THE EVENING EXPRESS. Tooting and whistling m4 blowing off steam, The evening express for the valley of dream Whirls round ttie room in a revel of glee Till it stops at We station beside my old knee; "AH aboard, people!" and then with a yell, A toot, and a choo, and a jingle of bell, The train that is loaded with laughter and joy Moves off on the two little feet of a boyl Over the meadows and into the night, witn two little rea cheelts tor semaphore light, Hounding and leaping, the train swings away Into the childhood of laughter and tilfiv: Look out for the engine, get off of the track Smoke rolling out from the make-believe stack, eieam mowing uy as ins little cheeks glow .ttnen ou on me nmiieu iigutning we got Here's the sweet captain to take up your fare, Weary old people with bundles of care! Lean, as you pay, with a heart throb of bliss To the little conductor who asks for a kiss! What is your station? Ah, take us to rest, Dear little train, from the vales of the blest; Stopping at sunshine ten minutes to drink The dew of dead youth at the fountain's clear brink I Tooting and panting and puffing it flies Off to the twinkle of two little eyes; Ever and ever so far is the line Where little green signals of will-o'-wisp shine; Kinging and jingling it comes to my sine .With a dear little: ' All obonrd, now, for a ride." And a screeching and shouting, as out of the room It roars through the make-believe tunnels of gloomt Under the sofa and over the rug, With a ting-a-ling-ling and a chug-a-chug-chug, The evening express goes by with a roar, And stops at my chair, and jumps up from the floor, And sinks into silence ah, strangest of trains, With little eyes closed at (he by-lo refrains, As over the road of heart's love in the gleam It rides in my arm to the City of Dream! The Baltimore Sun. r 1 A MATTER OF NATIONALITY By E. MIRRICLEES, 9 d a revenges, which somehow never were brought to pass. He noticed us one day, and came smiling down to the creek bank. "My fence iss staying up nicely now, thank you!'.' he called across to us. "But your ditch isn't staying open any better!" Late taunted back, fur iously. We had found a point on our side of the stream from which we could float down brush against the opposite head-gate. By one impulse we sprang up to go to it. Then I halted. "He'll know it's us for sure if it fills up to-day," I suggested. We were devoting ourselves to' our supper that night when a speech from Mrs. Bradley caught our attention. "I drove over to Mrs. Olson's to day," Bhe remarked to her husband. "She's going Into town to-morrow, I told her Mr. Olson was to use our telephone any time he wanted to get word to her." "He's not going to stay with her. then?" Mr. Bradley questioned. "I suppose he can't at this time of year." "He feels he can't. He's Just going to take her in." Mrs. Bradley sighed a little over the words, and fell into so serious a silence that Lafe's In dignant interrogation went un spoken. ' We observed the next day that no smoke rose from the Olson chimney, and for the three dayB of the own er's absence we turned our attention entirely away from the adjoining ranch. After our fashion we were honorable adversaries. On the day of Olson's returnr Mr. Bradley departed to his mountain ranch for the second tutting of alfal fa, and Lafe and I, left with the bur den of the ranch chores on our shoul ders, found ourselves at first pretty closely occupied. Olson was spend ing much time in his own single alfalfa-field, bordering the creek.- He kept his riding horse picketed out side the field, and every evening, when work was finished, forded the stream and came up to telephone to his wife. Somehow his anxlods face made us glad to use our added duties as an excuse for leaving him alone. It was about ten days after his return that Mrs. Bradley came run ning out to the corral, where we were doing the morning milking. "Lafe, get your horse and go for Mr. Olson!" she called through the bars. "Tell him they want him. His wife's worse." "Oh, send Gert!" Lafa protested; and then, with sudden inspiration, "Pa won't let us go across the creek." Mrs. Bradley made no answer, but ten minutes later we saw Lafe's nlne-year-old-slster galloping up the slope which led to Olson's house. I think neither of us wanted to observe the man's movements, but against our wills we slunk down to our point of vantage on the creek bank. From there we saw Olson run out to meet the messenger, saw him dash back into the stable, and almost at once emerge on horseback and disappear at a pace which meant a fresh horse or a breakdown before the thirty miles to town were cov-1 ered. I Lafe and I began persecuting the Norwegian almost as soon as he set tled on the opposite side of the creek only we did not call it persecution In those days. Nearly all children ore provincials at heart, and neither of us was lack ing in our fair share of prejudice. When distant observations showed us that the newcomer was unmistakably Scandinavian in type, we turned to look into each other's faces in dlg gUBt too deep for words. "Well if that isn't the limit!" Lafe