Bisbee daily review., 1910-07-06
THE DRAGONS
 SHEEPSKIN By Nj QUAD
By Nj QUAD
Copyright. 1910. by Associated Lit
 erary Press

If you know anything at all about farm life you know that now and then a farmer gets a hankering for mutton 1 and kills q sheep. In removing the pelt be Is very careful. X cut in it depreciates its value. Pelts are gen orally purchased by tin peddlers. and they are generally looked over very carefully beforehand. If there are two or three cuts in the pelt it is onIy half price. Deacon Strong lived on farm in the outskirts of the village of Raw SonvilIe. Tin peddlers had found him truthful man. When the deacon warranted a sheepskiD free from cuts 1t was no use spending time to look at 1t. On this particular morning when a peddler called the deacon had pelt all rolled up to trade for tin pans. While he didn't exactly warrant it. he didn't acknowledge to any damage. and 1t was three days later that the peddler found he had been done for.
 The peddler could have gone back and talked about graft and all that and raised a row. but be didn't He returned to the neighborhood after sev- eral weeks. but he didn't cali on the deacon. Neither did he make any in- qurieS about him He just sawed wood and listened 10 what people were talking about. and what they were talking about just then was the fact that the deacon had decided 10 send his old mother to the poOrhouse-
 Deacon Strong realized that he would be criticised. and so he went about telling what a beautiful poor house it was.
 The tin peddler got on to the talk and the facts. and he was doing some thinking as he drove from the neigh borhood. He had a brother in a town twenty miles away. and the brother was q lawyer.
 The day had been set for grandma 10 go to the poorhouse when one of the neighbors brought in newspaper to show the deacon an advertisement. It called for information concerning one Anna Strong. widow, and strongly hinted that 1t would be 10 her great advantage to step out into the lime light The poorhouse trip was can celed and a journey made to see a lawyer. Anna Strong. widow, was Deacon Strong's mother. He could prove it by fifty people. The lawyer replied that it was all right so far. but did she. have a cousin named Charles Bixby. rich man living in Boston. cousin who would be apt to remember her in his will to the extent of S25.000?
 Tn said that he hadn't the least doubt of the cousinship and would take the cash home to the old lady. He went too fast. The Widow Strong must ap- pear and make an affidavit What her son knew or guessed wouldn't cover the case. The deacon didn't say she had lost her voice. He started for home to see if be couldn't find it for her. Her fingers were so eramped that she hadn't written a line for years, and an depended on the recov- cry of the voice. The old woman had been tucked away in the poorest room of the house. She was at once trans ferred to the best. The scraps from the table were thought good enough for her. She was now fed on the best. Instead of three regular meals per day she was coaxed to eat much oftener. The son had hardly spoken to her for weeks. but now he sat with her and even told her jokes and hoped she would live for twenty years yet He also went among the neighbors and said that he had heard the cellar of the poorhouse was damp after every shower. and he couldn't think of talk ing his dear mother there.
 Mrs. Strong. widow, could hear very well. She heard her son ask the name of all her male cousins. including Charles Bixby of Boston, and she heard herself addressed as dear mother" but she could make no intelligible re- plies. Not when the daughter-in-law combed her hair for her and washed her face and said she was a saint if there ever was one could she talk. When she was lifted in and out of the buggy for a ride she couldn't express her gratitude in words. Once or twice she happened to overhear her dutiful son say to his wife that he'd like to DullQ a uTe uuucI Aut Oia WOAtau to make her talk, but she didn't lay it up against him. She went right on hav- ing the best in the house and wonder. ing why o- TT old women didn't lose their voices.
 Once a month for two long years Deacon Strong called upon or wrote to the lawyer. He offered all sorts of terms and compromises, but it was no use He wrote to Boston. but his let ter was unanswered. He consulted other lawyers. but they said that noth- ing could be done until that voice came back. Raw eggs and wine, pies. cake and puddings fattened the old woman. but the voice remained obdurate- She winled and she smiled and she nodded. but that wasn't enough 10 bring home the Bixby legacy. Then at last she died. She went to sleep ia her chair one day and passed away without a struggle. She was buried in very de cent manner. and next day the deacon walked into the lawyers office as next i of kin and heir to the Blxby legacy.
 And you mother didn't regain her voice?~ asked the lawyer.
 .sNss-or efsf,tst. 70 r---t ."