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322 on the part of the seller, a willingness to oblige, and a ready cheerfulness in showing goods, often so increase my appreciation of the wares I am examin ing as to lead me to make purchases which I might perhaps have declined from a less agreeable salesman. “ The same is true in regard to work men, servants, market-people, and in deed all thatj employ in any capacity. I always select those who are civil and obliging, rather than those whose terms are lowest, but who fully make up in demands on my patience for any little saving to my purse. I had rather lose a few dollars in the year than he con tinually disgusted and annoyed by churl ishness and ill-breeding.” This matter of politeness, let me tell you, young reader, is an affair worth noticing, especially to those who have their own fortunes to build up, influence to secure, and, perhaps, dependant ones to support. Civility is in itself a for tune —a capital that will always bring good interest —a starting point whence to arrive at success in almost any under taking. It is more than money, more than influence, more than friends, more even than ability, for it unites all these in itself, and none of them will last long without it. True politeness is in man what beauty is in woman, a passport to universal favor —a letter of introduc tion available everywhere, because writ ten in a language that everybody com prehends. Begin it, boys, in your youth, and use it all your life long ; practice it at home, in school, on the play-ground, and it will set easily in company ; study it in the family, and carry it out with you in to the world, and you shall secure friends as well as achieve success where ever you go. Airs. F. R. Frudgc. Baltimore, Md. .«©.* Do not Despair. If ever failure seemed to rest on a noble life, it was when the Son of Man, deserted by His friends, heard the cry which proclaimed that the Pharisees had drawn the net around the Divine victim. Yet from that very hour of defeat and death there went forth the ■world ’s life ; from that moment of apparent failure, there proceeded forth into the ages the spirit of the conquering Cross. Surely, if the Cross says any thing it says that apparent defeat is often real victory, and that there is a heaven for those who have nobly and truly failed on earth. Contentment and Truth. We commend the following para graph to the consideration of any boy or girl who may be troubled by a desire to shineinborrowedplumes: Contentment abides with truth. You will generally suffer for wishing to ap pear other than what‘you are ; whether it be richer or greater, or more learned. The mask soon becomes an instrument of torture. BURKE’S WEEKLY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. A Declamation. Arranged from Tupper for Burke’s Weekly. BY FLORENCE LYNDON. BOYS and girls of every age, | With loving souls within you, A simple word for each and all, fA word to warn and win you. You’ve each one got a human heart, As well as human features, To hear me, while I take the part Os all the poor dumb creatures. I know your lot is somewhat rough, But theirs is something rougher; Xo hopes, no loves, but pain enough, And only sense to suffer. Xow, girls and boys, you’ve friends and joys, And homes and hopes in measure, But these poor brutes are only mutes, And hardly know a pleasure. A little water, oats, and hay, And sleep, the gift of heaven — flow great returns for these have they To your advantage given. Their mouths are mute, but most acute The woes whereby you wear them ; So learn of me, and quickly see llow easy ’tis to spare them 1 Written for Burke's Weekly SAL-O-QUAH; OR, Boy-Life Among the Indians. 3Y REV. F. R. GOULDING, Author of “ Young Alarooner's," li Marooner's Island," etc. CHAPTER XXXIX. FIIKLF3* STORY —STEAMBOAT EXPLOSION — A TOMAHAWKED CALF—THE BEAR AND THE TWO STEEL-TRAPS—A WHIRLWIND, AND DEVICE FOR ESCAPE. NE of you spoke of rae > just now, as a strongly built man,” ijfsaid Mr. Phelps, “and P er * ,a P s I am, compared with many people; yet I am sa id to be the weakest WWiJ I m - v family > during three generations. I came South v ' because I was not strong enough to stay in Vermont. The doctors said I had consumption. I suppose I should have died if I had staid there; but I have been near losing my life so often since, that I have frequently thought of the turn given by an odd genius of our parts to a famous saying of Shake spear : 1 There’s a divinity that shapes our ends rough. Hew them as we may.’