The Covington star. (Covington, Ga.) 1874-1902, August 02, 1887, Image 1

The Covington star., August 02, 1887, Image 1

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Newspaper Page TextJ, W. ANDERSON, Editor and Proprietor. Hope and Memory. iVhr should it ba that the misty past, Or the futureyet un«een, i[ 9 dearer far to tbe heart, alasl Thao the present ‘which lies between! iV'ith *ver£ phlsH of the heart’s red flo» Is&Wfc a droam ami a sigh, For "Sra happy days of the long ago, A'n i tho glad sweet by and by. There is a wisdom in nature’s way Which tlio doubting heart ne’er knows; We live the best of ear lives each day, From dawn to their sunlit close; Fur the bliss wo tasted at youthful springs, And the joys which are to be, Are brought each day on the gracious wings Ot'^lope and Memory. —[Nixon Waterman in the Current. THE LOST DEED. BY ISABEL HOLMES. “It’s mighty queer about that deed,” I Reuben Hill was saying to his wife, as I ho wiped the perspiration from his face I with his red, polka-dotted handkerchief. I "Nathan was so methodical like about I his papers and every tiling. It wasn’t I like him t^mislay it. But I have looked | I through all the drawers of that old mn hoga^ desk and among his other papers fifty times, I guess. I know he meant ■ the lied Brook Farm for 0 car, but if I that deed is never found I suppose his I owfi boys will take it.” Mrs. Hill was bending over thekitchon I stove with flushed face, for tbe day was I hot. The odor of fried ham filled the J air. Shu stood back and looked at Reu¬ ben by the open window, with a medi I bitive air. “It is queer about it,” she echoed. [ ‘It will be menu enough if Oscar gels I (Cheated out of a share in the properly. I He worked faithfully for Nathan till he I was of age, more faithfully than his own I boys, and Nathan thought so much of I him, too.” “And meant to do the square thing I by him," Reuben continued. “You I d»n’t suppose Robert or Will had a hand sat— Reuben interrupted himself to look up, as a strange shadow fell across tbe square of sunlight in the kitchen door. A girl, a stranger, carrying a valise, was standing there, Her comely face was flushed, and she seemed somewhat over¬ come with the heat. Mrs. Hill looked at her with nn cn couraging s mile. The girl stepped in¬ side the doorway in response to thy saute welcome. “Don’t you want to hire a girl at low wages through the hot weather?” she enquired abruptly. “Wo do our own work, Mrs. Hill responded. t . Our own girls, Addie and Lottie, are both at homo this summer. Have you come fur? Ycu look heated. Won’t you sit down where it is cool trad rest?” “1 have walked from Kennebunk this forenoon,” said the girl, “I am pretty tired.” She sat down in the Madras-covered chair by the open door. Iler eyes wandered around the kitchen as if she recognized something familiar in the sur¬ roundings, although slic was a stranger. “You’ve come a pretty long stretch,” R uben volunteered, giving her a quick, shrewd glance. He was apt to be on the lookout for strangers. Mrs. Hill regarded her with the kind motheriincss she felt for her own girls. “You’ll feel better after you have had some dinner with us,” she said. “Just left a place, I s’pose,” Reuben •commented. “Yes,” said the girl. She spoke with a slight Scotch accent. She seemed a little embarrassed with the question,and her eyes wandered through the door to the hired men coming up to dinner lrom the hay field. I—1 had a pretty good place, but 1 wanted a change," she said, bringing -her glance to bear upou Rmben’s face bashfully. “A girl ought to stick to a good place,” he ventured. She made no reply to this “feeler,” hut something like a smite flitted over her lace. It Sort of odd, I guess,” was Reuben’s thought. Mrs. Hill removed the “sizzling” spider from tlio hot stove, and taking up the platter of brown slices of ham, she said to the girl: “Gome in this way 3 and take off your hat.’’ The girl followed her into the cool dining-room and gave the same peculiar glance around. Mrs. Hill set the platter on the invitingly laid tablo and then conducted the stranger into her own bedroom adjoining, where the high feather bed stood, covered with a patch work quilt of pink and white “basket work.” « . Just lay your things on the bed and come right out to dinner,” Mrs. Hill said. “Here’s a little girl wtio wants a place to work, ” she said to Lottie, who just then came out of the buttery with * hu -c apple pie, which she placed on the table. “Well, there’s enough work to be done here, dear knows," Lottie returned briskly, with a friendly nod to the new¬ comer. “There’s sewing enough to keep Addie busy six months, and that spinning—] don’t believe you’ll