Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1884 — Page 6

THE GODMOTHER'S GIFT. Beside the baby’s cradle She sat the*whole night long. To lay upon his little lips The kisses six of Song. “This is the kiss shall make him long To drink,” she softly sighed, “The fount of Beauty with the thirst That ne'er is satisfied. “This is the kiss shall ope the ey® And stimulate the brain To see what ethers never saw, And be can ne’er attain. “This is the kiss shall chann his lips So that his whole life long There honey-bees of thonght shall hive The stinging sweets of Song. “And here the kiss of Wandering I print on feet and breast, That he may for possession have Desire and unrest. “And this shairbe the kiss of Love, His life to consecrate To her that shall be lest too soon. Or be found out too late. “These are the kisses five I give My baby in his sleep; The sixth; the sacredest of all, A little while 1 keep. “And he shall never know, or, known. It never shall he told. Which sweeter is—'he kiss I give, Or the kiss that I withhold.” — G. T. Lanigan, in Harper’* Magazine,

“FAINT HEART NE'ER WON FAIR LADY”

“A hat of last year’s fashion!” “But her eyes were like gray stars.” “And her manner dreadfully quick and decided.” *■ “Bright and sparkling, I should call it.” “My dear Richard, you are really absurd. The girl is a hospi-ial nurse, and what woman with any refinement or delicacy would take up such a profession as that ? It shows she can’t be nice. ” “Ladies do such things nowadays”— less defiantly. “Now you know you’re only sating so because she’s pretty. Of course, ladies do queer things nowadays, but that doesn’t excuse an unwomanly feeling, Besides, she is only a solicitor’s daughter. I shan’t ask mamma to call.” “But don’t you think common civility— •" “No, I don’t. She’s only staying at the rectory, and we’re not forced to call on every one’s friends. Besides, Capt. Chadwick is expected home, and it would make it awkward. What would one of Lord Belmont’s people say if we asked them to meet a girl like Miss Travers ?” “All the same, she’s as pretty and ladylike as any one I ever met in these parts.” “Very likely, but she’s not in our set. Now, Richard, if you say any more I shall begin think you’re falling in love with herj-'#4fte idea is not too absurd. ” voices, aifd was bSlf way across the wide lawhfwifcjbl ilsibriliianfc parterres of summer flowera. Richard Al- • lerdyce! oifly son of tire richest banker" in Chellowdeap, people of good family, but with just,thatuncertainty of social position which made them afraid of overstepping .any boundaries, ’lather gratifiedop. ititimato terms with Lordßelmdh't and the Hardwickes, he was of divided „mind this summ exafternoon.' He had been greatly taken by that sweet face and slight figure in the rectory pew last Sunday; was sensible of a thrill of more than civil interest when he met their owner walking home with the good old rector after service, and was introduced to “Miss Travers,” while the eyes “like gray stars” were suddenly raised to his; and he had ever since that time spent a larger portion of his time than was strictly needful in walking past the rectory’s rose-tovered garden gate. But, on the other side, his sisters’ words had certainly struck lxome. Brought up, as all the Allerdyces were, like hothouse plants, sheltered from every breath of frosty air, it was not strange that Richard at 25, though a big, burly enough young Englishman to look at, was but little of a man in mind or heart. Knowledge of the world had been carefully kept from liim, as from his sisters, lest they learn evil; but their very ignorance had, cost them the loss of power to ■choose between evil and good, and had given them weak prejudices and conceited opinionativeness, instead of a mind abld to discern and prefer the right.

Richard’s handsome face was overcast as he swung out of the lodge gates and down the road. Miss Travers a hospital nurse! certainly it was a shock. Not only did it seem to him unwomanly for a woman to work at all, but infinitely more so to do menial work. And then the awful thought of what his mother and sisters would say, were they asked to receive a hospital nurse as his future wife! For it had gone as far as that, in Richard’s susceptible mind, eygjj. ip these three short days. All at once his thoughts broke off, as Miss Travers herself, sweet and bright as ever, in her black dress, came out from the rectory gate, the great rectory mastiff pacing behind her. Now, Richard’s own collie was at his master’s heels, and there u*as a border feud of l<9og standing hfetwdSn these two faithful followers. There was one angry growl, a heavy rush) a thud, and then a broiHSbSclkrAufa W|elfc>dlled together . ifi nl&iher siig-' gqptive of a 4ogk.,luheral on,one side or the other.- Riehaf d,*yfho was actually staggered suddenness of it all, could not for a moment regain his senses; and wlnjn lie did, it waa to find Miss Trayers, both white hands, looked in the hair of R olio’s shaggy neck, pulling him from his foe with all her strength, and calling to “Mr. Aller•dyce” to “take hold of his deg and pull him off.” She was being whirled round in the cloud of dust by the frantic waltzers before Richard could quite settle where to “take hold,” but that task was performed for him by a gentleman in tweed knickerbockers, who started out of the ■“White Hart," a few rods away, and ran to the rescue. Between Miss Travers and himself the waltzers w ere separated, each carrying away a few fragments of the other’s person; and Miss Traverse, flushed, panting, covered with dost, but looking lovelier than Richard had ever seen woman

