Ligonier Banner., Volume 25, Number 42, Ligonier, Noble County, 29 January 1891 — Page 7
MR. WAYT'’S i - 9 WIFE’S SISTER. 1 : ] { \ e - BY MARION HARLAND. [coPYRIGHT, 1890.] . ! CHAPTER IL—CONTINUED. ! . Hester’s great eyes were raised to her aunt from lids sodden with tears; her Jdips trembled unmanageably in trying to frame her plea. i ““Forgive me! please forgive me!” she sobbed. ‘‘You know what my morning flend is. And lam not brave like you, or patient like mother!” - Hetty fondled the hot little hands. “Let it pass, love, 1 was not angry, but some subjects ‘are best left untouched between us. Here is your breakfast. Homer says that I ‘make chawkerlette jes’ the same’s they did for him in the horspittle when he had the new money.” They must have had a French chef and a marvelous menu in that famous ‘horspittle.’ It reminds me of Little Dorrit’s Maggie and her “evenly chicken,” and ‘so lovely an’ ospittally!’ ” v e She had the knack of picking up and making the most of little things for the entertainment of her hapless charge. Mrs. Wayt was much occupied with the other children, to whom she devoted all the time she could spare from her husband. It happened occasionally that he would eat no bread she had not made, and oftener that his craving was for certain entrees she alone could prepare to his liking. She brushed his eoat and hat; kept the run of missing papers and handkerchiefs; tied his cravats; sat by him in a darkened room when he took his afternoon siesta; wrote letters from his dictation, and, when he was weary, copied in a clear, clerkly hand, or upon his type-writer, sermons and addresses from the notes he was wont to pencil in minute characters upon a pockeb—pad. At least four nights out of seven' she arose in the dead of darkness to read aloud to him for one, three and four hours, when the baleful curse, insomnia, claimed him as her prey. His fad, at this date, was what Homer tickled Hester into hys‘terics by calling ‘‘them horsephates.” Horsford’s acid phosphate, if the oracle were to be believed, ought to be the vade mecum of ailing humanity. e carried a silver flask containing it in his pocket everywhere; dropped the liquid furtively upon a lump of sugar, and ate it in the pulpit, during anthem, or voluntary, or offertory; mixed it with water and drank it on the cars, in drugstores, in private houses, and at his meals, and Mrs. Wayt kept spirit-lamp and kettle in her bedroom with which to heat water for the tranquilizing and peptic draught at cock-crowing or at midnight. If she had ever complained of his exactions, or uttered an ungentle word to him, neither sister nor child bad heard her. She would have become his advocate with him against himself had need arisen—which it never did.
“My ministering angel,” he named her to the Gilchrists, his keen eyes softened by ready dew. ‘‘John-Ran-dolph said, in his old age, of his mother: ‘She was the only being who ever understood me.” I can say the same of my other and dearer self. She interprets my spirit intuitions when they are but partially known to myself. She meets my nature at every turn.” She met it to-day by mounting guard—sometimes literally—before the door of his study—the one room which was entirely in order—while he prepared his discourses for the ensuing Sabbath. The rest found enough and more than enough to do without the defended portal. Fanny was shut up in the diningroom with the baby Annie, and warned not to be noisy. The twins carried bundles and boxes up and down-stairs in their stocking-feet; Homer pried off covers with a muffled hammer, and shouldered trunks, empty and full, leaving his shoes at the foot of “the stairs. Hester said nothing of !a blinding headache and a ‘“‘jumping pain” in her back while she dusted books and china. Hetty was every where and ever busy, and nobody spoke a loud word all day. ‘“You might think there was a corpse in the study instead of a sermon being born!” Hester had once sneered to her confidante. ‘‘ I never hear him preach, but I know I should be reminded of the mountain that brought forth a mouse.” One of her father’s many protests, addressed af Hetty and to his wife, was that their eldest-born was ‘‘virtually a heathen.”
“Home education in religion, even when administered by the wisest and tenderest of mothers—llil~ yourself, my love—must still fall aort of such godly nurture and admonition as are contemplated in the command: ‘Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.” There is didactic theology in Pavid’s holy breathing: ‘A day in Thy ‘courts is better than a thousand.”” “Better than a thousand in the same place? I should think so,” interposed Hester’'s tireless pipe. ‘He needn’t have been inspired to tell us that! Family worship suffices for my spiritual needs. That must be the porch to the ‘courts,’ at least.”
In speaking she, too, looked at her mother, although every word was aimed at her father.
