Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1876 — Page 3

The Rensselaer Union. at ■,« • RENSSELAER, - - INDIANA.

PRINCE'S FEATHER. I Mt at work one inmmer day. It wm breesy August weather. And my little boy ran in from his play With a bright-red priace’s feather. ♦* Make me a cocked ha', mother dear," He cried, " and put thia in ill Dick and Charley are coming here. And I want it done in a minute I" It was bnt one little boy I bad, And I dearly loved to please him; When each a trifle would make him glad, Bb sure I did not t aae him. I dropped mv work with a merry heart. And Willie and I together We made the cocked bat gay and emart. With its plume of prince's feather. I set It flrm on bls bonny head. Where ih« yellow curia were dancing, I kissed hie cheeks that were rosy red. And hie mouth where smiles were glancing; Then otf he ran, the beautiful boy I My eager eyes ran afier, And my heart brimmed over with loving Joy At the ring of his happy laughter. Back to their work my Angers flew — I was sewing a frock for Willie— A little white frock with a band of blue. That would make him look like a lily; For he was fair as a flower. wi<h eyes Of the real heavenly color: They were like the blue of the Angust skies, And only the .east bit duller. I never guessed when he ran from me, With his langh outrhiging cheerly. That it was the last time I should see Those blue eyes loved so dearly. I sat at.my.work.and I sang aland,... - From a glad heart overflowing. Nor ever dreamed it was Willie's shroud That 1 waa so busy Sewing. I folded the frock away, complete. And I had no thought of sorrow, Bnt only tnat Will e would look so sweet • When I dressed him iu it, to-morrow. And down to the garden gste I ran— F< r I thought I heard them drumming— To see if perhaps my little man And Charley and Dick were doming. Some one spoke as 1 reached the gate (He was Charley’s growu-up brother) — “ Wait!” he said in a whisper, “ wait I We must break it to his mother!" ''Break it— what?" My ears were quick. And I shrieked out wild and shrilly—- “ What is the matter with Charley and Dick? What have you done with my Willie ?’’ The noys shrank frightened away at that And huddled closer together; Bnt one of them showed me the little cocked hat With he wilted prince’s feather! “ What does this mean? Is Willie dead?” He began to tremble and shiver—“We were skipping stones," with a gasp he said, “And Willie— tell in the river!" I asked no more. Thev brought him home— My Willie! my little’Willie! His curls all tangled aud wet with foam, His white face set so stilly. I combed the curls, though my eyes were dim, And my heart, was si. k with sorrow; And the little frock I made for him He wore, indeed, on the morrow. Somewhere, carefully laid away. Through summer and winter weather, I keep the iiat that he wore that day, And the bit or prince’s feather. It is only dust that was once a flower, But there never will bloom another, In sun or sliow.r, that will have such power To wring the heart of his mother. Wide- Awake.

ONE NEW YEAR IN A THOUSAND.

Betty Wilmarth—and a quaint, piquant little beauty she was. They used to call her a changeling; for where she found that Spanish face of hers, nobody knows. Somewhere far back in her ancestry, it may be, an old beauty bequeathed it; but out of a race of blondes her face had blossomed as dark and rich as the pictures of those Spanish women where the lovely colors seem to be retiring every day farther into the shade of the canvas—a golden, tawny skin with a crushed crimson on the cheek; delicate features, with a fine curve to the thin nostril and a short one to the red lip, that gave a glimpse of little white teeth; and great black eyes, whose Hash only the long, black, shading lashes subdued to a soft glow. Yes, Betty Wilmarth was a beauty, and somehow as fascinating as beautiful; full of innocent caprices that set you to wondering what would be the next, and kept your interest alive; with a temper that struck sparks, but which was in the next moment all sweetness; impulsive, warm-hearted, a charming, willful piece, setting her lovers by the ears, and making all the other girls devoutly wish she would be married and done , with it; for of course there was no chance for anybody else so long as Betty Wilmarth was around. But Betty Wilmarth was in no sort of hurry to marry; one by one, she filliped oft’ her lovers lightly as thistle-down. Petted and caressed and indulged to death, as people said, she declared she wanted neither to be an old man’s darling nor a young man’s slave; and old lovers consoled themselves, and new lovers took their turn, and she was heart-whole and happy, singing her way through life, and counting her twenty years in the sunshine as a child might count a row of brilliant

