The Moore Messenger. (Moore, Okla.), Vol. 1, No. 4, Ed. 1 Saturday, December 5, 1908 Page: 3 of 8
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AFFECTING SIGHT.
I >
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DR. FURNIVALL'S SOLUTION OF
THE COLTER CABIN MYSTERY
By DR. GEORGE F. BUTLER and HERBERT ILSLEY
Insane Hospital I louses Lad IVJiile Unjustly Accused sire Released from
Jail on Findings of Great Detective.
VERY short, stout, sailor-
A appearing man, clean-
sliaven and wearing a fit-
less slop shop HUit of blue,
with a rusty stovepipe hat
on his head and a canvas
bag in his hand, cams
rolling up the street, anil
after looking hesitatingly
around at the numerous
lodging-house signs in the
windows of the neighbor-
hood, started briskly up
the steps of No. 112 and pressed the
button.
"Mum," he said to the elderly wom-
an who opened the door, "I see by
'hese here notices that you hev rooms
to let, and as that's what I'm arter I
kinder cal'lated I'd gin ye a call.
How much be they?"
He abstracted a huge roll of bills
from his trousers pocket and thrust
them bungllngly into her hand.
"Do what ye can for me on thet,"
he continued. "Count it out and see
what's in It. 'Twas 300 when I
skinned her over, and I cal'lated
'twould do. Stow the ditty-box under
the berth and 'long 'bout eight bells
I'll drift back and kinder tidy things
up a bit for night. Good-day, mum!"
He gave his hat an awkward pull
and waddled off hurriedly, leaving the
lodging-mistress red in the face and
short of breath with the surprise of
lier life.
"Save us, there's wan man for
youse!" she gasped, following him
with amazed eyes as he slumped down
the street on bis short legs, the huge
trousers flopping in the wind, the rusty
hat pulled down to his cars and the
coatsleeves dangling to within an inch
of the tips of his stubby fingers.
At noon the queer lodger returned,
received his key and was shown to his
quarters. Pausing on the threshold
he turned to Mrs. Tull, the flesh of his
face packed like hard putty, as im
mobile as a board, his unwinking eyes
staring into her own.
"Mum," he said in voice like a fog-
horn, "my name is Colter, Cap'n
Joshua S. Colter. This here is my
cabin. D'ye see? 'Tls mine for one
twelvemonth. Ontil thet time is up
I cai'late I'm the size myself to load
it clean to the skylight, and I don't
never 'low to hev no petticoats fussin'
up any vessel o' mine. I'll swab the
docks and trim sails myself, and now
you c'n go below and stay there.
Show your figgerhead on my compan-
ionway agin without orders and I'll
shove ye plumb overboard through the
porthole."
At 11 o'clock the next morning,
when she heard him bulkily descend-
ing the stairs, she stood in tbs back-
parlor doorway to observe, him, but
had the doughty captain chanced to
look that way he could have seen
nothing but the tip of an inquisitive
nose and the toe of a large boot. It
was the same on the second and third
mornings, but on the fourth tlie cap-
tain did not appear at 11 o'clock as
usual. She felt some uneasiness over
this fact, which grew greater when
the next day also he remained invis-
ible. For more than 48 hours not a
sound had issued from his room. She
waited until the next noon, and then,
all remaining as quiet as the houses
of the dead, she ventured up to the
head of the stairs and stood a mo-
ment gazing steadfastly at the closed
door of the mysterious "cabin."
Always at this stage of reflection,
with persons of Ann Tull's grade of
mind nnd experience, the police be-
gin to figure. And within ten minutes
afterward she was standing im the
stairs pointing out to an inspector and
a plain-clothes man the door behind
which lurked some dark secret, she
was sure.
"Looks to me as if he had run," said
the inspector. "How much was he
into you, Mrs. Tull?" *
"Not wan cint. 1 know me business.
'Tis in advance I always do be getting
it from strange wans."
"Well, I don't see as there's any-
thing for us here," remarked the in-
spector taking a last look around.
"Lock up the room and keep the key
till his time is out, or till he comes
back. But if anything more turns up
let us kuow at the station." Then he
went away with his man.
