Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1875 — Page 3

RENSSELAER UNION. JAMES a HEALEY. pAprietors. RENSSELAER, - INDIANA.

THE COAL-IMP. C. P. C RANCH. I was sitting one night by my fire— Twas a. tire olWestmoreland coal With a mixture of coke, which I recommend As a comfort for body and soul. My chamber was cosy and warm; The curtains were closed all around, And the snow at the windows rattled away With a soft and tinkling sound. As I sat- in my easy chair, I think it had got to pe late, And over the top of my book I saw A face hi .the glowing grate. An ugly old face, *oo, it was— With wings and a tail-*! declare; f , And the rest was ashes, and smoke, and flame, r And ended—l don’t know where. • So odd were the features, I said “ I must put you on paper, my friend;” And took my pen and jotted him down — Face, wings aud wriggling end. A queer old codger he seemed As vaguely lie stared and shone; But 1 fixed him in outline as well as I could, And added n touch of my own. _ _ He flapped his wings in the grate, And struggled and puffed to be free, And scowled with his blazing carbuncle eyes, As if he appealed to me. Then I said—but perhaps I dreamed—- “ Old fellow—how came you there?” “ I’m not an old fellow”—the face replied, “ But a prisoned Imp of tlic air. “ In the shape of combustion and gas My wings I begin to find out; So i flap at the bars and grow red in the face, And am ugly enough, no doubt. “Tam made for a much better lot; — But I cannot escape, as you see: Blistered and burnt, and criimmcd in a grate— What could you expect of ine ? “ I ouce was a spirit of air, A delicate fairy page, Long, long ago—in fact before The carboniferous age. “ For centuries I was kept Imprisoned in coal-beds fast. When you kindled your fire this evening, you see, . I thought I was free at last. “ But it seems I am still to wait; No wonder I’m cross a* a bear, Make faces and flutter my wings of flame, And struggle to’reach the air." “ Mv ruby-faced friend,” I said, “ If you really wish to be free, Perhaps I can give you a lift or two. It’s easy enough. We’ll see.” Then, taking the poker, Tpunclied A hole in the half-burnt mass— When the fire leaped up and the Imp flew off In a laugh Of flaming gas. — St. Nicholas.

HULDY’S YOUNG MAN.

“Sol I sec Huldy Blare’s young man as I came up the lane,” said Miss Mallet, a-leaning in her keeping-room winder as cozy as you please! An unkiminon smart-looking chap. Eh, Cyrus?” “Do tell!” spoke up sister Jane. “Is Huldy Blare about a beau at her time of life? Rather late in the day.” . “ Never too late to mend,” said Cyrus, , facetiously. Now Cyrus had been sweet upon Huldah all his days; but latteriy there had arisen a coolness between them. Huldah wanted him to study law, while he had set his heart upon filling the pulpit at Rowley, and settling down soberly with Huldah at the parsonage. There had been a quarrel, and Huldah had gone away on a visit, to be followed on her return by the aforesaid young man. Nobody knew exactly whether she had jilted Cyrus or whether he had changed his mind; only Jane suspected, and Miss Mallet thought she’d heard words one night when she went to see Huldah, before raising the knocker. Miss Mallet always made it a rule to stand on the door step for a few minutes before knocking, in order to collect herself, and whatever unguarded words might float outward from the neighbor’s lips. “Yes, Huldy’s no chicken,” pursued Miss Mallet. “Lemme see; her folks was married forty-nine year coming Thanksgiving-time, and Huldy’s the baby. She’ll never see thirty-five agin. Her young man must be consid’able younger,” “Younger!” cried Jane. “Dear me! I did think Huldy had more dignity. I’d iiko to see a boy proposing to me /” “Hoity-toity! 1 dare say you would, Jane Allan," laughed the visitor. “ There ain’t nothing in the Scriptures agin it. Eh, Cyrus?" “Against a boy proposing to Jane?” “Cyrus! how can you be so frivolous? You, a clergyman! Dear me, what can Huldy be thinking of ?” “Her young, man, I reckon. Don’t you, Cyrus?" “ I don’t reckon on anything where a woman’s concerned!” said he, with some bitterness. “Deary me, Cyrus Allan, how come you to let this young popinjay cut you out —that’s what I’d like to know? llere you was right handy, and knowed"Huldy ever since she was that high. I alius thought you’d make a match of it, you two. She’s jest the cut-out for a minister’s wife, to sing psalni3 and lead in prayer at class-meetings, and carry broth and flannel to the poor.” “Huldy? Why, Miss Mallet,” cried Jane, “I’ve heard her say she wouldn’t marry a minister if there wasn’t another man in creation—having everybody in the purish bringing tithes of mint and cumin* as she calls it.” “ P'r’aps she wa’n’t asked.” “Like as not,” said Jane. “Sour grapes. But it does beat everything her taking up with this boy!” s ‘Oh, he’s got as good a mustache as Cyrus has; he’s old enough to go alone!” “To know belter!” “ Wa’al, it ain’t sueha terrible thing no way. Deacon Canticle’s younger’n his wife, and they was alius peaceable together. Nobody’d knowed about it if they didn’t go peeking into the family Bible!" “Time’s a delusion,” said Cyrus. “ Wnen people reach maturity, a few years on ciiher side don’t signify.” Cyrus was a trifle the junior of Huldah himself. “ Shakespeare was younger than Ann Hathaway, and Dr. Johnson ” “Law|" interrupted Miss Mallet, “did you know his wife was down with measles?" Liking it for granted that he spoke of the village doctor, and thankful she hadn't forgotten to tell the news. “Ob, Cyrus means the Dr. Johnson who wrote dictionaries and things,” corrected Jane. “ Lawl I don’t know nothing about him. I nevef see his wife, neither." ,