“It is a cruel trick that we have!” Hetty had said of the habit.. ‘‘Ewvery ball strikes that much-tried and innocent women, no matter who throws it.” “Of course!” retorted the sarcastic daughter. ‘‘And must while the angle of incidence is equal to that of reflection.” ;
In the discussion upon family versus church religion she carried her point by a coup & et “Pews and staring pew-holders are all well enough for straight-backed Christians!” she snarled. “I won’t be made a holy show of to gratify all the preachers and presbyteries in Americal” Any thing like physical deformity was especially obnoxious to Mr. Wayt. The most onerous duties pertaining to his holy office were visitation of the gick and burial of the dead. Hester’s beautiful golden hair, falling far below her waist, vailed her humped shoulders, and her refined face looking out from this aureole, as she lay in her wheeled chair, would be picturesquely interesting in thé chancel, if not seen too often there. The coarse realism of her refusal routed nim completely. With an artistic shudder and a look of eloquent misery, likewiso directed at his wife, he withdrew his forces from the field. That night she read Sartor Resartus to him from three o’clock until six a. m., 8o intolerable was his agony of sleepliessness. It happened so often that Hetty was the only responsible member of the family who could remain at home with the erippled girl, that neither Mr. nor Mrs.
Wayt seemed to remark that her churohgoing was less than nominal. Hester called Sunday her ‘‘white-letter day,” and was usually then in her best and most tolerant temper, while her fellowsinner looked forward to the comparative rest and liberty it afforded as the wader in marsh-lands eyes a projectingshoulder of firm ground and dry turf.
It was never more welcome than on the fair May day when the Fairhill ‘‘people” crowded the First Church to hear the new pulpit star. . ““The prayer which preceded the sermon was a sacred lyric,” said the Monday issue of the Fairhill Pointer. “In this respect, Rev. Mr. Wayt is as remarkably gifted as in the oratory which moved his auditors alternately. to tears, and smiles and glows of religious fervor. We regret the impossibility of reporting the burning stream of supplication and ascription that flowed from his heart through his lips, but a fragment of the introduction, uttered slowly and impressively, is herewith given verbatim, as a sample of incomparable felicity of diction: ' “ ‘TrovU art mighty, merciful, masterful and majestic. We are feoble, fickle, finite and fading.’”* March Gilchrist had his say anent the sample sentence on the way home from church. He was not connected with the press, and his criticism went no further than the ears of his somewhat scandalized and decidedly diverted sister. . :
In intuitive anticipation of the reportorial eulogy, he affirmed that the diction was not incomparable. “] heard a Georgia negro preacher beat it all hollow,” he said. ‘‘He began with: *“THOU art all-sufficient, self-suffic-ient and insufficient!” :
“March Gilchrist! How dreadful!”
They were passing the side-windows of the parsonage which opened upon a quiet cross-street. May’s laugh rippled through the bowed shutters of the dining-room behind which sat a girl in a blue flannel gown, holding upon her knee and against her shoulder a hunchbacked child with a wierdly-wise face. They were watching the people coming home from church. “A religious mountebank is the most despicable of humbugs,” said March’s breezy voice, as he whirled'a pebble from the walk with his cane, and watched it leap to the middle of the street. Hester twisted her neck to look into Hetty’s eyes. : *“They are discussing their beloved and eloquent pastor! My heart goes out to those people!”
*Literal report. : CHAPTER lIL : ‘“Hetty! do you ever think what it would be like to be engaged?” ‘“Engaged to do what?” said Hetty, lazily. She lay as in a cradle, in a grassy hollow under an apple tree—the Anak of his tribe. The branches, freighted with pink-and-white blooms, dipped earthward until the emtreme twigs almost brushed the grass, and shut in the two girls arbor-wise. The May sun warmed the flowers into fragrance that hinted subtly of continual fruitiness. Hester said she tasted, rather than smelled it. Bees hummed in the boughs, through the still blandness of the air a light shower. of petals fell silently over Hetty’s blue gown, settled upon her hair and drifted in the folds of the afghan covering Hester’s lower limbs. . Homer had discovered in the gardenfence a gate opening into this orchard, and confidentially revealed the circumstance to Hetty who, in time, imparted it to Hester, and conspired with her to explore the paradise as soon as the boys and Fanny were safely off to Sunday school. ; ;
“Engaged to do what?” Hetty had said in such good faith that she opened dreamy eyes wide at the accent of the reply. “To be married, of course, Miss Inglemous! What else could I mean?”
“Oh-h-h!” still more indolently. I don’t know that I ever thought far in that direction. Why should I?” “Why shouldn’t you, or any other healthy and passably good-looking girl, expect to be engaged—and be married—and be happy? It is time you began to take the matter into coasiderationm, if you never did before.” : ‘““Phere is usually another party to such an arrangement.” : ““And why not in your case?”
*“Where should he come from? Ishe to drop from the moon? Or out of the apple-tree”’—stirred to the simile by the flick of a tinted petal upon her nose. “Or, am I to stamp him out of the earth, a-la-Pompey? And what could I do with him if he were to pop up like a fairy-prince, .at this or any other instant?”
