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Bellefonte, Pa., July 2, 1897.
OLD BOOKS.
01d books are best—
Like well tried friends who've stood the test
Of time ; in each familiar line
Within the oft-turned pages 1
Can find a charm divine
That idlers heed not, glancing by.
Ah! I love the books that long have stood
Like watchful sentinels upon my shelf,
Mindful, care-taking for my good,
Aud erablematie of my life's best self.
Ah! when they speak my very heart and
soul grows young,
Beyond the weak expressions that are
strung
In words. Old faces greet
My longing eyes within the calm retreat
Where books are kept—books old and dear,
Whose friendship grows the closer year
by year.
—Portland Transcript.
A POTENT MEMORY.
They were all sitting on a board piazza,
the wide blue sunlit sea washing the rocks
below them, the wild green unspoiled Cape
Ann country rolling away behind them.
Some one had just mentioned the Philadel-
phia Centennial, appealing to the com-
pany to recall the heat of that summer ;
all gave due assent, except Alice Andrews ;
she, fair lady, only looked sweetly, slightly
puzzled, and all but imperceptibly shook
her head, as though she tried in vain to
call up a past too dim.
‘The Mayhews have just gone to Lenox,’
said Mr. Sam Merrill, from his seat on the
steps ; he made the announcement with
the misplaced emphasis of one who inter-
feres to change the subject of conversation.
“Old Judge Mayhew, Henry’s grand-
father, used to live in Lenox the year
round. Fanny Kemble put him in her
novel. I used to see her go horseback
riding with Henry’s father.” It was old
Mrs. Andrews, the hostess, who was talk-
ing. These sentences were delivered with
vivaeity ; but suddenly the life died out
of her tone, and she added, weakly, ‘Of
course little children take notice of people
they hear talked about.”
‘Mother, what was the name of that
daughter of Mrs. Kemble’s you met when
you were visiting the Dalworthys ?”’ Alice
asked.
The question was not answered. Mrs.
Andrews only said, grumpily, and as if
she were deaf, that she wished she had a
foodstool, and Alice got one, and placed it
with a pretty air of affectionate solicitude.
The old lady sat silent after this, leoking
gloomily out to sea.
‘What is it you are making, Alice?”
asked Mrs. Whitman. There were three
visitors ; Mr. James Fenton made the
third. Alice held up for inspection a
beautiful trifle, a net of gold thread that
she was creating wish only the help of a
commonplace crochet needle.
“It’s for the hair,” she said. ‘‘Of course
they are not worn, but with some tea
gowns or a picture dinner dress it would
be lovely. It’s meant to go like you see
them in Greek statuary sometimes—this
way,’’ and she held it about her own low-
coiled bronze-brown hair.
“Well, you are really wonderful,’”’ said
Mrs. Whitman, with conviction ; ‘‘that’s
an exquisite thing.”’
“It would be more becoming to you ;
there’s nothing like black hair for it, and
your odalisque type—Now look,”’ and she
held the net about the other woman’s head.
‘‘Isn’t that lovely 2’ to the men. ‘‘Mary
dear, you must have it. No, now, don’t
say a word ; you know it takes me no time
at all to do such things. Just you and I
shall have them, and no one else. I'll
have it done to-day ;’ and she fell to work
gracefully, easily, but more busily than
before.
‘‘You ought to have a Greck gown to wear
with yours, Miss Andrews. I’ve imagined
how you’d look in one, one such as you see
on some of those Tanagra figurines.”’ This
from Merrill, with simple. self-forgetful
sincerity.
“Why, thank you ! How nice of you to
think it out like that, and how wise to
know it’s the Tanagras I ought to copy !
Some of them are really fashionable-look-
ing, don’t you know, Mary ?”’
Mary did not respond to this appeal, and
Jim Fenton's eyes, catching Alice’s, were
luminous with the effort to convey the ef-
fect of a wink without the gross reality.
Mrs. Whitman was far too stout to wear
Greek gowns, and her weight was known
to be the affliction of her life. She said
now :
“It looks as if it were to be hoops again
rather than Greek gowns. Don’t you re-
member, Alice, how we used to think the
bigger our hoops the more we looked like
grown-up ladies ?”’
“I never wore any,’’ said Alice, gently,
a faint touch of wonder on her lovely face.
Soon the guests departed, the men ac-
companying Mrs. Whiteman to her own
cottage.
“I'll send the net over in the morning,’
was Alice's last word to her. #
When the three had turned a curve o
the pine-shaded road, Fenton hurst into a
chuckling laugh.