beads. But one of these lovers was not to be filliped off as lightly as the rest; and that was her mother’s young step-cousin. Will Maunder. He had come down to Freneborough from his mountain home in the deep forests, after the disastrous fire that left him only the bare rock for his inheritance; and where, save for his mother, and some old goodies, he had never seen a woman; and Betty had struck him as a goddess might have struck a clown. Not that Will Maunder was a clown by any means—his mother, a lady who carried her ladyhood into the woods, had attended to all that; and a certain wild grace and rude courtesy accompanied his every action. But he was a brawny, longlegged, stalwart fellow, for all that, and his fair face had been sun-kissed with many a freckle, and his fair hair curled close to his head in tight rings; but Betty knew nothing about any Greek head with Close curls of the same description, and would have liked it no better if she had; and, of all things, she despised freckles. Bhe had an ideal of the face and form and mind and manners that were to win her on some distant day—a day distant enough to borrow enchantment—a slender knightly shape, perhaps, a perfect countenance, long auburn locks—- “ discolored, as if a crown Encircled them, so frayed the basnet where A sharp while line divided clean the hair, Glossy above, glossy below.” She would not have liked it all if she had seen it so; and if she had but known it, the massive limbs and shoulders of Will Maunder were much more like the Ancient knights she dreamed about than possibly could be this absurd and puny ideal she had set up. “ The days of chivalry are over now,” said Betty, with a sigh. “ Mighty disagreeable, cold, cheerless, dangerous, and uncomfortable days you would have found them,” said Will. “ Cheerless or not, they’re over.” “ What makes you say so, Betty,” he asked, from where he sat at her feet. *? Oh, because they are!” she answered, throwing up her pretty arms and clasping them above her head, as she leaned it back. among the honey-suckles, and

looked asiweet as they, and made poor Will's heart beat with looking at her. “ Oh, because they are! Who would dare great adventures for anybody now—scale castles, kill giants, enter the dens of wild beasts—” “ I would—for you, Betty.” “Oh dear me I How tired I am of hearing you say so! They would, for any body. Now please don’t. Will dear, any more! There are no castles here; I don't want anything of wild beasts; and you’re a giant yourself, you know.” “ I wish I wasn’t, Betty. I’d change with that little Hop-o’-my-thumb, Fred flammls, if— ” “Oh, that shrimp! Ido detest him—he’s such a—such a spoon!” “I thought you didn’t like slang, Betty.” “I don’t—from anybody else.” “ But if you use it yourself, you’ve no right—’’ ! “Oh dear me! if only those criticised who were perfect themselves, what a delightful, easy-going "world it would bo! It seems to me, Will Maunuer, that you are always finding some fault with me, and—’’ “ You’ve not been used to it. I don’t see any fault in you, Betty,” he added, presently. “Oh, there, there, Will! Do be still with your mooning! Come in and sing this new song with me; it needs a great rolling bass.” And so Will would go in and sing with her, his voice trembling as he heard hers; would go out and walk with her, to be left for the next gallant that sought her side; would be hen abject slave, waiting on her least wish and every breath, and would get no thanks for his pains. “ Why isn’t it enough for him that I like him as he is?” shewouldbay. “ He’s all very well for a cousin—a little too good for a step-cousin; but I should as soon think of falling in love with a satyr. He’s like the great Newfoundland, always tumbling at your feet.” And so she would go on, while she looked in the glass at night and made her toilette for sleep—the only time the little witch had for much confidential conversation with herself —and lightly troubled by the parting look of his sad, reproachful eyes, that would return to her like a haunting shade. “I declare if I were a man I would have some spiritand then very likely she began singing—as she combed out her long hair where a line of sparks followed the comb, and knowing that Will heard every word where he sauntered up and down the garden—‘“lf I were a lover, and wooing would go. Would I fall on my knees and entreat of her? Nol I would bend from my saddle and snatch her slim waist. And be off to mv eyrie In galloping haste!’ ’’

“And if you did,” Will would mutter, beneath the window, “there’d be the very deuce to pay!” It was when affairs were in this posture, Will pursuing, and with the vantageground of residence in the house, Betty retreating, yet half relenting, that Mr. Valerino, the young exile, came to Freneborough to give lessons in music and in his native tongue. Of course his supposed story fired the Freneborough heart —the feminine auricle of it —and all the romance of Betty’s dreams rose to meet it. As for the young exile himself, he was the very creature of romance—so tall and pale and dark and melancholy; his immense dusky eyes seemed full of the strange, sad memories of wonderful adventure and experience in the Apennines, and on the Campagna, and among the brigands of the Romagna; and the light of heroic days and nights made, as one might say, a halo round him as he walked.

