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About Southwest Oregon recorder. (Denmark, Curry County, Or.) 188?-18?? | View Entire Issue (Oct. 28, 1884)
V DECEITFUL CALM. The winds are still! The sea lies all on troubled . Beneath a cloudless sky! The mora is bright, Tet, Lord, I feel my need of Thee redoubled. Come nearer to me in this blaze of light! The night must fall the storm will break at length Oh, give me strength! Bo well, so well I know the treacherous seem ing Of days like this! They are too heavenly fair. Those waves that laugh like happy children dreaming, Are mighty forces, brewing some despair For thoughtless hearts! And ere the hour of need Let mine take heed. Joy cannot last. It must give place to sor row As certainly as solar systems roll; I would not wait till that time comes, to bor row The strength prayer offers to the suffering soul Here in the sunlight, yet undimmed by shade, I cry for aid. I dare not lightly drain the cup of pleasure, Though Thine the hand that proffers me the draught; Such bitter lees lie lower in the measure I shall need courage ere the potion's quaffed: Then strengthen me, before that time befall, To drink the gall. I need Thee in my joys and my successes, To make me humbly grateful and not vain; I need Thee when the weight of sorrow presses The tortured heart that cries aloud in pain; So close great pleasure and great anguish lie Oh, God, come nigh ! Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in Good Cheer. GIVING LESSONS. Miss Pandora Piper, teacher f music, "who had hard work to keep soul and body together, but was not unhappy, be cause, as she said, she was never left without a new spring bonnet, and one black silk, somehow, always lasted until, she managed to get a new one, received a very singular note one morning a note which had been handed in at the door, the landlady's "girl" said, by an "elderly gentleman." The epistle was enveloped in the cost liest and most richly decorated envelope to be procured for love or money any where. The paper, nearly as thick as cardboard, was to match. A coat of arms was in the corner and the words below were as follows : Miss Piper: A Person of neglucked eder cashun is wishful to be undertuck. "Will kali at 3. Mister Sliger. "My gracious !" ejaculated Miss Pan dora; "he must have been neglected, that's certain, I never saw anything like that before in all my life! Fatally for gotten, I should say. Well, I wonder what he can be like. He must be rich, I suppose. Poor people can't afford euch stationery as this. And a coat of arms, too ! Shoddy, I suppose ; but so that he's respectful, why should I care for that? He will probably pay well, and I've lost Anne Eliza Griggs by mar riage, jutt as she was beginning to take variations. "Nora, I shall be in if a new pupil a gentleman calls at 3 o'clock." Nora, who liked Miss Piper, who often gave her little presents and who kept on an upper shelf of her closet some sooth ing balsam which she was always ready to apply to the poor girl's awkward fin gers, which were always being cut or burnt or pinched in something, gave an amiable grin and offered to polish up the grate when she had a minute, "seeing a stranger was coming." The morning wore away. Two little girls had gone through their exercises and a heavy lady who took lessons in vocal music had nearly burst a blood vessel in endeavoring to gain a certain high note, which was the object of her ambition. Miss Piper had been around the cor ner to give a lesson there and over the way to see to another pupil's practicing. She came home in a hurry, arranging her hair, saw that the little parlor was neat and awaited her guest with feverish anxiety. At last he came. Nora showed some one upstairs and there entered at the door an elderly gen tleman of benign appearance, dressed in the latest fashion, but not without regard to his age, who, bowing low, remarked : "I hope I am not late, mum. I know your time must be very valuable." "I am sure I only wish everybody was as punctual," said Miss Piper. "It is exactly 3 o'clock." "You're very kind, mum," said the gectleman, seating himself, as Miss Pi per motioned him to a chair. "I'm an oldish pupil, I suppose you think; but I'll explain. I think I've explained in my note, but I'll explain again. I've been neglected, not from any unkind ness for my poor mother did the best she could for me but we were very poor. I don't wish to mention the hum ble position I've always occupied until a year ago, when somebody came from England and hunted me up. Mother was dead, poor dear ! but this is how it was: Father was very rich and up in the world, mother was a housemaid. He married her and his mother was furious, and mother couldn't stand it. She ran away ; she came here, and lived an hon est, hard-working life. It was only when she died that she told me my name was not Noggings, but Sliger, and that she had written to my father, or got some lawyer to write, and he was dead, too, and I came into the property and left the humble position 1 won't allude to, and well, I'm rich, but I don't know anything, and before I go to England, 1 want to be educated. You understand?" "It's a very laudable ambition, I'm sure," said Miss Piper. "I usually teach music, but, of course, I can undertake the English branches." "Yes, mum," replied