“Well,” continued Jane, with Huldy still heavy on her mind, “ I’m willing folks should marry their grandmothers if, they want to; but I must qay I’m disappointed in Huldy.” “ And I shouldn’t wondor if Cyrus was, too!” , . “ He’s got his calling—“l guess he won’t need to be calling round to Huldy’s now; she serins to be already under conviction." ADd to Cyrus’ jaundiced eyes she did indeed appear content and happy, as he watched her strolling among the beds of larkspur and love-lies-bleeding with “ her young man;” and when presently she plucked a carnation for his button-hole and leaned-on his arm as if it belonged to her the heart of Cyrus stood still, and he didn’t feel in the least like practicing what he was about to preach. Neither could he help acknowledging, as they stood to-, gether in the paling light, that the young man had a taking way with him, and that Huldah herself looked his peer, with her sparkling colors and pretty coquetries—that there would always be something girlish about her were she ninety-odd. It was almost twilight when Huldah «losed the garden gate between herself and her young man, who bent and kissed her hand as he withdrew. She was still lingering there, while the stars blossomed out overhead, when Cyrus himself passed by, hesitated, and returned to the gate. “ A flue evening,” he said. “ I suppose it isn’t too late for congratulations, Huldy?” She gave a start that-shook-all the dew from the syringa bush at her elbow. “ Better late than never,” she returned, in a minute. “ Congratulations are always welcome, you know.” “I don’t know anything about it. I was never congratulated.” “ Oh, but you will be; I shall congratulate you on your first sermon!” “ Pardon; 1 did not mean to speak of myself; and then, I doubt if you ever hear a sermon of mine.” “ Oh!” (sharply) “ are vou going for a missionary?” If Cyrus could have seen the face that grew pale and convulsed at the fear he would have felt appeased; but the darkness hid It. “No; only you will not be here to profit by my pastoral instructions. Well, Huldah, don’t suppose that I grudge you your happiness.” “I’m sure yon needn’t.” “ I’d rather you had it than I, since it has been shown that wc couldn’t both share it together.” Thank you. I dare say you’ll find your own share yet.” “I don’t look for any. There are plenty in the world who get on without it, I suppose. Good-night, Huldah." “ Good-night. But, Cyrus ” “ Did you speak?” turning back. “ No, no” (hastily). “ Here comes Miss Mallet. Good-night.” “ You don’t say that your young man leaves as early as this?” queried that personage; “jest on the edge of the evening, too. My stars! w r hen I was young things was different. But, law! girls wasn’t so ready to snap at a husband as nowadays! Men was tliicker’n flies in July, and now they’re skeerse as good sense.” “ Won’t you come in and make it up to me?” asked Huldah, laughing. “ Wa’al, I don’t care if I do. S’pose he won’t be back. He’s a likely-looking chap enough, but Jane and Cyrus don’t think you’d oughter be marrying such a young fellow. They’re terrible disappointed in you, but I tell ’em it won’t matter a hundred years hence.” “ Did Cyrus say so,” asked Huldah. “ Him and Jane bed a good deal to say. I don’t rightly remember the whole on’t. Folks will talk spicy, you know, when others get in luck. I s’pose you’ll be thinking about wedding-cake afore long?” Miss Mallet always baked the weddingcake for the people of Rowley. “I thought I’d better speak early, as I’d alius baked for the family and I knowed you wouldn’t want a new hand a-mixing it. And there’s the bride-cake. You might order the butter and eggs and fruits all together, or p’r’aps I could do it as I go home, and save you the trouble. Scales & Weight keep open till nine mostly, ana I could get a good bake on to it early in the morning.”