Certainly, now, it was hardly Mr. Valerino’s fault; he never said he was an exile; he never said he was a patriot; he never whispered of conspiracies among old ruins and in the Catacombs; he couldn’t help being tall and pale and melancholy ; and there was no reason why he should mention that his father haa for forty years played the piccolo in the orchestra of a New York theater. If people chose to take him up and make his way easy for him, it seemed all right and natural. After he discovered the reason, his lessons being nearly through, and his vanity too sensitive for an explanation, he quietly left town on ending his engagements. But meanwhile this little Betty Wilmarth was frightfully beautiful—to a man who knew she was as much forbidden to him as though she lived in one of the fixed stars. It was very pleasant to receive the admiration of such a being; he had not the strength of mind to undeceive her; and Betty went on, making a simpleton of herself, studying, and conversing of such Italian literature as was a terra incognita to the teacher; asking the youth unanswerable conundrums concerning Italian history, which he evaded with what she deemed a delicacy of reticent modesty; and when she saw the slender, sinuous shape of the young exile, and the proud, sad beauty of his face, beside Will Maunder’s burly thews and sinews, his bluff and common-place honesty of countenance, she grew impatient at the contrast, and wondered at herself to think she had once been almost on the psint of relenting and being kind to Will. It annoyed her, at that time, even to look at Will: the sight of him may have been a reproach for her folly; his hearty ways offended—so much higher breeding there seemed to be in the insinuating air of the Italian; and then his affection irritated her, for she was on the point of a grand poetic passion for an unhappy exile whose consolation she was to be. And thus the man who belonged already to her prosaic every-day life, and would have bound her down to it—the life she had always known, without a charm of imagination, of the unknown, or the ideal iu it, and toward whom she felt a kindness might possibly grow kinder, and make her yield one day to his persistence if he were still here to continue it —that man was becoming intolerable, and she wished him out of her way. And out of her way she became determined he should go. j ” She couldn't stroll with Mr. Valerino down a lonely lane, talking nonsense far too high for the youth’s comprehension, but there was Will just stepping over a fence, or lying under a tree, or very possibly laughing at her —if he was not angry. What right had he to be angry ? She had never given him any! She couldn't go into the church on a weekday, and take her seat in a peW alone, to hear Mr. Valerino practicing in the organloft, and making roof and rafters ring and vibrate with delicious melody, but there was Will before her, in the porch. “I like music, too,” said Will. Shecouldn’t pass an evening with a friend, where Mr. Valerino was one of the company, but as soon as the time for parting came, the bell rang, and there was Will to act as escort and spare Mr. Valerino the trouble. Once, on such an occasion, she gave her arm to the exile, and suffered Will to stalk on in silence beside them, while she talked a broken lingo of Italian phrases with the yourg mamer, which, for the time being, she relt, put Will Maunder

entirely outside the pale of civilization. I won’t be supervised in this cried Betty to herself, for her sisters were not of fit age to receive the confidence. “ It’s as bad as having a spy at one’s feet. I can’t endure it another day, and I shall tell him so!" And, unfortunately, just as she was irately brooding over these wrongs, her father sent for "her, that he might ascertain her feelings in regard to a proposition he was inclined to make Will —a proposition to take him into business, allowing him an interest now for his work and oversight, and finally retiring in his favor. Owing to her mother’s ill health, her father had fallen into a habit of consulting Bettv rather than disturb the invalid, sufficiently occupied with her ailments. “ Oh, father, father! You don’t mean that you ever thought of doing such a silly thing!” cried Betty, in free disgust. “And when he pesters me so! I never should have another day’s peace in my life. You might just as well put me In prison, with a spy and a master over me. Oh no, indeed! Give him any thing, but send him away. Start him in business in Australia, buy him a farm in the West, but don’t, father, pray don’t keep him here.”