the gontleman, hastily, "I want to begin with music the pyanner. I have never known any one in high bf e who could not play upon the pyanner. Begin with that and go on to spelling, which I am conscious that I sadly need." It was not the usual course, but there wa3 a serious and dignified manner about this "neglected" person that made it impossible for Miss Piper to say so. She mentioned her terms and set the hours for the lessons, and so skilfully empha sized the name of the instrument that Mr. Sliger before his departure had begun to call it "the peearno " instead of the "pyanner." At the door, however, he gave her a dreadful shock. "I wish, mum," he remarked, "to begin with tunes." Miss Piper was a conscientious little teacher, but she felt that there were peo ple in this world who must have their own way, and Mrs. Sliger's first lesson consisted of the " White Cockade." He had a very good ear; he was anx ious to learn. From the "White Cock ade" he went on to "Life Let Us Cherish," and poor guilty Miss Piper, who felt that the notes had very little to do with his performance, beat time and counted. . " Meanwhile she found that, leaving education out of the question, the man was very sensible that he was very kindly and amiable. Once corrected in the pronunciation of a word, he never became a backslider on that question. However, it was he who arranged every thing, not his teacher. As other lessons were added the neg lected person set the hours for them; finally he had six hours a day, All the pupils were dismissed but one. The spelling lesson, the lesson on geogrraphy, the lesson in history, followed each other. All the week days were his. Poor Miss Piper had no power to say him nay. He paid well, he treated her with actual reverence; but the last pupil went when he elected to copy some very flat "flower pieces" which Miss Piper had executed in early youth and call this a lesson in painting. He had all her weekdays at last. He cer tainly had improved in pronunciation, but Miss Piper felt herself to be a hum bug. What they really did was to spend the dny together exactly as he chose. Playing with educational books, thump ing the piano, daubing bristle-board with impossible flowers, scrambling through the lessons in French, of which Miss Piper had had a quarter from a Swiss "gentleman. For a long time she was alone on Sunday and usually went to the Methodist church, to which she belonged; but Mr. Sliger soon altered that. He began by asking her whether they had " these vespers of theirs at the cathedral, on Sunday morning? And when she instructed him that the "ves pers" were in the later part of the day, said he would call for her. Accordingly she went to vespers at the cathedral in the afternoon and after that regularly three times a day to different churches. It was then that the landlady thought it her duty to call. She appeared in Miss Pandora Piper's apartment at the awful hour of 10, ma jestic in her crimping pins, and with a very serious countenance, and was wel comed in with a smile by the little music- teacher. "Good evening, Miss Grimm," said she, "I haven't had a call from you for a very long while." "No, Miss Piper, you haven't," said Mrs. Grimm with emphasis. "You couldn't expect me to call after such car rying on.'' "Why, what do vou mean, Mrs. Grimm?" ejaculated Miss Piper. "Can you ask, ranaora ripen" an swered the landlady, in her deepest chest-note. "I he whole neighborhood is talkin' about you." "About me!" screamed Miss Piper. "You and that man," said the land lady. "My pupil, Mr. Sliger !" sobbed Miss Piper, now fairly in tears. "lour pupil? Don t tell me," said Mrs. Grimm. "Mis3 Pandora. Piper, I shall be obliged to put up a bill for my second floor. You've got to go." "Oh, oh, oh!" cried Pandora. "Can you think any harm oi mcf hy, you could come in at any moment. Nora is in and out every now and then. Such a respectable elderly gentleman, and such a correct person as 1 am !" "It isn't me, Pandora," said 3Irs. Grimm, quite melted. "It's the neigh borhood. The church-going (if it is church) finished 'em. You're of age this long while, my dear; you ought to know how to behave ; but I can't countenance this. I shall put up the bill. Oh, oh, oh. Pandora! that "it should come to this!" i Poor Miss Pandora! As her friend and landlady walked out of the door with her handkerchief to her eyes, she stood motionless as ttiough turned to a pillar of salt. She saw just how this repair of neglected education must appear to her small circle of discarded pupils, and felt a strong desire to drown herself or jump ont of the window, or turn on the gas or take a box of matches in her tea, and she might actually, it seemed to her afterward, have died of mortification, but that the gong at the front door, pull ed violently at this moment, startled her, and Nora, running up, wrapped in a waterproof cloak, for she had been mak ing preparations to go to bed, announced: " "Mr. Sliger!" "He can't come up," said Pandora, "at this hour of the night." "No, miss; he asks for you to coma down," said Nora. Pandora went down. , Mr. Sliger was at the door. "There's a telescope at the corner," he said; "something going on in some star or other, I believe. Get a bonnet and shawl, and come and have a peep. It will be a lesson in astronomy for