davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27

needed diversion, and want you to take
your brain apart, and oil the works, and
see if you can't conjure up something to
get my blood circulating, and my pores
open for business, and anything you
think of goes, and | swear I will not
kick if you scare the boots off of me"
Well, that was right into my hand.
and set my mind to strike at four p. m.
had been out riding once with the Chi
cago man, in sledge, with three horses
abreast all runaway horses, and the
driver was a Cossack who dashed the
horses into run every smooth place he
found in the road, and it was like run
ming to fire, so | got the Chicago fell
low to go with me and we found the Co.'S
sack and he was drunken than usual.
There is kind of liquor here called
vodka, which skins wood alcohol and
carbolic acid to a finish, and when man
is full of it he is SO mad he wants to cut
his own throat. This driver had put
up sideboards on his neck and had two
jays in one, and we hired him by the
hour.
I told the Chicago man the circum-
stances and that l had got to get dad
out of his trance, and he said he would
help me- When I was out riding the
day before I noticed that the road was
full of great dane dogs, wolf hounds and
stag hounds, which followed their
masters sledges out in the country, and
the dogs loafed around, hungry, looking
for bones, and fighting each other, SO
decided to get the dogs to chase our
sledge, and make dad think we were
chased by wolves. thought that would
make dad stand without hitching, and
it did.
The Chicago man bought some cannon
firecrackers. and bought cows liver,
and hitched it to a rope, and hid it in the
back seat, and my Chicago friend and |
took the back seat, and we got dad in the
seat behind the driver, and started about
an hour before dark out in the country,
through a piece of woods that looked
quite wolfy. On the way out the driver
let his horses run away few times, like
you have seen in Russian pictures, and
dad was beginning to sit up and take
notice, and seemed to act like man who
expects every minute to be thrown over a
precipice, and mixed up with dead
horses. Dad touched the driver once on
the coat-tail and told him not to hurry
so COMPOUNDED fast, and the driver
thought he was complaining because it
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27

panion, Yorker. We have given them
camp, on Kah-pee-kog lake, as Short
Bill is not the noted paddler Long Bill
is, and we wish to reach the first port
age together.
Those who have not experienced the
pleasure of being alone with nature,
this mighty nature of the north woods
of the Muskoka country, with the great
pines towering 100 feet and better into
the air, with it's granite bound lakes,
whose shores have been virtually un-
touched by white man, and whose wa
tiers TEEN with the gamiest of fish, it
seems to me have not seen life as the
Creator intended we should see it.
Dipping into the dark waters OF kah
pee-kog, l add the strength of my soft
muscles to that of Long Bills hard
ones, and we shoot out through the mar
rows that divide pretty bay from the
main lake.
And now the nose of the canoe runs
up to fallen giant of the forest that
serves as landing place, for a portage
is necessary before we get through the
little channel. In front of us the wa
ter tumbles over small precipice that
is too high for the canoe to shoot, and
we must carry around it. Out comes
the canoe and Bill turns it over his
head as though it was but a feather
weight, and in five minutes we are
afioat again. gliding out onto the wa
ters of Six Mile with its islands, it's
deep bays and frame of green pine foil
age A likely-looking spot ahead causes
me to drop my paddle and pick up my
rod for a cast Out goes the line to the
accompaniment of the singing reel, and
almost before it touches the water a
stable pickerel has grabbed the en-
ticing bait and is away with it. The
fight is fast and furious for a few min
utes, and Short Bill and Yorker get up
in time to see the finish-a broken line,
a hook gone; but remember not so
much the lost fish as the keen enjoy
nent of those few minutes of combat
with worthy adversary.
With a deft twist Of the wrist Bill
lays the canoe alongside the shore,
and we have crossed Six Mile. Crane
lake is a good mile away with the
densest kind of underbrush and mass
lively towering pines and spruce and
hemlock between us and its simmer
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27
THE EMPIRE OF SPEECH.
ments in the Telephone TO
Advance 1t.

