Ligonier Banner., Volume 15, Number 12, Ligonier, Noble County, 8 July 1880 — Page 3

; gy o . N, g Che Ligonier Lanner . * 2;" 3 v . LN, STOLL;, Editor and Prop’r. LIGONIER,: : ' 7 INDIANA. ; o ; "ALPHABETICAL HEALTH RULES. The-following sim;])le rules are published for general circulation 'by the Ladies’ Sanitary Association of London: J As smt»ln as you are up, shake blankets and sheet; 8 Bett(-tx_' be without shoes, than sit with wet eet;. 7 ’ Children, if Healthy, are active, not still; Damp beds and damp clothes will both make g you ill;. g Eat slowly, and always chew your food well; Freshen the air in the house where yvou dwell; Garments must never be made to be tight; Homes will e healthy if airy and light; If you wish to be well, as youdo, I've no doubt, Just open the windows before you go out; Keep vour rooms always tidy and clean, Let dust on the furniture never be seen; Much illness is caused by the want of pure air; Now to open your windows be ever your care. Old rags and old rubbish should never be kept; Peoplé should see that their tloors are well Swept. : / i Quick movements in children are heathy and Tight, - . . Remember the young cannot thrive without : light., Ll i See that the cistern i 8 clean to the brim; Take care that your dress is all tidy and trim: Use your nose to find out if there be a bad drain, : ; Very sad are the fggers that. come in its train. Walk as much f&you. can. without feeling favigue, g i Xerves couid walk for full many a league. Your health is your wealth, which your wisdom must keep. N -Zeal will help a good cause, and the good you t. aWillreapy : :

JERRY’S GRANDMOTHER.

A Story of Grand Island, Niagara River.

¢ There is this about it, Peggy,’ said father, ‘I don’t see where the money is comin’ from. If I could catch some of these smugglin’ fellows that are runnin’ brandy into Buffalo'Barracks, right under the noses of the jofficers, there'd be some sense in yoyr talkin’ abput %’oin“ off to.school. But it isn’t my luck, Peggy, to fe lucky. It never was; and since she died, I don’t see why Grand Island isn’t just as go¢d as any other place for you and me.” : Father swung his ax bn his shoulder as if it was heavier than usual that morning, and walked slowly away to his work. I tried to say good-bye or something, butl felt just as I would had | I known the island was slipping down | the river to the. falls,»nothing on earth to stop it, and talking wouldn’t help. | No, I wasn't filling up to ery. I <vas. thinking I would never ¢éry again for anything. I would give up everytliinig mother taught me to hope rand work . for; I would just fold my hands and sit down and be contented to live onas I was living.- 1 Wwould never expect any-. thing better; every day in the year might be like every other day. I would feed the pigs‘and chickens; get the breakfast, dinner and supper of - pork, pdtatoes and bread for only father and me: wash and iron and patch; never have anything pretty and nice; never know any young people, nor have books :}pd newspapers, and pretty worsted for fancy work: nor even shoes in the summer time, until our dehts were paid. Just live—that was all,” and I was only seventeen years old. * # stamped my bare foot ut the thought of it; and it was well I did, for the liens were on the breakfast table andymaking a pretty mess of things. ; ' That was in J uly. Mother died in the spring. But I can’t tell you about mother. It I begin all that the rest of my story will o down stream, just as the arrows did f used ‘to shoot far out into the Niagara River and then guess how long they would be in" reaching the falls. ‘We lived -on the west side of Grand Island, not more than half a mile north of the Falconwood grounds. The club gave a great deal of work to father; about all wehad to live on. They were clearing their grounds, you see, and it was wonderful how they changed swampa lands into Eden. But it didn’t help me to be contented when the hand--somely-diressed young ladies would come right te the door of our shanty, like the butterflies—only the butterflies didn’t 1 make me so uncomfortable. One day, ‘when I was weeding the onien bed, a pavtg\gom the club’ house tame up:to the well for water and I never looke out from under my sun bonnet, nor pretended to know they were there.