And Betty’s voice settled it. Mr. Wilmarth told his wife’s young step-cousin that he had changed bis mind, and had no place for him in his business, but knew of an opening, and would establish him in it, in a Western city. “Is it Betty’s wish ?” said Will. And he refused the proffer; and one evening, catching Betty’s hand, as he bid her good-by, and lifting it to his lips with a kiss that burned in upon it, he left the place, and buried himself, unknown, among the Southern mountains with some flock of sheep. One might suppose Betty would have been satisfied then. Not she. She was as restless as a bird. Perhaps she missed the pleasure of having Will behold her conquests; perhaps she missed the adoring slave; perhaps she missed the constant, tender service. A month afterward, when Mr. Valerino drew his lessons to a close, and betook himself to other fields—vexing and mortifying her, it may be, but not grieving her a particle—she certainly missed the old friendship and sympathy, the kindness in which she could confide and with which she could advise; and little Betty Wilmarth’s black lashps were wet with tears that she could not account for, and that surely she never dreamed she would be shedding because Will Maunder was away. She had reason, presently, to miss that kindness to some purpose. Her father was in that same year thrown from his wagon; and he lav but partly conscious for weeks afterward, and for months he never left his room nor quite recovered his intelligence. In those weeks and months unfaithful clerks and bookkeepers enriched themselves and impoverished Mr. Wilmarth; and when he finally recovered, it was to the wreck of what had once bid fair to become a great fortune. “If Will Maunder had been with me,” said Mr. Wilmarth, “ strangers and hounds would have had no chance to fleece me!”

It was true. Betty heard it with a shiver. She had thought as much many a time, yet had put the thought away; but new, her father declaring it so, seemed to make the fact sure. And why was not Will with her father ? For no reason but that she had in reality driven him away. Then they owed all tneir misfortunes to her headstrong folly! If Wjll Maunder—noble, patient, forgiving, honest Will Maunder—had been in her father’s business, this disaster would never have overtaken it; her father would not be beginning life over again in his old age: her mother need not have relinquished her nurse; her sisters would not be dependent on a distant relative for the charity of their receipted school bills; she herself would not be cramped and pinched, turning old clothes, warming old food, doing the work that servants in plenty had always done for her before; listening still to these tiresome lovers, that did not forsake her beauty because poverty had joined their throng. If crying would have brought him back, Will Maunder could have sailed to Betty on a flood of tears; but tears being useless, Betty scorned to shed them. She had no idea where he was, except for the vague rumor that spoke of him as sheepraising somewhere in the Carolinas. If she had, having sent him off in her prosperity, she could not call him back in her calamity. So she braced herself to bear her trials as she might, and to bear them, as she sometimes said to herself, in a way that Will would have approved; and she laughed bitterly at herself to think of the sentimental idiot she had been, and of the innocent young Italian on whom she had poured out the burden of her vain fancies; and her clear dark cheeks reddened redder than their wont at thought of the light in which the clear-headed Will must have held her infatuation.

Betty’s cheeks, though, had never lost their carnation; she was no older than before, so far as her beauty was concerned; only into the radiant face there had stolen anew expression, perhaps called out by the necessity of so much tenderness toward her sick father and disconsolater mother, perhaps by he longing for a once neglected presence, the hope, growing more patient, that it might yet return—the sense, growing daily more humble, that nothing had befallen her but what she sadly deserved. And then the long war broke out, and in all its course no word of Will. She thought he might be in it. She was sure that his blood must be stirred. She looked for his name in the bulletins, in the promoted, in the dead and missing, in the discharged, in the forlorn-hopes; she longed to do something for him, now that it was impossible—to encourage him, to help him, if she could only once find his name. She never did.' And when at last peace was declared, there came through the obscure channels in which all such news runs, not to be verified, and yet too authentic for disbelief, the report that he had been a conscript of the Confederates, had fallen in his first battle, and had died in hospital. And her act had killed him! Betty Wilmarth sat down that day in despair. For what had she been born, when, out of her insignificance, she had wrought such evil as this? A murderess—that was ■What she was! The murderess, too, of the best friend a woman ever had. By a whim, a mere whim,; she had brought disaster and ruin on her family—she had brought a strong man down to his grave. By a whim? No, oh no! By the blackness of her heart! And it was in sackcloth and ashes that she sat while summer and autumn crept by. She loathed herself. She felt that even God must loathe her; every one must loathe her that knew her as Will Maunder’s murderess. The earth was dark; for her the sun ceased to shine; the faces of all she saw were blanks, they seemed to belong to people of another race; there was nobody of her race—a woman with the blood of her best friend on her hands! Day after days Cm seemed to gather, thicker and er, Over the world; it was a place of