burst forth, at last. "If we had to have neighbors, we needn't have ' had a foreigner! If father Just had taken up that bottom the way he meant to " A brilliant idea broke off the speech, and he clapped his hand sud denly upon his horse's neck. "I tell you, Jim, let's run him off!" I was Lafe's guest that summer, and a year or two his junior, and I Was aching for excitement. "Let's!" I agreed, without second thought, and we rode home, planning our ways and means. Naturally we said nothing to the rest of the household regarding our Intentions. Mr. Bradley, Lafe's fath er, seemed, after a single outburst I disappointment, to forget the very existence of the newcomer; and as for Mrs. Bradley, a woman who ob jected even to such Innocent amuse ments as the riding of calves ani the roping of chickens could not possibly have sound views on the subject of neighbors, 'indeed, we had a shrewd suspicion that I and not the Norwe gian would be banished if our pro duct came to light. We needed no outside help, how ever, in devising means of annoyance. The Norwegian's gates came open and the wires came down from his fences with surprising frequency; the water at the head of his ditch was continu ally choked by driftwood, and his cows, turned out to graze in the morning, by night were miles away. For a long time the victim of these outrages seemed to lay them entirely to natural causes. Then he must have observed that the days "we rode through the hills surrounding his claim were always the days of acci dent, for he accused us heatedly once , or twice of interference with his cat tle, and the interference continuing, complained to Mr. Bradley, with the result that we received orders to re main strictly on our own side of the creek. "Though I know you haven't in tentionally harmed anything of Ol son's," Mr. Bradley assured us. "I told him you were a thoughtless pair, but you were honest, and I want him to see he's no better off with you away." That was what we wished also. We echoed the last clause with genu ine sincerity, and were scarcely out ot hearing before we began scheming tor ways to make it come true, i "Old meddler!" Lafe growled, un justifiably. "He'd like to keep us hut up in the barn-yard." Then ha flushed a little. "But I suppose he's got a right to play back," he added, urged by a late-born sense , of Justice. "But he hasn't any right to drag your lather in." I pointed out. "We don't go finding fault to his wife," and both of us seized eagerly upon this new reason for indignation. We were beginning to find it rath er difficult to keep up an active dis like for the newcomer. He was a fluiet, hard-working man. somewhat past youth, and except for a slight lengthening ot the sibilant sounds iu his speech, with no mark of foreign origin. Then, too, he was poor. His poverty tugged at our sym pathies more than once when we saw him dragging wearily home at the end of a day's work, or patching up his ancient farm machinery to fit it for fresh service. His house was in Tlew from the edge of the creek, and most of the fields where ha worked. 'After our prohibition we used to t spend hours wandering oij and down the creek bank, watching hlra and in ' citing each other to extraordinary at the river bank a dozen times dur ing the morning; and when, a little after noon, I saw a stranger ride in through the pasture and lead his horse to the sheds, I was conscious of distinct relief. "OlBon's sent somebody to stay on his ranch," I ventured, indiscreetly "Any of our business?" Lafe scorched me Into silence. "He could, easy enough. Plenty ot Norwegians along the creek." Apparently the new man was for household service only; that is, he may have milked the .cows and ted the chickens and attended to turning out and gathering In the stock, but his industry did not extend as far as the hay-field. Lafe commented on the fact a day or two after his arrival. , "They're going to lose their sec ond crop ov?r there," he pointed out "You'd think Olson'd get back and tend to it." "Of course his wife's Bick," I ex cused him. "Serve him right, any how," I hastened, to cover up my weakness. By another day there was no ques tion an to the need of immediate cut ting if the alfalfa were to yield a good grade of hay. From end to end of the field the feathery purple blos soms waved above the green. I was less at home than Lafe in ranch mat ters, but even I could see that the strength needed in the stalk was rapidly being spent upon flowers. Se cretly each of us sent many anxious glances along the road by which Ol son must return. When he had been gone a week Lafe, staring at the brilliant field, suddenly announced his intention. "I'm going to cut it!" he declared and at once flung round to forestall my protest. "I suppose you think It's all right to let good hay spoil, but I tell you it isn't only Olson it hurts. If that hay's spoilt, there's that much less hay in the valley, and everybody's cattle " "How'll you cut it? Tour father's got the mowers," I Interposed, practi cally. "Olson's mower's here. Come on, let's get a start on 4t." With Lafe to decide