Two or three recent important i'm
provements of the telephone show what
undeleveloped capacities still lie hidden
in this wonderful far-talker of modern
science. In the first place. says the Cos
mopolitan, it has become possible to
eliminate the telephone girl as con-
Meeting link, or rather cOnnector of
links, between the sender and the re-
ceiver of message. One can now
switch on without her intervention.
If you wish to talk with friend by this
new system, you simply look up his or
her number, and then on dial, or min
iature switchboard, in your own house
or Office, you turn the indicator to the
digits representing that number, and
Immediately your friends bell rings.
and, without any further preliminaries,
you may begin your conversation. The
switching mechanism at the central ex-
change has automatically followed the
movements of your indicator at home
and put you into direct communication
with the desired point. Besides, it gives
a delightful sense of privacy to s. tele-
phone talk. Mechanical contriyances
possess no ears and no memories, and.
having nothing to forget, make no blur
ders.
But if the automatic telephone excites
grateful wonder, another recent inven-
tion-the telephone that takes your
speech, keeps it unuttered if your friend
happens to be out, but speaks it into his
ear as soon as he returns, whether the
interval be an hour or week-must be
regarded as a marvel of marvels. That
machine may consist either of a steel
wire wound on revolving drum, or
hard steel disk revolving in horizontal
plane Above the revolving wire, or
disk, is placed a small electromagnetic &C
tuated by the telephone circuit. All the
varying impulses that come over the
telephone wire under the influence Of
the speakers voice are impaired by the
little magnet to the steel moving be-
meath it, and they make upon that steel'S
surface series Of magnetic impressions,
like invisible dots, each of which pos
sesses it's own peculiar polarity and de-
gree of intensity. 1t is just as if the
steel were sheet of paper and the mag
net pen, and the magnetic Impulses
series Of alphabetical signs jotted down
on the paper-only nothing is visible to
the eye. But the hundreds of little mag
netic poles are there, though unseen,
and when the wire or the plate carrying
these mystic hierglyphics is again
passed under the electromagnetic (the lat
ter being now connected with tele-
phone receiver) they reproduce exactly
the same impulses that created them,
these impulses passing into the receiv-
er vibrate the speaking membrane and
give forth the voice and the words which
they had stored.
The only thing that man who has
telegraphone in his Office needs to do is
to set the apparatus going when he has
time to listen to it, and if any of his
friends have been speaking to it while
he was out, or busy, or asleep, their
messages will be repeated.
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27

was too slow, and he gave a Comanche
yell. and threw the lines into the air,
and the horses just skedaddled, and run
into snow bank and tipped over the
sledge, and piled us out on top of dad,
but dad only said: This is getting
good
We righted up. and dad wanted to
know where all the pups came from that
we had passed. | had been throwing
out pieces of meat into the road for a
mile or so, and the dogs were having a
picnic. 1t was getting pretty dark by
this time, and We started back to town,
and | threw out my liver, fastened to
the rope, and the Chicago man, who had
given the driver a drink of vodka when
we tipped over, told him, in Russian,
that when the dogs began to follow us, to
get hold of the liver, to yell wolves, !"
and give the team the rein, for five
mile run, and yell all the time, because
we wanted to give the old gentleman a
good time.
Well. uncle, would have given any
thing if you could have seen dad, when
the dogs began to chase that liver, and
bark, and fight each other. The driver
yelled something in Russian, and point
ed back with his whip, the Chicago man
said: MY God, we are pursued By a
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27

ing waters. AS Bill adjusts the canoe
on his broad shoulders and settles
down for long walk and fight with
the overhanging boughs and tangled
bush, he says:
mo trail. Keep close or you'll get
lost
Bill never wasted words. / am not
particularly afraid of getting lost, and
besides there is the other Bill and
Yorker coming along behind. But the
other Bill chooses to land in another
bay and take a slightly different route,
and in FIVE minutes am alone. The
thought does not worry me, for there
is the broken underbrush where my
guide and the canoe have gone
through, and / can follow that. So
it is that run onto an adventure. /
loiter by the way enjoying especially
the abundance Of wild berries, and #
is while wandering about through a
patch of them that I run across COM
pany in the shape Of black bruin
who has been enjoying a morning nap
after a breakfast OF fruit. I am not
aware of his presence until he rises on
his hind legs directly in front of me.
and SO near that I can almost touch
him You. whose only acquaintance
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27