¢I should think she would be afraid it would make her feet big to go Jbarefooted,”” one of; the girls said, not meaning that I should hear her, They all laughed. I don’t know what made me think of mother just then, but thinking of her saved me from speaking my mind. Perhaps it was the sweet voice of that pretty girl. I looked after them asthey went away. She had blue ribbons at her throat and on hgr hair and the prettiest boots on }’}; little feet. A {loung gentleman capfied her parasol. e cut & boquet of my cinnamon roses without asking and she trimmed her hat with them, It was hard weeding the onions that morning. I could hear them laughing and singing as they rambled in the woods. The wish that I might not always be shut out from everything got the upper hand of me. Father saw something was wrong after I had moped for three or four days, and on the morning I am telling you of he asked me what was the matter. 1 told him what I was wishing for and that was his answer—he didn't know where the money was coming from. : There was nothing like a° good row on the river when I was down-hearted.

Well, that morning I went down to my boat and pushed off without knowing or caring where I went. I floated awhile with the stream, hardly lifting my oars. I remember sitting ‘motionless out there on the river and looking back to our cabin—you could hardly see it for the trees—and wondering why, when the world was so big, I must live <just there and die there and never wear blue ribbons nor have cinnamon roses stuck in my hat. 1 was close to Navy Island, the resort of the smugglers. - After a little hard rowing % had fastened my boat and had climbed up the bank into the thick wood. It was a lit--tle harbor, a very béwer of trees and vines. 1 looked at the island and thought of what mother used to say: ¢ One must get out of this life-and look_at it as-somebody else’s to see the ,ble'&ngs it holds.”’,. Well, if Grand Island was like my life, if my life—but I must have ‘been half asleep, or perhaps I should have thought out some,thil:lg wm&h telle ing, before 1 was startled at Hearing voices, men's voices, on the other side of the thicket behind me, and a sound

like breaking the hard-baked earth with pickaxes. : ’ aaad “I tell you, Hank,” said a wheezy voice, ‘‘if we don’t get this haul into barrfcks before the week’s out we may as well sink it in the river.”” Then followed' something about ¢ the point,’” and ‘“Jerry,”’ and “dear old grandmother’’ with much cursing and laughter. There were three men at least, and I soon heard enough to learn that they had been on the island since the middle ofthe night before. Thoroughly frightened and hardly able to move for av minute, I knew I must escape from the place as soon as possible. They were laughing at something about a cotlin when I slipped noiselessly down the bank and into my boat. I kept in the hiding of the trees until I could safely put out from the shore.. I had a hard struggle with the swift current, but mastered it and got home in t§meto have father’s dinnef ready when he came in. He had finished his dinner and was filling his pipe, when I asked: ‘“What was you saying about brandy smugglers this morning?”’ “There’s too many of ’em for Cap’'n Bedell for onc't, Peggy. Them barracks is just atloat with Canada brandy. How the soldiers gets it .nobody can gell’! - ‘ - ““Who lives in that little house out on the point??’ o - - The “point’> was a desolate sandy bluff on the lake:shore, not farfrom the river; a bleak spot, the last place in the world, one would think, for building a house, but then we can’t all choose where we will live, you know. ' ¢, that’s Jerry Clark’s. He runs a hack at the Falls. Makes lots of money, they say. Supposin’ I run a hack, Peggy. Supposin’ now——"" ‘

“Does he: live there on the point? How can he do business at the Falls!?

«“Q, Jerry lives at the Falls. You wouldn’t- mind stayin’ here, would you Peggyv, if 1 could do handsome drivin’ a hack somewhere else?’ . \s ¢ But who lives on the point, father? Is there anybddy in that lonesome house!”’ rie e i

‘“Jerry Clark’s grandmother lives on that point. She is a bit crazy, he says, and thinks she can’t sleep anywhere else. Her husband went down in the—the—that 742 steamboat—or was it 743? But of course you don’t know, Peggy.” ‘+ Who takes care of his grandmother?”? : : '

i Jerry, is drefful kind to her, says she can’t live much longer at the most. There is a big bouncin’ girl over there —bigger than what you are, Peggy; she was rowin’ out here on the river the other day. Cap’n Bedell happened:down just then and she hailed him and asked him where shie could get a good doctor for the old woman. She was took worse she said. " Then she asked the Cap'n if he knew of a good boy to help em over there. They are wonderfully put to it for 4 .boy. ..The Cap’n sent her to Brown’s, but she didn't get one, for I see her goin’ back without any.” There! I have forgotten. to - tell you about Pont. The story without Pont in it would have to be told by somebody beside Peggy Herrick. Pont was my dog, a big brown water spaniel. He could talk with his eyes, dear old Pont, and after mother -died, not right away, ‘but after awhile, he loved me just ashe had loved her. - b et

