Tombstone epitaph., 1915-09-19
HE HAD THE FEVER
Just What Ailed Farmer Hopkins Has AiIed Many of
 His Class.
JUST HAD TO HAVE AN AUTO
Wife Unnecessarily Worried Over the Somewhat Peculiar Actions Of her Husband, Who Was Only Fig
 urirs Over Max.
 Ing a Change.

Fsrme. Hopkins had been ailing for some time. He did his chores in the ! customary manner one expected of a | Hopkins He paid as much attention to the drove of hogs over in the pas 1 ture lot. the Indianapolis News states. He followed the blow just as he had followed t for 25 years. He swore softly at times. mayhap. al the con trariness of cli Fer as he went down between the rows of corn. After the days work was over he milked the three Jerseys and bedded down the horses in his old painstaking man ner. But with all Of his thoroughness there was an air of preoccupation. The clean white boards of the barn door on the inside were covered with rows and rows of figures His wife, going down there on her daily egg hunting expeditions had noticed the figures and wondered what they meant. Could it he that after all their years of married life her husband was en- gagged in some transaction which he wished to hide from her. that he should do his figuring on the barn door instead of the old-fashioned seCTe- tary in the living room
 She ran back over his actions of the last few weeks. She remembered how he had grumbled al Nellie as they rode to tOxE behind her Surely he could not think of selling her lie had always boasted of the trim little % lz |. to a snail
 The children had all married and moved away. and it seemed to the wife that he should be taking his life easy, instead of raking up trouble for himself as he seemed to be doing.
 One evening when he had come back home from drive to the town alone he seemed to be Of a more cheerful mood He told his wife the children were away all year and only got back in the summer. To go 10 see them meant a long ride to the town and longer ride on the train. Then he adroitIy shifted the conversation around to horses. Feed was high. Horses needed shoes; they were liable to siCken and die. They must be fed whether they worked or not. They could not be driven hard in the hot sun. IL always took a horse two hours at the least to make the II miles to town. At last the faithful wife was getting at the cause of her husbands preoccupation. Soon she would know what the real trouble was. Probably he wished to sell Nellie and get that 2:03 trotter he had been looking over at the county fair.
 So-so-would she mind if he bought an automobile They were so much cheaper now. They could get around so much more quickly to visit their friends and take their friends riding. etc, ad infinituIa. In a half hour Mrs. Hopkins was so excited that she in sisted on getting catalogue the next day. and even began to look at road map to see how they could go to see Jessie and the baby.
 In two weeks one of the stalls had been torn out to make room for the car and a galvanized tank had been sunk in the ground just outside the barn door. And in his first driving lesson Farmer Hopkins learned that whereas when a blow is to be guided to the right pressure it must be guid- ed on the left handle, when an automo- bile is to be guided to the right the steering wheel must be turned to the right.
 And gasoline isn't so high, after all.