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For Woman’s Work.
A BOY’S LAMENT.
Oh, yes I know ’ tis always “ hush,”
Or “do be quiet; why this noise ?”
You think my boots are never blacked,
And oft protest 'gainst whistling boys.
You say “ What dirty hands you’ve got ”
And.growl because my clothes wear out.
And when 1 hustle round in play,
You say I’m such a “ grimy lot ’’
I was not born a thoughtful man,
Or maiden gentle, prim and coy,
And if I do make too much fuss
Please do remember I'm a boy.
For Woman’s Work. ,
THE CHILDREN’S IMPROVE
MENT CLUB.
BY GENIE L. BOYCE.
Again, the much anticipated Tuesday
came. The children had taken their places.
A few moments later grandma entered,
and the meeting was called to order.
“Now, Mrs. President,” began Len im
pressively, addressing grandma, “A» I
have been chosen the victim, for to-night’s
discussion, I have planned to give you a
little brain-work in preference to lip-exer
cise ; by showing you just how difficult it
is for ordinary minds to grasp more than
one idea at the same time.”
Well, well, brother,” smilingly exclaim
ed Bell, “I see you consider our intellects
quite unsusceptible and dormant. But
take care, don’t place yourself in the frog’s
position, when through self-conceit, it
thought it could be as large as the ox. So
it puffed and puffed itself until it burst.”
“No occasion for worry, Sister mine,”
said Len. “ However, I’ll proceed.
“Once upon a time there were two broth
ers walking together down the street, and
one of them stopping at a certain house,
knocked at the door, observing, ‘I have a
niece here who is ill.’
‘ Thank Heaven,’ observed the other ‘ I
have no niece.’ And he walked away.
Now, how could that be?”
“Now that isn’t fair for you to give us
riddles,” remarked Helena, despondently.
“No riddle at all! Come don’t give up
like that 1 Each one of you solve the prob
lem.
Nothing more simple,” said Len.
“ Oh. yes—very simple—l see,” ejacula
ted Bell.
“ Keep till,” lisped Dot, “ don’t ’oo tell
um, whiffcr to me.”
“ Niece by marriage,” replied Bell.
“Nonsense and fiddlestiaks! The nail
does’nt suffer from the hammer’s blow,
this time. sure. Guess again, nothing can
be simpler,” said Len.
“ We’ll get grandma to help us out ”
shouted the girls.
“ Oh, no, dearies, don’t enlist me—for I
know the answer.”
A moments silence.
“ Well, Len we have given it up.”
“Brave girls! I must say. Nothing
puzzling about it; ‘ I’ve got a niece here
who’s ill,’ say’s one brother; ‘ Thank Heav
en, I have not a niece,’ says the other.
Well, if you’ve all given it up? The invi
lid was his daughter.”
“ Yes, yes I see,” said the girls in chorus.
“We were indeed, stupid to give it up.”
“Yes, truly so,” assented the remorseless
speaker. “ But, you now see how difficult
it is for ordinary minds to grasp more than
one idea at the same time. Your whole
attention was fixed solely on the different
varieties of nieces.”
“No, not wholly that," said Bell, who
didn’t just care to be classed among the
ordinary minds.
The attention was distracted by the
brutality of the father’s remark. That is
in itself a catch, I think.
“ I will give you another simple exercise
for solution, and one that has no such dis
tracting element,” remarked Len coolly.
•* A blind beggar had a brother. The
brother died. W hat relation were they to
each other? Come, now tell me that.”
“ Why, they were brothers.” Said Hel
ena, with all imaginable confidence.
“Any one could see through that.”
“ Helena, I used to own a cup which con
tained a magic ball, and I could lift the
cover and see the ball, then Presto agro
muto change, and it was gone.
Your- statements are about as reliable
as the ball. No that isn’t it; had they
been brothers, I should t scarcely have asked
the question.”
“Perhaps brothers-in-law,” suggested
Bell. - - •
“ They might be, that’s sq,” replied Len,
with a smile, “ but they were not.” .
“ Dis uh brusser died, then the other bad
no brussei'.”
“ That is quite novel Dot, and is surely
as sensible as the other answers have been.
But you have not hit on the exact solution.
The fact is, a blind beggar may be either
male or female. In this instance, it was
a female. They were brother and sister.”
“ I call that a catch,” said Bell, gloomily.
“Not very hard—at any rate—you all
missed it,” said Len triumphantly.