look before, sank back against the rec--tory wall and tried to laugh. The stranger lifted his hat, looking straight at her with a pak of piercing brown eyes. . j “Excuse me, Miss Travers,” he said, in rather an off-hand manner, “but that was about as rash a thing as any one could possibly do. The dogs might both have turned on you and bitten you badly.” “Thank you, Capt. Hardwicke, I had not the least fear,” was her response, given with a little haughtiness; and the gentleman, with a nod to Richard, turned and strode away as rapidly as he had come. “Miss Travers! are you hurt?” Richard was able to articulate at last. “You never should have done a. thing like that. Hardwicke was right; it was awfully rash! By the way, you know Hardwicke ?” “No, I’m not hurt a bit.” The wonderful gray eyes were dancing with fun now. “Don’t scold me, please. I know it was a silly thing to do, but I didn’t stop to think. Pray don’t look so hor- ’ rifled!”

“But if you had been bitten?” “Well, I wasn’t.” And her face dimpled a friendly smile at his shocked look. “But you know Hardwicke?” he persisted, unable to get over his surprise in that quarter. “Oh, yes.” Her face grew cold instantly. “Capt. Hardwicke was in hospital with an accident some months ago —my hospital. I had charge of him there, that’s all.” And she pulled a rose so sharply from the hedge that it fell to pieces in her hands. “Look there!” she laughed, showex*ing the petals on the ground before her; “let us cover over the battle-field with flowers,” and she laughed again. Richard went home more thoughtful than ever. Surely this woman was a thing in his experience of men and manners. She acted with the skill and dai’ing of a man; and yet he would rather not think what his sisters’ faces would be like had they but seen it. Was it actually ladylike ?or should she not rather have fled from the scene of conflict, or even have screamed and fainted ? To be sure, she had looked as beautiful as an avenging Amazon; but was it quite correct conduct for a girl ? And Capt. Hardwicke’s manner, so abrupt and dictatorial; he seemed to show her the difference in social position between a nobleman’s nephew and a hosjiital nur&e. It must have been an awkward meeting, as his sisters had said. And then a cold shiver came over him, as he thought of Miss Travers introduced as Mrs. Richard Allerdyce at Belmont castle, and Capt. Hardwicke’s stony stare of surprise. And yet—and she was so beautiful. ‘. Nearly three weeks since the dog *<£pisode, and Richard’s courage still wavered in the balance. He had grown tij know Miss Travers well in those three weeks, and to know her well was but to love her better. There never wa4 a woman so sweet, so clever, so sympathetic, so beautiful—he was certain of that—no woman he more ardently longed to have for his own; and yet—and yet I That terrible strength of character, that profession, .that lack of pedigree! Only last night, in the moonlit rectory garden, he “had almost flung all prudence to the winds, she had been so dangerously, fatally sweet (she was always especially kind to him), but he reeled back from the gulf just in time when she mentioned casually, without a change of voice or coxxntenance, that she had an uncle who was a chemist in Rochester. “A chemist! Shades of my ancestors, protect me!” Richard recoiled again as he thought of it, and fancied Hardwicke’s look if he could have heard her. For Capt. Hardwicke was still at the “White Hart,” and perhaps his presence, and the atmosphere of exalted society about him, had been one of Richard’s restraining though unconscious influences. Now, as he slowly worked his way up the steepest hill in the neighborhood, on his new tricycle, he was pondering the old question in his mind. Could he take the fatal plunge, or was it too costly ? A trim, graceful figure on the road before him. as at last he gained the summit, drove all else to the four winds; and in an instant he had overtaken the object of his cogitations, and sprung to the ground beside her. “Mr. Allerdyce!” she said, turning with her own bright look to shake hands; “how like a ghost you stole upon me! Oh, I see, it was on a tricycle, and what a beauty! Do let me look at it.” Aud Richard, nothing loath, began to display his new toy—a perfect thing in build and finish—the Allerdyces’ possessions always were the most perfect of their kind.

