Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1889 — Page 6

A THANKSGIVING WISHBONE.

BY J. W. BURGESS.

Of some eighteen years, and the farmer’s boy Johnnie Thought never a damsel was one-half so bonnie. The farmer’s boy Albert was equally sure That May—Jennie’s sister—his heartache could cure. And so these two sisters, by special request, Were there to take dinner, dressed up in their best. Jennie was pretty, and dainty, though vain, While May was more sensible, homely, and plain. “Give Jennie the wishbone," said Johnnie at last; Accordingly, to her the wishbone was passed, And all the while that her dinner she ate, The wishbone was resting close by her plate. With united action, they all waded in, ’Till their knives and their forks made a regular din. The turkey, when finally laid on the shelf. Was only a wreck of its once gorgeous self. The squash, the potatoes, ana cranberry sauce, And mince pie and. pumpkin, with crust all embossed, Had each done its duty, and every one Drew back and declared the dinner was done. “Now, then, who will wish?” cried Jennie, the fair, As high up she held the wishbone in air. “I will!” said they all, and then cano a scuffle Insomuch that the wishbone was lost in the shuffle. Mav was the first one the wishbone to spy. And pursued by Johnnie, she quickly did fly Clear through the sitting-room, into tie hall, In chamber, in cellar, in parlor, and all. Then from sheer exhaustion dropi>ed into a chair, With cheeks all aglow, and tumble-down hair ; And Johnnie rushed up, and without much ado, Smacked a kiss on her lips, and I don’t know but two. “Let us wish,” said May, “for I still have the bone,. It is due you, I think, for your chase to atone." Now, dear reader, we ought to have told you before, That, though May liked Albert, she loved Johnnie more, And her honest wish, when she pulled on that bone, Was that some day she might have him all for her own. They pulled on the wishbone, and May won the toss, But what was her gain was by no means his loss, For from that very minute affairs took a turn, And Johnnie and May are so friendly, we learn, That when Thanksgiving Day again takes its place They’ll have hooked up together for life’s rugged race. We know not what Alfred and Jennie will do, But the neighbors all think they will get married, too. Now May is ready at all times to own That there's boundless virtue in a turkey’s wishbone.

LIKED TO MAKE A SHOW.

BY DRIFT.

neighborhood in N , and was one of those who, as her maid-of-all-work expressed it, “would skin a flea to save the hide and tallow.” Mrs. Nettleby liked to make a show, but she had a deeprooted aversion to spending. And entertaining company on Thanksgiving Day was one of the things that could not be accomplished without the latter concomitant. Mr. Nettleby, a little, weak-minded man, who viewed his big wife with respectful admiration, looked dubiously at her. “But, my dear,” said he, “how are you going to help it? They’ve sent word they are coming.” “I’ll go to your sister Belinda’s, up in Sugartuck County.” Mr. Nettleby felt of his chin. “Thev haven’t invited us,” said he; “that is,not •specially.” “0. fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Nettleby. “Belinda’s always glad to see me and the children. And as for staying at home to gorge Mrs. Beggerlev and her six children, and Mr. Beggerley’s two sisters, I

Won’t do it. Why, such a turkey as they would expect would cost three dollars at the very least. Get me a time-table, Nettleby. Send word to Mrs. Beggerley that I’ve gone away to spend Thanksgiving.” Mr. Nettleby. who never dreamed of opposing his wife’s will in this or any other m itter. wrote the letter accordingly, and put it in his coat-tiil pocket, where it remained; for he forgot all about it. Mrs. Nettleby packed np her own things and the things of the four little Nettlebys, and took the afternoon

[ENNY and Johnny, b and Albert and I Mary FSat at the table on Thanksgiving Day. The turkey, all stuffed, and basted and brown, Upon a big platter was turned upside down ; With its legs pointed skyward, its wings pinioned back, As old Farmer Johnson began the attack. He carved a nice piece from the rich steaming breast, And "passed to his ■wife the first piece, and best; Then said, “Now, Miss Jenny, what, cut do you like ?" “O, please give me just what you happen to strike — Some white meat, or dark, or a leg, or* a wing." She was a guest.and a sweet, pretty thing

. HE Beggerley’s combing here to spend Thanksgiving?” said Mrs. Nettleby. “Not if I know it.” Mrs. Nettleby was a close-fisted and calculating woman, who lived in a handsome house in a stylish

"I DON'T BELIEVE ANYONE IS AT HOME."

