Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1884 — Page 6

THE LAST KISS. iAa Incident of the Wrock of the City of Columbus.] BT CHARLES W. HUBHKB. 'Am on? the oonfused mass who were strujt&Ufxg and screaming were noticed a middleaged man and his wife. Their conduct in ■marked c ntrast with that of the other passengers. The panic Which had seized the others was not scared by them, but their blanched faces told that they realize i the peril which warroond-d them. The only movement of muscles or nerves was that produced by the chfH'ng atmoeph.r s. They stotd together, thpir bands clasped m each other's, as if .to fulfill the marital vow of standing by each ether in the varying tide of lite’s fortunes and mi 'fortunes. As the wreck careened with the gale from ■one side to the other, and while the spray and wares were drenching them at every moment, the husband turned and imprinted a kisi upon the companion of his lire, and while thus embracing a heavy sea bro .e over the wreck.and ■both were washed away and not seen afterward. Mr. Cork says the scene was one which will re■main in his memory until his dying day.”— Boston Herald. The breakers roar, the mad winds howl. Sharp smites the icy blast; Her stout sides riven by the rocks. The doomed ship sinks at last. "With dreadful din and thundrons shock. Their wide mouths flecked with spray, The hungry billows leap on deck. Like wolves upon their prey. Against the onset of the sea, *The fury of the sale, ■What human heai t may hope to stand? What aim, save eod's, prevail? Alas, alas! O, cruel Death, Thine is the victory! Oorge with an hundred victims more Thy monstrous maw, O, Sea! Hut look! Who stand so calmy there Upon the reeling deck, Unmoved amid the shrieking throng, The clamor of the wreck? A stately form in manhood’s prime, Stern-browed and eagle eyed, A slender woman, sweet and fair, dose clinging to his side; Scourg'd by the sharp sleet's stinging thongs. Drenched by the ice-cold sea, They shrink and shiver, and their cheeks Are wan as dead men's be; It is the lashing sleet that makes Their bodies shrink with pain. And not the dread of death that cowes The hearts of craven mm; For see how calmly, to heart. Hand dose y olaßj.ed in hand. Amid the riot’s maddening din The wife and husband stand! Stand as they stood long years ago, Proud groom tnd happy bride, Sbe fair to him as a' l gels are. And he her fond heart’s pride. Ah! who can knowthe thoughts that burned Those bravo, ca'm brows beneath? The nges in that moment lived There face to face with death? A shock—a lurch—an awful crash! The shark-like rock-fangs rip The steel-clad sides, and with a roar The wild waves whelm the ship ! One brief embrace of loving arms, One fond farewell kiss, And wife and hnsband, heart to heart. Sink in the dread abyss! O, Death, thou hast thy viotories, O, Lif-, thou hast thy tame; Tet love can do heroio deeds That shall your triumphs shame. But never a diviner deed, Even by Love was done, Than when h r apotheosis In this last kiss sho won. —Southern World.

KITTY'S COOKING EXPERIMENT.

BY M. C. FARLEY.

The band was playing the “Beautiful Slue Danube,” but John was too angry i4e care for the musio. He hurried his •pretty fiance into the conservatory, and hidden behind a tall palm whispered fiercely in her ear, “You promised me that you wouldn’t dance again with that Fitz Simmonds, and I’ve counted three waltzes, besides a polka or two. What does this* mean, Kitty?” “I think it means that you’re inclined to find fault with me, John, and to be jealous.” Kitty smiled saucily up into her companion's angry face. “But your promise, Kitty: what of that?” “To be sure, John, I told you I would not waltz again with Fitz Simmonds. But you know promises are like pie-crusts—made to be broken, and I couldn’t help it. Fitz dances divinely. ” ■“Fitz Simmonds is a cowardly sneak,” •burst out young Mason, in quick passion. “And I forbid you to dance with him again." “You forbid me,” repeated Kitty with withering emphasis and a proud toss of her head. “Yfes. I forbid you,” retorted John in a sudden heat. “I will not permit any wife to go dancing around any ball, room with Fitz Simmond’s arms about her waist.” A dangerous flash shot from Mis Kitty’s eyes. “In the first place, Mr. Mason, you mre ridiculously jealous. And in the ■second plaoe permit me to return your ring, and to inform you that so far as I can help it you will never have a wife to dance around a ball-room with anybody.” John ground the tiny ring under his beel. “Now, Kitty, ” But there was no Kitty. She had disappeared like a flash among the throng at the open door. And ten minutes later he saw her handed to the carriage by his hated rival. If John Mason retired to his couch that night, or rather that morning—; for the hour was long enough past mid-* night—in no enviable frame of mind, what must have been Kitty’s feelings mb she sought the privacy of her own woom, and meditated npon the downfall -of all her former hopes. Two stray tears trickled down her dear little nose -as she put up her crimps before the iglass and caught a glimpse of the ringdess forefinger whereon John’s diamond liad so long had an abiding place. “As if anybody could care two straws for Fitz Simmonds, the silly thing,” said Kitty, crossly, getting into bed. “And -John—oh! dear me. No girl in the world ever had so much trouble as I.” Long enoughibefore Kitty’s blue eyes opened John Mason had packed his value and announced to his mother that lie intended to go ont into the country and spend the summer Mi one of his places down the river, and that on no account was she to send him any messages, invitations, -or anything else. He declared savagely that he hated the world. “All he •eked now was to be let alone,” and -away he went. it was six weeks after John Mason’s Issrira that the great bank failure ocoorred in Smithvillcv Kitty went down 4» dinner one dajr attd was greeted with

