davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07
The Obligations of Woman

From Harper's Weekly.
 Did you ever think said the hermit, turning around in his chair, what ter rible responsibility that is. and how ln- .variably it is thrust, unshared upon women? never heard a man compiaihel of because he did not make his wife very happy. If he does not beat her, or come home drunk habitually. or starve her. ne is very generally considered good nus band. But think what a task woman has to face. It is difficult matter to make any mortal very happy. Happiness is, after all, not so easy for any one think a wofnan accomplishes good deal is she manages to keep herself fairly hap py. Now take that husband in question. I'd hate to have to invent his happiness myself In the first place he has none of the tastes that give a man of very moderate means happiness. He does not care for books and never reads anything hut newspapers-a pursuit which, while apparently satisfying in a quiet way, can not be said to make for riotous joy. Then he hates travel and does not know how to look at pictures or scenery. He does not care for the theatre and when his wife wants to go he always looks like mar tyr and groans. oh, of course. If you want to go. I'll have to take you Then when he. gets there he goes to sleep. And
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

Give me s5OOo and I'll let you have those 1500 acres.'
 He told a narrowing story of what would happen to him if he was not able to pay the 5000 that he owed that day, and he seemed to be so honest in his statements that Roystons sympathies were aroused. It only means $500 more than he had offered the night before, and reluctantly he consented to buy the land.
 But how do know you own this land and that your representations are cor rect. and that the title is clear?" he in- quired, looking for loophole by. which he could escape.
 We can settle that in. few minutes" Peck declared. Let's go over here to the title company"
 Peck took Royston over to a title com pany's office, explained the situation and search of the records disclosed the fact that the title was good. The company would guarantee the title if Royston pur chased the property. Royston hesitated for @ time.. but Peck pleaded so hard to close the deal then and there that Roys- ton was induced to draw check for 5000 and take the title to the land. He felt sorry immediately. lie felt worse when he went to Chicago and told ms Vile about It. Alberta was long way off, and 5000 was i whole lot of money. He was sure he had been fool and he wondered why he allowed himseh to indulge in such a piece of folly. He went to lawyer friend and told him all about it and asked his advice. The law yer laughed at him.
 You don't know anything about Peck, you don't know anything about Alberta, and you don't know anything about this land" he said. You've just put s5O0O in wildcat operation. This land may be all right and 1t may be all wrong. Let us hope you haven't been 'stung There's one thing that I'd advise you to do, and that is to go out and see what you've bought. I'll get you letters of introduce tion to some responsible people in Edmon- ton, and when you get there they will show you around and tell you what to do"
 So soon as Royston could spare the time he took a train out to Alberta It was a long, dreary ride. One of his letters was to a farmer whose home was several miles out from Edmonton. Royston told the farmer his story, and the farmer. after looking over the map that Royston had. took him out to show the land to him. Royston was dissusted. Nearly all of the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07
Loaded Dice on Lusitania

From the New | ork Sun.
 game of craps on the Lusitania last summer figures in the defense to a suit brought in the city court by Barton |. Harvey, said to live at the WaIdorf-As- toria, against Martin J. Dolan, a whisky salesman, on a note for S76O. Harvey says Dolan gave the note for money loaned but Dolan says Harvey inveigled him into game of craps and that the dice were loaded.
 Dolan said that after he had lost al, the money he had. and S760 more he exe- cuted the note out of mere folly ana caprice by writing it on the corner of a magazine cover that lay on the cara table. He gave the note to avoid troubla possibly combat with the hands. with Harvey and his friends. One of thesa friends, he says was Walter McGinlev- whose picture he describes as No. 45l1 in the rogues' gallery. and who, he says. was in conspiracy with Harvey to fleece him. Dolan said that seven of his fellow travellers on the trip will testify for hin, t the triaL
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

