LITTLE AM-ALONEY. Little Ml-.Vloney's feet 'Mtter-patter in the hall. Auil his mother runs to meet And to kiss h< r toddling sweet, Ere perehnnee ho fall, if.- i. nh. so weak and small I Yet what dauger shall he fear Win n his mother hoveth near Aud lie hears her cheering call 1 Little All-Alonay's face It is all aglow with glee. f As around that romping pla 1 1 Liingeth. pluugeth ho And that hero seems to lie j All un 'onscious of our rs t Ou y one dear voice he hears Calling reiwsuringl> c • All-Alouey : ' ti Though ).i~ legs bend with (heir loud, ] . Though his feet they seemed so smnll , Tbnt you cannot help forebode ? He-tie dis.-isinii. "i- "' le In that noisy bull : N.'ith. r thr ateulng hump nor fall j . T !l- All-Vlon. y fears, j ] JSut with sweet bravado steers Whither comes that cheery call: '•AU-.Vtbney!" A that in th" years to come, Wlu-n lie sburi'.sof Sorrow's store, Whou his feet art- .-hill ami numb, , When his cross is burdensome. And his heart is sore | Would that he could hear onse more The gentle voice he used to hear— j Divine with mother love and cheer- Calling from yonder spirit shore : "All. all alone —Eugene Field, in Chicago Record. | nraurr I.Y EMMA A. OPPEIt. RTHUR CIIA 1 G f I V! tossed liis cigar Id away and strolled s l ' ' i around to where a rcd-Mijd-blit© liain ■•/ffijP rr l mock wns siting be \ \ H two oak VM #m,H 1,1 hig f V - I hiwn which was the grout attraction of ' "> the select summer hot I —though i' was summer no longer; there was an autumn scent in the suit air. Hut Lucy Winslow was staying lu re still, with her brother's wife and her little nephew; therefore Arthur Craig Stayed on also. She was sitting in the hammock, tfith little Reginald beside her. Reg inald always was beside her; their foil*ln -ss for each other was great. It had i vt li atop at Murphy's." "Miss Winslow,' said Craig, des perately, "I don't know whether you know —whether you have guessed—l don't know, Miss Winslow, whether you —you have suspected—" '•My goodness!"said Reginald, with a high-pitched eight-year-old 'laugh ; "what are you trying to say, Arthur?" Craig looked at Lucy. Was she laughing at him, too? His face grew warm with the sudden wretched sus- ! picion that she was. After all, was lie not a fool to think for a moment that she could care for him? Of a sudden he saw matters in | a new, a painful light. If she had cared for him. would she not have managed now and then that they might see each other alone? How rarely had that occurred—how continually had that little nuisance of a nephew dogged them ! Had she con trived it ? Had she made Reginald a defense, a guard against unwelcome advances? He was all at once misera bly certain of it. He was warm with mortification, and cold at heart with keen uuhappinness. He had been stupidly slow of percep tion, that was all. But that was a thing which could be remedied. He rose from the grass, and looked down at Lucy Winslow with a set smile. "Well, I don't believe I know my self what I'm tryingtosay, Reginald," he answered. "I needn't say good-by i to you just now. Miss Winslow, for I'll he here a day or so yet. But I'll he off about Thursday, I guess, and after J j a month or so at home, I expect to go out West on business that will keep mo there indefinitely, I imagine. I shall think of this summer often, and with pleasure, I assure you.'* I He bowed, and turned awav. He took himself and his bitterness up to his room. He felt that ever hour until Thursday would be a period of i anguish; and iie began to put things into his trunk in helter-skelter fashion. 1 He had half filled it when Reginald ii walked in, without knocking. He sat - down in the largest chair. I "Ho?" he remarked, scofflngly, j "Ihat the kind of a trunk you got, j with cloth all over it? Mine's got, wooden slats on, and tin and brass ' nails. What's that thing? Opry glasses, ain't it? Hay, 'll you give 'em to me! "Yea, iake them," said Graig, wear* ily. Reginald spent Beveral minutes iu ex it mining objects in the room through the glasses, for which he saw fit to re turn no thank*. "Say," he observed presently, turn ing them upon Craig, "she's crying. That's what I come up to tell you. I thought mebbeyou'd like to know." "Who's crying?" Craig demanded. His heart stood still. . "Aunt Lucy's crying," said Regin- , aid. "She began to cry soon 's you turned round, 'most. I told her somebody'd see her, but she didn't ' stop, and I wasn't going to stay there , and her a blubbering, and I thought I'd come up and tell you." Reginald looked up with his angelic blue eyes and his cherubic smile. "Hay, I'm going to see what's in that plush box, Arthur. You care?" Crnig strode from the room. He got down the stairs two at a time, and rushed around to the red-and-blue hammock between the shady oak trees. "Lucy!" be said, bending over her. "You are not—you can't be crying because I'm going away, Lucy?" There was a hot flush iu the tearful face she raised to him. "Oh, Lucy," he implored, "don't be ashamed of it ! If you are erying about me, don't you know 1 am the. happiest man on earth? I was so cer tain you didn't care for me, and had tried to ward me oft' with—with Reginald, you know, because he was forever around. Rut if you can cry because T am going away, Lucy, then 1 can finish what I was trying to say to you. You know what it was." Lucy caught a sobbing breath. "But you are going out West!" she faltered. "Yes, and you with me!" Craig re i torted. Nobody was near them, and he sat down beside her, bis hand warmly clasping hers. "How did you know 1 was crying?" Lucy queried, suddenly, after ten minutes of glowing happiness. 