That night when father sat smoking his pipe under the cherry tree I.picked up heart to say: s ; ¢ Father, I am thinking about going away to look for work.” Dl I had nothing to do beside ery when I shut myself into my little bedroom. First I tried on father’s best pantaloons. He had never worn them since mother’s tuneral and had forgotten he had anything but hisold velveteens. They were a pretty %\c;od fit and so were his boots. I would have to make a_blouse of an old flannel dress of mother’s, a blue plaid, and hating to cut into that and wondering what she would say about my venture, hindered me a good while. Well, it was three o’clock in the miorning when I dressed in my new suit and tried to see myself i my bit of a look-ing-glass. I started back half frightQnegnf, such a big boy [ looked to be. I had-cut off my hair. That a dreadfully hard thing to do, but' if I had stopped at that 1 would have had to §Wé:u‘p going. ~*_ * . * Tlf youwillbeieve it, father never noticed my red eyes in the morning nor my short hair, butthenl kepton my sun bonnet. - It was a tough long pull on a hotd from r house to ‘“The Point,” bu% made i?%fere; noon. I put into a narrow ravine about a half mile on the river side from Jerry Clark’s grandmother’s and eat my bread ’?a?mf ~cold flapjack’s sitting in my boat. = There I hid Dancing Pole well under the flags; nobody would have dreamed the boat was there. I cut a stickand swung my little bundle over my shoulder, s%xowered myself with road dust and struck off down the road with a long, swinging %ait;. My greatest fear was that 1 should forget to be as deaf and stupid as I had decidgd to be, so, if you will believe it, I scratched the back of my right hand with fa thorn—no little scratch either—to tell me of my ears. A few rods from the lonely cabin a log lay by the footpath. There I sat down, knowing that somebody would be watching me. I pretended to fall into a doze, but through the meshes of my hat I saw the big bouncing girl come to the door several times and watch me close. She tried sawing wood but the saw %:)t fast. Then she began picking up chips, watching me all the tirae. ’ :

The big girl came out when I got up and went away. She had two water buckets and she halted at the top of the path down the bank. =~

- Ijogged along as if not seeing her. 8¢ ﬁey, there !% she called after me but I was too deaf to hear. ¢ He?y, there! Say! Are you looking for work?” I was half a mind to Igiv_e u¥) the deafness and hear her but I slowly trudged on. : :

““Hey, there?'’ she shouted again, with no girl’s voice, sending a stone after me which struck my hat. I turned round and stood stock still in the path. As she came up to me I motioned that I was hard of hearing. So she shouted in a loud voice close to my ear: ‘¢ Are you lookinﬁ for work?”’ ; I said } was, ducking my head . for a bow, and that for all I was hard of hearing I couid do as good work as anybody. I had been cook for lumbermen,

and was hoping to get-better wages-up in Saginaw. & o “Saginaw!’ with an oath.” It is good to beﬁ%af sometimes. Such an odd looking creature she was, but not much if any taller than Peggy Herrick. She had short bristling < hair, very much oiled, but still it would not stay parted: in the middle; a rough blotched skin laughing brown eyes, that .made me ! less afraid of her than 1 would have been—-—ges you can . trust, somehow. Her chin was square and heavy? —well ehough for & man--and when she walked her skirts seemed to trouble her a good deal. ! She told me just what I knew sha would. Her grandmother was very sick, nigh unto death. = She must have somebody to help her—somebody who could be useful in every way. She would rather have a man servant, for she sometimes had to send by skiff across the river or over to Buffalo. Could I row? Then I was. just the help she wanted, and she offered me good wages and pay in advance. ] ¢l'll do my best to please you, ma’am, and in a little while you won’t mind mf' being so deaf.” i I followed her back to the shanty, my heart beating fast enough. She made me understand that the old lady would be distressed to see the face of a'strank oer. I must keep in the little kitchenl 1 began work at once by taking the tWo buckets and going down to the lake for water. There was a strange silence in the cabin, and somebody was smoking cigars. . - : . L i b o C 111, . : i - ¢¢Miss Nancy’' was the name_of my ‘mistress, and she called me Truﬁlps. ! I got a wonderfully big supper that ‘night considering nobody. was supposed I»to7w:@nt any but Miss Nancy and mé. | There was bean soup, a broiled steak; black coflee, the leavings of a game pig ‘and bananas. The old lady had her ‘ ‘¢ death hunger,” Miss Nancy said, but I was so deafshe gave up trying to make 'me understand all about it. When she ‘had shut the door behind her and ‘ slipped the bolt I heard her say: i o 'Lha,t;’s the bigeest piece of luck w¢é poor devils ever had. Zounds! if we don’t;save ourselves to-night we may as well give up.” b “] must die to-night, sure!”—the same wheezing voice 1 heard on Navy Island. ; o

