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About Grant County news. (Canyon City, Or.) 1879-1908 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 1880)
GOSSIP OF THE DAY. BY Mrs. 8m I Mi, the grocer's wife, Ran into B?tsy Hurd'H, Wboe husband keep the butcher shop, ' And deals iu fowls and birds. Now. Mrs. Smith, she lovfd to talk, nd hour the eosslp, too: Then ether women happened Id as women always do. And fo, from oao thine; to the other Their tonuues f-o qnJckly flew, TVhih' each declared he couldn't stay, And guested there was nothing new. "Why ye", of course." spoke Matilda Jane, And didn't yon see her come ? She looks lull thlr:y-lM! bet she's more; And feet not number one's." "Well, now, Matilda, can't you tell ? Htop ! let it out don't wnisper; You dou'f nu'an tosay ste's alrendy here, 'iqulre Brown's dead wife's sistei? "Well, there, I never ! I told you so; I knew Just how 'twould be; Poor man-1 do ho pity him; He seemed so bright and free. "I guess Khe'R old. and ugly, too; 1 wonder what. she'll wear? Hr sister'." clothes, I'll be bound; The shameless hussy, there. "I wonder how did 'Squire Brown Ever come to bring hr here ? 1 expect she'll piy, and talk aud lie, About eveiy one, far and near. 'I don't believe that I shall call, 1 fear she'll be awfully cut; But I preA-r to oleic ana choose. We can't hold'the bold thing up. 4,I 'spose she thinks that some fine day, She'll lord itovpr all; And wheedle the 'Squire Into marrying her His wife only deau last fall. "Well! men an? fools. I often tell Smith That when I'm dead and gone, He needn't tlnd a sister of mine To keep house and mourn. "O, Mrs. Jonrs. just come and see ! Why, bless my soul, IVsher. 8he only wearw a black bilk dress, And a coat of seal-ssln lur. "Her hat's all black rot a ribbon that'a blue, Well, yes; her gloves are light; But nlesa my heart, dou'lyou think We had better all call to-night ?" This is only the gossip of every day life, And some one must stand for the treat; For womeu'll talk and complain of another, Not willing to be met, or to meet. CHARLEMAGNE'S DAUGHTER. Have you ever been in Germany? not T -would recommend j'ou to lose time in visiting a very peculiar and If no to me, a very interesting country. Accom pany me up the Main to the village of Selingenstadt (the Abode of Bliss), about a Jozeu miles from Frankfort. The village is delightfully situated, close by the bank of the river. It has a large forest in its rear, ad a large out skirt of the Spessart a fine champaign before it on the opposite bank. High above the pretty houses which compose this little place stands the "Red Tower," an edifice "well-known to the lovers of ro mance. The best house in the village is the Auberge, over which, some years ago, a host pi esided, whose capacious size and rotund figure involuntarily reminded one of the Great Tun of Heidlesburg. The Herr Yon Cothen was a genuine German his meerschaum seldom left his lips, except when the wine-cup. an hereditary goblet of massy silver, won at a drink ing bout by one of his ancestors, was raised to them. The man seemed to live but for smoking not that he ever was known to be what is called "disguised in liquor" he protested that such a quan tity of clay as himself required moisture, and he took good care to moisten it. It was my fortune to know him for the space of three months, and I can safely say that, with one exception, I never knew him venture on any deviation from his trinity of practices, the aforenamed drinking, smoking and sleeping. We had spent a pleasant day in what was the Spessart forest, and were re turning home when the Red Tower met our view "We were weary and threw ourselves on the mossy bank beneath the shade of a mighty tree, where, in a few ' moments, ootn oi us leu asleep, l was awakened by the voice of my companion. I kept silence while the redoubted Herr Von Cothen dilated loudly and long on the delights of the feudal days, when the lord had j)owor of life and death within his territorial limits over his vassals. He spoke v ell f)v a German host, and the novelh of his speaking was yet more. True, there was not a very lucid order in his conversation, but this could easily be pardoned in one to whom language into disuse. Von ground at listless had almost fallen Cothen lay on the length, while telling a tale somewhat to the following effect: Some centuries ago thero was an Eni- perorNero (no relative of him of Rome) B0I1) poached by Ludolf in the Emper who came, after the manner of the times. ; or's own forest.' What limit is there-to to celebrate his Christmas holidays ati Frankfort. Ho was devotedly