lESS called MT. Royston to
 Inipeg. As he never had been a hat portion of Canada before, aa uas I absolute stranger, he was de- . nd vi meet MT. Peck He didn't rec ognize Mir Peck but Mir. Peck recog- nized him They had lived in the same neighborhood in Chicago eight or 10 years ago. and had a how do ye do acquaint- ance. MT. Peck had failed in Chicago and drifted to new fields. MT. Royston had pottered along selling machinery year after year and had steadily fattened ms bank account.
 The two gentlemen sat in the Royal Alexandra and chatted and smoked until late into the night at their first meet ing. Peck had something on his mind. and after a time he gave expression to it.
 "Ive got something you can make lot of money in, MT. Royston," he said.
 What is it?" inquired Royston.
 What is it?" inquired Royston.
 "Its 1900 acres of land, and it's rare bargain"
 More to make conversation than be- cause he was interested, Royston asked for details, and Peck, who was of an en- thusastic nature and rather florid fancy, talked at a great rate. He had 1b00 acres of fine land out near Edmonton, the capi- tai of Alberta. He would sell it to Roys- ton for st an acre. The country was filling up at an amazing rate; land was in great demand. All Royston had to do was to buy the 1500 acres sit tight and ir a few years he could sell it at a stiff price.
 The more Peck talked about the land ssss more earnest he became. The possi- pr.ities were only limited by his imagina- tion.
 Royston listened patiently. He had lis- tened to promoters before. He was calm, staid, sane, prosperous man. Land, aa-- Ia., 1,n1 attraction for him. He was not partial even to city lots as a speculation. He knew his own business, and he was satis- fled with that. He knew enough of men of Peck's type to be wary of them.
 The more ardent MT. Peck became, the less Mir. Royston was impressed, But MT Peck couldn't be shaken off. He knew MT. Royston had money. He had to have money. so they talked. and talked. and talked. MT. Royston tried to switch him off, and declared over and over again that he never had owned land snd never wanted to; that he didn't know a potato plant from a turnip plant and was perfectly willing to leave land speeu- lation to persons who had more inclina- ton in that direction. But it was no use. Finally, more to get rid of Peck than any thing else, he said:
 'Ili tell you what I'll do. I'll give you s an acre"
 .'Oh, that's absurd" said Peck. Why, $e an acre is a ridiculously low price. couldn't think of selling it any less.''
 "All right, then" said Royston, keep it. Make the profit out of it yourself" Peck talked further, but 1t was no use, end at last he got up and bade Roysto1 good night
 The next morning when Royston had finished his breakfast Peck was await, ing him in the lobby of the hotel. He was in evident distress. 'I have to have s5000 todaS.'' he said.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07
Ccopyright. 1912. by Frank c. Car
 penter.)

CCopyright, 1912, by Frank c. Carr
 penter.)
 Balboa, Canal Zone, Panama X NY last letter described the Att MI lantio end of Uncle sam's great 1 4 waterway. I am writing this at what will be the great port on the Pacific, the new town of Balboa. It Is now made up of shops and the homes of employees, but rivers of earth and rock are pouring down Into the flats to build up the space for the wharves, and a mighty breakwater is moving out from the coast to the Island or Naos, distance of more than three miles. This brealSwater is almost com Ileted. It runs parallel to the axis of the canal prism. and rises above sea level to the height of a three or four-story house. I can see the cars running out upon 1t and dumping their great masses of rock as l write.
 A Mighty Wall
 The breakwater has almost reached Naos Island, and it now contains mil lions of cubic yards of earth and rock, all of which have come from the crest of the mountains at the Culebra cut. To give you some idea of the amount sof rock and earth which it has taken tc make it, l will say that when com sleted it will. contain about 1S,000,000 | sibic yards This is enough to make a wall almost twice as wide as Penn sylvania avenue in Washington. taller than the tips of the feathers which crown the head of the goddess on the dome of the national capitol, and long enough to reach from the White House clear down Pennsylvania avenue all 1~.V41 Tf would make a wall 300 feet high, 300 feet thick and 5400 feet long. These quantities are so vast that they amaze me. They seem too big for my little red head! l would say, however. that the estimate is based on the figures of Engineer Rousseau, who states that million cubic yards of earth and rock will equal a cube measuring 300 feet 'pn each side.
 Fighting Old Ocean
 This great breakwater is necessary. It protects the canal from an ocean current which here whirls around through the sea, sweeping up the eastern shore at Panama bay and then coming down the western shore, so that it crosses the canal from east to west. The current is so strong that it carries quantities of silt and refuse, and this Is liable to clog the canal channel Therefore, the engineers have put in the breakwater, which shuts the current out from the low portion Of 1he canal and forces 1t to run north and seut' in the channel The tides here rise
 ih as 20 feet, and a part of the
 Iear the breakwater is bare at low though when the tide Is bare at low
 feet of water flows over it.
 A Civil Engineer
 come with me and let us take a trip 'h the canal as it runs in and out to fItA lcific ocean. I made such trip to- Hs ith MT. w. c. Comber. the engineer sn rge of this part of the work. He is
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