“ You needn’t be in such a hurry, Mis 3 Mallet,” said Huldah. “ I’ll let' you know when I’m going to be married in good season to have the cake 'done through. So they think I oughtn’t marry such a young man, do they?” the thorn rankling. “ Law! I wouldn’t let that hinder if I was you, Huldy.” If anything should persuade Huldah from the match, it was plain there would be no cake to bake. “ Let them laugh as wins. The Allans, to be sure, turned noses as high as nine, and don’t think you’ve got any dignity to spare, and Miss Higgins she laughed as though she’d ’a died when I pointed him out to her. ‘ That Huldy’s young man!’ says she. ‘Ddtell! had she took that child to bring up for better or worse?’ But law! if you're satisfied, and the cake’s got a good bake, there ain’t nobody hurt.” , Next day when Huldahdropped into Mr. Inche’s store for some trifle he seized the opportunity to tell ner that he had just received some choice silks, Which he could offer her at a bargain. “ Real bridal colors, Miss Blare.” And Miss Pucker, the dressmaker, refused several customers in order to be in readiness to make Huldah’s wedding gowns. But the world wasn’t made In a day, and Huldah and her young man seemed in no hurry. The neighborhood, indeed, had hardly grown familiar with their goings and comings, when a young lady appeared to vary the scene. It was nothing new for Huldah Locke to visit her aunt, but every one decided that this particular visit was ill-timed. And when Huldy’s young man and Huldy’s young niece were met walking in lonely paths together, or rowing on the twilight river, side by side, Mrs. Grundy could no longer contain herself, but must speak her mind, convulsed as she was with jealous misgivings on‘’Huldy’s account. Why had she been such a fool as to ask Huldy Locke down till the thing was settled beyond a peradventure? “ W hy didn’t she let me bake the cake and have done with it?” sighed Miss Mallet. “It’s a jus ice upon her for trifling with her luck in this way. It ought to be a warning to others!” “ It’s what she might have expected of such a chit of a boy," said .Taue Allan. “ She oughtn’t have put temptation in his way. Children always take to sweet things. 1 ” k “ For the matter of that,” said Cyrus, “ Huldah is only ten years older than her niece, and much the pr» ttier.” “ Speak for yourself, Cyrus,” snapped Jane. “ Every eye makes its own beauty. I thought you had more spirit than to stand up fo'r her. She’s only getting her come-uppance. Ten years is no laughing matter, and I’m afraid Huldy'll laugh the other side of her mouth!”

But Huldy appeared confident of her own charms, and oblivious of danger; though little Huldy was sometimes seen at the station taking leave of the young iinan. @ “ Huldy’s either too good for ’arth or vainer ’n a peacock,” Miss Mallet assured the public, “ for she lets little Huldy harness Old Daisy and gallivant off to meet Mr. What’s-his-name at the train when he’s expected down; and if it ain’t little Huldy’s picter he keeps in his watch I’ll never believe my eye 3 agin. I think you’d oughter call over and console the afflicted, Cyrus," said she, after Cyrus had been called to the parish of Rowley. “ She’s one of your flock, and likely to remain so. P’r’aps you might show her how ’twas all for the’ best, eh?” But Cyrus did not undertake that pastoral duty; he wrestled daily with himself instead, because his heart rejoiced in spite of him at the possible inconstancy of Huldy’s young man. Surely it was npt meet that a minister of the Gospel should entertain such weaknesses, but ministers as well as people are unsublimated flesh and blood as yet. Not that Cyrus in the least believed the current gossip; in the first place, the man who had once loved Huldah could never think of another, and, secondly, it was too good to be true. “ Wa’al, the cake’s in the oven, sure’s you live, Jane Allan,” said Miss Mallet, coming in one morning, later* in a flutter of excitement. “My word for it, I’d give it clean up; thinks I, that cake’s dough to the end of time!”

