Pittston Gazette

              m*xLuLDro }%*°-; Oldest Newspaper in tlie Wyoming Valley. PITTSTON, Ll'ZERNE CO., I'A., FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 18!l2. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. 1*1.no I'Kit AN M M I IN ADVANCE. smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh. It was his custom, too, as it has been that of many other pious Puritans, to fast—not, however, like them, iai order to purify the body and render it the titter medium of celestial illumination, but rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance. He kept vigils likewise night after night, sometimes in utter darkness, sometimes with a glimmering lamp, and sometimes, viewing his own face in a looking glass by the most powerful light which he could throw upon it. He thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify, himself. distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thitherward to see the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates— now, in short, good Father Wilson was moving homeward, aiding his footsteps with a lighted lantern! The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above conceits to Mr. Dimmesdale, who smiled, nay, almost laughed, at them, and then wondered if he were going mad. his eyes toward the zenith. did your reverence near of the portent •m tha Hvar they beckon to ma. Lon4 mm who've uroaesrt to the otbar aid* The gleam of their loowy robea I eee. Bat Mr roicaa are drown ad ta tba making Ma 0*ar the Rliar. Nothing was more common in those days than to interpret all meteoric appearances and other natural phenomena that occuned with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon as so many revelations from a supernatural source. Thus a blazing spear, a sword of flame, a bow or a sheaf of arrows seen in the midnight sky prefigured Indian warfare. Pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson light. We doubt whether any marked event for good or evil ever befell New England from its settlement down to Revolutionary times of which the inhabitants had not been previously warued by some spectacle of this nature. Not seldom it had been seen by multitudes.that was seen last nignt?— a great red CATS IN OUR BLOCK, HE HAD A LOOLOO. j of my physician, wUo is a tnorqngiiiy f?ood man and senior wanlen and tyler in our church here. ER THAT IT Today uiy pnlse is ungual. Respiration noticeable. I Temperature 73} My physician reports some abrasions lie Loves the Country, but as a Sleeping and one w;vere concussion (if the cornice. He says that if I had been fatter there would have been a number of flesh A NIGHT OF PEACE. letter ill the sky—the litter A, which De»crlptl«»ii of the DiHerrnt!Vlinr» That ' we interpret to staml for Angel. For, as Make i.if« inCMiCiur»iDie. ne » Lnti«- lvruiiurit y of the our good Governor Wimhrop was made Phil's cat, jest across the alley, is the i r. an angel this past night, it was doubt- worst in the neighborhood. Hia style of was a gninnhng place m a westless held fit that there should be some architecture is got lac, with a broad ,', J te"''el li'oin Chicago notice thereof."' facade. His voice is deep and grewsome. ™w*««en.t»the warpatli. and announced "No," answered the minister, "I had Nobody hears the beast on a stormy determination of relieving a few of not heard of it." night. It is only when the moon shines /" li.it .--pjtre change they [TO be roNTw-Kn I with splendor and the air is still that to have about thetn. Without '' Phil's cat lifts tip its voice. Then, with e 01111 a vlc*im who Why He Coughed. ; Rtealthy tread and phosphorescent eves Wa? wlT1Im« to trD' a or two at First Wakeful (in sleeping.ar)—What's |ie i,.aps upon tlie ,,alls out alftho F'ker- Luck followed the stranger from hat old rooster coughing so violently staples and with one le" against the ™ start, he won steadily. Finally ibont? _ _ swell begins to howl. That is Phil t,e four aces, and after the staker BILL NYE SAYS, HOWE There's mm with ringlets of tunny gold. All eyes tka niioUonof heaven's own Mw Hamiaid la tba twilight gray aad cold, Aad tba pale mist kid him from mortal views Wa B* not tka angola who met him there, Tka gatee ef tka oltr wa oould not see; Ovar tba river, orar tka rirsr, lly krnther ataaiia waiting fa walcoma ma. WASN'T QUITE THAT As the Reverend Mr. Wilson passed beside the scaffold, olosely muffling his Geneva cloak about him with one ann, and holding the lantern before his breast with the other, the minister could hardly restrain himself from speaking. I'lace It Might |5e Improved I* poll Tend To— Riley*** Letter Horseback Kidlng and VI hat It May wounds. I was trying my new riding habit from opyrgit. m., Dy r.! rar \v Nye.] 'Boston. My riding habit was formed . • , . .(,K ' "" v'"s' " U7!P' there. But where I erred was in trying A night m the country is one of the the habit wlthout blinding the horse. most ies» u tilings know of for the You can't coaie into full bloom that wav ired mind. I came here with that idea. all of a 8ntlde„ on a horse that has had I needed rest. I had been troubled wuh no advantages and who has never been insomnia. , accustomed to a groat big burst of In the early spring I overbought my- loveliness. self. 1 had one great big. robust So we came home from the trial bv thought bin I could not seem to clothe different roads. When my wife saw the it. Clothing a thought properly so that ; palfrey coming home wearing the saddle I. wi l' ease :a pu ic is a gift, (juite over his stomach, she said that it was just a number of the most remarkable chil- like me tu St,!ld llome the horse draped dren of my brain are still weeping in the , that way just to please the dear ones great of the past because they j before I got there myself. *' •' ' My fall reminded me very much of t Adam's, it was fo suffden and so hard. I fell more paiufnlly thai* the author of "Beautiful Snow," but I can overcome it in society quicker. It was the most painful thing that has happenstance the war, and inside of twenty niinutes I met all the people of North and South Carolina with whom I am acquainted, besides seventy or eighty from Jfew York. who are here for their health and watching to see better people fall off their horses. I have always said that the roads here should be macadamized, but if they can be upholstered at the same price it would suit me better. This horse grew up on the frontier, and is a sort 6f self made horse. Civilization scares him almost to death. So he unseated me as though I had been the snap delegate of a rump convention. I still remain so. Orar tka river tka boatman pal« Oarrtad aaother—the household pat: Har hrowa oorla waved In tha gantla gale— Darling Maalel X aaa kar yet. Ska eroaeed oo kar boaom bar dimpled ban da, Aad faerleesly aatarad tka phantom bark: Wa watebed it gUda from tka eilvsr sands, Aad all oar sanshioe gtaw atrangaiy dark. Wa know she li aafa an the farther side, Wbara all tka raaaomed aad angala bat Orar tha rtvar, tha mystic rirsr. My childhood's Idol la waiting for ma "A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson! Come up hither, I pray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me!" Second Wakeful—lie's sucked a pillow down bis windpipe, I presume.