Royston did. and so did Mrs. Roys- ton.
 They drove out to Royston's land, and
 MT. and Mrs Royston walked around that 15O0 acre field The wheat was waist high. It took them nearly all day to walk
 around the ripened grain. Royston never had seen so much wheat before, except from a car window. He was overjoyed
 bur not for long.
 The farmer asked him bluntly what he was going to do with 1t. II don't know.' said Royston. I've de-
 pended on you heretofore, and I'll have ! to depend on you now. What shall do?'' The farmer smiled.
 You've got lot of wheat there. slr."
 he said, .'but everybody in this part of the country is busy gathering his own wheat, so theyS can't pay attention to yours. If l were you I'd telegraph to one of the big elevator men in Winnipeg to send a representative out here at once to look at this wheat and make a bid for it. Those people make q business of buying
 wheat in the field, just as yours is, and
 I think they'll be glad to get hold of this lot of stuff.'
 Royston telegraphed. and a few days later man came on from Winnipeg. He
 went over the 1500 acres, sampled the grain in hundreds of different places and
 then offered to take the whole lot off
 Roystons hands as it stood and pay Q cents bushel.
 Royston did not know whether that was
 a good price or poor one, and asked time
 to consider the offer. Then be consulted
 with his farmer friend
 They'll pay 50, if you put up good bluff" said the farmer. Now, it's up to you to do the bluffing. If you can make him believe you can get the wheat cut
 by the people around here he'll come to
 &pur price" There is a good deal of bluffing in the | machinery business, and Royston had a
 fair amount of experience in that line. He had the farmer coach him about the | terms he should use in his talks with the elevator man, and the two of them haggled for a couple of days. The elevator
 man raised his bid to b cents. and Roys-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

and they rise out of vast sflvery expanse. which under the sun is now sparkling like diamonds. There are three islands just beyond the break Naos. The largest of these is Flam- enco. It is about three-ffths the height of the Washington monument, but its head Is now being cut off and a great road has been made up the side through the green. That will be the site of one of our chief fortifica- tons. It will be the Gibraltar of this end of the canal ana will be honey combed with batteries. Upon the top will be IA and 16-inch guns-guns as long or longer than a passenger car and so big that they will carry steel projectiles as large around as a flour barrel. One of those guns will send its great masses of steel for 12 miles or more at shot, and any vessel with in that radius could be sunk by ir The batteries will be, I should say. nine or 10 miles out from the near est masonry of the canal--I mean the locks at Miraflores-and they will cer- tainly be most efficient defenses for this part of the worh. The engineers are now making these Notifications. The plans have all been prepared. and before the canal is completed they will be well under way.
 The Lights of the Canal
 As we turn our steam launch to go back to the wharf we pass the light keeper He is in little skin and IS making for that red buoy which lies per- haps a quarter of mile from the island of Naos and an equal distance from the breakwater. If you will look you can see other buoys at intervals poppln8 their red heads upon the water all ina way into the shore. and, turning, see similar line of black buoys on the oppo- DnltkeeDeF is lighting these buoys. Thecanal Is to be kept open both night and day, and the buoys will be always alight after dark. Farther inland along the shores of the canal we can see the light towers or light houses which will mark the line of the canal all the way through. They nave now been built on both sides of this end of it. They are made of concrete,sso that they look like stone and are artistic. They are from 30 to "A feet in neigh. and are equipped with acetylene in such way that they will burn for six months without charging.
 Joshua Outdone
 Each of these towers is automatic as far as turning on and turning off the light is concerned. It was Joshua. the prophet, who Commanded the sun to stand still, and it did so.' It remained for our own Uncle Sam to harness the sun and make him strike his matches to light up the canal. It is the sun which turns on and turns off the light. This Is done by series of valves which are so affected by the heat that the light goes almost out when the sun rises and comes on full when the sun rises and comes out full when it sets. AS the sun comes up, the blazing flame wrinkles down to that of a cigar lighter, to remain there until the mighty slave of the lamp has gone to bed, when it comes out again in full splendor to take his place. The light used will be a twinlzling one. which can be easily distinguished from all others.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