He began to explain it to her, forgetting all about the chemist uncle, but she interrupted him. “Yes; I know all about them, thanks. I see, it is a regular bit of perfection. I should scf'like to try it; may I?” Once more Richard was dumb with surprise. Ar iady on a tricycle was as J r et an tmheard-of thing in rustic Chelowdeap, and wt seemed an outrageous idea to him. gT . f r: I “I regally don’t 'think you coulcg*’ he faltered. “My sisters have never done such a tiding,” « “YoUr listers? Oh, perhaps not!” with a liraeismile at the idea. “Rut I am quite used to tricycles. I ride one whenetepßcmi gqta chiqqq.” . Further blow Jfcch|^/‘but thqre was no! now to refuse her, and he stopd.. aside. She took her * place like onb who was thoroughly used to trieyclts,' and he could not but admit she adorned her position. “What a delicious hill to run down!” she Baid, with a hajjpy little laugh, as she placed her dainty feet on the treadles. “I really must try it.” “Pray, pray don’t'attempt it!” was Richard’s horrified remonstrance, for the hill stretched down even more abruptly than on the side he had ascended, and near the bpitpm there was a sudden sharp turns with the railway line running just below—the nastiest bit of [oad for miles around. Perhaps even Agatha Travers would have hesitated to hazard it had it not been for the consternation in Richard's face. “Mp, Allerdyce, you are fainthearted, ” she said gayly, as she started on her downward course—a little more

rapidly than she had at first intended, bnt Richard’s new tricycle ran smoothly. His heart was in his month, as the country folk say, as she began to glide rapidly off. She turned her head, and flashed back a merry defiance. “My nncle, the chemist at Rochester, used to say ” Then the wicked sparkle faded suddenly, and she called quick and clear: “ Can you stop me, please ? The brake is stiff; I can’t make it work; it’s running away.” Poor Richard of the faint heart! It seemed to die within him. The next second she darted forward, but it was just one second too late. The check she had been able to put on the heavy machine with the treadles ceased to keep it back, and faster and faster it tore down the perilous road. In all his life to come Richard will never know any minute so long as that next, while the straight, slight figure flying through space seemed to swim before his eyes, and his knees knocked 1 together as he stood. On, on—faster, faster! She managed somehow to cling to the steering handle and keep the machine in the middle o; the road, but the mad pace grew more desperate. She could never turn that fatal corner by the railway embankment; over it she must go. And it was just then that Richard and she, both together ■ saw the puff of snowwhite smoke from the hill-side, that told them the evening express was out of the tunnel, and thundering down that very bit of line. It all flashed over Agatha in one rush; would the fall kill her, or would it be the train? It must be one or the other; the next second or two would settle that; and a swift prayer was on her lips, but what she never quite knew, for even as she breathed it, some one or something in brown tweed knickerbockers, hixrled itself over the roadside stile before her, a stout stick darted into the flying wlieel, and with one quick swerve the tricycle crashed into the ditch, and lay there, a confused mass of spinning spokes an I mutilated tires, while Agatha flew out from its midst like a ball, and alighted on a grassy bank a yard or two away; and the express rushed past with a wild yell on the line just below, and vanished round a sharp curve that matched the road above it.