get I round to it before Christmas. it takes 1 us both all the time to potter ,round with the household. I do tbi«k Covington ours beats all the house) in tlio neigh¬ borhood to pile up work, Yet we are always at it, late and early, Tbo hired men now fcame in and the family gathered around the table. Oscar, a tall, rather good-looking fellow, sat directly opposite the girl, She was looking around upon the assembled faces with that strange look of half rec¬ ognition she had worn since she crossed the threshold, She met the eyes of Oscar suddenly. She colored and kept her eyes on her plate the rest of the dinner hour. In the atter-dinner conclave she gave her name as Sara McKay. She had come to the “States’’ from Princr Ed¬ ward Islam about aycar ago, and lauded in Portland, and found her way to Kennebunk, where she had lived in a family ever since. “I’d be willing to work for my board awhile, it seems so much like home here,” she said. “Well, you're Welcome to stay and help when you feei like it? Mrs. Hill responded for her heart had gone out to the stranger from the first, We never feel as if we can pay wages in the house, because we have to keep hired help on tile farm all the time, But you can stay through tha hot weather, and I dare say a place will turn up for you before long.” “I can spin,” Sara said, eagerly. “Ail the girls on the island learn to do that.” “I couldn’t draw a thread to save my life,” said Addie, So it was settled. The wheel and reel, so common in our grandmothers' days, were brought out aud set in the shed because it was cool. Sara, with the flatly l l rolls” heaped high on a chair back at her left baud, drew out her thread and filled the spindle rapid¬ ly, with a nonchalance and easy com¬ mand of the situation that won. the admiration of the girls, it being such an unusual accomplishment among them. A week wer.t by. Sara was talkative about her island home, but non-com¬ mittal regarding her reasons for leaving the place in Kennebunk. it Whatever it means she’s a good, nice girl,” Mrs. Hi 1 said to the girls privately. R-uben Hill still rumimated over the disappearance of the deed. Oscar came into his meals quietly, having very little to say at any time. He bad Uvcd ibero since the death of Nathan Hill, six months before. Once or twice he caught Sara regarding him with a curious, fixed expression aud answered her with a grave look of inquiry that brought the furious blushes to her face. One day Sara had finishod her dinner and gone out into the shed, leaving the family to rise, one after the other, leisurely. The soft whirr of the wheel, mingled with the murmur of insects in the hot summer noon, reached the dining room. t i It’s queer how she happened to come here,” Addie remarked, reflectively. “And she’s so secret about leaving her place,” added Lottie. t» Well, I do like to see her round,” Mrs. Hill said in her own placid fash ion. Mr. Hill, going out through the shed on his way to the big barn, stopped in consternation. Sira was sitting on an old red chest in the corner, in great distress seemingly, lie gave one glance, then hurried back, and called startlingly through the kitchen door. “Mother! girls! Cune! Sara’s in a tit r Tncy came hurrying out witli various exclamations. Her eyes were wide open, hut unseeing. Her face was working convulsively. "Perhaps" she’s subject to them,” sug¬ gested Mrs. Hill. “Oscar, said Mr. Hill, “tell Tim to jump ou tbe gray m ire and ride to the corner for a doctor. Qu.ck now!” Sara became quiet all in a moment. “Don’t send for a doctor,” she said. “I’m not stek.” Her eyes were still open and unseeing, but her voice had changed, aud was falling upon their ears iu gruff, familiar accents. “Nathan’s voice, if I ever heard it in my life, Reuben told the doctor after wards. “Don’t you know me?” site asked in that familiar voice, “I’ve been wanting to come and tell you about the deed, I have never been able to come before. You’ve overlooked a secret drawer in the mnhogauy desk, It is close under the bookcase. The deed is there. Go now and look.” Like one dazed Reuben went up stair* and searched for the secret drawer in the old-fashioned piece of furniture, a combined bookcase and writing desk, which had been removed there, with other things, after Nathan's death, It must be confessed that he felt pretty nervous. How did Sara know about the deed? It had never been mentioned in her presence. He returned. “There ain’t any drawer there," he said. “But there is,” persisted Sira. “There is a spring, the color of tbe wood, about the size of a pin bead, close under the bookcase ou the i'-ft of the writing desk. Pass your fingernail over Ihe surface and you’ll fiud it.” Reuben went again, It must be ad¬ mined that befell a thrill of superstt tious fear. COVINGTON, GEORGE ri AUGUST 2. 