10
HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION
In the House of
BY FLORENCE
IN THE "MIDST of the dirt, the
filth, the squalor that mark the
very poor of a certain southern
city, stands a low white house sur
rounded by a tangled garden of vines
and flowers. To left, to right, on
every side, stretch the shacks of pov
erty, crusted with grime and reeking
with foul odors; but the white house
in its circle of green seems always
fair and lovely, like some, little pool
that reflects the sky in the midst of a
muddy street. Some call it the "Set
tlement," but to the children of the
poor, those for whom it is primarily
intended, it is "The House of Many
Flowers." Here, in the great sunny
rooms, they meet together, all ages,
all nationalities, held together by the
common bonds, ignorance and pov
erty. It was a warm Saturday afternoon,
and the 'Settlement was full of chil
dren. Little Miss sighed as she bent
over Panca and adjusted the tangled
floss with which she was striving to
embroider a bit of cardboard. The
girl looked up with a grateful smile
as she dug her needle into her work.
Little Miss turned away. The child
who had given her that name bad
long since left the circle and was
dead, or gone, no one knew where,
but the name still clung to her. She
was a slight little woman of perhaps
fifty years. Her hair was gray and
waved about a face a little worn, a
little lined with care, but full of a
Bweetness that mirrored the soul
within. The twenty years that Little
Miss had spent in the Settlement had
given her more things than her name.
There had been joys that almost
erased the thought of the tragedies
she had witnessed; but today some
how, today seemed different. After
twenty years Little Miss had paused
to think, and today she was passing
judgment on her work. "
It had begun that morning when
Little Miss, at her solitary breakfast
had picked up the paper and on the
front page had found the story of a
convict's escape. Little Miss rarely
read the more sensational parts -of
the paper, avoiding them with the
nice distinction of long practice, but
today, the picture of the convict had
been published, and Little Miss
caught and held by the eyes. The
young face reminded her of some
thing, someone she scarcely know
what, and she paused to read the col
umn beside it. "Patrick O'Harren"
the name was familiar. Her mind
worked back along the years, and
suddenly she remembered. So he
was a convict now, the little Patsy
O'Harren who had worked and played
in this very house ten years before.
She remembered with a pang that he
had commute some small offense and
had left her for the reform school, a
lad of ten or twelve. She had lost
track of htm, and now now he was
an outlaw, being hunted like an ani
mal. She searched the column for
his crime. Some jewelry, a matter of
a year. He was an "old offender," it
seemed an old -offender at twenty
two! It was on his way to prison
that he had made his escape, and now
it was reported that he was in the
South. Little Miss had thrown aside
the paper and risen from the table.
She felt tired and very, very discour
aged. She toiled with them, taught
them, loved them, and they ended in
prison, or worse. She had worked
for twenty years and failed, and yet
she wondered wherein the fault lay
what she could have done to make
her Influence more lasting.
Somewhere within, the clock
chimed the hour, and Little Miss hur
ried about her accustomed tasks. Her
assistants joined, and soon after came
the children. At their advent the
rooms seemed to blossom into life.
There was little time for thinking
now, and yet the smiles on the faces
of the children brought a sort of
pain to Little Miss, and as she bent
over them, directing their awkward
fingers, putting a stitch here, a
stitch there, the same question rose
again and again in her mind. How
long would they remember?
Little Guiseppe with the soulful
eyes and the grimy fingers, would he
go out of her life forever and leave
behind all that he had gained? Lud
wlg, bending over his woodwork, Pe
dro, wielding his brush with romanlc
skill would they, too, pass on and
forget?
She called herself from her reverie
with a start in time to preventner
scissors from disappearing int the
cavernous pockets of Kanakitchi La
muro. Kanakitchi received her words
of admonishment with an inscrutable
expression in his slant eyes. Usually
the incident would not have worried
her; she was too well acquainted with
oriental ideas of morality to be sur
prised by anything, -but today it
Many Flowers
WILLARD.
seemed of moment. It had even crept
into her classes, this sinister thing.
No wonder Little Miss sighed as she
bent over Panca's sewing.
It grew late, and the children one
by one gathered their work into their
lockers and ran laughing into the
streets without. Little Miss watched
them go, and a pain stabbed at her
heart as they turned to wave a good
by to The House of Many Flowers.
Sometime they would leave it for
ever and forget.
It was almost like a dirge ringing
in her ears again and again. They
would forget, forget. She tried to
shake It off, and, leaving the house,
stepped out of the French windows
into the garden. Dusk bad come, and
the tangled shrubbery was all aqulver
in the light breeze. From without
came the sound of calling, of busy
wagons, of clanging bells, but within
everything was quiet. Suddenly Lit
tle Miss heard a step, and looking up
found that she was not alone. A man
stood before her. He was poorly
dressed, even ragged, but he was not
a man of the neighborhood. He
loomed before her, large, shambling,
evidently ill at ease. Little Miss was
not frightened. She was used to
calls of help at any hour of the night.