Then, and then alone, did Richard’s legs regain their power of motion, and he set off as fast as they could carry him to where the little black figure lay. Somehow it took longer to run down that hill than the last descent would have led one to think, for when Richard, panting and breathless, reached the scene of the accident, the little black figure, very much out of its usual trim neatness, was seated on the grassy tangle that broke her fall, busily binding up with her own small handkerchief a deep gash in the hand of the knickerbockered person who knelt at her side. It was a very pale face that looked up at Richard’s, with the sort of awe that any human creature must wear who has just been face to face with death, but her great grey eyes had a wonderful flushing light in them. “The poor tricycle!”-she said; “I am So sorry. Is it very badly hurt ?” And, in the fervor and relief of his gladness, Richard could find words for nothing but: “Bother the tricycle!” He was ready enough to say something, however, presently, when he found himself obliged to stop and see its remains decently cared for, while Capt. Hardwicke took charge of Miss Travers’ return to the rectory. She said she was none the worse for her fall, but perhaps she was a little shaken; but Capt. Hardwicke kindly offered her his arm, and she took it. Richard hurried after them beford long, his whole heart aglow. That awful minute this afternoon had taught him that life without Agatha Travers would seem a poor and worthless thing, were she a factory girl. He hurried after them, therefore, and came in sight olj the rectory gate as two hands, one very neatly bandaged, unclasped over it, anil a small dark head raised itself swiftly from a brown tweed shoulder, where it seemed to have been resting. “Good gracious!” was all Richard could utter, as Agatha vanished, and Capt. Hardwicke, looking odiously radiant, sauntered toward him. “Ah, Allerdyce, old fellow, caught us, have you? Then I may as well tell you all my tremendous good luck at once, and take your congratulations. Perhaps you’ve heard how Miss Travers’ nursing saved my life last year, and when, of course, I fell in love with her, as who wouldn’t? She would have it it was only gratitude, and refused to let me make what she called a mesalliance, just because there’s that brute of a title coming to me some day. I told her I thought all that rubbish wa.<j obsolete, and offered to drop the title altogether if she liked; but nothing would do, and we parted rather out of tempers. I heard she was down here, and ran down to see my uncle, hoping he would talk her over, but I began tq think it was n<r use. And, do yoff know, I was frantically jealous of you, old fellow ! I saw she lilted you, and h almost believe you could-Lave cut me out early in the day, if you’d had the pluck to try, she was so set against me.' But to-day she made it all right, and she < thinks I’ve .saved her life this time; %o we re quits. Well, old man, am I not the luckiest man alive ?” “But—-but—” stammered the wretched ;Richard, “surely, her family!” “She’s an orphan. Oh, I see what you mean; she told me she had been shocking you with an uncle who’s a chemist, or a butcher, or goodness knows what. Bah! I should think the mere fact of being a hospital nurse was a patent of nobility to any woman. But if my little girl were a beggar-maiden •he would still be a real princess. God bless her !” Apd Richard’s groan may have been an assent.— Cassell’s Family Magazine. It is all nonsense trying to excuse yourself for wrongs done willfully and with malice aforethought. You say if this hid not happened then you would have been all right. There is an old saying, “If my aunt had been a man she would have been my uncle.” By the errors of others, the wise man corrects his own.

Astonished.

“Ugh! short gun—my father shoot me —hurt nobody. ” This was the way a young Indian expressed his contempt for the white man’s pistol, as he stood watching its owner cleaning it. Years ago when the Winnebagoes threatened to capture the Government property on the treaty ground, and go on the war-path, an officer of the War Department went among them to confer with Chief Four Legs and assist Gov. Cass in keeping the peace. The threatened insurrection was prevented by a mere quiet show of power—and the pistol, which the officer in a moment of leisure was cleaning, was one of the first incidents. The officer replied to the disdainful remark of the young Indian by saying to his interpreter, “Tell him if fie wants to knew what these ‘short guns’ can do, to just go across Fox River and stand there, and h« can have a hole made through him in a minute.” The Indian declined this polite proposal, but seeing by his manner that he still believed the “short'gun” could “hurt nobody,“ Col, McKenney felt that he must do something to prove its quality, or lose his prestige in the coming council. He directed his servant to stick up a bit of bark, at a fair distance, and then calling attention through the’interpreter to what he was going to do, took deliberate aim and Sited. The bark fell. The Indian ran and picked it up, but seeing no mark,laughed at the Colonel and his pistol. The bullet was no larger than a buck-shot, and the elastic filaments on the inner side of the bark had closed over the hole it had made. “Look on the other side,” said the Colonel. The Indian turned the bark over, and uttered an exclamation of surprise. He •poked a stick through the bullet-hole, and then he wanted to hoi-row the pistol to look at. His contempt had suddenly changed to profound respect. Seeing aD old Indian fumbling with his flint and steel and piece of punk, trying to make a fire to light his pipe, the Colonel told the interpreter to say he would save him the trouble. “Tell him I’ll bring down fire from the sun to light his pipe with.” 1 The old Indian looked at the officer and shook his head, with a grunt of incredulity. The Colonel went to him, and drawing a burning-glass from his pocket, held it concealed in his hand over the tobacco in the pipe. The focal rays soon did their work. “Smoke,” said the Colonel. The old Indian suftked through the Stem, and very soon the smoke filled his mouth. He puffed it out, and then stopped and looked first at the white man, then up at the sun, then down at his pipe, with an expression on his face of pefect awe and amazement. Apparently lie half suspected the White chief to be Manitou himself. The favorable impression was made complete when, a few days after, on the treaty-ground, and: just previous to holding the council, trial was made of a six-pounder field-piece on the shore of Lake Winnebago. An empty barrel was anchored at a distance of about a quarter of a mile, and several of the army gunners fired and missed it. But the heavy report of the cannon was sufficiently effective to. quiet the Indians, and they noticed little else till Col. MeKenney aimed and sighted the piece himself. He fired and shivered the bai'rel to atoms. After that it was an easy matter to make terms with the Winnebagoes, and the Colonel long continued to be known among them as the “Big Fire-maker.”

