Lititz Record

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An Independent Family Newspaper, Devoted to Literature, Agriculture, Local and General Intelligence.,
VOL. II. LITIZ, PA., FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 18, 1879. NO. 32.
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Funny Uncle Phil.
I heard the grown folks talking last night when
I lay abed,
So I shut my eyes and listened to everything
they said; *
And first they said that Polly and Phil were
coming here,
And a good 0I4 soul was Polly, but Phil was
always queer.
And they never, never, never, in all their lives
could see
How Polly came to m a r r y him, nor how they
oould agree;
For she was just as bright and sweet as any
flower in May,
But he was tight as a drum-head, and as black
as a stormy day.
And his nose was always poking into other
folk's affairs, •
And he was altogether too fond of splitting
hairs;
And he had so many corners you never could
come near
Without your hitting some of them, or being in
constant fear.
Well, I listened very hard, and I 'membered
every word,
And I thought it was. t h e queerest thing.a body
ever lieilrd;
And in tho evening, when I heard the chaise
come down the hill,
1 almost couldn't wait t o see my funjiy Uncle
Phil.
But, oh ! what stories grown folks t e l l ! He
wasn't black at a l l!
And he hadn't any corners, but was plump and
fair and small;
llis nose turned up a little, but then it was so
wee,
How it could poke so very much I really
couldn't see.
And whon he saw me staring, he nodded hard,
and smiled;
And then he asked them softly if I was Elsie's
child; '
And when grandma said I was he took me
gently on his knee,
And wound my longest curl about hia finger
carefully.
And he told me 'bout my mamma when she
was a little girl,
And all the time he talked he kept his finger
on that curl;
Till at last I couldn't stand it, and I slipped
down by his chair,
And asked him how he came to be-so fond oi
splitting hair."''
My ! how he stared! and Jimmy laughed,
and grandma shook her head,
And grandpa had his awful look, and Uncle
Sam turned red ;
And then the clock ticked very loud, the
kitchen was so Still,
And I knew 'twas something dreadful I had
said to Uncle Phil.
But I couldn't help it then, so I. told him every
word,
And he listened very quietly; he never spoke
nor stirred,
Till X told him 'bout the corners, and said I
didn't know
How he could have so many when there didn't
any show.
And then he laughed and laughed, till the
kitchen iairly shook;
And he gave the frightened grown folks such a
bright and fimny look,.
And said, " 'Tis true, my little girl, when Polly
married me
I was full of ugly corners, but she's smoothed
them down, you see."
And then they all shook hands again, and
Jimmy gave three cheers,
And Uncle Sam said little pitchers had most
monstrous ears;
And grandma kissed Aunt Polly; but then she
looked at me,
And said I ' d better " meditate " while she was
getting tea..
That means that I must sit and think what
naughty things I ' v e done;
It' must be 'cause I 'm little yet—they seemed
to think 'twas fun.
•I don't quite understand it all; well, by and by
I will
Creep softly up to him, and ask my funny
Uncle Phil.
—Amelia Dailey-Alden in Wide Awake.
AN APRIL HOAX.
Looking at it from without, it does
not appear very unlike its fellows, this
little suburban cottage of the Rosy,
with its unpretending hooded porch,
over which the ivy trails its dark green
foliage, its two parlor windows in front,
and its bay-window at the side; but
within there is nothing commonplace.
Every room, every corner, reflects the
refined taste of Janet Roy, and the
quaint fancies of her brother Dick.
Dick, the handsome, the talented, the gentlemanly—he is all this and more in
is sister J a n e t ' s eyes—is sitting on the
window-seat, the sun bathing his
shapely figure in its impartial rays. He
is reading the morning paper; with
more interest probably than most men
are wont to have, for he recognizes the
mannerism of each writer on the editori-al
page—he is on t h e editorial staff him-self—
and-takes pleasure in seeing how
Smith treats the Eastern question, what
Jones thinks of t h e condition of the In-dians,
and what Brown has to say on
t h e presidential policy. He has not
written a stroke for over a week him-self.