1887. He did as she directed, touched tlib spring and the dhtwer Sow open. There sure enough, was the deed. lie went back to the group, who greeted him with various exclamations. Sara started, shivered slightly and looked around upon the faces with see¬ ing, questioning eyes. << What has happened?'’ she asked, “Have I been asleep? I felt awfui strange the last I knew, and thought Pd sil down On the chest a few minutes.’’ “You’ve been asleep, or something,’ 1 Mrs. Hill said slowly, Sara went to the wheel and, faking uy the thread she had left half twisted, began spinning, with a rather shame faced expression. They all looked at her so strange, and Oscar’s eyes seemed riveted upon her. (t How did you know about the secret drawer?” Reuben asked, abruptly. 11 Secret drawer?” Sara repeated with a genuinely mystified look. “You were in some kind of a trance, I think,” Mrs. Hill said. i i I thought you were in a fit,” said Addie. “And I thought you were going crazy, laughed Lottie, now that her fear was gone. Mrs. Hill explained about the deed, Sara listened, then said deliberately: “I never told you how I came to leave my place. I thought you might think it was silly. It was all on account of a dream I had." The group were listening breathlessly, “I saw this house with the long piazza and green blinds," she went on, “the big barn, with the great doors open, the bee hives, your faces, everything just as plain in my dream as I saw them when I came that day. I thought I was to come here to help some one, I didn’t under stand what it meant, but I awoke with the feeling that I must come, whether I wanted to or not. I had seen the long, dusty road stretching ahead of me, and the house and barn on the hill. When I got there I was half frightened, but you all seeined as if you had been ex¬ pecting me. You made me feel at home.” >> Strange," said Mrs. Hill,“with a sort of awe in her voice. “Aunt Samantha would explain it, said Lottie, “She’s been going to seances at the corner lo*»ijt ” From the day that the deed was found Oscar began to show open preference for Sara. It was not until she became his wife and they were living quietly in the little house on the Red Brook farm that she confessed to having seen his face in hci dream the plainest of all, and that she had been toid that she was to marry him. Reuben Hill is not quite such a hard headed skeptic as formerly, He has tc admit that there may be stranger things in the universe than his philosophy has dreamed of. We give the facts, as they came under cur notice, without pretending to account for them.—[New York Mer¬ cury. The Writing of Modern Hymns. Know that man? It’s William II. Diane, and be makes $30,000 a year writing hymns, or rather that’s the roy¬ alty he gets. He is engaged with Fay & Co., but in his leisure moments he hunts around and finds a touching bit of poetry and he works it into a hymn. Oh, it’s a paying business; beats any kind of writing I ever heard of, but it’s not everybody that can catch on to tha 1 sort of a style. It’s harder than writing variety songs or even L'dger stories or detective yarns of blood and thunder romances. You see, a man must have some of the divine affiitus mixed with a good deal of piety in order to be a sue cess as a iiymnologist. He lives in a fine residence on Mount Auburn and j some time ago he had a falling out with | John Mitchell something about a boundary line. They got the matter in courts, when Mitchell said he’d fix him, so he erected a long row of three story bricks right adjoining. He said he was going j to put up a hundred, but he Inquirer. only got at j far as seventy.—[Cincinnati Laf ijettc’s Land. There have been numerous inquiries oi j late as to whether Lafayette ac- t cepted a township of land tendered him by the United States government, aud if he did accept it, where is the land located. These inquiries have brought out a statement . of r one who u„ was „ a „ deputy surveyor in F. rids, who says that after completing the survey in 1835 he re turned to Tallahassee, where lie met Col. McKee, who bad been sent there ar the agent of Gen. Lafayette, then on a visit to the United States. Col. McKee I was commissioned to select the pr> ffered township, and he chose one adjoining am i northwest from Tallahassee. It i( presu mod tiiat the land has long since been sold off j What He t aught. “Fishing yesterday, eh?” queried Wig- j wu_r. “Y.S, repiiel Mi Potter, hoarsely. -•You brought your catch home this, time?” —facetiously. J i.y and |’ve got it yet.” “What was it!” ; "A cold—tiie worst I’ve had thia sea-! son. —Free Press. ' mt ‘OFF WITH ffi&HEAD. Interview with Chinese High Executioners inteanton. r. Brutal and Eepulsive Ft of Oriental Punishment % During out wanderings in Canton, sa y s a writer in the P»II Mai' Gil zette, our ears were essailed with the Cathay synonym of the Egyptian bak seesh cry, till the caverns of our brains resounded and echoed with it. “Cum shawl cumshawl” yelled immature pos sessorg echoed o! pigtails, and mature possessors the sound^mherater We Weut, I When the youngstj^ Requests were not j complied with, they , ter a little invari fl bly changed their cry to “Panquail fanquai!’’ (foreign devil, foreign devil). marched into the magisterial yamun to the accompaniment of the cumshaw i tuna. Here we were showmtbe instru¬ ments whereby bamboo chow chow is given to the nadal callosities of the wicked, also ratans and short Bludgeons for slapping the faces of untruthful wit¬ nesses, thumb-screws andp racks for exacting confessions (no criminal can be executed according to the laws of China Until he has confessed his crime), canquls, a species of collar which for largeness and uncomfortableness even outstrip the mashers’, and which are rectangular planes ol wood with neck and hand holes. The gloomy, small depository-room of these torture Implements we thought to be a fair representation of what a European m; diasval chamber of “justice” has been. We were next taken a our sedan Chair * throu S h aa overcrowded busy part of the cit ? t0 !he execution ground, P assiD B our way the new Roman Catholic cathedral, whose gigantic spires P ierce the clouds ‘ The e *cution K round we f °u ud to be a small jnclosed rectangular space, about fifteen yards by fifty, entered by a gatat On the tight on entering ran a ro J w of small squalid houses, the habitations of pot¬ ters whose rough, unbaked work lay all about on the ground, drying in the sun, but we were informed that it was cleared away whenever an execution*was about to take place. Facing the potters’ houses was a hrah wall, at whose base and leaning against it were some large crocks, all of which had their mouths earthed over except one. Here our guide intro duced ui to two poorly dressed China¬ men, whom we noticed gambling at a fan tan table near the gate on our arri val. One, a big, brutish-looking fel¬ low with a villainous cast in one of his eyes, was the head executioner, and the other two, who were smallish men, were his assistants, Through our guide we told the head executioner that we wished to see the instruments of his calling, and thereon he produced a short, very heavy two-handed sword and a long knife. The following conversation was carried on between us and this “boss” through the medium of our guide: “How do you use this sword? Where is the block?'’ “We don’t use a block. What we do is to make the prisoners kneel down in two rows facing one another, and bend¬ ing their heads down. Then I take the sword, and chop, chop, one on each side, and the heads fall off; so on till they’re all done, as you’d switch the tops of greeu weeds with your walking-stick. II “But you don’t always chop a head off with one blow?” “Always.” “What is the knife for!” “For the ling che, or death by many cuts. We tie the culprit who is con¬ demned to this death to that cross there (pointing to two rough unbarked sticks r0U gbly crossed), and we begin by cut ^ing oflf the eyelids, ears, nose, and so on, end j n g b y sticking the knife into the heart> The cu , 8 vnry iu number from eight a hundred aud twenty, according to th e heinousness of the culprit’s crimes.” „ what cla33 of critnina i 8 are condemned to the ling che?” ‘ "Parricides, matricides and women who haye kj) , e(] am , muUlated their husbands form the majority. “Do the executions interfere with your appetite and sleep?” The three executioners grinned sar¬ donically at this question, so we asked: “How many persons have you execut ed a da - v ‘ tt I have chopped twenty heads off myself in two minutes. See that dark looking place ou the ground over there that’s caused by the blood of the last batch we bad.’ »» What Is done with the bodies?” t » Tbe friends take the bodies away, but we keep the heads in the crocks over by th • wail there, and when we hav a large nuaiber which are no longer recognizable we bury them; would you like to see some of the heads!” We declined, and one of my compan¬ ions began to grow pale and complain of not feeling well, so we ordered the guide to lea 1 us away. “Gentlemen, give twenty cents each, cumshaw, to the executioaers,” Said the guide, which we gladly did to escape from the staring of the “boss” butcher's swivei eye; and so ended our interview t, ‘” 8e Executioners of the reat A flat failure—A poor pancake. Ten Things n Baby Can Ho. It can beat any alarm clock ever in¬ vented waking a family up in the rnorn ing. Give it a fair show and it can smash more dishes than the most industrious servant girl in the country. It can fall down ofteuer and with less provocation than the most expert turn bier in the circus ring. It can make more genuine fuss over a simple brass pin Hi an its mother would over a broken baok, It can choke itself black in the face with greater than , the most acoom ease p'i ied wretch that executed. < was ever ft can keep a family in a constant tur ffi ow'from morning till niglit, and night till morning, without once varying its tune. It can be relied upon to sleep peace fully all day when its father is down town and Cry persistently at night when he is particularly sleepy. It may be the naughtiest, dirtiest, ugliest, most fretful baby in all the world, but you can never make its mother belieVe it, and you had better not try it. It can be a charming and model in¬ fant when no one is around, but when visitors are present it can exhibit more bad temper than both of its parents to gether. It can brighten up a house better than all the furniture ever made; make sweeter music than the finest orchestra organized; fill a larger place in its parents’ breast than they knew they had, and when it goes away it can cause a greater vacancy and leave a greater blank than all the rest of (he world put together. - [Phi 1 ad el phi a News. An Impertinent Man. Alex. Walker, clerk of the Capital Hotel in Little Rock, although a hand¬ some young man, has lost much of the hair that once occupied a prominent po¬ sition on the top of his head. Oae even¬ ing recent'y a well-dressed stranger regis¬ tered at the hotel, and, just as he had completed the work of spreading his double great-primer name on the book he glanced at Walker, stepped back and said: “Great „ Caesar 1 .... Another baldheadod - ,,, . , maul . . It . misfortune, . . . to is my *aJ. ltseems, v ____ ‘ in. vc, ... ... * ought , not to say it, perhaps, but I don’t believe that bald-headed men are honest.” “Look here,” said Walker, “your remarks are personal aud insuiting.” tl I did hope that I would never see another bald-headed man,” the stranger continued, “but hero I am compelled to stop with one.” “Get out of this house 1” Walker hotly exclaimed. The stranger stepped back and took off his hat, revealing the fact that he had not a hair on his head. t . My dear friend,” said Walker, ex¬ tending his hand, “I have just received a box of Havana cigars. Come around and enjoy yourself.”—[Arkansaw Trav eler. Painlessness of Throat Uniting. The victim of despondency who hacks at his throat in a persistent at - tempt at suicide probably inflicts much less self tortuc than we have been wont to suppose. Several years ago Prof. Brown Sequard announced that stimula¬ tion of tbe larynx produces complete loss of sensibility to pain iu the body. He lias siuce observed that a similar, though slighter, effect may be given by irritation of the windpipe or oven of the skin covering the throat. By hundreds of experiments, especially on dogs and monkeys, this eminent pathologist has demonstrated that, after simply cutting the skin, he could lay bare, cut, bruise, galvanize aud even burn the various structures in two thirds of the neck without causing any great pain, and sometimes with no apparent pain, what ever. When ho has killed dogs by cutting their throats, death has occurred without convulsions and without agony. —[Arkansaw Traveler. A Sympathetic Cow. A Newtonian was picking apples on Monday, when an old cow ran up to him and then away, aciitig very strangely. Knowing her to be an unusually intelli gent cow, he suspected that something must be the matter and followed her. She-ied him to a cow in another part of the orchard that was nearly choked to death with an apple. After he had re¬ lieved her the old cow fairly cried for joy aDd licked the -ulTe er profusely,and when the latter was driven into the barnyard where she would be out of dau ger refused to leave her.—[New Orleans Picayune. Teddy’s Interpretation. The golden text for i certain Sunday school was: -» And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit.”