— Truth. ..lt S hail been run ujD to a colnfortable ii#ure He is a sidewalk cat by day and a he refused to ln-t further, ence cat bv nitfht. And ti - ♦- he . Thu? 16 C1,AV"rl-ht robbery," he ex- In these lengthened vigils his brain often reeled, and visions seemed to flit before him; perhaps seen doubtfully, and by a faint light of their own, in the remote dimness of the chamber, or more vividly and close beside him, within the looking glass. Now it was a herd of diabolic shapes that grinned and mocked at the pale minister and beckoned him away with them; now a group of shining angels, who flew upward heavily, as sorrow laden, but grew more ethereal as they rose. Now came the dead friends of his youth, and his white bearded fa- is one of these 'vanishing : claimt'(1' "«nt\ 1 want io end the I game here by bankrupting yon. So here ! goes." Ho threw down four aces anC "eached for the money. "Hold on!" cried his antagonist. take care of the dust if you please.' "But I held four aces—see?-' "Well, what of it? I've got a looloo. "A what?" 'A looloo—three clubs and two dia- Good heavens! Had Mr. Dimmesdule actually spoken? For one instant, he believed that these words had iMissed his lips. But they were uttered only within his imagination. The venerable Father Wilson continued to step slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his feet and never once turning his head toward the guilty platform. When the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quite away, the minister discovered, by the faintness which came over him, that the last few moments had been a crisis of terrible anxiety; although his mind had made an involuntary effort to relieve itself by a kind of lurid playfulness. The Inevitable CoiiHequeiice, Oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eyewitness, who beheld the wonder through the colored, magnifying and distorting medium of his imagination, and shaped it more distinctly in his afterthought. It was indeed a majestic idea, that the destiny of nations should be revealed in these awful hieroglyphics on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might not be deemed too expansive for Providence to write a people's doom upon. The belief was a favorite one with our forefathers, as betokening that their infant commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. But what shall we say when an individual discovers a revelation, addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record? In such a case it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self contemplative by long, intense and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate! Bjones—I want yon to snbsC ri be something toward sending an expedition to discover the north pole. 1IF ft* aoao return from thoaa C*lot shores, Wko cross wttk tka boatmaa oaid aad palei Wa kaar tha dip of tha golden oars, Wa oatch a giaam of tha snowy sail, Aad W they hare peaeed from oar yearning heart; Thagr areas tha atream aad ara gate tor aye! Wa wiar not aoader tha veil apart That hidea from our rWiua the gates of day. Waaaly know that their barks ao man .fy" Uf*'»etormy urn Um# Wfctoli iod bSwi mmI wslt fop bm* Ail 1 n §§4 when t h« iunMt*i gold is tuahlag river aad kill aad shore, 1 Aall aaa day staad by tka water oold, Aad Hat tor tka sound at the boatmen's oat) I Shall watoh for a gleam of tha flappiag sail; I shall hsar the koat sett galas tka strand, I akall pass fwm sight with the boatman pals To tha better shore of tka spirit land. Isball Know tba loved who hare gone before; Aad joyfully awaet will the meeting be. Whoa over tha rtver, tha peaceful river. ThaAaaslef Death ehallearry me. —Nancy Prieet Wakefield. msiwlm. Bjenks—Not nincht But I suppose I shall have to subscribe something toward sending out the rescuing party.— j Somerville Journal. 'Til A SurprUe. "Why, Jackson, this" isn't a tit the bind'of a house I supposed you would  build." isrioeds." £ The stranger was dazed. "A looloo," he repeated. "Well, what is a looloo, anyway?' "Three clubs and two diamonds," coolly replied the gambler, raking in the stakes. 'I guess you aren't accustomed to our poker rules out here. See there." As ho spoke he jerked his thumb toward a pasteboard card which ornamented the wall of the saloon. It read: ttSKI 11 thee, with a sal n Hi hi frown, and his mother, turning her face away as she passed by. Ghost of a mother—thinnest fantasy of a mother—methinks she might yet have thrown a pitying glance toward her son! And now, through the chamber which these spectral thoughts had made so ghastly, glided Hester Prynne, leading along little Pearl, in her scarlet garb, and pointing her forefinger first at the scarlet letter on her bosom and then at the clergyman's own breast. * • * 'No; I'm rather surprised myself, but the architect Is very well satislied."