Stories from Everybodys Magazine, 1910 | Page 9

don't know about visions. Just tell them that you're going home and NOTHING ELSE."
This advice, followed to the letter, produced no little agitation at the breakfast table. Jennie simply announced her intention of immediate departure; all questions as to her health, happiness, and possible reasons were met only with a parrot-like repetition of the fact. Upon closer pressing she gave way to hysterical tears, Dorothea the while assisting the scene with round, innocent eyes and the bewildered air of one suddenly made aware of an impending event.
The solution was presently found by a sympathetic and consoling circle--the child was homesick; she wanted her mother. Assuredly that explained everything. The lure of sails and picnics having failed, Dorothea's mother came to a decision with sympathetic tears in her eyes and a glance toward her own innocent. "She shall take the first train home if she wants to. The child sha'n't be miserable. No, don't urge her, Bob. I was homesick myself once, and I understand perfectly."
Dorothea reposed in the shade of the bulkhead, sand on her person and a great peace in her heart, upon which the Monster, departing, had left no scar. Under her head was the Godey's Lady's Book, in which, over the picture of a brocaded pelisse, she had recently finished a poem in which "lover" rhymed-- with "forever." Amiel, cross-legged on the sand beside her, was whistling gently as he industriously whittled at a bit of driftwood, little suspecting that at the moment he was taking tea in a bower with Lady Ursula.
Presently he drew a letter from his pocket and flipped it over to Dorothea. "Your mother asked me to give you this," he said. "She thought it might be from that pretty little friend of yours."
Dorothea opened the letter with some trepidation. Presently a bland smile over- spread her countenance. The day of reckoning that she expected to dawn upon her next meeting with her victim melted cloud-like as she read:
Dear Dorothea:
I arrived home safely. It's just as well I did, because my aunt was waiting to take me to Lake George, but you made a mistake in the vision. It wasn't my mother. It was Mrs. Gray across the street and hers is a boy, but I think that was very near.
I think the vision was perfectly wonderful, but I am glad I don't have them. My mother says I can come again later if your mother wants me. I didn't tell her why I came home, because she doesn't believe in them either.
She presented her love to several people and added in a postscript, "Let me know at Lake George if you have another."
Dorothea tore the letter into minute scraps and gave them over to the sea breeze.
"Well," queried Amiel idly, "what does she say?"
"She says she arrived safely," said Dorothea.

***************************************************************** Vol. XXIII No.1 JULY 1910
{pages 44-55} THE GOLD BRICK AND THE GOLD MINE
Fake Mining Schemes that Steal the People's Savings
By EMERSON HOUGH
Author of "The Mississippi Bubble," "54-40 or Fight," etc.
EDITOR'S NOTE.--It is time vigorous efforts were made to stop the cruel frauds perpetrated on the name of one of the world's greatest industries. Mining is a legitimate and honorable enterprise. It contributes immensely to the national wealth. It has been the source of some of our great fortunes. Because there is something magical in the suggestion of gold or coal or copper taken out of the ground, sharpers have made mining an instrument of successful deception. They have tricked people into investing their savings in worthless or even non-existent mines. Perhaps you who read this have bitten at an advertisement in a reputable publication, which pretended to place the wealth of some western El Dorado at your feet for a few hundred dollars. Doubtless your money has disappeared. It is for the purpose of giving you the protection of a knowledge both of legitimate mining and of the ways of thieves that this article is published.
AMERICA is the land of the free and the country of opportunity for all. Incidentally, it is free hunting-ground for sharpers, and a land of opportunity for the unscrupulous. No such chances for fraudulent business exist anywhere else in the world. Americans are the richest people on earth, and the most easily parted from their money. Those whose sole ambition is to get rich quick very frequently help some other man to get rich quick. Society owes no debt to either of these. It is obliged to support them both. This is wrong both as a moral and as an industrial proposition. Once, a dollar was spent to mine a dollar. To-day two are spent: One dollar goes into blasting powder, the other into advertising and office furniture.
No doubt you have heard the age-old legend of the Mother Vein of Gold, which appears and vanishes, now and