He has been quite ill; a heavy
cold threatening pneumonia has kept
h im a prisoner at the cottage, and for
seven mornings has the public been de-prived
of t h e pleasure and profit of pe-rusing
his timely and caustic remarks
upon general topics. Only yesterday he
stepped aoross t h e threshold into man-hood
; it was his twenty-first birthday:
to-day he is a citizen of the republic.
The clock on the mantel-shelf tinkles
forth eight silvery notes. Dick looks up
from his paper with some show of im-patience.
Where can Janet be? As if
in answer to his thought, the door
opens, and Miss Roy, tall and graceful,
in a dress of olive-green serge, in charm-ing
contrast with her light golden hair,
comes softly in.
" Have you been waiting long, Dick?"
she asks, in a pleasant, kindly voice.
" I must have overslept myself."
" N o , " replies Dick, throwing down
his paper and yawning languidly, " not
very long; but I 'm glad you've come,
for I 'm deucedly. hungry. Rather a good
sign, isn't it, Jean?"
" T o be hungry? Yes; very good"—
sitting down at the table and tapping
the call-bell. " But it won't last very
long. I'll venture t o say t h a t in fifteen
minutes from n ow your appetit.e will be
considerably diminished."
"Very likely," said Dick, as Sarah en-ters
from the kitchen, bearing the cof-fee-
urn in one hand and a dish of beef-steak
in the other. " At any rate, I will
see how far steak, coffee and hot bis-cuits
will go toward diminishing i t ."
Presently there is a violent ring at the
door-bell.
" Who can that be?" exclaimed Dick,
inquisitively. " I wonder if any of the
boys could have come' out to see what
has become of me?"
" I t sounds very like the postman,"
adds his sister; and the postman it is.
Two letters are his contribution t o the
Roys this morning, both of which Sarah
hands to Miss Janet, who hurriedly
reads the addressee. One is for,herself,
the other is for her brother.
" ' Here is a letter for you, sir, if your
name is H o r a t i o , ' " she quotes, reaching
it to h im across the table.
" B u t my name is not Horatio," he
replies, correctingly, as. he takes, it.
" A r e you aware that to paraphrase is
perfectly allowable? 'If your name be
Richard' would be much more appropri-ate,
and would sound far better."
J a n e t scarcely listens to the prattle of
her brother: the letter t h a t has come for
her is edged with black, and she is
nervously tearing open the envelope in
her hasta to see what ill news it has
brought, whose death it has come to an-nounce.
'
Dick notices her agitation as she draws
out the inclosed sheet, and wonders,
even as she is wondering, what can be
its message.
"Uncle Arthur is dead," she says, the
next moment, giving a sigh of relief.
" I saw it was in Harry's handwriting,
and so feared it was Cousin iMargaret , '
" Uncle A r t h u r ! " repeats Dick. "Un-cle
Arthur! He's one of my respected
great-uncles, whom I have never had
the pleasure of seeing: a California mil-lionaire.
I wonder did it ever strike
him that a little of his wealth would be
acceptable to his great-niece and great-nephew,
who are battling with the
world far away over here in the East?"
"Oh, Dick!" exclaims Miss Roy,
greatly shocked, " h ow can you talk of
the poor man's money when he is just
dead?"
"Poor man!" says Dick, laughing.
" I always thought he was a rich one."
"May I inquire," asks Miss Roy,
meekly, when- her brother had twice
read the epistle he holds in his hand,
and is about to begin again, " what Nell
has to say t h a t is so very interesting?"
A slight flush mounts to Dick's face as
he hurriedly crumples the missive into
his pocket.
' N e l l ! " he repeats. "How did you |
know it was from Nell?" 1
' I know her handwriting."
' But it's j u s t like hundreds of others,"
continued Dick, buttering a hot roll in
continuance of his breakfast. " All
ladies write in the same style now-a-days.
The letters are all very tall and all very
t h i n ."
" Each lady's hand has a peculiarity,
nevertheless."