— London Tit-Bits. . /fev f I r Ai* v ' 1—* *M?ii w^ISS# -T^SP^-'V-*, Shortly afterward the like grisly sense of the humoronB again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought. He felt his limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold. Morning would break and find him there. The neighborhood would begin to rouse itself. The earliest riser, coming forth in the dim twilight, would perceive a vaguely defined figure aloft on the place of shame, and half crazed betwixt alarm and curiosity would go knocking from door to door summoning all the people to behold the ghost—as be needs must think it—of some defunct transgressor. * * * Mrs. Greatchum—How can you wear that glaring bonnet, my love? I never liked it. Her Aim to Fleane. Mrs. Toosweet—-My husband likes it. and as long as I please him 1 don't care. A LOOLOO BEATS FOUR ACES, CAUSE AND EFFECT. Mr. Toosweet—Can't we have a little of that quince preserve for tea tonight, Clarissa? (Intermission of two hours.) with tightly drawn faces have leveled at his form all sorts of missiles, but so far as is known nobody has ever hit him. There is something bulky and meaty alDont the beast, yet so agile is he that with a simple reef in his back he lias been able to slip through knotholes in the fence when the storm of bootjacks and bottles from neighboring windows interrupted his guttural oratorio. Two years ago Phil's cat possessed a melodious voice as voices run with cats. But strict attention to business and a praiseworthy persistency in breaking the solitude of the night have put reeds in his throat and made his appearance on the fence more a matter of pnblic concern than the soulful courting of representatives of the animal kingdom. Hiram Bost wick's cat across th'o street is a ventriloqnist. He is so big that he looks like a goat. The tDeast has fooled Phil's cat more than once. . Old Bostwick is the ward fool. A member of the Indiana street gang hit him with si piece of lead pipe several years ago and he never got back the sens© ho lost that aight. Ever since then he has been kicking plug hats off the sidewalk on All Fools' Day and trying to build a new fangled washing machine. He has got a great cat, however. The beast i9 of the roof variety, and possesses the extraordinary power of being able to distribute its voice to all parts of the yard without lifting a claw from the shingles. In the dead of night, when the lights of the city blazed only here and there, Bostwick's cat would climb to the roof of the house by way of the hencoop and the woodshed and then howl blithely. Such uucanny noises, coming as they did nearly every night, would unbalance The game proceeded, but it was plainly evident that the unsophisticated young tiger hunter had something on his mind. Within five minutes he suddenly braced up, his face was wreathed in smiles, and he began betting once more with his former vigor and recklessness. In fact, he staked his last dollar on his hand. On one of those ngly nights, which we have faintly hinted at, but forborne to picture forth, the minister started from his chair. A new thought had struck him. There might be a moment's peace in it. Attiring himself with as much care as if it had been for public worship, and precisely in the same manner, he stole softly down the staircase, undid the door and issued forth. Mrs. T.—Not much! That's for company.—Harper's B&sar. IATBA1IBL HAWTHOllL We impute it therefore solely to the disease in his own eye and heart, that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter—the letter A—marked out in lines of dull red light. Not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning duskily through a veil of cloud, but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it, or, at least, with so little definiteness that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it. A Small Roy's Advlco. (anrrartnm.] A small Scotch boy was summoned to give evideuce against his father, win was accused of making a disturbance iL the streets. Said the bailie to him '•Come, my wee inon, speak the truth aud let its know all ye ken alDout this affair."PULLED THE P1TC HKH OVER, Just at this juncture the barkeeper hung up another card. Some of them I sent to the Browning club, at Boston, where they are lDeing fitted up. 1 had intended at first to try New York, but Anthony Comstock never took his clothes off for ten nights, bat sat tip at the Pennsylvania depot watching every train and ready to hop on the first bare thought 1 dared to send in for suitable draperv. CHAPTER IX A correspondent from Ocala wants to know which, in my judgment, is Walt Whitman's most enjoyable poem. tbs nrmos or a eoujit. • • • White thai raftering under Md gnawed—d tortured ' •» aool, and of his Mr. I brilliant He won it, The strange* threw down his cards with an exultant '-It's my time to howl just about now!" he cried as he reached for the money. "There's a looloo for yon—three clubs and two diamonds."All people, in a word, would come stumbling over their thresholds, and torn up their amazed and horror stricken visages around the scaffold. Whom would they discern there, with the red eastern light upon liis brow? Whom, but the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, half frozen to death, overwhelmed with shame, and standing where Hester Prynne had stood! Without hesitation I would say that the most enjoyable one, because the only one, barring "My Captain," perhaps, which I can understand without overstimulating myself, is one containing the following: bodily  by some black tremble of the given over to the machination* tailiMt memy, the Reverena Dimmaadale had achieved popalarity in his sacred office. To 'the* 1^'peilfa aad sanctity he would hare climbed tcudwicy 1D66Q thwarted ' burden, whatever it might be. or aagakh, beneath which it doom te tatter. It kept him total with the lowest; him, the dhwiUttribBtn, whoee voicr ■amndl Bat this very burden it that gave him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind; so that his heart vibrated in unison with theirs, sad received their pain into itself, and ssat its own throb of pain throng! psnudn eloquence. Oftenesf The people knew not moved than thus. They yaaag clergyman a miracle of They faacied him thr bake aod"lo!re1CIn that grouad on which he trod was lbs virgins of his church grew |k around him, victims of a passion so im imagined it to be all religion and brough that he would gc tiboif tli&t thiir old should ha buried cloae to their younj pastor's holy grave. And all this time pesuhaace, when poor Mr. Dimmesdal* of his grave, he questioned witl which this public vaaeiatiuu torturec him! It waa his genuine impulse tc adota ths truth, and to reckon all thingi rtiadowUhe, and utterly devoid of weight or value, that had not its divine eaaencC aa the life within their life. Then, whai of aB shadows? He longed to apeai out, fmm Us own pulpit, at the ful height of his voice, and tell the peoplC whathawas. "I, whom you fa myself to hoid communion, in your behalf, with the Moat High Omniscience I, ia whose daily life you discern the saartity of Enoch; I, whose footsteps, the regions of the Meat' I*  laid the hand of baptism upon youi children; I, who have breathed the part world which they had quitted; I, yom