. ‘“Say, Hank, why not send’ this dolt over with my coflin?”’ o Ea

¢ That’s just what we will do boy%., What lucky -dogs we are, after all. Catching him will be another thing from catching one of us.” “If's running'a great risk,”’ saifl somebody, hardly above a whisper; a cold, disagreeable voice. ¢lf this thinggoes up we are ruined. Captain Beddﬁ is on our track. Jerry heard some of his passengers talking about it to-day. They think we make the run from Grand Island to Tondwanda—that we have a canal. boat or a lumber sloop in the business. The Captain doesn’t suspect Jerry. Asked him about his grandmother the other day. It seems there isa good deal of interest in the old lady.”’ L . | I was called shortly after to bring hot water and had stumbled through tge door quite into the grandmother’s presence pefore Miss Nancy could.check me. I only jsaw a coflin standing upon a table near an untidy bed—not a large cotiin;? but it \was em&t‘z; and open,-and the sight 'shocked me so I'.gave a little scream and so lost seeing anything more. Miss Nancy laughed when she ‘had followed me out into the kitchen ‘and said the old lady was very queer; she had had that coflin by her bed for more than a fortnight. Then she went on to say that a message had come from Jerry. .He was’sick at‘Black Rock. If his grandmother should die that night they were to send her remains directly to him. Somebody would be waiting for them not far from the house where he wag. She was glad I was a boatman. I would have to take the body over before morning, no doubt. She would follow in another boat with Father ’Ol’lLear‘y, if he couid be made to go at all; - i el

* Why not wait for the daylight?” I asked. : i

“Then we might miss Jerry. He gives the orders. We must do: as he says.” : [s i : 1 went to my loft where my bed was, but with no idea of going to sleep. I did not undress. I threw myself down on the bed and that was all I knew until I was awakened by Miss Nancy about midnight. The grandmother was dead,' she said,-and in her coffin. . She would have to stay at home and I must make the trip alone. ! nﬁ I moved about as in a horrible drea talking to myself in my thoughts and then only saying something like: ¢ Stick to it, Peggy. Don’t-giveup. You are almost through. Nothing will hurt you; and by to-morrow—only to-morrow—-you will be a veryrich girl, Peﬁgy; well paid for this night's work. + Keep up, Peggy, keep up.” _ iy

That was a very heavy coflin Miss! Nancy and I czﬁrried down the bank in: the black night, considering the size of it and (tihe weight of most (ﬁd’ women.. But I said nothing—only to Pe Herrick. Tger"‘jaoatg sa_nkya.lmostg g?(; the water's level ywhen I\got in. My orders were to steer for Buffalo light until I was a half mile or more from -port. Then I was to put in to a light that T would see in a hi’%h building to the nofh about a half mile—between a poplar tree and a church steeple. The light would be in the third story and Jerry or somebody else at the dock. My oars were muffled—l knew that at the first stroke—and silent ag death my boat pushed out, Buffalo light gleaming faintly over the black waters. ’

