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NORTH GEORGIA TIMES.
Vol. VII. New Series.
Who Knows?
June leaves are green, pink is the rose,
White bloom the lillies; yet who knows,
Or swears he knows the reason why I
None dare say—“l”
The oriole, flitting, sloops ariiC sips
A soft, sweet kiss from the lily’s lips;
Who taught the oriole to steal so?
None sav they know.
Whether the oriole stops and thinks,
Or whether he simply stoops and drinks,
Baying it only suits him well;
This who can tell?
We marvel whither this life stream tends,
And how remote are its hidden ends;
But life and loving soon slip over
Time and the lover,
A kiss is all; a sip and a song;
A day .s short, and a year not long,
Loving would double—but thinking stole
Half from tbo whole.
—[James Herbert Morse.
An Unexpected Result
BY HELEN FOKREST GRAVES.
“Mary I Mary!”
The landlady’s voice echoed shrilly
down the deserted hallway of the
King’s Cross hotel.
Deserted, we say, for at this time of
the year little traveling patronage was
vouchsafed to King's Cross.
The postmaster boarded at the hotel,
and the town clerk had room there,
and the fanners dined there of market
days (which only came once a week),
but the arrival of a real live guest from
the railway station, four miles away,
always created a flutter.
King’s Cross was a dreary little
hamlet, scattered, in an inconsequent
fashion, along the ragged Maryland
coast, with a round lighthouse, whose
eye of revolving flame glared wickedly
out to sea of stormy nights; there was a
bathing beach, more or less washed
away by the capricious tides, and an
irregular street of old stone house's and
wooden cottages.
Thero was a post office, a village store,
and an ancient stone church, whose
graveyard, on a steep side-hill, seemed
to be slipping down the bank, in a suc
cession of rude terraces, until its down¬
ward course was promptly arrested by a
hedge of gnarled and hoary yew, at the
foot.
And this was King’s Cross—one of tho
oldest and ugliest villages on the Mary¬
land coast.
“Mary! I say, Mary, where are you?”
Once more Sirs. Yorltc’s voice scut its
cracked burden down the paved hall, and
a tall, pretty girl came hurriedly up
through the tall, purple spikes of the
lilac-trees in the bai k garden.
“Wero you calling me, Mrs. Yorke?
Oil, I am very sorry, but—”
“Calling you!” Mrs. York put her
hand plaintively lo her throat, and
rolled her eyes tip toward the ceiling, by
way of evincing great mental and physi
cal prostration, “CaUing you! And
where, may I venture to ask, have you
been?”
Mary Folyott was a pale, violet-eyed
girl, with hair of the ical Scotch gold, a
delicate profile, and sensitive red lips.
“I—I have been to the graveyard,”
she murmured, “with some wild roses
and white lilies. Oh, Mrs. Yorke, par¬
don me! I ran both ways; but it was
Decoration Day, and I did not want his
grave to be desolate and neglected,
while every one elsu’s was loaded with
flowers.”
“Mary Folyott, I’m surprised at you!"
said Mrs. I orke. “Hos dead and bur¬
ied, and, by all accounts, though I never
saw the young man, you couldn’t treat
him decently while ho was living. I
don’t think it signifies much about flow¬
ers now that he’s gone. And you’re
hero, I beg you to remember, to work
for me, and not to carry flowers to other
folkses’ graves!”
Mary Folyott hung her head; but she
was well accustomed to eat the bitter
bread of dependence.
How brief a while ago it was that she
was tho petted darling of fortune 1 Nov/,
orphaned, penniless and v alone, she was
drudge-in-chief to Mrs. Yorke, of the
King’s Cross Hotel, her father’3 second
cousin.
“Come, make haste!” said Mrs. Yorke.
“There's a gentleman came in the nine
o’clock stage. He’s in Number Nine¬
teen, and he wants his breakfast, and
old Cassy’s got the toothache, and won’t
lift a finger. Stir up some muffins and
fry some eggs, there’s a dear, and I’ll be
broiling chicken and getting tho coffee
ready.”