" ' W h i c h nobody can deny,' " quotes
Richard. Some hands are pink and
some are white,„ some are fat and some
are lean, some wear diamonds and some
wear none."
' H ow you trip one up!" exclaimed
Janet, smiling. " You know very well
what I mean. Would you have me
stumble over the whole length of ' chir-
•iiphy' every time?"
' B y no means. It would only be a
waste of breath, and would seem as
though you were intentionally airing
your knowledge of Webster's Una-bridged."
Dick is beginning to congratulate him-self
on the masterly way in which he has
turned the subject and escaped rudely
telling his sister that the contents of
Miss Nellie Taylor's letter are not for her
ears, when she again refers to his re-marks.
" By-the-bye," she says, as she draws
from the urn her brother's second cup of
coffee, "speaking of some hands with
diamonds a n d some without, Nell doesn't
wear one, does she? When do you pro-pose
presenting her with one of the
gems?"
" I was- not aware" (with mock grav-ity)
" t h a t young men are generally ex-pected
to provide their lady friends with
diamond rings."
" Did the fact that there is such a
thing as an engagement r i ng ever present
itself to your enlightened intellect?"
"Engagement-/ ' repeats Dick; " d i d I
understand you to say engagement?
Since when, pray, did you conclude that
your respected brother had given his
heart to another? I know of no engage-ment."
" Oh, dear!" says J a n e t , sighing melo-dramatically;
" have I really been mis-taken
? Ancl'here I was already congrat-ulating
myself on so soon having a sister-in-
law!"
" Do you remember the nursery
rhyme?" asks Dick:
"*' Can t h e love t h a t you're so rieh in
Build a fire in t h e kitchen 1
Or the little god oi love, t u r n the spit, Bpit,
spit?'
I should hesitate, I think, to ask any
one t o marry me, for fear of having that
couplet thrown in my face. Now if that
dear old great-uncle of ours had only
taken it i n to his; aged head to leave us a
few of his many thousands, then perhaps
I might think of engagements and dia-mond
rings and mothers-in-law; and
you might begin to speculate on t h e com-parative
advantages of my various lady
friends as a sister-in-law."
" P o o r , dear old man!" J a n e t ' c o n -
tinues, kindly. " I can just remember
sitting on his knee and playing with his
long beard at the time he was on from
the West. It's really a shame, Dick, our
being so lively, and Uncle Arthur, grand-father's
own brother, lying dead."
"Well, my dear, I should be lying
a live if I said I was sorry he's gone; for
while there's death there's hope, a n d who
knows but he may have thought of us?"
"Oh, Dick!" beseechingly, "please
don't joke about it. I really do feel bad-ly,
and Cousin Margaret and H a r r y must
be so grieved."
" So they must," says Dick, apparent-ly
acquiescing in his sister's views. . "I
am sure we all do. Don't you think,
Jean, we had better bow the shutters
and hang out black bombazine?"
" I shall bow t h e shutters," adds Janet,
feeling rather angry at her brother's con-tinued
joking. " I t is the least we can
do, and it snows some respect for our
grandfather's brother," rising and leav-ing
Dick still at the table.
" O u r grandfather's brother!" repeats
he; "what an awfully near relative!
Surely he must have bequeathed some-thing
to his brother's grandchildren."
Dick is in his study now—a neat, cozy
little room back of the drawing-room,
which is in reality the library, but which
Mr. Roy, he being a literary man, choos-es
to call his study. He is sitting at his
table, with Nell's letter spread out before
him, and is reading it fbr the fourth
time. There is nothing very remarkable
about i t ; it is not what one would style
a love-letter, and yet Dick would not for
all the world have his sister get a glimpse
of it.
" DEAK DICK,—I have been looking for
you to call, as you promised, and am
much surprised at not having seen you.
Your birthday, I t h i n k you told me, is
about this time. Did you have a party ?
and are you so elated at having attained
your majority t h a t you are above visit-ing
your friends?, I cannot think that
because you are" n ow a man you have
given up all t h e friends of your childhood.
