Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1879 — Jack. [ARTICLE]

Jack.

Who says I wear nightcaps? Never! Why, I haven’t worn one since last Sunday. Jack hasn’t either. And you won’t catch us tying on a nightcap again as long as we live, you just see ii we do! Jack’s a lazy old dog. He has his good traits, you know; he’s goodnatured and steady and an excellent watch-dog; still, I must say that he’s grown very lazy and fat the last year. But then he’s no longer as young as he once was. However, I don’t think he's quite old enough to begin wearing nightcaps. I don’t believe that Jack felt very well Sabbath morning. Perhaps he was suffering from one of those severe Sunday headaches some people are subject to. At any rate, it was evident that he did not intend to go to church with us, so we went off to service and left Mr. Jack stretched at full length in the shade with both his eyes closed good and tight, j- - Who says that I haven’t the sweetest, the dearest, the most mischievous little nieces in the whole world? Ask Jack, if you doubt me. He knows their ways. But the eldest is only just seven, and both have blue eyes and long golden curls, and, therefore, having beauty and youth on their side, they are apt to escape the scolding and punishment they so well deserve. Who says Jack doesn’t look well in my clothes? You just ought to have seen him! Minnie pinned my very best red flannel balmoral tight arouna him, and then thrust his paws through the sleeves of my freshly-ironed raffled white muslin dressing-sack, while my especial pet May tied under his chin my prettiest nightcap. And that wicked old Jack stood perfectly still, winking away with those big eyes of his as though he enjoyed the joke, too. Who says our minister preaches long sermons? Why; i heara every word. Once, though, I thought of poor Jack as he lay in the shade fast asleep. Not that I envied him, not that my eyes would keep closing, but — Who says Jack’s a heathen old dog? He walked straight into church, and up the front aisle and into my pew, andlaid down at my ffeet and gazed up in my face with his pathetic dark eyes, as though asking pardon for wearing my very best nigntcap to meeting. Ana my pretty red skirt was all spattered with mud and my beautiful sack was dreadfully wrinkled, and I’ only hope Jack will not feel obliged to put on as much style the next time he ventures inside of a church. Who says people laughed? I do!— Ethel Allen, in Interior.

—A new feature in the way oi a suspension bridge was recently seen across the Housatonic river, a short distance north of Falls Bridge. It was a single thread of a spider’s web suspended from a tree on one side to 4bme object upon the other, between three hundred and four hundred feet in length. How did the creature manage to get it across? It is conjecturea that the engineering spider must have' calculated the distance, ppun a thread the required length, and then at the right moment have thrown it out, When it was carried on the wings of some favoring breeze to the opposite side, where it became attached. What was the spider’s object, unless to seek some retired spot to prey, or else to seek new adventures? It is not known whether the spider perished in the &tempt at crossing, or whether it gained the further shore in safety. —New Milford (Conn.) Bay. r —lt is estimated that Dr. H. J. Glenn, late Democratic candidate for Governor in California, this year raised one million two hundred thousand sacks of grain on his ranch at Colusa County. This is equal to about sixty-five thousand tons, or enough to load thirty-two vessels. The crop is worth about $2.2 10 ’ 000 ' K ' ' —This life may be, as stern moralists say, all a fleeting show, but it is an exhibition from which deadheads are rigidly excluded.