“Well, what a time! Isn’t
absurd ?’ said Mrs. Whitman. ‘‘Alice is
certainly the sweetest thing in lots of ways,
and I say she has kept her looks wonder-
fully—really wonderfully ; but this thing
about concealing her age is growing on her
till it looks serious to me—it’s like lunacy.
Now when I spoke about hoops, I was so
sorry in a minute, hut I never thought.
Of course she—My cousin Mildred Hope
knew her when they were children all in
hoops together. I'm so frank about my
own age, and we are just about the same.”’
Mrs. Whitman paused, panting a little for
breath. ”
“The thing that breaks me all up’”’ said
Fenton, ‘‘is the way she shuts off the joys
of life from that poor old mother of hers.
That old girl has known everybody from
Webster down, and she’s got to her an-
ecdotage, vet she ain’t allowed to go back
of times any whipper-snapper of sixty
could talk about. I call it cruelty to age.’
‘She seems very devoted to her mother,’
said Sam Merrill, seriously.
“Indeed she is, Mr. Merrill.”’ Mrs. Whit-
man answered : ‘“‘but itis hard for Mrs.
Andrews to repress herself, and she tries so
hard, and is so good ahont it, poor thing !”’
She ended with a little laugh ; then added,
with solemn, pious pity, “I really think
she sacrifices 2a great deal of the pleasure
she might get out of life reducing her age
for Alice.’ .
After Mrs. Whitman entered her own
door the men went down to the shore and
seated themselves on the rocks.
“Well, Sam,” said Fenton. “I'm
ashamed of you, setting one woman on
another like that for your own Mach-
avelian amusement, and bringing such a
hard knock on poor Alice.”
+ the past that stretched behind a certain |
it too |
He laughed loudly at Merrill’s bewilder-
ed response, and explained : ‘“The Whit-
man took it out on Alice for your pointed
hint that she herself couldn’t wear a Greek
gown. I bet Alice thinks your compli-
ment costs more than it came to.”’
‘Mrs. Whitman unintentionally stum-
bled into a very natural blunder. It was a
blunder. as Miss Andrews feels the way
she does. It’s agreat pity she is not open
about her age as Mrs. Williams is herself ;
it would be so much—"’
‘See here, I’m not sweet on the fair Alice
and I guess you are, but I'll not hear her
run down with a comparison like that.
Don’t the Whitman try to make out she
and Alice are the same age—about the
same’? - Well, are you ass enough to swal-
low that. I know all about it, and she’s a
good seven years older. It’s six of one and
half a dozen of the other for lying, and
Alice is the sillier and more amusing, and
I’m grateful enough to like her for that.”
‘Alice is certainly silly on that point’
—DMerrill discussed the matter very grave-
ly—*‘‘but she seems wonderfully sweet and
womanly on many others."’
‘‘She certainly does ; but you ought to
notice and correct the way in which you
express yourself on any of her moral merits.
You always say ‘seems’ in a most doubting
Thomasy, damning way.”’
‘“What do you think about it yourself ?”’
and Merrill turned on Jim his sad gray
questioning eyes; the sadness was only
their usual expression, and only part of his
habitual air of meeting life with patient
philosophy.
Jim’s younger and rounder face length-
ened now. He picked up a bit of rock and
and threw it into the green curling break-
ers.
‘Sam,’’ he answered, after this exercise,
‘‘it’s queer to see you took like this, and I
want to be glad, but I ain’t sure I am.
You feel it yourself—that you can’t tell
anything about her, that she’s such a won-
derful work of art youcan’t guessat her
inside works at all ; she seems and she
seems. I haven’t any views different from
your own, if you’ll face the music and see
what you do think yourself. I’ve no con-
vietions, but I’m almighty uncertain
whether she’s got any heart at all. I'm
sure she’s not got a bad one, but has any
kind of blood-pumping apparatus survived!
She’s been tribute-taking and conquest
making through the longest reign I ever
heard of, and that’s a credit to her, and she
ain’t stuck up about it either. I think
she’s done herself proud to come down to
date not only so good-looking, but so pret-
ty-behaved. But now, old man, as to
whether she’s pretty-behaved because she’s
old-fashioned enough to see that being nice
and sweet is a card, like a good complexion
and keeps her springs and wires well oiled
for the purpose—well, I ain’t saying it
ain’t so.”
Fenton’s speeches were apt to be shorter
and clearer than this. Now he looked the
discomfort and embarrassment that caused
his rhetorical deterioration.
‘It is horrible to have drawn you out to
talk so about—about a gentle, attractive
woman.”” Sam said this slowly, looking
over the water ; but he said no more, made
no efforts to confute his friend’s view.