'Reginald came and told me. Reginald is a trump," said Craig—"a jewel!" "There he comes," said Lucy. "Oh, Arthur, he's got your—your smoking j&cket on!" "It's my bath-robe," Craig re sponded, with the composure of a perfect, nil-satisfying beatitude. "I don't mind it iu the least!"— Saturday ! Night. C-M For rooking. While electricity in trenching HO • nously upon the field of gas light nig, HUV recent application of gas leads to an extension of its con sumption \H ot importance to gas pro ducers. Home. foreign companies seem to nave done this unite successfully in at least one direction. At the recent Dundee meeting of the North British Association of Gas Managers one mem." ber, Mr. J. Ballantyne, of Rothesay, stated that the company had gained an increase of consumption of at least forty pei* cent, in about six years, due to cooking by gas among its custom ers. The gas company furnishes the cookers to its patrons at a rental of ten per cent, of the list cost price per annum, which charge also includes putting them in, taking them away and keeping them in order. About eleven per cent, of the customers arc supplied. His and other companies have not only found this a profitable part of their market, but it has the added ml vantage of being nearly a day - light consumption, thus tending to 1 jual/.e, the demand on the plant.— Knginecriug Record. BIRTHPLACES OF FOODS. THE NATIVE LANDS OF THE VARI OUS GRAINS AND FRUITS. Most of ThPin Have Evolved From a Wild State—The True Home of Indian Corn— The Cherry's Origin. THE grains and fruits used as food by man originated in different latitudes, and first r 9 existed in a wild state some being indigenous to the tropics and some to temperate zones. As they be came improved and differentiated they were distributed in different countries according to their utility and the spread of agriculture. It was but nat ural that the first gradual changes from a wild to a cultivated state , should have takeu place in general in warm countries where the climate | and the advanced state of civilization conspired to effect amelioration. For instance, the grape is indigenous to 1 America, and had existed here in a wild state long ages before the conti nent was discoved by Columbus, but it was first put to practical use in j Egypt and Central Asia, to which lo calities its origin is sometimes attrib- j uted, and whence it was in reality distributed throughout the Western world. A similar remark inav be made of rye, one of the less valued cereals, which is a native of the temperate , zones, and spread thence toward the I South. It is supposed to have been j unknown in India, Egypt and ancient Palestine, and, though it was more or less used by the aucient Greeks and Romans. it was from the north of Europe that they received it. Nearly all the grains now in use are of unknown antiquity. Wheat was cultivated in eighty-six latitude as far hack in the past as we have authentic knowledge. Barley is thought to have originated in the Caucasus, hut it was known and used everywhere in the i most ancient times. Oats, like rye, J was unknown in ancient India and Egypt and among the Hebrews. The Greeks and Romans received it from , the north of Europe. Had there been an early civilization on this continent the wild oats found here and there would probably have developed into the useful cereal now considered abso j lutely essential for the proper nourish ! ment of horses. This continent is | credited with having given Indian corn J to the old world, but this useful cereal , was doubtless known iu India and i China many hundred years before the i discovery of' America. Cotton was used for making garments in India at a date so remote that it cannot -even be; guessed at. The fact is mentioned by Aristotle. The first seeds were brought to this country in 1621. In 1666 the cul ture is mentioned in the records of South Carolina. In 1736 the culture was general along the eastern coast of Maryland, and in 1776 we hear of it as far north as Cape May. The use of flax for making clothing is nearly as ancient as that of cotton, and perhaps more so, plants of soft and flexible fiber having been without doubt among the first vegetable productions of the ancient world and their practical value discovered soon after the invention of weaving. The cherry in its improved condi tion is of Persian