The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1896-02-21

; lieeman always thinks that everything
that is new must be unlawful. How
ever, the professor was so generally re-
sPected that even the policemen hesi-
tated to club their ideas into his head.
Prof. Van Wagner had daughter
who was middling popular with the
young men, although she did not know
ca awful lot of mathematics and chem
istry. OF course. her father fitted her,
as he did everybody else in the house.
with an electric headlight, but the girl
wasn't very well pleased with it. When
a young man zane to see her she would
turn herself on and light him into the
back parlor, where they would sit to-
gether and talk. But somehow the
young men never seemed to make much
progress after Miss Sally was lighted
By electricity. Whether it was that
no fellow likes to have an electric light
resting on his shoulder or whether
it was because there was no way Of
turning the light down till it would
burn in a coy, subdued way, like gas
when it is turned down by an intelli-
gent girl, can't say, but the result of
the thing was that Sallie didn't get a
single offer from the day her father
lit her up with the ineandeseent light.
At first she begged him to let her have
a kerosene light. and when he wouldn't
do it she cried a good deal and said
that he wanted her to die an old maid.
That's what would probably have hap
pened if it hadn't been for the intelli-
genee Of young man who came to see
her before the winter was quite over
and brought candle with him every
time. Sallie would light the candle
and then turn herself off for the rest
of the evening, and she gathered in that
young man the very second time he
called at the house.
"Prof. Van Wagner had a cat that
he considered to be an animal of con-
siderable taste for science, and nothing
would satisfy him till he had provided
the cat with the electric headlight.
He had considerable difficulty in fas-
tening the light on the cats head, for,
although she had always seemed to
take a good deal of interest in watching
him experimenting with different sorts
of things in his chemical laboratory,
she drew the line at electricity, and OBJ
jected to being lighted up like the rest
of the people in the house. However,
the professor would not listen to her,
and the first night the lamp was in
working order he put the cat in the
kitchen and told her to lay for mice.
They do say that the next morning
when the housemaid came downstairs
she found about 5000 mice lying on
the kitchen floor, too frightened to run
away. The cat was sitting UP in the
middle Of the rom with her headlight
blazing away, and she paying not the
least attention to the mice, but Just
licking her chops and saying to herself
that, after all, there was considerable
good in electricity. She never made
the least attempt to catch the mice,
considering that it wouldn't be sports
manlike to take advantage of their con-
ditiOn. The girl just gave one scream,
and then she got out of that kitchen
and tainted dead away on the hall floor,
breaking her headlight in her fall and
creating a good deal of excitement in
the house. The professor came down
and swept up the mice and carried
them out in q basket. They do say
that there was pretty near bushel
of them, but l don't doubt that the
thing was exaggerated, Anyhow, the
house was completely cleared Of mice,
and whether the professor drowned
his basketful or Just let them loose
anywhere in the street, never knew. I
expect he let them loose, for that is
what a scientific man would have been
middling sure to do.
There was one person in the pro-
lessons family who didn't like the cleo
trio light businss. That was Mrs. Van
Wagner. She was a woman of good
deal of character, people said, and of
course we all know that when a woman
is said to have a great deal of character
what is meant is that she can make her
self mighty disagreeable and generally
does it. Mrs. Van Wagner always dis
liked her husbands scientific habits.
She used to say that some men were
kept up late at night by whisky and
some by science, but of the two she pre-
ferred the man who went in for the
whisky. Mrs. Waterman, who lived
next door to Mrs. Van Wagner. had a
husband who drank considerable whis-
ky, and Mrs. Van Wagner used to say
to her: My dear, don't you grieyel
When Waterman gets drunk yOu know
where he is, but when my husband gets
to work in his laboratory never know
from one minute to another whether
he is alive, and all in one piece, or
whether he has blown himself up and
is scattered all over the country in
more'n a million bits You see, the
professor had blown himself up a num-
her of times, which made his wife lit
tie prejudiced against chemistry.
though he had never done himself any
great harm, except when he lost his eye.
swell, as was saying, Mrs. Van Wag-
ener was nightly opposed to the cleo
trio light. and nothing could induce her
10 wear one on her head She comnrn-