“What cake are you talking about?” asked Jane; but Cyrus, who was meditating a sermon in the adjoining room, knew by instinct, and his heart began to throb in great pluDges, as if it out of its place at every pulse. “ Why. Huldy’s wedding-cake, to be sure!” “All’s well that ends well. I wish her joy.” “ You may wish me joy when that batch is well out of the oven, neither too hard-baked nor with a quagmire in the middle of it. I ought to be beatiDg eggs for the bride-cake this minute, but 1 knew you’d want to have the news first-hand. I s’pose Cyrus ’ll git a proper handsome fee!” Cyrus groaned and threw down his pen. It had not occurred to him before that he should be called upon to marry Huldah to liis rival. “You never see such a heap of finery as is lying round over to Huldy’s—silk gowniand things, just down from Boating, bows and ends—Miss Pucker didn’t git that job—and the wedding-veil spmwling over a lounge. Huldy sliet the door when she come out to speak to me, but I’d seen my fill through the crack afore; and little Huldy’s to be bridemaid, I reckon, for she was a-tryin’ on some white fixing in the parlor chamber.” It was going to be a very quiet wedding—nobody invited but a very few friends from Boston, and the Rev. Cyrus Allan and his sister. Cyrus would have given all he was worth if it would have enabled him to stay away, but how could he refuse to marry a parishioner and an old friend, unless he were to fall ill or break a limb in the meantime? But the fated day drew on, and found him sound in body if distracted in mind as he helped Jane into the carriage and shut her finery in the door, thinking how much it seemed as if they were going to a funeral instead. A handful of friends were assembled in Huldy’s parlor, dnd a swinging bell of flowers marked the spot where the bridal party were to pose; and presently there was a portentous rustling and murmuring in the hall, and Cyrus caught sight of a cloud of tulle aud a confused panorama ot faces, from amidst which Huldah’s shone out like a fixed star, before he dropped his eyes upon his prayer-book and began the service, with a countenance as white as his gown. .' “ I was looking through the crack of the door,” chronicled Miss Mallet, who was always present on such occasions to cut the cake and order things duly, “ and I thought Cyrus Allan would drop every minute, and I jest- run for the campliire bottle.” He went through the ceremony as if he had been wound up for the purpose, without once raising his eyes to the bride’s. The response, “I, Huldah, take thee, Henry, to be my wedded husband,” sounded to him like the far-off whispers in a shell; all the faces about him seemed wavering and disturbed; he saw Jane standing primly against the wall in her stiff, old-fashioned brocade—her grandmother’s wedding gown—with its modern ruffles of embroidered muslin, and the great fronds and ferns upon it seemed to grow as she waited there, while he speculated if all the hearts that had ached under that bodice could make up the sum of his present agony; and directly the blessing was over, and summoning up all his strength of will and pride, Cyrus bent forward to congratulate the bride, and—the bride was only little Huldah!

“I never knowed it myself,” reported Miss Mallet. “ till I come back to the crackpot the door and see, all of a suddiftg, that the veil was on to little Huldy’s head, now that they faced round, and that old Huldy was nothing but a bridemaid. I was all struck of a heap, and I had to take a good sniff out of the camphire botile myself! And I was downright mad, too, at beingao took in. You see, the way of it was, little Huldy’s step-father wouldn’t let her marry her young man, ’cause the minute she up and did he!d lose control of the property her own pa left to Tier; and her ma, she hadn’t no marrer to her bones and never durst say her soul was her’n if any man thought different; and as little Huldy’s step-father was her guardeen, and she wa’n’t of age, and a-wasting her money for her in riotous living, and keeping of her pinched and treating of her shameful, they was afeard he’d forbid the banns if he got wdnd of it, he was sech a heathen; so they’d kep it sly', apd the rest of us bed wasted enough sympathy on Huldah Blare to found a hospital, you see. “ 1 How'could you play us such an unneigkborly trick, Miss* Huldy?" says I, afterward, ‘ and keep us so long in the outer darkness? We did a sight of worrying for you that we might have been spared if we’d only know ed he wa’n’t ~your young man.’ , “ * 1 never said htTwilTHyyjOThlpiisnp 1 said she, a-laughing. ‘ You drew your own conclusions.’ Yes,’ thinks 1.-“ I drew my own conclusions from hanging around the premises and watching the shadders on the window-curtings.’ jest then Cyrus Allen he came in and, ‘ Miss Mallet,’ says he, joking like, 1 1 thought it was a pity to have to leave Miss Huldy without her young man after all the talk, and disappoint the s, too, and I’ve kindly volunteeredto take his place and “show her it was all for the best;" ,so you’ll have to bake cake for the whole •"*rish!’ And Huldah blushed jest like a