“Fall in love with him, and marry him out-of-hand! I wish you would, Hetty, and take me to live with you! That is one of my dearest dreams. I have thought it all out when the backache keeps me awake at night, and when I get quiet dreamy hours by day, when /e is off pastoralling, and the boys and Fan are at school, and baby Annie is asleep, and 1 can hear Tony croning ‘Sweet Julia’ so far away I can’t distinguish the frightful words, and you are going about the house singing to yourself, and blessing every room you enter like a shifting sunbeam.” “Why, my pet, you are talking poetry!” . Hetty raised.-her head from the arms crossed beneath it, and stared at the child. The light, filtered through the mass of scented color, freshened her complexion and rounded the outlines of her face; hersolemn eyes looked upward; her hands lay together, like two lily petals, upon the coverlet. Unwittingly she was a living illustration of her father’s theory of the Reality of the Unseen.
4No!” she answered, quietly. ‘“Not poetry, for it may easily come to pass that you should have a husband and home of your own. I do dream poems sometimes, if poetry is clouds and sunsets and music nobody else hears, and voices—and love-words—and bosh!”
Hetty could not help laughing. ‘“Tell me some of the glory and the bosh! This is a heautiful confessional, Hester; I wish wo had nothing to do for a week but to lie on the grass, and look at the hlue sky through apple-blos-soms.” :
‘““Amen!” breathed her companion goftly, and for 'awhile they !were so quiet that the robins, nesting upon the other side of the tree, bdgan to whisper together. =~ “Bosh and my poetry dreams are synonyms,” resumed Hester, her voice curiously mellowed from its accustomed sharpness, - ‘“‘Other {)eOple may say as much' of theirs. " Anow it of mine. There’s the difference. All the same they are as sweet as the poisoned honey we were reading about the other day, whieh the bees made from pop'py;flelds.
And while I suck it, I forget. My .t 0 mance has no more foundation than thy’ story of the Prince and the Little White Cat. Mine is a broken-backed cat, but she comes straight in my dreams after her head is cut off. You don’t suppose she minded tkat/ She must have been so impatient when the Prince hesitated that she was tempted to grab his sword and saw through her own neck. You see she recollected what she had been. The woman’s soul was cooped up in the cat’s skin. And I was eight years old when the evil spell was laid upon mel”* i :
The tears in Hetty’s throat hindered response. Never until this instant, with all her love for her .dependent charge, her knowledge of her sufferings, and the infinite pity these engendered, had the deprivations Hester’s affliction involved seemed so horribly, so atrociously cruel. The listener’s nails dug furrows in her palms, she set her teeth, and looking up to the unfeeling smile of the deaf and dumb heavens, she said something in her heart that would have left faint hope of her eternal weal in the orthodox mind of her brother-in-law. !
Hester was speaking again. “Every painter has his models. I have had mine. I dress each one up and work the wires to make him or her go through the motions—my motions, mind you! not theirs, poor puppets! When the dress gets shabby, or the limbs rickety, I throw them upon the rubbish heap, and look out for another.
“I got a new. one last Thursday. The man who jumped over me in the station, and afterward carried me into the restaurant (such strong, steady arms as he had!) is a real hero! O, lam building a noble castle to put him in! He lives near here, for he passes the house three times a day. His eyes have a smile in them, and his mustache droops just like Charles the First’s, and he walks with a spring as if he were so full of life he longed to leap or fly, and his voice has a ring and resonance like an organ. The pretty girl that called him ‘Mark’ to-day, is his sister.” “Why not his wife?” “Wife! Don’t you suppose I know the cut of a married man, even on the street? He hasn’t the first symptom of the craft. He doesn’t swagger, and he doesn’t slink. A husband does onse or the other.”