Mechanically Mary obeyed. It was
rather a monotonous life for a girl of
eighteen; but after all Mrs. Yorke was
fairly kind in her way when there was
no especial hurry, and when Cassy, the
cook, did not aggravate her, or Mr.
Yorke give way to his particular failing
of too much Bourbon whiskey.
Mary stood in tho cool shadows of the
vine leaves that veiled tfee milk-room
The muffins were baked, the eggs fried
to the exact shade of golden brown, and
the breakfast for “the gentleman in
Number Nineteen” safely off her mind,
when Mary Folyott stole down to the
graveyard once more, with a basket of
delicious white rhododendrons, which a
little colored girl had just brought her
from the woods.
“I done knowed yo’ loved white po¬
sies, missce," said Cora Anne, who was
in Miss Folyott’s class at Sunday school,
“so I done brung yo' dese yar!”
It was golden noontide now; the clus¬
ters of sweet fern exhaling aromatic
scents; the cows standing in the shadow
of hazel copses; the ocean sparkling like
a plain of blue diamonds.
The task of decorating the graves—
for which King’s Cross usually turned
out with a band, a covered wagon, and
a concourse ot straggling villagers—
would not commence until three o’clock.
“They shall see that he has not been
forgotten,” said Mary, as she toiled along
under the bowery apple branches, and
past the rippling music of the little
brook. “Oh, Hugh—my Hugh—if only
I could recall one short hour of the
pastl"
Site strewed the white rhododendrons
on the green sod, as the words escaped
involuntarily from her lips.
“Oh, Hugh—dear Hugh—if I could
only speak to you once again 1” she
uttered, aloud.
“Speak, then, dearest Mary! My
Mary, if I were indeed dead and in
heaven, I think I could not be happier
than I am now.”
The basket of rhododendrons fell to
the ground. Mary Folyott would have
fallen, too, if she had not been caught
in a pair of strong arms.
“Darling Mary, do not turn so white!”
pleaded her lover. “I am not a ghost,
no phantom! I am Hugh Derby’s self,
alive and well, come back to lay my heart
at your feet, and claim the love that is
so precious to me. It isn’t so impossi¬
ble as you think. I’m not dead, and I
never have been dead. But the poor
fellow who had the bed next to mine in
the Accident Ward of the St. Monica’s
Hospital, died tho night they brought
him in, and the cards at our bed-heads
got accidently changed. I was No. 4,
an( l when my number was affixed
to another bed, I lost my
SPRING PLACE. GEORGIA, THURSDAY, MAY 26, 1887.
window, listening to the rush of the surf
on the shore, and watching the robins
dart in and out of the old button-ball
trees, and stirred the English muffins
with busy fingers, while her thoughts
went sorrowfully back to the grave undot
the shadow of the yew hedge, where she
had left the white lilies and the crushed
heap of fragrant roses.
“Not even a sunbeam 1” she had said,
rebelliously, as she pushed back the
gray-green yew, breaking off the
branches and bending back the spurs in
a sort of hot anger. “He shall have sun
shino on his grave—to-day, at least.”
And as Mary worked, the slow tears
trickled one by one down her cheek.
She had loved Hugh Derby very dear¬
ly, but she had a coquettish element
through her nature—like most women,
unfortunately—and he had gone away to
the far South, believing that she did not
care for him.
And then had come the dreadful rail¬
road accident, and they had brought
back his body to be buried at King’s
Cross, because the railroad corporation
owned a lot in the old churchyard, and
it was the most convenient place for the
interment of the poor victims of the
mishap. .
There they lay, side by side, their
graves marked only by rude stone
crosses, inscribed simply by the name
and death date of each sleeper.
And Mary felt that her heart was
broken and lifeless within her forever.
“Nonsense t" Mrs. Yorkc had said.
“It won’t last—nothing lasts. Why, I
had just such experience when I was a
gal. There was Abe Alcxon, as drove a
tin-peddler’s wagon, the likeliest fellow
you ever set eyes on. Me and him was
as good as engaged, but we had a spat
and parted, and the very next week he
fell over King’s Cross Cliff of a dark
night and was killed. Bless you, I felt
as if the whole world had come to an
end; but here I be now married to Hiram
Yorke, and as happy as most folks.