of the procession, who was carrying a
cross, slowed up little, like the drum
major of band when the populace at
home begins to throw eggs, but they kept
on, and then the shooting began, and in
a minute men, women and children were
rolling in the snow, bleeding and dying,
| the marcherS were too stunned to run,
and the deadly guns kept on splitting
| fire, and the street was full of dead and
dying, and then the Cossacks rode over
the dead and sabered and knouted the
living, and as the snow was patched with
red blood, dad tainted away and fell off
the picket fence. and hung by one pant
leg, which caught on a picket, and
crowds rushed in every direction, and
it was an hour before could get a
drosky to haul dad to the hotel.
Dad collapsed when he got to the hotel,
and | got doctor and nurse, and for
two days ! had to watch the revolution
alone, while dad had fits of remorse
cause he brought me to such charnel
house, he said
Well, if you ever go anywhere, travel
ing for pleasure do not go to Rus
STA, because it is the saddest place on
earth. have seen no person smile or
laugh in all the ten days we have been
here, except a Cossack when he run a
saber through a little girl, and his laugh
was like the coyote on the prairie when
he captures little lamb The people
look either heart-broken or snarly, like
the people confined in an insane asylum
at home.
The car, who a week ago was loved
by the people, who believed if they went
to him. as to their God, and appealed for
guidance, is to-day hated by all. and in
stead of Nicholas the Good, since he
scampered away to castle in the coun-
try, and crawled under a bed, all the peo-
pie call him ssthe Little Jack Rabbit. 2
and his fate is sealed, as bomb will
! blow him into pieces SO small they will
have to be swept up in dustpan for
burial. maybe before dad and | can get
out of Russia.
Going to st. Petersburg for pleasant
| outing is a good deal like visiting the
Chicago stockyards to watch the bloody
men kill the cattle. and the butchers in
the stockyards. calloused against any
feeling for suffering animals, are like
the soldiers here who shoot down their
neighbors because they are hired to do
so. The murder Of those unarmed work
| ing men, that Sunday, has changed a
helpless, pleading people into anarchists
with deadly bombs in their blouses
where they were accustomed to carry
| black bread 60 sustain life. and with the
menace of Japan in the far east and an
outraged people at home. Russia is in 6
bad way. and if was the car or grand
| duke, would find woodchuck hole and
arrange with the woodchuck for fur
nished fat.
/ didn't think there was going to be
anything going on in Russia except
b1oodshed and bombs, and things to
make rou sorry that ron were hare and
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27

pack OF ravenous wolves, and there is no
hope for us, and | began to cry. and
implored dad, if he loved me, to save me.
Dad stood up in the sledge and looked
back. and saw the wolves. and he was
scared, but he said the only thing to do
was to throw something overheard for
them to be chewing on while we got
away, but he sat down and pulled robe
over his head and his lips were moving,
but do not know whom he was address
ing.
The Chicago man touched off couple
of cannon firecrackers behind the
sledge, but that only kept the dogs back
for minute, and dad said probably the
best thing to do was to throw me over
board, and let them eat me, and said:
Nay nay, Pauline, and then think
dad tainted away, for he never peeped
again until the team had run away a lot
more, and cut my liver rope, and when
we got into the suburbs of st. Petersburg
the dogs had overtaken the liver, and
were fighting over it.
The driver had to pull up his horses
as we struck the town, and dad must
have got Whit off the drivers vodka.
because he come to, and we got to the
hotel all right, and thought dad would
simply die in his tracks, but the ride
and the excitement did him good, and he
wanted to buy gun and go out wolf
hunting the next day, but our tickets
were bought, and we shall get out OF
this terrible country tomorrow.
Dad woke me up in the night and want
ed to know if saw him when he pulled
his knife and wanted to get out and
fight the pack Of wolves single handed.
am not much of liar, but told him
| remembered it well, and it demon
strated to me that he was as brave a
man as the czar, .'the Little Jack Rab-
bit, as his people call him.
Well, thanks to my wolf hunt, dad is
all right again, and now we shall go to
some country where there is peace.
don't know where we will find it, but If
such country exists, your little Henry
will catch on, if dads money holds out.
Yours, covered with Gore,
HENNERY.
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27
Dad SPECS Russian Revolution and
.Faints-The Bad Boy Arranges
Wolf Hunt - Dad Threatens to
Throw the Bad Boy to the Wolves.