paaI or, whom you so reverence and trust am utterly a pollution and a He!" More than once Mr. Dimmeadale hac goaa into the pulpit with a purpoc* ahnald have spoken words like thC shove. Mots than once he had cleared his throat aad drawn in the long, dee) Csrth again, would come burdened witl lbs black secret of hia aoul. Mora thai oace—Bay, mora than a hundred timei —he had actually spoken! Broken! Br ha at Ha had told his hearers that waa aHogathar vile, a viler compr at the vUaet, the worst of sinr ahamiaattoa, a thiag of unimagiiquity; aad the only wonder thay did not see hia wxe' ahriveled up before their bandog wrath of the A' there be plainer Would not tD- ha dsilsdT Not so, it all, aad did but reve». man. Thay little guemec purport lurked in thoar * ""*■ earth! Ataa. if ha t nam ia his awn white The minister well . remorseful hypocrite th*. light ia which hia vagus weald ha viewed. He had (■tadmtvpoa hhnaelf by making avowal of a guilty conscience rained onlv one ether sin and tamrtadgad shame without the SreUaf of being self deer apokaa the vary truth formed it into the veriest  Aad yet, by the constitution of his _ (pre, he loved the truth and loathec ths lis as few assa ever did. Therefore above all thiags slm hs loathed hia miserahle aelft Hia inward troubls drovs him to prac tiess more ia accordance with the old corrupted faith of Borne than with tD better light of the church in which had beea born and bred. In Mr * had pUad it od hia own shoulders, laughs Hm »*erir at UmmU *»  CHAPTER X. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL. Talking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps actually under the influence of a species of somnambulism, Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot Where, now so long since, Hester Prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy. The same platform or scaffold, black and weather stained with the storm and sunshine of seven long years, and footworn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting house. The minister went up the steps. "Weel. sir," Baid the lad. "d'ye ken Inverness street?" "I do, laddie," replied his worship "Weel, ye gang along it and turn into the square and across the square"  "Tut, tut!" exclaimed the miner. "Really, this is too bad. Yon evidently don't understand our rules at all. You don't mean to tell me you play poker in such a fast arid loose, slipshod way down east, do you? Why, look at that rule , over there." So 1 was nervous and especially wakeful. 1 came here into the pinery forest where a metropolitan sound would be a wonder. 1 retired early, for 1 was tired of travel and gorged with man's adulation.1 think I couiil turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self contained. I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition;of faith Ibad by the of crime was his down on a van of tit There was a singular circumstance that characterized Mr. Pimmesdale's psychological state at this moment. All the time that he gajsed upward to the zenith he was nevertheless perfectly aware that little Pearl was pointing her finger toward old Roger Chillingworth, who stood at no great distance from the scaffold. The minister appeared to see him with the same glance that discerned the miraculous letter. "Yes, yes," said the baiiie, eucourag mg.y Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great peal of laughter. It was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which, with a thrill of the heart—but he knew not whether of exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute—he recognized the tones of little Pearl. "An when ye gang across the sqtiare ye turn to the right and up into Higl' street, and keep, on up High street tii ye come to a pump." They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins; They do not inake me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the nutnia of owning things; Xot one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago; Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. He pointed directly over the head of tho barkeeper. The Chieagoan read his doom in the handwriting on the wall. It was the Belshazzar case over again. The ! bit of pasteboard bore this legend: O'i, rock me to sleep, mother, Itock me to sleep: "Quite riglit. my lad; proceed." saiC his worship. "I know the old pumj well." I exclaimed. Pretty soon a whjppoorwill started tip right close to the house?. If 1 had uot been nervous I would not have noticed it, but as it was I got sort of irritated, for he went into it so much harder than anybody wanted him to. If lie had gone steadily on ail night I could have slept, but he did not. He had an impediment in his remarks, and sometimes he would quit right in the middle of the word and 1 could almost grow mad waiting for him to finish it. Then the clock in the library struck. It does not strike right, and 1 wondered how far off it was, so I got up like a tall, white, rectified spirit and began to reach for a match. 1 iiave two match holders in my room, so that when one ;.s empty 1 can always fall back on the other. I fell back on the other almost the thing I did. 1 stepped iu a flaxseed poultice and tracked it around over the room while fueling for the match safe with outstretched hands, between which 1 generally had the edge of a door. The Erst safe 1 found after a good deal of delay and annoyance, but it only had the other end of two matches—not the bad end. After I had tried both of them the ante and was "Well,"said the boy w ith the most ii fantile simplicity, "ye iujv gang an pump it, for ye'll 110 pninp me."- Onbli THE I.OOLOO CAN BE PLAYED It wu an obscure night of early May. An unvaried pall of clond muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horixon. If the same multitude which had stood as eyewitnesses while Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the platform, nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark gray of the midnight. But the town was all asleep. There was no peril of discovery. The minister might stand there, if it so pleased him, until morning should redden in the eatDt, without other risk than that the dank and chill night air would creep into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism, and clog his throat with catarrh and cough, thereby defrauding the expectant audience of tomorrow s piayer ana sermon. Wo eye could see him, save that ever wakeful one which had seen him in his closet wielding the bloody scourge. Why, then, had he come hither? Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! A mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced with jeering laughter. He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. Poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itBelf with crime? Crime is for the iron nerved, who have their choice either to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose and fling it off at once! This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined in the same inextricable knot the agony of heaven defying guilt and vain repentance. "Pearl! Little Pearl!" cried he after a moment's pause; then, suppressing his voice, "Hester! Hester Prynne! Are you there?"' To his features, as to an other objects, the meteoric light imparted a new ex pression: or it might well be that the physician was not careful then, as at all other times, to hide the malevolence with which he looked upon his victim. Certainly, if the meteor kindled up the sky and disclosed the earth with an awfnlnees that admonished Hester Prynne and the clergyman of the day of judgment, then might Roger Chillingworth hare passed with them for the arch fiend, standing there with a smile and scowl to claim his own. So vivid was the expression, or so intense the minister's perception of it, that it seemed still to remain painted on the darkness after the meteor had vanished with an effect as if the street and all things else were at once annihilated. BUT ONCE A NIGHT It i? no more poetry, perhaps, than the annual tax list for 1892, bat it lias iclea.i in it, and ideas 'are going to hurt no Tim os, The young man has not reached home yet, but as the walking is said to be pretty fair nowadays he will be due in Chicago about the middle of next week. —Chicago Mail. 0 . Taking a lluth. Poetry is a queer thing. I enjoy it where I find it unconventional and from the heart. Mr. Riley writes me from man, «d, per- "Yes; it is Hester Prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise; and the tnin~- ister heard her footsteps approaching from the sidewalk along which she had been passing. "It is I and my little Pearl." the power 1 deemed Uuupprecintt-d. D—. mouthpiece wisdom and •7M the vi "Whence come you. Heater?' asked tbe minister. '-What sent you hither?" ••I have been watching ata deathbed,* answered Hester Prynue; "at Governor Winthrop's deathbed, and have taken his measure for a robe, and am now going homeward to my dwelling." a stronger brain than Bostwick's, O'Malley, the' switchman in the St. Paul yards, lives in the rear of Dobson'fc honse, half a block up the street. O'Mal ley doesn't litre cats. FI? ays place to put t belli is under a trrapevino. "Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl," said the Reverend Mister Dimmesdale. "Ye have both been here before, but i was not -with you. Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together!" Last Sunday O'Malley started out tc ; tako the life of a brindle looking ea( which had been sneaking about the "Who is that man, Hester?" gasped Mr. Dimmesdale, overcome with terror. "I shiver at him! Dost thou know the man? 1 hate him, Hester!" : got through with his job last  ; First he shot at the beast and blow away kitchen for a month or more. lie hadn't 1 ■f . She silently ascended the steps and stood on the platform, holding little Pearl by the hand. The minister felt for the child's other hand and took it. The moment that he did so there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half torpid system. The three formed an eloctric chain. She remembered her oath and was silent a portion of its head. The cat turned a | somersault, yelped once or twice and —Life. A FALL LIKE ADAM'S. "I tell thee my soul shivers at him!" muttered the minister again. "Who is he? Who is he? Canst thou do nothing for me? 1 have a nameless horror of the man!" A Market Idyl. : iu the ns,li,l manner, forgetting that the It was her first essay at marketing, trousers on which 1 had generally igbut she tackled the work with the beau- mtec| U1J" matches were on a chair in tiful hardihood of youth and inert *D• anC)*'K'r l)ilr^,;J l'ie roumD 1 began once •ience. * more to feel around the room for the disappeared The next day O'Malley Duluth, and drojw into poetry sc gently and so gracefully that 1 must run the risk of vexing him by quoting a page from his letter. found the cat on the roof of the dog i house. Thi3 time the switchman stole upon the animal and hit it with a conp| ling pin. The cat yawned, shook what was left of its head and then darted under the sidewalk. When evening came and O'Malley was splitting kindling wood for the breakfast lire he beheld a pair of green eyes blazing at him i from the open door. The ax shot out from his big hands. There was a commotion on the threshold and a dark olv ject rolled out into the yard with u sav •Q Ml "Milliliter," said little Pearl, "I can tell thee who he is J" "Have yon canvasbacl* ducks?" she °*',er match safe, ever and anon crossing inquired of the man in the stall. mv jioultice trail. "Yes, mis-!, and they are beauties. auC! ' judged that I had struck and mighty ucarce at this time of year, the locality, for 1 was in the neiglibor- An I've got mallardsand redheads too." CH the fireplace. I could smell the "Yon may cut nie off three-quarters oM embers- 1 l,eKan to grope, and sncof a yard of. the canvasback," she said, ceeCle(1 in Settin- b"th arms UP the flue in her clear, classic tones; "and cut it a long distance We fore 1 knew by diagonally, fo (hat it will not ravel," the soft, nice feeling of the soot where 1 and she looked about for the yardstick was' Then I \\ent back and tried it to see that lie did not cheat her in meas- over aSalnD falling o\er a chair that had oreneat—Detroit Free Press. : Plllow shams on it. In the morning 1 ! could see where I fell over the pillow shams and saved myself with my grimy hands. "But,"' he writes, "what shall 1 tell you of my first impression of America as I set foot on Duluth soil—or in it rather—for it is raining still, as it has been for the last few months, in a way that seems very hard to overcome. Albeit, as Brother Brightwaters might cheerilv remark: "Quickly, then, child!" said the minister, bending his ear close to her lips. "Quick 1}-! and as low as thou canst whisper." "Minister!" whispered little Pearl. "What wonldstthou say, child?" asked