the dam which is now rising before us. The water will be kept out and the great steam shovels and other machinery Will deepen that part of the channel and then the dam will be razed and the Pacific will flow to the locks. The completing of this part of the work within time is sure. It will be all done long before July s1, 1912.
 Machinery Which Does Things
 But take a look at some of the mighty dredges which are working about us. There at the right Is one which moves gigantic steam shovel so arranged that It works in the water. It has a great steam engine upon it and this moves steel arm over 40 feet long at the end Of which is shovel-like hand which claws down Into the bottom of the canal and takes up about five tons of earth at time. It does this in a steel bucket which swings around and drops its contents into a barge at the side.
 There are altogether, I venture. some thing like a score of dredges at work on the canal and the dredging is going on on both sides of the isthmus.
 There are other machines which crush tho rock in the bottom of the canal Into such pieces that 1t can be taken out by LHe SnONelS. 1neTe Is OH6 SuCh dL Oui right. It is known as the Lobnitz rock dredge As we look we see immense iron piles rising and falling. Those piles each weigh 20 tons, and when one of them drops 40,000 pounds of steel fall upon the rocky toes of the canal They crush the rock and it is then ready for the dredges.
 We move on down the channel to an Ingersoll drilling dredge This is to pierce holes in the ocean bed that It may be broken up by explosives The dredge is a big flatboat containing an engine and having three derricks like those of an oil well rising above 1t. Each derrick has a. drill which works GO feet under water and makes wells or holes in the bed of the canal as big around as the leg of a man. These holes are sunk to a depth of five feet or more and then load ed with dynamite. When score or so have been made the electricity is turned on. It flashes like lightning from one charge to the other and there is a sereis of mighty explosions. The sea is cast into the air, the water boils and bubbles and becomes muddy with the debris. An fnstant later it is quiet again and vast amount of rock on the bottom is ready for the dipper and clam shell dredges.
 These drilling machines go on perpetual ly. They are run day and night with the exception of Sundays. This Is so of all the marine work at this end of the canal. The men work in two shifts of 10 and 12 hours and are paid accordingly. The 10 hour men are Americans. The F hour men are gangs of Frenchmen and other foreigners who came here years ago and who have stayed with the work.
 We move farther out to the sea, follow ing a barge which is taking thousands of tons of rock to be dropped into the deep Pacific. We pass boat upon which is great dipper lifting wagon loads of earth out of the water and throwing them into barges. That dipper holds two wagon loads of rock and it looks almost human as it rises and swings about through the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

