The Carter Express. (Carter, Okla.), Vol. 1, No. 9, Ed. 1 Friday, May 20, 1910 Page: 3 of 8
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FOQIMMKEK DM
AUTHOR y THE OTHER MAN’’ETC.
'iLLUdTMT/OW /MX WALTERS
corrfHottr by j BUPn/tcorrco.,
SYNOPSIS.
Andy Melenn, agod and eccentric mil-
lionaire miner, I* dying and order* his
attorney to draw up a will leaving all hla
property to the son of a slater from whom
tie waa separated years before and of
whose name even he is Ignorant. Andy
tells the attorney that he was married In
his youth, hut left his wife after a quar-
rel In which he struck her. He learned
afterward that she and his daughter were
dead.
CHAPTER I.—Continued.
“Well, that's on’y right. The money
kem out o' old Nevady; let her have
it back ag'ln. But mind you, Carboy,
not till you’ve raked all creation with
a flne-tooth comb to find Mattie's boy.’’
“Whom will you name as executors
or trustees?”
“Must you have ’em?" Meleen an-
swered anxiously, as though the func-
tionaries referred to were of a species
noxious and undesirable.
“Undoubtedly; they are necessary
evils.”
Meleen frowned in perplexity. It
seemed as though it were costing him
far more trouble to leave his money
behind him than it had been to amass
it and guard it during his eventful life.
“Can’t you fellers act?" he inquired
dubiously at length—“you fellers"—in-
dicating Mr. Carboy and his partners.
“Certainly, if you wish it. Two will
be sufficient Suppose we say Mr.
Passavant and myself?"
With a gesture as of one wearied
with the whole subject Meleen sig-
nified assent. Then, as the lawyer
rose to go indoors, he said:
"Fix it up quick, Carboy, I’m mor-
tal tired!"
By this time the sun had set behind
the svestern wall of mountains, and
Evan appeared to wheel his master
within. But the tough old fellow de-
murred. Half his nights had been
spent in the open air with only the
starry canopy for a tent. Now that
the end was near, he dreaded the crib-
bed and cabined confinement of four
walls. So a lantern was brought and
hung to the rafters of the porch,
where its dim radiance could not in-
terfere with that piercing gaze which
to the last roamed lovingly over the
mountain prospect.
i One, two hours passed, and save for
the steady, harshly rhythmical
“crunch-crunch" of the “stamps” the
town below was strangely quiet.
Every soul therein knew that the
master-mind in the hillside eyrie was
passing away; hushed were the usual
sounds of rude revelry and “wide-
open” license. It was felt to be a
fateful night for the town of Mejeen.
At length Mr. Carboy’s task was
done. A table was carried on to the
porch; by lantern-light the will was
read to the testator, who turned his
eyes to meet those of the lawyer in
mute approval when the reading was
ended. Then, lifted and supported by
old Evan, he affixed his uncouth and
sprawling signature, the witnesses fol-
lowed, and the deed was done which
bequeathed a princely fortune and a
royal revenue to—whom?
Next morning Andrew Meleen was
found lifeless in bed, his gnarled and
knotted features composed in a peace-
ful, almost ecstatic, smile.
“Perhaps he has found Minna!"
mused the lawyer, with humid eyes,
as he stood by the side of his strange
client.
i-j
*i
X
/Xifiw rv
X * . CHAPTER II.
- i. __
In an old-fashioned sitting room in arf
antiquated brick house in that unfash-
ionable quarter of “downtown” New
-York formerly known as Greenwich
village there sat, one autumn evening,
a young couple, both of whom were
exceedingly good to look upon.
*~To~l:be judicious observer it would
Slave been apparent from their atti-
tude an j "bearing each towards the
other that they were something more
than mere friends, yet less than man
and wife. In fact, they were con-
tented and happy dwellers in that de-
lectable border-land known as Being
Engaged.
The girl was fairly tall of stature, bru-
nett as to complexion, with a wealth
of fine and glossy dark hair which
rippled and waved around a small but
shapely head and above a witchingly
feminine forehead, white and broad
and low. Her eyes were of a very
steadfast dark gray, set widely apart,
giving one the impression of quiet re-
pose and cool judgment. A firm chin
above a strong and supple throat
made her look older and more wom-
anly than her years really warranted.