was to act especially when his father was absent Our own chores were but halt done, but in twenty minutes we were hitch ing our horses outside Olson's wagon shed. The man in charge came up from the calf-pen as we finished harness ing, and stood about, watching us. He was a boy only a year ot two older than Lafe, and a Norwegian in good earnest, without, a word of English to his credit. He did not object to our taking out the mower, but when we turned it In the direction of the hay-field, he suddenly became vo cal with protests. "I expect Olson told him to look out for us," Lafe interpreted. He swung his whip in a wide circle. "It's all right!" he shouted back, "Good work! Amlgo!" The Spanish word did not seem to clear the mazes of the Norwegian mind to any extent. The boy fol lowed, calling out after us until Lafe whipped up the horses and left him breathless in the background. The field was fairly level and the cutting not hard work. Lafe rode the first swath, I the second, and so on, and at the end of every row we stopped to exchange comments on our progress. ' 1 We had covered perhaps a quarter of the field when suddenly we heard behind us a sound like the explosion of many little closed buckets of boil ing water. We turned, and Olson was' standing at the gate, just dis mounted, watching us. His mouth was open and his face brick-red. "What what "he began, stammering. Lafe faced him In the strength of conscious virtue. "We're cutting your hay for you. You let it stand so long it'd been spoiled by the end of the week." He picked up a stalk, on which the blossom was already beginning to brown, and handed it to the owner. Olson took it. He crumbled the top between his fingers for a moment. Then the power of speech came to him. "Tou were "cutting my hay, were you? And I wass raising alfalfa for seed." He picked up his horse's bridle and started out of the field. We fol lowed slowly. We' were nearly at the sheds before any one of us spoke. Then, "I I should think you would be mad!" Lafe gulped forth. "Wass it your father sent you?" the owner asked, without turning his head. "He's up the creek. We Just saw your hay was going to spoil, and we knew your wife is she better?" Lafe thought to ask. "Much better." said Olson. H "Bet he left his gates down and his turned round toward us, beginning Are burning," I derided. "He never ' to smile. thought of his stock." But the Jeer-1 "I cannot stay angry to-day. Tell Ing came hard, and we went back to your mother it iss a boy." our milking in silence. i "A boy!" we gasped, In concert Not for the world would we have Then Lafe rose superbly to the situa acknowledged an Interest in the de- tion. serted place, but all the same, I was "Say call him 'after me!" he Mix in Some Pleasure as You Go Along. 1 1 Mix a little pleasure for the whole family in with the regular work. Go fishing occasionally, or attend a picnic. Mix up with your neighbors, become better friends with them, enjoy the fruits of your labor as you go along and the burdens of life will seem llgnter. Even your success may become greater through It. A light spirit makes the body more enduring. Enjoy yourself oc casionally and help every other member of tho family to do the same, Just for tho satisfaction there is In being happy and free minded. A little time given to pleasure may mean more real gain than the same time applied to never ending toll. Chas. M. Scherer. begged. "1 don't mind If he Is a Norwegian." This time there was no doubt about Olson's smile; it was almost a grin. "But he iss named already," he explained. "We call him for my father, who came to Minnesota before the war, and wass killed at Chatta nooga." It was not till we were In bed and In tha,dark that any comment on the day's events occurred to us. Then Lafe spoke from under the quilts: "Jim, did anybody in your family get killed in the war?" "No," I admitted. "My father hadn't come over from Scotland then." "And my grandfather was up in Canada. Say, I guess Olson stays on that place. I guess he can call him self an American Just about when ever he likes." Youth's Companion. Prof. Julius Kikendorfer, who is said to be a member of many Euro pean scientific and geological socle ties, decided to lay before the King ot Italy plans for the extinction ot Vesuvius by gigantic tunnels bored below the sea level from-the Medi terranean to the crater. A remarkable bird found In Mex ico is the bee martin, which has a trick of ruffling up the feathers on the top of its head into the exact semblance of a beautiful flower, and when a bee conies along to sip honey from the supposed flower It Is snapped upby the bird. In human history a great river has sometimes formed a dividing line be tween peoples possessing quite dif ferent characteristics. Dr. W. M. Lyon, Jr., has discovered a similar phenomenon affecting squirrels - in Borneo, He found eight different forms of squirrels inhabiting the northern and western parts of that great Island, and observed that a large river proved an effectual barrier in separating two distinct races. Very little progress was made In the study