fond of the chase, and held nearly an equal affection for his daughter, a maiden over whom some seventeen summers had lightly flown. She was. indeed, if there be truth in legendary report, a very de lightful, beautiful and innocent creature. Rut her physical charms were even less than the rare purity of "her mind, tho soft anil gentle character of her feel ings. Rorn in a cottage, she would have cheered the peasant's lot; brought up amill tho magnificence of an imperial court, she won the envy of one sex and the earnest admiration of the other. Such beauty of person and goodness of heart could not remain unknown; and, being an only child, many of the princes of the empire put in thvir claim for her hand. Rut the lady's heart was pre- engaged, and s'he paid little attention to the compliments of her many royal wooers. niii l Clorinda, thus she was called, had set her affections on one lar Deneaiu in rank. Like The feing'd daughter of Hongarle, her Who loved a squire oi xow uev. The had daughter of tho .bmperor Nero to o 4S' given her heart's nxst lovo young man, one of her father's hunts men. It is impossible to say how the secret was discovered, but certain it was that the princess was placed in close confine ment, and her lover would have been summarily and severely dealt with, but he had taken flight, and pursuit was use less, no one knowing m what direction he had fled. To do the young man jus tice, he had anticipated the discovery of a secret dear to him asms life, and takan steps accordingly. Deep in the hidden 1 J 1 1 1 i 1 T - naunts oi ine opessart no nau iounu a cave probably the former residence of some religious ascetic and he had made the best provision m his power for that decisive step which, love whispered, the princess would not refuse to take, for his sake and her own. While she, in tears, sat in the solitude of her chamber, her Ludolf was busy in making preparations for her rescue. Whenever princesses fall in love with their father's huntsmen it is customary for royalty to bo utterly appalled. Ac cordingly, the Emperor was in a most magnificent passion, and gave strict or ders that the princess should be confined to her own chamber. The next niorii- mg. However, lie made the discovery just a few hours too late that the bird had llown like Love, He o eued the window and new away. The poor old Emperor pined after her so bitterly that not an unmarried lady of the court but would have been willing to console him, had he offered her his hand. Rut. much to the disap pointment of their philanthropic inten tions, His Majesty did not see how he could atone for the loss of a daughter by taking a wife. The princess and her Ludolf (who had assisted her out of her confinement) lived as happily "benath the greenwood tree," as if there had never been such things as courts and kings, emperors and principalities. They loved one another earnestly and well, and (but this was long ago) had no wish to return to the crowds of society. Even if they had, there would have been no safety in attempting it, for how could either hope for forgiveness? Meanwhile, the Joss of his daughter had fallen heavily on the Emperor. She was the sole living thing to which his hopes had long been linked, and an the latuer and tne man wore shaken by the uncertainty of her fate and her absence from those placeB over which her smiles threw a radiance, beau tiful as the last tints of dying day 112)011 the snow-crowned hills. The old man said little, but his grief was deep. Pride would not permit him to yield to open lamentations, but in secret he shed many a tear. His household gods were shiv ered by his hearth, and, like Rachel mourning for her children, he would not bs comforted. Ho quitted Frankfort, and many years elapsed before ho again saw the place with which were linked so many and such sad recollections. He had laid aside his usual sports the huntsman's spear had rarely been held by him since that day on which he lost a daughter; and it was with some surprise that the court heard him announce that he would hold a huuting match on the morrow. Five years had lessened his endurance of fatigue, and it was with some pleasure that at the close of day, when the ardor of the chase had separated him from his suite, he found himself beside a rustic hut, at the door of which two lovely children were playing. To dismount from his weary steed, to enter the cot tage, and to request refreshment, was but the work of a moment, and instant preparations were made for his repast. The Emperor had fallen upon the resi dence of his long-lost and still loved daughter. Ludolf was a successful