graves; all those that wont by were born only to suffer and die—to suffer and die, and after death the judgment! And then, her thoughts getting too much for her, Betty would start up and walk for miles, to wa'k off the horror that oppressed her. the horror that made life seem not worth living; that made life seem impossible to live, and yet did not let her dare to die. Nothing was any pleasure to Betty now. Her father’s affairs had brightened; they had retaken their old house; her mother’s health was restored; the girls had come from school, content and happy, and ready to take Betty’s scepter where she dropped it. But she was pleased for their sakes—for herself it made no difference. The color had forsaken her sweet cheeks at length; her eyes were dim with her long crying; she sat for hours together staring straight before her, conscious of nothing what ever but that she had been the death of Will Maunder.

How she missed him now at every turn! the ready smile, the tender word, the helping deed, the admiring look, the persuasion that she could do nothing wrong! If he were only here in her trouble, he would clear it all away, as a strong west wind blows the buds. But, no;«she would be having no trouble if she had not sent W ill out of reach; she would see him again neither here nor hereafter, for the place where Will Maunder went with his white soul would be no place for his murderess. How strong he was, in those dead and gone days! how generous, how brave and true! and all tor her it might have been. And she had been blind till the need of his daily care had made her turn and look • and now it was too late. When the first snow-storm of the winter came, and she remembered that it was heaping his unknown grave, the cold terror of it chilled her marrow. All the gay Christmas season that he. used to like so much she sat in darkness. She forgot her father, and all the need of household cheer, and it was only when she saw the pitying faces down-stairs that she resolved to forget herself, her sin and her grief, and help them all to gather what sweetness there was in this life she had found sb bitter. And she made her New-Year’s gifts ready, and helped her young sisters decorate the rooms and the simple table they could spread, and lent them her dainty ornaments that she used to value so, and that now, at twenty-five, she was done with.

It was a great white snow-storm, though —a fierce, driving, drifting snow-storm—-that wrapped earth and sky when that day dawned, beginning the eventful year. They would be friends indeed who adventured through it. The girls and their chosen companions, nevertheless, were just as gay in the parlors as they could have been in the sunniest of weather, imaging arrivals, and, when nobody arrived, receiving each other in turn, as if there were a procession of callers at the door. They were none of them so sweet, so willful, so charming, as poor little Betty had been; not one of them had the dark rich beauty that belonged to her yet; they never would have the train of gallants at the door that used to cross its threshold for Betty’s sake. She wondered what they found to laugh at; in all the wide sad world there was nothing at which she could smile; the very blowing of the gale, the whirling of the snow and sleet through the white, cold heavens, seemed only to answer her own misery. She sat in the little side parlor off the others, staring through the window with her wild and wretched gaze, though, for appearances, a book lay open in her lap. Her thoughts had gone upon their long flight; and after the first grate and jar of it upon her, she heard nothing of the laughing and twittering, of the suspended music, and the opening and shutting doors. The ioyousness of the day, like sunshine leaking through storm, was nothing to her; she noted none of the fragrance of the flowers, none of the gay cries of the echoing voices; her thoughts were under that snow-heaped sod with Will. It seemed to her that if she could only once see him, and see him alive, the very relief would kill her; but, oh, how hard it would be to go if he were in the breathing world! She longed for him back with fresh longings to take the stain and burden off from her; and then she longed for him back that he might just put his arms round her and take her, that she might rest in his presence. Why had she never loved him till he was lost ? And now he would never know it. “ Oh, Will, Will, Will!” she cried —and cried half aloud, all unaware—“ if you only knew how I loved you! If you only forgave me—” And there the words were stayed by a p lir of bearded lips, the arms she had wearied for were about her, her head was pillowed on a breast — D:d the dead walk? did the grave surrender, then? Had he come from Heaven to take her, to forgive her? Was it Will—with her fath er, with her sisters, crowding in behind him ? Had he never died at all, but gone back from hospital to sheep-farm, and only come at last, drawn by some wild magnetism in the strength of her longing for him? Thd questions surged through her mind as the snow-flakes surged outside; and then it seemed that he must be some great accusing apparition, come only to destroy her; the world was reeling blackly away from her, and it was, maybe, nothing but the kisses on her lips that held her firm to life, that called her back to light and joy in Will Maunder’s arms, on this one New-Year's in a thousand.— Harriet Prucott Spofford, in Harper'» Bazar.