‘‘Yes, you are pretty low, that’s a fact,
Sam,” the other answered, ‘‘and you’ve
entrapped my youth. For two big men to
be sitting here cutting into a pretty little
dolly just to see if sawdust—’’
‘‘Stop, Fenton, she is too accomplished,
too clever in her own way to be called a
doll ; but she may be very artificial ; she
seems so, sometimes. With all that, she—
she has touched and interested me greatly.
I dare say she would refuse me, she has
refused 'somany. It’s strange she has never
married ; but I don’t understand her,
that’s the sum of it ; I don’t understand
her, and I’m going to get out of the way.
I’m not going to upset my life with such a
half-hearted sentiment ; it is half-hearted,
but it might be a great bother.”’
‘“ ‘He who fights and runs away’—I’'m
sure I hope you will live to fight another
day. I suppose the matrimonial warfare
would make you happier ; but’-—he stop-
ped and lowered his tone—*‘I’d be afraid
here ; anything for you but unadulterated
waxworks.’’
‘She has mind, though she—?"’
“Though she conceals it as well. as she
can—perhaps so. Why don’t you go to
Lenox yourself ?”’
There was no reference between Mrs.
and Miss Andrews to the misfortunes and
misdeeds of the afternoon. Probably they
would have perished on the rack rather
than come to any open communication on
the subject of Alice’s age and her desire to
conceal it. Mrs. Andrews was a simple,
straightforward old lady, and had reached
a stage in life when to mildly boast of her
years would have been for her a natural |
form of vanity ; but she had learned to |
comprehend with maternal sympathy some
of the ins and outs of her more complex
daughter. Alice’s complexity largely re-
sulted from a still passionate determina-
tion to recognize the reality of no disagree-
able facts. She could make believe as well
as when she was four, and in essentially
the same way ; it was for herself that she
built up the assumption that she was still
near her girlhood, playing it was so fay in
and day out, year after year. The Another
who had ‘‘played lady’’ with her "hen she
was a baby understood and played on,
though Mrs. Whitman was right, the game
cut heroff from most of the pleasures of
old age ; not only must she not talk about |
period (and, poor lady, she had not a good
memory for dates nor much presence of
mind, so that she lived in pain for the
blunders she made and feared to make),
but Alice was always dragging her about
into new sets, to new cities, in her sleep-
less effort to find audiences ignorant of her
too victorious career. To make up for all
this, Alice was the gentlest and most de-
voted of daughters ; she had come into her
kingdom in a day when graciousness and
not arrogance was the stamp of social suc-
cess, and her manners were as little in-
fluenced by time as her complexion. It
| was astonishing how pretty she was ; and
| though she looked like a piece of Dresden
| china, there was nothing pinched or trivial
"in her style : it surely seemed she might
| have been & beautiful woman had she not
| chosen the part of a pretty one. But the
part of a pretty woman was what she had
chosen and played unvaryingly ; there was
no doubt about that ; even her accomplish- |
ments—and she had some that suggested
| the possession of real talents—were all
| kept within the prescribed limits ; she
I sang her lovely old ballads and did her
|
|
odd charming little recitations all as a
| pretty woman—though she was the only
| person of her land and time who could
recite in a parlor without embarrassing her
listeners. There was, you see, a fine con-
| sistency in her pose in life, and perhaps
| that helped to impress people, some peo-
ple, with the notion that it was a pose, and
she altogether a work of art.
Of course every body marvelled that she
had not married, but I always thought it
| was an open secret ; belles have been known
to pursue a similar course before. This is
my theory : Alice really had ambition, an
{ inborn longing for distinction, for a career,
TF
only this desire was far from taking a mod-
ern mannish form. She was anjinstance of
one born out of due season, gnd in the
wrong place as well ; France if the eigh-
teenth century was her naturdl, rightful
field ; marriage in America did not mean a
career, and it was altogether likely to
mean the end of the only oneshe had fonnd.
Without much money, or anything very
illustrious in her family background, she
had been, and still was, a great| belle (one
must keep to a somewhat antiquated phras-
eology in talking of Alice); but to be a
belle as an American married oman is a
feat to be accomplished only under excep-
tional circumstances, and in any case there
is here a shadow on the type npt at all to
Alice’s mind. It is my opinion that, with
out ever so stating the case to herself, she
regarded marriage in general as a fate suit-
able for commonplace women, but demand-
ing from her asad surrender. Then, doubt-
less, as has happened to other ladies, she
had found the lovers who gratified a poetic
ambition—cabinet ministers or foreign
lords—very prosiac in themselves, and the
attractive men painfully prosiac in their
circumstances ; so altogether Alice had re-
mained a maid until her younger and gen-
erally less successful rivals called her an
old maid. Of course she had never asked
herself what she would do when she was
old, outwardly, really old ; she would not
have been Alice had she ever faced an
odious question like that ; but still—
These ladies did not talk of the warfare
of the afternoon, but Mrs. Andrews did
note that Emma, Mrs. Whitman, was get-
ting fatter than ever, and said she was lazy
not to take more exe:<ise ; whereupon Alice
replied, with a smile, that her mother was
unjust, for Emma was walking herself to
death in vain.