—Luke ii., 40. The Christian Register says: Little Ted’s am went up like a flash when the superintendent asked: “Can any of these bright, smiling little boys or girls repeat the golden text for to-day? Ah! bow giad it makes my heart to see so many little hands go up I Teddy, mv boy, you may repeat it; and sptak good and loud tiiat all may bear.” And they all heard this: "And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit like 2:40. VOL. XIII. NO, 37. SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS. The invention of the war cycle, a ve¬ locipede that carries ten soldiers, is con¬ sidered so valuable in England that they are to build one for twenty-six men, thirteen to work the cycle and thirteen to ride. j J hag beeQ observed jn ottawa> Can _ ^ that tue intro duction of the electric f : n ght in street illumination has facilita j ted the coUection 0 f entomological spec o{ mo spec i e9 , a8 insects of all kinds are attracted to the lamps in large numbers, ! j The possibility 1 J of premature * burial has been considered great ... by the so Madrid authorities that the municipal j cemetery has been provided with an electrical signaling apparatus which will ! notify the officials of the slightest move¬ | ment in any coffin in the receiving vaults. The abuse of alcohol, tobacco, opiuul and quinine seriously affects the sight, but tea has not been considered liable to have such influence. The greatest of Russian tea merchants, M. Molchanofl, has, however, been seeking treatment in Paris for weakness of vision induced by *be prolonged practice of tea-tasting, I Besides its usual temperature and j rainfall observations, the New England Meteorological society has on hand for this season two special investigations— the thunder storms in New England, and the sea-breeze on the Massachusetts coast. The former inquiry is in its third year, the latter is now undertaken lor the first time. The New Zealand earthquake is said to have changod Lake Robomahana, which was renowned for its terraces of gleaming silica, its hot springs and its geysers, into an expanse of seething mud, unlovely to look upon, Another result of the earthquake has been to add three hundred feet to the height of Mount Tarawera. A series of charts, showing the sur¬ face temperatures of the Atlantic coast waters, from Maine to Florida, is under preparation by the United States Fish j commission, assisted by the Lighthouse Board and Signal ° Service. Observa ) tions, covering five in time, have i years thus , far , been made , at twenty-four . . , .. light j house-stations. , ... The temperatures . . at .... the . ! several stations are-shown lor each year j by ten-day means, and in such a man¬ ner as to give the isothermal relations of the stations. Prof. Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum, of Harvard college, esti¬ mates that five foreign trees are planted in New England to one native. Yet, of all foreign trees introduced into America the willow alone, he thinks, has quali¬ ties not possessed in a greater degree by Some native. The European oak and the Scotch, Austrian and Corsican pines all die at about the time when they should be at their prime, and the Nor way spruce, at a corresponding age, is decrepit and unsightly. Stallion ami Bear. The herds of the stockmen located near the haunts of the grizzly sometimes suffer from the carniverous appetite of these fierce brutes. For “Old Ephraim,” as the mountaineers call the grizzly, is large and strong enough to kill a full grown steer. One bear, however, met with his match iu a vicious stallion, kept on a ranch in Montana. The stal lion had been grazing, during the day, near a thicket of bushes. Towards evening the stockmen were surprised to see him come galloping home, with three or four long gashes in his haunch. j The cow-boys, knowing that he had been attacked by a grizzly, rode off to the thicket to liunt the bear, lnimedi ately on the thicket being surrounded, the bear sallied forth, evideutly in a bad temper. A spirited tight ensued, and it was not until the grizzly had made several charges that he was killed. On examining his body, it was found tiiat his under jaw was broken, and pan of his face smashed in, evidently by the I stallion’s hoofs. When the bear leaped upon the feed¬ ing horse, he had failed to kill his victim by a single stroke. The strong , taUion bad 8haktM1 oJl the boar> and then kicked out b hind with such force | as severely to damage his foe. j A Real Gypsy Tent. Edgar L. Wakeman says that the real gypsy tent is the tent you never see in J i pictures or upon the stage. Take a very old and very much discolored brown hood and set it upon a piece of green velvet, and you have a very good like¬ j ness of the genuine gypsy tent. May be it is twelve feet long, eight feet wide and six or seven feet high. We take nicely polished hickory bows, which are strapped up uuder the wagons on the road, run the sharpened eud into the ground, or into the socket pecks driven in the ground, and then run the other ends, crossed, through a mortised hick crr j ridge pole, and there is our stanch frame. Tnen great