rose in June, as putty as if she’d bin sixteen; but, you see, she’s got her youqg man after all, if he is a minister, and she don’t seem noways sorry.”— Harper's Weekly.

The New Demand for Labor.

A few months ago a New York firm ad vertised that they desired the services of a young man, who should be a good penman and have some knowledge of bookkeeping; compensation would be at the rate (Ts eight dollars per week. The advertisement appeared but once, and in only one newspaper, but within spur hours of the publication of the paper the advertiser received more than ICO replies 'by mail, and the total number of replies was about 500. Among the applicants were many collegians, book-keepers and experienced clerks. The hours of labor in the office of the firm in question were nine per day, with frequent night-work without extra compensation. At the same time the hod-carriers at work upon a large building in the neighborhood of the above-named firm successfully'struck for more pay, being at the time in receipt of pay at the rate of twelve dollars per week, the working hours being eight per day r . A few months later another clerk was wanted by the same firm, and a similar advertisement brought similar results; at the same time the ’longshoremen of New York struck because of an attempt to reduce their wages to thirty cents per Jiour, with an additional 50 per cent, for niglrt-work. Similar comparisons might be made without number, yet the fact remains that the labor mar ket, in city and country alike, is over stocked with men wishing to do clerical work.

. The cause of this surplus of clerical labor is not hard to find. Until a comparatively short time ago merchants were almost the only capitalists in the land competition in trade was nothing com pared with what it is now and merchants paid handsomely for clerical service, while manual labor offered almost no possibility of advancement, its bouts of labor were long and its pay was poor. It was, therefore, very natural that young men should prefer trade to mechanics. Now, however, the conditions are entirely changed. There is not, as there once was, a scarcity of men fit to do clerical work, so the competition for the services of able clerks and salesmen has ceased, and the price of such service has inevitably gone down as the competition has lessened and been removed. The profits of trade in proportion to the amount of capital invested have greatly decreased, and with them the rate of wages and the pay of office-work of all sorts has decreased sympathetically. Under the circumstances, it is clearly a hazardous operation for young men to look forward to clerical work as a life occupation. We say occupation, because even in the most promising days not one clerk in ten ever became a merchant. Nor do the professions offer encouragement to young men without means sufficient to pay for a good education and for their own subsistence in the years which must elapse before they receive the public confidence in a profitable degree. On the other hand, the mechanic arts never offered so great inducements to young men of ability and energy as they do now'. Fifty years ago carpenters and masons were mere builders of cheap houses of certain stereotyped shapes and plans: today every builder with any ability as a designer has ffiore work offered him than he can possibly do. Fifty years ago every blacksmith was a mere mechanic: to-day the skilled worker in metal has daily occasion to handle machinery, and has, consequently, unequaled opportunities for devising improvements and for reaping the fruit thereof. At the present time there is a steady need and demand for labor-saving apparatus of every sort, and the inventors thereof, if men of ordinary business sense, are richly rewarded for their ingenuity. Manufacturers of fine machinery of all kinds are seriously crippled by lack of intelligent laborers; the practical details of the mining interests of the country are in the hands of men who have seldom enough intelligence to properly fill their places; our simplest houses are indifferently built, our farms are seldom worked to their full capacity; able men in all these departments come speedily and prominently into notice ana attain wealth and social position, and yet young men shun all these departments of industry. It is a noteworthy fact that at the same time great numbers of rich men are endeavoring to place their sons as apprentices with competent machinists, mining corporations, builders and mechanics in general. These same rich men are the most trustworthy indicators of the business signs of the times, and young men in general will do well to consider the meaning of their action. Christian TJnion.

