The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-09

mired his fine mental traits. But, also
like many others, I never dreamed that
Mr.. Westcott aspired to authorship
He was an invalid for many months
AT intervals during this period he
worked at his book. It was his first
venture. just as the work was ready
for the printer, Mr.. Westcott, not much
my senior in years, was carried to his
burial.
David Harum presents the typical
country banker. A quaint character he
is. His English is badly mangled, his
pronunciation is intensely rural, his
disregard of grammar is picturesque.
He is man who loves to drive a smart
bargain, he is especially fond of horses
and prides himself that he is an expert
in a horse trade. He is garrulous, orig
inal, entertaining. In instances you
believe him cold selfish, soulless, bnt
there crop out constantly in the story
of his career the proofs of sentiment of
delicacy of rugged integrity, of gentle
ness, and the outward manifestation of
a great, big heart.
But I did not start out to write a re-
view of Mr. Westcott's book-I simply
want to show, by a brief quotation,
how a man will move by indirection
and belittle himself when he wants to
do something mean or wrong or dis
honest, and also to show how despica-
BILE man who does this thus makes
himself. One chapter of the book tells
how David Harum made a horse trade
on Sunday. On this score David had
no pricking of conscience. But it ap-
pears that one of the horses in the trade
was the property of Deacon Lizer
Howe. David was widower His
home was cared for by his elder and
widowed sister, Aunt Polly She was
shocked to hear that either her brother
David or Deacon Howe would conduct
a horse trade on Sunday. The deacon's
share in it especially surprised her,
whereupon David FASTENED to show her
how any conscientious scruples the
deacon might harbor were overcome
he proposed to make it appear, from
the deacon's standpoint, that really
"the' wasn't no trade made on Sun
day." Here is the way the author Of
David Harum" tells it:
Wall, I'm glad you found one man
that would stan you off on Sunday
said Aunt Polly
"Yes'm,' SAID her brother. "Lizers
jest your kind. I knew t he'd hurt his
foot, an prob'ly couldn't go to meetin'
an cure enough, he was settin' on the
stoop. / drove in an pulled up in the lane
alongside. We said good mornn' an all
that, an I asst after the folks an how
his foot was gettin' along, an'so on, an
fin'ly I says. 4 see your boy drivin' a
boss the other day that looked a little
FIN the middle o the road-as if he
might match one I've got, an I thought
I'd drive up this mornin' an see if we
couldn't git up a decker Wa'al. he give
a kind of hitch in his chair as if his
| can't deal with We to-day. l don't never
do no bus mis- on Sunday he says.
1--we heard you was putty perticler,
l says. but I'm putty busy jest about
now. an I thought that mebbe once in
a way, an SEEM that you couldn't go to
meetin anyway, an that I've come quite
a ways an don't know when | en- see
you again, an so on, that mebbe you'd
think under all the circumstances, the
wouldn't be no great harm in't-long's I
don't pay over no money, at cetery,' l
says.
Ono he says shakin' his head in