James Whitcomb Rile 'HE members of the Boston Commercial Club charming gentlemen. They are now the guest the Chicago Commercial Club, and are being shown e attention that our market affords. They are a fine-l ing lot, well-dressed and well-mannered, with just end whiskers to be impressive without being imposing. "This is a darned likely village," said Seth Adams evening. "Everybody is rushin' 'round an' doin' busi as if his life depended on it. Should think they'd git tuckered out 'fore night, but I'll be darned if there just as many folks on the street after nightfall as a We're stoppin' at the Palmer tavern; an' my chambe up so all-fired high, that I can count all your meetin'-h steeples from the winder." Last night five or six of these Boston merchants around the office of the hotel, and discussed matters things. Pretty soon they got to talking about beans: was the subject which they dwelt on with evident pleasu "Waal, sir," said Ephraim Taft, a wholesale deale maple-sugar and flavoured lozenges, "you kin talk ' your new-fashioned dishes an' high-falutin' vittles; when you come right down to it, there ain't no be eatin' than a dish o' baked pork 'n' beans." thinkin', up comes the girl to git a clean tablecloth out of the clothes-press, an' she left the door ajar as she come in. Bill he gave a sniff, an' his eyes grew more natural like: he gathered together all the strength he had, and he raised himself up on one elbow, and sniffed again. 666 666 'Sary,' says he, 'wot's that a-cookin'?' 'Beans,' says she; 'beans for dinner.' 'Sary,' says the dyin' man, 'I must hev a plate uv them beans!' "Sakes alive, Mr. Holbrook!' says she; 'if you wuz to eat any o' them beans, it'd kill ye!' "If I've got to die,' says he, 'I'm goin' to die happy : fetch me a plate uv them beans.' "Wall, Sary she pikes off to the doctors. ""Look a-here,' says she; 'Mr. Holbrook smelt the beans cookin', an' he says he's got to have a plate uv 'em. Now, what shall I do about it?' "Waal, doctor,' says Dock Smith, 'what do you think 'bout it?' "He's got to die anyhow,' says Dock Brainerd; 'an' I don't suppose the beans'll make any diff'rence.' "That's the way I figger it,' says Dock Smith; 'in all my practice I never knew of beans hurtin' anybody.' "So Sary went down to the kitchen, an' brought up a plateful of hot baked beans. Dock Smith raised Bill up in bed, an' Dock Brainerd put a piller under the small of Bill's back. Then Sary sat down by the bed, an' fed them beans into Bill until Bill couldn't hold any more. "How air you feelin' now?' asked Dock Smith. "Bill didn't say nuthin': he jest smiled sort uv peaceful like, an' closed his eyes. "The end hez come,' said Dock Brainerd sof'ly; 'Bill is dyin'.' "Then Bill murmured kind o' far-away like (as if he was dreamin'), 'I ain't dyin': I'm dead an' in heaven.' "Next mornin' Bill got out uv bed, an' done day's work on the farm, an' he hain't hed a sick since. Them beans cured him! I tell you, sir, beans is," etc. Eugene Fi THE NICE PEOPLE. "THEY certainly are nice people," I assented t wife's observation, using the colloquial phrase a consciousness that it was anything but "nice" En "and I'll bet that their three children are better br up than most of" "Two children,” corrected my wife. 66 Three, he told me." "My dear, she said there were two." "He said three." "You've simply forgotten. had only two-a boy and a girl." I'm sure she told me "Well, I didn't enter into particulars." "No dear, and you couldn't have understood him. children." "All right," I said; but I did not think it was all As a near-sighted man learns by enforced observatio recognise persons at a distance when the face is not v to the normal eye, so the man with a bad memory le almost unconsciously, to listen carefully and report rately. My memory is bad; but I had not had tim forget that Mr. Brewster Brede had told me that after that he had three children, at present left in the care o mother-in-law, while he and Mrs. Brede took their sur vacation. "Two children," repeated my wife; "and they are st with his aunt Jenny." |