BY HON. GEORGE w. PECK.
tEx-Governor of Wisconsin, Former Editor
of Pecks Sun, Author of "PeckS
Bad Boy etc)
Copyright, 1905, by Joseph B. Bowles.)
ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA.-MY
DEAR GROCERYWITZ: Well, sir, dad
and have got too much of Russia the
quickest of any two tourists you ever
heard Of That skirmish we saw, the
day the Russians blessed the Neva, and
shot blank cartridges filed with old iron
at the car, was not marker to the
trouble the next Sunday, when the work
ing people marched to the Winter Pal
ace, to present petition to the Little
Father"
We thought a revolution was like q
play, and that it would be worth going
miles to see. Dad was in South Amer
lea once when there was revolution,
where more than dozen greasers, with
guns that wouldn't shoot, put on dozen
different kinds of uniforms, and yelled:
Down with the government, and
frothed at the mouth, and drank butter
milk and yelled Spanish swear words
and acted brave. until native soldier
with white paiarnas came out with
gun and shot one OF the revolutionists
in the thumb, when the revolution was
suppressed and the next day the revolu-
tionists were pounding stone, with can
non balls chained to their legs; and dad
thought revolution in Russia would be
something like that, and that we could
get on front porch and watch it as it
went by, and joke with the revolution
and throw confetti, like it was a
carnival, but that Sunday that the Rus
sian revolution was begun, we had
enough blood to last us all our lives.
We got place sitting on an iron picket
fence, and we saw the people coming UP
the street towards the Winter Palace,
dressed mostly il blouses, and looking
as innocent as crowd of sewer diggers
At home going up to the city hall to ask
for raise in wages of two shillings a
day Nobody had gun, and no one
would have known how to use gun, and
Eli looked like poor people going to
prayers. There were troops everywhere,
and every soldier acted as though he
was afraid something would happen to
spoil their chance of killing anybody.
The snow on the streets was clean and
as white as the wings of a peace dove,
and dad said the show was no better
than a parade of laboring men at home
on Labor day.
Suddenly some officer yelled to the
parade to stop, and the priest at the head
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27

with bears has been with those behind
the Gagged bars of circus or the park
ZOO, cannot realize how big bear can
be when you come face to face with
him in his native haunts. / cross the
portage to Crane lake in record time
/ think not of following Bills trail.
but only of putting as much distance
between that bear and myself as my
legs will permit-and the bear is try
posite direction. 1t is still question
in my mind which was the most
frightened of the two of us.
Bill, in his quaint way, laughs my
fears away to some extent, as Wa
push across Crane lake toward Black
stone. A trolling line picks up fair
sized musky on the way over, and it
is not so fortunate as was the pickerel
in Six Mile, for / land him after
stubborn fight. Then for an hour the
steady dip, dip of Bills paddle tells OF
progress across the lake AS we near
the opposite shore l prepare to alight
on land again while Bill shoulders the
canoe for carry" But such Is not
the programme. A command front
him causes me to duck my head be-
meath the boughs of an overhanging
tree and our canoe shoots into seeth-
ing mass of foam, down sharp in
cline, and we are afloat on the placid
waters of Blackstone. Over at our
right sparkling spring bubbles from
the ground, and here we stop for our
MONDAY lunch and to await the cora
ing OF Short Bill and Yorker.
Sweeter beverage Mother Nature
never provided than that which comes
from these springs of the northern
woods. 1t gives flavor to our homely
luncheon of canned beans and bread,
reinforced by a couple Of bass fried
to a turn on a flat rock.
Those northern woods luncheons are
one of the pleasures of the summer
camping and canoeing and fishing ex-
petitions. No other fish taste so good
as the hard, freshly caught bass OF
these northern waters. A friend asked
me one day as | related to him the
pleasures of my summer fishing eXcur-
sions: "Can you bring the fish home
with YOU" Who would want to?
Who would not eat their fill of fish
when they can do so under such ideal
conditions, and who would spoil the
past by carrying the finny beauties hun
dreds of miles away to be cooked in
any other manner than that known
only to the northern guides?
Luncheon over, another long draught
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27

