The Newtown bee., 1896-11-06
BRIDGEPORT, CONN.

ra ,7 whisky automatically. Both acts are automatic in the far West. Water seems 8 tame and unhealthy beverage, and conversation ungarni8hed with fash, ionable adiectiVes, exclamatious or
 italics, and dinners without cIaret or apOllinaris water, at least, seem ame to people in the East. In reality the No
 Hopes meant no more djsrespect to the Divine Being, whom they did not know, by this mechanical profanity than does a city school girl by her 'Oh Lord '" or her "Gracious goodness!"
 For this, it must be confessed, the
 very reVivaIs to which they now strenu- ously objected, were in great measure responsible-revivals which were to re- vivals in the East as 8 cyclone is to a summer zephyr. Every particle of emo- tiOu and feeling had been burned out of the fiery eloquence of the exhorter8 and by the flaming energy with which they had, time and again, ''got religion" and then frozen into moral ice by the very force of reaction.
 George Kent settled down alone in 8 tiny shanty, and the No Hopers saw lit- tie of him, except as he went to and from his work. He neither avoided nor sought their society. Quiet and un. .demOnstrative as he was, he seemed to have taken a fancy to his exact oppo- site, registering Jim Stone. For while Jim watched him in sullen silence and distrust, but gradually fell into conver- sation and friendship with him; why, he could hardly have told himself.
 Why don't you come to our dances ?" he asked Kent, one day. He no longer used, when talking with Kent, the oaths " hich adorned his conversation with other men, tho the subject had never been discussed between them since the first day of their acquaintance.
 Il have other things-better things, to do," replied Kent, watching Jims face keenly, to detect the probable ris- ing anger.
 How do you know your things are better? You haven't been to our dances, and you can't know anything about them"
 ''I know; I could tell you of 8 town where I used to run them myself" an- 5wered Kent, emboldened by Jim's in- terest and absence of anger. Then, he laid his hand on Jim's shoulder, and said, persuasively
 II think you and all the town would be better off in pocket and health, if you would give up those dances"
 Cant stop to talk about that now" aid Jim, throwing off the hand, but, evidently, not in anger. "We must get to work. I'll come and talk to you about it at your house. You seem level-head- ed. There's 8 big dance on tonight, over Murphy's saloon; but the fellows can run it without me, for once, I guess"
 "Come!' replied Kent, with a hearti- ness and manifest delight in his com pany to which Jim was quite unaccus- toned in his rough companions, and which pleased him more than he was willing to admit.
 Soon after this, to the unutterable of No Hope, Jim Stone left off swearing completely.
 "What next?" Said the town. But t did not dare say it to Jim. The ''next, ,' l when it came, was even more astound- ng.
 ''There a!n't going to be any more of hese dances in this town" Jim an- bounced one day. II say it; and what
 say goes."
 It went. The dances stopped, and the No Hopers gasped breathlessly: "What lext? Is Jim going to die?''
 They asked the same question when i'm stopped drinking.
 The IA unmarried men in the bunk louse, where Jim ''bached it." were the persons who discovered the ''next" this ime; and, as they did not say anything bout it outside until after the catastro- ,he, the town remained in suspense. i'm began to ''say his prayers" as his comrades, who remembered their child lood and their mothers put it; ''to ,ray," as Jim himself would have ex- pressed it, recognizing difference which is comrades did not even suspect.
 His fellows in the bunk-house did not nolest him. They did not even shy hoes at him, after the fashion custom. .ry in similar tales in good books. They merely said-strietly among themselves -that lit only took certain sort of outrage to say one's prayers, and not uch great courage either.o Jim was snoWn to be the best shot in the country, md could get the drop on any man with is pistol, trust Jim Stone for that. It .idn't matter # he did appear to have is back turned and his eyes shut. Jim tone was g hypocrite; that was all