She was busied with one of those
trifles of needlework which keep the
fingers busy without curbing one’s
tongue, and at the same time serve
to display to admiring and even co-
quettish advantage a very shapely
wrist and hand. Yet even the dearest
uf her feminine frienls would never
have insinuated that Eunice Trevecca
was the least bit of a coquette. In-
deed, it needed but a glance Into the
depths of those quiet gray eyes to
convince you that that here was a na-
ture tender and true as that of the
Douglas himself.
So at least thought young Wilfrid
Stennis, who sat opposite to her, and
who certainly enjoyed the best op-
portunities in the world for knowing.
He was a pleasant, wholesome lad,
fair and florid, with light golden-brown
hair and mustache, slim and with
slightly stooped shoulders. A rather
weak face on the whole, one might
say, though perhaps this was partly
owing to a rather querulous droop of
the mustache, which barely veiled the
sensitive mouth; a beard would better
have hidden a chin which was far
too pretty for any mere man.
Had you guessed him to be a clerk
or a bookkeeper you would not have
been far astray—one of those men
who make exceedingly valuable and
faithful servants but very poor mas-
ters. As to character, he was neither
better nor worse than thousands of
other youngsters who start out in life
in some downtown office or store at
$3 a week, the goal of whose ambition
is to earn fifteen hundred or two thou-
sand dollars a year, to marry some
pleasant girl, settle down in a Harlem
flat or a little one-of-a-row house over
in Brooklyn, raise a small family, get
along on a couple of new suits of
clothes each year, with a semi-oc-
not say a hundred millions at one*
and be certain of having enough?"
“Because for practical purposes
twenty millions would be ample," said
he. “The Income from that should be
—let me see"—doing a rapid sum in
mental arithmetic—"over half a mil-
lion a year.”
“Well, and what would you do with
It, Wilf, if you had it?" questioned
Eunice, willing to humor his fancy.
Wilfrid drew a long breath and lay
back in his chair. “In the first place,
I’d build me a city house right hero
in New York on the east side of the
park or else at Riverside, and a coun-
try place somewhere up the sound or
on Long island near the water. I’d
want to live in the city not more than
three or four months in the year.
Then I’d have a yacht—none of your
smoky, greasy teakettles, but a sweet-
smelling, fast-sailing schooner fit to
go around the world—and I’d sail her
myself, too. There would be horses
for riding and driving, with perhaps a
four-in-hand coach. Best of all, I
could travel—south in winter, of
course, but I’d see the world: London,
Paris, Berlin, Italy, the pictures, the
statues, and the libraries. Oh, I’d go
everywhere and do everything, even
to a little gaming at Monte Carlo!
nothing wicked or vulgar about It all,
you know, but the utmost enjoyment
in a refined way, and all the experi-
ences that money could give.”
The girl smiled at his boyish en-
thusiasm, nor did she evince any
pique or annoyance because Eunice
Trevecca was somehow left out of
the picture. It was all mere idle talk,
of course. Wilfrid was not really un-
happy or discontented; he had a good
position with nine hundred a year,
and’they were to be married in the
spring.
“You certainly could give some of
our American nabobs a few lessons
on how to be happy though rich,” she
smilingly commented. “It has often
seemed to me that our really rich
men do not get half as much out of
life as they might.”
“Of course they don’t!” assented
IS
“Oh, It’s a Splendid Thing to Be Rich!”
casional visit to the theater in winter
and an outing on Saturday afternoons
at Coney island or Rockaway.
Not a wildly hilarious or thrilling ex-
istence, it may be granted, yet there
are hundreds and thousands of such
men—gentlemanly and refined, neith-
er very strong nor very weak, not
vicious nor conspicuously virtuous,
but who, in a paraphrase of the old
Shorter Catechism, are piously or me-
chanically “doing their duty in that
state of life to which it has pleased
the Almighty to call them.” It is of
kindred stuff that the “average citi-
zen” is made.
Even to such men strange dreams
may come—fond and foolish visions of
wealth and power, hopeless of realiza-
tion, mayhap, yet nevertheless fre-
quently prompted by certain innate or
inherited cravings for the good things
of this life which only money can pro-
cure, and for the enjoyment of which
they feel a yearning and an infinite
capacity if only they had the chance.
“Oh, it’s a splendid thing to be
rich!”' Wilfrid was even then saying
to Eunice. “Just think of what a man
could do if he were really in posses-
sion of more money that he knew how
to spend! I don’t mean a paltry hun-
dred thousand dollars, but—well, say
twenty or thirty or even fifty mil-
lions!”