“If ever this net looks fit to be seen on
her,”’ she added, rolling up the shining
thing and sticking her needle through it.
“I’11 have to go over and do her hair for
her myself:”’
And, indeed, it was some such form that
her revenges usually took ; she put her
superior taste and skill at the other wom-
an’s service, and was content that they
were superior. |
Fenton and Merrill were old friends and
great friends, and, as you may have guess-
ed, contrasted types. Fenton was a mod-
ern business-man, college-bred, and said
to conceal some scholarly haps Merrill
was older ; he had been in business, but
had long ago retired, and the knowing
knew him to be a ‘‘self-made’’ man. Fen-
ton said that Merrill’s correct | English be-
trayed his lack of early advantages. Mer-
rill was always correct, but he was singu-
larly inoffensive about it.
Two days after his decision toleave the
Cape, Merrill paid a parting call on Miss
Andrews. . Fenton accompanied him, his
solicitude for Merril! giving him, despite
himself, a touch of hoth the watch-dog and
the nursey-maid.
They found the ladies again entertaining
guests on the piazza ; this time it was a
boy and a girl who considered themselves
the only ‘‘cottagers’” young enough for
love-making ; the rest of the party looked
upon them as children who could know
nothing: really about such matters.
“‘Going away ?”’ said Alice to Merrill,
graciously sorrowful. “Why, I counted
on you particularly to help me with my
celebration—for the Fourth.” she ex-
plained.
‘‘Heavens, Miss Alice, you are not going
to celebrate down here, are you? Ifere
where we thought we’d gotten away from
all that.” This in a well-gotten-up bored
manner from the boy. :
‘‘All what?’ inquired Alice, softly,
attentively. But at the same time the
girl was saying : 2
“I hear the villagers are going to do
things. I think we ought to get rid of
that dreadful day down here. Don’t you,
Mr. Fenton ?”’
‘Well, the natives have some rights that
even summer visitors are bound to respect,
I guess.”
‘“The natives are Americans,” put in
Alice. Her manner was a little odd, and
her statement seemed to strike the others
as irrelevant.
**Much good may it do ‘em!’ said Fen-
ton. ‘It don’t seem to me a thing to
celebrate these days.”
“The way Americans are looked upon
abroad, and the kinds you do see—’’ the
girl began. She had just come home from
a tour on the Continent.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Merrill interrupted
(he who never interrupted) ; ‘‘that all
may be ; there are things at home worse
than that.”’
Alice had risen after her last sentence,
and devoted some close attention to train-
ing a vine in the way it should £0 ; now
she: turned—‘‘turned on $hem,!’ to be ac-
curate—a new Alice, her dark eyes bril-
liant, one hand catching back the white
flummery of her skirts as if to draw further
away from the company, the other pressed
against her breast.
‘‘Don’t,”” she cried to Merrill, like one
hurt—*‘don’t you too begin crying down
my country. I can’t bear it—every one
all indifference and superciliousness, and
not even grieved that we have such grave
faults. Oh, I've heard the like before ; I
hear it more and more ; but now for you
all, you men, not to want to celebrate the
Fourth, to think of nothing but the dust
and noise—"’
"Well, it is mainly dust and noise, now
isn't it, Miss Alice?” said the hoy,
praiseworthily trying as a man of the world
to bring back the ordinary languor of social
intercourse.
‘Is it for you?’ said Alice. *‘It has
meant more than that to many a man in
your family. Your uncle Harry Seabright
died for this country, I remember’’—she
paused with a little gasp ; then, flushing
and paling, she caught her breath and went
on In a stronger tone: ‘‘yes I remem-
ber when his body was brought home
to your grandmother. © He was just
a boy, ~and the best and hright-
est in his class, and he died in
tle, and his mother said she was a proud
woman to give such a son to the Union.
And you can’t he bothered to celebrate
your country’s birthday ! I remember the |
war—it makes a great difference—'?
