Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1906 — FOR THE CHILDREN [ARTICLE]

FOR THE CHILDREN

“Pack My Trank.” A game adapted from the French that is very popular among the little people of America Is a good test for the memory. It Is played as follows: Thg children must sit In a circle, and one as deader announces In this fashion: “I pack my trunk, and into it I put” —mentioning some articles used in traveling, as gloves, brush or cologne. The next child begins then, saying what the leader has said and adding another article, and so on around the circle, each child repeating all the articles mentioned by the leader In their correct order and then adding one more to the list, which after awhile assumes lengthy proportions. If any boy or girl forgets one article or puts it in the wrong order he or she must drop out of the game, and the last child remaining has the privilege of starting a new game. The Do*’* Howl. Why does a dog howl when he hears music? Nobody can answer that question definitely, but perhaps it might be reasoned out by analogy. A dog’s sense of hearing is acute, and while some sounds are grateful to It, others are the reverse. It is likely that music is among the last named; it produces a disagreeable effect on the dog’s nerves, relief from’which is sought in howling, just as a child cries when it suffers physical pain. It may be that music, which is so delightful to us, affects some dogs as the scraping of the edge of a knife across a plate affects us, or the dull, harsh, nerve rasping sound made by a knife in cutting rotten wood. The howling is, beyond doubt, an evidence of the dog’s uneasy, nervous condition, produced by the music. An Ice Experiment. Weight a small piece of ice about the size of the tip of your finger with a bit of lead by tying the two together. The ice may be as large as you will, so that it can be slipped into the bottom of a test tube of water. Incline the tube and hold it in a flame above where the ice is. The water may in this way be boiled without melting the ice, as water is a poor conductor of heat. If, however, the ice is not weighted, and so remains above the point where the heat is'applied, It will melt, as warm water Is lighter than cold and will rise, thus melting the ice. With care In weighting the ice you may make your experiment successful, aud you can have boiling water with a piece of ice in the bottom of it. The Motionle** Eye. A well known scientist discovered some time ago that the eye cannot see without being motionless. It is like the camera, which cannot take a picture if it be moving. The eye, then, is a perpetual camera, with self renewing plates; It must be motionless when it takes a picture. lu reading, therefore, the eye does not move along the lines regularly; it takes an impression, moves to another position, takes another view, aud so on. This discovery should lead to experiments that might determine the right length of lines of priut for easy reading. Very long a..d very short lines, as everybody knows, tire the eyes, and there must be a length that would uot have that effect. The Bretou Sheep. The smallest sheep in the world is the tiny Bretou sheep. It is too small to be profitable to raise, for it cannot have much wool, and as for eating, why, a hungry man could eat almost a whole sheep at a single meal, says the Washington Star. ~ Any little girl could find room In her lap for a Breton sheep. One of its peculiarities is its extreme sympathy with the feelings of its human friends when it has been brought up in the house as a pet. If its master or mistress is pleased about anything the little sheep will frisk about with fevery sign of joy. On the contrary, if tears are being shed the sympathetic sheep will utter the most pitiful ”ba-a” ever heard. Tan Colored Shoe*. Some people wear tan colored shoes because It is the fashion, others because they like them, fashion or no fashion, and still others because they are cooler than black shoes. It was for this last reason that they were produced several years ago by some longheaded manufacturer. They are cooler because light colors do not absorb the rays of the sun so much as dark. However, shoes that are kept brightly polished, whether they are light or dark in color, reflect the rays and are therefore cooler than dusty, unpolished ones. Besides, polished shoes arc neat and nice; unpolished shoes are ugly and Indicative of careless personal habits. The Buay Ant*. If you go for a walk in the woods you are almost sure to find some ants’ nests. They look like heaps of fine needles and little bits of leaves and twigs. On a sunny day you will often see long columns of ants marching home with little pieces of twig to add to the walls of their house. Sometimes they carry leaves a good deal bigger than themselves. Time For Voter* to Think. This is a good year to bump the Republican bosses and elect a congress free from machine domination.