The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-12
nIIPE RT HUGHES

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 high spirits. Anticipation is great thingit Is all that some people get patience of Job without his gift of complaint, and Rudd thoroughly schooled. So he waited with hopet serenity the preamble to the arrival of his her-their child.
 And then fate, which had previously been content with denying him comforts and keeping him from luxuries dealt him blow in the face, smote him his patient mouth The doctor told him that the little body of his had been born still. After that 1t rather supor of despair than courage that ried' him through the vain struggle for life of the wornout housewife who became only almost mother. It seemed merely the logical completion of the worlds cruelty when the doctor laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and walked out of the door, without leaving any prescription to fill. Rudd stood like wooden. Indian too dazed to understand or to feel. He opened the door to the undertaken and waited outside the room just twiddlng his fingers and wondering His world had to end. and he did not know what to do.
 It is strange that people do not get used to death It has to nearly every being anybody has ever heard of; and whom it has not yet reached, it will Every of the two billions of us earth to-day his son: his daughter his man-servant his maid servant his his the stranger within his gates the weeds by the road Kittens and kingooms potato
 If only the child had lived he should have had an industry, ambition,
 Wdowers have occasionally hunted consolation with. the that sent them grief. Rudd had never known any woman in town well as he had known Martha, and it had taken him years to find courage to propose to her The thought of approaching any other woman with intimate intention gave him an ague sweat.
 And how was he to think of taking another wifel Even if he had confounded with grief for his helpmeet as to believe her the only woman on earth for him, how could he have accosted another woman when he had only debts for dowry?
 Death is an expensive thing in every phase. The event that robbed Rudd of his wife his child his hope. had taken also his companion. his cook. his chambermaid. his washerwoman, the mender of his a n a fr e ad ha 6m self to money to were the gruesome committee that brought him his grief; the doctor the druggist the casketmaker. the sexton, and the dealer in the unreal estate who sold the tiny lots in the sad little town
 His soul was too bruised to grope its way about but instinct told him that bills must be paid Instinct automatically set him to work clearing up his counts. For their sakes he devoted himself to stricter economy than ever. He engaged meals at Mrs Judds boarding house He resolved even to rent his home. But. mercifully, there one in town away his pipe-for horrible evening" The next day he remembered how Marthy had sung out and he had answered "Id got of the habit how she laughed The laughter of the dead-it made a lonely echo in the house.
 Gradually he found, many dismal castaways have found that there is mystic cornpanionship in that weed which has out of the vegetable world as the dog from among the animals, to make fellow ship with man Rudd and his pipe were Robinson Crusoe and his Friday the desert island of loneliness. They stared out to sea; and imagined.
 Remembering how Martha and he ased to dream about the child in the tobacco twilight and how they pipe smoke out from the porch over the fence and to disappear beyond the horizons of the town and the addicted to dreams habtuated to dealing in futurtes that could come to pass.
 Being his only luxury on earth by and by they be his necessities, realities concrete than the shoes he sold or the board walk he plodded to and from his store .t..t 4.-
 One Sunday Rudd was present at church when Mr. and Mrs. Budd Granger brought their fourth baby forward to be chrstened. The infant bawled and choked and kicked it's safety pins loose. Rudd was sure that Eric never would have msbehaved like that yet Eric had been denied the sacred rite. -.
 This reminded Rudd how many learned theologians had proved by rigid logic that unbaptzed babies are damned forever. He spent days of horror at the frightful possibility, and nights of internal travel across gridirons where babies flung their blistered hands in vain appeal to far-of mothers. He could not get it from his mind until one evening his pipe persuaded him to erect font in the temple of his imagination.
 He unused through all the ritual and the little frame house seemed to thrill the vague preacher enounced the sonorous phrase:
 "I baptze thee Eric-in the of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy. Ghost"
 Marthy was there. too, of course, but it the father that held the baby. And the child did not vince when the pastors fingers moistened the tiny brow. He just clasped geranfum-petal hand round Rudd's thumb and stared at the with eyes of than mortal understanding
 The very next day Mrs. Ad. Peck walked into the store. proud pea hen. She wanted shoes for her baby. The soles of the old pair intact but the stubby toes were protruding.
 He crawls all over the house, Mr. Rudd And he cut his first tooth to-day, too Just leok at it An't it beauty?'
 In her insensate conceit pried chid's mouth apart if he a pony to disclose the minute peak of ivory. It was nothing to make such fuss Rudd thought though he praised it if it were a snow-capped Fujyama.
 That night Eric cut two teeth. And Marthy nearly laughed her head off.
 Rudd did not talk aloud to the family he had revened from the grave He had 10 occult persua-