descent and is an other fruit that might have been im proved from our wild varieties had our civilization been contemporary with that wi.icii preceded Egypt and Baby lon in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Peaches, plums and cher ries were all known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The apple, the most useful and satis factory of all the fruits of the temper ate zones, lias been known from time | immemorial. It originated from some j of the hardy wild species that are found sometimes almost as far north as the Arctic circle. It is a fruit that likes the cold, and is found in the greatest perfection in jiarts of New England, New York and Michigan, where the winters are severe. As it approaches the equator it loses its finest of taste, while still preserving its beauty. It ' is a notable fact that, owing to carc in [ the culture, and in part to a preference j for the climate, all the fruits mentioned j in this list are found of better quality j in Europe and America than in the lo* calities where they are thought to have originated. The oranges of India, Jiurmah and Cochin China are abso- | lutely tasteless and those of Malaga scarcely better. The best grown in Spain come from the region of Valen cia, where they have been introduced at a comparatively recent date. So of the cherries, apricots and peaches, which have attained a perfection in | Europe and America of which the an cient Persians never dreamed. All these fruits appear to increase in size and improve in fiavor in latitudes where the winter is sufficiently severe to check the growth of the tree and give it a needed rest. It could not be expected, for the j reasons alleged, that America, in- ' habited until a recent date by ravage tribes only, should furnish to the world products that require thoubands of years of care and culture to give them their perfect development. The potato, however, is an invaluable boon conferred by the new world on the old. The tomato is also of South American origin, and, though it plays a much less important part in alimen tation, it is an article of food that Americans would not. willingly part with. AH to the fruits in common use, though America lias done much to im prove them, there is not one of them ; of which it can reasonably claim to be j the place of origin.—-San Francisco J Chronicle. hi Brazil not one per cent, of the male or female servants will sleep in their muster's house. They insist on leaving at the latest by 7 o'clock in the evening, and w ill not'return before 7 or 8 in the morning. SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL. Clouds are on the average about 500 yards in thickness. American tools are far better than those of European make. The largest fish known to science is the basking shark, an enormous but harmless variety. A steel ship has been constructed in 1 Cardiff, Wales, with the standing rig ging, as well as the hull, all of steel. The largest known species of night- Hying insects is the Atlai moth, a resi dent of the American tropics, which I has a wing spread of over a foot. Human hair varies in thickness from the 250 th to the 600 th part of an inch. The coarsest fiber of wool is about one 200th part of an inch in ' diameter; the finest only the 1500 th i part. Houth American auts have been known to construct a tunnel three i miles in length, u labor for them pro portionate to that which would be re quired for men to tunnel under the Atlantic from New York to London. Many larvae of beetles and other I insects arc used for food ; the bee giveH honey and wax, the coccus manua and cochineal, the Spanish fly a blistering drug, the gall insects an astringent, : and the silk worm an article of dress. In Japan there are now twenty pub i blic electric companies in operation. | Further companies are proposed, and there is a considerable demand for ■ electrical engineers. Nearly all of the companies are conducted by Ameri cans. A New England firm is introducing ! AH automatic gas lighter for street j lamps, which works on the prin- j ciple of an eight-day clock. It is explained that the only attention the lighter requires is a weekly winding of the clock movement, and that it | lights the lamp at the required time and extinguishes if at daybreak. Safety matches that can be used ; without a box are to lie placed on the ! English market by a German inventor. ! The idea is to tip the two ends of the i wood separately with those composi tions which in the ordinary way go , one on the box and the other on the match. To use, break the wood j across the middle and rub the ends to gether. An agent of the Suez Canal Com- ; pany has invented an apparatus to j split the electric lights that illuminate the canal into two divergent streams, one sending ouff rays one way, the other in the opposite direction. This enables ships to approach each other and meet with perfect safety. Formerly the lights blinded pilots so that they could not see vessels coming in the op- i