the astonishing news of the failure, coupled with the intelligence that all the McCord money was snnk in the general disaster, and that now the bank had 1 ursted the McCords—meaning the widow and her fonr daughters —hadn’t a penny with which to bless themselves. “What on earth is to be done,” gasped Kitty, pale with astonishment and terror. “Here’s Nell and Bess and little Flo, all younger than I am, and there isn’t a thing we can do to earn monev.” “Do!” ejaculated Mrs. McCord, "we can all starve I suppose. We can all starve in a heap together.” “What a pity that you can’t teach music, K tty,” said Flo, disconsolately. “Or if you could only have a class in drawing,” added Bess. “Or that mamma were only a firstrate dressmaker,” put in Nell. Mrs. McCord lifted up her hands in horror. “No McCord ever yet descended to menial labor,” said she, loftily. “4f Kitty hadn't such a temper she would long since have been well married and s ttled, and in such a crisis as this she would have then been able to offer a home to her afflicted family.” Kitty, mind yon, was barely 19. Kitty bit her lip. “I know what I can do, girls,” said she, laughing. “Do you remember the lessons I took at Miss Parloe’s cooking club? Well, I can cook—even mamma has to admit that.” “I shall wr te to your Unole Potipher and ask him for assistance,” said Mrs. McCord, loftily. “Uncle Pot! Oh, dear me!” ejaculated the four girls in chorus. “He’s too awfully stingy for anything!” ‘'He’ll only send yon some tracts and a lot of advice,” said Nell. Kitty said nothing, but going to the library she looked over a file of the daily papers. “Uncle Pot,” muttered she, running over a list of late advertisements. “I’d rather be dead than live with that hateful old thing., We would be obliged to eat bread and water and be told ten times a day how much it cost him to keep ns. Mamma may go to Uncle Potipher if she likes and take the girls along; but, as for me, I’d rather work.” She paused at one of the late advertisements that happened to catch her eye, and read it over twice:

Wanted —A Cook —In a gentloman’s family, where there Is neither company nor children, a strictly first-class cook is required, 'ion dollars per week paid to satisfactory party. Apply at once, by letter, to P. O. Box 10, Brier Lodire, Thorn field.” Kitty read it once again. “No children and no company! I think it would be just the thing for me,” thought she. “Anyway, I’m going to try it.” Miss McCord did not wait to hear from Uncle Potipher. Upon second consideration, she decided it would be as well to go and make him a visit, and then apprise him of her loss of fortune. “By which time,” said Kitty, calmly, “I will be settled into some kind of btusiness or other, and Uncle Pot will take the thing more kindly. He won’t he so apt to feel as if we had taken him by storm, and intended to stop with im bougre malgre." “I hate French, Kitty. Besides, it is bad taste to interlard your sentences with foreign quotations,” said her mamma. “And I shall leave you in charge of the house, though I want you to remember that you are a McCord, and I expect you to behave yourself accordingly. Don’t do anything to disgrace the family. Perhaps your Uncle Potipher will offer us a home with him, and so put our present difficulties to flight for a wliile, anyway. ” Kitty’s “tip-tilted” nose tilted a trifle higher at the idea of Uncle Potipher offering them a home, but she made no reply, and helped with the packing, glad when at last they were off. Kitty had written to “Box 10, Brier Lodge.” She didn’t much like the idea of doing menial duties, but just now there was nothing else she was qualified for. To be sure, she could play a little, and sing a little, and, like all other fashionable young ladies of her set, she had some skill at drawing. But to tell the whole naked, unlovely truth, her knowledge of these branches was much too defective for her to attempt to teach any one of them. Besides, Kitty detested teaching in any shape. Only in one thing had she become proficient, and that one thing was the unfashionable art of cooking. Miss Parloe never had a more apt or more interested pupil than Kitty, who had entered at once into the respective merits of soups and roasts, and puddings and pies, with a zest that betrayed an appreciative spirit. A letter came that day from Brier Lodge. Kitty had given Miss Parloe herself as her reference, but it seemed as if this had been unnecessary. The reply to the application had evidently been written by the housekeeper, who urged Miss McCord to come on at onee. When Kitty read this letter a feeling of dismay came over her. She looked at her dimpled white hands. “And so I am really to be cook in a gentleman’s family,” said she, ruefully. “But then there is the $lO a week—only think of $lO a week to one in my circumstances. Besides, it makes me impendent, and free from Uncle Potipuer, and if I were a private governess, or a school ma’am, my salary would be no h'gher. But tell it not—-oh! tell it not in Gath, that the proud Kitty MoCord has gone to be a cook.” To the friends who affectionately tried to worm Kitty’s future destination from her, she tnrned a polite though deaf ear. She was going into the country for the summer, she said, and it was uncertain when she would return. Perhaps not unt 1 mamma and the girls returned from Uncle Potipher’s, and perhaps not then. She really could not tell herself. Under the circumstances, she preferred to keep her whereabouts te herself and her family—until their financial affairs were straightened ont and fully settled. She packed her trunk with some plain clothing—gingham and calico dresses —and early one morning slipped down to t*e station. .. . Late, in the afternoon the train stopped at Brier ville, and a big hulkj in£ fellow, With his pants in his bootj tops, stepped up to her, and asked her :if she was the new cook for River

Lodge—in anwser to her question as to the distance and direction of that desired haven. With a quaking heart, Kitty climbed into the democrat wagon. “Really this is horrible,” thought Bhe, as the hired man took a seat beside her and calmly explained the merits of the team, and finally asked her, after some skirting round the corners, if she “had a steady feller? an’ if she hadn’t, why she might count on him for a regul r Sunday night business, if she’d only say the word. ” However, they were not long in arriving at their destination, and without more ado the new cook was installed in her new domain. The first thing to be done was to prepare the snpper. Kitty thought Miss Parloe was a failure when the faultfinding lord of the Lodge returned the eggs for the fourth time lzefore he would condescend to eat them. “I’m glad I wasn’t born a man,” said Kitty, as, flushed and tired, she gave the obnoxious eggs the fourth twist at the blaze and sent them back again by the waiter. “Those eggs in the beginning were cooked a la Parloe to a turn. It is worth ten dollars a week to serve such a fault-finding master as this one is.”

The next morning her trials began in good earnest. The master of Brier Lpd re was not only fastidious, but capricious as well, and Kitty soon discovered that she was not only expected to cook the meals, but to wash the dishes and blacken his boots beside. “I’ll die before I’ll touch those odious boots,” said she, rebelliously. “And I’ll report you to the master if yon don’t,” said the old housekeeper. Ten dollars aweek,or Uncle Potipher! The thought came like a flash into Kitty’s mind, and Bhe picked up the boots. It was something she had never done in her life before, apd, moreover, in this particular art, she had received no lessons from so distinguished a teacher as Miss Parloe. It was no wonder the horrid boots did not reflect to her credit. She put them down in disgust. Tears came into her eyes. The coffee boiled over, the ham was burning, and the muffins, that had promised so well in the beginning, were browned to a crust. Kitty burst into tears. In the midst of her distress the housekeeper came into the kitchen with an order from the master to the cook. Cook was wanted in the dining-room. Kitty marched up-stairs much against her will and entered the presence of her employer, who sat with his back to the door.