Hetty laughed out merrily. There was a sense of relief in Hester’s return to the sarcastic raillery habitual to her, which made her mirth the heartier. A man crossing the lower slope of the orchard heard the bubbling peal, and looked in the direction of the big tree. So did his attendant, a huge St. Bernard dog. He tore up the acclivity bellowing ferociously. Before his master’s shout arose above his baying he was almost upon the girls. -At the instant of alarm, Hetty had thrown herself before the wheeled chair and the helpless occupant, and faced the foe. Crouching slightly, as for a spring, her face blenched, eyes wide and steady, she stéod in the rosy shadow of the branches, both hands outthrown to.ward off the bounding assailant. ““What a pose!” was March’s first thought, professional instinct asserting itself, concerned though he was at the panic for which he was responsible. ‘‘ln the same lightning-flash came—*l’ll paint that girl some day!” ; “Don’t be frightened!” he was calling, as he ran. ‘He will not hurt you!” Hester had shrieked feebly, and lay almost swooning, among her cushions. Hetty had not uttered a sound, but, as the master laid his hand on the dog’s collar her knees gave way under her, and she sank down by the cripple’s chair, her head resting upon the edge of the wicker side. She was fighting desperately for composure, or the semblance of it, and did not look up when March began to apologize. = “I am awfully sorry,” he panted, ruefully penitent. ‘‘And so will Thor—my dog, you know!—be when he understands how badly he has behaved. . He is seldom so inhospitable.” - The word brought up Hetty’s head and wits. ; 4
‘“‘Are we trespassing?”’ she queried, anxiously. ‘We thought that this orchard was a part of the parsonagegrounds, or we would not have come. It is me who should beg your pardon.” “By no means!” He had taken off his hat, and l!in his regretful sincerity, looked handsomer than when his eyes had smiled, concluded Hester, whose senses were rapidly returning. ‘‘My name is Gilchrist, and my father’s grounds adjoin those of the parsonage. He had the gate cut between your garden and the orchard, that the clergyman’s family might be as much at home here as ourselves. I hope you will forgive my dog’s misdemeanor, and my heedlessness in not seeing you before he had a chance to frighten you.” ' Summoning something of his father’s gracious stateliness, he continued, more formally: :
‘““Have I the pleasure of addressing Miss Wayt?” ' - Bow and question were for Hetty. Hester’s voice, thin and dissonant, replied with old-fashioned decorum of manner, but in unconventional phrase:
“I have ithe misfortune to be Miss ‘Wayt. This is Mr. Wayt’s wife sister, Miss Alling.” | : It was a queer speech, made queerer by the prim articulation the author deemed proper in the situation. March tried not to see that the subject of the second clause of the introduction flushed deeply, while her mute return of his bow had a serious natural grace he thought charming. When he begged that she would resume her seat, the little roguish curl at the corner of her lips which he recollected as. archly demure, came into play. ““We have no chairs to offer, but if you do not object to tho best we have to give—"” finishing the half-invitation by seating herself upon a grass-grown root, jutting out near the trunk:of the tree. ‘““The nicest carpet and lounge in the world,” affirmed March, sitting down upon the sward. ¢odd, isn’t it, that American men don’t know how to 101 l on the turf as English do? Our climate is ever so much drier and we have three times as many fair days in the year, and some of us seem to be as loosely put together. But we don’t understand how to fling ourselves down all in a heap that doesn’t look awkward either, and be altogether at ease in genuine Anglican fashion. ; 5
[TO BE CONTINUED. ]
Knowledge Is Power,
“Uncle ’Rastus, are you afraid of ghosts?” “Yessir. I doan’like ghosses.” “Well, I merely wanted to warn you that my chicken-house was haunted.” ‘“Ha’nted? No, sah, 'tain’t. ‘I done been dar ’fore dis, honey."~Judge.
] PERSEVERING FAT-FRYERS. The Systematic Robbery by the Monop- ' olistic ¥orce and Fraud Party. ; The High Tariff Association of pro- ' tected monopolists held one of its perii odical love-feastsin an Eastern city the | other day, and resolved to push the crusade to make monopoly tariff taxes perpetual in this country. Conspicuous among the brethren was Hon. Robert Protection Porter, who has devoted all the resources of a misspent life and of a perverted arithmetic to the task of proving that a people can remain great, rich and prosperous only by submitting cheerfully to systematic and gigantie robbery. "' In view of the stunning blow which the producers, toilers and tax-payers of the United States dealt this High Tariff Association of highly protected monopolists in November last, it would be instructive to have an exact diagram of the protectionists’ plan of campaign from now until the Presidential election in 1892. Their notions of what they want were fully set forth in the MeKinley tariff law, which, after being thoroughly discussed all summer and most of the autumn, was rejected by the voters with a vehemence and emphasis that leaves no-doubt of their purpose not to submit voluntarily to such conscienceless robbery. Do the tariff barons expect to convince these millions of voters in the short space of less than twenty-two months that they made 'arrant fools of themselves on the 4th of November? .
Popular enthusiasm is fickle, but the will of the American people is not so lightly formed nor so lightly set aside. There is not a precedent in the whole of American history to encourage. the monopoly-protection propagandists in the hope that this American people, when it assembles at the polls in 1892 will reverse the decision it rendered at the polls in 1890. The almost unbrok;n precedent is that the principles and” the policies which carry, by a decisiva sweep, in the midterm Congressional elections prevail also in the Presidential elections two years later. Nobody knows this better than the wealthy and successful manufacturers who have resolved to put forth their best efforts for the perpetuity of the McKinley ideas of taxatien. :
.As there is no hope of obtaining a reversal of the popular verdict by the ordinary engines of political discussion, their principal trust must be in the favorite Republican arguments of bribery, force and fraud. They will submit to fat-frying as cheerfully in 1892 as they did in 1888. If the conditions seem at all favorable to success they will ladle out their dollars to eorrupt the election of 1892 even more liberally than they did to elect Harrison in 1888. All the power that the “control of the purse-string” gives them over their employes and others wit.l'x whom they have business dealings will be exerted to the fullest. :
But all this will not suffice,, and the factory lords are not depending on it. A part of their work has been done to their hand by Hon. Robert Protection, Porter, whom they thrust into control of the eleventh census for .the purpose of robbing of representation constituencies who object to being plundered for the enrichment of a favored class in a favored section. A good many electoral votes and a good many Congressmen opposed to _monepoly protection have thus been gotten rid of. Still, with the growing political revolution in the West, the protectionists are far from seeing their way clear. The force bill is therefore pressed with all the money and all the power of the High-Tariff League. The hostile votes that Porter has spared, and that ean not be bought or bulldozed in the usual way, are to be suppressed in 1892 by this revolutionary device which a conspicuous organ of the protectionists has declared ‘‘has a dozen tariff bills” in it. If the West objects to paying tribute to New England the West must be muzzled in Congress by negro and scalawag Representativeselectedin the South by Benjamin Harrison and force bill returning boards. In order to appease the hunger of some few hundreds of blood-sucking monopolists the aim is to revolutionize the whole fabric of free representative government in America.
