The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-29
ring. A pocr piece of work cobbied up by . prentice hand.

racause of the interest and inquiry aroused by the publication in The Sat- lurday Evening Post, of the earlier chap I ters of Tales of the Road Charles N. | Crewdson, the author. received from a Icertain literary editor a note the sub- stance of which was the question: Who are you, anyhow?" Here is the answer which he received:
 As d small boy ran wild among the nav paw patches and the dog-wood | blossoms of Kentucky, my native State Like every small boy. went fishing and fell in the creek. Was captain Of the third nine. A travelling man friend took me. at the age of fifteen. from picking worms off tobacco plants. and carried me to the city--St. Louis-ant got me a job as stock-boy.
 Worked for d wholesale house foi | s20.00 a menth---not $500 l. week! Psit
 s4.59 a week for board and 40 cents foI washing The rest I spent. From that
 day to this I've hood my own row with out help.
 For three years l slaveJ and hali l starved on a stock boys salary. One day the Old Man gave me job on the road in a territory in which five men. in the five years had fallen down. Perhaps the job was given me to kill me on. But I won out. At the end of the first year l they wanted to fire me. but sold my StTNlCSS d8dlH TUT d StcOAu yCsh. YA six years I travelled in the Middle West for this firm and my salary grew bigger each year. At the end of that time, which was the year of the Worlds Fair at Chicago, I came to the City by the
 Lake and saw the red roofs of Dr. Har- per's university. X friend Of mine,
 whom I shall ever hold close to my
 heat, advised me to go there. I went,
 but to do this I had to throw away a
 large bcsness. which then, at the age of
 2S or 24, paid me a handsome salary. In
 order that I might go to the University
 cut down my salary to $1,000 a year,
 enough to get me through school The
 Old Man would not give me a contract
 for longer than one year. because he
 saii. Books and business do not go to-
 gether," and added that I would fall
 down. I did not. I gave up every inch
 of my old territory-one of the reasons
 being that I sold goods for the marked
 price to customers who placed confi-
 dence in me, and sold them at lower fig-
 ures to others who did not follow that
 plan. I felt like a thief.
 In nay new territory I succeeded in
 even greater measure than I ever did
 before. at the same time carrying on
 full work in the university Two of
 my good friends asked me in 1895 to
 take trip with them to Europe. Fond
 of adventure. I joined my two friends,
 and In Europe found my souls awak-
 ening. The $500 I spent on that four
 months trip was the best $500 I ever invested. On bicycles we hiked 1t across Germany. down the Rhine coun- try. through Switzerland and Into Italy. Several times since have visited the Old World--in 1899 going as far as Egypt and taking with me a young wife As the years have passed a small boy and baby sister have come to us.
 Cp 1,f, l..t est that began to write about them and before I realized 1t I was contrib uting to goodly number of metropol- itan newspapers throughout the United States. For while I held the notion that business man was a little looked | down upon. Tn ,refore secured a IT, | ceuse to practice law; but when I took l n sharp look at young lawyers I met | saw that many of them wore trousers | with bottoms frayed, while travelling | men always wore good clothes So | have stuck to the road. spending my | leisure months either in travel or writ | ing.
 The Tales of the Road" have been 1 more or less an accident. To be sure, l for seventeen years I jotte1 down every | good business story I heard and every | striking business experience. The l srringing of these was accidental One | day, in conversation with an editor friend. chanced to relate some of my | business experiences. That's just the | stuff The Saturday Evening Post is | looking for" said he. Inside of 4S | hours I was writing the first chapter of Tales of the Road"
 There, If you wlth to kaow, I have old you all about myself.
 The Fair Maid of Graystones, by Beulah Marie Dix.-The author of this
 ml-A entertainment for a very wide circle of readers, and few books 1f recent publication afford a pleasant pr hours reading than this latest story rom her pen. The Fair Maid of Gray stones" Is done in the authors best md most characteristic vein, for be- ore this Miss Dix has done very de- ightful work along this line in The Making of Christopher Ferringham" md "Blount of Breckenhow." In this 'olume Miss Dix draws on the rich ma erial of the troubled time fin England when Cavalier and Roundhead were bringing to a close their desperate truggle for the ascendency; and in he chief figure of the story portrays or Us another Soldier of fortune" he tale begins 'in the nave of St. An
 rew's Church where two men were hauling each other zealously-not fight and forty hours before St. An rew's had been a parish church, as 1t ad been for near two centuries, with arven stalls and well-wrought altar creen. Now, sharing the fortunes of he fallen town, St. Andrews was be- ome a prison. The stalls and the al- ar screen had been rudely hacked rom their places. the windows had cen shattered, and the mural tablets efaced and dishonored, had looked on ordld paseness alike or victor ana anquished: Grim sights those ancient 6 ablets had seen in these last hours. nd now they looked upon a grimmer lght than any-two men. a guard and Z
 prisoner, fighting for very life up ] nd down the echoing nave. even to he foot of the desecrated altar" The ero, Jack Herington, is fighting a guard for brutally kicking ,
 dying Cavalier. It is characteristic Jack Herington that he does not now the name of the man whose ause he has espoused with such fury.
 hrust into the church along with oth- r prisoners, he had been too concern about his own fate to inquire even he name of the prisoner lying uneon- . cious in a distant part of the church. nd so badly wounded they said he ould not survive the night. After he as beaten the Roundhead guard half ? death and Is musing about his prob ble fate, they tell him the dying man. oused to consciousness by the brutal ick, wishes to speak to him. Jack oes across the church and gazes down ito the Cavaliers face for a full min te before he speaks. Tt was you. ohm Herington?" Jack at length lowly questioned. Your" I thought was another" For his share in the fternoon's fight lack Is about to auf- |