The daily Alaskan., 1922-03-04

z
 Long ago, when the great city of
 GItcheapolis was a rather small, un-
 tidy hamlet In the middle of a plain.
 Ii used to be that a pool of water
 possibly two hundred feet square,
 gathered every spring Immediately
 back of the courthouse. The snow
 falls thick and heavy in Gitcheapolis . ln winter; and the pond was nothing
 more than snow water that the inetf- l cient drainage system Of the city did
 not quite absorb. Besides being the
 despair of the plumbers and the city
 engineer. 1t was a severe strain on
 the beauty-lOvlng Instincts of every
 Inhabitunt in the town who had any
 such instincts It was muddy and wurky and generally distasteful.
 A little boy played at the edge Of the water. this spring day Of long ago. Except for his interest In the pond. It l wOnId have been scarcely worth while 10 go 10 the trouble of explaining that , fl contained no fish He however, bitterly regretted the fact. In truth, he sometimes liked Co believe that It
 did contain fish. very sleepy fish that never made ripple and as he had an uncommon Imagination he was some 1 times able to convince himself that this was so. But he never tool; hook and line and played at Gshing He was too much afraid of the laughter , Of his boy friends. His mother proh- 1 ably wouldn't Objert If he tiShrd here. he thought. particularly If he were | careful not 10 gel his shoes covered | with mud. But she wouldn't let him 20 down to GitchcapolIs creek to fish l with the other boys for mud cat. He 1 was not very strong. she thought, and lt was rough sport anyway. and be i sldes-she didn't think he wanted 10 1 go very badly. AS mothers are usual | Iy particularly understanding, this l was a curious thing.
 The truth was that little Dan FnIl- ing wanted 10 fish almost as much as l he wanted to live. He would dream about lt of nights His blood would { glow with the thought of it in the l sprInCtImp Women the world over
 will have a hard time believing whar { an intense, heurt.devOurng passion 1 the love of the chase can he, whether ! Ii Is for fishing or hunting or merely i knocking golf halls Into a little hole ! upon a green. Sometimes they don't i remember that this instinct Is just as much a part of most men. and thus ! most boys. as their hands or their lips. II wns acquired by just as la- { borIous a Dr0Cess-the lives of un- 1 counted thousands Of ancestors who Sshed and hunted for living.
 If was true that little Dan didn't look the part. Even then he sh""ed { signs of physical fraIlty His eyes 1 looked rather large. and his cheeks
 were not the color of fresh sirloin, as thev should have been. In fact. one [ would have had to look very hard to see any color n them al all. These facts are interesting from the light they throw upOn the next glimpse of Dan. fully twenty years later. Eycent for the fact that lt was the background for the earliest picture Of UttIe Dan. the pool hack Of the court
 house has very little importance In his story. It did, however. afford an Illustration to him of one of the real. Iy astonishing truths Of life. He saw n shadow in thP water that he pre- tended he thought might be fish. He threw stone at it.
 The only thing that happened wns ! a splash. and then a slowly widening ripple. The circumference of the rip pIe grew ever larger. extended and wIdened. and finally died at the edge
 of the shore. It set little Dan to 1 thinking. He wondered if, had the pool been larger. the ripple still would l have spread and if the pool had been eternity. whether the ripple would |
 have gone on forever. Al the time he
 did not know the jaws of cause and |
 effect. Later. when GltCheapOliS was !
 great and prosperous and no longer | untIdy. he waS gn,Lg to find Out that ]. a cause Is nothing but a rock thrown !.
 into a pond of Inhlity. and the ripple i that Is its effect saeps growing and 1
 growing forever.
 The little incident that Is the real | beginning Of this story was Of no |, more importance than pebble thrown . Into the snow-wattF pond; but It's et |
 feet was 10 remove the life of Dan
 Failing. since grown up, far out Of i the realms of the ordinary.
 And that brings all matters down | 10 1919 m the las: days of a partiru- f larly sleepy summer. You would hard . ly know GltchPapCns now. The bust |
 ness district has increased tenfold. |
 And the place where used tO he the . pool and rhe playground of Dan Fail
 ing Is now laid on in as green and l
 pretty a city park as one could wish
 to see.
 Some day, when the city becomes