The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-03-12
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
WHERE is THE CROWS NEsT7

the cabin together. The ceiling wasn't
frescoed aud upholstering hadn't been
put on the chairs yet; still, it was a
pretty nice sort of place to live in,
and as time passed they managed to
make it more and more comfortable.
They took turn and turn sbout in
tending to the homework. Each one
had one day of securing the pans and
boiling the mush. and then two days OF
pick and shovel ~
One day it happened to be Grinning
Jim's turn to tend to the chores The
boys called him Grinning Jim. not be-
cause he did great deal of grinning
himself, but because he was always
advising others to do It When
ever any body struck bad luck.
Jim said, Grin and bear it, my
boy; grin and bear it." Now. on
that morning Jim got up first and start
ed the fire and put on the kettle to
make the coffee, and the pan to fry
some bears steak. But somehow the
fire wouldn't draw. He put on more
kindlings. He got on his knees and
made bellows of himself, but the fire
just smoldered and the cabin filed up
with smoke. The other men began to
grumble in their hunks and to rub their
eyes and the tears began to run down
their cheeks as if they were thinking
of their past sins. And when they sat
down to breakfast and found their cof-
fer lukewarm and the steak half done,
they just swore. But Jim didn't swear.
He was Methodist and had religion.
He just said, 'Grin and bear it boys,
perhaps it'll be better bimeby." 1t was
.he same way at dinner and at supper,
and to look at those men, you would
think their best friend had gone back
on them.
The next day it was Mad Toms turn.
He was terror He would fret and
howl and stamp when anything went
wrong, till you would think creation
was out of joint He had vowed any
number of times the day before that if
he had the thing to do there wouldn't
be any more smoke in that cabin.
So after breakfast he went at it.
They had an old stovepipe to their
stove. which they had bought of another
miner who had quit his claim on the
other side of the gulch. 1t went
through the wall in an elbow joint and
stuck straight up outside. and they
were rather proud of it. Now Tom in
vestigated the stovepipe.
He found little hole way up where
the smoke was coming out and he
plugged that with some chewing tobac-
co. He thought that would settle il,
but it didn't Now the smoke came
out of crack little lower down and
there was an awful smell of burnt to-
bacco. / forget what he stopped the
crack with, but it took him about an
hour to do it, and by that time the hole
was open again and the smoke as tad
as ever. When the other two came
home at noon they found Tom very
grimy and very mad. and nothing to
eat but some cold mush- Tom kept at
it most of the afternoon. He stopped
the cracks. He famed the fire. Once
he poured on some kerosene, but he
concluded he wouldn't do that again.
Finally he got so mad that he hit the
stove-pipe terrible whack with stick
of wood, and started off for the grocery
at Dead Horse gully. When the other
two came home at night they found
nothing to eat and q big dent in the
stove-p pipe
The next day Old Silence took his
turn. His real name was Silas. but IL
was handy to call him Silence. because
he never did say very much. However,
he did a powerful lot of thinking. He
didn't much believe in Jim's grin and
bear it policy. He said he guessed it
was all right to be patient under the
dispensations of providence, but he,
didn't see that it was the Lords fault
that the smoke kept coming into the
cabin. He didn't take much stock
either in Mad Toms plan of stopping
the cracks, and he started to tell Tom
so. but Tom turned the air SO blue that
Old Silence shut up. But when the
men were gone, he lit his pipe and
thought the thing over
Every weed has got some root" he
said to himself land you haven't got
the weed out till you've got the root
out 1t amt material fer smoke to cone
down instead o goin' up
; There's somethin' stoppin' up that
fiue. If kin git that out, the smoke
will act all right. and il that don't come
out, that ere smoke will poster us for
ever and ever. amen.
He got MP and leid down his pipe He
found out the topmost crack where the
smoke came out He climbed on the
roof and looked down, but he only got
cinder in his eye and saw nothing. 1t
must be in the elbow-joint of the pipe
He would get at that thing. If he
brought all the SCOT west of the Rocky
mountains into his cabin. He twisted
the joint out Down came the SCOT,
over the floor and over his overalls. but
he stuck to the job. He put in his arm.
He felt something. He pulled it out
1t was big chunk of dirt and broken
sticks and feathers He looked it over
carefully and then he chuckled He