davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

grown-up folks about what their young
'uns said and did
Because, you know, the father who
does like that"a-way really needs to be
lariated up little Bit just enough to
check him. that is, If he is checkable. He
needs to be told by somebody or other
wherein he Is a nuisance and an affliction,
and if we sat around and waited for you
to tell him, why
Well, now honest, did you ever in your
life take a-hold of the coat lapel of the
father who was boring you to extinction
by drumming stuff about his children into
your suffering ear-did you ever grab a
hold of him by the coat lapel or by any
thing else that came handiest, and lean
ing right over him, tell him to shut up?
Certainly you never did. You never had
the nerve to do it. You've stood and
squirmed and wriggled and suffered un-
told misery, listening to the foolish CAB
biness of the father of the brightest young
uns on earth-ye-es, really, OIL mani there
never were any brighter or as bright-and
you've longed to be up in Labrador or
marooned on a desert island off the coast
of Liberia or somewhere, but we are
here to lay 30 to !, or. for that matter.
to give you the privilege of writing your
own ticket, that never once have you had
the spine to come out. just like that, and
tell the garrulous. verbose, prollX, ch1nny
father of the brightest ever young uns
to shut up.
AS matter of fact, come to think of
it, you really couldn't be SO ornery about
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19
DOTING FATHER MAKES HIMSELF GREAT NUISANCE

should preserve decent and kindly reti-
cence with reference to their children.
The gabby father who just will tax to
folks about his chldren's sayings and
doings, whether folks like 1t or not, al
ways forgets these two important consid-
erationS to wit:
First-If you haven't got any children
of your own. why you are entirely inca
pable of understanding just why he should
extract such acute, not to say gurgly
joy from his recital of the very ordinary
Gas 1t must seem to YOU things that his
children have said and done. You're not
ZEN rapport with the subject and you
are sorely put to it every minute to cover
up your yawns so that you won't present
facially, too striking a resemblance to the
Au Sable chasm.
Second-If you have got children of your
own. why, they suffice unto you: they re
the whole thing in the children line so far
as you are concerned; they're there with
the cunnin little sayin's and doin's them
selves, and you do not, in such circum-
stances, want to be herded up against
hard pillar and told about the cutey-
ootey sayin's and doin's Of some other
fellers children, now, do you?
Thus it will be perceived that the father
who insists upon talking about his chill
dren is just naturally bound to get in bad
no matter who he holds up and makes
victim of his loquacity on the subject
we're talking about. Bound to get in bad
and to make sad-sad of himself, and
eventually to make such a laundering,
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

to keep up with you, well, old man, she
just looked right up into my eyes-and,
say, look a-here, have you ever noticed
Carries eyes? Great big blue ones
know, like moss agates, and everybody
tells us that it's the finest pair of eyes in
North America, although perhaps that's
exaggerated just a teeny -weeny little bit
Well, anyhow, she looked I'D into my ewes
as l got to the vestibule, and she said to
me"
"Bully-great-gee. That was smart o.
Carrie, wasn't it," you stick in vainly
hoping to avert the deadly dull finish
which you know he is about to tack on to
the story, but
She said" he goes on, needless of ev-
erything, Papa, will I have whiskers
like you when L grow up? just like that
Ha. ha. ha, Ho. no. no. He he a.!
D'jevver hear anything to beat that in all
your bawn days? Ho, no, no, Vince.
Wow-ee! Wasn't that immense? Wasn't
it enormously smart, hey? But that
wasn't anything to thing little Carrie
said to me one morning last week
when
oh. we'll, men, we wish, honest we wish,
that we could suggest some way of dodg-
ing him, but we cant. We too have suf-
fered, and probably We'll have to go right
on suffering.
We resolved, however when we made
up our minds to say these things that We
were not going to continue to suffer in
silence, not by blamed sight,
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19
o.. ~S%%a~s8a@@ ~ 90