—Mrs. Julia Ward Howe conducted the Thanksgiving services at the Unitarian Church in Newport, R. I. Her text' was taken from the story of the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not as other men were. In her view, neither as a nation nor as individuals can Americans properly thank God after this fashion. We should, rather, in view of His great gifts and mercies, feel ourselves overcome with penitence, like the publican, and cry, “ God be merciful to America, a sinner.’’ ————• «» —The way in which Gov. Chamberlain drifted into South Carolina is described by a correspondent of the Boston Journal as follows: “An old college friend of Chamberlain was drowned in Charleston harbor. He weEt there to settle his affairs. That visit ended in his leasing an abandoned plantation and in entering ■pon the untried life of a planter. He was soon elected a member of the convention which framed the present Constitution of the State.” —Charles Fenno Hoffman, a noted literateur of the old Knickerbocker Magazine days, recently reported dead, is still living at the age of seventy, in the State Lunatic Asylum at Harrisburg, and his insanity is less obtiusive than for many years. It is now twenty-six years since his retirement from the world.—Pitteburgh Commercial. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a eold decree.— Shakcepeare.

A Canada Romance—Curious Case of Mistaken Identity.

One of the most singular cases of mistaken identity ever* brought to light in Canada has just taken place at Ottawa. On the afternoon of the 29th of September Inst, a dying man was found by a farmer living at Edwardsburg, lying on the roadside, about seven miles from Prescott. The farmer brought him to the latter place, where he died, evidently from sheer starvation, having been lying around the countiy side without any visible means of support for several days. An inquest having been held a rennet was recorded in accordance with the facts, and he was buried at the public expense. Meanwhite, the prevailing opinion was that the unfortunate man had been a resident of Ottawa, and many people there who had friends from home, they knew not where located, grew anxious, and compared the description given of the deceased with that of him on whose account tney were so uneasy. Now Mrs. Hughes, who resides on Nicholas street, between Rideau and St. Paul, in that city, had a husband who left the city in July, 1875, that is to say, fourteen months before the date of the sad event, but she was morally certain, from the description given in the papers, that it was her husband who had been buried in Prescott. Acting on her apprehensions, she started for that town on the fifth day after the burial, and, after very great difficulty, succeeded in having the grave opened, the lid of the coffin taken off, and the body exhumed. It was a disagreeable task, and Mrs. Hughes was requested several times to desist and rest satisfied with the description which hap been given in the Ottawa Timet, but she persevered.

At length eveiything was ready for inspection, and she found that so far as the state of the body would permit, every mark corresponued, even to the most minute particular, with those she knew to have been on her husband. The height and apparent age corresponded in a marked degree, and as Hughes had served in the One Hundreth Regiment of Foot, Airs. Hughes brought his discharge with her, and the description of his person therein given exactly corresponded with the body lying before them when in life. Buch was the opinion of all present at the examination. To add to the proof of identity she mentioned before the coffin was op'ened all these particulars; and in addition that her husband wore a long black coat, which, on inspection, proved to be the case. Thoroughly satisfied that she was a widow in the land, the relict of Air. Hughes had the body reinterred, and came back to Ottawa, where, acting on the advice of Major Buckley, she had affidavits prepared for her by Mr. J. J. Kehoe, embodying the facts of the case. The days and weeks rolled on, and the first grief was beginning to wear off the edge of Mrs. Hughes’ sorrow for her lost husband, when, to her astonishment, amusement and delight, he, whom she thought she had seen buried under the earth, walked into her presence on Wednesday morning. We pass over the first transports of joy and the mutual explanations that ensued, merely remarking that Hughes was in profound ignorance of all that happened, and had himself undergone strange reverses of fortune while away from Ottawa. He had two very pretty little girls, - and when the eldest saw him enter yesterday, she exclaimed, “Ma, has papa come up out of the rround?” All the friends of James Hughes, except one, agreed with his wife that it was the body of her husband which was buried in Prescott, and that one was his mother, who, by some strange instinct, could never be brought to believe it, though why she could not very well explain. Hughes had had a very narrow escape from death during his sojourn at the other side. He was one of the sufferers by the oil train taking fire in Pennsylvania, and causing the death of seven and the injury of about fifty. He was taken to the hospital in a very bad state, and remained there three months between life and death, but ultimately recovered. He is by no means like a dead man at present, nor even like one who had been dead. He is as hale and hearty as any man in the city of Ottawa.— St. John (N. B.) Telegraph, Dec. 8.

