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Harper's Magazine—Tabloid Edition

BRIGHTON PERRY

Through the Dobrudja with Gun and Camera

THERE was a heavy mist falling as we left Ilanlac, rendering the cozbars (native doblacs) doubly indistinguishable. This was unfortunate, as we had planned on taking many photographs, some of which are reproduced here.

Our party consisted of seven members of the Society: Molwinch, young Houghbotham, Capt. Ramp, and myself, together with fourteen native barbudos (luksni who are under the draft age), a boat's crew, two helpers, and some potted tongue. Lieut. Furbearing, the Society's press-agent, had sailed earlier in the week, and was to join us at Curtea de Argesh.

Before us, as we progressed, lay the Tecuci, shimmering in the reflected light of the sun (sun). They were named by their discoverer, Joao Galatz, after his uncle, whose name was Wurgle, or, as he was known among the natives, "Wurgle". From that time (1808) until 1898, no automobile was ever seen on one of the Tecuci, although many of the inhabitants subsisted entirely on what we call "cottagecheese".

The weevils of this district (Curculionidce) are remarkable for their lack of poise. We saw several of them, just at sundown, when, according to an old native legend, the weevil comes out to defy the God oi Acor, his ancient enemy, and never, not even in Castanheira, have I seen weevils more embarrassed than those upon whom we came suddenly at a bend in the Selch River.

Early morning found us filing up the Buzeu Valley, with the gun-bearers and bus-boys in single-file behind us, and a picturesque lot they were, too, with their lisle socks and queer patch-pockets. In taking a picture of them, I walked backward into the Buzeau River, which delayed the party, as I had, in my bag, the key with which the potted tongue cans were to be opened.

We were fortunate enough to catch several male puffins, which were so ingenuous as to eat the carpet-tacks we offered them. The puffin (Thalassidroma buleverii), is easily distinguishable from the more effete robin of America because the twc birds are similar in no essential points. This makes it convenient for the naturalist, who might otherwise get them mixed. Puffins are hunted principally for their companionable qualities, a domesticated puffin being held the equal—if not quite —of the average Dobrudjan housewife in many respects, such as, for instance, self-respect.

It was late in the afternoon of the third day, when we finally reached Dimbovitza, and the cool llemla was indeed refreshing. It had been, we one and all agreed, a most interesting trip, and we vowed that we should not forget our Three Days in the Dobrudja.

Dead Leaves

"AIN'T you got them dishes done up yet, Irma?"

A petulant voice from what, in Central New England, is called the "sittin' room", penetrated the cool silence of the farm-house kitchen. Irma Hathaway passed her hand heavily before her eyes.

"Yes, Ma," she replied wearily, as she threw a cup at the steel engraving of "The Return of the Mayflower" which hung on the kitchen wall. She wondered when she would die.

A cold wind blew along the corridor which connected the kitchen with the wood-shed. Then, as if disgruntled, it blew back again, like a man returning to his room after a fresh handkerchief. Irma shuddered. It was all so inexplicably depressing.

For eighteen years the sun had never been able to shine in Bemis Corners. God knows it had tried. But there had always been something imponderable, something monstrously bleak, which had thrown itself, like a great cloak, between the warm light of that body and the grim reality of Bemis Comers.

"If Eben had only known," thought Irma, and buried her face in the soapy water.

Someone entered the room from the woodshed, stamping the snow from his boots. She knew, without looking up, that it was Ira.

"Why hev you come?" she said softly, lifting her moist eyes to him. It was not Ira. It was the hired man. She sobbed pitifully and leaped upon the roller-towel which hung on the door, pulling it round and round like a captive squirrel in a revolving cage.

"It ain't no use," she moaned.

And, through the cadavers of the appletrees in the orchard behind the house, there rattled a wind from the sea, the sea to which men go down in ships never to return, telling of sorrow and all that sort of thing.

"Fate," some people call it.

To Irma Hathaway it was all the same.

June, July, August

TULIPS, crocuses and chard, And the wax bean In the back yard. And the open road to the land of dreams, With the heavy swirl Of the singing streams. Oh! boy!

Unpublished Letters of Mark Twain

With a foreword by Albert Bigelow Paine*

FOREWORD

THIS letter from Mark Twain to Mr. Horace J. Borrow of Hartford has recently been called to my attention by a niece of Mr. Borrow's who now lives in Glastonbury. I have no reason to believe that the lady is a charlatan, in fact, I have often heard Mark Twain speak of , Mr. Borrow in the highest terms.

Mr. Horace J. Borrow

Hartford, Connecticut

Dear Mr. Borrow: Enclosed find check for ten dollars ($10) in payment of my annual dues for the year 1891-2.

Yours truly,

(Signed) S. L. CLEMENS.

* The complete works of Mark Twain, with complete forewords by Mr. Paine are, oddly enough, published by Harper and Bros, who, odoly enough, also publish this magazine. We celebrate this coincidence by offering the complete set to our readers on easy and friendly terms.

Highways and By-Ways in Old Fall River

THE chance visitor to Fall River may be said, like the old fisherman in "Bartholomew Fair," to have "seen half the world, without tasting its savour." Wandering down the Main Street, with its clanging trolley-cars and noisy drays, one wonders (as, indeed, one may well wonder), if all this is a manifestation so much of Fall River as it is of that for which Fall River stands.

Frankly, I do not know.

But there is something in the air, something ineffable in the swirl of the smoke from the towering stacks, which sings, to the rhythm of the clashing shuttles and humming looms, of a day when old gentlemen in belted raglans and cloth-topped boots strolled through these streets, bearing with them the legend of mutability. Perhaps "mutability" is too strong a word. Fall Riverians would think so.

And the old Fall River Line! What memories does that name not awaken in the minds of globe-trotters? Or, rather, what memories does it awaken? William Lloyd Garrison is said to have remarked upon one occasion to Benjamin Butler that one of the most grateful features of Fall River was the night-boat for New York. To which Butler is reported to have replied: "But, my dear Lloyd, there is no night-boat to New York, and there won't be until along about 1875 or even later. So your funny crack, in its essential detail, falls fiat."

But, regardless of all this, the fact remains that Fall River is Fall River, and that it is within easy motoring distance of Newport, which offers our art department countless opportunities for charming illustrations.

The Editor's Drawer

LITTLE Bobby, aged five, saying his prayers, had come to that most critical of diplomatic crises: the naming of relatives to be blessed.

"Why don't I ask God to bless Aunt Mabel?" he queried, looking up with a roguish twinkle in his blue eyes.

"But you do, Bobby," answered his mother. "So I do," was his prompt reply.

LITTLE Willie, aged seven, was asked by his teacher to define the word "confuse". "'Confuse' is what my daddy says when he looks at his watch," said Willy. The teacher never asked that question again. At least, not of Willy.

LITTLE Gertrude, aged three, was saying her prayers. "Is God everywhere?" she asked.

"Yes, dear, everywhere," answered her mother.

"Everywhere?" she persisted.

"Yes, dear, everywhere," repeated her mother, all unsuspecting.

"Then He must be like Uncle Ned," said the little tot.

"Why, Gertrude, what makes you say that?"

"Because I heard Daddy say that Uncle Ned was everywhere," was the astounding reply.