Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1892-12-01

by rolling it around his mind for some
time he succeeded in polishing it until
he felt justified in trying it on new &C
quaintance in about this shape:
Men along the river tell me they fire.
quently have chills and fever, and that
the climate don't allow the men to be
very active, yet can't see any sign that
the younger women suffer in that way"
NO" said Sam Mazzitt, the man adj
dressed, as he motioned the visitor to a
seat on the log on which he was resting
in front of his own door. Il reckon
here he paused to puff contemplatively
on his pipe--I reckon the Lord thinks
somebody down here ought to have a
chance to be spry."
Jack made a mental note of this for
his intended book. and then doubted
whether it would do.
Fact is" Sam went on. after little
more reflection, gals amt out in the
woods an SWampS as much as men, an
they don't drink"-puff-"nor chaW"-
puf--nor smoke; leastways, not many
of them takes to smokin' till they've
! been disappointed in love. Say, stran-
ger, where's your own pipe? I'll git a
coal of fire out here for to light it.
Then he turned toward the house and
shouted "Lizziei"
please don't trouble yourself, said
Jack, hastily. II don't smoke"
The man looked sidewise quickly and
suspiciously.
whats that? Don't smoke? Well.
some don't; but it's pooty bad for 'em
in these parts. Tubbacker keeps off the
chills an fever.
Jack was about to unfold a theory,
which he had formed since his arrival
on the river, that tobacco, which every
one seemed to use, was probably one of
the causes of malarial complaints, by
making the liver torpid, when he heard
a voice saying:
What do you want of me, pop?"
Jack turned and saw in the doorway
of the log house a specimen of that pOr-
ton of the population that had seemed
to him specially interesting. 1t was a
girl in faded calico dress; but Jack Won
dered what the young fellows in his
town at home would have said could
they have seen her. There were some
very good-lOOking girls in that town.
Jack and the other boys had often looked
at them admiringly for an hour at
time, when they should have been lis
! tening to the sermon which the minister
was preaching that self-Same hour, but
none of them were like this girl. Yet
she was not different from many whom
| he had CHANGED to see during his short
trips asnore-merely rich olive COM
plexion, large, warm, dark eyes, and a
| great deal OF black hair, with head set
firmly on a shapely neck. How could
she be daughter of the thin, sallow,
wrinkled, awkward man beside him?
| She must have inherited her good looks
and figure from her mother. Jack re-
solved that he would improve the chance
acquaintance, if possible, to see if there
might not be something in the idea of
| inheritance by sex.
Its nothin', Lizzie, gal," said the
father; I was goin' to git you to fetch
| but coal to light the strangers pipe,
out it seems he don't smoke. Say, my
friend, I know it amt any of my bust
ness, but didn't you ever smoker"
ooh, yes" said Jack with a laugh.
@Once, when was about II years old,
/ I smoked about an inch of a cigar. 1t
answered me for life; I can taste it
now, or whenever think of it."
~Oh, /see," said the man, with a
kind though plying look; cigars amt
| safe. If you'd begun on a pipe, now,
| you'd have been gettin' as much COM
fort out of tubbacker by this time as
me-"
Meanwhile, the girl had come from
| the house and stood in front of her
father, listening to the conversation
and looking at the visitor without any
! show Of embarrassment. This seemed
odd to Jack. If up in New Hampshire
! he had stopped at so common and shah
not know him, the women of the family
would have regarded him from afar OF,
and looked uncomfortable if they
CHANGED to meet him face to face. But
this girl looked him full in the face, as
pleasantly and with as little concern as
if he had been an old acquaintance, and
said:
Pop gets so much comfort out Of his
pipe that like to see him smoke"
| LACK uuickly determined that he
would like to talk with girl like that
girl who made so little fuss about get
ting acquainted. He had already found
that formal introductions were not in
fashion among the humber residents
along the river, and that no one seemed
TO have any distrust of man who at
tended to his business and did not con-
Germ himself unduly with other peoples
affairs. It was as delightful as it was
stranRe-the way of Southern girls, or