Bellefonte, Pa., July 17, 1891.
mm
THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR.
“Whose steps are those? Who comes so
late 2"?
“Let me come in—the door unlock.”
* Tis midnight now; my lonely gate
I open to no strangers’s knock.
“Who art thou? Speak!” ‘‘Men call me
Fame.
To immortality I lead,”
“Pass, idle phantom of ainame,”
“Listen again, and now take heed. -
“Twas false. My names are Song, Love,
Art. t
My poet, now unbar the door.”
“Ars dead, Song cannot touch my heart,
My once Love's name I chant no more.”
“Open then, now—for see, I stand,
iches my name, with endless gold—
Gold and your wishin either hand.”
“Too late—my youth you still withhold.”
®Then, if it must be, since the door
Stands shut, my last true name do knew.
Men call me death. Delay no more;
I bring the cure of every woe.”
The door flies wide. “Ah guest so wan,
Forgive the poor place where I dwell—
An ice-cold hearth, a heart-sick man,
Stands here to welcome thee full well.”
— Walt Whitman.
WHO DID THE WGOING ?
BY FRED WARNER SHIBLEY.
It somehow leaked out in the Big
Creek section that Martha Ann Todd
proposed to Jim Simkins.
How the story got afloat no one ex-
actly knew, for Martha certainly never
told it herself, ard as for James, he
was never known in the whole course
of his existence to have told anything.
Anyhow, the report got afloat, and
80on everyone far and near was talk-
ing about it, and at every candy party
and “sugarin’ off” some one was bound
to bring up the subject, and then the
question was added. “Did Martha
Ann really propose?”
The facts in the case were that Mar-
tha Ann and James were engaged.
Both Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Simpkins
had given this news tothe world at
Aunt Jane Wormley’s meeting of the
Big Creek Ladies’ Aid. It was furth-
er generally agreed that James never
had spunk enough to speak for himself
80 it really became an oppressive mys-
tery to the good people of the section.
But all these wonderings and sup-
postions would have been cleared up
ad they been able to look into the
generous heart of Martha Ann as she
sat by the western window of the kitch-
en doing crochet work, and looking
ever and anon over across the snow
fields to. the Simkins farmhouse, be-
hind which a sturdy figure could he
seen lustily swinging an ax.
And this was James.
Martha Ann was as comely a girl as
any in the district, and as Uncle Billy
Mason,the master of the postoffice and
village emporium, averred, “by far the
likeliest.”
Martha Ann was good to look at.
She was not handsome. She was not
etty. Her eyes were neither bright
lack nor soft blue. Ier hair had no
poetic tendencies. Her figure was
neither statuesque nor petite; never-
theless Martha Ann was a mighty
Plast girl to see. She seemed to
ave a way of growing on one, for her
voice was always musical, and her
smile ever cheerful and encouraging.
She was now probably twenty-seven
years of age, perhaps younger—it
doesn’t matter. She was a woman,
healthy, energetic, a farmer's daughter
who had worked all her life. and was
proud of it, who had taken first prize
at the county fair for bread, and had
‘won a medal at the same institution
for a patchwork quilt. She had made
all her own clothes since the day she
was sixteen, and, besides that, she
could play an organ all around the
other girls.
That was a big day in the hfe of
Marcha Ann when her father came
home with a six-stop organ on the
wood sleigh. Such a beauty as it was,
too, with elegant bracket trimmings
and a cute little rack on top for books
and music. It wasn’t five minutes
after that organ struck the parlor be-
fore “Coronation’” and “The Battle of
Waterloo” were rolling through the
house with so sublime and altogether
magnificent a tone. that Mother Todd
dropped right down on the haircloth
sofa, all in her old clothes, too, and
cried, refusing to be comforted until
Martha Ann played a few bars of
“Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
But self-confident as Martha Ann
was, she had for five years been float-
ing on a sea of conjecture as to what
Jim Simpkins really meant by coming
over to the house and talking politica
with her father and “seeing” her home
from church every Sunday night. She
somehow could not locate James in
her list of certainties,
For a long time Martha Ann serious-
ly doubted whether he loved her or
not, and it was not till she felt in her
heart that she was all in all to him
that she began to scheme Low to make
it easy for James to propose.