Mr. Dimmesdale. Pearl mumbled something into his ear that sounded, indeed, like human language, but was only such gibberish as children may be heard amusing themselves with, by the hour together. At all events, if it involved any secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth, it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind. The elfish child then laughed aloud. —Fliegende Blatter, "Oh! what so grand as a May day scene? The fields is green and the woods is green. And the skies is soft as the cooing dove "Wilt thou stand here with mother ind me tomorrow noontide?" inquired Pearl. age cry Delicate. When morning came O'Malley found "Back several miles from here I began to note evidence of northern latitude, as compared with that so recently left in Indiana. For instance, although I had You have heard so highly spoken of. "Nay, not so, my little Pearl," answered the minister; for with the new energy of the moment all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been .he anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and he was already trembling ut the conjunction in which—with a i trange joy, nevertheless—he now found himself. "Not so, my child. 1 shall indeed stand with thy mother and thee me other day, but not tomorrow." Wife—Nothing for me? Then you have forgotten that this is my birthday! one of the haunches of the brindle cat Husband—Not at all! Only I didn't wish to remind you that you've grown older.—Fliegende Blatter. C lying near the woodshed. The keen j blade of the as had divorced it from the body. But the cat would not die. A! Boats Home Tiilcut. FT «a I 'li S l r -I: ®. mm ~ • - ' •■-C-' 71 D,';!. ■ 1 now tried the wall, groping along with some care ami an occasional dab of soot till I knocked down a picture on a rich and costly Sevres vase which 1 kept calamus root in. 1 will have to keep my calamus root in something else hereafter. By and by 1 found some more things, but not the match safe. I got sort of wild, and everything about the house seemed so still. Isu't it terrible when a man has that horrible fueling in his own house, as though lie might be robbing it? How glad 1 am that 1 never |Derfected myself as a burglar, as 1 had intended to do at one time jnst after I gave up my little paper in the west. For what a life it is; all night work, all among strangers who have no sympathy for one. often coarse people, too, who sleep with their mouths open and their rooms shnt. It is just as well, 1 presume, that I gave it up, for if one cannot thui a match box in his own room how could he snceeed in finding the concealed purse of a total three pairs of underclothing, I noted with regret that 1 was wearing two pairs of them in my grip and not where my third pair was growing, oh, so cold and distant. Then quite a few knit jackets on 16w, soggy and sinister passengers began to appear, who talked in unaccustomed tongues and with a dialect that smelled fishy and of a sort o' glittery fellow-whisky tang that never yet was seen on sea or land. Also at the stations ilong the route began to appear the object which the curious tourist first takes for a dead cow imperfectly buried, but which upon nearer approach proves to be our old friend with the buffalo overroat that ofttimes barks and snarls at our acute sensibilities as we jolt onward with the grand march of civilization. But the dear old bovine overcoat is going! "Dost thou mock me now?" said the minister. "liarkiii? play**! a mean trick on bit neighbor down at Metnrlwu." "What wax it? "Thou wast not bold! Thou wast not true!" answered the child. "Thou wouldst not promise to take my hand and mother's hand tomorrow noontide!" "Worthy sir," answered the physician, who had now advanced to the foot of the platform. "Pious Master Dimmesdale, can this be you? Well, well, indeed! We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! We dream in our waking moments and walk in our sleep. Come, good sir, and my dear friend, I pray you, let me lead you home!" I v|-: And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth, there was and there had long been the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of his will or power to restrain himself he shrieked aloud, an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to another and reverberated from the hills in the background as if a company of devils, detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound and were bandying it to and fro. "Why. hi.- ;r lias boon fatten ing a turkey for all sutu rner, and Liar kin* niix.-.l a iixttleof anti fat with the turkeyV fi.n.l ixev York San. Pearl laughed and attempted to pull away her hand. But the minister held it fast. Xjjg "A moment longer, my child!" said Fill* a I.ong Felt Want. Fangle—I Imve just patented the great est invention of the ceutury. Cumso— What is it? 41^, "But wilt thou promise," asked Pearl, "to take my hand and mother's hand tomorrow noontide?" Fangle—A collar button which does its own sweariug when it rolls under the bureau.—New York Epoch. "Not then. Pearl," said the minister, 'but another time." Mrs. Hicks—It takes me two solid hours to wash and dress Dick for church. "And what other time?" persisted the "How knewest thou that I was here?" asked the minister fearfully. An Expedient. Mudge—I'll take those pictures if they are done. "At the great judgment day," whispered the minister, and strangely enough the sense that he was a professional teacher of the truth impelled him to answer the child so. "Then and there, before the judgment seat, thy mother and thou and I must stand together. But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting." child. "Verily, and in good faith," answered Roger Chillingworth, "I knew nothing of the matter. 1 had spent the better part of the night at tlie bedside of the worshipful Governor Winthrop, doing what my poor skill might to give him ease. He going home to a better world, I likewise was on my way homeward when this strange light shone out. Come with me, I beseech you, reverend sir, else you will be poorly able to do Sabbath duty tomorrow. Aha! see now how they trouble the brain—these books! these books! Vou should study less, gooa sir, and take a uttie pasume, or these night whimsevs will grow upon you." Hicks—1 can get it done in a hurry for ten cents. Mrs. Hicks—IIow, pray? "It is wearing awa\ Jean, Like snaw when it's thaw, Jean, And its haunches are a', Jean, As bald as the tomb! Photographer—Ye9, sir. You understand, of course, that we do not deliver pictures until they are paid for. "What? Why, wheu 1 sat for them you told me I might pay whenever 1 liked." Hicks—Take him down to that placr where they clean kids while you wait.