train for Scrag Hollow, in Sugartuck County. “Mamma,” said Theodora Nettleby—the juvenile "cions of the hou*e of Nettleby all had high-sounding appellations —“it looks all shut up and lonely. I don’t believe any one is at home.” “Pshaw!” said Mrs. Nettleby. “People in the country always live in the back par, of the house.” And carrying a heavy carpet-bag in her hand she trudged around to the rear door, followed by Theodora, Lavinia, Evangeline and Gervuse, each lugging a smaller bag. Nobody responded to her repeated volley of knocks, but presently a little old woman, who had come from a neighboring cottage to the well for water, was made to understand what was wanted. “Mrs. Pecktield?” said the little old woman, in the high-pitched, shrill voice which so often accompanies deafness. “You’re her cousin from the city, come to spend Thanksgiving! Well; if that ain’t too bad! Mrs. Peckfield started this very afternoon for Ladd’s Depot; got some relations as lives there.” “That’s very strange,” said Mrs. Nettleby. “I telegraphed to her that I was coming. ” “Couldn’t a got the telegraph, I guess,” said the little woman. But Mrs. Nettleby knew better than that, for under the corner of the piazza there lay a torn envelope of the Western Union Telegraph. And she knew that Mrs. Peckfield had fled from her, just as she, Mrs. Nettleby, had fled before the Beggerley family. “But I’ll be even with her,” said Mrs. Nettleby, grinding her false teeth. “I’ll go to Ladd’s Depot. What are the names of her relations there?” The little old woman, after some meditation, sa d that it was Jones. At least she thought it was Jones. She wasn’t quite certain. It might be Smith, or it might be Brown. But she believed it was Jones. And she believed they lived on Thorn street. It was a long walk back to

"THAT'S VERY STRANGE; I TELEGRAPHED HER I WAS COMING."

the railroad depot, and the four little Nettlebys were tired and cross, but they foitnnately succeeded in reaching it before the last northward train started. But it was an express and didn’t stop at small places like Ladd’s Depot, as Mrs. Nettleby found to her cost when she paid five dollars for a hack to take her back to Ladd’s Depot. On inquiry it was found that there were about half a dozen families of the name of Jones at Ladd’s Depot. The first place to which they drove on Thorn street was a tenement house, where they all had the scarlet fever. “Oh, my!” said Mrs. Nettleby, “drive on, quick. This isn’t the place!” The next was a clergyman’s house, where a full-fledged prayer-meeting was going briskly on. “ This isn’t the place, either.” said poor Mrs. Nettleby, waxing, more and more in despair. And the third was a vinegar-faced old maid who lived with her married sister, and “never had heard the name of Peckfield in her life.” “What shall I do?” said Mrs. Nettleby. “Better go to a hotel, ma’am,” said the hackman, who himself was beginning to get out of patience. ’ “But it costs so much,” said Mrs. Nettleby. “And to-morrow is Thanksgiving Day. Is there a train goes back tonight?” "To-night?” said the hackman. “Why, it’s past eleven a’ready! Ahd my horses has got the epizootic, and I couldn’t keep ’em out no longer, not for noi ody! But I s'pose I could take you to the twelvethirty night express for a little extra!" And this moderate specimen of the tribe of hackmen consented to be satisfied with eight dollars. “Ma?” whispered Gervase, “where are we going?” “Home,” said Mrs. Nettleby, pronouncing the word as if it were a peanut shell she was cracking. There was one comfort, though—the Beggerley family would have been repulsed by that time; and, after all, cold beef was a cheaper wav of supplying the table than turkey at thirty cents a pound. It was 2 o’clock the next day when she reached her own door, having paid in hack and car fare enough to buy half a dozen ten-pound turkeys, and with jaded

and fretful children, a violent headache on her own score, and one of the travel-ing-bags lost' “I’ll stay at home after this,” said Mrs. Nettleby to herself. “Eh! Parlor window-blinds open! People talking! I do believe Nettleby’s got company to Thankigiving, after all!” And her heart sank down into the soles of her boots. It was quite true. The servant-maid, with* a red and flurried face, opened the door. “Mary!” said Mrs. Nettleby, “who’s here?” “Lots of people, ma’am,” said Mary, looking guiltily over her shoulder.

“Where are they?" demanded her mistress. “In the dining-room, ma’am." And Mary threw open the door, thereby disclosing a long table with three huge turkeys, well browned, and a savory chickenpie that was a mountain iu itself, and a glass reservoir of cranberry sauce that set Mrs. Nettleby calculating at once as to the probable amount of dollars sunk in its crimson billows; while, seated in hospitable array around the board, were Mr. and Mrs. Beggerley. the two sisters, and the six little Beggei leys. Mr. and Mrs. Smithers, seven little Smitherses, and the six Leonards of Maine, second cousins of Mr. Nettleb-—twenty-six in all—including her husband. Mrs. Nettleby and her children sat down and ate their Thanksgiving dinner with what appetite they might. But Nettleby had rather a hard time of it that night. “My dear,’' said that sacrificial lamb, “what was Ito do? They didn’t get the letter. They said they had come to spend Thanksgiving, and of course I had to order dinner. What else could I do?” “Do?” repeated Mrs. Nettleby, in accents of the bitterest scorn, “couldn’t you close all the blinds, and lock the front door, and go down cellar and pretend not to be at home? I’ve no patience with you!” Three days afterward the three youngest Nettlebys broke out with scarlet fever. The seven little Smitherses took it of them, the maid took it of the Smitherses, and Mrs. Nettleby had her winter’s work before her. “I wish to goodness I had stayed at home,” thought Mrs. Nettleby. And the amount of thankfulness she felt that year was not, oppressive, in spite of the Governor’s Thanksgiving proclamation.