“Of '76? whispered the girl to Fen-
ton. He gave no sign of hearing. Alice
did ; she stopped and turned to her, and
that girl grew quite pale, but it was most
quietly that Alice said :
“My child, it is my logic and not my
history that is at fault if I seem to confuse
the war that made us with the war that
saved us. But if you had ever lived
through any time when rivers of blood and
tears were flowing for America, you’d feel
diffefently, or I misread your nature.
Whe you've felt all the land throbbing
with. love and agony—when President
Lincoln died—" Alice stopped short, and
the tears began to roll down her cheeks,
while she stood motionless and strong,
waiting to regain control of her voice.
Merrill, sitting as usual on the steps, rose
to his feet and took off his hat—a figure a
little funny if you had the heart to find it
so, ib its vague, undefined expression of
reveyence, 4
J
|
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Wy,
Then suddenly Alice's .countenance
changed. She whipped from her belt a bit
asob, she choked out : ‘I didn’t know I
could re—remember it all so,”” and she
swiftly fled into the house.
“God bless her !”” murmured Merrill.
“A child gets all the poetry out of a time
like that—the passionate, patriotic side of
things. If she’d been older—’’Fenton, in
his excited anxiety to do what he could for
lish. He was not allowed to finish his
speech. For the second time Merrill in-
terrupted.
“‘T was older,’’ he said, ‘‘old enough to
get to the front before it was over, and I
think the poetry and the passionate patriot-
ism was the biggest part, after all—on both
sides, maybe ;and it was our side saved
the country forall of us, and I’m right
glad to have the sense of it all brought
back to me again. Miss Alice has carried
the meeting, Mrs. Andrews.” (Excite-
ment had altered his diction too, you see.)
Mrs. Andrews had sat almost motionless
through the whole scene ; now she turned
on one and another guest the same blank
stricken gaze she had fixed before on Alice;
she was unnaturally pale. Appealed to
directly, she arose, and her tragic expres-
sion made the movement a dismissal.
“You tell Miss Alice I'm going to fire
off pounds of crackers under her window,”’
said the boy, heartily, asa farewell. He
was only going hecause the others were too
much occupied with some fresh emotions
of his own for external observation ; the
others, less blind, could not manage their
escape with so good a grace, and they made
their farewells, and left their stricken
hostess quite as if some one lay dead in the
house.
When the two men were left alone, Fen-
ton began ; “Well, Merrill, what you
don’t know about women would make a
Sunday paper, wouldn’t it? When I think
of that little Joan of Arc this afternoon it
makes me kinda sick to look at you.”’
“Don’t talk about it now, James.
Wait, ’’ said the unresentful Merrill.
That evening, as the twilight was deep-
ening into dark, Merrill was wandering
about the rocks below the Andrews cot-
tage ; turning the corner of a ledge, he
saw a little aim white figure seated a few
yards away ;it was Alice—Alice out in the
dark, alone with the sea and the evening
star and the rising night. Poor pretty
woman and heroine ! her soul had taken
her unawares, and upset her and her play-
things!
Merrill, in as dovelike a voice as was
possible, greeted her. ‘Miss Alice, don’t
be startled ; I'm so glad to find you.”
But Alice had risen, and was turning
toward the house with only a very slight
and half-inaudible response. Merrill
sprang close to her.
‘Alice, darling, forgive me ; but, Alice,
give me the right to say it.’ He caught
the small hand that held her silken shawl
about her. ‘‘Alice, be my wife,”” and some
way Alice was in his arms and sniffling a
little on his shoulder.
“*God bless you, the big heart of you !”’
murmured Merrill. and he kissed her—as
best he could, for her head she would not
lift.
From her refuge she spoke: “I'm all a
fright with crying, they excited me so this
afternoon. When you remember things
back when you were very little, they are so
vivid !”’
Then Merrill managed to lift her head
and play his part properly. It was a fer-
vent and tender scene, was the love-making
of these middle-aged people, and I have
my own notions as to how much its warmth
rowed to the afternoon’s patriotic excite-
ment. The correlation of forces is a fine
subject for psychological investigation.
When Alice next appeared among her
neighbors it was as Merrill's betrothed,
and the women all agreed that this certain-
ly made things easier for her. By Viola
Rosehoro, in Harper's Bazar.
The Washington Monument.
On the east bank of the Potomac, and in
the western section of the Mall, which ex-
tends through the city of Washington, D.
C., overtowering the tallest buildings, sur-
rounded by walks, driveways, and beds of
pretty flowers, making it inviting as well
as convenient to the visitor, stands out in
bold review, the subject of this article, The
‘Washington Monument.