land sowed and narrowed. That will cost you s250O."
 Royston was in the affair so deep that he couldn't very well turn back. so he gave the order for the sowing and the narrowing. Then he didn't hear anything more for quite long time. so he wrote to the farmer and asked how the wheat was progressing.
 Tt looks all right the farmer an- swered.
 Royston had told various of his friends about his land deal, and they had lot Of fun at his expense. He took the chaffing good naturedly, but when he looked at his checkbook and saw what that land represented to him in dollars and cents it was different. He vowed to him. self that he never would make such a fool or himself again. He would stick 10 something that he knew all about. There was money in the machinery business, good, steady, reliable money, and it didn't have any of the taint of speculation. A hundred times Royston wished he never lhad made that trip to Winnipeg, never had met Peck, never had gone to Ed monton. If he had stopped at the mere purchase of the land it would not nave been so bad. He would have been out 5000 and that would have ended it. But after his first blunder he had gone on to other and worse mistakes.
 This was his frame of mind when, well along in the summer, he got letter from the farmer urging him to come to Ed monton at once. Royston could not spare the time very well, but the letter was so inslstent that he determined to make the trip. Mrs. Royston decided she would go, too. She was eager to- see that land the first land the Royston family had owned. The two left Chicago that night and journeyed to the northwest. They went to the farmers house, and Royston, who was dubious about what the sum- mons portended, was elated when the farmer. after greeting them, said blandly:
 Well, MT. Royston, you've got a whop- ping big crop of wheat on that land of yours. Do you want to go out and see it?" ~
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

1900 acres was covered with scrub tim Der and brush.
 Well, what do you think about it?"
 Royston asked when the trip of inspection
 was over.
 That land isn't worth continental
 unless it's cleared said the farmer. Pardon my ignorance, said Royston,
 but what do you mean by cleared?"
 .Why, get all the brush and all the
 scrub timber off 1t and all the stumps,"
 said the farmer.
 How much will that cost?' asked
 Royston.
 8 an acre.
 Royston inquired if the farmer could
 do it. The farmer said no, but there were men in that country who took contracts of that sort. Royston sighed. "I hate to send good money after bad, -
 he said. but I suppose I'll have to do it."
 The farmer promised to attend to the matter, and Royston returned to Chicago. He got letters from the farmer at Inter vals reporting what was being done. The contract had been entered into for clear ing the land on S5 an acre basis. Every time the farmer wrote there was re- quest for a payment on the contract.
 Most of the clearing was done in the winter. A good deal of the brush was burned off. some of the trees were set afre, and some of the stumps were torn up with dynamite In the spring the farm
 CT reported that the work of clearing
 was completed.
 Royston wrote inquiring what he should do next. The farmer reported that it
 would be necessary to break the land. How much would that cost? That could be saone for $4500, or at the rate of S3 an acre. the farmer reported. Roystan sighed some more, as he gave the order for the breaking of the land. In a short time he got word that the job was finished 'Now, what shall do?" Royston asked. Your land looks pretty good to me, the farmer replied. "The soil is rich and deep. If l were you, I'd put in crop
 of wheat. If you so desire. I'll have the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

ton 1atly declined it. Then he told the elevator man not to bother him any more, unless he was prepared to pay 90 cents. In fact, he preferred to reap the crop himself, he said.
 That night the elevator man closed a. trade for the crop at 50 cents bushel.
 The elevator people have ample facil- tiles for gathering big crops. They sent men and machinery to Royston's land and cut that wheat while MT. and Mrs. Roys- ton looked on Then, when the whole crop was gathered and report was made to Royston he was staggered by the fig ures. The wheat averaged 50 bushels to the acre. At 50 cents bushel the elevator
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

looked at his checkbook and figured up how much he had spent. There had been s5000 for the land, s7500 for clearing it. S450O for breaking it, $500 for sowing and har- rowing. That made total of s1s,5O0. His one crop netted him profit of s1S,0O0, and he had 15O0 acres of fine wheat land to the good. Then he went back to Chi cago and showed the elevator company's lures to the friends who had joshed him about the innocent who was an absentee farmer Meanwhile he is wondering what has become of MT. Peck. Winnipeg knows thdt enthusiastic soul no more.
 Copyright 1912. by Richard Spillant.)
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-07

yet never have heard breath of blame attached to that man. He stands there in the public eye as model husband Yes. I am heartily glad" calculated inc hermit, that I am not woman. I'm not fit for their responsibilities.