Northern and Southern Animosities.

At a dinner given during the General Episcopal Convention, where the principal lay members of that church from the South and North met, a good many pathetic stories of the late war were told, and many, that despite their background of horror, were comic enough. Among them were the following: A Pennsylvania regiment found in the ruins of a farm-house which had been razed to the ground, a child 2 years old. His parents had either been killed, or had forgotten him in their flight. The regimeht adopted “Little Rebel,” as they called him, and carried him with them for a month. Then he was sent to an Orphanage in Pittsburgh. He is now a sturdy young fellow of 22, but he still claims the regiment as his father and family. A young private soldier in an Ohio regiment was mortally wounded at Manassas. He managed to creep into a neighboring farm-house, in which were but two women, the men of the family all being in the Southern army. The women nursed him tenderly for the few hours that he lived, and when he was dead, with the help of the colored people, they buried him in the orchard. They had no clew to his name except that under his jacket they found a wellwar a little New Testament wet with his blood, on the fly-leaf of which was written in a round, school-boy hand, “This is the. book of Hammer-and-Tongs, from his mother.” The name of a little village in was scrawled beneath. Knowing how priceless such a relic would be to his mother, these tenderhearted women resolved to try to find her, and sent a letter, as soon as the blockade was raised, to the Ohio town, addressed to “The mother of tlammer-and-Tongs.” The boy was well known by that name, in the village, and the letter soon reached his mother. She made a pilgrimage to Virginia, and ‘found the women who had been kind to her boy. Since the war they have continued faithful and true friends. It is curious to note in how many instances strong friendships and even paarriages between Southerners and Northerners have grown out of the close fcontact of the war. Many amusing stories were told of the mistakes made by the clerks, tradesmen, and farmers on both sides suddenly convertedinto Colonels and Captains. One officer before drilling his company made an abstract of the orders on his shirt-cuff. Another confessed that on a general review, finding that “Hardee’s Tactics” had totally and Suddenly left his brain a blank, he {Bhouted out: 1 “Don’t go that way, I sayl Turn

your backs to the creek and make for the gaol!” P rivatas •as well as officers usually showed absolute genius in “wriggling out of an emergency. ” A fellow was brought before the Captain of his company charged with shooting a farmer’s sheep, when he asked, indignantly: “Am I expected to stand still and let the sheep bite me?” At. every such reunion of Southerners and Northerners, the expression of good-will and friendliness is more marked. Their interests are now the same, and busy, sensible men always realize the truth of just Sainte-Beuve’s words: “Life is too short. I have no time for animosities.”— Youth’s Companion.

Queen Sophia Charlotte.

