The Coconino sun., 1902-12-27
Hou Jim mic Found a Prize
By EDWARD B. CLARK.

nNE member of the household now O always calls him Japhet, in mem- ory of the old hero of Marryat's old but ever new story of the boy who went looking for his father. The lit- tie fellow was baptized James and he was his mothers hearts joy. As he was but five years old, Jimmie" went better than "James," and goes bet ter to-day, because he is less than 12 months to the better in point of years than when he was five.
 Jimmie's father had been dead for three years. Jimmie didn't remember him and Jimmie's mother felt no par ticular sorrow over the fact. Seven or eight years ago Ellen Deane had thought there was no one from pole to pole and around again like Edward Talbot. She subsequently, became Mrs. Edward Talbot and then she found that her idol was not made out of clay. but out of the veriest mud. Clay is clean. Talbot wasn't. When he died, after they had been married three years, she wore her widows weeds dutifully, but they didn't cover streaming eyes, nor. an aching heart, but that wasn't Ellen's fault. There are some men who by their actions can kill love, and when Sardou wrote "Daniel Rochat," he knew what he was writing about. crit ics to the contrary notwithstanding.
 Perhaps it was with something like . sigh that Ellen Talbot thought of the old days and wondered why it was that girls didn't always choose right. There had been another who wanted her. and whom she knew was worthy. But she had said no.
 Things were going hard in the Tal- bot household. Ellen's little money had dwindled away to nothing. She and little Jimmie lived in two rooms. and it didn't need the keen eye of district visitor to tell that Poverty was guest and that Penury had his hand raised to rap at the door. Jimmie was old enough to notice that his mother did not eat as much as formerly It was with smiling-a very smiling--state- ment that she wasn't hungry that she transferred things from her own plate to Jimmie's. Jimmie knew that his mother had something the matter with her arm and wasn't working as she used to. He also knew that the man in the gray clothes who carried a bag around and handed letters to people never brought anything to their door. He had asked one of the boys down. stairs one day who sent these things that the man brought around. and was told that it was grandfathers. grand mothers. aunts and uncles. Jimmie had never heard of this kind of people, and had he been little older and a little wiser, he would have known that his mother never wrote any letters, and for that very reason did not get any herself.
 . One day Jimmie found his mother crying. She gathered him up in her arms and kissed him. She was look ing very white and i'll. Just before this Jimmie had heard a man talk ing at the door who had said some- thing about must have his money" and somehow he traced connection between his mothers tears and the gruff tone at the door.
 Mamma" he said. Ifs money the same thing as prize?"
 Sometimes. my dear" she replied.
 "Well," said Jimmie, "you want money and I'll get it for you, be- cause the boys downstairs told me how to get a prize"
 She kissed him tenderly and let him slip out the door to play with the tots below in the area, without paying much heed to his prattle about prizes and money. Jimmie reached the kilted and pinafored gathering below, and, addressing one member, said: Freddy, how many do you have to see before you find a prize?"
 "Ten,' replied Freddy, land you got to cross your finger each time