For months she labored over this
problem. Every once and awhile of a |
Sunday evening, as they strolled home
together by the creek, she would throw
out a“feeler,” hut he never understood.
During all this time she made herself |
as attractive as she knew how and
played her sweetest pieces on the or-
gan; with no further result than get-
ting him used to sitting on a haireloth |
chair without desiring to tip it back |
against the wall, as was his custom |
with the kitchen furniture,
Although all her schemes came to |
naught, Martha Ann never lost heart. |
She was sure of one thing and that was |
that James was dying to ask her, but |
couldn’t. So she looked at it as per-
fectly proper that she should Lielp him |
out. |
The nearest he had ever come to f
saying something vital was on a day in |
the preceding Fall when he had come |
over to help her pick some grafted ap- |
ples. These apples were so large and |
precious that the greatest care had to
be taken in gathering them. On this
occasion James was up amid the
branches of the tree on a step-ladder,
and Martha Ann stood on the ground
catching each apple, one by one, in her
apron.
Whether looking up so continuously
heightened her coloring or not, James
thonght she had never looked so beau-
tiful and altogether womanly before,
and he registered an oath in his heart,
for he never swore, that “So help him
Uacle John Rogers, he would ask her
the minute he got down.” He even
got quite brilliant up there on the lad-
der, and actually joked while Martha
“Ann beamed one continuous smile.
Finally he gathered all the apples in
bis reach, and so had to coma down to
get a new position. But with each
downward step, down went his cour-
| age, and it was only by a superhuman
etfort that he managed to say :
“You're looking purtier'n all git out
Martha Ann.”
Martha Ann blushed crimson at so
direct a compliment, for she felt the
hour had come. :
“You're always
James,” she said.
“Couldn’t say too much for—you—
know—you—know—. Guess I'd bet-
ter move the ladder ter the south side
the tree, wouldn’t you ?”’
Martha Ann could have cried then
and there. James said no more, and
the apple gathering went on in silence.
But now, at the time I am writing
about, they were actually engaged,and
the reader will probably come to the
conclusion that Martha Ann must have
proposed, just as the worthy gossips of
the Big Creek section figured. The
facts are as follows :
Martha Ann decided firmly on a cli-
max. Either James or she must speak.
If she could induce him to declare his
love, all well and good; if not, she
must draw him out. If he would not
draw she must tell him the old story
herself. No strategist could have
planned a finer campaign.
It was the evening of Easter Sunday.
The day had been bright and sunwy.
The services at the church had been in-
spiring, and James had come home
with her for supper.
After a meal which would have
warmed the heart of a cynic, let alone
a healthy farmer like our hero, all the
folks retired to the parlor, where a
rosy fire was glowing in the grate, the
dry maple logs burning slowly, but de-
terminedly, and every coal which drop-
ped holding its color for an hour.
The organ was open, and first the
pieces sung by the choir that day were
played over, as Martha Annsaid, “Just
ter hear how they sounded ter home.”
Father Todd sat near the hearth,
one knee overlapping the other, his
eyes looking clean up through the ceil-
ing, past the bed room on the second
floor, past the stars in the keen spring
sky, past the boundaries of space into
that ‘‘beantiful land of pure delight,
where saints immortal reign,” which
Martha Ann was singing about.
Mother Todd sat in her rocker near
him, her arms folded on her motherly
bosom, her round, fair, good old face
beaming with perfect rest and peace.
James stood by the side of the sing-
er and joined in the chorus now and
then, for he had a robust bass voice,
which “might'd amounted ter some-
thing,” Martha Ann said, “had he on-
ly had the high trainin’ of the choir.”
And so the early evening passed, and
pretty soon the old people went to
sleep in a fitful way until the worthy
sire “allowed it might do fer young
folks to set up, but fer as he was con-
cerned, guess he'd crawl off ter bed.”