“ Now, I’ergfy, cut for home,”’ I said aloud, wheén I was well out from the point and looking over my shoulder for the necessary bearings. I knew every tree top di_mll)(7 outlined in the distance against the sky. In two hours at most I woula be home, for the current would help me. Should they follow we would have a race with our oars, that was all. But how could they see my course-in that darkness? The clouds were breaking; but it would take befter eyes than mine even to see such a black shape as my boat and its cargo pushing through the dark. I was perhaps a mile from home. A strange joy had given place to my fears. I was thinking how surprised father would be and how many dollars the poor old grandmother would be worth, when my right oar creaked horribly un-

der my excited pull. Another stroke, and it broke at the oar-lock! Great heavens! and I was not dreaming! It was not all a nightmare! My oar was broken! I hadguo other! My boat was gliding into the main current of ‘the river, the Niagara River, and the falls not fifteen miles below! What did I do? What could I'do but sit frozen in terror, helpless and dumb? On, on, on I was steadily floating. The night shutting men in; nebody to hear, nobody to help; the distance between me and the bank of Grand Island growing wider and wider; that black cruel current the very gulf of death. No, I did not pray unless the wild shrill ery I gave when I saw the roof of our house against the sky was a prayer. I had thrown off my wrappings to make the desperate plunge that would only bring death the sooner, apd save me from that hurrying dash ?hrough the rapids ahead, when I gave aloud despairing cry—a shriek so terrible that I could not have repeated it but for . the quick answer it brought. Old Pont answered ‘me! : Ay

-,l(),ul from the darkness and across the dreadful river canie his Joud- wolf-like bay—a furious cry for help. Yes it was more than that—it promised to save me: it ‘told me to be brave.

~ I answered him; calling him by name. | Louder and louder did he bark and howl as he threw himself against the door and tore at it with his paws. If the door of Heaven ever opens to me the light will be like what 1 ‘'saw when father’s candle flickered over old Pont’s head. He caught my cry; my boat had passed the house and waiting for nothing he ran down the bank. I could hear the clanking of the anchor chain and Pont sttuggling to get into the boat. “ Row for the shore, Peggy!”’ Father was at last fairly awake, as he said afterward. ¢ For God’s sakey why, don’t you rowp? " . - - Never a word he spoke when I shouted why I did not. He said he tried to speak—tried to say, ¢ Don’t be afraid. Peggy, I can save you;”’ but it was like. shouting in a nightmare. He knew Pont was swimming after him and he drove him back with his oar, wondering after he¢'did so how he dared take the second’s time. Then he sdys he remembers nothing more distinctly until we ‘were nearly ashore, my boat in tow of his, and I in a dead faint upon my cargo. : - . “Peggy! Peggy!’he was calling when I came on the beach; and Pont could not be made to understand by blows why I was not to be torn and tossed and kissed and Dbarked over. | ‘Peggy! What tempted you to go body liftin’? What graveyard did ye take it from?” That made me laugh, if you can believe it; even ‘then, in spite of everything. I kissed fatherand the dear old dog and pulled at the grass as Isat there on the bank to make sure I was on dry ground again. Father was dreadfully bewildered and kept talking abouf having forgotten to feed Pont and to eall him in that night, just as if that was -anything to be sorry for; for'if the dog had been comfortable in his bed and not shivering hungry out of doors he would never have heard my cry, and then—— I suppose God sends suffering to us all sometimes to make us help somebody else. i i

.~ ¢ But, father,”” said I, when my chattering teeth and Pont would let me speak, ¢ you must break into Parson Doty’s barnas soon as ever you can and take hisbest horse and ride over to Captain Bedell's for me. No, no, get the horse and I'll go myself.” *¢ Are you crazy, Peggy? ' Is it body liftin’ and horse stealin’ both at once?”’

«Jt’s smuggled brandy, father—that’s what’s in that coflin—enough to make our fortune. Don't wait for talk now; be quick as you ever was in your life. I'll hide the boat in the flags while you get the horse. They may be after me—the smugglers—you know.””

' I was galloping, across the island at a breaknec%( pace imo time, for the Captain lived on the eastern shore. Father had taken no notice of my costume, but Captain Bedell did at once, or rather he was slow to discover Peggy Herrick in the rough-looking man rapping with a whip-handle on his jedroom window | just before daybreak. = | ad - The Captain didn’t need many directions when he was on the trail of smuggled brandy. He sent Vin Smith back, with me to guard the booty—each of us carried arevolver—and he started for the poplar trée and the church steeple. Before night he had the whole gang in Buftalo jail—Miss Naney, the departed grandmother and Jerry Clark, ?or as ‘soon as I ‘'had pushed off with the coftin the three started out to follow at a safe -distance with a cask of brandy in their boat, and the Captain, who had Jerry before their arrival, had little trouble in -catching them. ’ ; The Captain was a good friend of mine, and he saw that I had not only the handsome reward, but perhaps more praise than I deserved.. He interested “himself in selling our place and in %etting me into a good boarding-school in Batavia. = Colonel Allen, who owns ‘nearly all the island, gave father a good_situation on his dairy farm, and a member of the Falconwood Club presented Pont with a silver-plated collar with Latin on it, which was all well enough,. for Pont can read Latin just as well as ;he can English, and I think: he would ’ rather not have everybody know what he has done in the world. .

