The daily Alaskan., 1908-11-06
Struggle to Throw S Off an Influence.

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 Copyright, 1908, by American Press ASB0- eiationl
 Elisha Hereford at twenty married girl of eighteen. Elisha was rather bright fellow, but without good jadg- ment His wife was exactly the Oppo- site. She was not bright but possess cd an enormous amount of morse sense" For twenty years she kept her husband on the track and when he showed signs of breaking would speak to him In no uncertain tone, pull strong on the curb and now and then give him sharp cut with the whip. The consequence was that Here ford, being smart by the time he was forty had secured competency.
 Now, the thing without which sue cess Is not to be attained Is often un- recognizable, especially by the achlev- CT. Hereford attributed It In hls case to bis talents, arguing that if be were not pulled back by hls wife he would be millionaire. His most intimate friends knew that his wife had put those talents to their proper use and prevented his wasting them. Perhaps if any of them had told him this it might have neurallzed this story. Per haps he would have received the in- formation as false. The latter suppo- sltion Is the more probable.
 One day Hereford disappeared. It was found that he had taken S50,000 aEd left S1OOOOo for his wife, with no explanation whatever. This Is tho most practical thing he had ever done without her assistance. Almost any one would pronounce the money pref erable to the explanation. But the act was just like Hereford. He was a mixture of the sublime and the ridicu- lous.
 He hadn't been gone long before his wife received letter from an Amerl- can gentleman ln Constantlnople named Tarbox stating that Hereford had died there. He had left instruc- tlons with Tarbox to send what money he had left-some SlO,OO0-and his iu- cinerated remains to his wife, Her friends said that so long as he had sent tue money he needn't have troubled himself about the ashes. Mrs. Here ford deposited the former In bank and wept over the latter When 1t came to sentiment she had her weaknesses, the most pronounced of which was Q sincere affection for Elisha Hereford. She was too sensible to keep her hus- bands dust in her own house, so she spent S1OO on a marble tomb, placed 1t In a cemetery and locked the dust in 1t. Not that the S1OO represented her love for her dead husband The tomb was plenty large to contain the ashes, and Mrs. Hereford's sentiment never ran away with her instinct of economy.
 Before proceeding any further with this story I wish to say that thore is feature in 1t that won't be believed You can invent a lot of imaginary non sense. and 1t will be gulped down, but give people a real coincidence such as happens every day and they will laugh at you. am sure. however that any one who knows Elisha Hereford on hearing what 1 refer to would say, That's just like him for all the world"
 As l have said, Mrs. Hereford was prone to indulge a sentimental sorrow so long as 1t was not expensive. She went once a week to the cemetery, took out the urn, dustedit probably because she had been used to periodically dust the marble clock on her mantel at home, wept over 1t and put 1t back. One day just after having done the dusting she turned the key and with bowed head was mutely offering prayer for the repose of her husbands soul when she was aroused by a crash. It seemed she had! heard some wood en structure knocked Into kindling wood Starting up, there in a lot not a hundred yards from her she saw q promiscuoIrs mass of slender timbers jumbled with some light woven tex ture. From beneath 1t Q man strug- gIed to free himself and after doing so stood upon his feet. The widow went toward the fragments, and when the mans head appeared above the wreck age she caught at an iron ran inclos- Ing a burial lot.
 She saw him whose .ashes she had been weeping over.
 Well" he exclaimed4petulant sur veylng the wreck, "it's.all up, and I'm glad of It."
 Mrs Hereford, who saw a medium for wasted money, breathed hard.
 Elisha" she said sternly, ''what foolishness have you been guilty of this tlme?"
 "I own up, my dear. It was this way: I heard of all these fellows try Ing aeroplanes, and l had a plan that I wanted to try myself. l knew you would never consent to spending the money to build 1t, so | concluded to take the job into my own hands, first eliminating you from the experiment. Jim Twinkler was going abroad, and l charged him to take care of you from there under an assum ed name, telling him what to say and what to send. mat, I,ft y,,. etO nnn ,,,ttb ,,,t,tot, 4ou