deer-stealer, and the fruits of the earth furnished them with other food. Re sides, Ludolf had learned that the Em- poror had quitted Frankfort soon after the flight of the Princess, and felt HHln hesilation in visiting the market there, to exchange deer and other Hkins for necessaries, and somctimos for a fow of the luxnries to which Clorinda had been accustomed, and which she had left for him. Frugal in their habits and their desires, they had lived happily without a wish for change. The graceful girl had budded into tho glorious maturity of womanhood; and, further changed by her rustic attire, the Emperor did not know m . child. Sho knew him at a single glance, and there came quick throbbing memories of the past, wild hopes of the future. The solo-repast which their situation permitted on the instant was some veni- -woman's wit. when aided by woman's uf lection i uionnda prepared the renast Ml A ' 1 .. .. with her own hands, serving up a dish which sho remembered to have been a favorite with her father of which, too, he had never eaten except when it was prepared by his daughter's hands.' Scarce ly had he tasted the food ero the tears began to fall, fast and bitterly, for her whose memory neither time nor f anger could destroy, and he eagerly inmiired from whom hisyoung hostess had learned to prepare that dish. The Princess and her husband fell at the old man's feet. The Emperor was still a father; his kind heart remembered only that his daughter was before him; all was foipvttcn and forgiven; he named the place Selingenstadt, or the Abode of RHfs (in double commemoration of his daughter and his dinner) ; he carried the happy family with him to his palace, ate his favorite meals as often as he wished to his dvins? rliiv nml linMf T1 V J. u nis uymg day and built the Rer Tower as a marriage gift for his daughter xue iovi rs mint a church where their hut had stood, and when t hey died they were buried within its walls. Such were tho particulars which the Herr Von Cothen communicated to me. The next day I made some inquiries ra- specting the story, which seemed obscure in some partsf the old man stoutly and sternly denied having uttered a syllable on the subject, and api)ealed to his well known taciturnity as evidence that he did not belong to the class of story tellers a set of persons for whom he had a most avowed and resolute con tempt. He admitted, however that I had picked up the popular legend in some way, but persisted in the dtnial that he had been the narrator. I was obliged to be content with his explana tion, although it did not give me a very exalted opinion of the veracity of mine host. Some months afterward, as I was look ing at "Titian's Assumption of the Vir gin" in the Dresden Gallery, I met with Augustus Saalfield whom I had known at Gottingen. We spent the day together, and I told him, among other things, the mistake in which Van Cothen had fallen respecting the narration of the above tale. Saalfield smiled, and dissipated my wonder by informing me that the wormy nost ot the Abode oi unss was a somnambulist, and the best story-teller within twenty leagues of Frankfort in his sleep. I learned, at tho same time, that this legend took its origin from the fact that Selingenstadt witnessed the loves and still preserves tho remains of Eginhard and Emma, the Secretary and daughter of Charlemange. Tradition has rnado a sad mistake in the names of all the parties by taking Nerc for Charlemange, and the lovers for Ludolf and Clonnda. The Red Tower (now sadly dilapidated) was the residence of the lovers after Charlemange saved the honor of his fa vorite daughter by giving her hand to his secretary. Eginhard built a church on the spot, and his bones and those of his beloved repose in a mossy antique sarcophagus on a monument beneath its roof. An Oyster Yarn. I nover found anything but once here in excess of my expectations or oven ap proaching them, and that was the New York oysters. I had just then come on irom uamornia, where oysters are very small and unimportant, not to sav insig nificant, and I had often eaten a hundred there at a time, aud had always felt that I could eat more if I had them. So, when I arrived at the Metropoliton Hotel, I ordered my dinner to be brought to my room, and told the waiter to bring with my dinner a strong cup of colteo and a hundred raw oysters. He looked at me a moment and then said: "Did I understand you to say a hun dred oysters ?" "Yes," I answered; "raw, on the half- shell, with vinegar; no lemons, and as soon as you can, for I am very hungry." Ahem! Miss, did you want a hun dred ?" "Yes, I do. What are vou waiting fnr ') TYfncit. T miv fm- f.hnni in iiilvnnnn ') I want nice large ones." "No. no. miss. All right, you shall have them," and ho went out. I contin lied my writing and forgot all about my dinner until ho knocked and came in with my dinner on a tray, but no oysters. "How is this? said I. 