There, that is all there is to it.” It is not just as the newspapers had it; you see. My hair did not turn white out on the river, and I. have not worn men’a clothes ever since. ‘The truth is, I am tired of telling this story overand over, and I thought when Captain Bedell’a vistors ask me after this to come up on the piazza and tell that ¢ smugglirg story,”” while they watch the Niagara River §liding along under the moonlight, I would just give it to them in print—that is, if I can find anybody te print it for me.””—N. Y. Post. ' =

. —M. Simmonar has produced a pe .culiar effect in portraits. A negative ‘of the sitter is taken with his eyes wide open and another with them shut. One |of these is printed on each side of the éﬁ&per in such a way that the front and 'back images exactly coincide. When 'the two :i%es are then alternately illumi‘hated by a lamp, a portrait is then presented with the eyes opening and shutting, and if the light is mcved rapidly, the sinﬁ’u‘lar spectacle of a winking pho‘tograph is shown. Tha e '\/4/' . 3 s Vg T

_ Hor Poung Beadeys. v o - LITTLE TOMMY SMITH. . Dimple-cheeked and rbsy-lip”ped.‘ i With his cap rim backward tipped, - _ Stillin fancy Icansee; | ;i Little Tommy smile on me— | . 4 . ' : Little Tommy Smith. Little unsung Tommy Smith— » - Scarce a name to riiyme it with; - Yet most tenderly tome ' Something sings unceasingly— - e ; _ Little Tommy Smith. Onthe verge of some farland = = Still forever does he stand, . e ‘With his cap rim rakishly i Tilted; so he smiles on me~ . ; Little Tommy Smith, Oh, my jaunty statuette e * ' Of first love, Isce youyet;. - - Though you smilg so mistly, = - : It is but through tears I see e Little Tommy Smith. But with erown tipped back behind, i And the glad hand of the wind : . Smoothing back your hair, I see * Heaven’s best angel smile oni me— : ‘Little Tommy Smith.. ; —James V. Riley, in N. Y. Sun. L—— . ———— z QUEER LITTLE SEXTONS. _ There are not many of-.us who feel inclined to seek the society of sextons. We have no especial fondness for viewing their somber deeds, or investigating their methods of procedure. As a race, we cherish no love for sextons, but rather avoid them as uncanny beings, whose services we shall never seek in our own behalf, but know full well that some day, sooner or later, our friends will seek them for us. We do not like the idea. The deep, dark holes he digs, in the pursuance of his somber trade, are not inviting in ‘appearancé, and so we shrink from the grave-digger and his associations. .

