The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1895-01-19

upon missions of m~alevolence or cruel
ty or on trips to those wicked human
beings who delight in wr%ong-doing; ba-
by spirits looking for their earthly
parents, and the spirits of disease and
death in search Of victims.
The old a%strologer who does business
on the Lin Tow road remarked early
In the morning, This is q very bad day
for human beings; the winds and wa
ters are favoring the influences Of evil
rather than those Of good" The few
people who heard him went home and
lit fresh joss sticks to exercise any I'M
welcome invisible guest and hung tails
mans over the doors to keep away the
supernatural powers of wrong. In a
small house near Banyan villa lived a
poor Chinese family. The father Of
Tan Sin was away at the time in the
tea gardens of Formosa, where he went
every year to earn the little money
that supported his household. The
mother, All Ho. a bright-eyed and
pretty woman, was at home, nursing
the baby. 1t had been very sick for
several days-so sick that the ordinary
medicines had produced no result. Ab
Ho had been compelled to call II an
aged and distinguished physician from
Annoy.
The wise man had examined the in.
FAINT, shaken his head, given some mys-
terious drugs. again shaken It's head
and gone off in his chair, carried by
four stout coolies. Before he went he
said to Tai, the old family servant
"That Is a very sick child and I am
afraid 1t will not 1--we until to-mor.
row."
After he had gone, All Ho cooked the
drugs into a tea and administered it
In the patient and mechanical manner
which Is so characteristic Of the peo-
pie of the East.
AS the afternoon wore on the baby
grew worse. The little face became
a and pinched, the eyes closed as If
tired with the weight Of the eyelids,
and the feeble pulse beat more slowly
and slowly. TOT got ready the simple
evening meal, but All Ho could not eat.
1t was her only child and this was the
first time she had ever been face to
face with the great mystery we call
death. The old servant lit the lamps,
and then remembering it was the night
Of the Wandering Spirits, lit a handful
Of joss sticks and placed them in
groups of three upon the mantel-piece
In the sick room, in the ancient bronze
vase DeIOTe the ancestral tablets,
In the wainscoting Of the door opening
into the quadrangular yard. AS she
did the last she looked up and noticed
that the sacred talisman which had
been fastened to the wall early in the
morning had either dropped off or been
blown away. When she noticed the
fact she trembled and began to weep.
1t was her duty to have seen that the
talisman remained where 1t was. The
moment 1t fell the house became open
to any evil spirit that might be passing,
and this was the day and night Of the
Wandering spirits.
She looked about the quadrangle, and
finally found the yellow card, inscribed
with the curved characters Of a Ian
guage that died 1000 years ago, wher
a greater and wiser race had ruled il
the far-off districts of Quin-Lun. She
picked it up, and with her palsied fin
gers reafflXed 1t to the wall. She look
ed sidewise in through the doorway
and saw All Ho sitting here Grooming
a love song over the sick child, and saw
the child's face thinner and paler thai
before. There came a terrible frigh'