'Iherearono oysters. Dev s comin , miss, dey s coram , and the door opened and in filed three more sons of Africa's burning sands, each with a big tray of oysters on the half-shell. I was staggered, but only for a momont, for I saw the waiters were grinning, so 1 calmlv directed them to place one tray on a chair, one on the washstand and one on the bed, and I said: "They are very small, aren't they?" "Oh, no, miss, de berry largest we'so got." "Very well," said I. 3-011 can go. If I want any more I'll ring. When they got out into the hall one said to the other: 'Fore God, Joe, if she eats all them oysters she's a dead woman." I did not feel hungry any longer. I drank my coffee and looked at the oys- ers, every ne as big as my hand, and :hey all seemed looking at me with their lorriblo white faces, and out of their one diabolical eye, until I could not have eaten one any more than I couid have carved up a live baby. They leered at me and seemed to dare me to attack hem. Our California oysters are small, and with no inoro individual character about them than grains of rice, but these detestable creatures were instinct with evil intentions, and I dared not swallow one for fear of the disturbance ic might raise in my interior, so I set about getting rid of them, for I was never waiters. 1 hung a dress over the key hole after I locked the door, and just out side my window found a tin waterspout that had a small hole in it. I carefully enlarged it, and they slid every one of those beastly creatures down one by one one hundred and two of them they all the time eyeing me with that cold, pasty look of malignity. When the last one was out of sight I stopped trembling and finished mv dinner in peace, and then rang for the waiters. You should have seen their faces! One of the wait ers asked me if I would have some more. May he never know the internal pang he inflicted on me. but I replied calmly: "Not now, I think too many at once hurtful." f Philadelphia mig ht be Times. Raltimore furnishes a first class snake story, to the efiect that a water snake fifteen inches long, which was found im bedded iu a cake of ice gatherered eigh- teen months ago, was restored to liie on Thursday when exposed to the sun. When cut out with a pick the serpent was asttiff as a bone, but, after lying in the sun a few minutes, it begau to wrig glo, and soon started off for the gra s. It. was captured and placed in a glas3 bottle. Her Rival. The Countess de Tilly was a sickly, discontented female who quarreled with everybody add especially with her hus band. Marie Mareehal was a very at tractive young woman of two and twenty, of good character, until, in an evil hour for her, she met the count. The out raged wife discovered the intrigue and out of revenge blinded her rival with vitriol as she was going to her work. Such is the skeleton of this disgraceful business, and, knowing only the skele ton, all sympathy must be given to the offended spouse. Rut when the facts of the case are developed, the sympathy be- comes lessened. At first we could pardon the sudden explosion of auger on the part of the deserted wife, the aberation of a mother fearing to see compromised tho future of her children by the extrava- gance of an adventuress. There was v nothiner of the kind: the fortune of the family had been so little dilapidated by the count's outlay on his mistress that the countess was able to make a present of 20,000 francs to the milliner, as the jud rm said, "bv way of compensation for her injuries." and she took eighteen months for reflection before her jealousy prompted her to act. When she appealed in court, instead of the swollen eyelids of one who was suffering from some great sorrow, sho showed a tearless face, the absence of all emotion and that pursed- up mouth which is the characteristic of virtuous but disagreeable Xantippes. For nearly two years husband and wife had quarreled like cat and dog about Marie Mareohal, but never had there been between the two any question of a rupture. They talked about hor at every meal in the presence of the chil- dron; she taunted him with the.liason, told him that doubtless ho only waited her death to "marry that thing." The count was one of those who, like Mrs. Skewton, are "all countess was a sort dog in tho manger. I the count, who certainly heart;" the