ried la June, and be was returning to the management of the mines with a light heart. June! the cleanup, prom ised to be rich; he would sell out; and then, the States, Paris, the world! Of course, he doubted most men do when tbey leave a pretty woman behind but ere he had reached Forty-Mile he no longer mistrusted, and by the time be froze bis lungs on a moose hunt and died a month later, he had attained a state of blissful optimism. Frona waved bim good-bye. and also with a light heart turned back to her father's cabin; but, then, she bad no doubts at all. They were to be mar ried in June. That was ail settled. And it was no unpleasant prospect. To tell the truth, ahe thought she would rather like It. Men thought a gTeat deal him, and It waa a match, sot to A. WM Saga of King Olaf," -which absorbed I me. This introduced me to Scandi navian literature; and I have never lost my interest in and affection for it. . Among my first books was a volume of a hopelessly unscientific kind by Mayne Reid, about mammals, illus trated with pictures no more artistic than but quite as thrilling as those in the typical school geography. When my father found how deeply interested I was in this not very accurate volume he gave me a little book by J. J. Wood, the English writer of popular books on natural history, and then a larger one of his called "Homes With out Hands." Both of these were cherished pos sessions. They were studied eagerly; and they finally descended to my chil dren. The "Homes Without Har.ds," by the way, grew to have an lided association in connection with a peda gogical failure on my part. In ac cordance with what I believed was some kind of modern theory of mak ing education interesting and not let ting it become a task. I endeavored tf teach my eldest small boy one or two of his letters from the title-page. As Death be ashamed of. Besides, he was rich. People who should know said he could at any time clean up half a million, and If his American Creek interests turned out anywhere near as reported he would be a second MacDonaia. now this meant a great deal, for MacDon ald was the richest miner in the North, and the most conservative guessers varied by several millions in the ap praisement of his wealth. Now be it known that the sin Frona Payne committed was a sin of deed, not fact. There were no mail-teams be tween Forty Mile and Dawson, and as Bat Morganston's mines were still 100 miles into the frozen wilderness from Forty Mile, no news of his death came up the river. And since he had agreed to write only on the highly improbable contingency of a stray traveler pass ing his diggings, she thought nothing of his silence. To all intents, so far as she was concerned, he was alive. So the sin she committed was of a verity a sin of deed. By no method may a woman's soul be analyzed, by no scales may a wo man's motive be weighed; so no reasov can be given for Frona Payne giving her heart and hand to Jack Crellin within three months of her farewell to Bat Morganston. True. Jack Crellin was a Circle City King, possessed of some of the choicest Birch Creek claims; but the men who had made the country did not rate him highly, and his only ad mirers were to be found among the sycophantic tenderfeet who generously helned him scatter his yellow dust PerhaDS it was the way he had about him, and perhaps it was the impulsive affinity of two shallow souls; but be it what it may. they agreed to marry each other In June, and to Journey on down to Circle City and set up house keeping after the primitive, manner of the Northland. The Yukon. -broke early. -and-soon af JTzjrf-ox'zr.' 2Z5eoa&v JPoosvwS?- Klr f '" - ? III " ","f- . f IHf 3 J-" ' 'fill " ,wc."y & ""i 3, f f I - - ' Ml raJ f ; r -v' " -ill t X 1 p-r i r If - I I sr V?v " : ' buziter ofas Cudz-r ScAoo? JZ2 yVerr 2o-rjr: the letter "H" appeared in the title an unsual number of times, I selected that to begin on, my effort being to keep the small boy interested, not to let him realize that he was learning a lesson, and to convince him that he was merely having a good time. Whether it was the theory or my method of applying it that was de fective I do not know, but I certainly absolutely eradicated' from his brain any ability to learn what "H" was; and long after he had learned all the other letters of the alphabet in the old fashioned way, he proved wholly un able to remember "H" under any cir cumstances. Quite unknown to myself, I was, while a boy, under a hopeless disad tage in studying nature. I was very near-sighted, so that the only things I could study were those I ran against or stumbled over. When I was about IS I was allowed to take lessons in taxidermy from a Mr. Bell, a tall, clean-shaven, white-haired old gen tleman, as straight as an Indian, who had been a companion of Audubon's. He had a musty little shop, some what on the order of Mr. Venus' shop ter that important event, the river steamer, Cassiar, captained by her brother, was scheduled to sail. The Cassiar had the mingled honor and misfortune to be both the treasure ship and the hospital-ship of the year. In her strong-boxes she carried five millions of gold, in