coil and read the letters which usually
are left behind by the suicides, and these
accounts and letters wear and work upon
their own spirits until they, too, are
moved to give up the warfare of life.
There are hundreds upon hundreds Of sui
cideS in New York every year that are
caused, according To collated figures, by
suggestion wholly. This is proven by the
statement that very many of the self
deStroyers advert in the letters which
they in their turn write before dying to
some other suicide. the accounts of whose
death had just been printed in the news
papers. 1t has long been noticed that
when one self-destroyer removes himself
from the coil of life in an unusual way
invariably a number of other persons
for whom life has lost its SAVIOR take
themselves off the same identical way
For example, in August a man threw
himself in front of a rapidly approach
ing express train from the platform of .
subway station and was ground TO pieces.
Within less than week no less than four
other men had tossed themselves under
subway trains and been ground up in
the same terrible manner. In June last
a character actor of no little repute hung
himself by the cord of his bathrobe in
the clothes closet of his apartment in
New York Straig.htway, within the week,
two other actors, both of them growing
elderly and more or less in the discard,
took the same means of removing them
selves from their world of trouble and ir-
remediable impecuniosity.
The New York newspapers are to be
asked to refrain from printing any
thing but the bare facts with respect to
suicide cases. and ii is virtually certain
that they will fall in with this desire OF
the humane persons who have gone to
the trouble to collect facts and figures
with reference to this matter of suicide
by suggestion" People who seem to be
perfectly conversant with the figures they
tot hot Drtth hn otrftt y,rr
of elaborate suicide news the number OF
suicides in this town in the course of q
year will be reduced actually by hum
dreds. CLARENCE l.. CULLEN
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19
Co., ~pT<@d9eeB1a A%%S~ GO

most of the furniture, too, including the
bed, spare times. Wagon freighting was
costly, and beds and gear like that ready
made cost a heap of money out there
those days-anyhow, they were beyond
me.
Had a rag carpet on the floor of the
shack that Mary'd been making herself,
after school hours, for a year. Dishes
were mostly wooden-I was pretty handy
with jack-knife those days. Had calico
curtains in the one window-Mary had an
artistic eye, and the way she draped those
curtains sure was something dainty.
Il got the water from the crick, about
four hundred yards back of the shack.
Used to fill up the three big barrels once
a week. and let the water settle
Didn't have any fresh meat. unless
shot it o Sundays-freighters used to
fetch in the salt meat once week. over
the trail. Canned vegetables, too, and
scandalously high they were.
I'D started a truck patch, but the soil
wasn't adapted to truck raising. All
right for flowers, though. Mary got hold
of some flower seeds-subscribed to a
dollar-a-year weekly, 1 believe. and got
the seeds as a subscription prize-and she
had the prettiest little garden of flowers
in front of the shack you ever saw; sweet
William and pansies and bachelors but
tons and china asters and marigolds and
old things like those.
She used to sit In that teenchy flower
garden of summer evenings and play on
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

secret forever especially a lovelorn youth.
And accordingly. with n great air Of mys-
terry, he took somebody into his conf
dence. But all the same he told IL as
though he were proud Of it. Yes. the
great secret was out. He was desperate
y infatuated with one of the leading
sopranos OF the musical comedy company.
So far so well. But the worst was Yet
to come. He hadn't met the object of bis
alteration yet. No. To be sure. ho
couldn't think OF waiting at the stage door
with the rest of the Johnnies and ask hH-
to take supper with him No. indeed
That couldn't be thought of But he had
been so bold as to send her several
punches of American Beauties at ten
bucks a throw with little notes inclosed.
But. worse luck, she hadn't seen fit TO
answer the notes. So coming To the
point of his long preamble. could his
friend do anything for him?
Why. certainly, that was what friends
were for He would introduce him to
her that very night.
Lifted on the wave OF ecstasy. the love-
sick swain took his friend to dinner and
afterward to the theater. Then after the
show they waited in front of the stage
entrance until the divinity should appear.
1t seemed hours, but at last they saw her
coming down the alleyway.
The love-sick ones heart nearly stoD-
ped beating and then he saw his friend
step up to the fair one.
Miss x, he heard him say, Il
would like TO have you meet my friend
Mr.. A.
II am very glad to meet you. Mr. A"
she said. giving him her hand.
1t was done now and still he wasn't
too paralyZed to murmur some appro-
pirate greeting. when-what was that she
was saying as his friend had started
away?
But who is going to introduce you?"
oh said the accommodating friend
Bobby is the one who wanted to meet
you; / don't
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

