The Green Forest tribune., 1916-01-28

leered up at him as he passed. A curly been angelically beautiful if he had been washed and his native blood pumped from him, threw mud at Rev. Smith Boyd, out of mere artistic de- sire to reduce him to harmony with his surroundings. A mouthing old woman, with hands clawed like par rot's, begged him for aims, and he was ashamed of himself that he gave it to her with such shrinking. The Mas ter could not have been like this. A burly "panhandler" stopped him with an artificial whine. A cripple. display ing his ugly deformity for the benefit and example of the unborn, took from him dole and vince of repulsion.
 "The poor ye have always with vel" For ages that had been the excuse for such offenses as Vedder court They were here, they must be cared for within their means, and no amount of pauperizing charity could remove them from the scheme of things In so far, Market Square church felt jus tified in it's landlordship, that it nursed squalor and bred more Yet, somehow, the rector of that solidly respectable institution was not quite satisfied, and he had added a new ex- penSe to the profit and loss account in the ledger of this particular house of God. He had hired a crew of forty muscular men, with horses and carts, and had caused them to be deputized as sanitary police, and had given them authority to enter and clean; which may have accounted for the especially germ-laden feel of the atmosphere this morning. Down in the next block, where the squad was systematically at work, there were the sounds of count less individual battles, and loud mouthings of the fundamental prin- ciples of anarchy. A government which would force soap and deodorizers and germicides on presumably free and in- dependent citizens, was a government of tyranny; and it had been particu- lar wisdom, on the part of the rough hewn faced man who had hired this crew, to select none but accomplished brick dodgers. In the ten carts which lined the curb on both sides there were piled such conglomerate mass of nondescript fragments of everything undesirable that the rector felt trace better, as if he had erased one mark at least of the long black score against himself. Somehow, recently, he had acquired an urgent impulse to clean Vedder court!
 | He turned in at one of the largest and most uninviting of the rickety stairways. He skipped with a prac- ticed tread, the broken third step, and made mental note to once more take up, with the property committee, the battle of minor repairs. He stopped at the third landing, and knocked at a dark door, whereupon a petulant voice told him to come in. The petulant voice came from a woman who sat in a broken rockered chair, with one leg sbald stif1y in front of her. She was heavy with the fat which rolls an1
 bulges, and an empty beer pail, or which the froth had dried, sat by he1 side. On the rickety bed layE,a mar propped on one elbow, who had been unshaven for days, so that his sandy beard made a sort of layer on his l square face. The man sat up at once. He was trife undersized, but broad shouldered and short-necked, and had enormous red hands.
 "How are you today, Mrs. Rogers?" asked the rector, sitting on backless and bottomless chair, with his hat on his knees, and holding himself small, with an unconscious instinct to not let anything touch him.
 "No better" replied the woman, making her voice weak. 'Ill never know we'll day again. The good Lord has seen fit to afflict S1e. I aint say ing anything, but it ain't fair"
 Rev. Smith Boyd could not resist slight contraction of his brows. Mrs. Rogers invariably introduced the Lord into every conversation with the rec tor, and it was his duty to wrestle with her soul, if she insisted He was HUI dNSl oC lO III pal tluS lSllSlOuS iu- struction, but, being a practical man. he could not enjoy wasting his breath.
 There are many things we cannot understand" he granted. What does the doctor say about your condition?"
 "He don't offer no hope" returned the woman, with qualification. This knee joint will be stiff till the end of my days. If I had anything to blame myself with 1t would be different, but ain't. say my prayers every night, but if Pm too sick, I do it in the morning"
 Gan that stuff" growled the man on the bed You been prayin' once a day ever since I got you, and noth- in's ever happened"
 ''I've brought you a job," returned Rev Smith Boyd promptly "I have