A Man for Whom the Sun Shines.

Everyone in Brussels must have seen a man literally clothed in white from tip to toe, for not only are his garments of that color,, but also his hat and hoots. During the late severe frost there was great curiosity manifested to see if he would persevere in wearing the same costume, and he stood out manfully until Thursday, when he appeared with an enormous cloak andjhood, in addition to the dress he has so long worn, but was still true to his chosen color, and odd enough he looked parading the streets among persons in black or other dingy coats. He is said to be a Dutchman who some yfears ago made a fbrtune in Batavia, but was afflicted with sun stroke. The doctors recommended his return to Europe, • and- following their advice he fixed his abode in Brussels, where he has now resided for some years. His eccentricities are hermless, and mainly consist in the firm belief that he has a personal and intimate acquaintance with the sun, who never fails to honor hint by shining when he takes his promenade.’ His apartments, even including the ceiling and the floor, are gilt, and he fully believes that this was the work of his kind friend, who had also endued him wiili the power of stopping a railway train at full speed. —Court Circular. TnE Dallas (Tex.) Commercial says in a recent issue: “ A lady now a resident Of our city, and one of the finest writers in the State, lost her husband some six years ago; she knew his life was insured for $10,000; but could not find the papers and did not know in what company it was. She went to New Orleans and spent the winter there in trying to ferret out the matt r, but was at length compelled to give it up in despair. She was engaged yesterday in writing a New "’Year'i* address ' for the Connnercial and was looking over some old papers for an address she had writtefi some years previous when she came across the lost paper.”

Delirium Tremens.

I had felt, coming on for two or three days. I was standing on the verge of a mighty precipice unable to-fetrace my steps and shuddering as I involuntarily leaned over and looked down into the vortex. That was to my wild and heated imagination a literal hell which opened up before me, and as I looked down into that awful lake of fire I could see the lost writhe, and hear them how lin their awful orgies. The wail, the curses, and the awful and unearthly ha! ha! came Tearfully clear and distinct from that horrid pit of fire that came up before me. I had got in that condition that my stomach would not bear one bite of food or drop of drink. I had been repelling from my stomach for three days every drop that I drank, so that I was getting terribly weak and nervous. I went into the bar-room and asked for a drink, and as I tremblingly poured it out a snake shot his head up out of the liquor, and with swaying head and glittering eye looking at me, licked out its forked red tongue and hissed in my face. I felt my blood run cold and curdle at my very heart. I left the glass hntouched and walked out on the street. By a terrible effort of my will I, to some extent, shook off the horrid phantom. I felt that if I could only get some stimulants to stay on my stomach I might escape the terrible torments that were gathering about me. And yet, at the very thought of touching the accursed stuff again, I could see the head of that snake again, and hear 10,000 hisses all around me, and feel serpents crawling and sliming through every vein of my body. Allnhe time I was burning and scorching to death for whisky. At that time 1 w'ould have marched across a

powder mine with a lighted match touched to it. I would have fearlessly marched before exploding cannons to get whisky. But these snakes were a new torture to me. i feared them more than any or all other warnings that I had ever had; yet mv thirst was so intense, and my sufferings so terrible that I resolved to try once more and get a drink of whisky and see if it would not steady and strengthen me so that I could get home before I died, for I f<?lt death in my tortured body and some invisible something told me that there was for me no escape from death. I walked into a saloon and called for whisky. I was afraid to touch the bottle and stood back while the murderer beiiind the bar poured out the damnation, and again that whisky turned to living, moving snakes, and they crawled around the glass and on the counter, hissing, writhing and squirming. Then in one instant they all coiled about each other and matted themselves into one snake with a hundred heads, and from every head forked tongues and glistening eyes hissed and gleamed at me. I rushed from the saloon and started, I did not know where. or care where, so that I might escape my tormentors. I had only rushed along a little way when a dog as large as a calf jumped up before me, and, with raised bristles and shining teeth, planted itself in my path. I picked up a stick about three feet long, thinking to defend myself. Just as soon as I took the stick in my hand it turned to a snake. I could feel its slimy body writhe and squirm in my hand, and in trying to hold it to keep it from biting me every finger-nail emt like a knife into the palm of my hand and the blood streamed down over that stick, which to me was a writhing, bloody snake. Hell is a heaven compared to what I suffered at that time. At last I dashed the accursed thing from me and ran as for my life. I got to the Little Miami depot and took the cars. At that time I did not know where I was. I went about ten miles above Cincinnati and left the train. At times, for awhile, I could reason and understand my situation. I soon found that I was in a town where a young man lived who had been my companion and schoolmate in the city. I went to him and told my condition. He did everything for me that can be done for one in that condition. But as night came on my tormentors returned in ten thousand hideous forms and drove me raving inad. I went to a hotel, where they pursued me, to lie down. Just as soon as I touched the bed I reached my hand over and it touched a cold, dead corpse. The room lighted up with a hundred bright