me. You can explain' it, you know same terms as the "other lessons." Pandora without a word obeyed. - r'ie door closed after the two, leaving Mrs. Grimm staring at Nora. That's the capsheaf," said the lady. "Shall I sit up for them i" asked Nora. "No," said Mrs. Grimm. "I will." Meanwhile Miss Pandora and Mr. Sliger peeped through the telescope and saw the rings of Saturn, which" Mr. Sliger supposed to be phenomenal and tempor ary, and which were explained by Miss Pandora to be fixtures, and then ad journed to an ice cream saloon of much elegance. This, indeed, was deperate dissipation, Miss Pandora said to herself, as she sat before the cut-glass goblets on the da mask cloth, and saw the water splash from the little fountain in the center into the aquarium and over the glossy plants, all reflected in the long mirrors. How ever, what did it matter ? She was al ready "talked about," turned out of her lodgings as a person who had gone wrong. She would keep this mewy mo ment to remember when she had put an end to all by saying to the neglected pu pil that she could no longer impart in struction to him. He was ordering every indigestible luxury on the bill of fare, the diamond on his little finger flashing like a small sun, obsequious waiters bobbing about behind them. He looked kindly at her, and asked her if she liked this or that. He was as simple as an old baby ; as kind as an old lady; and he was a nice, pleas ant looking man. ' 'All over ! All over !" she said to her self. "I might have known what a wicked world this is, and how ill it thinks of innocent things. Why might not I go on teaching him for ever with out harm?" People were coming in from concerts, from the theatres; tables were filling; but theirs between two columns beyond the fountain, was very quiet. The waiters were gone to execute Mr. Sliger's behests. Suddenly he turned to her, and took a letter from his pocket. "Miss Piper," he said, "read that." Pandora opened the missive and pe rused it. It was from a firm of lawyers speaking in plain terms of Mr. St. Leger as a gen tleman, and a man of honor and fortune. "I got 'em to give it to me," he said, "to show you." "I did not need it, indeed," said Pan dora, sadly. "And this is the way your name is really spelt? St. Leger! It's a beautiful name." "It sounds a little curious to me," he said. "Mother wrote it Sliger. I never knew, but, you see, I'm all right. They' never took me without a character when I went for a place in the poor times and I couldn't expect you to take me with out a character, either. I I don't know whether you despise mc for my ignorance or not, but if you don't, why 1 want you to take me for your pupil for life to marry me, you' know, Pandora. " Will you?" It was a dreadful thing to do in such a public place, but Pandora Piper felt that she was going to faint the room grew black. She held out her hand for the glass of water. Most of it was spilt upon the front breadth of her new black silk, but that which passed her lips revived her. Then a sweet, soft sense that there was no more trouble for her in this world, crept into her heart and she smiled up at him. "It was in my mind the first day I came," he said. "I had seen you often through the window when you gave les sons to that little girl at Bell's. I used to watch you with my opera-glass. I felt sure you were just the woman for me and every lesson you gave me proved it. I shall learn everything from you good ness as well as spelling. Oh, say 'Yes!' I want vou ! I want you I" She sail, "Yes." Mrs. Grimm was sitting up for her, pale with wrath, when she returned; but Pandora took her by both hands, and caid : "You won't turn me out until after my wedding day, will you, dear? You'll let me be married here. It's next week. Mr. St. Leger won't wait. You see, we will have to go to England and live on the estate. And, after all, a poor little teach er needs no great preparation." "Servants and diamonds, and a coun try house and a city house, and every thing heart can wish," Mrs. Grimm says, in telling the story. "A real, great lady now. It's like a romance." And Pandora, happy with her good, simple husband in her new surroundings, often thinks so herself. There were in round numbers one hun dred thousand men in the army that conquered Mexico, and the entire losses did not exceed twenty per cent., leaving eighty thousand men of the average age of twenty-eight years discharged in 1847. The new State department at Wash. i ington has one hundred and fifty rooms, and cost $5,000,000. The vale of the butter made in the State of New York annually is estimated at over $56,000,000. If the past has been reasonable, the last ten years are likely to be the happiest of our lives. A four-in-hand The piano Boston Courier. duet. HUMOROUS SKETCHES. Saved Just in Time. "Sukey," gently asked Mrs. goober, of her daughter: "did Mr Fitz-Girl- masher propose last nirhtl" "No, ma; but he got mighty clpse to it, and then you ruined it just as he was about to drop on his knees." "How did I ruin it?" "He began speaking how much I re sembled pa." "Well." "And I told him I might look like pa. but that I got my disposition from you." "What did he say then?" "He didn't say anything; just as I said that we both heard you down pa with a poker, and poor Mr. Girlmasher fled. He couldn't