“Why stop there?” put In Eunice
with a quizzing little smile. “Why
Wilfrid dogmatically. "Why, look at
me,” he rambled on; “I’m only half-
baked; never had any education to
speak of; had to keep nry nose to the
grindstone all my life; as you know,
there were always two ways for every
dollar to go as long as mother was
ali.ve, on account of her many years
of hopeless illness; but, in spite of my
few opportunities, I’ll bet I could show
some of those fellows how to.,enjoy
their wealth!”
“Of course you could,” Eunice
agreed, with a loving woman’s fatu-
ous fondness and indulgence for the
man she has promised to marry. “But
we’ll be just as happy without the
money, won’t we, Wilf?"
“Not a doubt of it!” he exclaimed,
starting to her side, bending over her
and pressing his lips to her shining
coils of hair. “Why, possessing you
and your love, dearest, I’m the richest
fellow in New York today.”
She tilted back her head to look
into his eyes as he gazed fondly down
into hers.
“That’s the way 1 love to hear you
speak,” she murmured. “Money can-
not buy some things in this world,
Wilf,” a truism which was sealed in
a very expressive and satisfactory
manner by the naturally ardent Wil-
frid.
Eunice, though very well educated
and refined—in England she would
have been described as “quite above
her station, my dear’’—was only one
remove from being a working woman
herself, and had no foolish or unprac-
tical longings. As housekeeper for
her stepfather, John Trevecca—her
mother she could not remember—she
was beyond the necessity of earning
her own living; but Trevecca himself
was but a foreman In some iron works
up on Tenth avenue. So to Eunice
the prospect of marrying so present
able a young fellow as Wilfrid Sten-
nls, both of them being very much
in love with each other, aeemed the
acme of good fortune, leaving noth-
ing to be desired of the Fates.
And though Wilf was her senior by
some four years—he was twenty-eight
—the girl was really the elder in point
of steady principle and cool, sober
judgment. In fact, Wilf, as she often
acknowledged to herself, was rather
hpylsh, sanguine, mercurial, easily led.
But she loved him for these very qual-
ities; some women mother their hus-
bands before the children arrive to
keep their affections busy.
When old John Trevecca came In,
coatless and bringing with him a
strong aroma of cut Cavendish, for he
had been smoking his pipe with some
cronies on the “front porch," as they
still call the house entrance up Green-
wich way, the light of Wilfrid’s rosy
visions had not yet died out of his
eyes. There was even an atmosphere
of suppressed excitement in the home-
ly room which caused the old man to
look shrewdly at Eunice. If there
were anything amiss between the
lovers Trevecca knew he would find ij
In the girl’s face. But apparently all
was serene.
"Wilf has been telling me what he
intends to do with all his money
when he gets to be very rich,” she
said smilingly.
“That’s easy spending." said Tre-
vecca, sinking heavily into a chair.
“There’s more money got rid of that
way in a year than’d pave 1” York wi'
dollars! But let’s hear abart it, lad,”
he added.
“Oh, it was just foolish talk,” said
Wilfrid, on whose late enthusiasm
the blunt words of his prospective fa-
ther-in-law were like a bucket of cold
water on a bonfire.
Nevertheless, as he walked home to
his lodgings on Washington square
the exaltation of the earlier evening
still clung to him, and as he swung
along in the clear, crisp autumn night
his step was jaunty, his head held
high, and he was potentially as rich
as he was actually poor.
To such a man as Wilfrid Stennis,
uneducated as the college world
counts learning, but eager, receptive,
possessing an eye for beauty and for
color, with a love for music, an un-
formed, omnivorous appetite for
books, and an instinctive shrinking
from the sordid and the mean, th8
bonds of even respectable poverty are
apt to prove especially galling. Like
Bella Wilfer, he realized to the full
what it meant to be “beastly poor, mis-
erably poor."
What wonder, then, that his long-
ings, his aspirations, his day dreams,
were centered about that wealth he
so often saw others abusing, or mis-
using, or keeping napkin-tied? Not
for the miser’s greed of possession,
but for the gratification of the best
that was in him, did he long for money
—heaps and heaps of it.