posite direction. A physician points out that fat j people endure most kinds of illness much better than thin people, because they have an extra amount of nutri ment stored away in their tissues to support them during the ordeal. I Moreover, there are many other con* : solutions for persons of abundant j girth. They are generally optimists j by nature, genial and jolly com j panious, whose society is universally preferred to that of people with i angular frames and dispositions. At a recent State fair an inventor exhibited a machine that he had con structed for converting grapes into sugar and syrup. Experts who wit nessed the operation and others affirm that the process is a complete suc cess. The experiments were mostly confined to Muscat and other sweet grapes known to carry a large amount of saccharine matter. Heretofore the difficulty has been in granulating grape sugar. But by this new pro cess it is claimed that granulation is perfect. Tombs of the Danish Kings. In the resting place of the old kings of Denmark, the Cathedral of Rokes kild, a recent visitor notes that there is a column against which a number of monarchs have been measured, and upon which their different heights are recorded. One of them is Peter the Great, and we learn by this means that the shipwright Czar measured no less than eighty Danish inches, equiv alent to something like six feet, ten incuts in our measurement. Only one other of the sovereigns was taller, and that was Christian I of Denmark, who, according to this authority, was just a trifle over seven feet English. The Czar, Alexander 111, is about six feet one inch, and is about a couple of inches taller than Christian IX ot Denmark, and about four inches taller than King George of Greece, neither of whom, nevertheless, is what would be called a short man. It is worth noting that in the same ancient cathe dral where this column is to be seen, Saxo Gram mat icus, the Danish histo rian from whom Shakespeare borrowed practically the entire plot of ' Ham let," lies buried.—London News. Sewing in Public Schools. The course of study in sewing in the Boston public schools is interesting for an amateur of sewing to consider. To read of "thimble, emery, scissors, Bet off neatly as articles of study, and and to gaze upon a printed curriculum of "basting, backstitching, overcast ing, half-backatitohing and combina tion of one running and one-half back stitch," is to realize most intensely the advantages Boston offers to her daughters. In the fourth year are taught, among other things, stocking darning, straight and bias felling, whipping and sewing on ruffles, hem stitching, blind stitching, tucking if not taught previously, gathers over handed to a band, sewing on hooks and eyes and buttons, eyelets, loops, and in the fifth year there is a system of dress cutting by which girls are taught to take measures, draught, cut and tit a dress waist. —Boston Tran script. WISE WORDS. Love gains every time it is tested. Home is the fortress of the firtues. The truthful man is dead; been (lead i long time. The real ruler of the man is within him, not without. The man who throws a stone at an other hurts himself. It is time wasted to argue with a doubt. Kick it out. It's the youngest man who thiuksho has the least time to spare. The whisper of a slanderer can be heard farther than thunder. There is no good quality which does not become a vice by excess. A woman iH seldom quite so happy as when she is thoroughly miserable. Finding fault with another is only a roundabout way of bragging on your self. Home people are kept poor because they will not believe it is blessed to give. The man who is afraid to look his faults squarely in the face will never get rid of them. No man is perfectly consistent. He who is nearest consistency steers the erookedest course. The Ethics of Wearing*. In a lecture at Cambridge, England, on the subject of "Weariness," Pro fessor Michael Foster said umlue ex ertion was exertion in which the mus cles worked too fast for the rest of the body. The hunted hare died not be cause he was choked for want of breath, not because his heart stood still, its store of energy having given out, but because a poisoned blood poisoned his brain and his whole body. 80 also the schoolboy, urged by pride to go on running beyond the earlier symptoms of distress, struggled 011 until the heaped up poison deadened his brain, and he fell dazed and giddy, as in a tit, rising again, it might be, and stumbling on unconscious, or half un conscious only, by mere mechanical inertia of his nervous system, falling once more, poisoned by poisons of his own making. All our knowledge went to show that the work of the brain, like the work of the muscles, was ac companied by a chemical change, and that the chemical changes were of the same order in the brain as in the muscle. If an adequate stream of pure blood were necessary for the life of tho muscle, equally true, perhaps even more true, was this of the brain. More over, the struggle for existence had brought to the front a brain ever ready to outrun its more humble help mate, and even in tho best regulated economy the period of most effective work between tho moment all the complex machinery hud been got into working order and the moment when weariness began to tell was bounded by all too narrow limits. The sound way to extend those limits was not so ! much to render the brain more agile |as to encourage the humbler lielp- I mates, so that their more efficient co | operation might defer the onset of '■ Aveariness.