Please call soon, and tell me all about
your presents. Ever your friend, NELL."
That is i t ; and in it Dick is trying -to..
,find traces of something more than
friendship.
"Nell is a n awfully jolly girl," he says
to himself, leaning back in his chair and
thrusting his hands into his pockets;
" j u s t as full of f u n as ever she can be. 1
wonder whether she really does care any-thing,
for me ? I 'm not altogether a bad-looWng
fellow, if I do say it myself, and
I fancy I can talk quite as well as the
most of 'em. How is one to tell whether
a girl cares more for him than for
another, when she persists in being jolly
with every one?"
Then he gets to thinking of some
means to solve the problem. How shall,
he prove her? Presently an idea comes
to Dim, first faintly, indistinctly; then
more plainly and more vividly, until a
plan—an excellent plan, he thinks—
stands out before h im in beautiful sym-metry.
Everything seems to have work-ed
in favor of it, and he is naturally joy-ous
over his discovery.
He opens one of the drawers in his
writing-table and takes out a packet of
letters. Through them he searches until
he finds two t h a t J a n e t wrote him while
he was away on his midsummer vaca-tion.
These he spreads op§n before him,
and taking a sheet of note-paper he be-gins
to write, now closely studying his
sister's letters, now slowly putting words
upon the paper. Half an hour and he
has finished. He folds t h e sheet, incloses
it in on envelope, and addresses it as
carefully as he has written it. Then lie
rises, and, unlocking the door, meets
Janet in the hall. She sees him take
down his h a t to go out.
" Had you not better wear your over-coat?"
she asks. " I 'm afraid you might
take cold again."
" I ' m not going far," he answers;
" only to post a letter."
" To Nell?" she asks, teasingly; " Are
you not rather p r o m p t i n answering your
correspondents?"
Dick, making no reply, goes out, while
she, laughing to herself, hurries away to
her numerous household duties.
The next morning is the 1st of April—
All-fool's Day, with its temptations to
practical jokes and its myriads of little
innocent lies, when every one does his
best.to make a fool of his dearest friend
as well as his direst foe. It is a bright,
sunny morning, t h a t swells the buds to
bursting, and draws up the blades of
fresh young grass as a magnet draws steel.
Dick Roy is in the very best of spirits;
he has persuaded Jahet into believing
t h a t he l i a s taken a fresh cold; has as-sumed
a voice as hoarse as a veteran bull-frog
; and has been looking the very pic-ture
of distress, u n t i l the arrival of the
postman—just as he is creeping in to
breakfast and adding to his sister's anx-iety
by his distressed countenance—
causes h im to brighten up, and in the
clearest tone remark, " 'Pon my word,
Jean, my cold's gone. Did it strike you
this was the first day of April?"
An expression of relief mingled with
annoyance mounts Miss Roy's counte-nance.
" You awful boy!" she exclaims. " You
should be ashamed of yourself, trying to
fool your own sister."
" And succeeding, too,",laughs Dick.
The only letter this morning is one for
him. It is hidden by a large yellow en-velope,
and addressed in a bold heavy
hand t h a t gives one an impression of im-portant
business at once. As Dick opens
it and catches sight of the heading, his
face brightens in expectation, a n a con-tinues
brightening until he has read it
quite through, when he is wearing the
broadest of smiles.
" H u r r a h ! " he shouts, his boyishness
making its appearance through his new-ly
acquired manhood—" h u r r a h for Uncle
Arthur ! Hurrah ! Jean, we've been
left a fortune !"
J a n e t looks at him unbelievingly.
She has been fooled once this morning,
and does not intend to submit tamely to
what she considers her brother's second
attempt.
" If you must joke, Dick," she says,
calmly, her voice and manner strangely
contrasting w i t h his excitement, " p r ay
don't take such a subject. You are play-ing
your part very well, I admit; but
still I remember now what day it is."
" But I 'm not joking; it's a fact. Here
is a letter from the dear old boy's lawyer.