What Next?

John Dervent and Peter Lotz were graduated at the same college on the same day with equal honors. Both men went West, and settled on ranches. After six years one of their old preceptors visited them. John was prosperous, but he knew nothing of the world outside of his own ranch. He took no interest in politics, in religion, in books, or in social questions; he hardly knew who was President; he had long ago lighted his fires with his text-books. For two days he talked to his visitor of his cows and bullocks, of the rates of cattle on the hoof in Chicago, and of beef in New York. When the professor tried to interest him in any other matter, he stared at him vacantly, or fell asleep in his chair. The. visitor went on with anxious foreboding to Lotz’s ranch. Peter, too, had been successful; he was shrewd and alert in his business, but he was a man of broad general information and sympathies. His interest was as keen in the questions of-the day as if he lived in New York or Chicago. His friend asked him presently how he had contrived to keep himself thus alive and young in thought. “My father,” said Peter, laughing, “was a fruit-grower. He had one maxim: ‘Never let your orchard run down.’ He incessantly set out new trees, that were growing and ready to bear when the old ones wore out. “When I left college, my brain was very much like an orchard with plenty of plants in it ready to bear fruit. I resolved not to ‘let it run down,’ I would not be satisfied with the knowledge I already had. I would bring in new slips and seedlings. I took the best daily newspaper, the best literary magazinq, the best religious journal in the country. I helped build a church and school-house in the neighborhood. I got up reading clubs, lectures and concerts. In short, I followed my father’s rule, and set out new plants in my brain, instead of waiting calmly until the old ones should wither and die.” It is easy to tell, when we meet mid-dle-aged or old people, whether they have, like John Dervent, left the intellectual growth of their youth to wither and die, or, like his classmate, have taken in daily new ideas and knowledge. “What next?” says the busy farmer, as he looks at the ground from which one crop has just been reaped. He makes haste to sow another. Many of the boys and girls who read these words have lately received a diploma at some college or school, and gone out into the world. What next? Ts your intellectual life to end now ? Is your brain to feed, during all these coming years, on the small portions of Greek, mathematics and history it has received ? Or will you daily plant the seed of a fact here, or set the graft of a new thought there? The man of to-day must work hard, if he means to keep himself up with the life of his time. So rapid is the march of intellectual development that the man who does not do this is soon pushed aside and forgotten.— Youth’s Companion.

What Rare Stamps Are Worth.

The high prices which the rarest specimens of stamps now realize will explain how it is that the trade in forgeries has become what it is in these days. The 1840 English stamp, V. B. (black), with the letters in the upper corners, will easily fetch £lO used and £5 unused. The black stamp, without the letters V. 8., can be sold for one penny and two pennies each. The red penny English stamp heads are not worth much more than waste-paper price. The standing prices are for the rarest stamps: Cabu], complete issues £3OO 2 1847, Mauritius . 200 4 1852, Sandwich Islands 200 3 1856, British Guiana 120 4 1850, British'Guiana 100 7 Natal, first issue 100 5 1860, Cape of Good Hope 40 8 Buenos Ayres 35 Bergedorf 30 6 1856, Canadian 20 10 1850, Brazil, perforated..... « 19 —London Globe.

THINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR.

Thankful the mercury has not yet reached zero.

Thankful he is poor.

Thankful that no company is present to witness his awkward carving.

Thankful he left the safe.

Thankful there is but one amateur cornetist in the block.

Thankful everything was not put out of his reach.

Thankful all things earthly must have an end.

FARMERS IN CONGRESS.