—New York Press. A Remarkable Career. A remarkable autography goes with a damage suit for #SOOO filed at Wash ington, D. C. The complaint is against a Washington street railway. The complainant is Henry Johnson, who says he was badly cnt and bruised by the ear starting while he was getting off. Attached to the complaint is the atlidavit of Johnson that he was born in Georgetown on Christmas day in the year 1800 ; was hired out to General Walter Smith, who commanded the militia at the battle of Bladcnsburg; was captured by Captain Patrick, and was present and saw them burn the Capitol, anil when he was seventeen years old he went with Commodore Porter as a cabin boy on a four years' cruise. In 1824 he went as a footman with his old mistress to meet General Lafayette, and escorted him to Gen eral Smith's in Georgetown ; was with General Macon in Florida during the four years' war with the Indians; had waited on General Scott, Gaines and Jessup; lived with General T'otten, and waited on Daniel Webster, Clay and Calhoun when living with Mr. Nicholson at Georgetown Heights. Was with Captain Herndon on the George Law, that was burned, and when the women and children and crew were off he stood close to Cap tain Herndon at the wheelhouse, and he said to him: "You go and shift for yourself," and ho begged the captain to come with him, when he replied: "No, I must stand by my ship." Then strapping himself to a door he was thrown into the sea and saved, and saw tho ship go down with the captain. The Cats Ate the Crickets. There is a man in Harlem who has a much respected aunt. The aunt is wealthy and eccentric. She came to live with this Harlem resident, and having been reared in the country and having recently come from there she missed the rural hum of insects and the agricultural noises of a country residence. Being anxious to please his rela tive and make her reconciled to city life this Harlem man hired a number of boys to seoure crickets for him. He bought twenty cans of crickets and turned them out to pasture in his back yard. For several nights the cheerful chirping of the crickets I proved very soothing to the aged aunt, j I'he various cats in the neighborhood j oon became aware of the unusual j nimber of crickets in this bank yard. | Jnts are fond of crickets, aud now the j larlem man has cats and no crickets a his back yard. He says that all the •uts iu Harlem have made his yard a trysting place and the mint threatens I to move back into the country.—New York Herald. HOUSEHOLD AFFAIRS* CARPET SWEEPING. With a little care you can sweep the dirtiest carpet without raising much j of a dust by placing outside the door I of the room to be swept a pail of clear, j cold water. Wet your broom, knock it against the side of the bucket to get out nil the drops, sweep a couple . of yards, then rinse off the broom igain. Continue this until you have gone over the entire surface* If the carpet is very much soiled the water iliould be changed several times. Slightly moistened Indian meal is also lsed by the oldest housewives. Snow, if not allowed to melt, is also excellent is a dust settler.—St. Louis Republic. TO FRY FISH. "Small fish should swim twice, once in water and once in oil." Perch, brook trout, catfish and all small fish *re best fried. They should be cleaned, washed well in cold water and immedi ately wiped dry, inside and outside, with a clean towel and then sprinkled with suit. Use oil if convenient, as it is very much cheaper than eithei Gripping or lard. Never use butter, is it is apt to buru and has a tendency to sotteu the fish. See that the oil, ard or dripping is boiling hot before jutting in the fish. Throw in a crumb >f bread ; if it browns quickly it is hot I enough and the fish will not absorb j \ny grease. —New York World. MANY USES FOR SODA, i Tinware may be brightened by clip ping a damp cloth in common soda I mil rubbing it well. Very hot soda in a solution, applied with a soft flannel, will remove paint j splashes. Use soda in the water to | cleau paint aiul glass instead of soap. | Strong, tepid soda water will make ! glass very brilliant, then rinse in cold | water, wipe dry with linen cloth, j Ceilings that have become smoked I by kerosene lamps may be cleaned by ! washing off witli soda water. | For cleaning oil paint before repaint i ing, use two ounces of soda dissolved ! in a quart of hot water, then rinse off with clear water. A lump of soda laid