The construction of this large statue of
masonry, the largest in the world, was be-
gun, long before the conflict between the
north and south took place to divide the
country, which the one whom its purpose
is to commeinorate, struggled so valiantly
to free. The materials used in building
this enormous structure, consists of gran-
ite and marble shipped from all the States
in the Union, also some from foreign
countries ; and many orders, societies, and
lodges contributed blocks of granite, some
of which are carved in artistic designs with
the emblem of the donor, to be built in as
the work progressed.
On the fourth day of July, 1848, the cor-
ner stone was placed. On December 6th,
1884, the cap stone was set, and on Feb-
ruary 22nd, 1885, the Washington Monu-
ment was inaugurated. This huge mass of
marble, looming up into the sky to its ex-
treme height of 555 feet, weighing 81,120
tons and costing, when completed, $1,187,-
710.00, is provided with an elevator and
stairs to enable persons to reach the top
platform, where windows allow an excel-
lent view of the surrounding country. The
door at the hase is open and the elevator
runs for the accommodation of visitors
from 9 o’clock a. m. until 5 o'clock p. m.
It takes the elevator fifteen minutes to
make the journey fiom the bottom to the
top and fifteen minutes to descend again,
making the time for leaving the door on
the hour and half hour. The limit to the
load that the car takes up with it at each
trip is 30 people, and on days when an un-
! usual number of visitors are on hand to
make the ascent to the top of the monu-
ment, they are formed in a line and the
first come first served rule is enforced by a
I uniformed officer, who is stationed at the
| door to answer questions, keep each visitor
| in his proper place, and avoid mistakes and
confusion.
The writer remembers on one occasion,
while awaiting his turn for a position in
the elevator to make the trip, of a rustic
Virginian arriviug at the door and nervous-
ly asking the officer if he had any objec-
tions to him walking the stairs to the top,
‘‘help yourself,” says the guide, and away
the old gentleman started for his short (?)
walk to the top. We did not remain to
learn whether he ever reached his destina-
tion or not, but as we descended in the
elevator one half hour later we met our
Virginia friend resting himself against the
walls about one half the distance to the
top. hs SIBYL.
——When a girl is 16 she thinks most
about a man’s hair and eyes ; when she’s
20 she thinks most about his clothes ;
when she's 30 she thinks most about his
bank account.
of muslin, and burying her face in it with |
the situation, had lapsed into simple Eng-
7
|
|
| assist, and the nature of the operation was
M’Donald’s Mighty Yawn.
It Locked His Jaws Wide Open and It Took a
Doctor a Day to Unlock Them. i
C. B. McDonald, a well-to-do business
man of West Carthage, N. J., is just
recovering from the effects of a yawn
which he yawned on Wednesday of last
week. Mr. McDonald is a light sleeper
and an early riser, but on the morning
in question he woke up at 3 o’clock,
about two hours too early. He rolled
over twice, guessed at the time, and
then stretched himself and opened his
mouth for a mighty yawn. The next in-
stant there was a crack that frightened
him, and he tried to shut his mouth and |
couldn’t. He didn’t suffer any pain, but |
his jaw was locked open and was as im- |
movable as a rock. He tried to call for
help, but found he could only gurgle, and
when he did that his throat filled up with
saliva and he was in danger of choking to
death.
Mr. McDonald’s wife was away. He
jumped up and ran to the room of his
housekeeper and frightened her nearly to
death with his wide-open mouth and his
display of teeth. She thought he had gone
crazy, and his frantic efforts to tell her
what had happened only made her certain
of it. Mr. McDonald finally made her un-
derstand that he wanted a doctor. She
ran out of the room and across the street to
the house of Dr. F. W. Bruce, and woke
him up. The doctor went back with her.
Mr. McDonald was sitting in a chair, his
mouth still wide cpen. He grunted out
an unintelligible explanation. The doctor
examined him and found the jaw bone on
the left side had slipped out of its socket.
The doctor went at it gently at first, and
then with all his strength, but he couldn’t
hudge the jaw. He tried at intervals for a
day without any success. The muscles
were as tightly set as the jaw.
Finally the doctor thought of the muscu-
lar relaxation that follows the administra-
tion of ether, and he decided to try the
patient. Dr. S. L. Merrill was called in to
explained to Mr. McDonald. He nodded
his head in assent. Ether was sent for
and was administered. It looked for a
time even then as if the experiment would
be a failure. But after a half hour the
drug had its effect, and the jaw was put
back into place. Mr. McDonatd has given
up the practice of yawning, and so has
everybody else in Carthage and West Car-
thage.
Seemed Dead, But Lived.
A Woman Says She Heard Arrangements for Her
Own Funeral. Revived While the Undertaker
Was Measuring Her.