corners when Mary and I made our first
start at housekeeping the old boy went
on. crossing his legs and leaning back
and putting away at his pipe. Not many
scrumtiferous fiXin's Of any kind, for the
matter of that.
Fact is it was a shack And on top
of that. a one-room shack. Built it my
self after working hours. Cut the scrub
spruce and fir to build it, too.
Il was a timberman then in a new sill
yer mine sixty miles from railroad.
Got twenty-five a week, which wasn't
much. counting how costly it was to live.
We'll, after 1 got the shack built l
went down to Boise and asked Mary
she was teaching school there Mary
was agreeable about it-we'd been beauS
since we'd first met a year before, al
though after l went to work in the new
mine I didn't have much chance to see
her.
But Mary was ready, and we got mar
ried in Boise City, and 1 took her to the
shack I'd built. Marvellous days, those
both of us young, you see, and not both
ering much about anything nor minding
any sort Of inconvenience, so long as
we We're close enough to each other sos
could holler across the gulch on my
way to work and on my way home. And
it was a home, plumb and proper-never
had any such home since.
II made the stove myself. too. out of
an old rusty two-horsepower boiler that
cribbed from the enginehouse. Made
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

repl1eQ.
Well" said the wealthy old miner, Il
sure do take it powerful hard that you
and Aggie don't invite me up to your place
and give me something to eat-I sure do"
The young man started to make some
reply, but the old man wasn't through.
I'm getting mighty tired of hotel and
restaurant grub" he went on. Il can't
get any taste or good out of tit all
tastes alike. If you and Aggie only knew
how I've been sort O. hankering for a
good, big film savory layout of shoulder
and greens, I'll bet box of matches that
you'd have taken pity on me and asked
me to your place to have some. Ever
have shoulder and greens? Nothing on
earth like shoulder and greens, after all,
is there?"
The young man looked a bit enabar-
raised.
Well" he said. "Aggie and 1 have
talked time and again about asking you
to take dinner with us since you came on
here this time. But you know what these
dinky little three-rooms- d-a-bath flats
are-or do you? And Asgie and l had sort
of an idea that maybe-well, to be frank.
that after all the splendiferousness that
you're used to, why. it might make you
feel sort of uncomfort-oh, ours is just
a plain little dump, you know, and we
thought maybe it would-er-"
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

it as all that comes to- You couldn't break
right in on him and tell him to shut up.
But you might choose some other means
to
However, it's great problem. 1t really
is. It's battling, Supplying problem.
Because, you see, the father who will
insist upon Ginning you to death about
the sayings and doings of his children
why, such a father hasn't any sense OF
humor, hasn't any imagination. hash
any perception whatever Of the fitness OF
things or of what he owes to his neigh
Dor And what are you going to do with
a man like that? You sure don't want TO
make him feel badly by telling him to
go burlap his head. You may have the
keenest feeling in the world that he SIM
ply has no right to corral you in corner
and shoot all of that dreary, dismal stun
about his children into you, but, knowing
what you do about his mental makeup,
why, you are bound to be restrained, II
only by sort of sympathy or ordinary
humaneness, from telling him that you
wish he'd go down to the fish wharf and
convert himself into bait for mudcats.
Now, it's to be expected that mothers
wiI-will--tell you and everybody else
about what their children say and do.
That's expected of mothers by everybody
and everybod is more or less lndulgent
toward mothers, no matter how great the
suffering, when they do it. But benign
Providence never intended that fathers
should inflict their feiiow-beings with this
inconseuuential stuff about their children.
Gracious heaven intended that fathers
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