All this is very true as applied to the human sexton; but away down in the lower scale of creation, among God’s humbler creatures, there dwells a\family of sextons whose movements are ;full ol interest; whose company is sought, not avoided, by the lover of Nature; whose grave-digging gproceedings are observed with strong interest, instead of being avoided with an irrepressible shudder. In this family, of which there are several branches or tribes, the members are all sextons. The office is hereditary, descending alike from father to son, from mother to daughter. To dig graves, to bury corpses, is the one busi-’ ness of their lives, and a very engross--ing occupation they apparently find it. They boast a hig-sounding name. We might call it a national name, for it embraces all the several tribes. Necrophage, or, if you are inclined to treat them with a familiarity that savors of disrespect, you may call them=—as most people do — Grave-digging Beetles. They have their own family name,-dis-tinct from those of the general tribe, and these,too, have an aristocraticflavor of their own, such as Hister cadaverwnus, Necrophorus wvestigator, Silpha opaca, and several othérs ecqually impressive. . : o Each family has a uniform of its own. . Some are arrayed in shining brown coats, othérs in rusty-black, others have bright-orange bars crossing their broad backs, while ‘one pigmy family boasts of a coat smooth, and shiny, and black as the finest +jet. And to this queer little’ nation of sextons we, the proud race of - humanity, owe much, though few of us recognize the debt. i : We have often- heard the query: i““How is it that, in walking in the woods, we never come upon the dead bodies (}f birds or small animals?’’ We know thfat many of them must die from natural causes in the depths of their native forests, yet their bodies arenever seen. Why? Because the Creator, ever thoughtful for His “creatures, in small as in great things. has ordered the little race of sexton-beetles to seek out and bury these dead bodies, that else would pollute the air and fill it with poisonous miasma; and faithfully do-the little workers perform their task, not only preserving the air in all its purity, but actually adding to the fer(tility of the soil by covering up.in its bosom the elements of \decay, which go 'sofar in nourishing vegetation. = - And thus, in two direct ways, each of them of the utmost importance, do the insect sextons serve mankind. . But God, ever-mindful of His least creatures, has ordained that in working for others they shall also serve themse%ves. The first they do, all unconscious of their service; the second they do with full intent and knowledge. . a . It is the business of their lives to bury dead animals. Why? They would tell you, if they could speak: ‘‘Becanse they furnish the proper substance on which to deposit the eggs from which spring our race. The decaying flesh first aids, by its heat, to hatch the eggs, and afterward feeds the larvse.”” And most wonderfully does the foods thus provided for® the family of little ones seem to agree with them, for once they emerge from the yellow tube in which they envelope themselves, the small, ‘ flattish, black creatures dart hither and | thither with most wonderful B3peed, without any apparent object but that 6f getting rid of some of their superabund- ‘ ant activity. o e ~ We had often desired to see these queer little sextons at work, but neyer ‘succeeded until very recently. Not 'many days ago, however, a mole, ~which had been making sad havoc among the roots of some young orange trees, was finally shot, and as we had observed severa{ beetles close by, we ‘resolved to put a surmise as to their being ““sextons” to the test. So we cast the dead mole, with studied careless_ness, upon the ground, beneath the broad leaves of a banana. We were. not very hopeful of the result, for the sextons love best to putsue their trade in the dead of night, and unless greatly in want of 'a depository for their eggs, they seldom wmjk_ biy [email protected]: < But evi--dently, our particular friends were 'pressed,- for in a few moments two . ora,nge-barred beetles came ﬂying, with wide-spread ‘wings, and alighted on a lower leaf of the banana. An'instant or two of investfiqp;tion, and then, apparently satistied that the corpse was bona fide, down they swooped upon it, and tucking their broad wings carefully out of sight, ‘,promenadeda awhile up and down, over and around the bpd-z,, as though on atour of - inspection. - At lengthuﬁley set-about! their work in real ‘earnest. *Now, consider a- moment—that mole was at least fifty times as large as the sextons who were about to dig its grave, so you will: perceive that to dig a hole, and then drag the mole to it, was as impossible as for you or ‘me to drag an elegha,nt. In fact, these

queer little sextons are so much smaller than-any of the animals whose graves they ?rep,are that it is‘out of the question for themto move the corpse inthe very least. And they know,this perfectly well. So, being unable to bring the. corpse to the grave, they bring the grave to the.corpse: - - . i s Our two sextons, h'avin% sufficiently surveyed their prize, suddenly disappeared beneath it. . Very soon, a little hdap of sand began to appear to one side, and then, bending cautiously, we could see the tiny grave-diggers’ mode of procedure. They were working side by side, their heads bent, their slender black legs vigorously scraping, pushing and kicking; their shoulders, or collars, which were much broader than their heads, servihg ‘the while as a brace or support. Gradually the mole sank into the grave that was being dug beneath it; but our sextons: must have been new to their work--they were not ex-perts--and so they suddenly discovered that oné end of "t{\'e corpse was sinking: much lower than the other, instead of being, as was proper, on a level. This seemcd‘to puzzle them sadly. They stopped ~ digging, and; mounting "the body, laid leeif—ijeiid_s - together, as if in consultation over the dire catastrophe; but directly they set.to work again, and proved themselves to be possessed of enough intelligence to remedy the' fault; for this time they commenced at once to deepen “the shallower part of l}he grave, and the mole. was fast. settling down into a

more level position, when ‘darkness made us:desert our post of observation. - Our little friends had been hard at work for three-hours, ahd the mole was

scarcely more than one-fourth buried. But in the morning (as we felt sure would be the case), the mole had disappeared, and on Scraping away the soil we foundit carefully covered, three or four inches helow the surface, and