lights, and that dead body pow appeared to me like nothing that had ever been visible in human shape. It opened its glazed, dead eyes and stared me in the face. Then Its whole face and form turned to a demon and its wild eyes .gleamed at me, while its whole form was lull of pas Mon, fierceness and frenzy. I jumped from the bed, and as I shrank back from the loathsome monster everything in my room turned to living devils. Chairs, stand, bed, and my very clothes tdbk form and became living demons that crawled and sat about me, some hissing and others cursing me. Then all at once there appeared in the corner a form larger and more soul-sickening than all the others. Its appearance was more ghastly than any description I had ever read about witches and old hags. This mixture of devil and human marched right up to me with a face and look that will haunt me to my grave. It began by making threatening gestures and all the time talking to me, saying that it would thrust its fingers through my ribs and drink my blood. Then it would stretch out its long, bony, skeleton finger?; that looked like sharp knives, and ha! ha! Then it said it would sit upon me and press me into hell. That it would roast me with brimstone and dash my burnt entrails into my eyes. Saying this it sprang upon me and, for what seemed to me an age, I fought the unearthly thing. At last it said, “ Let me go,” and when I did it glided to the door and giving me one deadly look it said: “ I will soon be back with all the legions of hell, and then I will be the death of you; you shall not live one huur.” I left my room and wefit out into the night. Just as soon as I touched the street I put my foot on a dead body:' The whole sireet and pavement v£gls covered with dead men, women and children lying heaped close together with their cold, pale white faces turned up to heaven. Some looked like they were sleeping, while others seemed to have died in awfu' agony and their faces presented horrid contortions. Others had their eyes oursted from their heads and hanging 1 out on their faces. And when I would step on them th-y would come to lrc and with their bloody eyeballs glaring at nie raise up to my face and curse me. I could no move without placing my feet on dead bodies, and when I world step on a dead body it would open its oyes and cry; then the dead mother woiild rise up and pronounce a curse upon me for trampling tinder foot her child. And devils would surround me and with horrid oaths curse me for disturbing the dead. 1 would tremble and beg and try to fihd place to pat my feet, but the dead

were in heaps and covered all the ground, so that I coaid neither walk nor stand without-putting my feet on a dead body. I would stop and pant for breath, and then I could feel a corpse under my feet and it would raise up, throw its arms around me and curse me for tramping on it. It was in this way that I put in that whole night. —Cambridge City Tribune.

PHUNNYGRAMS.

