The Democrat. (Scotland Neck, Halifax Co., N.C.) 1884-1896, 1895-12-05

The Recent Demise Of Eugene Field
Sets Arp to Illuminating.

oht arp IN Goldsbor0 Argus
Oh, what pity Of it; Eugene Field
Is dead. When everybody loves A man
1t does seem hard that he should die
Just In his prime and getting ripper,
purer. mellower as years rolled on. We
OF the South had learned to love him
for ne was gentle and kind to us. He
| loved Grady and Grady loved him.
| They are together now somewhere. /
wonder how their spirits met and what
they said. 1t is hard on the South to
lose two such friends. They were Of
the same age lacking a few months
Love, kindness, tenderness of heart are
redeeming traits in human nature, and
they had them.
/ have been reading Wallace Reed Is
pleasant reminiscence of Henry Grady
and it carried me back to the hard days
when Henry, like Field, was struggling
against tate to make his paper success.
The merchants had not then learned
the value OF advertising, and Henry
pleaded in vain for a more liberal pat
ronage. A leading merchant who
claimed to be his friend stubbornly de-
chned to give him big "ad" and said
it would be money thrown away, for
nobody read them. Don't read them ~
exclaimed Henry, don't read them |.
Well, [ will show you" Next morn
irg's paper contained short editorial
on cats, and told how cat fur had re-
Gently come into great demand in fash
ionable circles in New York and how
the long coarse hairs we've eliminated
and the real fur was made into tippets
and mufs and every fashionable lady
wore feline, etc. Not far off in an
other column was displayed adver-
tisement that said
WANTED-1 900 cats, ior which so
cents each will be paid.
The merchants name was signed to
1t. By noon the cats began to roll in
Small boys, white and black. brought
them IN baskets and bags. For awhile
the merchant enjoyed the joke, but
soon got tired and went away to dinner.
By the time he returned the boys and
darkles from the suburbs were coming
in and the sidewalk was blockaded.
Henry had laughed until he was ex-
hausted and sat on a window sill across
the street, threatened, he said, with
cataleptic fit. NeighbOring merchants
and their clerks gathered around and
laughed and shouted and cried at every
new arrival of cats. AS fast as the mer-
chant drove off one crowd another fill
ed their places. He armed himself
with big stick, but at last he closed
his doors in sheer despair and night
relieved him from the pressure.
But the next morning the catastro-
phe was worse The catalogue was
not ended, for the country people had
heard the news and brought cats in on
their wood wagons and under buggy
seats and tied up in cotton baskets Ii Ike
chickens. Henry took his stand near
by and leaned against telegraph pole
for support. He and Shanklin-dear
old Shanklin-and the folks who loved
fun, were all there and while 1T was fun
to the boys and death to the frogs. it
was such rare and racy joke that the
merchant couldn't get mad and finally
surrendered. He made an appropriate
little speech to the crowd and told
Henry that if he would promise never
to do him so any more he would give
him the biggest "ad" he had ever had
in his paper. Henry promised and the
"ad" was given. That illustrated the
mischief that was in his rolicking ma
ture.