The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-09-21
nv Strickland W. Gillilanl

tbN ANA@
81 'spose." said my friend The Liar,
reaecrvely. that IL Nelghbor Art
Nichols hadn't invested 10 those
sal,ed gold mines in Mexico. 1t would
ut ever have happened
A longish pause ensued. in which no
one asked him a thing about 1t or be
rrayed the slightest interest, 50 The
Liar went cheerfully on.
"ArA Nichols had had a fad for . gco6
many years. Ii was Il fad not n farm
er in fourteen or fifteen million would
ever have thought of and that no 4
else on earth but Art would have taken
I'D, even after thinking il over. II vas
no. a case of art for Art's-what? Well.
then | won't.
Il was just going 10 say that Ar
had beer TO indianapolis a time or two
and had E some OF these 'rubbe.
plants. as they call EN-. in a priv
ate conservatory. and admired EN- a
heap. You never know just where a
jug l. SC2Ai- - AZ a la a.
lived quiet and uRenthusiastic all mis-
life and would probably have son"
on in a Sort o. restless rest Il he
hadn't stumbled onto those rubber
plants When he did. a change came
over him. He stopped and looked Al
those plants for an hour, and before he
went home that night he bought one.
Later on he bought others. much 10
the disgust of his wife WAC was a beetle
for dress and had been cramped a good
deal in her wardrobe accommodations
on account of poverty. So TO see good
money going into something there
wasn't even a hope Of revenue from,
put her TO the bad, as TO her temper,
and she gave Art the dickens.
But Art-well, its a question II he
ever heard her. He watered and fooled
around those plants far more tenderly
than he had around his children though
he wasn't ever the bad sort. It was IN
the spring he started to collect EN-, aud
before fall he had accumulated nearly
an acre of the dumb things, also a lot
of Mexican mining stock that hooked
good to him. principally because ne
got it cheap and because he had heard
that rubber trees grew wild in Old
Mexico
Though the mining stock was cheap,
The amount of Art spent on it broke
him, and when he found out the mines
had been ~abundantly salted he was all.
in. He admitted it
Then came the hardest thing lie
had ever had to do. He must dispose
Of the rubber plants. Winter was COM
ing on. and ne didn't have enough 10
clOthe his children Gecently and keep
them in school, let alone establishing
some sort of greenhouse arrangement
for keeping those rubber plants from
perishing during the cold weather.
Father didn't have any more use for
the blame things, than Nichols 1ad.
and he hadn't any aid in that line. but
Art offered EN- cheap and managed tG
look so ~plague-taked pitiful that father
bought EN- first finding out that rub
Der plants were edible for cows.
Funny thing, though, about cows.
They're just as finicky and notionate as
other and better-looking females when
it comes to diet. Though we had nine
Ows only one of 'em would take that
rubber-plant fodder in~wardly. But the
way she did 90 after it-m-m-m-b, So
greedy vas she with it that the supply
didn't last more thar three weeks.
though there was supposed 20 be
enough for at least a month and a
half. She ate it eagerly whenever she
could get at it, and between times she