"Well," she said kindly, "is there
anything I can do to help you?"
The man took a step forward out
of the shadows. "Little Miss," he
said, "I'm Patsy, Patsy O'Hairen."
The woman's heart gave a leap
within her. He was one of her boys,
and he had come back! She took a
step toward him and held out her
hand. "I'm glad to see you, Patsy,"
she said, "so glad!"
The man looked at her furtively.
"You've seen the papers?" he asked.
Little Miss made no answer, but
motioning him to follow, entered the
house, where she drew the curtain
and lighted the light. Then she spoke.
"You must be hungry," she said
quietly. "I'll make you some tea."
She hurried about her preparations.
The man stood In the center of the
room and looked about him as though
he would drink In his surroundings.
He put his hand almost lovingly on
one of the little low tables that stood
around the wall.
"We uster call it The House of
Many Flowers," he said slowly. "Some
little dago named it that, I bet. They
wasn't so bad in them days, the da
gos." He turned to Little Miss with
the ghost of a smile on his face. "Do
you remember Pedro Rafael?" he
asked, "and Ton! I disremembered
his other name?"
Little Miss, looking back through
a myriad of Pedros and Tonts re
turned the smile. "Yes," she said,
"I remember them, and I remember
you, too. You were such a fine lit
tle fellow, and you enjoyed the work
so."
The man turned on her almost
fiercely. "D'y know," he said, "'twas
the only thing I had that wasn't bad,
rotten bad, the only thing." It all
came out in a torrent, a stream of
almost incoherent words. "My moth
er well, I'll not say anything agin
her, for 'twas not her fault, but the
old man " his fists clenched.
"Many's the time I've come here with
my back raw from beatin'. They
was all bad, rotten bad, but this wtis
just heaven. Some might have
stood the other without goln' down,
but I wuz rotten, too, I guess. Th'
Judge said so, 'tany rate, an' I got
sent up for thlevln' an' general dev
iltry. When I came out, they all
know. There weren't nothin' to do,
so I snitched some stuff an' got sent
up for three months, an' then I didn't
care. When they caught me this
time I took my chanct an' lit out, an'
then, somehow, I just come here."
He ended simply.
"Poor boy," said Little Miss, "you
must eat."
The man doubled his length awk
wardly into the chair she drew up to
the table and fell to eating raven
ously of the things It contained. Sud
denly there was clanging from with
out, and he sprang from his chair. A
cup dropped from his hand and
crashed on the floor unheeded.
"The Black Maria!" -he cried
breathing hard.
The patrol clanged past and the
hubbub in the streets subsided gradu
ally. Neither the man nor the wo
man had moved or spoken, but now
he turned to her.
"They're after me," he said, "I'd
almost forgot, an' I ain't got any
place to go!" He was no longer a
man, he was a child, a frightened
child, coming to her for help. Little
Miss put her hand on his arm.
"Listen," she said, "Listen! I
could hide you yes, I might even
keep you safely for a time, but you'd
always be a fugitive, Patsy, you never
could be anything but an escaped con
vict .w hile if you go back"
"Go back!" cried the man "to
that?"
"Listen, Patsy," she pleaded. "Go
back and take your punishment like
a man, go back, and then come out
and start afresh "
"Start fresh!" cried the other,
breaking in on her words. "Who'd
give me the chanct after this?"
It was a question that had puzzled
wiser theorists than Little Miss, and
she was silent for a minute. There
were steps on the walk, and some
one rapped heavily on the door. Lit
tle Miss went white. Suddenly Bhe
turned to the man.
"Don't you see," she cried, "your
chance is here, among your own peo
ple? Come back to me, and I will
give you work here in The House of
Many Flowers."
The knocking was repeated, and
she hurried down the hall and un
bolted the door. On the steps she
found a policeman of the beat with
several others.
"Pardon, Miss," said the officer,
scraping, "we saw a man come in
here awhile ago. Is he still here?"
For the fraction of a second Lit
tle Miss paused, uncertain of her
reply.
Then a voice rose behind her. "I'm
here," said Patrick O'Harren, as he
stepped into the hall. "And if you
want to take me, be quiet and don't
alarm the lady."
The man behind the officer put his
hand to his hip, but his companion
arrested his arm. "He's surrendered,
you fool," he said gruffly, and drew
from his pocket a couple of metallic
objects that gleamed in the lamp
light. -The man winced as the hand
cuffs touched his wrists, but sub
mitted quietly. The detective beside
him put his hand on his shoulder.
"Better get a move on," he said
curtly.