He was soon followed by his faithful
partner, and the field was ready for the
action to begin.
Martha Aonp concluded that she
would not sing any more, for her throat
was getting choked up, and with the
greatest sang froid drew the sofa up
before the fire and sat down, leaving
James to look out for himself,
This move put him in a bad fix. If
he sat down anywhere in the room but
in one place her back would be towards
him. He hemmed a little and wan-
dered aimlessly about, tried to get in-
terested 1n a picture of Mrs. Todd's
grandmother, and finally sat down on
the ergan stool.
Martha Aon paid no attention. She
gat with her face in her hands looking
in the fire, as if oblivious of his pre-
sence.
There was a silence of intense and
painful presence in thé room. Now
and then a spark shot upwards from
the burning logs, or a stick fell from
the logs into a heap of crimson coals,
James ‘actually suffered. He had
no more idea what to do under the eir-
cumstances than the traditional child
unborn. But when the stillness began
a-flatterin’ me,
to actually ache, Martha Ann roused
up, and turning to him said: “Why,
James, don’t set over there alone.
Come and sit on the sofa here by me
and watch the fiickerin’. I jes’ see
the prettiest little home yer ever heard
tell of. Come and I'll tell you.”
He blushed crimson at this. Was
it possible? ‘Was this reaily Martha
Avon? Was he Jim Simpkins? “Come
and set down right aside o’ her, and
watch the flickertn,—well, I'll be etar-
nally!” “was what instantly passed
through his brain. And she turned
again to the fire.
He donghed a finle, made as if to
getup, but subsided. He turned all
colors. And ‘there sat Martha Aun
looking so cosy.
A look of heroism came into his
eyes. le arose, sat down again, got
up once more, and the first thing he
knew be was actually sitting on the |
same sola with her, and she, never
moving from her place near the mid-
dle, continued her weird stare into the
fire.
“James,” she said, “I never seesuch
a buildin’ of palaces and a makin’ of
stories as there is in the fire ‘there to-
right.”
|
everything jes’ as natural as life, and
what's them bendin’ over the well? |
They may be lovers, James, a bendin’
over the water jes’ as we are over the
fire.” :
“You got tarnal good eyes, Martha
Mauy Useful Birds.
People Have a Wrong Idea of the Val-
ue of the Bipeds.
No decent people’ who know the val-
Ann, ter see all them things. P'raps | re birds that siug, whether their song
Iain’t no imagination, but T can’t see | is Bar :
nothing but some coals a breathing ingltird. Thousands of birds that are :
sorter like as if they hated ter give in.” |
Martha Ann continued her rapt at-
tention of the drama in the fire, and
James began to get to home on the
sofa.
By and by she lifted her hand and
brushed back her hair, and then let it
descend in a careless way till it fell on
that of her companion.
“What a great, strong hand you
have,” she said, slowly. “Do you
know the marks in the hand? Tet me
show you. See this longest one curv-
ing around the thumb? That's for
long life. ~ You will live to be very old.
And see this one here, next it? That's
for riches, and this one here—wonder
what it’s for? See mine, jes’ the same
mark. Oh! I know now; I remem-
ber.”
“What's it fer ?”
“It's fer love.”
The Websterian catalogue was too
limited for the bashful young farmer to
find anything to say to this,and so they
sat in silence, her hand still resting al-
most caressingly on his. Out in the
gitting-room could be heard the meas-
ured, solemn tick-tock of the great oak-
en clock, and outside the wind breath-
ing through the trees added a certain
weirdness to the "Sabbath repose.
Everynow and then the sound of the
old dog in the woodshed turning over
restlessly could be heard, and all the
while the man’s heart was demanding
that he should express himself, a com-
mission the tongue refused to obey.