Look at the postmark; look at the
letter-head; read the message," he goes
on, excitedly, running around to his sis-ter's
side of t h e table and spreading the
envelope and its contents before her.
He is certainly not fooling her now, as
she is compelled to admit when she is
thus presented with the evidence. The
same heavy style of writing that was
without is within.
" Richard Roy, Esq.:
"DEAK SIR" (it begins),—"I have
pleasure in informing you that the will
of the late Arthur Roy, Esq., of t h i s city,
bequeaths t o his great-nephew and great'
niece, Richard and J a n e t Roy (yourself
and sister), each the sum of fifty thou-sand
dollars. These amounts are in-vested
in United States government
bonds, and shall be forwarded t o you in
due course.
" I have the honor to be your obedi-ent
servant,
" J . MADISON PEKRY, E x e c u t o r ."
The effect of the reading on Janet is
quite the reverse of that on her brother,
instead of breaking forth into joyous
shouts, her sensitive nature causes her to
burst into a flood of tears .
; Dick looks at her in astonishment.
What can she be crying for ? h e thinks.
A legacy of fifty thousand dollars he
does not consider a cause for weeping,
and concludes t h a t his sister has become
mystified in regard to the time to weep
and the time to laugh.
" W h a t is t h e matter with you ?" he
asks, when the first outburst lias sub-sided
into occasional suppressed sobs.
" Oh, Dick !" cries Janet, wiping her
eves, " I believe you have n o feeling at
all. Just to think what a dear, kind
uncle we have l o s t ! How good of him
to remember us !"
" Very good of him, indeed," adds
Dick; " b u t I can't see t h a t t h a t ought
•to make one sad. Rather a cause for re-joicing,
I should say. Poor fellow, he
was so old he couldn't enjoy it, and I
dare say he's better off where he i s ; that
is, if h e was as good as his will makes
me think he was."
J a n e t is really grieved. Her nature is
so intensely sensitive t h a t a great kind-ness
invariably has this, effect upon her.
She refuses any more breakfast, and goes
hastily up to her room, where she spends
the morning in trying to picture her
uncle as he was" when, so many years
agot she sat on his lap, and child-like
jean her tiny fingers through his long
gray beai'd. : '
All through the morning, as, thinking
thus, she sits diligently sewing, tears
ever and anon well up in her eyes and go
trickling down her cheeks before she is
aware of their presence. As a natural
consequence, twelve o'clock finds her
with very red eyes and nose, and a gen-eral
appearance of having: gone through
a most heart-rendering affliction. This
is her condition when Sarah knocks at
the door, and on entei-ing announces t h at
Miss Taylor is in t h e drawing-room.
"Oh, what shall I do? exclaims
Janet, in perplexity, as soon as t h e maid
is out of ear-shot. " She will see t h a t I
have been crying, and will want to know
all about i t ; and I really can't talk of it
now. I wonder where Dick is; he might
go and see her, and explain that I 'm not
well; but dear me —getting up and
smoothing back her hair with both
hands—"I suppose he's out somewhere.
He never is about when he's wanted, but
is sure to be here when he's not." So,
wiping her feyes for the hundredth time
since breakfast, and giving her nose the
fiftieth gentle blow, she goes softly down
to the drawing-room in search of her
visitor. Nellie Taylor—a rather short,
plump girl, with a charmingly pretty
pink and white face—rises quickly as
J a n e t comes in.
"Oh, J e a n ! " she says, going to meet
her, and presenting a countenance that
for signs of weeping is not a whit better
off t h a n Miss Roy's, " I do so sympathize
with you!"
Janet is much surprised at these words.
On what account does she sympathize
w i t h her? Surely s's? cannot know why
she lias been spending the morning in
tears.
"Come and sit down by me," Nell
goes on, taking her hand and drawing
her to a sofa. " Trouble comes to all of
us some time, you know." •
" B u t , " begins Janet, thoroughly puz-zled,
as they sit down together, "my
dear Nell"—
"There, now," interrupted she, " d o n 't
to me of i t : don't tell me how
much worse you feel than I. I know
you think so; but, indeed"—and the
tears began to trickle down her cheeks
again—"you don't know how I loved
-him."