Hiram ain’t perfection, to be sure, but
Abe was pretty partial to old rye, too,
or he’d never have drove h ! s old horso
over King’s Cross Cliff instead o’.’round
it. And I reckon things al’ays happens
for the best, take one year with an¬
other,” contentedly added the stout ma¬
tron, as she stirred a saucepanful of
onions with a ponderous tin spoon, while
Mary Folyott winced at the unpalatable
parallel.
What was there in common between
handsome Hugh Derby and the luckless
hero who, once on a time, peddled tin
and drank too much?
identity at once. We arc not
Smith or Brown in a hospital, i
Mary—we are only Six or Four, as the
case may be. So when poor Maurice
Blenheim died, in the bed labelled ‘4,’
they turned to their books and made out
a burial certificate for Hugh Derby, one
of the victims of the railroad accident.
And before I recovered from the brain
fever that followed on the blow I re¬
ceived from the end of the car seat when
I fell they had me duly buried with all
the honors of book and bill. I couldn’t
make ’em believe that I was Hugh Der¬
by, and not Maurice Blenheim, ‘and so
I left off trying. And, after all, what
did it matter much? What charm had
life left for me?”
“But, Hugh, I loved you.”
“But, M ry, I did not know it; and
so I dawdled away the sunshiny hours on
those sweet Floridian shores, thinking
how strange it felt to be wandering
alone, like a disembodied spirit, without
any identity at all, and half disposed to
wonder for what especial uso God had
given mo back my life, when all of a
sudden the Strong desire came upon mo
to travel northward to King’s Cross—to
look upon ray own grave. Mary, I be¬
lieve to heaven it was your love attract¬
ing me like an invisible magnet. Sweet¬
heart, you have brought me back to you
and now I never shall go away without
you.”
“I—I don’t want you to!” whispered
Mary Folyott, her soft cheeks suffused
with blushes her eyes shining like, wet
stars. “Oh, Hugh, I am so very, very
happy. I haven’t deserved this, Hugh,
but I will never be silly or capricious
again.”
“Mary! Mary!” screamed tho shrill,
falsetto voice of Mrs. Yorke. “Why,
what has becomo of tlij child? She’s
here, and there and nowhere, like a
will-o’-tho wisp. Mary! is th. j you
coming up the lnnc? And Cassy sick,.
and old Betsey gone homo to hor sister’s
funeral 1 I should liko to know what is
to become of Number Ninctoen’s dinner,
with [he chickens scorching, and tho
bread-sauce to be made, and tlje cherry
. tartlets pot looked ati Y«ttuwc.-@e ^ .
too careless for anything, and—Oil, good
gracious me, sir,’’ with a prodigious
start, “I’m sure I beg a thousand pardons,
but—”
“Am I always hereafter to be known
by a number, like a lottery ticket ?’’ said
Hugh Derby, laughing. “Never mind
tho dinner, Mrs. Yorke—Miss Folyott
could tell you that I am au old friend of
hers.”
And when Mrs. Yorke heard the story,
she was quite willing to concede that
truth was stranger than fiction; and for
an instant it seemed almost possible that
Abe, the tin-peddler, might yet appear
on this mundane sphere.
“One thing wouldn’t be more im¬
possible than t’other,” said she, as she
weighed out spices for a pudding.
While Hugh and Mary, walking by
the sea, watched tho purple portals of
sunset close on the beautiful Decoration
Day which had brought such a gift of
happiness to their hearts.—[Saturday
Night.
A Temple of Serpents.