Finally Martha Ann, without
raising her head, said dreamily :
“Do you know, I've often wondered
why you didn’t ever git married. You
see I have always looked upon myself
as a sister to you wishin’ always for
your welfare and happiness, and I
have asked myself agin and agin, ‘Now
why don’t he find some good, true girl
and marry her? You'd make some
woman a good husband, James; 1
know you would, you're so good and
stidy and home lovin’, and sech men
ain’t plentiful. It ain’t fer you to be
spending your Sunday evenings with
me, who is only your true friend, fer
you'd ought ter be findin’ a sweetheart
and gettin’ married and settled in life.”
“0, Martha Ann!” he found the
courage to say.
She continued, as if not noticing the
interruption. } 7
“A man as has reached your age
ought ter be lookin’ round him, and
there's a-plenty of girls would have
you, too, a-plenty of them. Now
there’s Mary Gibson—she’s a good girl
as ever lived, a splendid housekeeper,
and religious. Or Sally Stephens, or
Esther Lapum, any ot them would
jump at the chance to become Mrs.
Simpkins.”
James groaned in spirit. The per-
spiration trickled down his forehead
and settled in a drop on the tip of his
nose, as if undecided whether or not it
were best to fall.
“Oh, Martha Ann!” he said again,
plaintively, “how could yer think of
sech a thing 2”
She removed her hand from his and
turned her face, now flushed warm by
the fire, until her eyes met his and
asked, as if with the greatest wonder:
“Why not?”
“It’s you I want, Martha Ann’—his
tongue was getting into line—“It’s
you as I have been a planning this
year or more to ask, but somehow you
was allers so sweet lookin’ and so quiet
that I somehow couldn’t do it” —Surely
the unruly vocal powers were getting
very obedient. “I've loved yer from a
little girl—I've—I've—""
The machinery stopped suddenly
here, and it wasas much as half a
minute before he continued :
“You see I don’t know how to tell
it, but I love you. I love vou with all
my heart, and allers have, and I've
wished and wished I could tell you, but
I couldn’t, bein’ so stupid. Bat I've
told you now, and I'm glad,fer 1, ain’t
no room in my heart for no one else.”
He was quite choked up with emotion
now, yet in his eyes were a new bold-
ness, a new inspiration, and he leaned
eagerly forward for her answer.
It was now her turn to be confused.
The wily Martha forgot her cunning
of speech, forgot her well-laid play,
and the first she knew the tears were
rolling down her cheeks. She had no
words to say. :
She allowed her head to sink slowly
toward his breast, and. hiding her face
there with his strong arms about her,
she gave herself up to the soft passion
of tears.
And then he'raised her tenderly and
kissed her over and over again—how,
he never knew and will never be able
to explain to himself, for be had no
need to be told she loved him and was
his for all time.
rsh or sweet, will ever kill « sing-
| of ines'imable value to the farmer, as
wel 8s i> the town dweller who grows
[fruit or keeps a garden, are slaughtered
annually in the “summer boarder’ dis-
trici near New York by city visitors,
both young and old, simply because
these bird killers do not know the value
of the birds they put out of the way.
Farmers’ boys are also guilty of des-
troying many of their feathered friends,
the same reason—few farmers themselves
knowing, or at least recognizing, the
grest amount or benefit that certain
birds are not only willing but anxious
to confer on the country if they are on-
ly let alone,
know more about the birds thut nest and
singand flit about their premises, for
and protect them, and in time have
time numbers and variety. How often
does one see the saucy, sweet voiced,
nervous little wren nowadays? It a
few years ago was seen and heard every-
where, but it must be a favored locality
that it visits now. Yet the little wren
wasa most ravenous devourer of the
did great work toward lessening the da-
mage done by that pest.
The bright little bluebird clears the
air and the ground of thousands of cod-
ling moths ard canker worms during a
seas)n, yet farmers’ boys are permitted
tu rob its nests with impunity and chase
it from field to field in efforts to kill it.
Thecrow blackbird has no peace, yet a
flock of these birds will clear in a short
time a newly plowed field of all its hosts
of dstructive larvae that the plow bas
turred up.
A PLEA FOR THE CROW.
