The Storyteller.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2407, 23 January 1909, Page 11 (Supplement)

The Storyteller.

LAUGHING’’ EYES—MATCH MAKER: * IK)BALIK (-HELYG-E KJMJ).S" A HEART. • (By Will Irwin.) "J.’m-for honest medhunship,’’ said Rosnlio Grange, trance, test, business. clairvoyant •anil . inspirational medium. “Alonoy you ‘got over and above legitimate fees ain’t right--or proper, and it’s always bitter money ■before your through with it. Lie ? Of course. Tim business is pretty ; near all lie, if yon want to be particular about it. But -where's the harm ? I always -do ’em good .and send ’em nway happy. Everybody practises' deception in this -world of sin, but everybody has to draw the iine somewhere. I draw it on grafting. Ever since I started teliing fortunes by cards, up on Cottage Grove Avenue, in Chicago, that’s been my rule. 1 reconciles families, I reunites fond hearts; and, more’ll all that, 1 heartens ’em up. Suppose con'd tell 'em what was coming to 'em in the future, and did —how would they iee! about it? Would most of ’em -want to go on living? Course not. Hut l tell ’em everything's coining out -ad] right in the end, and they go away cheerful and chirked up to stand their troubles. I declare, .this business may -be a fake, which you and me knows it is nine times out of ten, but if we stick to honest fees for honest readings, -we do more good than all the priests and rabbis and. preachers! It’s only when mediums get grafting that they ought to be

exposed. •‘Why, there was a time—have another cup. 'One lump? I feel jest like telling you about it. -Make yourself comfortable, dear. iSeems when I get started I just have to talk or I’ll 'bust. And they's .’few can task straight to about this business. Xot even professionals, with the sight of exposing that's going on. “I must say that times was never so good for mo as that winter before I was exposed in Brookline. I’d rented Al-rs Hartman’s house at

Brookline for the winter —she'd got a hall in Philadelphia. You know the town. Rich as all get-out, and a right, nice, quiet- place to live in. Ali-s Hartman was fixer! fine. She had one of them, old-time houses, with plain, red, spindly, shiny furniture she’d picked up -all over, and some old portraits that passed for her ancestors. It wasn't- exactly comfortable —for my part, 1 like things fancier and fluffier. A few tidies makes a place look so much more homelike! But Boston, people '.admire that kind of fixings, hud think they’re swell. Airs Hartman had worked that a!! out. She advised me not. to change it. and, though I could '’a? yallied sometimes, it was that bare, 1 took her advice. I seen in time she was right. "Her graft was fine, too. This Was. the way we worked it: •'•Professor -Beach was running ''The Standard Bearer’ in those days, and lie bad his office in Brookline. Kept a. library of psychic and uplifting literature, too; kind of second-hand book store. All of us advertised in ‘The Standard 'Bearer'—Airs Alary Belle Aiartin, in Cambridge, and Alatie Alofineaux, on Colombus Avenue, and -Scars, ' the Slate-Writer —the whole Jot in our brotherhood —biit we didn’t publish no places of business. The advertisements said : ‘For address aud appointments for sittings apply at- this office. So when the sitter bit -and came. Professor Beach —he was travelling -as John P. Quinn then—would be pottering around the old second-hand book store. One

wav or another he’d get ’em looking

through tli© books •and dropping facts. f Sometimes lie could get- fetters and tilings out of their pockets, but be hardly ever bad to do that. He’s the most entertaining talker in the •business, he is. Only safe way to •l/eut Professor Beach’s game when’s lie’s fishing is to wear a ball and chain on your face. By the time they'd gassed a quarter of an hour he’d have the whole story. Then he’d recommend me, or Wears, or iMatie Molineaux, and make an 'appointment for a silting. Of course, soon us the sit-

tor’s back was turned he’d telephone out full personal descriptions and

names and spirits wanted and anything else he’d picked up. With that on new sitters and the Blue Book on old ones, any tool could be a medium. Why, I had hard work keeping the Society for-the Investigation of Spirit Phenomena -from investigating me, I got that famous! ••I was -playing the refined lady, which is the way I like to practice when I can. Emmie -Rose was my student in those days —I made her a good clairvoyant in one year—and then she went out and done me jd-irt —hut that come in later. She’d meet ’em at the door, dressed like a mu id, and collect their two dollars and -ask ’em to wait five minutes. Then she’d pull down'/ the shades in my front parlor, and .L’d set -al the table and throw a shawl over my shoulders and put my hands over my; eyes- and when they come in they'd find mo (Under control ■ and briking in Laugliing-Eyos voice. When, the hour was up Emmie Rose would comev

