Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-03-28

/ when red-faced man steps in, and draw
! ing from his fob a glittering bauble, saws
My watch is little out of fix. I do not
think there is much the matter with it
guess it got slight jar in the express
A cloud mantles your brow as you take it
IN hand, but after few moments of in
spectlon worse cloud nantes the brow of
the owner. when you say:
Your watch has never run, sir. 1t has
oeen badly made-iS scarcely worth start
ing.'
Why says the red-faced man, ''that
watch IS bran new, just from the East, and
Away he goes with it, much disguised.
| just outside the door he meets his friends
and blows you up as fraud warning them
not to, patronize you, and they promise him
that they will not.
By and by Merchant Brown goes to the
city for goods, and the reG-faced man sends
his watch by him, to have it fixed little.
IL comes back carrying IS charges and that
very night it stops. The owner thinks he
must have wound it little too tight, and so
sends it back to the city by the first oppor-
tunity. Ten dollars charge this time, and
a silent watch in twenty-fom hours. The
red-facet man then tries all the country
watchmakers with it, with no better sue
cess, until finally he reaches the conclusion
that 1.-THE botches" have spoiled his watch,
and John, his hopeful, gets it to give as
boot in his next jack-l1nife swap.
The blizzard has passed and the martens
are here. They are making US a friendly
call, but only comparatively few of them
VIII cast thelr lots with US for the season
they are bound for regions further north.
On last Friday when this was written, the
air was full of them at Fort Worth, and
their actions brought to mind the old and
once-familiar lines:
TO CHURCH YANE.
How off I've seen at early dawn
OF tWilight's quiet hour
The martens in their JOYOUS gIee,
Come darting round thy tower
As II with thee TO hail the sun
And catch his earliest light
And oner We the moons salute,
Or bid We both-good night.
And when around thee or above.
NO breath OF air was stirred,
Thou seem st to watch the circling flight,
OF each free, happy bird,
I'LL after chipping round thy head
In many a may tack,
The whole delighted com pany
Had settled or thy back.
Since writing the above an old citizen has
assured US that there were hundreds OF |
martens stopping through the season at |
Fort Worth few years ago, 20 where |
there Is one now. He attributes their |
giving US the cold shoulder to the numer- |
Jus IoASpAlOLGY IeISgFdpu, elftCUflc lGlt and /
electric motor wires stretched about over |
the city in every direction, the wires render
ing their flight less safe than formerly.
his reasoning in the premises seems very |
good. Martens are to some extent night
Flyers; that is, they are on the wing at the
first show of dawn and at this time might
not be able to see the wires and avoid con
tact with them. Taking in our arrange
ments dangerous to them, they pass on in
search OF less progressive localities.
-
One often hears it stated that ewalls
nave ears. " Tennyson must have been an
earnest convert to that doctrine when he
wrote the following:
For never whispered my private affairs
within the hearing OF ca or mouse,
No not to myself in the closet alone
But heard II in shouts from the top of the |
house aSs
And now our season of spring rains is on
or Texas, and how often the approaching
hover will bring to mind Mr.. T. B. AID
ich's beautiful
WE KNEW IT WOULD RAIN.
We knew II would rain. for all the morn
A spirit on slender ropes of mist
Vas lowering his golden buckets down
Into the yapory amethyst,
u marshes and swamps, and dismal fens-
Scooplng the dew that lay in the flowers
Dipping the Jewels out OF the sea.
10 sprinkle them over the land in showers.
We knew IL would rain. for the poplars showed :
ne waite OF their leaves, the amber grain :
nrank IN The wind, and the lightning now :
Is tangled IN tremulous skeins OF rain.