Suddenly it comes to Janet that per-haps
her great uncle was related to the
Taylors also.
" W a s he "—she begins: but before she
can finish the question Nell answers her:
" Yes " (sobbing). " Didn't you know
i t ? Oh, why didn't some one let me
know t h a t he was so ill? I would have
so liked t o be w i t h h i m !"
1 J a n e t looked pityingly at her young
friend. Surely her uncle must have
been a very lovable old gentleman to in-spire
t h i s affection.
" But how strange it is," she thinks,
" t h a t I never knew we were even dis-t
a n t ly connected with the Taylors. Per-haps
Dick knew it, but I 'm sure he
never told me." Then she begins sob-bing
again for mere sympathy, and for a
moment not a word is spoken.
" W a s he so very dear to you?" asks
Janet, bringing the cambric into play
again.
"Oh, Jean,"Nell answers, also wiping
away, t h e tears, "you cannot imagine
how we loved each other. There was no
time set, b u t then i t was understood that
i t was to come off as soon as his salary
was sufficient for h im t o "—and then, she
burst into tears again.
" W h a t do you mean?"—in surprise.
" W h a t was to come off? "
" We were engaged, you know," Nell
says, looking up. •
"Engaged!"—with great astonishment.
" Did^you not know it?"
"Nell, what are you talking about?"
J a n e t asks, excitedly, her grief having
given way to astonished curiosity. "It
is evident there is a misunderstanding
somewhere."
Nell looks at her curiously.
" A r e you angry?" she asks, i n a hurt
tone; " would you not have approved of
his making me his wife?"
" Y o u marry Uncle Arthur!"
"Uncle A r t h u r ! " repeats Nell. It is
she who is surprised now. "Who is
Uncle Arthur?"^
" T h e dear, kind old gentleman who
has j u s t died."
" B u t I have been talking of Dick.
You must have known I was. Poor
dear Dick!" and again she is weeping as
though her heart would break.
" But Dick is not dead?"
Nell looks u p i n incredulous, glad sur-prise.
There is a movement of the
portiere which covers the entrance to the
library.
" N o r likely t o be soon," shouted Rich-ard,
running forward from his hiding-place,
where he has heard all the con-versation,
his pleasant face wreathed in
smiles.
Tho next moment he has caught Nell
in his arms and is kissing away the re-maining
tears.
" You darling good girl!" he says, pas-sionately,
" n o w I believe you do care a
little bit for me."
" B u t I cannot understand it," says
Janet, in wonder. "What ever could
have caused you to think Dick was
dead?"
" The idea of askingme, after t h e letter
you wrote!" replies Nell. "Didn't vou
tell me so? I didn't think, Jean, that
you could perpetrate such an awful
joke."
" But I wrote no letter," adds Janet.
Nell p u t s her hand in her pocket and
draws forth an epistle.
" R e a d it," she says. " I f you didn't
write it, who did?" And Janet read:
" Friday morning.
" M Y DEAB NELL.—I h a v e v e r y sad
news for. you. Our darling boy is no
more. At twelve o'clock Wednesday
night he breathed his last. Oh, how can
I write i t ? I can scarcely realize t h a t he
is gone. Please do come out and see me.
I know you thought a great deal of him,
and can sympathize w i t h me.
" E v e r yours, JANET ROY."
" But it is not my writing," says
Janet. " I never make my e's like that,
nor sign myself ' E v e r yours," and, be-sides,
there was no bFack on the door."
" I t is very like your writing, and I
never thought of the black. Who could
haye sent t h e letter if you didn't ?"
Dick, who is still standing with his
arm about Nell's waist, bursts into a
hearty laugh! " I am the aitthor," he
says. " I t was a little April hoax, and it
worked admirably—far better than I ex-pected."
_
" Y o u awful boy!" exclaim Nell and
Janet in chorus.
" The boy is dead," persists Dick.