According to a story told by relatives of
Mrs. Julia Flinn, of 1809 Lincoln street,
Wilmington, Del., she has undergone an
experience which has befallen but few per-
sons.
Six weeks ago Mrs. Flinn was taken sick
with the grip and other symptoms devel-
oped which puzzled the physicians and
caused the family great alarm. The pa-
tient lay in a comatose state for days at a
time, accepting nourishment in limited
quantities. Part of this nourishment was
given through a glass tube which had to be
inserted in her mouth.
Her condition was not considered alarm-
ing by her physicians, Drs. Chandler and
Palmer, until one evening about a week
ago. About this time the family was gath-
ered at the bedside waiting for Mrs. Flinn
to show some signs of regaining conscious-
ness, when suddenly her sister happened
to place a hand upon her forehead and, re-
coiling from its cold touch, burst into a
scream, saying that her sister was dead.
As neither of the regular physicians was at
hand another doctor was sent for, and upon
examining the body said Mrs. Flinn was
probably dead.
Mrs. Flinn lay apparently lifeless ; her
flesh was cold and the pulsations of her
heart, as far as the physician was able to
ascertain, had ceased. She was finally
given up for dead.
The next day an undertaker came to take
the measurements of the body, and while
he was thus engaged the supposed corpse
showed slight signs of life. Soon she open-
ed her eyes and looked about the room
while the family rushed to the bedside.
Mrs. Flinn said she had been in a trance
and had overheard all that had been said
about her, even the details regarding the
arrangements for the funeral. The case
has puzzled the physicians.
The Arkansas Traveler.
The other day a tall, gaunt stranger
from Arkansas cornered Opie Read at the
Chicago Press Club, says the Zimes-Herald.
He began fishing about in his pockets.
“Got a letter of introduction to you
hyerabouts, some’ere,’’ he said.
‘‘Had the darndest time findin’ you,”
he continued. ‘‘Got into town yesterday
afternoon and last night I started out to
look you up. I thought probably, the
folks at the telegraph office would know
you but they didn’t. And the hotel folks
didn’t know you nuther. Then I went to
a newspaper shop and they sent me over
here.”’
By this time the visitor had found the
missing letter of introduction. It was
written with a lead pencil in a school boy’s
hand and the spelling was entirely phonet-
ic. Opie scrutinized the signature closely.
“John Scruggins,”” he said, musingly.
“John Secruggins. I don’t recall Mr.
Seruggins.”’
“That's my boy,” said the visitor,
proudly. ‘‘He’s been to school in Little
Rock all winter, and so when I got ready a
while ago to come to Chicago I told him to |
write me a letter of introduction to you,
and he did it. What's the matter with |
the letter ? Ain’t it writ all right ?*’
“Oh, yes ; it’s all right,’’ said the novel- |
ist. And it was, for the man from Arkan- |
sas spent a pleasant afternoon at the club.
New York city now contains 360 |
square miles. It is twice as large as the |
District of Columbia, and about one-fourth |
|
of the area of the State of Rhode Island.
The city, it will be perceived, is propor-
tionately as big in territory asin popula- |
tion. The management of this great munie- |
ipality is the most serious undertaking
which has yet been ventured upon by the
people of this continent.
——A banker just returned from a trip |
over Texas railroads says there will be at
least an 18,000,000 bushel wheat crop, |
with plenty to sell. It is all shocked now. |
Oats are being harvested and corn is in |
tassel and plenty of it. Cotton is about |
six inches high, but should be at least a |
foot higher. |
A wonderful natural soap has been
discovered in some parts of California, and |
it has only to be taken from the ground to
be ready for the market. It is pronounced
superior to the manufactured article.
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v
FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN.
Mrs. Eliza D. Stewart, who organized the
| first woman’s temperance union in the
| west,
t, celebrated her 8lst birthday at
Springfield, O., recently. ‘‘Mother Stew-
art,” as'she is called, organized the first
union at\Osborn, 0., with 100 members, in
1873. Since then up to the recent years,
she has employed her entire time in active
crusade work.
Tailor-made costumes have a much short-
er coat than those worn last year, and are
more closely fitted to the figure, so it is an
easy matter to bring a last season’s jacket
up to date.