Overnight day dreams, fortunately,
come cheap, and they leave no dark-
brown taste in the mouth. The next
morning, when Wilfrid Stennis went
downtown to the Front street store,
he was again the prosaic and method-
ical young entry clerk. No one would
have suspected him of secret yearn-
ings for fast horses, a faster yacht,
and a little flutter around the tables
so hospitably maintained by the
prince of Monaco.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
Twelve Minutes Saved.
“Experience,” said Mark Twain in
the smoking room of the Bermudian,
“makes us wise, but it also makes us
hard. Consider the old, experienced
man in the busy restaurant. He took
a seat, looked round him and, point-
ing to a well-dressed gentleman who
had not yet been served, he said to
the waiter:
“‘Waiter, how long has that gentle-
man been here?’
“ ‘About 12 minutes, sir,’ the waiter
ausw'ered.
“‘What’s his order?’
“ ‘Porterhouse and French fried, sir,
with mince pie and coffee to come.’
“The old man, hardened by experi-
ence, slipped a quarter in the waiter’s
hand.
“‘Waiter, he said, ‘I’m In a hurry.
Put on another porterhouse and bring
me his.”’
A Pleasing Sense of Health and
Strength Renewed and of
Ease and Comfort
follows the use of Syrup of Figs and
I Elixir of Senna, as it acts gently on
i the kidneys, liver and bowels, cleans-
ing the system effectually, when con-
i stipated, or bilious, and dispels colds
and headaches.
To get its beneficial effects, always
buy the genuine, manufactured bjr
i the California Fig Syrup Co.
To cure costiveness the medicine must be
more than a purgative; It must contain tonic,
iterative and cathartic properties.
Tutt’s Pills
possess these qualities, and speedily restore
to the bowels their natural peristaltic motion,
so essential to regularity.
DAISY FLY KILLER
^clean, oruanien*
-----tal,convenient,cheap.
Lasts All 9ea«ot»
Mane of metal,cauuol
spill or tip over, will
not toil or injure any*
thing. Guaranteed ef-
fective. Of all dealer*
or sent prepaid for Mo.
HAROLD S01KB4
150 Dekalb Ate.
Brooklyn, Sew Yofft
I CAN SELL OR TRADE your lots. Farms.
Stocks or Property, no matter where located.
J. F. CODY Oklahoma City, Okla.
DROVE HUSBAND FROM HOME
Act of Militant Suffragette That Waa
Too Arbitrary to Be Upheld
by the Court.
The results that may ensue from
being married to a suffragette were re-
vealed the other day in a London
(Eng.) suburban police court. Mrs.
i Tunnicliffe took up the cause and was
| not able to spend much time at home.
When the husband remonstrated she
simply commanded her daughter to
pack her father’s gripsack and there
j and then ordered him out of the house.
He went, and then the lady sued him
for desertion and demanded alimony.
“But surely you did not take it so
feebly?” asked the magistrate of the
husband.
“It was no use objecting,” was the
answer. “She wanted to be master and
said that if I annoyed her she would
lock me up. I was only too anxious to
go back home, but she would not let
me.’’
The case wras dismissed.
New Fly Trap.
A Californian has taken advantage
of the fact that flies always walk up
a window by inventing a trap to be
fastened to a pane in such a manner
that a fly will enter it without being
aware that it has left the surface of
the glass.
Don!t criticize a fool;
help being foolish.
fools can’t
Sexes Divided in Church.
The separation of the sexes seems
to have been formerly by no means an
uncommon practice in the Church of
England. In fact, Edward VI.’s prayer
book specially mentions that at the
communion service “the men shall
tarry on one side and the women on
the other.” The papers of p church
in Westmoreland include elaborate di-
rections for the division of the sexes
at its services.
Give your children pretty names;
there are more than enough ugly ones
already.
A clear brain and
Steady, dependable nerves
Can win wealth and fame
For their owner*.
Clear headedness and a
Strong, healthy body
Depend largely on the
Right elements in
Regular food and drink.
Coffee contains caffeine—
A poisonous drug.
Postum is rich in the
1
Gluten and phosphates that
Furnish the vital energy
That puts “ginger” and
“hustle”
Into body and brain.
“There’s a Reason"
j.r?
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Waggoner, Thomas T. The Carter Express. (Carter, Okla.), Vol. 1, No. 9, Ed. 1 Friday, May 20, 1910, newspaper, May 20, 1910; Carter, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc957099/m1/3/: accessed April 25, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.