At eight o'clock a young lithograph-
er, who with his brother, a house-
painter, occupied the room directly
over the captain's, came jumping down
the stairs, and tearing the kitchen door
open rushed upon Mrs. Tull, and put-
ting his hands on her shoulders began
to sob, crying brokenly:
"Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry! It
was Jim and me that done it. I told
hiin w i be found out, and now It's
come. What shall we do? Can't you
hide us, Mrs. Tull, and say nothing?
Then It will be all right, for nobody
will ever know the difference. He had
no friends to come asking for him."
"Lud's sake alive, what's all this?"
"The—the—cap'n!" he stammered.
"We was playin' cards—in his room—
me and Jim. He said Jim nigged on
purpose, and Jim hit him."
"Was he looking, jist, whin Jim
struck?" she asked, cynically.
"We didn't think at first he was
hurt much," he replied whlningly.
"But he didn't get up, and when we
went to lift him we saw he was gone
and—"
"Stop!"
She put out one of her great raw-
him. Physically he was a good dupli-
cate of his brother, of slight build,
fair-complexioned, with a face of aver-
age intelligence now distorted with
fear. He looked at the speaker
shrinkingly, and as the last words of
the confession left his lips ml ha
became silent, said to his brother:
"For God's sake, llrltt, what have
you been saying?"
"I couldn't help it, Jim," answered
llrltt, miserably. "I was goin' crazy,
and had to lot it out. Something
forced me to, I don't know what. I
had to speak. But I thought Bhe'd
hide us. I didn't suppose she'd go
man of 00, with shrewd black and
snappy eyes, evidently a farmer in his
Sunday clothes, called on Dr. Furnl-
vail.
"Wai," he said, his eyes searching
the floor as if for words, "my name is
Alfred Greely, and I live in Winchester.
I've got two boys In this here city,
and one on 'em says they—they killed
a mail, and t'other says they didn't.
It don't look noways reasonable to
me that either on 'em could do sech a
thing, they hed sech a good brtnglu'
up by their mother, but they've lien
away from home a purty considerable
time now, and p'aps they got Inter
"Not as ever I heard on," he an-
swered.
The bars of the cell-door loomed In-
exorably between them, but the old
man advanced, strengthened perhaps
by a thought of the gray old mothei
and wife at homo, and stoutly thrust-
ing his arm to the elbow between the
cold iron rods wrung his boy's hand.
"You needn't open the door,
O'Leary," said Dr. Furnlvall to the
turnkey." "At any rate not yet. Re-
main here and remember what passes.
Britt, if that is your name, come for-
ward where we can see you. There!
Now tell us when you first saw Capt.
Colter?"
"I saw hint Tuesday night, the first
time—and then again Friday night.
That was when we done it."
"How did your brother come to
strike him?"
From the moment when his eyes
first became settled in those of Dr.
Furnivall the expression of his face
began to change—from self-conscious-
ness to nervousness, to perplexity, to
surprise, to eurnestness, and finally,
as he interrupted himself to ask the
question, to deep and absorbed though.
And almost instantly he continued,
in the inflectionless tones of a long-
deaf man:
"I never saw Cap'n Colter In my
life!"
The father uttered nn exclamation
of eagerness mingled with amaze-
ment, but IJr. Furnlvall motioned for
silenc
"Tell me." he said to the prisoner,
"why you said you and your brother
had done this thing?"
"I don't know."
"Did you ever do violence to any-
body, you or your brother either?"
"No sir—we never hurt anybody."
"You like to read about people being
hurt. In the accident columns, and in
stories, don't you? ' .. \o such things
distasteful to you?"
"I read all I can get about them."
"Do you ever feel quaer In the head
—depressod or confused, or as If you
wanted to get away from yourself?"
"I'm whlrly-headed often, and I
can't think sometimes. My head
aches a good deal * go out in the
night and run it oft
"That's all. Come. Mr. Greely, we'll
have them out of here sooner or later.
There's a large ball of red tape to
unwind and we'll begiu at once."
"But," faltered the u> wildered old
man, his mind torn be w< n relief and
puzzlement, "if they never done nothin'
of the kind how in natur'—how—
what did he say so for?"
Dr. Furnivall did not wish Just yet
Cook (to her friend)—The proposal
i that the widower made me was really
I very moving. He brought his four
children with him, and they all knelt
before me.