Tae great American crow would do
the same if it wasn’t for the inevitable
man with a gun who wants the crow to
try it once. Neither the blackbird nor
the crow care as much for corn as they
do for grubs, and if the farmer would
scatter corn about his field instead of
patting up scarecrows and the like those:
useful birds would never pull up a hill
of his planting. The chances are, any-
anyhow, that if the farmer will take the
trouble to examine a hili of young corn
that he charges the crow with pulling
up be will find that it was cut off by a
grub, and that the crow was after the
grub, not the corn.
The robin, 1t cannot be denied, is a
sore trial to the man who has fruit trees,
but if he will stop and think of the
thousands upon thousands of ravaging
insects that are especial enemies of his
trees that the robin destroys, both be-
fore the fruit has ripened and for weeks
after it has gone, he will not grudge the
bird the few quarts of cherries or berries
it demands as partial payment for its
services. The same may be said of the
thrushes, cherry birds, orioles, bluejays
und many others of that class. These
birds never levy tribute in the least on
the grain farmer, but they do him un-
told good.
The climbing birds are the different
varieties of woodpecker, and they are
constantly befriending growing things.
‘Whenever a woodpecker is heard tap-
ping on a tree it is the death kneli of
the larvae of some destructive insect.
Yet it is not an unccmmon thing to see
the very person for whom this bird is
industriously at work following with his
gun the flash of the bird’s red head
comes for him to send a load of shot into
the unsuspecting feathered philanthrop-
ist. It is the pet belief among the farm-
ers that the woodpecker kills the trees
he works on, and that he is working for
that purpose.
It is a fact that the common little sap-
sucker does injure trees, but the wood-
pecker never. Quite the contrary. The
white breasted nuthatch and the gray
creeper—so generally confounded with
the sapsucker—live exclusively on tree
insects, yet the nuthateh is in bad favor
eats their trees.
THEY HELP THE FARMER.
The meadow lark is another bird that
is given little peace on any one’s land,
for there is a mistaken notion abroad
that this bird isa game bird. He is
game in the quality of being alert and
hard to get a shot at, but it is no more
entitled to be so classified than the
dicker or the highholder is. The mead-
ow lark is a constant feeder on under-
ground larve, and whenever he is dis-
turbed he is simply driven away from
active work in ridding the ground of
the worst kind of farm pests. Tre
bluejay may be said to be indirect-
ly an enemy to the farmer as well as a
friend, for it destroys largely the eggs of
birds that do only good to the tarmer,
If there is one bird that the farmer
loves to do all in his power to extermi-
nate more than he does the crow, unless
it may be the hawk, that bird isthe
owl. And if the city man hasa gun he
will not hesitate to use it as. many times
during his vacation as he ean on owls
And so they sat silently while the or hawks. * Fortunately, tke occasion
five flickered and grew passionate in
turn, and the old clock ticked with ‘a
gladder tone, and even the breathing
of the god of night in the lilacs became
subdued. © And so, heart beating
against heart and hand clasping hand,
they sat, too full of the spirit of love to
say aught.
Aud this is how they became en-
gaged.
Yet still the people of the big creek
section are wondering, “Did Martha
Aun really propose 2’ —Star Sayings.
—— When I began using Ely’s Cream
Balm ny catarrh was so bad I had head-
ache the whole time and discharged a
large amount of filthy matter. That
has almost entirely disappeared and I
have not had headache since.—J. H. H.
“Can't say as I see much, Martha Sommers, Stephney, Conn.
Ann.” .
“Look there, right side the dog.
Can’t you see the little house there and
the vines a-trailing up over the roof,
and the door wide open and the chil-
{
|
THE SECRET WiLL Dik Winn Hi.
' —Young Wife (with innocent pride)—I
made this pudding myself, Harold.
Young Husband (consolingly)—Nev-
dren aplayin’ about, and the old well ep mind, Imogene. Nobody will ever
there—see it, James, bucket,
beam, know it but me.”
for the benefit of the man with a gun
are few and far between.