The following exercise is said tobe ex-
cellent for correcting and straightening
curved shoulders : Take a perfectly erect
position. Place the heels together and
the toes at an angle of 45 degrees, drop the
arms at the side inflating and raising the
chest to the full capacity, muscularly,
keeping the chin well drawn in and the
crown of the head feeling as if it were at-
tached to a cord suspended to the ceiling
above. Slowly rise to the balls of the feet
to the greatest possible height, thereby ex-
ercising all the muscles of the legs and
body, and then drop once more into® the
standing position without swaying the
body backward out of the upright, straight,
line. Repeat the exercise, standing -flrst
on one foot and then on the other. It is
remarkable what a straightening out power
it has upon round shoulders and crooked
backs, and one will be surprised to note
how soon the lungs begin to show the ef-
fect of such expansive developement.
In arranging flowers the vase should be
considered an accessory to its contents.
One of clear glass is lovely if the flower
stems within are decorative. Pale blue
and deep green act as foils to pink or white
posies, while the rich purple of violets is
most effective against china blue. Of
course, only one sort of flower is used in
the one vase, and this may be loosely
massed so as to look unstudied, as if grow-
ing. Again, it should go without saying
that tall branches should be relegated to
high jars, and the short-stemmed species to
low, shallow howls. Neither should the
vase ever be so ornate as to attract the
attention from what it holds any more
than a frame should lure the eyes from a
picture.
French gray is one of this season’s most
swagger shades, but at the same time it is
quite trying to many complexions. Pink
accessories or a soft pink vest will very
ofter obviate this difficulty, for either a fair
or dark woman.
Yokes in front are coming more and
more into vogue for shirt waists, either
formed of tucks or plain pointed ones. The
sleeves are generally a modified leg: o’-mut-
ton, with little or no fullness below the
elbow, the entire sleeve being greatly re-
duced in size. The wearing of these now
almost indispensible adjuncts to a woman’s
summer wardrobe has ceased to be a fad,
and their usefulness and undeniable com-
fort has ordained that a complete summer
outfit shall have at least a half-dozen in
linens, wash-silks, dimity or lawn.
Never were sleeves so varied as to cut
and trimming. For a woman with a
slender arm the wrinkled one with head-
ings or cordings running up the centre of
the top, while a puff above, is universally
becoming, while her plumper sister can
adopt the sheath sleeve, with three tiny
ruffles at the top, and feel she will look
well and yet have something new and
stylish. Most of the French models have
an inside and outside seam, and
scarcely two have sleeves alike. A
pretty sleeve for thin material is finely
tucked from wrist to several inches above
the elbow. The puff is tucked or accor-
dian pleated, and the bottom of the sleeve
cut long enough to form a frill over the
hand.
If your dentist is honest—the most of
them are—he will tell you that if people
would only exercise ordinary care they
would materially reduce his income and
that of others in the same profession. It
is astonishing, how many people, other-
wise hard-headed and sensible, will leave
their teeth to take care of themselves until
violent toothache warns them that some
mischief is at work in their mouth, and
then they rush to their dentist to find that -
the damage is very extensive and will take
both time and money to set right. As a
matter of fact, the dentist should be visited
about once every three months. In this
way the teeth can be kept in good condi- . .
| tion, because the dentist is able to detect
the first sign or trouble and may take
measures to prevent its going too far.
It should be remembered that when a
tooth begins to decay it not only effects it-
self but the teeth that are next to it, and
it also effects the breath in the most un-
pleasant manner. so that you become a
source of great annoyance to your neigh-
bors. It also causes indigestion, as unless
the food can be properly masticated you
cannot hope for good health, and where
there is pain in eating the food is swallow-
ed only half reduced to the proper consis-
tency that it should be. The best way to
prevent this decay is to see that no food is
allowed to lodge between the teeth. You
should not only brush vour teeth thrice a
day, but after each meal, and also use
more than one tooth brush. You should
have three of these ; one should be rather
hard and another should be rather soft,
while the third should be small and round,
| with a curve in the handle, so as to get in-
to every corner of the mouth.
Another point not to be forgotten is that
| water used in washing teeth must always
be tepid and never quite cold, and you
must rinse your mouth with the same.
A drop or two of tincture or myrrh can be
used in this water. The proper way to
clean the teeth is to brush them from the
gums to the crown of the tooth ; in this
way the particles of food that are lodged
between the teeth will be dislodged. If
the teeth are only brushed lengthwise, as
is generally, the case, the food instead of
being brushed out, will be more firmly
lodged than ever. You should keep a
skein of dental silk always beside you to
pass between the teeth and clean them ef-
fectively from anything that has gotten be-
tween them which the tooth brush cannot
reach.
A delightful summer frock of pink pique
has collar and belt of white moire ribbon
and changeable louisine silk
— a J
Touches of black are ultra sty.ash for
trimming frocks of mousseline or organdies.
Narrow black satin or velvet ribbon and
Valenciennes laces are very chic.
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