“ Well, as I have a little more time, I
will give you another example. It is a
simple one in subtraction. A man went to
a cobbler’s, and bought a pair of boots for
sixteen shillings. He put down a sover
eign, and the cobbler having no change,
sent for it to a neighboring public-house,
and gave it to him. Later in the day, the
landlord of the inn sent in to say that the
sovereign was a bad one, and insisted upon
the cobbler’s making it right, which he ac
cordingly did. Now, how much did the
cobbler lose by the whole transaction ?,
This is a simple sum in arithmetic.”
“ Let me see—be lost two pounds and
the boots,” said Helena.
“ No, I think he lost sixteen shillings
and the boots, minus the profit he made
upon the boots,” replied Bell.
“ Praps boots and two cents.” added Dot.
“ No, you are all wrong,” said Len. The
way to get at the matter is to consider
what he gained. The landlord, and the
whole story of his changing the sovereign,
may be taken out of the question, since he
is neither better, nor worse for the trans
action. The buyer of the boots gets in
exchange for his bad sovereign, four shil
lings and a pair of boots, and that is just
what the cobbler loses.”
“ Now I know if I had a room by my
Z wTOmM -Mia
self, and a slate and pencil I could answer
any of these,” remarked Bell.
“ Vary well, if that is the case, I will
give you one to answer, at our next meet
ing:
‘ Brothers and sisters, I have none; but
this man’s father, is my father’s son ?’
For Woman’s Work.
A BOYHOOD EXPERIENCE.
“Carson,” said Father, “I desire you and
Harry to go up the river and bring down
that raft of lumber, which I need very
much. The east wind is disagreeable, and
the waters are high since the heavy rains;
but I think you can make the trip with
safety, and return before dusk.”
‘‘Well, father,if you think best, of course
we will go, but it is dangerous to be on the
river when it is so high and swift.”
• “Yes, my son, but you are both suffi
ciently accustomed to the river to guide
the raft. You'know I would not have you
go if I thought it risky.”
We were soon ready, and after receiving
warning from our parents to be very care
ful, commenced our long walk up the river.
Harry and I had made many such trips
before, but never when the river was in its
present condition. We knew the raft
would be hard to guide,, and that there
were many dangers in the undertaking,
but there W’as somhfhing fascinating about
such excitement, and we thought of the
sport connected with it more than of the
danger.
“Carson,won’t we go whizzing when we
start back?” and Harry’s face was a picture
of excited happiness.
“Yes, we’ll go fast enough,but I’m afraid
we will have trouble steering clear of rocks
and trees, unless we get in the strongest
current, and then we might not be able to
get out,” I replied.
I had no serious conception of our danger,
but there were unmistakable doubts as to
having an evening of unadulterated sport.
I well knew that if these dangers had been
mentioned at home, we would not have
been sent on such a .mission, but that
boyish recklessness asserted itself, and I
didn’t discuss them.
Father had been having some buildine
done, and the hands were to come next
day to finish the work. They would need
this lumber, and there was no way to get
it, except for us to go without other help,
for father was the only man on the place,
and he had to be at a neighbors that even
ing. Under different circumstances, he
would have thought more of the dangers
in our going.
After a brisk walk we reached the raft,
which had been loaded by the lumbermen
and was fastened to the river bank ready
for being carried down.
“Now Harry, we are on. I’ll get
at the front with my pole and keep
close to the bank. You stay on the
upper end and unlock the chain;
now we’ll soon be at home.”
Then the fun began ; but it soon
proved trouble instead of fun. It
was hard to keep our raft from going
to the middle of the stream, and
even near the land, we were rushing
rapidly down. Faster and faster,
until it seemed that we were borne
as rapidly as wind or water could
carry us. We had not spoken for some
time. Why, I know not. The stillness of
Harry alarmed me. I turned and.looked
at him. His face was deathly pale, but
his eyes wore an excited glare.
He looked at me inquiringly, beseeching
ly. My face no doubt presented the same
appearance.
Suddenly I wondered how far we had
rushed down stream. I looked. Objects
were passed so rapidly that many were in
distinct. Trees seemed growing together.
“Harry, we are coming to the rock in
the water! Can*we miss it without gettihg
in the swiftest part ? ”
I strained my voice to its utmost, but if
my brother heard, he made no reply. Then
the question repeated itself to me “without
getting into the swiftest part? ” And the
answering question was “How much
swifter can it be?” The trqth was now
plain. We were in the middle of the river,
rushing as fast as the mad waters could
carry us.