of the phenomena of heat prior to the middle of the eighteenth century, About 1757 Joseph Blade put forth this theory of "latent heat." Between Blade, in 1757, and Professor John Tyndall's "Heat a Mode of Motion," first published In 18C3, the subject was constantly dis cussed by the philosophers, and is still being studied. One of the reasons why pneumatic tires gradually become exhausted even when unpunctured, Is that the compressed air within slowly escapes through the rubber, and this process Is hastened by the oxidation of the rubber, which causes it to crack. As at least a partial remedy for this, it has been proposed to inflate tires not with ordinary air, but with nitrogen, an inert gas which does not affect the rubber. Tests of nitrogen in flated tires for automobiles have been made in France and the results are said to be encouraging. In accounting for the rumbling or rolling ot thunder, which has here tofore been explained by the echo theory, It is now stated that a flash ot lightning is made ot innumerable smaller flashes, which go to make up the whole. The rolling thunder is due to the primary sounds of succes sive discharges or flashes. When we see a relatively prolonged lightning flash we witness, in reality, a number of discontinuous discharges follow ing down the same path, and the sounds of these successive explosions come to us like the rattle of a rapid fire gun, only less rhythmically. This discontinuity is quite different from oscillation. Champion Chicken Pickers. The champion chicken pickers of the world, according to the poultry man, are the Moors. "The Moors used to own Spain," said he, "and some of them think they own a part of it now. I spent a few days in Gib raltar on a recent tour of Europe, and enjoyed the lively and quaint scenes In the market. The chicken pickers are wonders. They have fine, fat fowls, too, which they bring over in small boats from Africa, alive In crates. Tou step up to a fellow in a white sheet and select two young pul lets for dinner. He takes them out of the coop, places one between his knees as he stands erect, and pro ceeds with amazing speed to dry-pick the other before its body loses the an imal heat. By the time the first one is finished Mister Moor's knee press ure had strangled the other, which he denudes in a jiffy. Not a suspi cion ot a feather is left. He bleeds the chickens after picking, and charges you twenty-five cents for the two." New York Press. His Principal Occupation. The art photographer bad visited the farm. "I want to make an ex haustive study of this particular bit of landscape," he said, "and would like to have your hired man reta'n his present position on the fence there. Can he sit stir.?" "For days at a time," replied the farmer. Cleveland Plain Dealer. Tin Rcnl Sequence. Mrs. Premiere "You always get a new gown be torn you go away on a visit, don't you?" Mrs. Seconde- "No. I always go away on a visit arter I get a new gown." Charles C. Mullln, In Wo man's Home Companion. - Why i Aliens Will Come pack Jlnd the Caus of Their Exodus at the Present Time. 5 i s By T. V. Powderly, Chief of the Division of Information. Bureau of fjVrVWHi-lw Immigration. Wly'aVl0 i EVEIIAL causes combine to bring about the eastward march T nf 1 1 1 o fi'llono nnw Innvlnir net TTvorv vcai a trrttnf m i rn Vi OT X of aliens return to their homes for the winter. The rall- roads, particularly In the North, East and West, lay oft T . , a- ii i ,1.1. .t i:it u eugHeu iu uuiuuur worn auu, luuuwiug 1111s, uiucib are thrown out of employment. These men find it desir able to return to their old homes for the winter. They have the opportunity to visit their friends and relatives. . and can live much cheaper there during the winter tnan here, for food and lodging are cheaper and the climate Is not so severe. In other years the exodus began the latter part of October and continued up to Christmas, but this season the rush was accentuated by the financial flurry. Those who imagine that our aliens do not read are somewhat in er ror, for those who cannot read have others to read to them, and they keep a sharp eye upon the trend of events in this country, so that when the pa pers announced under soirs head lines that things were going wrong, these men, not trained to analyze the statements made, took alarm and quite a number more went away than would have gone in former years. Another cause Is to be found in the fact that every four years, preceding the Presidential election, there is a tendency eastward on the part of the al iens. They hear so much said about the uncertainty of Presidential year that they prefer to take no chances and go home early. There is still another cause for the return of Italians to their native land. It Is estimated that about $100,000,000 will be expended in Italy in bringing the railways up to a proper standard of efficiency, and Italy is calling her sons who have learned how to make good railroads In this country back to their old homes. There is more work to do in this country than ever before; there is a necessity for more men and women to do it, and the first months of next year will see a return of aliens who will be able to find remunerative employ ment In .his country. i How the Sun Has Puzzled J Astronomers A By Waldemar Kaempffert. HE great ball of fire which we call the sun Is not really the a, k Z sun. No one has ever seen the sun, A series of concen- Y trie shells envelop a nucleus of which we know absolute I ly nothing except that It must be almost Infinitely hotter 1 1. . An..s,Ac ii .