The farmer can’t be brought to believe
that {it were nag tar the owls and the
hawks his fields would be? overrun and
burrowed by field mice to such un ex-
tent that his crops would be in perpetual
danger ; that owls, while out mousing,
feed on myriads of night flying moths
and beetles, thus preventing the laying
of millions upon millions of the eggs
of these insects, and that they not only
keep the field mice down, but essen
the number of domestic mice and rats
about barns and outhouses to an extent
that a small army of eats’ could not
equal. 5
As to the hawk, the farmer remembers
that on some occasion a hawk carried
off one of his chickens, and therefore the
fact that the big bird daily kills many
field mice, grasshoppers, snakes, lizards,
beetles and other vermin cannot be set
up in its defense. The proportion of
hawks that kill chickens is no more in
number, reiatively, than is that of man-
eating tigers.
——~Sabscribe for the Warcuwax.
witkout reproach from their parents, tor |
Tae farmer and fruit grower should |
ther they would be willing to defend
then back in something like their old |
pestiferous catworm of the gardens, and |
from tree to tree until the opportunity |
among many farmers, as they believeit |
that either ane of these birds presents |
Lightning Calerlations,
W. P. White, living near Liberty
Square, 18 twenty-three years of age, has
been surprising the people of Lancaster
City, 2enn., by some wonderful exhibi-
tions of his skill as a lightning caleula-
tor. He can solve any problem in ad-
dition, multiplication or division, men-
“tally, almost instantly, and the city
dailies have been publishing some of
his wonderful calculations. "When ask-
ed to multiply 6,789 by 457 he answered
3,102,573, and those who resorted to
pewcil and paper to test the accuracy of
the voung man’s reply found it was
correct. . :
He had no trouble in instantly telling
that 14,646,250 is the product of 23,434
multiplied by 625. When asked to
| multiply 47,865 by 4,698 he hesitated.
{ After studying a moment he said it must
| be about 167,000,000. “I can see,”
(said he, “3,600 in the multiple very
| plainly, but the last figures, 97, bother
| me.” Finally, however, he said that
thejcorrect answer must be 175,956,905
! which was right.
|. Fractions do not disconcert him.
When asked to multiply 98 1-8 by
65 1-3 he gave the answer’ without any
hesitation, He was also asked to multi-
ply 217 by itself, then multiply the pro-
duct by 281 and that product by 34.
More quickly than his interrogator
could put the figures on paper he gave
the correct answer—viz., 449,888,306.
White's capacity for manipulation of
figures is abnormally developed. He is
| a mathemetical phenomenon. His pre-
cocity was first observed when he was
nine years old. His father, George
White, of Liberty Square, was cipher-
(ing at the value of a quarter of beef
when Willie, hearing how many pounds
there were and the price, promptly gave
the correct amount. ;
The young man does not undertake
to explain the process by which he al-
most instantaneously arrives at results
which ordinarily are reached with the
aid of pencil and paper and the expend-
iture of considerable time. In reply i.
a query hesaid: “It is a natural gift,
thatis all I know about iv.” The fig-
ures propounded appear to his mind as a
picture on canvas and more quickly
than it takes to tell it the answer is mir-
rored there also. In other processes of
mathemathics aside from multiplication
‘White evinces no special aptitude.
re —
Hot Milk as a Stimulant.
Milk heated to much above 100 de-
grees, Fahrenheit, loses for a time a de-
gree of its sweetness and density. No
one who, fatigued by overexertion of
body or mind, has ever experienced the
reviving influence of a tumbler of this
beverage, heated as hot as it can be sip-
ped will willingly forego a resort to it
because of its being rendered somewhat
less acceptable to the palate, the prompt-
ness with whieh its cordial influence is
felt, is indeed surprising. Some portion
of it seems to he digested and appropri-
ated almost immediately, and many who
faney they need alcoholic stimulants
when exhausted by fatigue will find in
this simple draught an equivalent that
will be abundantly satisfying and far
more enduring in its effects.