The census, which the constitution makesthe basis of ourrepresentative system,hasalready been debauched through the ready connivance of an alien mercenary who has earned his living ever since he came to this country by making figures lie for the Republican party.. Hoar, Edmunds, Frye and the rest of the New England desperadoes are now striking at the root of free elections. It is the greediest and most disgraceful conspiracy that ever came to the surface in. Washington. The conspirators may be sure of one thing. This is a big country and it is very strong. The American people are a hard-headed lot; they can take care of themselves and they willdo it. When they are thoroughly tired of this foolishness they will stop it, and they are ;ery weary already.—St. Louis Repubic. DETESTABLE PROVISIONS. The Tendency of Republican Methods te Overthrow a Free Vote. In the contest over the fraud and force election bill there is evidence of a tendency og the part of the more conserwvative Republicans to press amendments to the measure calculated to modify its odious igaperialism. The suggestions have value as calling the attention of the country to provisions so detestable that even the strongest Republicans hesitate to accept them. But they have another and a less agreeable -significance. They evince the effect of the pressure of the floater fund machine for aid to the project that has become the favorite of the Administration, because in no other way is there reasonable prospect of overcoming the popular = majority against the Republican party. < A free vote and a fair count would mean the election of a Democratic President and another Democratic House of Representatives in 1892. Trained to reliance on the methods of intimidacion and chicanery, the imperialistic chiefs fail to see that their treasonable efforts can have no other result than to render the popular uprising against them irresistible and well-nigh universal. : The most noteworthy of the modifica stans proposed are those of Senator Teller and Senator Stewart. The former seeks to provide for the exercise, by officers”ot elections, of ministerial powers only, as distinguished from judicial, while the latter proposes that Congressional votings under the new statute should take place on a day different from that upon which State and local oflicials are voted for. The former amendment, if adopted, might have some tendency toward curbing the ex-
ercise of arbitrary power by subordinates, and the latter would prevent the degradation of local elections by central despotism. The bayonet would still be over every ballpt for Congressman, but its baneful gleaming would not affront the eyes of voters for members of State Legislatures or officers o commonwealths, municipalities or townshjps. :
No modification has been proposed, nor can any be offered, that will render the bill tolerable to likerty-loving minds. The fraud and forece election bill, whether modified by the silver Senators, with the bayonets hooded by Hoar, or with them unvailed by Quay, is radically and essentially vicious. and treasonous. Under any circumstances it would be the duty of meéembers of Congress to fight such a proposition .to the bitter end.
The general duty of faithful Senators is emphasized and enforced by the special circumstances of the time. The people of the United States have passed upon the issue of the fraud and force election bill, and by an unprecedented majority they have ordered Congress not to enact any such measure. Every vote for the bill, and ,very failure to oppose it by any available means, is a disobedience of the supreme order of the sovereign American people. It is especially the duty of Democratic Senators to leave nothing undone that honest men can do; to omit no honorable device to prevent calamitous reversal of the people’s vote. : _ Were opposition hopeless, relaxation on the part of the opponent might be excused. But opposition is not hopeless. Thelife of the present 'Congress ends with the third day of March. Unless the revolution in the suffrage be accomplished before that time, it can never be effected, and the safety of home-rule elections will be forevermore assured. It is therefore incumbent om the Democratic Senators to obstruct the progress of the fraud and force election bill by every means permitted by parliamentary law. The rules of the Senate have not been altered. Gag law does not prevail, and the privileges of a free deliberative body must be exerted to the utmost to prevent revolution. —N. Y. Star.
FREEDOM AND FORCE.
The Infamous Attempt to Thwart the Will of the People. °
Last spring when the McKinley bill was before the House it was the constant ery of the high-tax organs that the duty of the Republicans in Congress was to pass it at once, and thus redeem the promises made to the people by the convention of monopolists who placed 3r. Harrison in nomination. Said the Chicago Journal: ‘The duty of the Republicans in Congress is plain. They should pass the bill, and hasten its passaze by a fair and uncompromising use of their power in both houses. When this advice had been followed there were citizens appalled at the assurance that for many years the country must be cursed by protection run® mad because monopoly controlled the upper House. It was not thought possible to destroy the power gained by the manufacture of rotten boyaughs in the interest of the men who were to profit by the levying of taxes upon the people. In the passage of the bill there was exercised what was deemed by the organs for whom the Journal spoke ‘‘a fair and uncompromising use of power in both houses.”