and take them away, am! I’d still be sitting- with .my; hands on my eyes,, like I was under control. For the line of customers I had in tin «*- days. ;hat is .a splendid scheme. It’s .mys-terious-like, and- appeals to tony people. 'Besides’ they hare to just get up and go when the Four’s up-—curt bother you stopping to ask questions about 'how it feels to be under control. -Now, washerwomen and butchers and such would wather see you throw fits going into control artel have conniptions coming out. It makes 'em think. they get more for their money.

‘•lVelil, along during a. cold spell in February, Professor Beach called me up. ‘Appointment for ten o’clock to-morrow,’ says he, ‘and it ilooks good, but a lot- of -it is blind. Young couple. -Ain't engaged yet—.least, she wears no ring—-but you can see they’re dead- gone on -C-ycli other,’ says he. ‘She’s a plump' brunette, about live-throe, and I’d like, to give her a sitting myself, for she’s lino,’ ■says lie. Professor Beach was always joking. He reeled olf the fid! person-, ail description of 'em both. ‘Hu name’s James P. Wiuton/' says lie. '(lot it out of his curd-case. He’s an electrical engineer. Only one line on her. and that’s a queer one.’ Then Professor Beach told how them two young people had been going over the old books, whispering in corners the way lovers do, and t-lie girl had turned a page oareless-like, and jumped all of a sudden, and said : , “ ‘Well, that’s a sign!’

“Of course, the professor slipped up behind her, and got a look to see wliat made, her act that way. Their eyes were glued on a picture in a book called ‘Prominent Leaders of the Women Movement.’ He said they studied it a long time, and she said: - " -I've got to, dear !’ “And he said: “ 'Hang the New England conscience !’

“Professor Beach said he couldn’t oitch the next, but it sounded like a quarrel, and when they walked out she had, her face turned away from him. and he was holding out his hands like he was begging for her to do something. “Of course, Professor Beach tool: note of that picture, alul he hunted it up the first thing. It- was MisCaroline Seaman Bruce. A oil remember —leader in the woman stiff rage cause. -She’d passed out live years or so before. The professor remembered it because he was doing materialising in Boston while the newspapers were full of her death, and he used to have her spook give lectures to -women from -inside the cabinet. He read through the piece about Caroline Seaman Bruce in that book, and be found only one tiling which sounded like good dope to him. It said that her niece.- ‘little Miss Lav ini a Bruce. whos« recitations had charmed so many woman suffrage meetings, was expected to carry on the work niter Caro'ine was gout'. Said she -was a consecrated' child, till” some old heathen or otlmr consecrated his son to fight the Homans. ‘May he a lead there,' said Professor 'Bench ; ‘but, if I: was you, I’d. go slow and cautious-with it. ’Tain’!, no dead sure tiling that this girl is Miss Lavinia Bruce, but you're safe in getting a- Baviniu in her-aura some place.’ “'Consecrated to the cause,' says I. And I get a notion into my head that just seemed to Mil it. “It’s funny how you get interested in some sitters. Now, love and affection always was my specialty. When they come about mines and lost -wills, sometimes they make me so tired 1. can hard'y keep my Laughing-Eyes voice -going for an hour; and a man with -business troubles is generally fierce. But I’ll go out of my way anytime to mix into a love trouble, even when I ain’t got no 'business- with it. Lift never -as happy as when I’m smoothing the way for two loving young hearts. And this thing got me real curious, especially when the professor told ino what a pretty little tiling she -was. I just galloped downstairs to tell Emmie Bose; and, while we was talking it over, as excited as two fool women can get —and you know how excited that is—-Professor Beach rung, -up on the telephone again. Says the .professor:

“ ‘Found another lead! He left a copy of the “Boston Globe’’ on the counter, and there’s a clipping cut out of it. I just compared it with a whole copy, and found the -piece that was cut out. and - it certainly does look like this was E-avium Bruce.’ And he told me where the piece was to bo found. I rushed down to get my papers—l’d been cutting out obituary notices from ’em that very blessed morning. Emmie Bose and me—we jumped for that piece. It was a notice of a rallly of the Woman Suffrage League, coming off the very next Friday, and it said that -Miss Lavinia- Bruce, who’ll done such good work for the cause in college, was going to give the main talk.