Holiday Presents.

As the year draws near its close a goodly proportion of the 40,000,000 of inhabitants of the United States are cudgeling their brains abbut holiday presents. They who have plenty of money and are consequently able to give whatever and to whomsoever they please, find it difficult to decide not only who shall be the recipients of their gifts*, but what the gifts shall be; and on the other hand, many—and, we are sony to say, mostare trying to solve the difficult problem, how, with their stinted means, to procure even trifling tokens for such kindred and friends as they would be glad to remember. The custom of holiday gift-making has become much more common of late than It used to be. The old New Englander, true to the teachines of his Puritan ancestors, took no note of Christmas except to denounce its observance, and the descendants of these New Englanders who were among the earliest settlers of all the new States, following the old custom, took with' them more or less of this feeling and engrafted it on their new homes. But an increase of liberality in religious ideas, and a more enlightened view of Christianity, have, to a great extent, overcome this, and there are now but few who do not welcome with gladness the annual return of the day we celebrate in recognition of the birth of the founder of the Christian religion and the head of the Christian church, and aid, so far as they can, in making a merry Christmas for all around them. For the growing custom of gift-making, at Christmas time’ we are largely indebted to our German friends; for wbile our English ancestors were not wanting in their recognition of the day, never failing to decorate their homes with the holly and the their festivities consisted more generally in family gatherings, in eating and drinking, and the more boisterous sports for the men during the day and dancing for all at night. With the Germans it is different. The observances took a more quiet form, and the Christmas tree, with its gift-laden branches, was found in every house, and the exchanging of presents between friends almost universal. What to give. It depends much on the circumstances of the recipients and their relations to the owner. A well-filled purse would by one be received with thanks and pleasure, while by another it would, and properly, be considered an Insult. To some w.c would give articles of practical value, while for others we should select gifts more for their beauty and elegance than their cost Or usefulness For one class we would select what we think they need buPcannot afford toper-

chases for another who we know taas well able to purchase as we arc. something of less intrinsic value would doubtless te received with quite as much pleasure. In selecting presents for children, it la well to consider their peculiar taste* and dispositions, and, moreover, to remember that they are children. A dime properly expended will make a child happy as a king, when a dollar used to purchase something in which it has no interest is wasted; and the same consideration may very properly be had in choosing for children of a larger growth. One young lady would prize a book or picture, while the next would prefer feathers and ribbons; and a young gentleman would chouee—what? Now, Miss, don’t you wish we would tell you? Haven’t you said a hundred times, it is so difficult to think <■ anything to present to a gentleman ? It to so long since we were young gentleman, we have almost forgotten. But we would not give him slippers, for if you do they probably will hot fit; nor a pipe, nor a cigar-case, as they might encourage him in forming a habit you may

be sorry for one of these days. We are confident he would prefer something you have made with your own fingers and into which you have wrought your own thoughts. But it will make little differerence what it is, so that he sees in your eyes that it pleases you to give it, and can be happy in believing that after a while you will give him—yourself. Above all things, keep from your holiday givings everything that would make them appear like donations or alms-giv-ing. Better not to give at all than that the gifts should carry with them a feeling of obligation. Give because you want to, not because you must; give with kindness and love. Give because you feel in your soul of souls that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Then you will have what you deserve— a Merry Christ-, mas and a Happy New Year!— Rural’ New Yorker.

How to Repel a Surprise Party.