The small town of Werda, in the
kingdom of Dahomey, is celebrated for
its Temple ot Serpents, a long building
in which the priests keep upward of 1000
serpents of all sexes, which they feed
with tho frogs and birds brought to
them as offerings by the natives. These
serpents, many of them of enormous size,
may be seen hanging from the beams
across the ceiling with their heads hang¬
ing downward, and in all sorts of strange
contortions. The priests make the small
serpents go through various evolutions
by lightly touching them with a rod, but
they do not venture to touch the larger
ones, some of which are big enough to
enfold a bullock in their coils. It often
happens that some of these serpents make
their way out of the temple into the
town, and the priests have the greatest
difficulty in coaxing them back. To kill
a serpent intentionally is a crime pun¬
ished with death; and if a European
wero to kill one the authority of the
King himself would scarcely suffice to
save his life. Any one killing a serpent
unintentionally must inform the priest
of what has occurred, and go througli
the course of purification which takes
place once a year.—[St. James Gazette.
Coffee Cherries.
The fruit of the coffee tree is so like
English cherries that, it is said, most
folk would be at a loss to tell a heap of
the berries from a heap of the edible
fruit. This applies, however, only to
their outward appearance, for the berry
contains no stone, but two seeds in¬
stead. These seeds (which are carried
in a thick leathery skin, called “parch¬
ment”), after going through different
processes, become tho coffee beans of
commerce.
UNIQUE DINNERS.
Eccentricities at Dinner
Tables in the Metropolis,
Artistio Skill in Gutting Fruit and Vege¬
tables, Practioal Jokes, Etc.
“Eccentricities at the dinner-tables,”
says a New York correspondent of tlic
Detroit Post, “seems to be the rage this
season. Any startling or unique inno¬
vation appears to be welcome, The
fresh young man, who cuts a human
face on an orange and then squeezes the
fruit until the eyes weep and the mouth
drizzles, is in his glory. If ladies are at
the table, he takes greater pleasure in
exhibiting his artistic skill, A few
smile, some give vent to exclamations
of commisseration, and others preserve a
dignified silence. Peeling an orange
geometrically is anothor accomplish
mont. The yellow rind is cut in lines
with a sharp penknife until it re
sembles the “prisoner’s puzzle,” just now
attracting so much attention. The skin
is then stripped from the fruit in sec¬
tions, making quaint angles, made amus¬
ing by the explanations accompanying
them. Tho apple, the Malaga grape, the
radish, and the banana also afford much
amusement in the hands of accomplished
artists. Iudeed, one man has won such
eclat by his skill in carving vegetables
and esculents that he is known in society
as “Banana Bob.” *w
Frequently these dining-table eccen¬
tricities are turned into practical jokes.
At a little dinher given to cx-Sheriff
William Wright of Newark, N. J., at
George Hopcraft’s recently, the guests
were in a continual roar ot laughter. Tho
chocolate cream candies were stuffed
with cotton, the lemon drops wore mado
of gum guaincura, and the candied al¬
monds were filled with Tabasco sauce.
Vegetables in covered dishes were placed
' on the table with each course, and the
•guests were asked to assist in serving
/them. In removing the covers a live
eel, an enormous bullfrog, and a huge
Wizard from Lake Ontario were disclosed.
' All ' Were extremely lively. The eel
slipped within tho low-cut waistcoat of
the Sheriff, tho bullfrog landed on Fish
Commissioner Charles Murphy's shoulder
and the lizard shot into the bosom of the
wicked Senator Gibbs. An old shoe,
mildewed and rotten, was placed before
Mr. McSwyny, a well-known shoemaker.
He grew red in the face and was about
to treat the matter as a mortal insult,
wherj Park James Oliver of Paradise
turned the old shoe over,
opened a slide in the sole, and disclosed
a dozen cigars of the finest flavor. Tho
shoo was a candied dummy, mado to or¬
der. The little party became so boister¬
ous in its merriment that a police officer
of Irish descent appeared. On seeing
the condition of tho table, tho room, and
its occupants, he apologized for his in¬
trusion, saying: “Shin fane! shin fanel
I thought yoes wero having a bit of a
ruction, but it’s nothin’ but a shindy 1”
He improved the opportunity offer-d
while all heads were turned listening
to a good story to sweep the remains of
the confectionery into his capacious
coat pocket. The theft was discovered
after his departure. “If his wife gets
a chocolate cream, his mother-in-law a
lemon drop and the youngest child an
almond bean, what a happy time that
policeman will have after he gets home,”
observed the sheriff, and the hilarity was
redoubled.