her state-rooms 10 score of crippled and diseased. And there were also Lower Country traders and Kings, returning from their Win ter labors or pleasures at Dawson. Among these a little anticipation of the event were listed Mr. and Mrs. Jack Crellin. But when the sick and heart-weary lifted their voices to heaven at the cruel delay, and the gold shippers waxed clamorous, the Cassiar was forced to sail before her time, ana Mr. and Mrs. Jack Crellin were yet man and maid. "Never mind, Frona," her brother said; "come aboard and I'll take charge of you. Father Mahan takes passage at Forty Mile, and you'll be snugly one before we say good-bye at Circle City." Plimsol marks, boiler inspectors and protesting boards of underwriters, not yet having penetrated the dismal do minions of the North, the Cassiar cast off her lines, with passengers, freight and chattels packed like badly assorted sardines. Wolf-dogs, whoBe work be gan and ceased with the snow, and who grew high-stomached with Summer idle ness, rioted over the steamer from stem to stern or killed each other- on the slightest provocation. Stalwart Stick Indians of the Upper River regions, lightened their heavy money pouches in brave endeavors to best the white man at his games of chance, or outraged their vitals with the whisky he sold at S30 the bottle. There were squat Mongolia, denatured Malemute and In- nuit wanderers from the Great Delta 2000 miles away; not among the whites was the Jangle of nationalities less pro nounced. The nations of the world had sent their sons to the North, and the tongues they spoke - were many. In short, the brother of Frona Payne com manded a floating Babel, commanded and guided it unerringly through an uncharted wilderness upon the breast of a howling flood for the mighty Yukon had raised its sullen voice and roared its anger from mountain-rim to mountain-rim. Nine months of snow was passing between its banks in many days, andhe Journey to the sea At Forty Mile more passengers and freight were, crowded aboard. Among the pilgrims was Father Mahan, and In the baggage was an unpalnted pine box. corresDonding in size to the con ventional last tenement of man. The rush of life has little heed for death, so this box was piled precariously upon a pyramid of freight on the Cassiar's deck. But Bat Morganston, having lain till the moment of shipment in a com fortable ice cave, did not care. Nobody cared. There were no mourners, save II j en - II II!' - . A.. ' iS fi si ;v. .,11 1 In "Oar Mutual Friend' a little shop in which he had done very valuable work for science. This "vocational study," as I suppose it would be called by modern educators, spurred and di rected my interest in collecting speci mens for mounting and preservation. It was this Summer that I got my first gun, and it puzzled me to find that my companions seemed to see things to shoot at which I could not see at' all. One day they read aloud an advertisement in huge letters on a distant billboard, and I then realized that something was the matter, for not only was I unable to read the sign, but I could not even see the let ters. I spoke of this to my father, and soon afterwards got my first pair of spectacles, which literally opened an entirely new world to me. I had no idea how beautiful the world was until I got those spectacles. I had been a clumsy and awkward little boy, and while much of my clumsiness and awkwardness was doubtless due to general characteristics, a good deal of it was due to the fact that I could not see and yet was wholly Ignorant that I was not seeing. The- recollection of i this experience -'"es me a keen gym- a huge wolf-dog. to whom the taste of his master's lash was still sweet. He crept aboard unnoticed, and ere the lines were cast off had taken up his accustomed vigil on the heap of freight by his master's side. He was such a vicious brute, and had such a fearful way of baring his fangs, fhat the other canine passengers gave him a wide berth, choosing to leave him alone with his dead. The cabins were crowded with the sick, so the marriage began on the stifling deck. It was near midnight, but the sun. red-disked and somber, slanted its oblique rays from just above the northern sky-line. Frona Payne and Jack Crellin stood side by side. Father Mahan began the service. From aft came the sound of scuffling among half a dozen drunken gamblers; but In the main the human cargo had crowded about the center of interest. And also the dogs. StllL all would have been well had not a Labrador dog sought a coign of vantage among the freight. ie naa traveled countless Journeys, was a vet eran of a dozen famines and a thou sand fights, and knew not fear. The truculent front of the dog which guard ed the pine box interested him. He drew in. his naked fangs shining like ieweleil ivory. They closed with snap and snarl, the carelessly piled freight totterine beneath them. At this moment Father Mahan blessed the two which were now one and Jack Crellin solemnly added, "Even unto death." "Even unto death." Frona Payne re peated, and her mind leaped back to the other man who had spoken those words. For the instant she felt genuine