The Monmouth inquirer., 1923-08-02
A CURE FOR /
|WHOQP|NGCOUGHl
BY GEORGE M. A. CAIN /
Copyright by the Frank A. Nun 1
sey Co. ]
. CONTINUED FROM 9Th PAGE
BY GEORGE M. A. CAIN

Above the walls and whoops and
wheezes about him he could not have
heard if the mine had blown UP.
But he could hear the difference as
soon as the second load arrived, got
acquainted with its surroundings, and
turned on Its quota of racket. With
all the Irish determination in his make
I'D. Finnegan held his ground, and I'M
loaded more families and more Whoop-
ing cough. If Riley was hoping for
any satisfaction he had got 1t out OF
the vicious clang of the signal bell.
And every load brought little more
whoop OF its own.
The twelfth load came down. Fin
negan could see that there were still
faces peering over the sides of the
shaft above. He wheeled about and
held his lamp aloft to see where he
| could put any more whoopers. BY now
his ears were in such condition that
a few more whops made no difference.
1t was evident that he must take the
crowd into the main room. He shey-
ed his way through them and got to
the tunnel. With wave of the lamp
he signaled them to come on. He fig
ured that the whooping and wheeling
and clatter would be reduced in tensi-
tv by SO much, as the main chamber
was larger than that at the bottom OF
| the shaft. Alas! He was reckoning
| without his mules
Yes-this is where the mules cofae
into the game. And this is as good a
place as any to remark that mule
usually plays the game for all he Is
worth. Perhaps it is because he has
no pride of ancestry nor hope of pro-
gency to fall back on that he endeav-
ors to get so much out of the short
life he has to live 1t is mistake not
to reckon on a mule when there is one
around, though nature never turned
| out anything harder to reckon on.
Those mine mules would have been
| blinded by daylight. Their senses were
attuned to the depths of the earth
They were used to the sounds that be
longed to a mine. They could have
heard an explosion that would have
wrecked the whole outfit, and it is
doubtful ii they would have batted an
I eye or laid back an ear. But, never
having had any babies of their own.
whooping cough was a brand new one
| on them.
They listened patiently as the first
half dozen whoopers whooped in. They
began to grow interested by the time
the number had doubled, and the vol
ume OF the whoop had increased pro.
portionately. They were sitting Ut
and taking notice before thirty babies
| had arrived in the main room.
Had Finnegan's attention not been
| strictly held to the business in hand
he might have observed that the oldest
mule Of the pack, jimmy with twenty
years of unbroken regularity behind
her, was growing shaky before half Of
! the cure seekers had come out of the
end of the tunnel. That strange, weird
! wheeze with its equally strange accom-
paniments, was getting on the jimmy
mules nerves.
She stood 1t till the last baby got in,
once more got its bearings and its
whoop. Then the tension on her rasp-
ed nerves passed the endurance point.
She raised her head with jerk for
which her rotten halter was no match.
She stood still only long enough to
give voice to her terror
Judging by the amount of voice she
gave it, it must have been considerable
terror. She made herself heard by her
companions. 1t seemed that they, too,
had been growing uneasy. and were
waiting for some such signal. There
was a general swapping of halters.
Then twenty good strong mule voices
were added to the din.
Din? No, that isn't the word. Roar,
tumult, bedlam- pshawi Bedlam would
have seemed soft pedaled beside that
awful rumpus.
Even the babies shut off their
wheezes to listen. That didn't shut UP
the mules. A mules bray is like
remnant; if you get any of it you have
to take the whole piece. BY the time
Ia6 LWCnby UnuASS AdA gu W N&4C SAA
of their bray the last baby had got ov-
er its awed silence and started wall
Of terror only second in volume to The
braying.
A human voice is made to work Oh
the exhaust. Whatever it may manage
to do on the intake, it can do more on
the outgo of the air supply in the
lungs.
However inhuman 1t may sound. a
baby's howl is human, and the best
whoop 1t can make won't compare with
1t. And, for the time being, every
one Of these babies forgot that it was
there with the whooping cough, and
laid itself out to demonstrate that it
had been cured Of every trace OF
bronchial or laryngitic trouble.
1t was the mules turn to listen. But
to mule, they decided they didn't
care to play. They might be good
mules, and courageous to meet the or.
binary Ills of their condition; but they