I hear of dinners in tho avenue where
living canaries fly out of the pies and
where bouquets of choice flowers hooped
with diamond rings are placed at the
plate of each guest. At another enter¬
tainment tiny oil paintings on leaves of
ivory depicted scenes in the life of
each guest. Uncle Rufus Hatch dis¬
played an unmatched eccentricity prior
to his departure to Europe. He had in¬
vited a friend to dine with him in a
private room at Morelli’s. An excellent
dinner was served. At its conclusion,
and while the coffee was steaming, Rufus
called for Cubanos. They were brought.
“Now bring us a light, ” said tho ex
magnate from Wall street. The waiter
lighted a short snowy-wicked candle.
Rufus raised the china candlestick to
his mouth and lighted tho cigar. He
then replaced the stick on the table,
and to the surprise of his guest took the
lighted candle from its socket, put it in
his mouth, ate and swallowed it. He
changed not a muscle of his countenance,
but there was a merry twinkle in his
gray eyes. A similar candle was placed
before his guest, who also lighted his
cigar. When asked why he did not eat
the taper he replied that he was no Cos¬
sack. Thereupon Rufus opened liis
mouth and sent the second candle into
his stomach after the first one.
It was a week before the guest got an
explanation dles of tho mystery. The can¬
were parts of apples fashioned into
rotund shape by the expert use of a pen¬
knife, and the wicks were the meats oj
almonds pared clown and stuck into the
top of the vegetable tapers.
Unlienlthful Occupations.
When the air we breathe is contami¬
nated by stagnation, by breathing, by
fires or artificial light, such as candles,
lamps and gas, it operates as a poison
and injures the constitution, People j
seem to think that wholesome food and
drink are much more important limn
pure air, and their reason of so thinking
is becauso air is an invisible substance.
Crowds of mechanics of all kinds, are
frequently pent up from morning to
night, without even thinking of opening
their windows for a single half hour for
the admission of fresh air. When in
England ono-fifth of all the deaths are
from pulmonary consumption; in France
one-sixth; in Germany onc-seventh, and
in our own country one-eighth ;and when
we sec the carelessness on every hand
about what we breathe, it is not difficult
to discover the cause of such a fearful
mortality, and also it is not difficult to
discover the remedy. As things are now
it cannot be denied that, some occupa¬
tions are more unlienlthful than others,
and yet the differences, in a sanitary
sense, could be gneatly lessened. City
people are more subject to pulmonary
disease than those of tho country, and
this neoll not be; at least while then is
so free a circulation of pure air in the
city, a better uso could be made of what
there is.
Sedentary employments are less favor¬
able than the active kinds, yet the man¬
ner and posture can work marked modi
fleations. A dust laden atmosphere is tho
most difficult evil to face. < To environ
tho worker with a pure atmosphere is
possible, but its execution is not so easy.
Occupations that are classed as unhoalth
ful can bo made less so by properly un¬
derstanding and juacticing tho law* of
breathing.—[Health and Home.
A Curiosity of tho Unmoral
We have often seen, in school and
college annuals, tables giving the aver¬
age weight, height and mental attain¬
ments of a class of fifty, or perhaps two
hundred members; but that the personal
appearance of all tho different individ¬
uals composing the class cOuld be fo¬
cused into ono set of features, which
would combine the most prominent
characteristics of the entire number in a
single type—this might seem to be be¬
yond tho bounds of possibility. And yet
the foat, for such it may still bo called,
has been successfully performed a num¬
ber of times. An almost uncanny sensa¬
tion seizes one as he realizes that the
face which he secs as the result is neither
tho fancy sketch of an artist, nor yet tho
likeness of a friend.
The process by which tho various
portraits are transferred from their re¬
spective negatives and blended into one
resulting typo is a very complicated and
delicate one. To be sure, even in the
most successful cases, the outlines are
somewhat indefinite and hazy, but the
face itself preserves to a wonderful de¬
gree the most marked characteristics of
the group.