Upon the record thus made the Democratic party went to the people without means to offset the funds poured into the coffers of the Republican committee. Relying solely upon the intelligence of the people, such a victory was gained as caused the ultra evening organ toregret the passage of a bill which had ruined its party and endangered the very existence of a system to which it believed the prosperity of the country was due. Again the mill bosses are in the saddle. Onoe more the people are menaced by a combination which seems possessed of power sufficient to throttle any future expression of the popular will. Quay, the silent, vies with Hoar, the bM®viant, in preparing for the people a cause for rebellion compared with which the MecKinley bill was a benison. It has been announced that the force bill contains within itself a hundred tariff bills. If tribute-takers can count for themselves as demanded by the ruling Czar, then need there be no compromise of any industry when pap-fed monopoly seeks further largess at the hands of its tools. = Delano and his trumvirate may take tribute for their .sheep; manufacturers of woolen goods may be assured the entire home market, closed by a tariff wall over which not a garment shall be brought, and joy shall be in the homes of protected infants. The patriotic laboring man shall be forced to buy the dearer garment made by home talent, and Congressman Dunham shall enjoy the cheaper raiment only by crossing the Aglantic for his summer jaunt. : But there is a reverse to this picture. It is something more than a Fourth .oof July boast that the people are sapreme in this land. Oligarchies have fallen before that power; tax despots may yet feel it and tremble. Wise patriots engrafted onour fundamental law the provision that the popular branch of Congress should originate financial measures. For a few more days repudiated statesmen may enact laws. For so long the people may be defied by men who have been tried in the balance and found wanting. But the day of reckoning nears, and with it will come the opportunity for a triumphant. Democracy to prove its right to popular support. The people’s representatives will hold the purse-strings. They should not be loosed till every vestige of the force bill be wiped from the statute-book. Lords of high estate have been made to feel jeven under a monarchy the power of popular disapproval. Shall citizens of a free Repuklic be less powerful?—Chicago Times.
NOTES FROM THE PRESS.
——The Republicans in Congress are so afraid and jealous of their own leading bills that one bill serves as a club to Kill the other, with the ultimate probability that all of them will be destroyed.—Boston Globe. ——Mr. McKinley Smith—You fellows may talk as much as you please; but we Republicans are going to keep right on sawing wood.
Mr. David B. Jones—You are wise. Youwll find this is going to be a pretty cold winter.—Puck. ——Since it is the habit of the Administration to provide positions for repudiated statesmen it would be in order for Mr. Harrison to send Mr. Blair, of New Hampshire, out as an emissary to the treacherous Indians. He could tallk them to death at the firit conference, and if he failed the countr’y could stand the loss with eguanimity. — Chicaga Times.
FOR LITTLE PEOPLE. WHAT A BOY HAS LEARNED. I've learned to-day two things quite new— At least they’'re new to me— I think I'd better tell to you; ; They may help, you see. . This is the first—a pocket-knife That opens and that shuts— . Is dangerous to human life, Because it’s sharp, and cuts. ; The second is, that fire hot, : That in the furnace burns, Is rather apt to hurt than not The boy who never jearns : To keep his fingers from the grate, These things from wisdom’s shelf, In confidence to you I'd state, ; I've learned all by myself. : —John K. Bangs, in Harper’s Young People.
ROXIE’'S’ DREAM.
How Too Much Jelly Cured a Little Girl : of Many Faults. ;
She was such a jolly little dumpling. of a girl that the whole house was brighter when she was in it. Her grandma was a very young grandma, not at all like the grandmas in the picture books, with a cap, kerchief and glasses, but a *grandma who wore dresses like Roxie’s mamma, and yet who was the very best kind of grand- 1 ma; she could play games, and, holding Roxie .on her knee, would sit at the piano and play all Roxie’s favorite songs, and sing them in such sweet, low" tones that Roxie’s little curly head. would rest heavier and heavier against grandma’s pretty gown, and the song would be sung softer and softer, and the'next thing Roxie would know, she would find herself all covered up on grandma’s wide, soft couch among the big pillows like a “¥ird in a downy nest just waking up from a lovely nap. Carlo would raise his great head with the long, silky ears, and then get up on his feet and come to her and lick her fat, chubby hand with his pink tongue; but before Roxie was really awake grandra would surely come in and lift her in her arms and carry her downstairs to get a cup of milk. This day Josephine, the cook, had several glasses of jelly out on the table, and, of course, Roxie wanted some. Grandma gave her one teaspoonful in tiny bits, and told her any more would not be good for so small a girl. Roxie’s mamma came in—a dear, sweet little mamma, with soft, light hair like Roxie’s on her forehead, and soft pink in her cheeks, just like Roxie’s. She knew what that wrinkle on Roxie’s forehead meant, and she said very gayly: “Let us run out and see the chickens.” Roxie jumped down and trotted out after her mamma, all tied up in a- big shawl. The wrinkle disappeared, and the clouds all floated away from the jolly eyes; and Roxie forgot abouyt the jelly. After lunch the grandma and mamma went out to make calls and Josephine asked if she might have Roxie for the aftermoon, instead of Mary, the upstairs girl, who had had her the afternoon before. Roxie’s nurse was sick.. When Roxie went into the kitchen she found. in a row on the kitchen table / ginger-bread man, horse, rooster, cat and pig. She had a Noah’s ark at once, with the salt-box as the ark. For an hour Josephine and Roxie had a most delightful time. And then—l am sure I do not know what suggested it—Roxie said, very sweetly: ¢*Phine, I likes jelly.”