ADJOURNMENT OF THEIR NATIONAL CONVENTION AT -MONTGOMERY. Officers Elected for the Ensuing Year—lowa Selected for the Next Meeting—lmprovement of the Mississippi River Favored—Other Business of the Gathering. The National Fax-.ners’ Congress, at Montgomery, Alabama, has adjourned. The last day was devoted almost sntirely to the consideration of resolutions, the election ot officers, etc. The new officers are: President, R F. Kolb, of Alabama; Vice President, A. W. Smith, of Kansas: Secretary, B. F. Clayton, of Iowa; Treasurer, Wm. Lawrence,, of Ohio. Vice Presidents were selected' from each State. The congress decided to hold its next meeting in lowa, the place to be hereafter designated. A resolution that the chair appoint a committee of one from each State to suggest a means of selecting a national flower, the committee to report at the next meeting, was adopted. The resolution to remove the tax on tobacio came up on an adverse report of the committee, and the report of the commitee was concurred in. The resolution declaring that the government does not need the money raised by internal revenne taxation, and that this congress favors the repeal of the in • ternal revenue laws, and that taxes raised from whisky and tobacco be relegated to the different States to relieve them of local taxation, was taken up, and the adverse report was concurred in. A resolution was offered by Mr. Pabor of Colorado asking Congress to select Chicago as the best point for the location of the world’s fair in 18J2. Mr. Kelly of Kansas offered an amendment striking out Chicago and inserting instead St. Louis, which was lost. The question com: 4g up on locating the fair in Chicago, the votetaken by States stood: 261 yeas, 63 nays. A resolution favoring government aid to steamship lines, to build up trade between this country and Central and South America, came up, and an adverse report was adopted. The resolution favoring unlimited coinage of silver met with an adverse report and was indefinitely postponed. The following was iutredu ed by Mr. Dre per of Illinois, and unanimously adopted: “Resolved, By the Farmers’ Congress, that it favors a comprehensive scheme for the improvement of the Mississippi river and the building of a ship canal across the State of Illinois, connecting the Mississippi river with Lake Michigan, and it is recommended that the United States Congress make a liberal appropriation therefor. ” On motion of Mr. Clayton, the Hon. Jeremiah Rusk, Secretary of Agriculture, and the Hon. J. R. Dodge, Statistician of the Department of Agriculture, were unanimously elected honorary members. The President appointed the following committee to prepare rules for the government of the congress: Messrs. McKenzie, of Kentucky; Work, of Indiana; Lawrence, of Ohio; Corput of Georgia, and Clayton of lowa. Adjourned sine die. At Atlanta, Ga., the committee on land resumed its report immediately after the Knights of Labor convention was called to order, and continued until the hour arrived when Col. L. F. Livingston, president of the Farmers’ alliance, was to be received. A committee was appointed to escort the representative of the farmers to the hall, and when they returned they had with them, besides Col. Livingston, Judge Henderson, commissioner of agriculture; R. F. Gray, editor of The National Economist, and Dr. Harry Brown, editor of the Georgia Farmer. Coh Livingston was received with immense applause. He said that other work had prevented his studying the objects of the Knights of Labor, but he felt sure that when the convention met at St. Louis Dec. 3 the confederation would be formed, and he also felt sure that it would be equally beneficial to both orders. In Mr. Powderly’s reply he said the day when the farmer and mechanic should stand side by side and work for the same object had always been a dream of his. The entire meeting was most enthusiastic and every mention of the confederation of the two orders was met with thundering applause.

THE STATE OF TRADE.

Advanced Prloes in the Iron MarketIncrease in Cereal Shipments. Bradstreet’s (New York) “‘State of Trade,” says: Special telegrams point to only a moderate degree of reJvity in general trade throughout the coun - try. The gross earnings ot 140 railroads for October and for ten months show for the month a gain of 13.4 ner cent, over that of October, 1888, and for the ten months an increase of 10.4 per cent.. with an increase of 1.8 per cent, in the aggregate mileage. Buyers of crude iron ar absorbing at full prices all of the 30, UL tons weekly additional production noted within five months and in many instances are buying for future delivery. Bessemer pig-iron is in extraordinary demand. Exports of wheat (and flour as wheat), both coasts, for the six days am ing yesterday aggregate 2,591,bushels, as against 2,131,334 in the previous week and 2,082,018 bushels in the like week last year. The total shipped abroad from July 1 to date is 38,957,300 bushels, as against 4b, 536,000 in the like portion of 1881 The bulk of the increased movement is from San Francisco, Baltimore and New York. Business failures reported number 217 in the United States this week, against 248 last week and 178 this week last year. The total of failures in the United States from Jan. 1 to date is 9,848, against 8,649 in 1888.

FATAL MISUNDERSTANDING.

A Bad Wreck on the Virginia Midland Road—Two Men Killed. A collision occurred on the Virginia Midland railway near Bull Run, Va., between two freight trains, caused by a misunderstanding of orders. The following were the casualities: Killed: Fireman James Murphy of Springfield, Va., and Brakeman F. L. Estees, of Orange, Va. Badly injured: Engineers Kemp and Fitzgerald. Slightly injured: Brakeman E. A. Payne, Fireman Frank Evans and Cattle-Shipper Joseph Higginbottom. Both engines, nine car loads of cattle and eight of- merchandise were wrecked.