" But what a frightful story you told.'"
says Nell; "and how terribly I was
worried!"
" I t is all t r u e , " says Dick. " There is
not an u n t r u t h in the whole letter: the
boy is no more; the boy did breathe his
last. I am a man now. Thursday was
my twenty-first birthday."
" B u t you forged my name," says
Janet.
" I put my. initial below, if you
notice, replies Dick. And sure enough,
there it was. "And our wedding will
be j u s t ss:.soon as you can get ready," he
adds, turning to Nell. "The interest of
fifty thousand, which you must know
the puzzling Uncle Arthur just left me,
plus my salary, is all-sufficient, isn't it?
and I say, Jean, how do you like the
prospect of a sister-in-law? It was
rather a pleasant April-fool after alj,
wasn't it?"—Harper's Bazar.
ITEMS OF INTEREST.
The Soup Sione.
A lady in the outskirts of Denver was
the victim the other day of a tramp's
practical joke. Even in these vagabonds
there is an occasional vein of humor
which is worth preserving. The inci-dent
happened in this wise: About the
middle of the afternoon a tramp put in
an appearance and asked politely if he
could be permitted to cook for himself a
plate of soup.
" I have the ingredients w i t h me," he
said, displaying a cobblestone about the
size of an apple.
The lady very naturally looked at
him in surprise.
" Y o u can't make soup out of that
rock, can you ?" she inquired.
" Oh, yes, madam. This is w h a t ' we
call a soup stone."
" Well, I should like to see you do i t ;"
and she forthwith made up a fire in the
stove and t h e tramp commenced opera-tions.
He filled the stove pan with
water, and after it commenced t o boil,
very carefully deposited the stone in a
pan in the water.
" I shall have to trouble you for a lit-tle
seasoning," he said, and the lady has-tened
to get him an onion, a piece of
meat and a pomato. These were care-fully
cut up and put in to boil along
with the stone. In a short time a de-licious
plate of soup was prepared. The
lady tasted it and was delighted with the
flavor. The fellow sat down and ate,
and his hostess immediately added what
was necessary to. make a substantial
meal. When he left he said he could
get plenty of soup stones on his waya, nd
he would leave that one with her as an
evidence of h ow sincerely he appreciated
her kindness. She was firmly convinced
t h a t she had come into possession of a
treasure. That night she told her hus-band
of t h e circumstance. He listened
to the recital and then inquired inno-cently
:
" Don't you t h i n k the meat and the
onion and the tomato would have made
a very good soup without the rock?"
Gradually the trick began to dawn
upon her, and if y»u want to make that
lady mad, you have only to ask her for
the loan of her soup stone.—Rocky Moun-tain
News.
Man can do many things, but there is
one thing he ca.n't do; he can't button
on a new collar, j u s t after cutting his
thumb-nails, without looking up in the
A novel thing—a readable romance.
There are no stamps in last year's vests.
The chiropodist sways the whole
foot's-tool.
I t is finally decided that W ster's
dictionary is the best.
Drawing from nature is contagious,
that is to say it's sketching.
What sort of h a r d things can you t h r ow
at a dog without hurting h im ? Words
—hard words.
No man finds more fault while riding
over bumps on country roads than "the
phrenologist.—Meriden Recorder. #
English physicians say that melan-cholia
is always active in the morning
and wears away towards night.
P»Henry C. Work, the songlwriter, has
already received over $4,000 royalty for
the song, " Grandfather's Clock."
" There, cook that to my likeness," ex-claimed
a careless man to his wife as he
brought home and t h r ew a calf s head on
the kitchen table.
There was an instance of the disagree-ment
of doctors in France recently which
led to a duel in the Bois de Yincennes.
The participants were army surgeons,
who had had a dispute. One of them
was wounded, and his antagonist dressed
the wound and helped him to the car-riage,
and subsequently committed sui-cide.