Frederic ILL, son and successor of the Great Elector, is one of the most contemptible personages whom the house of Hohenzollern has produced. He wa3 vain, frivolous, unmanly, and, withal, physically deformed. But the facilities of his age, and the impulses of his own vanity, permitted him to connect his name with one famous and several praiseworthy achievements. He obtained the royal dignity for himself and lxis successors; he founded the University of Halle and the Prussian Academy of Sciences; he gave aid and encouragement to Leibnitz, Pufendorf, Wolf, Spener, Thomasius, and other ingenious scholars; aud he was the husband of Sophia Charlotte. Indeed, the good fortune last named, the possession of an accomplished and enterprising princess, accounts in large measure for all of Frederic’s triumphs, except, perhaps, the acquisition of the crown. That was his own work, and it was one bingularly calculated to call forth all of his zeal and energy. But in the encouragement given to learning and letters and art, the Electress was the leader, while her husband was inspired less by intellectual sympathy than by the desire to add luster to his court. Sophia Charlotte, Frederic’s second wife, was a pi’incess of the house of Hanover, and sister of George I. of England. Her naturally keen and active mind had been developed by an excellent education, and by the advantages of the njost intellectual society which Germany afforded. Leibnitz ■was always a welcome guest at her father’s court, and after her marriage he gave a great part of his time to Berlin, where Sophia Charlotte continued to propound paradoxes, and quiz him about the causes of things. Refugees from Lutheran and refugees from Catholic intolerance were cordially received and tolerated by the Electress’ influence. She patronized Jesuits, and—hor kindness being seasoned with a touch of malicious humor—she’ delighted in betraying Spener* and Yota into theological disputes in her draw-ing-room. She was a firm friend of Schluter, and to his genius anß her management Berlin owes some of its finest monuments and palaces. Besser, Canitz, and other so-called poets found in the Electress a patient listener as they recited their odes and epics. But with all fier merits and accomplishments Sophia Charlotte wanted one quality to which Frederic attached a profound importance, so that although he respected and even feared, he hardly admired her. She had no sympathy with the Elector’s love for spectacular effect. If a magnificent pageant was organized at the palace, the Electress would absent herself entirely, or commit some solecism and throw everything into confusion, or even break up the whole ceremony by going into open revolt at some critical moment. During the coi'onation services at Konigsberg, which Frederic had exerted all his ingenuity to make solemn and imposing, the Electress laughed behind her husband’s great wig, and even took a piuch of snuff at the very point where Frederic expected her to look most grave and decorous. On her deathbed she could not suppress her grim humor. “His Majesty will grieve bitterly when you ai'e gone,” said an attendant. “Oh, yes,” replied the penetrating princess; “but it will give him the chance to get up a magnificent funeral.” A magnificent funeral Bhe received, and—if that coxxld honor the dead—-de-served ; but not long afterward her inconsolable husband consoled himself to a third wife. —Herbert Tuttle, in Harper’s Magazine.

Hampton in a Tight Place.

A middle-aged man approached Gen. Hampton and asked Ins influence in pressing a claim before the Military Committee of the Senate. The stranger then said: “ General, lam glad to see you again. You do not recognize me, but you personally made a prisoner of me during the war. ” Comparing notes, Hampton found out that it was a fact, and recalled the circtimstances. He was reconnoitering one night, and missed his way. Around him burned many more camp-fires than he had left behind him. Entering a house, he discovered that he had strayed into the enemy's lines. A few soldiers were seated at a table, and abruptly addressing them as if a superior officer of their own army, he asked who they were and what they were doing there. One man spoke up and replied: “We belong to the Eighth New York Regiment, and Gen. , Warren sent us to get ■ milk. ” Hampton felt that all of his nerve, and address would be required to extricate himself from this dangerous position. He reached for his pistol, held it along his thigh, and, on leaving the house, commanded the man who had spoken to him to follow. He did so. Hampton mounted his horse and called the man to him. Bending down to the Federal soldier’s ear, he whispered : “I have a pistol aimed at your head and will shoot you if any alarm is made.” The surprised soldier whispered: “Don’t shoot. I surrender.” Hampton bade him move on just ahead of his horse, and so brought him into the Confederate camp. It was this man who, after more than twenty years, met his captor and asked a favor of him, as a Senator, that he was more than willing to grant. It was a strange and romantic coincidence in the returning cycles of time. —Augusta Chronicle.

HUMOR.