There is many an ignorant overworked
woman who fancies she could not keep
up without her; beer ; she mistakes its
momentary exhileration for strength,
and applies the whip instead of nourish-
ment to the poor, exhausted frame. Any
honest, intelligent physician will tell
her that there is more real strength and
nourishment in a slice of bread than in
a quart of beer ; but if she loves stimu-
lants is would be a very useless piece of
information. Tt is claimed that some of
the lady clerks in our own city, and
those, too, who are employed in respec-
table business houses, are in the habit of
ordering ale or beer in the restaurants.
They probably claim that they are
‘‘tired’”, and no one who sees their faith-
ful devotion to customers all day will
doubt their assertions. But they should
not mistake beer for a blessing, or stim-
ulus forstrength. A careful examina-
tion of statistics will prove that men and
women who do not drink can endure
more hardships and more work, and
live longer than those less temperate.
BE ——
A Cheerful Kitchen.
more pains to make our kitchens cheer-
ful and pleasant, when if not ourselves,
some one must spend the greater part of
her time there. A bare, poorly-lighted
and ventilated kitchen, which is only
suggestive of the hard work to be done
there, is not a good place to tempt our
girls to learn the mysteries of cooking.
It is just as true that pleasant surround-
ings, cheerful, pleasant places in which
to work, make the work seem less bur-
densome and help us to keep cheerful
hearts and faces as that dismal, dreary
surroundings make dreary lives. The
fact cannot be denied that every one is
more or less influenced by his surround-
ings.
A ttor the kitchen is made as pleasant
a room as may be inside, look after the
back yard, that the view from its win-
dow may be pleasant. Plant vines to
run over the windows, and have flower
beds near at hand. They will afford
you much more pleasure there than if
they are all in the front yard. I shall
never forget the first summer that I kept
house. My kitenen had a front-door
and a backdoor. As 1did not care to
use the frontdoor, I had the steps taken
away, and planted morning-glory vines
| there, which soon envy ered the doorway,
and all the morning the deheate pink,
white and blue blossoms helped me with
my work. Near a back window 1 hada
‘flower bed where verbenas, phlox, bal-
sams, ete., flourished, and cheered me
with their sweet presence. By all means
have flowers around the kitchen.
Have an easy-chair by the window
with a rug in front of it and a foot-rest,
80 that you ean drop down there for a
few “minutes” rest which you would
not take if obliged to go to another
room.
If you are just commencing house-
Keeping try. this plan. Have a little
less in the parlor, and make the kitchen
convenient and pleasant. If you have
kept house, and worked in dreary
kitchens year after year, try it, and see
if it does not pay. We should aim to
get all the brightness and pleasure out
of life possible. To do the work of life
well it must not ba allowed to degener-
ateinto drudgery, and nothing will do
more to prevent this than to give the
work cheerful and bright surroundings.
~ Toften wonder why we don’t take
Frankfort's System of Banks.
Of all the schemes desizned for small
savings and to encourage the poor to
lay by small sums, the penny savings
stamp system, established in 1882 at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, is the must
unique. Frankfort 1s distinguished
among European cities by the large
average wealth of its citizens, and by
its exceptional prominence in ull that
pertains to banking and finance, Many
great banking families had their origin
in Frankfort, from which branches have
been established at Paris, London, Vi-
enna and New York, There are to-day
not less than 200 banking houses, public
and private, in the city. It might
naturally be expected, then, in view of
these facts, that some original feature in
the line of savings banks should be
found there. Td 2
The Frankfort Savings bank isa pri-
vate corporation established in 1823,
nearly seventy years ago, when Frank-
fort was a free city and independent of
all State allegiance and control. It be-
gan with 294 depositors, with 86,934
marks to their credit. In 1889 there
were 56,697 depositors, with an aggre-
gate capital of 38,215,697 marks, the re-
ceipts aud withdrawals that year being
6,319,276 and 5,161,602 marks respec-
tively.
