The age-herald., 1898-06-05
[Copyright. 1sss.l

We are beginning to see the real side of war. At first it was all play and music and merry goodbys. but now well, now somebody's heart aches, and the great big murderous shells have been fired with directness that killed some of our brave men. I hope we will win, but do not believe in war. I am a firm believer in that simple but old story which was probably sung in your grandmother's childhood of "Jeannette and Jeannot," and I consider that Jean nette solved all the diplomatic questions of the day when she said in that slight ly mournful ditty:
 If I were a queen of France or, better,
 pope of Rome,
 I'd have no fighting men abroad, no weep
 ing maids at home.
 All the world should be at peace, and If
 kings must show their might
 Let those who make the quarrels be the
 only ones to fight.
 That line is the height of diplomacy and wisdom, and, following it, peace and happiness will result, and it took a woman to think it all out.
 One business has gained great num- Der of customers because of the war. do not mean the manufacturing of sol dlers' clothes, although I suppose there has been an increase in that, nor do mean the blowing of glass bottles into flask shapes, though unless there was a good stock on hand there was probably considerable done in that line, but what do mean is the fancy for fortune tell CTS. Naturally if your young mans gone to the war you want to know what his fate's going to be and whether he is to be made a general or admiral or if the unfortunate fate of Danny Deever . is to be his, or, if one hasn't a young man who has gone to fight, then it is interesting to know if one is likely to get one in time to do battle. In these days of excitement the average woman is great on paying visits to the fortune teller
 Talk about the divinity that doth hedge about a king!" It is nothing to that which surrounds the lady who can look into the future. The house in which the fortune telling lady doth abide has not an air of elegance. The window shades look as if they had been closed for years, and the dust of centuries rests upon them. The door was opened in answer to a timid ring of the bell, for I confess to having been frightened out of my senses by what in the south is commonly called "a moke"-that is, a very light darky girl. This one was arrayed in purple velveteen, cut low in the neck. and around her coffee colored throat she wore a necklace that looked as if it were composed of the teeth of small babies. Her hands were manicur- ed to such a degree that the nails gilt tered in a way that drew your eyes to them, whether you wanted it or not. She was dignified ''moke." She said, when had the courage to inquire as to the lady who peeped into the future, that de madam will receive you alls presently"
 We "alls" went into parlor that was cold as a vault and which had a brus- sells carpet of the vintage of the early fifties, when two roses covered an en- tire room. The marble topped center ta- ble was made to look lively by coffin like arrangement in black ebony sacred to the memory of somebody and encir- cled by those diabolical things, wax lilies. The pictures on the walls were evidently ancestors, and if I were to drop dead this very minute I should be willing to declare that one old ancestor. a rather forbidding looking gentleman winked at me as much as to say: "Ha,
 
 entered and cheerfully said, You alls follow me-" any we followed in Indian file.
 By every law as suitability the fortune teller should have been tall and grace full and stately; yet, grievous as it sounds, she was not merely inclined to embonpoint,'' but was fat. distinctly fat. She wore a black velvet gown. cut low in the neck, and a long gold chain that hung over what the dressmaker calls the corsage, and on 1t depended and swayed to and fro a 8 by 2 orna- ment that was, I think, a very young mummy. To increase our fear of her the room was hung in black cloth, with white muslin skulls and crossbones as a sort of frieze. It gave me the creeps.
 We stood in fear and trembling. The "child of destiny" for that was what she called herself. wriggled into a large armchair that was on a dais, with a pack of cards in one hand and a wand in the other. She waved it in the air and said in a lovely, theatrical manner, Approach, fair maidenl" As two of us were married and two of us were widows, the invitation was little diffi- cult to understand, but the bravest of the lot approached her and didn't get much for freshness, as she was told that she would marry a dark man who would beat her and that she would have one child, son, who would wear a crown; that the aforesaid brutal hus- i band would be hung, making her love- ly widow before she was 25 As she was 29 on her last birthday and has been a widow six years, her future did not seem to fit quite as we'll as one might have preferred, but then she had paid her money, and she had got a crowned son. The fortune teller said, as does the hero in a melodrama on the Bow cry, Alas, 'tis true!" and No. backed out.
 The next dip into the future was taken by young married woman who owns two of the loveliest twins that