of conjugal don't excuse was a very bo aeknowl- wicked man, but it must edged that the countess was a termagant, whose constant allusions to her ap proaching death put me in mind of a horse-breeder whom I once knew near Caen. This worthy farmer made up his mind that he was to die in 1840, and or dered a cotlin accordingly. I saw him last year and found that he had used the colliri as an oats bin. The truth was that Mme. de Tillv was jealous of Mile. Marechal, but not so much on account of her husband's love as because that young woman, called by the townsfolk la petite Comfcsse, took it into her head to copy the yrctiule Comiesse's toilets; one gown particularly exasperated her. It is described to have been of the form of a violin box, aud it can readily be un derstood that for a sewing girl to venture on wearing a violin-box shaped gown, when that arbitress of fashion, the Countess of Tilly, thought hersolf to stand alone in this costume in the midst of a population still addicted to crino lines, was an unpardonable outrage only to bo w.lsi1C(I oufc with stroug waters, lnriv mPnh fn rlub W nn f.ho "I meant to dab her on the face with tt s 0 said tho groat ladv .l)llfc my indignation got tho better of me when I heard her laugh behind mv back." It was a pretty vengeance, most horrible in its consequences, but of the same order as that of peasant girls who cut a piece out of some rival belle's dress because it is finer than theirs, and all through the trial was apparent that pettiness which is characteristic of French provincial tribunals. The court room was transformed into a sort of parlor, with chairs, for the family and intimate friends, in the rear of the lady who was up for judgment. The Judge, in the absence of M. de Tilley, did the honors with grace and atlibility, and lis tened with emotion to the recital of the "unhappy life of Mme. la Comtesse." The vitrioleuse was gratified with a title to which, it seems, she has no claim whatever. For the poor girl whom she has ruined for life, the courteous magis trate could find no terms too strong to express his horror and disgust. It is all over uow; Mme. de Tilley has gone back to her family, and will proba- bly bring her brutal husband once more into the fold, as the next dose may be for him, and it does not make much difler ence what eventually becomes of the "lille Marcheal" who will not utterly starve to death on the interest of hor 20;0()0 francs, but the incident has had the effect to open the eyes of 'French jurors to tho pent toward wnicn tney were drifting through maudlin sympa- :.notuer Eadkd Idol. One by one the roses fade. It seems that now we bavo lost Reatrice de Cenci, William Tell and a host of other old standbys, we aro to be called upon to bewail tho de parture ot that scantily attired eques trienne. Lady Godiva. A writer in I Queries says she is a myth. It is impossible that she should have ridden through Coventry, for the reason that Coventry was not in existence at the time. There is, however, somo founda- tion for the legend. Godiva was a iady ... - -i ill possessing vast wealth, with which she determined to found and endow an abbey, This she did, "stripping herself of all that she had," aud thence the le gend. Coventry gradually arose round the abbey, and had no streets, and conse quently no toils, until Godiva had been dead at least a century. We have spoken of tho ungainly shape of tho grand piano. Rut there is equal need of reform in tho shape of the u pright piano. Tho rigid parallelogram with which we aro all familaris ugly and incrastic, A German maker has taken a step in advance by making an uprigfc piano with a curved top, following the natural form of the instrument, and the effect is pleasing. Blinding Amusing Faith tn Ghosts. Judge Angoll of the Eighth District Court, has just rendered his decision, m a caso which involves an amusing ghost story that for some months past has been a matter of common gossip and belief among the residents of a certain neigh borhood in West Sixteenth street. The action was brought by Mrs. Eliza A. Stymus, to recover from Anizi Howell $130 for two months' rent of the house at No. 551 West Sixteenth street. Mr. Howell is a flourishing milkman ia Seventeenth street, with an honorabla business reputation, and quo of the last men in the world to evade the payment af a just debt, or to break a fair contract, Yet ho admitted that having taken tho house for a year from the 1st of May, ho moved out somewhat hurriedly in tho early part of June. It was oulv bv degrees that his truo 1 V reason for thus throwing the back upon Mrs. Stymus was developed: The upper floor of the house, he said, was haunted by spirits,, who amused themselves from sunset to sunrise by slamming the doors and making a va riety of loud and blood-curdling noises. l uuw X. ------- Naturally Mr. Howell was at somo pains to add that the ghosts did not annoy him personally; but ho intimated that hia family had been reduced to a state of terror that it would have been simply in- human to keep thorn longer in such un- pleasant quarters. He therefore deemed himself justified in breaking the lease. Vain, however, were all the endeavors of court and counsel to get any satisfac tory descriptive testimony as to the truo character of these supernatural mani festations. There were two witnesses besides Mr. Howell, who evidently had full faith in the reality of the ghostly visitations his brother-in-law, James H. Rertholf, and Edward Polk, a colored man. Mr. Rertholf had resided in the houso with Mr. Howell. A few days after movmg in he was accosted on tho street by a neighbor named Gallagher, who asked if his name was not Rertholf. Reing told that it was, Gallagher remarked that a friend of his had bought a farm of Rerth olf in Orango county. This having ex cused for a friendly interest in Rertholf, Gallagher added: "And I'm sorry you have been rent ing this Bouse of Mrs. Stymus. You will be glad to move out in a little while; if you don't move out, the ghosts will drive 'ou out." After that a gentleman named EoEvoy confirmed the reputation the house had for ghosts, and in the course of a week or so Rertholf heard the same reports from at least twenty neighbors. On cross-examination, when asked if he left because of any ghosts he had ever seen there, he answered "no," in a very loud and firm tone of voice, and when counsel followed the question up with, "or because of any rumors about ghosts," he almost shout ed, "No, sir, I did not." He was equally positive in denying that he had left tho house without paying the rent. Mr. Polk, the colored man, had also heard of the ghosts from a young man of the neighborhood who had slept in the houso, and that he credited the report seemed a fair inference from the fact that he had declined an oiler from Sty mus to occupy tho basement and take care of the house, rent free. He hasten ed to say, however, that "his reason for declining the invitation was simply that he was subject to rheumatism, a malady whicn would be greatly aggravated by sleeping in a damp underground room. Tho general laugh which greeted this re mark made him very indignant, and ho became positively angry by the time ho was handed over to the plaintiff's coun sel for cross-examination: "Are you superstitious?" asked the counsel. " Superse-tit-tit titious ?" said Polk, stammering vith indignation. "Are vou afraid of ghosts?" suggested i -i i Judge Augell. No, sir answered. no, sir; oh, no; no, sir," ho "Don't you believe that coming events cast their shndows before?" again asked sounsel, with a smile. "Oh, laugh; yes, you can sit there and laugh, and you can talk more than I can, but you, don t know nothing at all about it." replied Polk. Polk succeeded, however, before ho left the stand, iu convincing everyone that in his opinion, at least, the young man who had warned him that the house was "troubled," as he expressed it, had done him a very great fcersioo. Mrs. Stymus, of course, scouted tho notion of the houso being haunted. Her explanation to the rumors is that duriu a period of some few months, when it O remaiund empty in consequence of the death of her aunt, who had lived in it eight ye irs, somo boys in tho neighbor hood had obtained admission by break ing windows in the basement, and amused themselves by "playing ghost." She admitted, however, that the fact of the house being haunted was matter of common gossip in the neighborhood. Hie house itself is an old-fashioned rail i.rjci. p.. glish basement houso. built on a model very common a quarter of a cen tury ago. Its upper or attic storj where the ghosts are believed to dwell has a peculiarly stunted appearance, owing to the windows being greater in breadth than iu height. These rooms were originally intended for the servants of the family, who, in tho estimation of old-time architccty, were entitled to only half as much air and light as their bet ters. The houso seems to be in fairly good repair, but though neat and clean is not cheerful. The ghosts are un doubtedly jjossessed of benignant na tures, eince the house is only one door U V.' II J XltllU U UlljJLlb UUllTUU, UUd'rO Angells decision is in favor of plaintiff. N. Y. Times. the Ministers as a rule marry for money, jj