The Montgomery tribune. (Montgomery City, Mo.) 1892-1910, 1909-02-05
The TRANSFORMATION
OF HYMENIA BASS
BY Edna Foster.

ldJlUOtu arm. !
There was no response from the
half-dozen men mending a big net
which was spread out upon their
knees: they did not cast the fly to
catch the floating gossip of the town,
but allowed it to drift toward them
by the great law of chance. Capt.
Tracy was not dismayed by the 81
lence; he knew his listeners, and he
stepped into the room and made ready |
to divide his spoils.
"Hymeny Bass has always been a
terrible meek sort; she has had a
large, wide idea of the cap'n and his
judgment; she's believed he was so
great that when he went east the west
would tip up, and that his opinions
were inside information from the very
keyhole of the universe. Now l think
his ideas on a subject are likely to
hit about as near as the Farmers
Almanac m to getting the weather
right. There is always a pretty wide
range to allow room to turn. Hy-
meny hasn't bought a yard of calico
or baked a cake hat he hasn't super
vised for 40 years. She would no
more dare to set a bureau angling
han she would dare to set fire to
public buildings. The whole house is
full of ruts in the floors where she has
stepped in her own tracks.
But she's out of bondage now" con
tinued the narrator. she's gone up
into the conning-tower, and Cap'n
Bass is only firing when he gets the
signal. And Mary says she is wig
wagging an everlasting message of
freedom to them that can't under.
stand.
IT'S all along of a present they got
from the old Bass property. When
the estate was divided there was a
bed and two chairs for Elmiry, a pung
and a ox-goad for Jonathan; but Hy-
meny wasn't named in the regular
will, and she got only a longish kind
of a looking-glass.
1.-THE cap'n is tall, and he has al
ways hung the mirrors so high that
Hymeny hasn't seen herself since she
was married, and when the cap'n came
home and brought the glass he set
it on the floor, tipped back against the
wall, till he could get a chance to buy
a cord. Hymeny, it seems-according
to Mary-saw herself for the first time
in years. They do say she gave a
kind of a yelp and stood like one
stunned; she had to get acquainted
with herself all over.
she saw how d~owntrodden she
looked and meeching, and she saw the
fires ~quenched out of her eyes, but
what she most wilted Aft so be
there was left any room to wilt-was
the way her hair had wisped all down
to nothing. She dwelt on that, and
dwelt on it until she almost lost her
ems of fear of the cap'n. So one day
she up and away over the fields like a
girl going to the fair, and she en-
gagged Betsy Spooner to make her a
false front.
"Hymeny is a changed being. Boys,
when that front came home, Hymeny
perked it vi On her head as fine as
you please, and Mary was there, and
said she seemed to undergo a kind of
q Transforming, blooming process. She
sat up straighter, and the first words
vi oDoho vas " COuJl dulCI Tic Gap L,
and three times she upset him in ag-
germint, and then Mary very wisely
, got up and came home.
Now, did any of you ever hear any
kind of a superstition as to false hair?
Mary and I kind of remember
thing to the effect that If combings
are taken from a persons hair I'M
= hnlnnuync CT En- khn DnreN fhak 8ho -o-
son getting that hair, as a switch, will
develop all the traits of the person
that it belonged to heretofore"
81 guess you will have to say them
words yer again, and say 'em slow
err" said Capt. Jed, nudging his neigh
Dor.
We'll, to put it palmer, the hair in
that front piece belonged to Mis- Mir
am Gay, and Hymeny has seemed kind
Of possessed of her ways ever since.
She has got the cap'n completely
cured OF buster. Why, she set out
yesterday that he must take her to
that menagerie that travels through
here every year. Mary was there, and
stood lear them when they were look
ms az INC UCdi. I1yIlcuy JUN HeT
sunshade and sort of poked into the
cage Ito wake the bear up, and the
cap'n told her not to. Mary said she
sort of tipped up her head and said,
pretty firm: 'Cap'n Bass, l have wanted
to poke the animals for some years.
This year l shall poke!' and she did.
"a spell after some one heard him
say 70 her: There, you set there till
I come back and she said: No, l
won't set!' and away she went off
toward the kangaroo. Time was when
she would have set until the menag-
erie moved along and come again
another year, II he hadn't told her to
get up"
The net was mended and the men
rose to go to the shore. Capt. Tracy
was satisfied with the interest he had
g.