The log cabin Democrat., 1916-03-21

them, with King Georges head stamped on one side, and St. George and the dragon on the other.
 Presently Sim said to me, I've got four thousand more, and I guess our scrimping days are over, wife Well, at first I didn't understand. But then he told me. And so the four thousand is going to be spent-yes. spent, Ma am, and the eight thousand Sim has got laid away where no banks go- ing to get hold of it and then burst up on him. Amanda's going to enter college next term, and-I guess the neighbors won't think so hardly of Sim in future, whel4 they see that it was all on account of his wife and child"
 There was no doubt as to the mag nitude of the change that came over Sim Lane. The whole nature of the man had changed. By the time his daughter came back from college the village had forgotten his miserly repu- tation. Secure in the knowledge of the eight thousand gold dollars hidden i'll the mattress, he spent freely. With this change, too, his farming began to prosper. Ten years afterward, when Amanda was happily married to the young man who had called, and the mother of children, Sim Lane was elected mayor.
 Of the two boys who had watched him through the fence, one was a thriving lawyer. the other who attend ed Sim in his last illness. Mrs. Lane had Gied the year before, which made the lawyers ordeal less hard. A few weeks after the funeral he had pri- vate interview with Amanda, who first looked indignant, and then laughed She could afford to laugh, for her hus- band was the richest young man in Colville.
 If Sim Lane, on his deathbed. had known what the watchers knew, he might have smiled ironically at the life he was leaving, wherein shams pass for truth, and delusion for re- ality. All the eight thousand, and fifteen thousand more he left his daughter. The mourners followed the body to the grave, and then the truth came out.
 Jim and l." said the lawyer, had often shouted at the old man, as boys will, but it was Jim who conceived the idea. You see, Jim had always had hankering for theater folks, and when the P. Sinett troupe went broke and started to walk back to the me tropolis along the ties, they had to sell the property for what it would fetch.
 Nobody was willing to give more than few dollars for the scenery. and then only long speculation. But some of the stuff brought in enough to pay the ladies fare halfway. And there were odds and ends left over that nobody wanted to touch They were all afraid of the property money It looked too real-lead stamped and gilded Country folks have vague fears of the law.
 That's how Jim got that bag Of fake gold, and he said to me what a joke it would be to bury it in the ol( man Lanes barn, and watch his face when he found it. We didn't know that we were bestowing Gods provi. dence upon his wife and daughter. Changed the whole nature of the man and sent him happy to his grave Yes, sir, life is queer problem, but the moral l get out of it is, let the norrow take care of itself" At least, Sims fears and terrors might have been with him to the grave, instead of being dropped when he sewed up eight thousand dollars of fake money inside the mattress.
 Copyright, 1916, by W. c, Chapman)