woolen blankets— thin, to be sure, but apparently imper vious to the worst storms—are flung over this frame, fastened securely at the sides ami ba> k with little hickory skew ers such as those you find in your roast beef, and there is the snuggest nest of a t camp home your eyes ever beheld. All In Tain. As a desolate bird (hat through darkness lt» lost way is winging. As a hand that is helplessly raised when l)e ith’s sickle is swinging, So is life! Aye, the life that lends passion and breath to ray singing. As a nightingale’s song that is full of sweet¬ ness unspoken, As a spirit unbarring the gates of the skies for a token, , So is love I Aye, the love that shall fall when his pinion is broken. As the tramp of the legions wpen trumpets their challenge are sending, As the shout of the storm-god when light-. nings the black sky are rending, So is power! Aye, the power that shall lie in the dust at its ending. So short is our life; yet with space for all things to forsake us, A bitter delusion, a dream from which naught can awake us. Till Death’s dogging footsteps at morn or at eve shall o’ertake us. —[H. Rider Haggard. HUMOROUS. A cheap thing in summer hats—a dude’s head. The honey bee is a regular merchant. It cells combs for a living. Mexico’s liabilities are $151,030,000; assets, earthquakes and revolutions. The flower known as the bachelor’s button must be one that does not stay on long. The oyster is like a man in one re¬ spect. He is of little use until you get him out ol his bed. In a French agricultural school: “Tel! me, I pray you, how to keep mutton fresh. “By never killing the sheep.” Some portion of the mining operations in Mexico, about which we hear so much, consists in attempts to under¬ mine the government. In Washington last week a prisoner passed off a counterfeit dollar on a po¬ lice magistrate in payment of the fine imposed. He knew that justice was blind. Some Florence ladies have given the Queen of Italy an $800 fan. It is very beautiful, but when Margarita wishes genuine comfort she uses a two-cent palm leaf. Jack (backward in his grammar) it Papa, what part of speech is woman?’’ l tiuiu a rciVtrt c llivull with mamma, in which, Ol course, he has been badly worsted)—“She isn’t any part of speech at alt, Jack; she is the whole of it.” Prices in the Old Bays. B, Gedney, of White Plains, N. Y., who was born in 1801, tells what farmers had to pay for farming utensils before the war of 1812 and what they were paid f 0 r their produce. Ho said: “Wheat in 1812 brought seventy-five cents a bushel. Nowit is ninety cents, lower than it has been since 1812. Beef brought $5 a hundred; now it brings $10. Pork brought $3 50 to $4; now it is worth $7. Butter was worth ten cents a pound, now it is worth fifteen cents. Cheese was worth six cents. Ordinary dress muslin used to cost three shillings and sixpence a yard—eighty-seven cents —now it costs ten cents. Calico cost fifty and seventy-five cents a yard. Pins cost three shillings and sixpence a paper —eighty-seven cents—now they cost six cents. For an English spade we used to send three bushels of wheat to market, which brought $3. We can get a better one now for fifty cents. A scythe cost $3, now a better one can be had for fifty cents. Nails were twenty-five cents a pound,they cost now only eight cents. A cradliug scythe used t0 C03 t $3 50. Wages were then fifty cents a day, or $10 a month for eight months. Now we pay $15 and $30 a month, 11 N Beef Cattle and Pianos. A curious result in the boom in beef cattle is that all Mason Valley is becom ing filled up with pianos, Evc-ry house has a piano, and in some houses there are two,one for the kitchen and another for the parlor, A man who came jn from that section, having gone over there to look after a small lot of beef cattle, says that he came near not getting to Hawthorne in time for the train on account of being delayed at the house of the rancher with whom he was stopping. The woman of the house hammered out several tunes for him in the parlor, while he was supposed to be waiting for his supper. When she got through he was still obliged to wait nearly an hour because the help were having a concert in the kitchen.— [Virginia (Nev.) Enterprise. Get Along Willi Economy. “You know, of course,” said the old man to the young man, “that my daug ter has $100,000 in her own righ “Yes, sir. II t « And you are not worth a cent.” “I’in poor, sir, but, great Scott, $100, 000 is enough for two l Why, I’m economical to meanness.” — [Now York Suu. Consoling. Collector. “I am losing a great deal of titn : trying to c dlect this bill from y.m.’ Dibtor. “Don’t worry about losing time. I’m going to pay you in lime."—< [Siftings.