. “1 flew to the '.‘.phono and called up t-ho secretary of the Woman Suffrage League. I put on my lady voice. “ ‘Hello,’ says I. > ‘This -is -Mrs Urnpump, ' of Brookline. -If it’s not impertinent,’ says I, taking care of my

grammar, 'can you til' me ab.ui Miss Bruce, who’s going to speak next Friday 't Tl)ut can't be the littL piece of ' Caroline Seaman Bruce ? you’ll pardon mv. asking: Uvc been abroad so much 1 am but of touch with such matters,’ says I; ‘but -liith Lavinia. was like a daughter to me.’ “ ‘Oh, vos, indeed,’ says the secretary over tho telephone.

“ ‘"Why, tho dear child ! I thought she would Mao married by this time,’ says I.

“ ‘No danger of that, I think,’ says die, kind of icv. “Then I made a 'break. •'“.‘Why?” says I, right out just like that. It slipped out, I was that excited and .curious: And, just as it always goes, ’twasn’t so much what .). said as tho way J said it.

“ ‘Pardon me. hut are you tele/honing from a newspaper ?” says the ice rotary.

“ ‘.Madame! The idea!’ says 1 just the avay liny ilady 'would, and hung up the telephone. When they think you’re from the papers there’s no use going any further with ’em. But I’d got about what I. wanted, anyhow. Enough to go ahead, it 1 used my brains and a little- fishing. “Next- 'morning at breakfast Emmie Rose said to me:

“You're all chirked up and fixed up like you .was waiting for a beau. Your eyes are -bright and you’ve put on your best lace waist.’ And I said :

“‘I wouldn’t talk if I was you, Emmie Bose. You’ve got on. a fresh apron, though it’s Thursday, .-ncl you generally never change until Friday.’ It was true about both of us.

“I was waiting in the front parlor a quarter of an hour-'before the appointment. If they hadn’t come I’d have been real put out. But the bell rang just at ten, and Emmie Bose came in, all excited. “ ‘She’s as pretty as a new penny.’ says Emmie, ‘and he’s blond and tail and lie’s got real nice eyes. I peeked buck through the curtains after they set down. He was holding her hand and just eating her up with his eyes, and she was looking straight ahead, like she was really seeing spirits. J bet she believes, but I can sec lie’s sceptical.’ “ ‘Well, you send ’em in quick!’ says I.

“Of course, I was in trance when they come an, using Laughing-Eyes for control. I’ve got long eyelashes, though 1. do say it, and they’re one of the best poirtts about my mediumship. For. when 1 open my eyes—this way—just far enough to see shadows of people like them pictures ov people cut out of black paper, you can seared!v toil it. As they come in, I chanced one peep. 1 cou!dn‘t make her out plain, hut I took to her. And when Laughing-Eyes says, ‘Good morning!’ and she answered, it Was the nicest, softest .little voice, with n kind of a cry in it. Her doing platform speaking on woman suffrage ! That voice hadn’t no business talking any but gossip and baby 4alk! “Well, they set. And I started in on him. Of course, L was pretty sure of his name and business, and J let that out gradual the first thing. I could tell by the rustle of her skirt — always police when they change position or when they set awful still ; it means something—that Pro lessor Beach got it correct'out of the cardease. Thou I fished with a Frank, and found that an Uncle Frank. That seemed to convince him. because I heard him catch his breath. Then 1 got ho r bare left band- — nearest the heart —to gather her magnetism, and felt particular the ring linger. The professor was right again. There was nothing on it, and I worked right up point. ‘There’s something funny between you two young people, 5 I says. ‘There’s a bond like iron and yet there’s a wall. I seem to see you drawed together, and just when you come very close it’s as if somebody held a veil between you so ,you couldn’t touch each other. And —it ain’t a . spirit draws that veil?’ says I. —LaughingEyes, you .understand. “And they both stopped moving, and it was so still you could ’a’ cut it with a knife. I was dying to Hook through my eyelashes. And then, says Laughing-Eyes: “ ‘.Ain’t there a .spirit of an old lady with grey hair and a full figure, a spirit that had something to do with a lot of talking from the platform ? It seems to mo sho belongs to you, lady. And when she comes I get a .peculiar influence, like there was crowds of people before her, and all women. (Seems dike there’s women everywhere in her aura. I sense a kind, stern nature, that" -would do 'for people and never caress ’em/ and then I stopped.. “And you could hear her silk skirts (T-o when she leaned forward and said: *=