stand the racket." Housewife and the Foolish Rooster. A Housewife walking in the Barnyard one day, said : "I wonder which is the Fattest and nicest of these Fowls." Hearing which, several young Roosters, desiring to "show off" their charms and exalt themselves before the Pullets, came forward, each making vainful boasts to a better condition than his Fellows, and one of them, more Foolish than the others, crowded to the Front and said : "Fortunately I am able to Prove what I say," and he lifted a wing and swelled himself out to his greatest extent, ex claiming:. "I am by far the finest fowl of the lot!" "That's a fact," remarked the House wife, and she straightway wrung his neck and made a nice stew of him for dinner. Moral Pride goeth before a fall. Pack. A Humorist's Advice to Young Writers. In response to a letter from Mr. K. C. Tapley (no relation of Mark Tapley), of Indiantown, N. B., 3Ir. Bill Nye gives the following warning and chunk of ad vice to young writers : Bill Nye's Winter Resort, ) P. O. Box, 406, Hcdsox, Wis. j TW k Sri Win.. fair rsP V lOrk ;,t-t with inclosure, was received, and the 4 4 baled hav " mailed herewith. I do not generally advis young men to monkey with literature, but you seem to have been moderately successful so far, and it might be well to eive it a thoroush trial. You should use great care, however, in se lecting the field of literature which you intend io perspire in. Do not be a humorist! If you are a humor ist everybody else will have more fun out of it than you will. You will make some money out of it if you get the genuine afflatus, but vou won t nave any fun. Humorists do not nave fun. It is all a mistake. I am acquaint ed witn one, ana he says he Has not smiled smce he lost his twins. Once I heard of i humorist who had laughed twice in one sum mer, and I hunted him out. He was not a humorist, but had some other trouble, the name of which has escaped my minu. x ours truiy. asill jnye. Eatin? a Girl. Few people who have never been on the verge of starvation can realize what the pangs of hunger will bring a man to. There are people who board at cheap boarding-houses who have some faint realization of hunger, as is shown when they take a meal at a hotel. Then they reach for everything that is in their sight, and their eyes roll in frenzy, and you can watch them and imasrine what they would do if hard pressed and no food for ten days, lught here at home there have been narrow escapes . from canni balism when trains have been snowed in for a week. Only a couple of years ago a train was snowed in the west of St. Paul, and for four days there was no food except the cotton waste that is used to oil the engines and a barrel of 6hell oysters. After all the food was gone, and the traveling men had eaten the leathern fire buckets and chewed the sustenance out of the plush cushions, they held a consultation in the baggage-car, and decided to kill and eat a girl in the rear coach. She was about twenty years old, a school teacher by profession, rosy cheeked, and just about the right age to eat. The boys appointed a young fellow who was traveling for a Milwaukee house to go to the girl and tell her that they had decided to eat her, and to get her consent. It is a delica:e thing for a young man to do to go and tell a girl he has been flirting with three days in a snow storm that the boys have decided to eat her, but the law among traveling men is severe, and the young man had to obey. He went in the coach with a sinking heart and a smile, sat down be side her and told her he had a pro posal to make, and, with a smile that was worth two in the bush, she told him she had mistrusted something of the kind ever since he squeezed her hand the evening before, when they were playing casino. He said the proposition he was about to make was the harder from the fact that he had learned in the past few days to love her as he had never loved another woman, but in times like these we must stifle our feelings and do our duty, and a tear came to his eye as he looked at the rich red cheek and the clear blue eye. ne said the proposal he was about to make was one that might strike her as peculiar. She said that was all right. There was no use beat ing about the bush, and if he wanted her to marry him she. did not see any objection, and when they got back to St. Paul she would throw up her posi tion, and they would be married at once. The young man was slightly taken back, but he said that was all right, and he would be the happiest man on earth, and he threw his arms around her neck and began kissing her. The traveling men in the baggage car were looking through the door at the young fellow and the girl and wondering if he was going to be all winter about it, and when the taw him kissing her, thev thought his huuger had overcome him and he was taking a meal out of the best place, and it made them mad and they went in the car to remonstrate with him. When they got to the rear of the car he had quit kissing her, and she had opened a big basket filled with cold chicken and! everything good, and had spread a! lunch, and as they came along she said: "Gentlemen, assist' us at our wedding breakfast. Your friend and myself are? to be married when we get to St. Paul."' The boys took hold and helped eat the) lunch, congratulated the young