leading out from beneath it was a little round hole, where Lady Necrophorus

had come up, after laying her eggs upon the tit_—b_itf S 0 laboriously proviaed

for her'comihg . progeny, '+ #i . A famous enbomOﬁ)gist, M. Gleiditsch, tells us some strange things about these. same curious-insect sextons, he having made them - a special study . d subjece of experiments. - Once he h. .f-filled a glass vessel with moist earth, and Flaced four sextons within it;then he aid a dead linnet on the surface of the soil. = The insects, so far from showing alarm at their captivity, appeared to have but one idea in life, that of burying the linnet as quickly as. possible. M. Gleiditsch had observed 'that'one of the beetles was smaller than the others (he supposed ‘it to be a feniale), and now, after two.hours of hard work,

there was a sudden pause, and the three large beetles united to drive away the smaller one. Why did they do this? “Surely they had some reason for such tmanimous action? Was the outcast beetle~not working skillfully, or - was it working beyond " its strength? Was it driven away in friendship or enmity? Who shall say? At all events, the three resumed their occupation, - and though the smaller o‘}ue strove several times to come back, it was not al--lowed to do so, so it finally kept at a “distance and watched the others as they - worked steadily on.. But at last even . their more sturdy ‘strength began to! give out, despite their evident resolve to bury that linnet withoutloss of time. l Just one little black sexton rested from his labors, then another, but the third beetle kept on and on and on, till M. (3leiditsch noted, with astonishment, . <that no less than tive hours had passed since its last-fellow-worker had given out: but at last, it, too, sank down eéxhausted. After a very short rest, however, it roused itself, and, with a won-" derful effort of strength, actually lifted the linnet ‘'on its back, and settled it -down into the grave. ' The other beetles, recovering, went to work' again, but it took them three days to hollow out the grave beneath the linnet, and cover it out of sight, >} " a 2 TN B But M. Gleiditsch gave them plenty more work to do, desiring to test their - burial capacities, and thus, in fifty days, these four bus!g-sextons. (for after a time the fourth was allowed to resnme work) , proceeded to dig graves for three birds, two,¥l'asshoppel‘s, four frogs, two fish, = two large pieces-of meat, and the entrails o?a large fish. @ vk ay _ Another otg-these little grave-diggers was so strong, and o persevering, that. it succeeded, by its own single exertions, in burying amole intwo 53.3*5, and, as we have seen, the mole being fifty times as large -as the beetle, it cost that little sexton just as much labor as it would cost a man to bury an object: fifty times his own size-=no light under- . But sometimes these queer little sex- - tons encounter acorpse thatistoo much. for them. For instance, we areiﬂvd,of‘ a sheep that was' skinned and thrown where the beetles ¢ most' did congre- | oate.”” The result was that anticipated %y the naturalist who thus pre}i)lared the ‘pait. The body swarmed with hungry 'beetles, but all theit eforts were of no avail. The united exertious of hundreds of Necrophage were only able to sink it one-fourth below the surface of the- - and then they left it in despair, but not before their entertainer—a . second Tantalus—had captured Specimens of every speeies existing in England, which was the scene of the ex-. periment. A 1k aiaii ke

And now a word in closin% regarding the method of grave-digging practiced by 'the sexton-beetle. Is' it not wonderfully like the . plan: adopted by man in sinking' wells in sandy soils? The insect digs away the ground from beneath the body, and the latter sinks lower and lower. ‘The man builds a circular wall of stone or brick, and digs away the sand from beneath it, so that it sinks to a_ lower level.. Then more wall is built, and again the sand is scraped away, and the tubethus sunk beeomes the lining of the well, Man, out of his‘excPeriénce and i‘nte‘jl‘ligen'ce, has inventéd this method of sinking large objects in the ground, :but who taught the humble. little beetle the same principle, the same’ method of sinking ‘a 'wei,ti,l'httqo great foriit to’ move in any other-way? . Man thought it out, and it took him a long, gme' to doit, too, but surely. it was God who' taught the humble insect sexton how best to pursue the ealling::He ‘had selected for it! It is only,one among. myriads of proofs that lie all around us of our Fathér's infinite care and. love for the very least of His ' creatures.— Helen Harcourt, in Golden Dayss - .