When Disease Will Disappear,
At the reopening of a medical school
In London recently Sir John llroad-
bent, In an address to the students,
said that he looked fo.ward "to some
Utopian era when such diseases as
influenza, pneumonia, measles, scarlet
fever and the like will become more
or less extinct as a result of proper
ventilation of offices, shops, public
buildings and private houses, and oth-
er sanitary measures, Buch as the
avoidance of overcrowding, the aboli-
tion of children's parties and the habit
of Indiscriminate kissing. The last
should not be a hardship," Sir John
added, if we accept the schoolboy's defi-
nition of a kiss: it Is just putting
your mouth to a person's cheek and
drawing in your breath, so as to make
a little noise, which is not bad, but it
does nothing in the way of helping
you to love the person.' "
BAD ITCHING HUMOR.
Limbs Below the Knees Were Raw—
Feet Swollen—Sleep Broken-
Cured in 2 Days by Cuticura.
"Some two months ago I had a hu-
mor break out on my limbs below my
knees. They came to look like raw
beefsteak, all red, and no one knows
how the> Itched and burned. They
were so swollen that I could not get
my shoes on for a week or more. I
used live or six different remedies and
got no help, only when applying them
the burning was worse and the itching
less. For two or three weeks the suf-
fering was intense and during that
time i did not sleep an hour at a time.
Then one morning I tried a bit of
Cuticura. From the moment It touched
me the itching was gone and 1 havo
not telt a bit of it since. The swelling
went down and in two days I had my
ihoes on and was about as usual.
Seorge B. Farley, 50 South State St.,
Concord, N. H., May 14. 1307."
TWO GOOD STORIES BY BARRIE.
One Told by Successful Author Is De-
cidedly Against Himself.
Mr. J. W. Rarrle, the author of
"What Every Woman Knows," tells a
good story against himself.
A lady of his acquaintance had
taken a friend to see one of his plays,
and, quite astonished, he asked her
why she did so.
"Oh," was the reply, "It's such a
quiet street for the horses!"
He also tells of a playgoer who re-
ceived no response to his repeated re-
quests to a lady in front of him to
remove her huge hat.
At length, exasperated, he said: "If
you won't take off your hat, my dear
madam, will you be so kind as to fold
back your ears?"—Woman's Life.
A Dead Bird.
Samuel Butler, the witty but eccen
trie author of "Erehwon"—which
means "Nowhere"—and of many other
remarkable and suggestive books, is
now more read than during his life-
time. He died in 1902. In one of his
notebooks he tells this incident, which
to inform this loyal old father that his j must have amused the great Charles
son was afflicted with insane errabund j Darwjn:
tendencies, of a class to which self- i Frank Darwin told me his father
inculpative confessions, wholly false, j was once standing near the hippopota-
are so common that Qulntilaln held a p,,,;, cage when a little boy and girl,
suspicion of insanity to be inherent in | Bged four and five, came up. The hip-
all confessions. He wished to see the
boy again and decide what would best
he done with him. Ho had suspected
from the first that this brother and
not the other was the afflicted one, If
either of them were, the fit of Jim in
the police station being merely a
natural faint induced by the horror of
his position.
Two nights later Ann Tull was
startled out of her sleep In the back
parlor by a sound In the room over-
head, the cabin of mystery. Her feet
struck the floor with the suddenness of
thought, and goaded by the multitudin-
ous superstitions honestly inherited
from generations of wild headed an-
cestry, she plunged into her clothes
and flew around the corner to the
police station. Two officers heard her
news and hastily accompanied her
popotamus shut his eyes for a minute.
"That bird's dead," said the little
girl. "Come along.''—Youth's Com-
panion.
LIVING ADVERTISEMENT
Glow of Health Speaks for Postum.
It requires no scientific training to
discover whether coffee disagrees or
not.
Simply stop It for a time and use
Postum in place of it, then note the
beneficial effects. Thetruth will appear.
"Six years ago I was in a very bad
condition," writes a Tenn. lady, "I suf-
fered "from indigestion, nervousness
and insomnia.
"I was then an inveterate coffee
drinker, but it was long before I could
be persuaded that it was coffee I hat
back. They crept softly up the stairs, I hurt me. Finally I decided to leave It
/tI/rs Jim'koMmr.Dow/t'
boned powerful hands and forced him
into a chair. Then she noiselessly
closed the kitchen door and returning
stood ponderous and threatening be-
fore him.
"What at all d'yees mane by 'gone?' "
she asked in a voice that frightened
him with its strength of repressed
ferocity.