Never ride a nightmare with the spur of the moment. Perhaps it’s better to be right than to be President, but it is easier to be President Some people prefer death to marriage. That’s because they never tried death. As illustrated in insurance, a write np business is not always an upright business. A Burlington mother has miraculously cored her youngest hopeful of smoking by the laying on of hands. What is the difference between a swallow-tailed coat and a boot-jack? One catches the heel of a boot and the other the toe. One would reasonably suppose that it would be difficult to collect a bill from a leather merchant when he buys leather and hides. “No,” said the Chicago editor, of his rival, “I don’t think he was druuk when l.e that editorial; when a man’s drunk he speaks\he truth.” “Oh!” said the man who had traveled, “I didn’t mind having the delirium tremens. I saw snakes and alligators and things, but it merely seemed as though I was in Florida.” “Jury,” said a Western Judge, “you km go out and find a verdict. If you can’t find one of your own, get the one the last jury used.” The jury returned with a verdict of “Suicide in the ninth degree. ” Ah! neighbor Jones, why look so sad? Worse looks I never saw; Sure something’s happened very bad — Hast lost thy lnpsher'n-law? Thy mother n-law? Alas! friend Broun, great is my woe— Of trouble I’ve my Jill; I’ve passed my semi-annual throe— I’ve paid my water bill! My water bill! —The Poei of the Asfaltus. A man can brake on a Railroad for S4O a mouth all his life, hut if a man gets broken on one he wants $5,000 in cash, and if he leaves a widow she usually puts her figures as high as slo,ojo,— Texas Siftings. An exchange speaks of a “kissing bee” organized in a Western town. We would have no objections to the kissing if the bee would present itself according to the established rules of etiquette. —Newman Independent. His Mattie wai a pretty girl, As fa r as one could be; And every time he made a call He had a Mat on knee. —Merchant Traveler. And when he had no cash with which To go and see the play, He’d give no heed to her desire, But say to Mat, “Oh, nay!” Wash. Matchel. There was a game of poker once, With two m-gn at the table, Where each piled down his little ohips As long as he was able. “Alas!” cried he who got the scoop, (For short. I’ll call him “Ba'nty,”) “I’ll have to see my ‘uncle,’ now That you have ‘seen’ my ante.” —New York Journal They do things coolly down in Tennessee. It is said of a young lady that nineteen years ago her father refused to let her go to a candy-pull. She, however, disappeared. The other day she returned, lifted eleven children out of the wagon, went into her father’s house and took off her things as calmly as though she had only been absent an hour or two. —Carl Pretzel’s Weekly. BEAUTIFUL BELLA BARNEY. Bewitched bucolic Ben became By buxom Bella Barney; Ben being backward, better blame Blonde Bells, babbling blarney. Bothered by bashfulness—Ben’s blight— Blazing became Ben’s blushes; But blinded by Belle’s beauty bright. By Wfeleful ba ks Ben brushes. By blunders bashful beings blind Become bereaved; but orazen Boldness becomes best brace behind Beginners—blooming blazon. Brightly bedecked, by barber bland, Briskly beßet by brushing, Ben breaks beyond blank bashful band, Badgered by blazing blushisg. But hlissful, beatific browse. By brooding brought both—Belle Before Ben, braced by browsing, bows — Briefly, betimes, betrothal. —San Francisco Post. THE MAN WHO WAS LEFT. Ten maids there were, Each one as fair As the other nine. Ten stars as bright, In lovely light Each other did outshine. A tender swain, With puzzled bran, Lifts up his wailing voice; And in despair He tears his hair That he qan’t make a choice. "Wail not!” they cried; “Nor woe betide: But rather do rejoics That other ten Much better men Than you have made a choice." —Will J. Lamp ton. ODE TO A BABY. See the pretty babv, Eyes so big and blue; Knows a great deal, maybe. But only says, “00, oo.” Hands like balls of cotton, Feet so pink and fat; Where can the kid have gotten Hands and feet like that? Cheeks so round and chuffy, And such a—such a nose! Hair so short and fluffy, And, gracious, see those toes! Looks at everybody As if it knew them all; IJL Does it want some toddy? Is it going to squall? Yes, it’s going to do it. Listen how it hollers! Mamma wouldn’t sell it For $200,000,000.

The Man with a Conundrum.

“Why is my head like a match?” asked the customer of the barber who was shampooing him. “Is it because it feels light when it’s rubbed?" queried the slinger of the sude. “Just so,” said the patron. “And now,” he added, “why is my head like a brass door-knob ?” “Because it hasn’t much hair on it,” ventured the tonsorial artist. “No,” said the citizen, shaking liia head. A minute elapsed, when the hairbutcher absent-mindedly inquired: “Did you say head or cheek. Col*onel?” ,“I said head, you idiot!” shouted the conundrum victim, sitting upright, “and I meant that it got brighter the more it was rubbed, and I don’t want any insinuations.” The barber gontly apologized as he Baid: -“Look out, Colonel; I don’t want to feel that you are liable to lose your head, thus making it like an umbrella.” —New Yoi'k Commercial Advertiser .