How charmingly naive she is,’’said a young beau to a crusty old gentleman. ‘‘^ nave! ” exclaimed the latter, gazing through his spectacles toward the coquettish beauty indicated. “ I should say more of a fool.” “Where’s the molasses, Bill?” saida red-headed woman sharply to her son, who had returned with an empty jug. “ None in the city, mother. Every grocery has a large board outside with the letters chalked on it: ‘N. O Molasses.’” —Said a young married lady recently to a friend: “My husband often said before marriage that he would love me to death, and I really fear he will, for I cannot even visit a neighbor’s without his fallim; upon my ndbk, kissing me twenty times, and begging me to return soon.” —A sailor’s wife had just received intelligence that her husband had perished at sea. She was visited by a neighbor who sympathized with her on her loss and expressed a fear that she would be poorly off. “ ’Deed will I,” said the widow; “but he did all he could for me—he’s saved me the expense of his buryin’.” —A Vermont schoolmaster says he never felt unequal to any demand in the line of his profession, excepting on one occasion, when a farmer brought his bouncing, fifteen-year-old daughter to the school, and, walking ap to the master’s desk, said: “ That’s my youngest gal, and if you ever catch her slidin’ down hill with the boys, I just want you to trounce her.” —A lady was leading a little black and tan dog. When she reached the corner a boy suddenly cut the string and, giving a yell that a boy only can give, black and tan put down the avenue at his best pace. The lady caught the boy and gave him a lew smart raps on the head with the handle of her parasol; and being asked what she was doing naively answered: “ I’m handling the nucleus of a very bad man.” —He was yelling “ Black yer butes!” in front of the Postofflce yesterday, and chewing away at a monstrous quid of gum, when another boy came along and screamed: “ Say, Bill, s’posan ye let me chaw that for awhile, I’ll give ’er back termorrer.” “ All right—give me a receipt.” JlWhat fur?” “What fur? Why, s’posen ye happened to die tonight and I hadn’t anything to show? How’d I ever git this gum back?”—Detroit Free Press. —An aristocratic but economical matron in Chicago has bought a forty-cent tea-bell and invented a paragon of servant, whose only imperfection is her deafness, when she has company at tea the mistress rings and rings for the cake basket, or more hot water, or something, then, with the remark that Jane gets dealer and deafer every day, goes for it herself and returns, maintaining a ventriloquial conversation with the imaginary Jane all the way up the basement stairs. —“ Disease is very various,” said Mrs. Partington, as she’ returned from the street door after conversation with Dr. Bolus. “ The doctor tells me that poor old Mrs. Hare has got two buckles on her lungs! It is dreadful to think of, I declare! The disease is so various! One day we hear of people’s dying of hermitage of the lungs; another day of the brown creatures ; here they tell us of the elementary canal being out of order, and there about tonsors of the throat; here we hear of neurology in the head, there of embargo; on one side of us we hear of men being killed by getting a pound of tough beef in the sarcophagus, and here another kills himself by discovering bis jocular vein. Things change so that I declare I don’t know how to subscribe for any disease nowadays. New names and new nostrils take the place of the old, and I might as well throw my old herbbag away.”

A Climber.

The following strange occurrence did not come under our personal observation, but is undoubtedly true. On Wedlnesday last some domestic fowls belonging to a gentleman near the eorner of Miner avenue and California street were driven by the high water from the house in which,they were kept and forced to seek shelter in the branches of a tall oak near the premises. The fowls consisted of some dozen or more hens that belonged tc the harem of a gallant rooster full of years and honors. This leader of the flock, after they had been several hoars in the tree, evidently became tired of the monotony of gazing upon tbe dreary expanse of water and conceived the idea (if roosters have ideas) of changing his quarters and inducing his tribe to follow him. He discovered a little knoll of dry land about fifty yards distant, and for this he flew, reaching it in safety. The hens. however, did not dare to follow, and like Officer Wells, on Banner Island, he was “ alone in his glory." He became Dervous and homesick ants mad, but he bravely stood to his poet and kept a wistful eye upon his dozen better halves in the tree. As evening approached he wished himself back in the bosom of his family, tut how to get there was the question, for he couldn’t fly up at an angle of forty-five , degrees and had never learned to swim. Finally, after being abused by a lot of ducks that were swimming all around him, he got desperate, went down to the water’s edge and plunged boldly in. H£ struck out for the tree and swam to it with as little effort as a frog. Reaching the tree, the next thing was to get into its branches, for he was too wet to fly and the nearest limb was fifteen feet above him. In this emergency he commenced to climb, and with his bill and toes actually did climb the fifteen feet, and in five minutes was in the top branches flapping his wings and crowing at the ducks, which became disgusted and started home! Such is the tale, not one-fourth of which would we believe were it told by any man except Joe Long. He is the living wiiness of the fact, and, like George Washington, he never told a lie—that we know of What he might do or say for an entire hen-roost matters not, but it is certain he could not be induced to prevaricate for one rooster —not for Joseph; no, not much. —Stockton (Cal. ) Indc]>m*dent. A New BampsAike woman, when dy-v ing, made /her husband swear, on the Bible,, he’d never marry a woman Withi a sharp nose. And yet a sharp noee is noV — half so bad as a sharp tongue.