“‘Yes —yes!’ “Ho wasn’t moving an inch. I might ’-a’ (been in the room alono with her. And I said, knowing I had it going:

“ ‘That spirit is just struggling with me to -get control of my medic—’ and here I made Laughing-Eyes chatter Indian, like I always do when I want her to seem mixed up. But' Laughing-Eyes hold the fort. “ "I get ;>• “C,” tays Laughing Eyes, ‘and then an “A,” and then —ain’t the namo Caroline ?’ ‘lt is,’ says the girl' in a whisper, ‘And it seems dike the Hast name was the same as yours,’ says I—-Laughing-Eyes. “There’s an influence fiom

ymir father's side —’ and right there I lnul to stop and plan for a second. Was her father in tho spirit? I done sonic quick thinking, and I seen he must: be., For, if 'Onrolino Seaman Bruce brought’'her up, her folks must ’a.’ boon /passed out, .and tho family name being tho Same, Lavinia’s father must have - been brother to Caroline. No matter how carefully von pill lit a Case, sometimes you never think.of the best things until tho sitter is right in front of you. So Laughing-Eyes said :

“ iSlio’s happy in. spirit with 'ii middle-aged man, not very tall, ws.o says that he brings /a parent’s influence to you and a. brother’s toiler.’ Of course, bo wouldn't likely ‘ have been a very did man when he died, and his daughter being short, it wasn’t ilikely ho was tail. “Well; they set so still that I had to peek through my eyelashes.. She was leaning forward, with her hands clasped, looking at mo, and M;r Wanton was leaning back, 'looking at her steady. I knew almost for certain that I was on the right path. So Laughing-Eyes went right to the point: “ ‘Caroline’s sorry about something. Oaro'iiio says she made a great mistake in the flesh and she’s been influencing you to chance —o-oli! Caroline wants me to go away. She wan'tp my medio.’ And then I done the regular jerks for changing control and put on a platform voice like a woman suffrage leader must have, and I says —I was Caroline Seaman Bruce now —it was risky, but I tried it:

“ ‘Dear Lavinia,’ says I, ‘many tilings have been made clear to me; since I passed out. When J. made you promise that you would never marry, but wo-uld devote yourself to the cause of woman, I was using iny earth sense, not my spirit sense. The cause of woman will triumph, but there are other leaders moro fitted. Have you not felt me trying to influence you? I know that you will best serve the cause as wife and mother,’ I says. ‘lf you feed called, follow the call, dear one.’ And then, for fear she’d asii embarrassing questions, I threw a conniption again, and had LaughingEyes come right back. ' “Mr Win ton was holding both her hands.

“ ‘Caroline’s gone!’ says LaughingEyes. “Then I put my foot on the pushbell. That was the regular signal to Emmie Bose, out in the- kitchen, that she was to..como and break up the sitting. Miss Bruce wanted to hear more, but Emmie felt my head and wrists and said that they were cold, which meant the control was passing, and would they please leave. “A minute afterward, when 1 was pulling myself together—l was just limp—Emmie come running in. “‘They’re hugging each other in the parlor!’ says Emmie. All of a sudden she clapped her hands over her -mouth.

“ ‘My/ she says, ‘l’ve got to go in there. T 'forgot to collect their two dollars!’

“ ‘Emily Maude Rose/ says I, “if you disturb them young people now, two dollars or no two dollars, I’ll never speak t-o you again as long as I live!’

“I didn’t lose nothing by it; and I'll say that Lavinia Bruce gob no fool for a husband. It was about a week later that James P. Winton came into the ‘Standard Bearer’ office alone. Ho didn’t seem to have no business there: just wandered around and talked about things in general. But when ho went over and took down ‘Prominent Leaders of the Woman Movement/ the professor .got an awful turn. Mr Wint-on put it back on the slick after a while, and when he wandered out ho said: “ ‘You’d best look into that book before you sell it.’ Of course, the professor looked as soon as lliis back was turned. !n front of the 'picture of Mrs Bruce was a letter addressed to Laughing-Eyes. “Inside was a cheque for fifty dollars, drawed to the order of L’rugh-ing-Eyes, or Rosalie Lo Grange, and a slip of that said: ‘Much obliged!’ ’’