“I’ll tell yon what it is, cook,” cried out this personage in a strangely familiar voice, as she walked toward the table, “I have a friend coming to dine with me to-day, and there must be game for dinner.” Kitty was staring hard at the speaker. She remembered that voice only too well; and here she was, with a kitchen apron on, and a smudge of coal dust staining her right cheek—cooking his meals, washing his dishes, and, yes —blackening his very boots. Oh, dear! She was on the point of running out oi the room, when the gentleman, surprised at her silence, turned himself about and stood face to face with his new cook. “Kitty McCord!” ejaculated he in genuine amazement. “Oh, John!” gasped Kitty, ready to sink with mortification. Mr. Mason didn’t stand on ceremony. Two long arms swung themselves about Kitty’s waist, and a kiss alighted on the little smudgy cheek. “Oh, you heavenly girl,” cried John ecstaticly. “You’ve came to make up, have’nt you ?” Kitty remembered her position. She pulled herself away. “I came to cook, ” said she, simply. “To cook?” “You see we’ve lost all onr money. Mamma and the girls have gone to Uncle Potipher’s, and I—I—” “And I’ve been buried up alive in this out-of-the-way place for the last two months, and never heard a wold of it,” groaned John. “Of course I had to earn money, and none of my other accomplishments being available, I thought I would try cooking. Your housekeeper advertised for a cook, and so I came. I did not know Brier Lodge belonged to you, though—” “Brier Lodge is a recent investment—”

“And I resign the situation at once,” added Kitty, composedly. “Now, Kitty,” began John, earnestly, be serious. I can’t live without you any longer. Let ns make up once more. I’ve got another ring that will just tit you, and it’s right here in my pocket this minute, ready for business. 1 won’t be jealous again. Try me and see.” “And Fitz Simmonds?" “Just wear this ring of mine again, and name an early day for our marriage, and you may dance with Fitz Simmonds until he drops. Now then.” Kitty burst out laughing. “Oh, John! How do I look in a kitchen apron ?”asked she, irrelevantly. “You are adorable in anything,” asserted Mason, keeping a tight grip on her. “But that isn’t the question, will you marry me—quick now.” “Mr. Mason,Esquire,"cried she, dropping a courtesy; “dear sir, I will. How does that suit you ?” “That suits me perfectly.” Miss McCord returned to town that very day, and a few weeks later there was a quiet wedding that made her Mrs. John Mason and put an end forever to her flirting possibilities, though there is every reason in the world for believing that at the same time it opened a vast and never ending sphere for unlimited experiments in cooking. Bass was terribly angry when he found himself referred to in the local paper as a “prig.” He appealed to his acquaintances if there was anything of the prig about him; and the universal verdict rendered was that there was not. Indeed, the editor of the paper, who happened along at the moment, also admitted it. “Then why in thunder do yon call me one ?” roared Bass. “Calm yourself, my dear fellow,” said the editor. “It wsb all owing to the compositor, who put an *r’ between the ‘p’ and the ‘L’” Bass went off in orthographic study.— Exchanae. /

Being Called a Liar.