There are three departments connect-
ed with this institution. The Savings
Deposit bank, which comprises a central
office and two branches in different parts -
of the city ; the Weekly Savings bank,
a separate bureau, under the same man-
agement, but differing from it in that it
collects from each depositor a stated
weekly deposit, and the penny savings
institution, which is adapted to the
methods of the humblest class of deposi-
tors, whose savings are limited to a, few
pennies per day or week. .
PE ———
Dr. Holmes Tells a Strange Story.
Dr. Holmes told me the other day a
~urious experience of his. At dinner
one night he was suddenly moved,
apropos of nothing, to relate a very cur-
ious criminal case that he had not even
thought of, so far as he knew, for forty
years. ~ When they left the dining
room and passed into the library it was
found the mail had been delivered
while they were at dinner and lay on
the table.
Dr, Holmes opened u paper sent him
by a friend in England, and behold, it
contained the same story of the long
past crime that he had just been relat-
ing, revived in the newspaper, and a
friend in England, thinking it would
interest him from its curious character,
had sent it to him.
“Now, what,” said Dr.Holmes, “put
the story at that moment in my mind ?
I suppose the Spiritualists would say
that a spirit read what was in the paper
lying in another room and eommunica-
ted it to me. Or was it2possibly my un-
conscious self that saw it and communi-
cated it to the brain ?”
“Which do you think it was, Dr.
Holmes ?’ T asked, curious to hear his
keen and subtle analysis of so strange an
occurrence.
“I have no theories,” he replied ; * “I
only state facts,”
Proper Bridal Etiquette.
There are many little things about
weddings that people inquire about,
The bride writes a personal note for
every gift received, whether it be a great
one or a little one, and, if she cannot do
this before the ceremony, she does it af-
ter the bridal trip. In the church the
bridegroom’s family and friends sit at
the right of the altar, being on the
bridegroom’s right hand, while those of
the bride are placed on the left at the
bride’s left. The bridegroom does not
pay for anything connected with the
wedding unless he should choose to send
bouquets to the bridesmaids, and, of
course, to the bride, and presents and
bontonneieres to his best man and the
ushers. A widow removes her first
wedding ring at her second marriage,
and does not assume it again. The en-
gagement ring is taken from the third
finger of the left hand and worn. after-
ward as a guard to the wedding ring.
It is not considered good taste to cut
the finger out of the glove for assuming
the ring.
emo
Bugs for Medicine.
Chinese drug stores, which ‘may be
numbered by the score in the Mongolian
quarter, are in themselves complete and
unabridged museums of insects. Iu the
hundreds of neat drawers which line the
‘walls and in the numerous jars of . fan-
tastics design and barbaric form which
ornament these establishments are to be
found preserved flies, beetles, bees and
every other species of insect life, not to
mention every variety of toad, snake
and lizard. Every box is. carefully la-
beled with Chinese signs, and the con-
tents are carefully dried ‘before being
stored away for medical use.
LT ME RTE I
No OsstacLe Tuer. She--You
will ask papa, will you not; or must
12 :
Ho—Oh, I have seen him. Fact is,
he made the suggestion thatit was
about time for me to propose.
Fiaurative ZooLoay. —Litils Harold
for the first time saw a tame rabbit
twitching its lips as it manched a cab-
‘bage leaf. :
“Qk, Lak, twamma,’” be eried, “The
rabbit’s winking at me with his nose.”
pascsatet
QUITE ENovuGH.--~Mrs. Johnson—
You bad boy (whack); ain't you
ashamed to decebe your mudder so 7?
(Whaek.) You only hab one mudder
in this world, ah ! (Whack)
Cuffic—Ope mudder’s nufl !
Ar ——————
THe PRESENT AGE ‘We have
passed the stone age, the bronze age,
and so on,” said the teacher.
“Now what age is the present 2”
“The shortage,” replied Freddy, who
read the papers.
—————————
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Vanderbilt
were among the ‘passengers on the
steamer Teutonic, which reached New
York on Wednesday from Queenstown.
The worst cases of serofula, salt
rheum and other diséases of the blood,
are cured by Hood’s Sarsaparilla.