"Our hundred million understanding
and rates, which are daily increasing, and
on the other by the police, handicapped
by lack OF land and by ignorance, are
paying tribute to the state materially
and physically. But gradually they are
strengthening their brawnv backs and
casting off the chains with which ar.
bitrary police caprice has bound them.
The peasant movement is sweeping
over our fasherland like vast wave.
Every day brings fresh tidings Of its
advance It is but a short time since
troubles were announced in the prov
inces of Orel and Kursk. Then they
broke out in the provinces of Cherui-
goff, Kief, Podolyn. Soon after we
heard Of them in the Baltic provinces
and the Caucasus, then in the
province OF Tulu The movement is
1eaping from province to province, and
by summer all Russia will be like a
raging sea of peasant troubles"
The engineers of Russia are openly
banded against the bureaucracy, doc
tors come together in Moscow from the
four quarters of the empire have con-
demned the government, professors of
universities and high schools of the
land in federation hare asked for a
government based on democratic prin-
ciples, barristers from ali parts of the
country have eloquently detained
against the misrule, men OF letters have
made thar united protest.
When Ne consider also the oppressed
people of Poland, the Firms. moved
from their conservatism, the Lithuan-
ians, the demand of the presidents Of
the Zemstvos district and provincial
River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-07-27

from the spring, and we are off again
to cross beautiful Blackstone lake.
There's Black Rock" says Bill.
That's the greatest place You ever
see for pike. Can catch boatioad
right around that rock in an hours
time"
have always found Bill truthful
in all things, SO take his word for this,
as we do not have the hour to spare
if we are to reach Lake Joseph and
civilization by evening.
AS our canoe CRATES on the sand OF
the little beach on the eastern shore
of Blackstone, and look at the tower
ing wall of granite above me, l won
der how we are 10 pass it. But Bill
knows, and without word of COM
ment he turns the canoe over his head
and begins the ascent. Picking his
way carefully, finding footlolds in the
crevices of the rock where 1t seems as
though nothing but a mountain goat
could climb, he gradually works his
way to the top, and | follow closely
behind-rememberin distinctly my
experience with bruin In the morning.
Once at the top we follow rocky
but gentle slope down on the other
side to Burnt lake. Here the waters
flow east into the Muskoka chain in
stead OF west into Georgian bay. We
push through deer trail into the wa
ters Of the lake, and surprise a fawn
that is seeking refreshment from the
heat of the MONDAY sun, but it brave
w takes to the water, and in short
time disappears from view around
point of land. Through Burnt and
Robinson and Little Robinson and into
Portage lake the never firing swing
of Bills paddle pushes us.
The sun has almost disappeared be-
hind the towering pines to the west
as we beach our canoe again at the
eastern shore OF Portage lake. An
other half mile carry" will put us
once more in the midst of civilization,
and onto the larger waters of Lake Jo-
seph of the Muskoka chain, peoplcd by
many thousands of summer pleasure
seekers from Canada and the states
Civilization and thousands OF people
but a half mile away, yet around us
as we stand for last glance backward
over the way we have come there Is
no yestige of it. What country OF
contrasts" / think. "All about us the
lakes and the wilderness; the haunts
Of the deer, the black bear, the moose.
and yet within another Is minutes We
are to be in the midst of what men call
life"
All days must come to an end, and
so did this as we roll into bed at the
little hotel at Barnesdale.
WRIGHT A PATTERSON,