“Do you, shure?” said Josephine. “Shure, it is good when it is good, but its poor 'nough stuff when it is not.” ] think your ielly is very good,” remarked Roxie, snuggling still closer to Josephine. ;
“Do you now ? thin you shall have some,” and Josephine went at once to the closet and brought out a glass, and got Roxie’s oatmeal spoon and gave them both to Roxie.
Roxie’s cheeks were very red, and she did not put the spoon in the jelly at once. She patted it, and held it up to the light, and told Josephine. it was “beauntiful,” and then, looking quickly over her shoulder, she just put the tip of her spoon into“ the jelly, and took the tiniest piece; but the next taste was larger, and I am very somy: to have 1o tell it, but in a very few minutes more than half the jelly was' gone; and part of it was taken out with her finger. Dear! if mamma had seen that!
“Put it away, 'Phine,” said Roxie. “I don’t ’ike jelly so welly much as I did,” and Roxie gave a queer little shudder. “‘Shure, it’s cowld ye are, precious,” said Josephine, running te the range and giving it a vigorous shake, and, pulling the big rocker in front of the range, she took Roxie in her lap, and began crooning a song of the most doleful description of a sailor lad who was lost at sea, and whose lady-love died of grief; the last Roxie remembered was a description of a tombstone decorated with turtle-:doves. Roxie wondered and wondered what turtle-doves were, and then she found herself with her finger in her mouth, and she could not get it out. Carlo, with the kitten on his head, would not have any thing to do with her, while the old cat mewed 80, it sounded like ‘Jelly;” the rooster crowed as loud as he could, ‘“Jelly f—i—nm—g—e—r—s!” while grandma’s lovely green-parrot turmed her back indignantly, and would not notice Roxie.’ Neither would Josephine notice her, because Roxie’s finger was in her mouth, but made beautiful gingerbread toys for a round-faced little black girl, who always ate nicely with a spoon; and mamma did not know her, and grandma would not notice her, they were both so delighted with a jolly baby who never cried when it was washed, but just put its little round head in the basin and laughed through the water that ran over its face when it lifted it up. This was really more than Roxie could bear, and she cried out: .“I 'on’t cry, or eat with my fin'ers.”. ' And then somebody said: ‘‘Why, Roxie, darling, it is mammaj; your own dear mamma!”’ i '
And Roxie opened her eyes into her mamma’s face, with grandma’s face just over her shoulder, and they cuddled and petted Roxie, who at last told them her horrid dream.’ .
Of course it was a dream. Did you not guess? | Was not this strange? Roxie really tried not to cry when she was washed, and she very, very seldom put her finger in her mouth, and she never liked jelly again.—-Alice Dalton, in Christian Union. L ‘ o
GETTING KNOWLEDGE.
Charles Dudley Warner on the Habit of Attention and the Reading of Books.