Rushing where? Oh! fearful realization!
Rushing where?
Could we stop’at home? I saw no hope.
And then? Five miles below were the falls!
My heart sank within • me. I realized
what it is for '■hope t 5 forsake us. I was
powerless to contend with the fearful force
which was hurling us forward. 1 went
back to Harry. We clasped hands, find
sat down. Our thoughts wore too much
for words. I closed my eyes. There' was
nothing to do but await our cruel fate, and
I desired the view shut out. “Help!” “Oh
father; oh mother!”
“My boys, my darling boys ; oh thank
Heaven, they are saved! ” It was my
mother’s voice: and father said, “Amen.”
I was in our family room. I raised my
head, and Harry, too, was standing over
me. “My dear boy,” and father/mother
and brother kissed me.
Just above our home there was a sudden
bend in the river. The swollen water ex
tended over the bank, and the great speed
of our raft carried it ashore before it made
the turn in the river.
Father found us. Harry had just regain
ed consciousness, and 1 recovered from mv
faint shortly after I was carried home.
I’ve been on the river many times since,
but my most perilous experience was
when 1 was fifteen.
I hope none of my readers will ever fully
realize what it was.
N. G. Rice.
* o
For Woman’s Work.
FOR A YOUNG COUPLE.
What is needed to insure a larger degree
of happiness in life, whether married or not,
is moral independence and moral principle.
The notion that the end is attained when
the alter is reached is almost a criminal
mistake. That is only the beginning. As
some one once said, “To marry and love
each other for a few months "is an easy
thing; but to love each other right along
for forty years, up hill and down—well its
quite a job.”
There is hard work before a young cou
ple. They must get used to each other,
make mutual' concessions, get their plans,
aims, interests; to work smoothly in double
harness. There is too strong a desire to
have one’s own way, too little forbearance;
an insistence upon one’s rights, blit a for
getfulness of one’s daties.
Then it is well to remember that at
twenty-five you can’t have what you per
haps will be able to buy when you are fifty,
if you are economical. Young people
spend too freely, are unwilling to deny
themselves i.n order to have a surplus, de
light in sho#, and are apt to live beyond
their means.
TO EVERY LOVER OF GOOD
READING.
Dear Friend.—Mr. Will C. Turner, the
well known Publisher and Managing Editor
of City and Country, that excellent 16
page monthly magazine published at Co
lumbus, Ohio, has recently made an offer
in connection with his publication which
should certair ly be accepted by you. City
and Country has been regularly publish
ed at the rate of SI.OO per year, for the
past seven years. Mr. Turner is anxious
to increase bis already large circulation
within the next three months to 50,000 reg
ular subscribers more.
To accomplish this purpose, believing
that every subcriber will, at the expiration
of their subscription, renew, he has devised
the following plan:
Every person desiring to become a sub
scriber to City and Country, which, by
the way, contains each year four to five con
tinued stories, thirty or forty illustrations in
each issue and a large amount of interesting
reading— especially so to the ladies—is re
quested to carefully and plainly write out
two complete copies of this letter and sign
your name at the bottom after the word
• Per”—. These copies must then be mail
ed by you to two of your friends or acquain
tances in some other town or locality, who
are thereby requested to do just as you
havedone, viz: Write two copies and send
to two oftheir friends, and so the work will go
on and on. After mailing the two copies, the
orignal letter which you copy from, together
with a slip of writing paper, cut about the
size of a postal card, with your address
plainly written on one side and the address
of the two to whom you have sent the cop
ies on the other side, and 25 cents in silver
or postage stamps must be enclosed in a
letter and mailed to Will C. Turner, Co
lumbus, Ohio. On the receipt of these you
will be placed on the subscription list for
one year, the copy for the present month
will be promptly mailed, and also, which is
the greatest reason why you should accept
this offer, five complete novels in pamphlet
form will be sent you by mail, post paid,
which would regularly cost one dollar each
if bound in cloth. Do not let the opportu
nity pass, as Mr. Turner only proposes to
let this offer stand for a short time. True,
it requires some time and work to copy all
this twice, but you will be most handsome
ly rewarded for it.
[Signed,] Will. C. Turner.
Per. . .
Try and discover the good in humanity
Tor the reverse will appear without seeking