A boy who says he is 17 years old, a clerk, with good family” connections, writes to know if a person should knock another down for calling him a liar, or what he should do. He says it seems to be customary to look upon a fellow as a coward if he allows anybody to call him a liar and does not resent it, and yet if a person takes up every such statement, he is liable to have a black eye half the time, and he asks advice about it. The most notorious liars are the most sensitive abont being called liars, and they will fight or shoot quicker for being called a liar than they would at being accused of murder. Take a man, for instance, who wants to Beil a horse that is unsound in every particular. He will tell yon that the horse is sonnd as a dollar, not a pimple on him, never sick a day, and he is good in any spot or place, any lady can drive him, and he will lie about that horse all day, and know he lies, and knows that everybody knows he is a liar. And yet, if yon were to call that man a liar to his face, his “honor” would be at stake, and he would fight at once. Though a man may have been proved in court to be a swindler, a thief, a murderer and highway robber, and while he will converse on any crime he may have committed, and rather glory in being a bad man, if he should make a statement and veu should doubt it, and call him a liar, he would be wild at once, and knock you down and walk on you. It beats all what a sensitiveness there is about being called a liar. It has been said by some great man, “all men are liars,” but it is probable that statement is overdrawn. It is doubtful if statistics would show that more than ninety-nine men out of a hundred are liars, and yet the ninetynine liars would fight at once on being called liars, while, if the truthful man should be called a liar, he would feel hurt, and would go to work to convince the person who called him such of his error, in a respectful sort of way, by argument and demonstration. While it may be a custom to fight at once on being called a liar, we would advise young men to gradually break themselves of the habit, both of lying and fighting. A man or boy is not necessarily a coward because he does not engage in a brawl at being called a liar. If a man calls you a liar, and yon are a liar, it does not help the matter for you to thump him, and be arrested for disorderly conduct. Your fight will not convince him that you are not a liar, and everybody who hears of the row will say you are a bully as well. No gentleman will call a man a liar, and, if a man is a loafer, yon can afford to ignore him, and go about your business, and you should never recognize him until he apologizes, which he will do, nine thnes in ten, when he finds he has made a fool of himself, and that you are respected more for quietly refraining from punishing him than iie is for being a bully. Those who are the most apt to call people liars are usually the worst cowards in the world. They think by using such language they can convince people that they are brave. Take one of these fellows, and he does not call you out alone, and call you a liar, as a business statement, but he gets you in a crowd where he knows he has four friends to your one, and he knows that if worse comes to worse his crowd can whip your crowd. He t-lks loud, and wants to convince people that he is brave, but generally he is a weak-minded coward. If a young man selects respectable company, treats everybody well, is kind to high and low, rich and poor, just the same, goes out of his way, if occasion offers, to do a kindness, speaks well of all, or says nothing, and never, knowingly, does an injury to any person, he can go through life and never be called a liar, and never have occasion to fight. He can so conduct himself that if a person should call him a liar he would not get time to fight, for every friend he had would know the charge to be false, and they would insist that the person making the charge should take it back and apologize, it would seem snoh a monstrous injustice to the friends. But, if a young fellow is a liar, and talks too much with his mouth, and is constantly saying things about people behind their backs that are not so, and he is selfish aud mean, and would not do a kindly act, except he could make a point by it and have everybody know it, if he is a liar, and a mean one, who cares nothing for the anguish and heartaches he may cause by his lies, he is liable to be called a liar any time, and maybe it is best for such persons to resent it and fight, for they will occasionally be mauled, and it will eventually do "them good and teach them a lesson.— Peek's Sun.

Where Lincoln Kept His Money.

Abraham Lincoln, while a resident of New Salem, 111., followed various avocations. With all the rest he was “storekeeper” and Postmaster. On a certain occasion one of his friends, having learned that an agent of the Postoffice Department and a “drummer" were in the village—the former to collect what was due the Government from Lincoln, as Postmaster, the latter to receive from him, as trader, what he was owing the firm represented by himself—and knowing that Lincoln was never overburdened with spare funds, went to the store and offered to lend him a sum sufficient to meet the claims he was so soon to be called npon to settle. “Yon are very kind,” said Lincoln, “but I do not think I shall require your assistance.” Within a few minutes the agent entered their presence, and Lincoln took an old stocking from a drawer, out of which lie poured a lot of copper and silver coin—the latter mostly in pieces of small denomination. “There is the very money I have taken on account of the postoffice,’’ he remarked to the agent, “and I think you will find it the exact amount due yon.” It was, to a cent. This business had hardly been concluded when in came the “drummer.” Lincoln had recourse to another o!d stocking, with a similar re mit. So soon as the two were again by themselves the friend said: “I suppose were a third ored tor to present himself a third stocking would enable you to settle with him,” smilng. ‘‘Yes," returned the future President. “Lqok here," and he held up throe other stockings. “In each of these is

the sum I severally owe to three parties, the only persons in the world to whom lam pecuniarily indebted. I sec you are amused at my method of trans acting business. I never allow mysel to use money that is not mine, however sorely pressed I may be, and intend to be prepared to pay my bills when they become due, without delay or inconvenience to those whom I owe. The simple system which I have adopted—using a stocking to represent each ens tomer, and placing in it the money to be passed to the creditor himself at some future day—renders the former unnecessary and the latter impossible.” —lndianapolis Sentinel.

Cultivate a Sweet Vocie.