Patrick raised his head and looked
about him from the chairs and low
tables to the flower pots at the win
dow. Then he turned to the woman
w ho stood beside the table staring at
him, white and lslent.
"I'll come back, Little Miss," he
said slowly, "I'll come back in a
year."
The woman started forward, her
hands outstretched. "You won't for
get?" she pleaded. "Oh, yon are
very, very sure you won't forget?"
The man'turned and looked down
at her, and his eyes were the eyes of
the little Patsy of long ago.
"No, Little Miss," he said, "I'll not
forget."
Then he passed Into the hall be
yond, the burly policeman at his el
bow. The trampling steps passed down
the hall, the door slammed, the gate
clicked, and Little Miss was alone in
The House of Many Flowers.
The Sliver Lining.
There is no cloud can hide for long
The beauty of the breath of song;
In dark and heavy folds, we cry,
They hang above us In the sky, -But
sweetness through the silver day
Soon blows the dreariest pall away.
Arid upward to the sun we shine
'Mid old revealings grown divine.
All life the silver linings run
Behind the shadows gray and dun,
And there amid the heaviest gloom
A sudden beauty bursts in bloom,
Transmuting all our grief and woe
Into the old, angelic glow
Of Joy and cheer and living grace
Beneath the glory of his face.
The storms, however fierce they roar
Shall soon pass o'er, shall soon pas
o'er;
And thore the sunny hills lift up
Their peaks aud every vale a cup
To hold God's beauty, brim to brim,
Shines with the utmost sweet of him,
Till song and sunshine borne together,
Bring back the dream of pleasant
weather.
The silver lining It Is there,
'Mid all our, sorrow and our care,
So sweet, so true, so bright, so pure
Be brave, oh, heart, that we may see
Through all we have to know and be
That they are best who best endure
The cross of each day's calvary,
To bear it with an earnest will
The sliver lining gloweth still.
Baltimore Sun.
A War Transformation.
In addition to Its work of carrying
the troops, the Great Eastern Rail
way of England Is converting Its res
taurant and kitchen cars into ambu
lances. The interior fittings are re
moved and the In the interior ar
ranged with ambulance materials,
everything being done on the most
approved principles.
TTTIMPORTANT, that
VI you mention this
paper in answering
advertisements.
PORTLAND'S
"popular HOTEL.
Ideally located at Tenth and
Alder street?, opposite Olds,
Wortman & King's big depart
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homelike. Courteous treatment.
Rates J 1.00 and up.
Bus meets all trains.
W. M. SEWARD,
Proprietor.
Buy
it now
Get what, you will
j ii. n ;
neea in me spring,
now, and help 'pass
prosperity along.
HILL
MILITARY
ACADEMY
A Sleet Non-Sectarian Boarding and
Day School for Bora. Military Dis
cipline: Small Classes: Men Teacher
Careful supervision secures result)
that are not attained elsewhere. Send
for catalogue.
821 Marshall Street, Portland, Or.
SALES MANAGER WANTED
A newly organized Portland company,
marketing a most successful patented
household article, requires the services
of a snlesmanaser for his home terri
tory. Klther a man or woman, with
good standing and ability to work hard,
could fill thin position Write full par
ticulars in first letter. KIIMr Sales
Company, Mercaai Bids, PertlasMl, Or.
Ear-Rings and Hairpins
For 2.r)c we will send you a pair of
EAR-RINGS, choice of jet or pearl,
or a TANGO II AIR PIN. All the
rage now. M. M. Greene Co, box
1229, Los Angeles, Cal.
SUDAN GRASS
Ture, officially Inspected, recleaned
Hudan Grass Seed In seamless cotton
bags, prepaid, 5-pound packages $2.60;
10-pound, $4.50. Cash to accompany
order. Write us for prices on 1U0
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DB TlHM lt IM KK HERD COMl'A.W
Luhhock, Texas,
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Cash Register Bargains
Our prices are about half other deal
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SUNDWALI. r 805 2d avenue. Beat
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ELECTRIC LIGHT
Plant Complete $100
Freight Allowed to Portland or Seattle.
Mrkrr.iin-McFrlHnf Mach. Co,
Taroina, Wash.
HOTEL EATON
W. Park and Mor. Sta., Porllaad, Or.
Hates, $1 up; with bath, $U0. Soe
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AGENTS WANTED
To Bell HlRh-Orade Nursery Stock Write
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liiild, Oregon.
EnglUh Tested
T&uTuihA SEEDS
'Wwyr "VeJ'lsT Send for Cat. N
Dean D. Ballard, Arcade Bldg., Seattle, Wn,
ARTIFICIAL LIMBS
Guaranteed to fit and rive comfort to tho
uicr. OKKGON ARTIFICIAL LIMB CO.
485 WaiAtasrtoB i Partland, Or.