Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1925-03-04
Copyrighted by E. J. Clode)
CHAPTER X
REALITY V. ROMANCE-THE CASE
FOR THE PLAINTIFF
BY LOUIS TRACY

dICer DAY the sailor perfected MS de-
fences and anxiously scanned the
ocean for sign of friendly smoke OF
hostile sail. This respite would not
have been given to him, were it not
for the lucky bullet which removed
two fingers and part of third from
the right hand of the Dyak chief. Not
even a healthy savage can afford to
treat such wound lightly, and ten
days elapsed before the manned rob-
Der was able to move the injured limb
without curse.
Meanwhile, each night jerks slept
less sOundly; each day his face be-
came more careworn. He began to re-
alize why the island had not been Wis
tied already by the vessel which would
certainly be deputed to search for
them-she was examining the great
coast-line of China and Siam
1t was his habit to mark the pro-
gress of time on the rudely made sun
dial which sufficiently served their re-
quirements as a colck Iris happened
to watch him chipping the forty-fourth
notch on the edge of the horizontal
block of wood
Have we really been forty-four days
here?' she inquired, after counting
the marks with growing establishment.
Il believe the reckoning is accur-
ate," he said The Sirdar was lost on
the 18th of March, and l make this
the LIST of May.
MAY Day!"
Eyes. Shall we drive to birmingham
this afternoon"
Looked at in that way it seems to
be tremendous time though indeed,
in some respects, it figures in my mind
like many years. That is when [ am
thinking. Otherwise, when busy, the
days fly by like hours"
ut must be convenient to have such
an elastic scale"
Most useful. l strive to apply the
quick rate when you are grumpy"
Iris placed her arms akimbo, planted
her feet widely apart, and surveyed
jerks with an expression that might
almost be termed impudent They
were great friends, these two, now.
The incipient stage of love-making
had been dropped entirely, as ludi-
crously unsuited to their environment,
When the urgent necessity for con-
tlnuous labor no longer spurred them
to exertion during every moment of
daylight, they tackled the box of
books and read, not volumes which ap-
pealed to them in common, but quaint
tones in the use of which jerks was
tutor and Iris the scholar.
1t became fixed principle with the
girl that she was very ignorant, and
she insisted that the sailor should
teach her. For instance, among the
books he found treatise on astrono-
my; it yielded a keen delight to both
to identify a constellation and learn
all sorts of wonderful things concern
ing it. But to work even the simplest
problem required knowledge of al
zebra, and Iris had never gone be-
yOnd decimalS. So the stock of note
books, instead of recording their ex-
periences, became covered with SYM
bols showing plus equaled *
minus 100000
AS a variant, jerks introduced
study of Hindustani His method was
to write short sentence and explain
IN detail its component parts. With a
certain awe Iris surveyed the nitric
acies of the Urdu compound verb, but,
about her fourth lesson, she broke out
into EXPLANATIONS of eXtravagant Joy.
What on earth is the matter now?"
demanded her surprised mentor
Don't you see?" she exclaimed, de
ightedly. "Of course you don't! Peo-
pie who know lot about a thing often
miss its obvious points l have dis
covered how to write Kiplingese All
you have to do is to tell your story
in Urdu, translate it literally into
English, and there you are!"
Quite so. Just do it as Kipling
does, and the secret is laid bare BY
the same rule you can hit upon the
Miltonic adjective"
Iris tossed her head.
Il don't know anything about the
Miltonic adjective, but I am sure
about Kipling"
This ended the argument She knit
ted her brows in the effort to master
the ridiculous complexities of Ian
guage which, instead of simply saying
Take" or Bring" compels one to
say "Take-go" and "Take-come."
One problem defied solution-that
of providing raiment for Iris. The
united skill of the sailor and herself
would not induce unraveled cordage
to supply the need of thread. 1t was
either too weak or too knotty, and
meanwhile the girls clothes were fall
ling to pieces. jerks tried the fibers
of trees, the sinews of birds-every
possible eXpedient he could hit upon
and perhaps, after experiments cover
ing some weeks, he might have sue
ceeded. But modern dress stuffs, weak
ened by aniline dyes and stiffened
with Chinese clay permit of no such
exhaustive research. 1t must be re-
membered that the lady passengers
on board the Sirdar were dressed to
suit the tropics, and the hard usage
given by Iris to her scanty stock was
never contemplated by the Manches-
ter or Bradford looms responsible for
the durability of the material.
AS the days passed the position be-
came irksome. 1t even threatened com
plete collapse during some critical
moment and the two often silently
surveyed the large number of merely