Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1891 — He Grasped the Situation. [ARTICLE]

He Grasped the Situation.

One little Indian boy who attends school at Indian Island, Oldtown, Me., takes an Intelligent interest in his lessons, and does not simply learn them by rote* The teacher had been giving instructions in punctuation, and closed by saying emphatically: “Now, when you come to a period you must stop." A little black-eyed-girl then commenced to read, and went on in a reckless manner, regardless of the period in question, whereupon the fat and bright little Indian boy poked her in the ribs and electrified the school by yelling lustily, “Who*!” He grasped the nltuaUos.

Old Violins. The groat violin Makers, says an exchange, all lived within the compass of a hundred and fifty years. They chose their wood from a few great timbers fe led in the South Tyrol, and floated down in rafts, pine and maple, sycamore, pear and ash. They examined these to find streaks and veins and freckles, valuable superficially when brought out by varnishing. They learned to tell the density,of the pieces of wood by touching them; they weighed thorn, they struck them, and listened to judge how fast, or how slow, or how resonantly they would vibrate in answer to strings. Somo portions of the wood must be porous and soft, some of close fiber. Just tho right beam was hard to find; when it was found, it can be traced all through the violins of some great master, and after his death in those of bin pupils. The piece of wood was taken heme and seasoned, dried in tho hot Brescia and Cremona sun. The house of Ktradi vurius, the great master of all, is described as having been as hot as an oven, tine was there soaked through and through with sunshine. In this great heat the oils thinned and simmered slowly, and penetrated far into the wood, until the varnishes became a part of the wood itself. Tho old violin-makers used to save every bit of the wood when they had found what they liked, to mend and patch and inlay with it. So vibrant and so resonant is the wood of good old violins, that they murmur and echo and sing in answer to any sound where a number of them hang togother on the wall, as if rehearsing tho old music that once they knew. It was doubtless owing to this fact that when the people could not account for Paganini’s wonderful playing, they declared that lie had a human soul imprisoned In his violin; for his violin sang and whispered even when all the strings wore off. There have been experiments made with a 1 sorts of woods by the various makers. An Earl of Pembroke had one made of the wood of the cedars of Lebanon, but the wood was so dense that vibration was deadened and tho violin was a poor one.