Judge — December 8, 1917 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HORSE POWER store. He had been so engaged for several years. He a bachelor, and lived in the back end of his place of business. John was the sort of person of which there are many: he could easily and gracefully drop into a rut and follow it to the end. He had such a steadfast disposition it is a wonder he never married, but that has nothing to do with thi Any person acquainted with Holmes and his habits and his store could, with a certain amount of assurance, remark in a clairvoyant sort of a way at five o’clock any morning in the “Well, at this minute John, over at the store, is pulling on his gaiter shoes. Now I can see him rising from the chair, yawning aloud, winding his watch and dragging his feet sleepily toward the water bucket and wash-pan in one corner of the room.” And thus one might mentally trail him step by step, through the various little duties in- cident to a bachelor’s self-conducted breakfast. Immediately following this meal, there was always the picking of the teeth with his goose-quill pick, and the lighting of his pipe, and the unlocking of the front door for the day's business. With this mechani- ally executed he was due next to jam both hands down into his pockets, saunter over to the large front win- dows, and through the glass look out upon a day that had come new and fresh and clean from over the hills to the east. And now, as he did this, morning after morning, Holmes began to notice, by degrees, that the world outside not as bright as it used to be; the fresh morning sunlight was still mysterious and inspiring, but the miles of perspective that stretched in front of the store appeared to have Jise: HOLMES ran a country Ry GEORGE Banishing the Gloom ascum over it. Moreover, he observed that the people who came toward his place of business over the road that wound among the hills were blurred and indistinct, and sometimes he must wait until they came near to make them out. Now, he knew that this was not the regular way for these persons to look. He knew there really were no blurred or dim people in the world. No, the trouble lay near—in his ¢: And as it was his eyes, who should be blamed? Was he not more than fifty years of age? He was, and here came treacher- ous senility creeping up on and over him without one ache or pain or warning. Here it came, settling in his eyes instead of in his limbs or in his mind, or on the hairs of his head. He bought a pair of spectacles. He wore them, but they helped none; things continued to look blurred and indistinct cach morning. Then he ceased his visits to the front windows. Instead, he sat toward the rear of the store, where the gloom of the low ling might serv protection to his ey And came morning which, while thus seated, he observed a scrap of paper on the floor, and one line on it stood out bolder than the rest, and he read: “Some of us never think, and let BINGHAM on our minds go to seed.” That line caused Holmes to begin to think, and as he sat there and thought, suddenly he raised from his chair, and a grin spread over his face. Something had entered his mind! He had thought of something that he must do! Then he rubbed his slapped his hands ainst his knees, and shouted: ‘*Who said I was getting old? My eyes are all right!” ‘Then he washed the front windows. MAN POWER comicbookssgom