The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1889-02-08
MRS. Trips CHINA.

was, ] regret to say, an immediat
disagreement among their heirs owe
the small property left by the oil
people.
Such disagreements ar so shame
fully common now, that this on
mightnot have excited any particula
interest had it not been for the some
what peculiar nature of the articl
over which the cupidity of the vari
GUS heirs had asserted itself.
Few, indeed, were the possession
MI. and Mrs. Trip left behind them
They did not own even the humble
little brown house in which they hat
lived for the past ten years, and wher
their funeral expenses had paid
there was not a dollar left of the sun
found in an old pewter teapot on thu
top shelf of the red cupboard in thu
kitchen. Frugal as they had been
it was evidentthat this sum represen
ted the sum total of their savings O
many years.
But MI. and Mrs. Trip had not
always been SO poor as they were al
the last, and there was one of Mrs
Trips possession which she had al
ways exhibited with pride as a relic
of her better days, and as undenlable
proof of the fact that there had been
a time when she chad had a plenty
Over this her relatives now disputed
What was it? Only a white china
tea-set, each piece of which had a
broad gold band around the rim.
cts pure chany," Mrs. Trip would
often say, with a thrill of pride, as
she held a saucer or a plate before
the eyes of her visitors. "See how
thin it is; you kin look right through
it. Solomon give it to me on our
tenth wedding day. he was in the
grocery business then, an dom well,
an he'd gone to New York to buy
goods; an when he come home, he
brung this all packed SO carefully in
straw, that the want a piece broke;
but one of the sass dishes was crack
ed a little, en- l never used it none,
so it amt never broke, either. I think
the world an all of my chany."
The dearly priced ''chany" had for
years graced an old-fashioned ''what-
not in a corner of Mr.. Trips best
room. There was nothing else OH
the whatnot but two big "chany''
dogs, one a reddish brown, and the
other a dark blue, which looked as
though they felt themselves respon-
sible for the safety of the dishes, and
intended being faithful to their trust.
Mr.. and Mrs. Trip had no children,
but they had some relatives-cousins
and a second-cousins and more re-
mote connections. These relatives
were numerous, however. just how
numerous they were was made mani
fest when it came to dividing the few
personal belongings otthe old people.
The "heirs', met at the house on
their way home from the funeral.
Hardly were they assembled, when
Johnson, own cousin to Mrs.
Trip, said:
"Of course you all know that my
and Betty Trips mother was
own brother and sister, and that
made me and Betty own cousins. So
it seems only fair that. 1 should at
least have my choice of her things,
'speshly when I might claim 'em all;
but [ amt one to act selfish, and I'm
you should all have your sheer
of what's left after I've packed up
chanv tea-set and''-
81 knowed that was what you was
.oin' to say, interrupted Mrs. Cephas
"and I can tell you that Solo
mon Trip was my own cousin, and
the tea things was as much his as
they was Betty's, and I've as much
to 'em as you have!"
A thin, sharp voice came from a
corner of the room.
"Betty Trip told me agin and
it said, "that she wanted me
to have them dishes, when she was
done with en- She said''-
"She told me the same thing!" in
terposed Mrs. Cyrus Masterson, who
who was only a third-cousin."
81 took more care of her endurin'
her last sickness that anybody else!"
Interrupted second-cousin Beulah
"and one day we was talkin'
bout the chany, an Betty says, says
'Beulah,' says she, ''bout that
,hany tea-set,' says she, I'D as leave
you had it as any one, an a little
eaver.'
"Them's the very words she said
10 my wife!" put in Mr.. Ezra Sim
mons, a little old man with a femi-
nine face and voice, "an' Betty was a
own cousin ofmine."
''And of mine!" said a tall woman
n rusty black near the whatnot on
which the coveted china stood.
So the strife continued, until there
vas no possibility of an amicable ad-
ustment of the claims of various
They finally left the
house and the chinain the possession
If Miss Selma Sharpe, a lady of
about fifty years, who, although an
OWN cousin of Mr.. Trip. had putfor
ward no claim to the china, declar-
ng that she had no wish to possess
"But there's one thing certain"
said Miss Sharpe, as she closed the
loor behind the last of the '.heirs,"
there shan't one of 'em step their
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