— Truth. "It is done!" muttered the minister, covering his face with bis bands. "The whole town will awake and hurry forth and find me here!" stranger? The other match box is over the washstand, and when 1 found it 1 did so too earnestly. When you discover anything you should not do it too hard. I knocked down the match safe as 1 discovered it, and the matches all fell in the water pitcher. 1 tried to get them out quick, before they got wet, and so pulled the pitcher over on the floor. As the water ran down through the floor upon a friend who is visiting us and paying his board, he rose and followed up the stream. When he got to where I was he told me what o'clock it was and then went to bed "There's cark there and care, Jean, And wear and tear there, Jean, But there's mighty* little hair, Jean, Uusocked up the flume!" A Lt»ap Year Romance. But it was not so. The shriek had perhaps sounded with a far greater power to his own startled ears than it actually possessed. The town did not awake, or if it did the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for something frightful in a dream or for the noise of witches, whose voices at that period were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages as they rode with satan through the air. The clergyman, therefore, hearing no symptoms of disturbance, uncovered his eyes and looked about him. * * * "Harold," sV said tenderly, as she took his shrinking hand in hers and looked into his lustrous eyes, "may I tell you something?" "Yes, but that was merely to make you look pleasant."—London Tit-Bits. o'MAIXEY and tiie brisdle looking cat. _ ~~, , ~ though sorely disfigured and somewhat Preparing for Kmrrgpnrle*. " , ,. . ? ... ,. ... Ar TI „ , . ,, - at a loss to adjust herself to the position Mr. Howell (of the farm of Gettnp & lndicative ofJdeep thonghtD thle W Howell)—James, is there any crape in , a„ani dra„goa it^lf ab£ut the house e ore. . This was on Friday. This week O'Mal-1Lfer— tf *\° 1 ' Sir« • f ' ley will make another effort to rid the Mr. Howell—iou may tie a piece of it i . , T , t e 4l % , , , ay. *. i neighborhood of the animal. on the doorknob, put up the gutters, T» ftre thecals in flu. neighlock up everything secure,y and go It is likelv that every neighi, „ ■! borliood has them. But if O'Mallev "No news of any death I hope. his word there wiU one less by (Gloomily) "Not yet but there proba- £ tbe Mls t()U for churcb nejl My will be before night The gas bill g ljlrht._chi,.j(,0 Herald, has come. '—Chicago Tribune. J _  ♦This word is a little obscure in the original, 6ut looks some like "deemed" or "denied," but evidertly it is neither of these. B. If. Pearl laughed again, But before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors which the night watcher may so often observe burniug out to waste in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So powerful was its radiance that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of midday, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light. "I presume. Miss Smith, yon may," he responded nervously. Poetry like this does not bear the marks of the coldchisel, and the smell of blasting powder is not on it, but oh! how truthful it is! How the buffalo overcoat of the northwest, with red flannel lining to it, and the odor of the tepee and the dead and unclilorided past rises up before the eye of one as one reads these simple yet truthful lines to one's self. "May I tell you what is on li.y heart?" she pleaded. "What there i- beating aad pulsing there for expression?" "1 shall listen; go on," ho said with cold austerity. "I will go home with you," said Mr. Dimmesdale. "Oh, Harold," she cried, "you lira cruel. You know that 1 have loved yon for four long and weary years."' again. So did I. The wbippoorwill once more opened up and played hia tune over and over again till I put on an old uair of ear muffs and stuck my head into t he bedding as far as I could, but I could not get the noise out. simultaneous impulse, and D out of ths pulpit which *Mwdl They heard -rence him the - what deadly •elf condemning routhr said they "The saint on earn such sinfulsoul, what horrid jehold in thine or With a chill despondency, like one awaking all uerveless from an ugly dream, he yielded himself to the physician and was led away. His eyes, however, were soon greeted by a little, glimmering light, which, at tint a long way off, was up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition on here a post and there a garden fence, and here a latticed window pane and there a pnmp with its fnll trongh of water, and here, again, an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker and a rcragh log for the doorstep. The Reverend Mr. Diinmesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward in the footsteps which he now heard, and that the gleam of the lantern wonld fall upon him in a few moments more and reveal his long hidden secret. As the light drew nearer be beheld within its illuminated circle his brother clergyman—or, to speak more accurately, his professional fathers well as highly valued friend—the Rt.erend Mr. Wilson, who, as Mr. Dimmesdale now conjectured, had been praying at the bedaide of some dying man. And so he had. He shiugged his shajicly shoulders, but did not speak. The next day, however, being the Sabbath, he preached a discourse which was held to be the richest and most powerful and the most replete with heavenly influences that had ever proceeded from his lips. Souls—it is Baid more souls than one—were brought to the truth by the efficacy of that sermon, and vowed within themselves to cherish a holy gratitude toward Mr. Diinmesdale throughout the long hereafter. But as he came down the pulpit steps the gray bearded sexton met him, holding up a black glove, which the minister recognized as his own. "Anil now you will not listen to me,'* she implored. "I am listening,*' lie said shortly. "But not with your heart, Harold, not with your heart," she agonized. "What would you have me do, Miss Smith?" he asked kiudlv. . | Wanit'ii lo See Those Horn«. A Mental Relief. Little Johnnie It., who in liis citj ■'Thanks," said the guest to the colored home had heard frequent references to man who brought his soup at last. -\on our bucolic brother as the "lionist, lave taken a great wait off my mind.