have failed over here right in the baby
hood of the season. Some of the plays
that expired of the blighting early frost
were not so inordinately bad. either.
Considering and rejecting upon this fact,
the managers fell to thinking out some
specific answer.
Several of them. at one and the same
time discovered the answer to lie in the
death watch
The death watch is the gang of first
nighters who infallibly attend all of the
new productions. There are about 1900
of these regulars, and seats always have
been put aside for them for all first nights
whether they asked or wrote for the seats
or not, for it was thoroughly understood
that none of them would miss first night
for any conceivable money. All OF them
turned up for the first night If they were
able to get out of bed.
Now. first nighters. by the very nature
of their obseSSion, are more or less Douho
to be the sblase and the tired ones. IN
durated first nighters know the theater IN
side and out as matter OF course, ana
1t is only sensible to presume that. py
the time they've been confirmed hrst
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

mast-fed meat from Virginia and after
the old miner had tucked his napkin
under his chin in the old-fashioned way
and gone at it, he came pretty close to
looking like a thoroughly satisfied elderly
man.
"D'ye children know" he said as he
passed his plate over for the third help
ing. that I've been in training for this
ever since yesterday? Fact. I've hardly
eaten mouthful since you invited me
or, better, since l invited myself. And it's
worth the fasting"
After the dinner the old boy fixed him
self in big rattan chair in the tiny coZy
corner near q window and got a well
seasoned briar pipe belonging to his
young host a-going.
"a cigar after shoulder and green's"
he exclaimed, reprovingly, when the
young man offered him a cigar. Mighty
tidy pace you've got here" he said.
after pause, waving his pipe around
'Slick as a crick eel, I'd call it. Plumb
luxurious. in fact and a sort of misty
light Of recollection appeared in the gray
old eyes of the man. L suppose Mary
and I wouldn't have looked upon this as
a sort of heaven away back yonder in the
tangle of years when we were struggling
along the best way we knew how
The young matron had been picking out
soft little chords on the piano but she
crossed overland sat down by her hus-
band.
Didn't have any such things as coy
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

crest little tot of her years within the
confines of the District of Columbia If I
do say so myself as shouldn't. And say
sa-ay, you just ought to hear her sing,
Her mother wants to make a grand opera
singer of her when she grows up. and L
guess I'll have to yield. for even now
strange as 1t may appear, Carrie has a
voice that 'ud make anybody sit up and
take notice. Well anyhow, last evening,
just as l got home from the office, she
met me in the vestibule, and say, old
chap. what on earth dye s'pose she said
to me?"
oh, something great" you reply hur-
r1edly, and then you add: "Uh-huh, re-
markable young one, sure thing. And now
I've got to beat 1t down the street to see
bathroom in my house."
Dye think for minute that that's go
ing to let you out? Ohio, nothing like
that. Nothing whatever like that He
just falls into quick step with you-it
doesn't make any difference If you're
walkist that could win an Olympic walk
ing event if you were entered for the
same, he'll stick right there alongside of
you, for he has that story about what
little Carrie said rafting around in his
system, and he's going to uncoil it. even
if you endeavor to do an aviate to beat it
away from his neighborhood.
We'll" he goes on. painting with the
speed you're unavailingly making with
the idea that maybe he'll fall down on
the street with the exhaustion of trying
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

s4"o ieft for me after paying expenses. I
went pack to the hotel in a fever. ana
fervor of eXultation. A SQUAT we'll
dressed. curly haired man, with a swarthy
SKIN and thick black mustache was
talking with the landlord when l strolIed
into the hotel office The stranger
turned and smiled very agreeable smile
when he saw me-
My friend he said to me- holding
OUT ms hand. 1 congratulate you. / lis
tened to your lecture. 1t was'-and as
ne was foreigner he halted for the word
immense. When / return 20 NV own
country am going to give an illustrated
lecture on Thibet'
Oh, you've been in Thibet, them I
said to him.
oh. no. he replied. still smiling that
engaging smile. That's why I'm going
TO lecture on it, and then the drinks were
on me. and 1 promptly bought
Inc squat man was a sure enough
Green tourist and scholar who had lust
happened to drop into Walla WalIa in
time to hear me lecture about Greece.
The memory of his saturnine grin is a
nightmare to me vet"
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19
O." -4(<44@Sa1se1K ~ GO