fellow 1 though they reprimanded him for turn-' mg traitor at a serious moment, but he pulled out a box of cigars and they' smoked a little time, when a relief en gine was heard to whistle, and in an' hour the stalled train hauled out of the snow drift and on the way to St. Paul, ana that evemns the cannibal and hi victim were married and the assistant' cannibals were witnesses. The vounr' people are keeping house now, and no' doubt the stories of Greely and his men' will cause them to remember the great' snow-storm when they came so near eat-' ing each other. Peck's Sun. Appearances are Deceitful. The Signor de Rabata could not have been called a handsome man, even by his dearest friends. He was small and mis formed ; he had a flat face, and a nose much like that of a terrier doer. In a word, this gentleman was so hideous that, search as one might, it would have been impossible to find one worse fa vored, except, perhaps, in the person of the famous painter, Giotto, who, at all! events was scarcely less ugly, Despite this unattractive appearance the Signor de Rabata was a very learned person, and wras respected by the scholars of the day as the greatest judge on every point of civil law. These two men, the ugly judge and the ugly artist, lived in the same village not far from Florence at the time of my story. i One day, as they were riding in com pany thence to the city, each being bad ly mounted and shabbily attired, they, were surprised by a heavy rain which forced them to seek shelter in a peasant'! hut. The downpour continuing, the friends grew impatient. Therefore, as they knew the man beneath whose roof they were sheltering, they borrowed some clothes of him. He could only offer an old rough cloak of gray felt and a very bad and ragged1 hat, which; however, the gentlemen ac cepted. . Thus equipped they continued their way. After a while the storm, abated, and they fell into conversation. Giotto talked extremely well, no matter what might be the subject, and, as Sig nor de Rabata listened, he reflected that this was indeed a gifted man. Never theless, as he surveyed the painter from head to foot, his ugliness in the borrowed clothing was so striking that he could not refrain from bursting into a laugh. Feeling obliged to explain, he said : h "Master Giotto, imagine if any one met us who had never seen or heard of you. Think you that such a one would take you for the greatest painter in the world?" "Yes, sir," replied Giotto, promptly. "I think this might bo possible, if the same person, in examining you from top to toe, was able to credit you with know ing more than the letters of the alphabet." I he judge was confounded, for, in ridiculing his companion he had not real ot real- . equally! lzed tl absurd ized that his own aspect was "I was impudent," said he, humbly. "You have taught me now that one must never ridicule others when one can one's self furnish abundant matter for ridicule also." All the Tear Hound. A Pen-and-ink Counterfeit. "Look at that," said the man in charge of room 35, the office of the treas ury secret service at V ashmgton, to a Chicago Times correspondent, as he took from a drawer and handed to the corre spondent what appeared to be a $20 greenback. "If a man owed you $20 and offered you that bill in payment you would take it and perhaps be glad to et it, wouldn't you lhat bill is a counterfeit and a good one, too. and what makes it the greatest curiosity we have here is the fact that it was made entirely with a pen. "It is, indeed, a piece of master workmanship. Every line and dot, with all the varying shades of green, black and red, are reproduced with a skill that appears little short of marvelous. It bears that familiar signature, seemingly genuine, of John C. New. "That bill," said he, " was doubtless in circulation for years, defying the scru tiny of bank tellers and cashiers. It was sent to the treasury two or three yeara ago for redemption, and there it was de tected. Whoever made that was a smart fellow and deserves a credit mark. There are several similar bills in circulation, all, so far as we have discovered, $20 greenbacks, and made in precisely the same way. Two others have come into the treasury and been detected within the past year, but I can't see where the fellow's profit comes in. It seems im possible for him to make one of these without many days, perhaps weeks, of patient labor, and then it's only $20; but I admire his skill and perseverance." " Why didn't he make it $100 or $500 instead of $20?" "I suppose because he would be a great deal less likely to pass it. It's pretty hard to work off a counterfeit of one of those large denominations. A bill like this one will pass anywhere, ne appears to be making a business of it, as our experts have concluded that they are all the work of the same hand. We "have tried to trace them up, but have never been able to get the slightest clue. In my opinion he earns all he gets out of it. I assume the treasury people are ashamed of it, but it is a fact the first one of those counterfeits that came in was passed as genuine and actually re deemed in gold. It was afterward dis covered to be a counterfeit, and since that time the others I mentioned have made their appearance and been detected. I say again, that's a smart chap ; I wish w couia eaten him." c