-.1 Di-n ortA that It nnict nmmint tn mnrA. than nine-tenths of tho solar mass. That nucleus Is the real sun, forever hidden from us. The outermost of the enveloping shells Is about five thousand miles thick, and is called the "chromosphere." It is a gaseous flood, tinted with the Bcarlct glare of hydrogen, and so furiously active that it spurts up great tongues of glowing ges ("prominences") to a height of thousands ot miles. Time was when this agitated sea of crimson fire could be seen to ad vantage only during an eclipse; now special Instruments are used which en able astronomers to study It in the full glare of the sun. Beyond the chromo sphere, far beyond the prominences even, lies the nebulous pallid "corona," vlsllle only during the vanishing moments of a total eclipse, aggregating not more than seven days In a century. No one has ever satisfactorily explained how the highly attenuated matter composing both tho prominences and the corona Is supported without falling back into the sun under the pull of solar gravitation. Now that Arrhenius has cosmlcally applied the effects of light pressure a solution is presented. How difficult it is to account for such delicate streamers as the "prom inences" on the sun is better comprehended when we fully understand how relentlessly powerful is the grip of solar gravitation. If tho sun were a hab itable globe and you could transport yourself to its surface, you would find yourself pulled down so forcibly by gravitation that you would weigh two tons, assuming that you are an ordinary human being. Your clothing alone would weigh more than'ono hundred pounds. Baseball could be played in a solar drawing room; for there would be some difficulty in throwing a ball more than thirty feet Tennis would be degraded to a form of outdoor ping pong. From these considerations it is plain that gravitation on the sun would tend to prevent the formation of any lambent streamers and to pull down to its surface masses of any size. Harper's Magazine. KM,sb. The Jtmertcan Jtcceni By Ella Hepworth Dixon. T last our good American friends have acknowledged that it is they, and not ourselves, who have the "accent." This is a ercat sten toward improving the American language, for 3 I up to now the New Yorker, the Bostonian, and the San I Franciscan were at one In assuring the traveling Islander V HT I that his speech was spoiled by his "English accent." The Islander was too well bred, as a rule, to neiray any emotion or astonishment at this accusation, but he thought a lot. Perhaps his thought was communicated to certain pundits on the other side, for an American Speech Reform Association has Just been started, with the laudable intention of teaching young America to speak the language of England, instead of the weird and complicated tongue which is the result of the salad of races and nationalities thrown hodge-podge on to the American continent. Already the society has Issued a pamphlet im ploring Its compatriots "not to splash your words one into each other," "not to talk through the nose with your mouth tight shut," and "not to use the same phrase a thousand times a day." Even by employing these simple ex pedients, the New Yorker might make himself understood by a Londoner without going to the trouble of learning Esperanto. As for the astute Amer ican girl, he ha long seen the expediency ot approximating her speech to our own. London Sketch. W4 02 - The Deep fm Significance of Trifles f QyyVs ty C K Chesterton. ffV2f3 OME small things go down to the depths Just as tiny Islets may be tho peaks ot enormous mountains under the sea. It is a small thlg to take off one's hat in tha drawing-room; it Is an even smaller thing to vote. But these things are trivial or tragic according as they stand for certain strong H strong desires in men and women. Wear your hat before a lady and you have said that she is not a lady; you have J destroyed the whole structure of civilization on which sho ctands. Tell a man that he must not vote and he will probably be angry, even if he does not want to. For you are telling him that he is not a man at all; You are turning him out of the club, the coarse and brotherly association which is necessary to males. To Bum it up in cno aw ful phrase, you arc chucking him out of the public house. That, very rightly, shocks his sensibility. Eut the sensibilities ot the woman are quite differ ent and demand quite different consideration. And no one will ever begin to understand men and women till he understands this fact: That every man must be" a man, but every woman must be a lady.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers