Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1892-12-10
TIE OGYN

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Donald Calvin was q city-bred bach
elor who believed that mar should
commune with nature and never with
women He arrived at his misogyny
BY Il process OF reasoning and not by n
process Of experience. He had no
canker growing at his heart nourished
by the memory Of q faithless love. Yet
he hated women He hated them,
however. not in the savage spirit. He
was still polite and courteous to par
ticular representatives Of the fair sex.
yet he formed no acquaintance with
any Of them that went beyond the
most frigid and distant relation posi-
BILE. Hence at the age OF 30 Mr.. Cal
vim was the most unpopular man in
his circle OF society.
As an artist OF considerable ability
in his especial line OF work he was kept
busy from Monday morning at 8
o'clock until Saturday noon, at which
hour he regularly left his work when
the weather was fine and repaired TO
the river bank. He owned a small
skin and an outfit for hunting and
fishing that was the finest in the state,
and with this equipment he left the
city wharf and rowed steadily until to
some spot II number Of miles farther
up the river than any other sportsman
with similar mean of travel ever
journeycd, and here he hunted and
lished until Sunday afternoon. when
he gathered his spoils and dropped
down the river back to town.
One afternoon as he started out he
heard q great medley Of laughter and
shouts coming from the crowded decks
of a steamer. Hundreds Of children
were racing hither aud iiiither ii tho
frantic, spontaneous glee OF childhood.
They climbed up the stanchions, slid
down the cables, leaped from deck to
deck and comported themselves gener-
ally like au irrepressible mob Of
brownies.
"Thcy will not be so gay twenty
years hence" muttered the bachelor
as he pulled out from his %moorings.
But after all extreme youth is one OF
the blessed things in this world. Men
who attend u Sunday-school picnic and
look about them in the right spirit
will be better for it than n whole year
of sermons could make them"
He had been rowing a half-hour or
more when the steamer with its merry
burden came pulling gayly up the
river. He pulled lazily until it was
abreast of him, waiting for it to get by
aud nodding pleasantly in return to
The shouts the children sent 10 the sol
itary boatman across the water. At
one point on the steamers upper deck
the demonstrations were widest and
he directed his eyes thither as he
dipped his oars into the pillows thrown
Up by the wheel.
In the midst of the group standing
or n chair as she waved her dainty
handkerchief was a girl Of 20. clad in
white, her yellow hair floating away
from her fair. fresh face and losing IT,
self 10 the expanse of a huge picnic hat
of blue straw. She took it from her
head at length and shook it at him i'm.
itating the example of the children
around her. But to her dismay the
wind suddenly jerkcd it from her grasp
and it went sailing out oyer the river
like some huge blue swallow.
lie was compelled to laugh at hel
pretty feminine anger as she stamped
her foot and beckoned the hat to re
turn. lmpelled BY an impulse tina,
was too inconsistent with his profes
sions to In properly Analysed, he pulled
across the stream TO where the ha'
floated on the wave and took i
aboard. Then turning the nose of hi
boat upstream he resumed his labor
ious journey. And rs he did so MIR
Calvin ru1inated: Women are
distraction and an abomination Il
man; they are the cause of nineteenth
os-ljs-trnuhLas. they pradnce. disseu
nimity before were found; they"
But nv. Calvin had n category o
their demoniac attributes that wa
as lengthy as it was cynical. Suflic,
to say that in every one of them hi,
belief was firm and ~unshakable. AM
yet he toiled up the muddy current o.
the Ohio with u blue chip hat staring
him in the face from the stern of hi.
boat. Il will return to the city n,
usual Sunday afternoon and advertise
1t in the papers" he said.
But when he came in sight of the
steamer where it lay moorcd at the
foot of a wooded grove, of which the
swarming little ones had taken wild
possession, Mr.. Calvin turned his boat
toward the shore and was shortly after.
ward ascending the bank swinging the
hat at his side. He had not got vel
within the grove when a CHEEKY voice
exclaimed:
What, Calvin! You at a picnic?"
The solemn bachelor turned to find
himself face to face with an intimate
friend, ii he could be said to possess
an intimate friend.
IL am a mere interloper," he said,
smiiiagly. This hat fell into the
river as ! was coming-ah, there she
is now"
As he concluded the young lady he
had seen on the steamer came running
up to them.
Ny hat" she said simply, and
%blushing.
Il thought you might want it," he
said, bowling. And | took the liberty
10 fetch it,"
"fou are very kind. sir. Mr.. Will
Jams. you are wanted at mammals
tree Immediately"
This to Nj. Calvin's friend.
Il obey promptly" said that gentle
man. smilingly. But before ! go per-
NIT me to present MIR. Calvin Miss
Turner"
And Mr.. Williams hurried away.
MIR. Calvin" exclaimed she,
and stopping abruptly, broke into .
smile.
is the name familiar:s' asked the
misogynist in solemn establishment.