* I certainly have had a pretty rough time of it. Yet as I look back, and see the hand of God in my many escapes, I cannot help thanking him for all, the evil as well as the good; for without the evil I would not have known the good. There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them as we may." Myfi rst experience began almost in sight of my native mountains. In de scending the Hudson river in a steam boat, our boiler burst. We had few steamboats in those days, and of course, few accidents ; yet enough to teach all who gave attention, that it was certain death to breathe scalding steam, and also that the hottest steam is the least visible. At the time of the accident, I was standing on the quarter deck, talk ing with an interesting young man in fine health, whose acquaintance I had just made. The weather was cool, and I had my cloak on my arm. The steam from the boiler shot toward us like smoke from a cannon, and struck us both down upon the deck. In an in stant I knew what had happened, and adopted the only means of escape in my power, —I held my breath until I had wrapped my head and face closely in my cloak, and then breathed as little as possible. Five minutes afterwards, when I uncovered and looked around, I saw my young friend lying beside me, gasping in the agonies of death. He had breathed the scalding air, by and that means died of a sudden consump tion cf his lungs. I had avoided that air by means of my cloak, and the con sumption under which I had been so long laboring, had not killed me yet. In coming South, I first hired my self to a farmer as a field laborer, that I might follow the plough and inhale the air of the freshly turned earth. My health rapidly improved. The farmer and his wife were a plain, honest couple, who did all their own work. They lived much more roughly than I had been ac customed to ; yet I felt quite at home with them, and would have staid longer than I did, had it not been for a circum stance which I cannot remember to this day without discomfort. The farmer’s house was not far from the borders of the Creek Indians, who had taken up the hatchet, since I came to the neigh borhood, and were wielding it with ter rible effect. Every day we heard fresh news of murders, plunderings and scalping. One evening, on my return from work, there was no milk for sup per, —the farmer's wife was afraid to go to the cow-pen, —so I undertook to milk for her. The night was uncom monly dark. The only object I could see, while in the pen, was the white face of the calf that kept its nose close to me, trying to get a share of its mother's milk. All at once I heard a tap ! and the calf fell motionless on the ground ; then came an ‘ugh!’ as if someone grunted in surprise. I rose to a stand ing posture, asking myself alond, ‘What does this mean ! when I heard the foot fall of somebody or of something mov ing softly away. I went immediately to the house, got a coal of fire, such as I could hide from sight, and came with the farmer to see what was the matter. There lay the calf on the ground, stone dead, with a hole in its forehead, made by a tomahaw. An Indian had evi dently been there, and mistaking the white head of the calf for the cap of the woman, had struck the blow, ex pecting to kill and scalp her. From this dangerous neighborhood I went to the seaboard, where I earned a living, and at the same time enjoying myself in shooting ducks and game for market. My fondness for wild sport, however, brought me, after a time, into a very unpleasant predicament. The bears were so destructive in a certain settlement, and so skillful, too, in evad ing the hunter, that a large reward was offered for their scalps. Both the sport and the money suited my inclination, so I set myself to hunt them. I soon discovered that they came out of a riv er swamp on a log, and passed through a thick cane-break to the open country. Immediately at the end of the log their trail divided, with a wall of large and strong cane between. The place was so difficult of approach that I resolved, instead of hunting them with the gun, to take them by steel-traps. I set-a trap in each trail, fastened by a chain to a stake deeply driven into the mud. The traps were only a few feet apart, and both chains were fastened to the same stake. On my first visit the trap nearest to me was lying just as I had left it. I leaned my gun against a sup port, and struggled through the wall of cane to get sight of the other trap. — Just as my hand moved the last cane, and before I could look through the opening, there came from below a most unearthly roar, and an enormous old bear, the father, no doubt, of the whole band of depredators, rose upon his hind legs and rushed at me with open mouth. I confess that I got back through the canes much faster than I had gone forward. But in leaping towaids my gun I stumbled and fell, face down, with my neck wedged tigjit between two sloping canes. In the act of falling I felt my leg seized half way up the boot, and held with a grip like a vice. “Gone! Gone! The bear has got me !” I said myself, as I lay there help less, expecting the next moment to feel my bones crushed and my leg torn to ribbons. But I was neither bitten nor torn, —only held fast with an awful pinch, and I could hear the bear growl ing and pulling at the canes as if trying to pass through. I gradually released myself from con finement by the neck, and, on turning around, discovered that I was not caught by the bear, but by my own steel-trap, into which I had stepped in my haste, and that the bear was gradually break ing its way to me through the canes. I was not then hopelessly lost if I could only reach my gun ; but if I could not, it would be all over with me in a very lew minutes ; for the bear and 1 were chained to the same stake, and he was furiously snapping the large canes one by one, around which his chain has wrapped. I struggled frantically to ward my gun, with the horrible steel-