The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1910-03-15

Tubby Hicks paused in his labored
progress along the path which led
from the LuZon power plant through
the fruit laden longboi bushes to his
neat little shack upon an Abra hillside.
and as he mopped the sweat from his
tropic bleached forehead he gave low
whistle of surprise, for impaled upon
bamboo stake at the turn of the
path and on a level with his own eyes
was the head of an Ilocano. it's peck
marked face looking straight into his
with comical leer. "Humph-did it
at one lick he commented wheeling
ly as he noted the neat way in which
the neck had been severed
First peering cautiously about him.
he hastily wrenched the head from the
stake, tucked Il under the flap of his
wide khaki coat. sauntered on toward
home and. wrapping the head in sew
eral layers of the Manila Times. he
carefully concealed it in the bottom Of
his trunk
That evening Tubby. to Sebastian's
! unbounded surprise. permitted the mu
chacho to leave an hour earlier than
usual and, wheel the streaming tail Of
his camisa had vanished round the
turn of the path, took possession Of
the smoke incrusted kitchen with its
half dozen primitive clay stoves i'm
bedded in long trough of ashes.
When he had kindIed fire in one of
these 1.-THE pungent smoke made him
sneeze and splutter and mathematics
Filipino kitchens in generab he filed
with water the largest big bellied jar
among Sebastian's sooty pots and,
fetching out the mysterious head.
dropped it in.
By boiling and rubbing he pro-
duced a skull which he slowed
once more in the bottom of his trunk
and retired to rest under a strictly
first class mosquito bar upon a wide
and very comfortable old Spanish bed
that had cost him % pesos.
Somewhat overheated from such I'M
usual exertions. Tubby shifted his
bulky form from time to time all over
the wide cane woven bottom Of the
old family CANA in a vain search for
the coolest spot. And as he pulled
and squirmed ponderously about like
a stranded grampus he reviewed the
situation. Head hunters. heyw An
other squirm. Didn't like the way !
turned the river aside from their clus-
ter of vile shacks. so they're giving me
formal notice to vamoose. Well. it's
kind and considerate Of 'em, all right.
but I guess | like the Abra climate
better than Manila, even If it is a bit
hot"-another shift made the bed
creak-''up here this time of year
Let's see; they're due tomorrow night"
And Tubby drew in long. fishlike
gasp as certain possibilities were visu-
allied with startling clearness.
AS electrician at the Luzon power
plant Tubby was the only white man
that side of Vegan. twenty miles away,
the force under him consisting wholly
of Ilocanos OF course he could tele-
phone to Captain Aiken for a detach-
ment of constabulary to come up and
protect him but the thought of the
way the boys would guy him when he
went back to Manila rendered such an
alternative impossible.
The following morning Tubby made
glad the heart of the cook-recently
saddened by the large amount of care
fully prepared wood that had disap-
peared from the kitchen during the
nightly giving him and the mucha-
cho holiday, as he was going into the
hills to hunt deer, he declared. That
the fat senior ever hunted deer was
news to them, but they kept their ger
| plexities to themselves and FASTENED
to the cockpit in the village. which the
lazy presidente permitted to be kept
open on week days in violation of the
new law os the loco Americanos"
| against the heavenly sport at any time
except on Sundays and feast days.
The servants gone. Tubby slipped
| the heavy wooden bar across the door
closed the sliding bamboo windows
| and in the subdued twilight of the
shack brought out the skull and set to
work. With a pillow under his knees
to protect them from the hard bamboo
| Stats of which the floor was construct
ed. he labored over the skull of that
obscure and departed Ilocano with as
much thought and care as he would
have bestowed upon the installation
of a new dynamo. Chisels. mallets
wires big and little. solder and a
soldering pot. white paper. can of
kerosene oil, gimlet, to say nothing Of
heaps Of clothing. Uttered the floor till
noon. when. with satisfied chuckle