An afflicted correspondent writes to the Tribune to ask how she and her husband san manage to repel the pirates who at this season of the year organize expeditions to prey upon their hapless neighbors, ana call their forays “surprise parties.’’ It is not easy to advise her. Some people have found it effectual to keep a bull-dog of satisfactory ferocity; grease on thejfront steps is good; some stubborn cases have yielded to the application of a powerful electric battery to the bell-wire, and a fomentation of a few pails of water is not without its effect. A small-pox placard will sometimes work a oure where other remedies have been exhibited vainly. A gentleman on West Adams street has invented a heroic method of treatment which was tried last Thursday in the presence of a large surprise party, and proved successful beyond the fondest expectations of the infamous inventor. He unhitched the bell-wire from the pull, which he riveted on the inside of the post; then he got a chisel and screw-driver and removed all file fastenings of the door-post, so that while it looked like a solid dooc-way, with a securely-fastened bell-handle in ft, it was in reality nothing bnt a thin veneer of molding with a bell-pull in it, ready to yield to the touch of an infant’s hand. These arrangements completed, he and his wife turned down the gas ana watched at the blinds till their unsuspecting victim* entered the ambush—the front yard, that is. The forlorn hope was headed by a Jovial old man whose boast it is that he 3 as young in heart as his grandchildren. He weighs abont 265 pounds. This devoted man marshaled his forces and advanced nimbly up the steps. Immemorial custom has prescribed as an absolute rule that when a house is attacked by a surprise party, the pirate at the head of the besiegers shall pull the bell u vehemently as if the residence were that of a doctor and the stormerthe prospective father of a first baby. Accordingly the old gentleman gave the bell a fearful tug, throwing himself back so. as to get the luxury of a full purchase. To his 'surprise he seemed to pull the whole front out of the house, and with a wild whoop of astonishment and terror he (accompanied by the doorpost) threw a back somersault down the steps into the midst of the festal party. He fell on the hireling musician; the hireling musician fell on his fiddle; the door post knocked a couple of guests over the balcony railing into the rose-bushes, and the whole party knocked each other down like a row of bricks or a card house, amid a perfect pandemonium of shrieks, smashing of dishes and bottles, and the like. The surprise party made good their retreat, carrying their wounded with them without molestation by the triumphant garrison.— Chicago I ribune.

FOUR MONTHS FOR A DOLLAR!

St. Nicholas for January, with its cheery greeting on the cover, its exquisitely beautiful frontispiece, the wonderful variety in its pages, and its FUN FOB THE NEW YE AB, Will charm everybody both old and young. Among the more notable papers will be found a “ Letter to a Young Naturalist,” bv William Howitt, the poet, and “ The Stars for January,” by Prof. Proctor, tha astronomer. ST. NICHOLAS FOB JANUARY Will also contain a paper by Horace E. Scudder, “ Great Grandfather’s Booksaad Pictures,” with sac-simile reproductions from the “New England Primer* and Webster’s old “ Spelling-Book.” 44 Budge’s Visit to the Centennial.” by the author of “ Helen’s Babies,” and the “ Modern and Mediaeval Ballad of Mary Jane,” with sil, bouette drawings by Hopkitw, will be found amusing and entertaining. Besides “HIS OWN MASTER,” BY TROWBRIDGE. There are shorter Stories and Poems. Rhymes and Nonsense Verses, Historical Sketches, a Faiiy Tale, Comical Pictures, Pages for Very Little Folks, etc,, etc. In short, this is the New Year’s Numbei of that magazine of which the London Daily Neu» said: 44 We wi«A im could point to itt equal in our own Periodical Literature." Send one dollar for a trial aubeoriptiou, beginning with the November number, and including the splendid Christmas Holiday number, with William Cullen Bryant’s “-Boys of My Boyhood,” and the New Ye;ur’s number, with William Howitt’s “ Letter to a Young Naturalist;” and the February number, which will have “ A TALK WITH AMERICAS BOYS,” By Tom Hughes, that earnest, honest, strong-hearted Englishman, who is known all over the world as 44 the friend of the edioo'-boy." Subscriptions received by all booksellers. Sold by all news-dealers. SB.OO a year, 25 cents a number. Scribner & Co., 743 Broadway. New Yarik. —Senator Burnside, of Rhode Island, who has a very bald head, now wears a K chinchilla wonted skull cap while in the Senate thamber.