An active-minded boy or girl ean find out a great deal about the world we live in by the habit of attention, by looking around; and he or she can get much inspiration from the example of good men and women. Butthis knowledge can be added to indefinitely by
reading, and people will read if they have a genuine desire to know things, and are not, as we say, ‘‘too lazy to live.” When I hear a boy say that he does not know what to read, I wonder if he has no curiosity. - Is there nothing that he wants to know about? Most children ask questions. It often happens that the persons they ask can not answer the questions. Now, it is the, purpose of books to do just this thing which the particular person asked can notdo. And it must be borne in mind that curiosity is of many kinds; curiosity about facts, about emotions, about what happened leng ago, about what is taking place now, about the people who lived ages ago; the people who live now, about others and about one's self. So it happens that one wants to read science, and poetry, and history, and biography, and romances, and the daily news: » e ,
It is quite impossible to lay down rules for reading that will suit all children, and generally difficult to map out a ‘‘course” to be inflexibly pursued by any one. But nearly every mind is or can, be interested- in something, and a very good plan is to encourage reading concerning the subjeet the child shows some curiosity about. One thing will certainlylead to:amother, far nothing is isolated in this world. Try to find out all you can about one thing, one fact in history, one persomn, the habits of one "animal, the truth about one historical character; pursue this, and before you kmow it you will be a scholar in many things. Do not forget that reading is a means to an end. The indulgence of it is:good: or bad according to the end in view. The mind is benefited by pursuing some definite subject until it is understood, but it is apt to be impaired by idly nibbling now and then, tasting a thousand things, and swallowing none, in short, by desnltory reading.—St. Nicholas: THE FAITHFUL POSTMAN. A Cat That Was Awarded a New Collar ¢ for Her Services. One day last autumn, when -chilly days first came on, Baby Winfred walke ened with a hoarse cry. The young mother’s heart was filled with fear. The dreaded croup had come, and she was alone; there was no one to send for the doctor. Just then sober old Sally, the tor-toise-shell cat, came stowly up the gar-den-path from the -barn. The mother remembered that Sally had:been trained to carry notes to the store—grandpa’s store at the foot of the lane—she had never been known to fail in carrying: them safely. ; . : Calling old puss, she hastily wrote: “Send the doctor at once; baby has croup.” She tied it about the soft, plump neck, and said: ‘‘Run, Sally, as fast as everyou ean! Runon the fence; ‘hurry and give it to grandpa!” ‘ Off went Sally, never minding the barks of impertinent dogs or friendly ‘c'alls of her relations, and the doctor was in the house in ten minutes.
‘I was on the street,” he said; ‘“‘at the store door, when old Sally came rumnning on the fence as fast as her four feet could carry her. -1 feared there was trouble, and waited till she could reach us. I think Sally has never forgotten how I took fish-bones out of her throat with pincers. Shealways seems. so glad to see me.” The very next day Sally had a new collar; on it -was engraved: ‘From Baby to His Faithful Postman.”—F. P. ‘Chaplin, in Our Little Ones. _-
FROM. YOUTHFUL MINDS.
—“What’s your mname?” ‘‘Teddy.” “Teddy what?”? ‘“No. Just Teddy.”— Harper’s Young People. —*Carl, it is not very good of you to say bad things of your friend behind his back.” ‘“Yes, but, father, when L say them to his face he beats me.”— Fliegende Blatter. | —Teacher—‘“Tommy Bingo, this excuse that you have brought me for being absent yesterday looks very much as if you had written it.” Tommy Bingo—‘‘Mother always did write like me, ma’am.”—N. Y. Sun.
—A little girl was trying to tell her mother how beautifully ¢ certain lady could trill in singing, and said: ‘“‘Oh, mamma! you ought to hear her gargle. She does it so sweetly.”—Farmington (N. H.) Times. ok
—Three-year-old' Johnny saw his papa making his garden, and set out to do some work himself. An hour later he was found busily engaged in sticking feathers up in the lettuce-bed, so he could “raise chickens.”—Youth’s Companion.
—“Well, Tommy;” said a visitor, ‘how are you getting on at school?” ‘Firstrate,” answered Tommy. ‘I ain’t doing as well as some of the other boys, though. I can stand on my head, but I have to put my feet against the fence. I want to do it without being anywhere near the fence, and I guess I can after awhile.”—Jewish Messenger. —Father—“Didn’t I hear high words between you and your brother just now, Henry?” Henry—%Very likely, father; but, surely, you wouldn’t wish me to use low language.”—Journal of Salvation. —%“Papa,” sajd Willie, who has been studying United States history, “I have just found something out.” “What is it?” “I’ll bet that Kosciusko was the original liberty-Pole.” — Washingten Post. = ./ e :
THE CIRCUS LION.
He is Not so Kingly as When in His Native
~ Jungle. A Cincinnati cixcus man says: “Some people think that the lion is the king of beasts, but if they could only see what I have seen they would change their opinion. A few years ago we were showing at Fayetteville, 0., when one of the lions got out @f his cage and was about to make his escape, when John King, who happéned to be standing near, stepped up tohis lordship and deliberately kicked him until he turned and crept back in the cage. At another time, in San Francisco, a drunken keeper opened a cage door and a large lion was about to spring out, when my brother Gil seized a barrel-stave and hammered the beast on the head. It crouched down upon the floor, and then one of the men went up and shut the cage. When Gil | first saw the lion about to escape it was standing with itshead and shoulders out~ side the bars, and one bound would have given it freedom.” Nobody has ever claimed that a eircus or menagerie lion is the ‘king of beasts.’ But when you meet a lion on his native and original jurisdiction we doubt that it would be healthy operation to try to thrash him with a barrel-stave; and if any Cin~ cinnati man tried to kick a lion wandering upon his accustomed territory we are inclined to think that the result ‘would be disastrously fatal for the Cinx cinnati man.”—Buffala Commasial. < iy TR e