sorrow and remorse for what she ha3 done. And at that instant the two dosrs shut their jaws in the death-grip, and the long pine box poised on the edge of its pyramid. Her husband jerked her from beneath as it fell, end on. There was a crash and splinter ing; the cover fell away; and Bat Mor ganston, on his feet, erect, just as in life, with the sn glinting on his silky brown locks,, swept forward. It happened very quickly. Some say that his lios carted in a fearful smile, that he flung his arms about Frona Pavne and held her till they fell to gether to the deck. This would seem Impossible, seeing that the man was dead; but there are those who swear that these thinss were done. However, Frona Payne shrieked terribly as they drew her from beneath the body of her jilted lover, nor did her shrieking cease till land was made at Circle City. And Bat Morganston's words were true, for today, if one should care to Journev over to tho hills which lie beyond Circle City, he will see, side by side, a cabin and a grave. In the one dwells Frona Pamv: in the other Bat Morganston Thev are waiting for each other till their fetters shall fall away and the Trump of Doom break the silence of the Nortn. (Copyright by Jack London.) 4zz da.r;er pathy with those who are trying In our public schools and elsewhere to remove the physical causes of defi ciency in children, who are often un justly blamed for being obstinate or unambitious, or mentally stupid. This same Summer, too, I obtained various new books on mammals and birds, including the publications of Spencer Baird, for instance, and made an industrious book-study of the sub ject. I did not accomplish much in outdoor study because I did not get spectacles until late in the Fall, a short time before I started wun tne rest of the family for - trip to Europe. We were living at Dobbs Ferry, on the Hudson. My gun was a breech-loading, pin-fire double-bar rel, of French manufacture. It was an excellent gun for a clumsy and often absent-minded boy. There was no spring to open it, and if the mechan ism became rusty it could be opened with a brick without serious damage. When the cartridges stuck they could be removed in the same fashion. If they were loaded, however, the result was not always happy, and I tattoed myself with partially unburned grains of powder more than once. (To Be Continued Next Sunday.) Man Exists After Death It will be news to most people that man exists after death in the form of a gas endowed with intelligence. This is alleged to be the discovery of two Dutchmen, Messrs. Malta and zaainerg Van Zelst, who are described as scien tific spiritualists. The experiments are stated to have been carnea on tor sev. eral years "under the direct guidance of spirits from the other side. The Dutchmen constructed an appa ratus by which they might measure the spirit superman, whom; they have christened the "man force." The experiments are said to nave shown that the "man force" is not what can properly be termed "soul." as it was amenable and responsible to phys ical tests. On the other hand, it is not a body, as it is invisible. It is, there fore, defined as a gaseous composition. In 190 the two Dutchmen were told by the spirits to make two airtight cyl inders and to eover the outer and inner sides of these cylinders with sheets of tin. The spirits stated that they would be able to penetrate the sylinder and would be kept there by the tin. Attached to the cylinder was a high ly sensitive recorder, and ' it is from records made that the scientific spirit ualistic state they have found that: The records were made by a limited being. " The being had intelligence, since it took part in the experiments. The being was gaseous, as it obeyed laws which govern gases. The density of the body was equal to that of air. One of the Dutchmen has made a clay model of man in his second na ture but the Matin, which reproduces the work, says that this in itself is sufficient to discourage any desire for immortality. The "man force" is not. however, immortal. Being subject to the laws of nature. It has an existence of a hundred years, and then also dies. Flight From Europe to Asia. Beckman, the aviator of Cologne, who is preparing to make a sensational flight across the Atlantic this Spring from Europe to America, intends first to' start from the Da Rocha Cape. In west Spain, and fly across to Ferchelr. the first of the Azores Islands, or 1000 miles. From there he is to attempt the flight across the ocean to Halifax, which will mean about 1800 miles. He will take on board 2000 pounds of gaso line and oil, and is to fly for about 11 hours at 90 miles an hour for the Azores trip. Then he Will take on 400U pounds of gasoline, and the flight to Halifax will last 22 hours at a some what slower speed. This German trans Atlantic machine is to be a monoplane no less than 33 feet in length and of 6 feet spread, having a supporting sur face of 540 square feet. The weight of the aeroplane is 1500 pounds and the framing is of steel tubes. It Is to have two revolving cylinder motors, each driving one propeller. Wireless appa ratus and searchlights will be carriea on board.