During 1878 the American and. English
societies distributed 3,850,376 Bibles,viz.: "
in Russia, 740,823 in 69 languages; in
Turkey, 64,508 in 9 languages; India, 343.-
616; China, 159,103; Japan, 61,398; Italy,
52,828; France, 133,160; Servia and Rou-mania,
128,170; Spain, 68,393; Austria,
274,362; Germany, 468,108; South Ameri- '
ca, 35,348; Mexico, 30,000.
Arthur Gilman tells the following of
an old lady at Concord: "Have you given
electricity a trial for your complaint,
madame? " asked the minister, as he took
tea with the old lady. "Electricity!"
said she. " Well, yes, I reckon it has.
I was struck by lightning last summer
and hove out the window, b u t it didn't
seem to do me no sort of good.—Boston
Traveler. _
Restless Nights.
Some persons " t o s s and tumble " half
the night and get up in the morning
weary, unrefreshed and dispirited, whol-ly
unfit, either in body or mind, for the
duties of the day; they are not only in-,
capacitated for business, but are often
rendered so ungracious in their manners,
so i r r i t a b l e and fretful, as to spread a
gloom and a cloud over the whole house-hold.
To be able to go to bed arid be in
a sound, delicious sleep, ah unconscious
deliciousness, in five minutes, but enjoyed
in its remembrance, is a great happiness,
an incalculable blessing, and one for
which the most sincere and affectionate
thanks should habitually go up to that
beneficent Providence which vouchsafes
the same through the instrumentalities
of a wise and self-denying attention to
the laws of our being.
Restless nights as to persons in ap-parent
good health, arise chiefly from,
first, an overloaded stomach; second,
from worldly care; thiijd, from want of
muscular activities proportioned to the
needs of the system. Few will have
restless nights who take dinner at mid-day,
and nothing after t h a t except apiece
of cold bread and butter and a cup or
two of some hot drink; any thing beyond
that, as cake, pie, chipped beef, dough-nuts
and the like, only tempt nature to
eat when there is really no call for it,
thus engendering dyspepsia and all its
t r a in of evils.
Worldly care. For those who cannot
sleep f r om the unsatisfactory condition of
their affairs; or that they are about to
encounter great losses, whether f r om their
own remissness, the perfidy of friends, or
unavoidable circumstances, we have a
deep and sincere sympathy. To such we
say, live hopefully for better days ahead,
and meanwhile strive diligently, per-sistently,
and with a brave heart, to that
end.
But the more common cause of restless
n i g h t s ' i s , that exercise has not. been
taken to make the body tired enough to
demand sleep. Few will fail to sleep
soundly if the whole of daylight, or as
much thereof as will produce moderate
fatigue, is spent in steady work in the
open air, or on horseback, or on foot.
Many spoil all their sleep by attempting
to force more on n a t u r e t h a n she requires.
Few persons will fail to sleep soundly,
while they do sleep, if they avoid sleep-ing
in the daytime, will go to bed at a •
regular hour, and heroically resolve to
get up the moment they wake, whether
it is at two, four, or six o'clock in the
morning. In less t h a n a week each one
will find how much sleep his system re-quires;
thereafter give it that, and no
more.—HalVs Journal of Health.
Words of Wisdom. *
I t requires more power to control for-tune
t h a n to control kings.
Flattery is a sort of bad money to
which our vanity gives currency.
Hard words have never taught wis-dom,
nor does t r u t h require them.
What is the best government? That
which teaches us to govern ourselves.
Some hearts, like evening primroses,
open most beautifully in the shadows of
life.
I t is extraordinary how long a man
may look among the crowd without dis-covering
t h e face of a friend.
There is no wise or good man that
would change persons or conditions en-tirely
w i t h any man in the world.
He t h a t h a t h really felt the bitterness
of sin, will fear to commit it; and he
t h a t hath felt the sweetness of mercy
will fear to offend it.
I t is better not to expect or calculate
consequences. Let us try to do right
actions without thinking of the feelings
they are to call out in others.
" A polite man," said the Due de
Morny, " is one who looks w i t h interest
to things he knows all about when they
are told him by a person who knows
nothing about them."