billybedinged nuisance of himself that the
mere sight of him coming down the street
will cause previous sufferers to just pick
up their moccasins and beat it like all
blazes in order to dodge possible repeti-
ton of the aff1iction.
He's pretty hard to dodge or flag.
though. Hardest thing on earth to side
track him or switch the cut after he gets
started.
He doesn't care a darn about your af-
fairs or your troubles: doesn't listen, ex-
cept with a vague, wandering eye. when
you're telling him that you lost $S4 yes
terday in little deal, or that your folks
are all sick at home. or something. He
hasn't any interest in anything that APP
pertains to you or to anybody or anything
else. All that he's thinking about is
Well, you've hardly said nine words to
him before he begins to pull it on you.
Say" says he. you member that lit
tie girl O. mine-Carrie. the second one,
four years old? Well old man. last even
ing just after 1 got home from the office
burned if that little thing didn't say to
me"
'jing 1 do need shave pretty bad"
you nudge in. feeling of your chin rue
fully, for you know that it's coming and
a deep, impenetrable gloom pervades your
entire being.
'Shave-uh-huh," he says. just me-
chemically, like that, for he really hasn't
understood your allusion to a shave at all.
"Well this little Carrie O. mine, you
know, pardner. is pooty nearly the clev-
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

Look a-here, boy" interrupted the old
miner. will you and Aggie give me some
shoulder and green's tomorrow evening,
say at o'clock"
You know very we'll that We'll be de-
lighted to have YOU" replied the young
man.
"Al right said the old man. write
me down the address. I'll be there
''And, joe" he added as the young man
prepared to take his leave, you'd better
warn Aggie about the low-down. ornery,
simmering habits of greens. 1t takes a
lot of greens to make a proper mess Of
'em. A pretty whopping basket O.
greens-well, I've seen a bushel o green's.
almost. boil down to most nothing" and
then the two laughed and the young man
went away.
On the following evening the bluff,
rudy, fine-looking old mining man ar
rived at the little fiat on the minute. 1t
was neat and tastefully furnished fiat,
but small. of course.
Sure you've got plenty of greens?" the
old gentleman inquired with mock
anxiety. when he was greeted by the
pretty young matron whom he had known
as a child. Eve been worrying a good
deal over that today
ooh. stacks and stacks of green's" she
replied. adding. but if there shouldn't be
enough l could exc out by boiling down
the rubber plant, you know and SO the
little dinner began merrily enough.
The shoulder was a sweet piece of
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-19

stances. Alas, it cannot be. for the car
was sent whizzing over the PennsyiVa-
MIA line. Right here is where the feelings
and the pocketbook Of the Washington
motorist received a few long-to-be-re-
membered swats He likewise received
liberal education in the motor regulations
of the keystone state.
Hey. there" cried an oldish man
perched on a fence rail sklrting one OF
those famous and then again Infamous
Quaker highways But the Washingto-
mans were on pleasure bent, and this
looked like a joyful salutation..
playful people, these Pennsylvanians.
said the man in the tonneau. AND the
man at the wheel speeded some more.
Directly a red flag doomed in the road
way ahead 1t was suspended from
rope that barred the highway, one end
being tied to a great oak, while the other
was sustained by deputy sheriff. He
was an amiable man, this deputy, and.
casting the implements of his trap
aside cheerily informed the Washing
tonians that they had transgressed the
law of the county. You are under ar
rest and must go with me to the Justice
The justice of the peace was found at
his home. and court was held on his front
porch A great fear possessed the pris-
oners.
You are charged" said the justice of
the peace, after going through the usual
preliminaries incident to the opening of
his court, with failing to toot your horn
before passing the cross-road. Are you
guilty or not?'
The old gentleman of the fence rail
forestalled any reply the autoists might
have had in mind by sententiously declar-
ing them guilty"
You are found $3.50" said the justice.
But where is the law on which this fine
is founded?" said a lawyer in the party.
Here" choruSed the minions of the
law. as simultaneously the trio produced
a copy of the county highways regula-
tions. The particular rule setting forth
the need of footing horn before sending