"I m-mean he—he was—dead!" he
stammered, his face as white as chalk.
"What did vees do wid—it?" Her
body was trembling now, her voice
broke huskily, and the black eyes
blazed.
"We took him down stairs—and—
and—over to the—the river—"
With grim-set lips and without a
word she threw a shawl over her
head and marched the self-confessed
criminal to the police station. Ther?
he told his story again, in greater de-
tail, but essentially as he had given
it to her. As he was finishing Jim
was brought in by the two office men
who had been hastily dispatched for
back on us this way and get us into
trouble."
The brother turned frantically to the
desk-man.
"We didn't do it!" he shouted at the
top of his voice. "It is all a lie. 1
never saw the man in my life. I don't
believe Britt ever did either. We
never was in his room. We didn't
know he was missing until to-night
when we came home. They told us on
the street, and he was as much sur-
prised as I was."
Britt shook his head sorrowfully
with a faint smile.
His brother gazed at him in terror,
his face as white as a sheet. His lips
began to twitch, his hands opened and
shut spasmodically, his body trembled
violently, his knees bent suddenly,
and he fell to the floor in a dead faint.
"Epilepsy!" said the desk-man.
"That settles it. He's an epilectic,
with homicidal tendencies, very likely,
just the kind to do a job like this one."
bad comp'nv. I dun no. They was
allers goods hoys to home. Anyways,
mother has sent me here to kinder
look out for 'em, and find out the
truth of what they done, and stan' by
'em whatever it was." He paused,
lifting his head with a shade of stern-
ly repressed shame in his eyes. "The
world is wicked," he went on, with an
effort, "and I dunno. None of us ain't
perfect. P'aps they was led wrong by
somebody. P'aps they was wrong
theirselves. Hut I got to do what I
the door of the "cabin" was wide open
and the captain stood shaving before
the mirror.
The captain looked at the policemen.
He showed no surprise. On the con-
trary he began to address them at
once as if he had been expecting this
visit, explaining in short, vigorous and
forceful phrases that his daughter
wished him lo live on the farm with |
her and her husband, while he wished
to continue going to sea a little longer.
A compromise had been elTected by
his taking this room near the water
where he could get a sight of it when
he liked, and inhale its odors, and
can. I reckon it'll cost a master sight I nevertheless might be whirled In a
of money—but there's the farm, wuth i half hour by train to his daughter fn
sunthin' like four thousan', and there's j the country
That was where lie had
TUu au.4 Cat a small, dark, nervous! grandparents?"
a little in the bank—"
"It is the case of Capt. Colter, isn't
it," affirmed rather than asked Dr.
Furnivall, eying the visitor interest-
edly through his colored spectacles.
"Yes, sir."
"Was there ever a case of epilepsy
in the family, that you know of—back
to, say, your grandparents or great-
just been.
The next morning Dr. Funivall called
on ihe captain and accompanied him
to the district attorney's office. The
result W3.s that before night the Greely
boys were -eleased. Britt, however,
only exchanged the jail for an insane
hospital, --here he remains to-day.
(Copyright. 1SW, by W. <3. Chapman.)
(Copyright in Great Britain^
off a few days and find out the truth.
"The first morning I left off coffee I
had a raging headache, so I decided I
must have something to take the place
of coffee." (The headache was caused
by the reaction of the coffee drug-
caffeine.)
"Having heard of Postum through a
friend who used it, I bought a package
and tried it. I did not like it at first
but after I learned how to make It
right, according to directions on pkg.,
I would not change back to coffee for
anything.
"When I began to use Postum X
weighed only 117 lbs. Now I weigh
170 and as I have not taken any tonic
in that time I can only attribute my
recovery of good health to the use of
Postum in place of coffee.
"My husband says I am a living ad-
vertisement for Postum. I am glad to
be the means of inducing my many
friends to use Pcistum, too."
Name given by Postum Co., Battle
Creek, Mich. Read "The Road to Well-
ville," in pkgs. "There's a Reason."
Ever rend the above letterf A new
one nppcnr.t from tliue to tln:e. They
nre genuine, true, und full of bum a a
Interest.
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Simms, P. R. The Moore Messenger. (Moore, Okla.), Vol. 1, No. 4, Ed. 1 Saturday, December 5, 1908, newspaper, December 5, 1908; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc109081/m1/3/?q=hoy: accessed July 18, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.