monument over
his bones in the park, on the high bluff there, now commands one of the
noblest views in the world, a great lake formed in the Mississippi River
by a dam which is as beautiful as if the Greeks had built it. It was, in
fact, built by a thousand Greeks who camped there for years. As an
engineering achievement it rivals the Assouan dam and as a manufacturer
of electricity it is a second to Niagara Falls. But it has not yet
materially disturbed the rural quality of the country.

The scenery thereabout is very beautiful, but I guarantee you against
landscape in these stories. I cannot, however, guarantee that the
stories are even based on fact. Yet I hope that they are truth.

The characters are limited to a small neighborhood, but if they are not
also faithful to humanity in general, then, as we would say out there,
"I miss my guess."

RUPERT HUGHES.

IN A LITTLE TOWN

DON'T YOU CARE!

I

When she was told it was a girl, Mrs. Govers sighed. "Well, I never did
have any luck, anyway; so I d' know's I'm supprised."

Later she wept feebly:

"Girls are easier to raise, I suppose; but I kind of had my heart set on
namin' him Launcelot." After another interval she rallied to a smile: "I
was prepared for the worst, though; so I picked out Ellaphine for a name
in case he was a her. It's an awful pirty name, Ellaphine is. Don't you
think so?"

"Yes, yes," said the nurse, who would have agreed to anything then.

After a time Mrs. Govers resumed: "She'll be an awful pirty girl, I
hope. Is that her makin' all that noise? Give me a glimpse of her, will
you? I got a right, I guess, to see my own baby. Oh, Goshen! Is that
how she looks?" A kind of swoon; then more meditation, followed by a
courageous philosophy: "Children always look funny at first. She'll
outgrow it, I expect. Ellaphine is such an elegant name. It ought to be
a kind of inducement to grow up to. Don't you think so?"

The nurse, who was juggling the baby as if it were red-hot, mumbled
through a mustache of safety-pins that she thought so. Mrs. Govers
echoed, "I thought so, too." After that she went to sleep.

Ellaphine, however, did not grow up elegant, to fit the name. The name
grew inelegant to fit her. During her earliest years the witty little
children called her Elephant until they tired of the ingenuity and
allowed her to lapse indolently from Ellar to El.

Mrs. Govers