There is no power of love so hard to keep as a kind voice. A kind hand is deaf and dumb. It may be rough in flesh and blood, yet do the work of a soft heart, and do it with a soft touch. But there is no one thing it so much needs as a sweet voice to tell what it means and feels, and it is hard to get it and keep it in the right tone. One must start in you h, and be on the watch night and day, at work and while at play, to get and keep a voice that shall speak at all times the thought of a kind heart. But this is the time when a sharp voice is most apt to tie got. You often hear boys and girls say words at play with a quick, sharp tone, as if it were the snap of a whip. If any of them get vexed yon will hear a voice that sounds as if it were made up of snarl, a whine, and a bark. Su£h a voice often speaks worse than the heart feels. It shows more ill-will in tone than in words. It is often in mirth that one gets a voice or a tone that is sharp,and it sticks to him through life,' and stirs up ill-will and grief, and falls like a drop of gall on the sweet joys at home. Such as these get a sharp home voice for use and keep their best voice for those they meet elsewhere, just as they would save their best cakes and pies for guests and all their sour food for their own board. I would say to all girls and boys, “Use your best voice at home.” Watch it by day as a pearl of great price, for it wiil be worth more to you in the days to come than the best pearl hid in the sea. A kind voice is a lark’s song to heart and home. It is to the heart what light is to the eye.— Anon.

The Beaver.

The quickness with which a colony discovers a wholesale attempt against their peace is astonishing; yet if their numbers are undisturbed, or diminished but gradually, even the presence of civilization will not drive them from their haunts. To-day beaver are returning to streams in Michigan, long ago abandoned by their race, simply because they find themselves unmolest-, ed, the demand for beaver-peltry being slight, and the prices paid out of all proportion to the labor entailed in trapping. It has been said that, if a dam or house be once injured by the hand of man, the colony at once disappears. But that this is fallacious is proved by the following-: Twenty-two miles from Marquette, Mich., on the Carp River, a beaver colony began the erection of a new dam. Though the embankment of a railway ran nearly parallel with the stream, and trains passed backward and forward daily, they seemed in no way disturbed, and worked steadily on until the water had risen a foot or more. The trackmaster, observing that this endangered the line —for the embankment had been utilized as a wing of the dam—ordered the water drawn off. But the following day the beavers had repaired the damage done them, and the water was at its former height. Again and again was the dam cut through, and as often would it be repaired. All in all it was cut and repaired seme fifteen or twenty times ere the beavers were sufficiently discouraged to abandon then- attempts. —Popular Science Monthly.

Private Rehearsal Interrupted.

“Hole on,” said Squeezeout, making his appearance on the scene. “I objeck.” “Wot d’y’ objeck ter now?” asked Brother Shinbones. “I objeck ter de use of onparliamentary languidge.” “Gorramighty, yo’ am usin’ big wuhds, niggah!” / “Wall, es yo’ dunnqwot dev means, com down ter my house an’ I’ll loan yer a dickshinairy.” “Dat settles it,” exclaimed Shinbones, in an excited manner. “What d’y o’ mean?” asked Brother Squeezeout. “I don’t play.” “Wot?” was the general exclamation. “I don’t play. Go’n’ hire Rome odder durned fool ter play dis hyar paht. I ain’t gwine ter be ’noyed by dis negrominions cuss.” “Wot dat you a-callin’ me?” cried Squeezeout. “A negrominious cuss.” “Wot am dat?” “Es yo’ don’t onderstan’, go hum an’ read yore blame old dickshinairy.” And Brother Shinbones walked off the stage, and nothing could induce him to return. And that is why the great performance of “Hamlet” did not take place that night. —New York Times.

A Matter of Enunciation.

“What is that?” said a traveler to a fellow passenger on a railroad train, as they glided along tlie bank of the Hudson, on© day last winter. “Ice saw," laoonically responed the other, as he glanced out on the river toward the ungainly object indicated. “I supposed you did see, or I should not have asked the question. You saw, and I saw, too, but I did not know what it was.” “I said it was an ice saw.” “Very true, it is rather an eye sore, disliguring, as it does, that pretty sheet of ice, which makes such an excellent sweep for the ice-boats to sail on, but still I am in the dark as to what it is. ” “I didn’t say eye sore. I said an ice saw. ” "Oh, a nice saw. Well, perhaps it is. Just depends on the way one looks at it. Thank you. Looks as though we were going to have a thaw.**— Texas i:\fting.s.

THE BAD BOY.