| horny handed farmer," showed au un- Vaahington Star. accountable desire, on visiting the counj try, to see u "son of the soil," and when the family was met at the depot hv Deacon Smith and chariot, the child glanced eagerly at his hands, and then in a tone of disappointment whispered: "Papa, he is not a farmer, is he?" Tlion at 1 o'clock an old rooster at the barn seemed to have something on his mind and began to crow till he was black in the face. I was not very hungry for breakfast, but I managed to eat the second joint of that rooster. I wanted it raw, with the feat hers on. but the family thought it would be better fried r little on the outside. After the rooster an early bird began a roundelay, and a pack of hounds near us made a few statements, lasting till 4 o'clock; then I was just getting eleepv from actual exhaustion when two cats fell on the roof from a great height, possibly out of some other planet, I judged, and began to bite off and spit out fragments of each other. They did that till the wliippoorwill got good and rested. Then he took up the exercises and attended to business until the servants began to get up and open the house preparatory to ushering in a gladsome new day. Delayed, The wooden bouses, with their jutting stories and quaint gable peaks; the doorsteps and thresholds, with the early grass springing up about them; the garden plots, black with freshly turned earth; the wheel track, little worn, and, even in the market place, margined with green on either side—all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before. And there stood the ministei with his hand over his heart, and Hester Prynne with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom, and little Pearl, herself a symbol and the connecting link between those two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another. He—I thought the bride and groom were going to start right off on their wedding trip instead of waiting. Degenerate Timet. "Be mine, bo mine," she wailed. "Your husband?" he internigated with a start. She—They were. But she had to change her wedding dress for a traveling gown and they didn't get started until the nest day.—Cloak Review. '—subtle, but he was—the confession striven to _ the bat had a self acmomen"Yes, riarold, yes. ft-; husband; my own; mj loved one; mine always," and she threw herself at his feet. "Yes, my son." "But—lmt, papa, where are the liornt on his liaudsV"—Harper's Bazar Tired Everything Else. Mr. Borer—I've just taken my bicycle to the factory to have it tired. Miss Weary—Couldn't you tire il yourself? "This is folly, Miss Smith, absolute folly," he urged, rising jind standing over her. "We Lave always been friends. Why cannot we remain so? I can never lDe more than a brother to .w. He ud transfalsehood."It was found," said the sexton, "this morning on the scaffold where evil doers are set np to public shame. Satan dropped it there, I take it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence. But indeed he was blind and foolish, as he ever and always is. A pure hand needs no glove to cover it!" II in St'lieuie. Mrs. Brown—What makes that baby cry so, Benjamin? Mr. Brown (who is doing the peram- act)—I'm pinching him. "Why, what in the world are you do Borer—Why, no; of course not. Miss Weary—Well, then, that must be the one exception. —Boston Courier. you. I But she did not permit him to go on. With a smothered stream she ru;;lied from the room, and as Harold Housing toil heard lier wildly putting on hei overshoes in the hall ami impulsively grabbing her hat and wraps from the rack he picked up a rosebud she had dropped and sighed heavily, "Lime say lots o' de men folks down lug that for?" in New York weah dwess suits." "1 can't keep awake long enough t.i "Wal, dat's de place fur um—in pet get him to sleep unless he cries."—Bitig tycoats—when dey git dat shaller dey hamton Leader. Her View When Twelve Years Old. •'Thank yon, my good friend," said the minister gravely, but startled at heart, for so confused was his remembrance that he had almost brought himself to look at the events of the past night as visionary. "Yw, it seems to be my glove, indeed!" A damsel of twelve who disliked boyg wrote an essay upon them, in whioh she said: "If I had my way, half the boys in the world would be girls and the other half would lDe dolls."—New York Sun. The good old minister came freshly from the death chamber of Governor Winthrop, who had passed from earth to heaven within that very hour. And now surrounded, like the saintlike personages of olden times, with a radiant halo, that glorified him amid this gloomy night of sin—as if the departed governor had left him an inheritance of his glory, or m If h* had causrht udqb himself the WnudThere was witchcraft in little Pearl's eyes, and her face as she glanced upward at the minister wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elfish. She withdrew her hand from Mr. Dimmeedale's and pointed across the street. But he clasped both his hands over his breast and cast hain't nuffln mo' ter do 'n ter look or w„u„Cr«i rrofeutou.i pri«i«. ' Harptri Bazar —Arc these safes really biirglu; prouf? This was Harold's first.—Detroit Free I'reaa.  The country is full of rest and repose and longevity, tliev tell me, but they are confined largely to deaf people and cows. During the past week I have been resting quietly and noiselessly trying to grow together again. Two \fpeks ago 1 began horseback riding at the suggestion Not Absolutely Perfect. "I don't suppose," said the teacher,! B.—Absolutely warranted! Not long "that any little boy here has ever seen a ago a notorious burglar went and shot whale." I himself through mortification and "No, sir," came the answer, "but I'vC ! wounded professional pride because h' €«I.t one."—Washington Star. I couldn't mien one of our safes. —Sch^'k. Always Approached from the Rear. Proof Conclusive. Briggs—Do you thiuk that Robinson loves her? "Now isn't that a perfect picture of the baby?" asked Mrs. Noopop, displaying a new cabinet photograph. "And, since satan saw fit to steal it, your reverence most needs handle him without gloves henceforward," remarked ft* old se*ton, grimly aijftiling. "But "I don't think it is," replied Noopop. "I don't hear a souud."— Harper's Bazar, Griggs—He went shopping with her. * Cloak Review.