The Weiser semi-weekly signal. (Weiser, Washington Co., Idaho) 1904-1911, 1905-05-06
watching. You'll find it so some day.
What are your eyes forY'
I again mounted the chair

The scene that saw made me doubt
my sanity. The old patriarch was
seated by an open fire, the little girl |
was leaning on his knee, and the three
thieves faces bad changed into sud
den beneyolence, and they seemed to
have lost their noses, eyes, hair and |
boards. The men were smoking.
| Amazing as the transformations of
the three criminals were, they surpris-
ed me less than the appearance of the
murdered" man. The latter had been
to a commode where was an ANTIQUE
washbowl and had washed the blood
stains from his face and was wiping
his face with towel.
He came and sat down by the fire.
''Now, Ruth" said the old man to the
little girl, with beaming face, pass
round the box OF nard. 1t is a custom
that my people have-a very ancient
custom. 1 hope you will like to enjoy
it with me. 1t comforts me to have
strangers like it. 1t recalls the ancient
days before my people became wan
derers over the earth. Breathe the
odors with me. You used to use snuff
boxes in the old time-more pleasant
methinks, is the box of nard."
The little girl brought from a desk
very beautiful box and handed it to
the murdered man and lifted the
cover. The latter sat in silence as
charmed by some new situation.
LET me look now" whispered our lit
tie maid at my elbow.
| cfQnnQ6 from fba chair opI che
looked through the transom
She quickly stepped down from the
chair.
"He is poisoning them now. l have
read of such things. The man has re-
. vived, and the old man is administering
poison to him. Everything grows stran-
, ger and stranger! If ever see another
morning l will have been made wiser
by the experience of this awful night"
l mounted the chair again and peered
, into the far, strange room. The little
girl was passing the box from one to
another. AS each one held it under his
, chin the most delicious odors seemed
to arise from it as In faint cloud and
to suggest the land of dreams, Of gar
! dens afar of Araby the Blest, and all
e beautiful things.
r j returned to my room and sat down,
: and Lettie asked to remain with us.
: drummed with my fingers ON the table
and tried to reconcile the extraordinary
y contradictions had seen.
II Lettie talked constantly of that
room" She kept our minds engaged
o on that room" and the transforms
tons there once asked absently fol
the sake of talk:
4 "Who was Paracelsus Letter
| had intended to make study Of
Browning's poems some day, but wa:
a<busy man and had little time for po
|, etry that made reflection necessary. L
: is said that Jane Carlyle after reading
: "Sordello" declared that she was doubt
- full whether Sordello were a man, {
70 book or q town and that Tennyson hat
6 said of an early reading of the SAM
. poem that there were but two lines il
u it which he could understand and tina
e those lines were both untrue-"He VIII
will may hear Sordello's story told
- and ''He who would had heard Sordel
,s los story told" 1 doubted that woul'
10 be more successful with ''Paracelsus
IA than they.
n l was surprised at our little maid
answer
80 ''He was great physician" said She
40 HE Travelled over the world and heale
II fifteen princesses by medicine, and h
in threw Galen away and said that natur
"a was the true doctor. l used to rea
|
nt Her eyes were poor"
II what became of her"
"She disappeared"
90 glanced at my wife and was sllel
81, and tried to think of the farof hlstor
&c of Paracelsus. | wondered If this wa
the Paracelsus of Browning and IL
II where the poet found philosophy in n
H life.
II But If l had wished to ask OF
Y amazing maid more questions she pr
Fl vented by constantly referring TO u
mysteries of that room" she
1 scribed over and over again the strans
things that she had seen until we WEI
fairly hypnotized by the theories tn'
she brought forward to solve the my
terry.
81 shall not go to bed again tonight
j said my wife. 81 shall sit here In u
? wraps till the morning comes, ana
money would ever tempt me to pass a
other night in this place"
4 Nor me-" said Lettie, whose graz
nj mar was provincial-"nor me. l W
| never spend another night here. l ma
a seen too much of the world. l ma
lost faith in near most everybody.
"Pshawr' said l, but somehow W
N falling under the same spell Of peculi
apprehension that had overcome y
wife. There was something WIZ
somewhere; | could feel that Orl
cism Is the language OF failure a.
suspicion is trait OF character
cause one 10 be suspected; but WIZ