"Don’t speak to me,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he showed np .in liia shirt-sleeves early one morning, and acted familiar with his old friend. 'Go right away from here, and please keep away, forever. I have overlooked abont a thousand of your eccentric characteristics, because yon have argued wito me, and showed me that yon were actuated by worthy motives. But this last thing yon have done has been the last hair that has broken the camel’s back, and henceforth you and I are strangers, and I will take it as a favor if you will keep on your own side of the street,” and the grocery man opened the door and pointed the way out. “What seems to be eating yon?” said the bad boy, as he went to the backend of the grocery, leaving the grocery man pointing out the open door, sat down on the high stool by the desk, and began to fignre on a piece of brown paper, with a stub pencil. “You most be troubled with worms, and there is nothing better for worms than vermifuge. What have I done now, tlmt causes you such agony ?” “Done ? You have disgraced yourself, your family, and me, and everybody. Didn’t I see yon go down an alley last night, in your shirt sleeves, locked armß with that nigger boy who lives down there ? Don’t deny it, confound yon, cause I was watching yon, and the nigger was drunk or something, because he staggered, and I don’t believe you were much better. That comes of loafing around and being bad. When a white boy associates with nigners, and takes them home when they are drunk, that is all I want to know. Niggers are no better than cattle, and I never saw one that I would walk a block with for a million dollars. Now, own np, didn’t you go down the alley with the nigger, and ain’t you ashamed of yourself. ” “O, is that all? Yes, I did walk with the colored boy, and if I had not held him up he would have fallen down, and lam not ashamed of it. Here is a list of groceries I want you to send to that boy’s house, down in the alley, if you are not ashamed to deliver things in an alley, and here is the money to pay for them, and now fly around, old bar soap.” And the boy took an orange and began to excavate it with his under teeth. “O, that is different," said the grocery man, as he took the list and began to hurry to fill it. “Maybe lam wrong, as usual, but I can’t bear niggers. What was the cause of your helping him home Hennery ?” “There was cause enough. I was coming down toward the river and I saw abont fifty people standing on the br dge, watching a little German child drown, and yelling to everybody to do something. The child had fallen off the wood dock where she was picking up chips. Just as I got there I saw this colored boy throw off his coat and shoes and jump in, and in few seconds he had hold of the child and swam to ■the dock with her and held her np, and somebody pulled her out, and they forgot all about the little ‘nigger,’ as yon call him, and he would have drowned in the dirty water if I hadn’t reached the butt of my fishpole down to him to climb up on. They took the rescued white child away, and brought her to by rolling her on a barrel, and no one thought anything about the colored boy, they were all so glad the little girl was saved. When the crowd went away somebody had stolen the coat anil shoes of the colored boy, and he was not very well, ’cause he had pneumonia in March, and the smell of the nasty river water made him turn pale, and he was weak as a cat, so I polled off my shoes and coat and made him put them on, and took him home. The patrol wagon came, and the policemen would have taken him home in that, but the colored boy said he couldn’t go in the patrol wagon cause his mother was sick, and if she should see him brought home in a patrol w agon it would scare her into fits. So I took him home, and went in ahead and broke the news that her boy was all right to the poor colored lady, who was sitting up in bed with a small wash tub in her lap trying to do some washing for a customer of hers, when she looked as though she was pretty near dead. Gosh, but they are poor ! The mother washes for a living, and the boy skirmishes around anywhere he can earn 10 cents. I gave him my coat and shoes, and went home and got some of my underclothes that are too warm for me, and I took the wash-tub away from the old mother and made her rest, and our hired girl is going to finish the washing and iron the clothes, and I am going to take them to the man she washes for, and I have adopted that ‘nigger’ and his ma till they get well. Now hurry np them groceries.” “Well, you are a daisy,” said the grocery man, as he went to the door to call his delivery wagon man. “Yon are

“No, I ain’t, either; I’m a heathen,” said the boy, as he counted out the pennies and nickels that looked as though they had been taken out of his savings-bank at home. “I am a disgrace to my family and friends, ’cause . I associate with a ‘ nigger.’ People go to war and spend billions and qumtillions of dollars to free colored men, and pass laws that they shall be equal to the average white man, and they associate with them when they want their votes, but when anybody associates with a colored person, unless they have a selfish object in view, and have got an ax to grind, they are a disgrace to their families. That colored boy did not stop to think of his health, of the danger of being drowned or asphyxiated by the foul river, but jumped in the water to save life, and what was his reward ? He had his coat and shoes and socks stole, and had to crawl out of the water like a dog. Oh, this is a nice country, and you are a nice old fool, ain’t yon ?” “Say, kick me, thump me, do anything,” said the grocery man, “but I want you to bring that colored boy here, and I will give him all the groceries he can lug homo,” and the grocery man asked the Iwv's pardon, and he went down the alley to see how hia adopted colored family was getting along.— Peck’s Sun. The grass of th'e field vis often employed as a figure to teach the short* ness of lifo.