The art has been named composite
photography; and we should think that
our American novelists, with their par¬
tiality for character study, might herein
find an interesting field for their pens. —
[Golden Argosy. j
Adulterated Spices. !
“I know a man,” remarked a gentle¬
man this morning, “who is so conscien¬
tious that, after starting in the spice busi¬
ness at considerable expense, ho sold out
at a loss rather than continue a manufac¬
turing concern that could only be made
profitable by adulterating the manufac¬
tures and selling impure goods. There
is more adulteration in spice, he told me
than in anything else, and the making
of the adulterating agents is a business
in itself. Why it has not been long
since there was a mill over in Camden
where fruit-importing firms here, and
those that manufactured prepared cocoa
nut, sent their cocoanut shells, which
were then ground into powder and used
for adulteration. I believe the method
is to find out what you can get for your
spices and then adulterate them so you
can make a profit at the figures named.
The strength and pungency of the spice
are usually made to correspond with its
price.—[Philadelphia Bulletin.
The Wrong Boy.
“Ain’t you tho boy who passed a i
plugged quarter off on me yesterday?”
asked tho grocer, as the boy wanted two
cents’ worth of maple sugar. j j
“No, sir.”
“Well, you look like him.”
“Mebbe I do, but I’m not the one. AU
I ever done was to pass a bad fifty-cent
piece on the man next door.”—[Free
Pits*.
NO. 16.
The Poet.
He sings; and such uuscornful few as heed,
Say kindly, “Good, perhaps, but what’s the
need?"
And others mutter, “Words!
All liae been said that there is need to say.
What does he want, this piper bound to play
Before unlistening herds !”
And so the dreams that dazzled him at dawn
Decline, and as the silent night comes on,
Mad pray’r and protest cease;
Yet sickening hope through failure wffl
abide,
Until the hungry heart, unsatisfied—
In death finds its first peace.
And then—one day the wakening nations
say,
“No doubt, this man’s was an inspired lay
Bow to the laureled head!”
And then—he is bewept, and loved and
praised;
And then—enduring monuments are raised
To him long dead, long dead!
| —[Gertrude Hall, in the Cantury.
HUMOROUS.
It is a wise stock that knows its own
par.
The best illustrated paper out—A
banknote.
A flowery speech—An address before
a millers’ convention.
A leading question—“Will you take
this horse to water?"
The ocean is like a good housewife—
very tidy.
Crossed in love—The suspenders your
girl makes you.
Would it bo proper to call an alley
where a street fight has taken place an
allegory? ,
Poor people nre like oysters in one re
spect. A number of them have to sleep
in the same bed.
The base ball players, it is predicted,
will be out on strikes very frequently
during the season.
“You can’t play that on me,’’ said the
piano to the amateur, who broke down
on a difficult piece of music.
The postage stamp is particularly un¬
fortunate. When a man wauts to lick it
he attacks it behind its back.
A physician says: “If a child does
not thrive on fresh milk, boil it.” How
docs he expect a boiled child is going to
thrive?
“That’s what I call hush money" re¬
marked the man as he paid the druggist
for a bottle of paregoric to take homo to
the baby.
A youth is conscious how little his
elders know until he gets to bo an elder
himself. Then he realizes the deficien¬
cies of youth.
Customer; “Do you have ‘Night
Thoughts?’” Salesman: “No, marm,
I have to work so hard day-times, I sleep
powerful sound,"
A recent novel says: “And he went
to bed and enjoyed a sound, dreamless
sleep.” How can a man enjoy anything
when ho is unconscious?
A pretentious woman, who had proba¬
bly heard of amulets, boasted that she
“kept off all sorts of evils by wearing an
omelet about her neck.”
An exchange has an article on the
temperature of bumble-bees. We should
say that the question would largely de¬
pend on which end of the bee was tested.
.Tay Gould says that it made him very
sad to go to church when a boy. He
made a great many other men sad when
he left the church and went to Wall
street.
Husband (impatiently to wife)—“I
told you I only wanted half a cup of
tea, and, as usual, you’ve filled it up to
the top. Don’t you ki.W what half
full is?” Mother- in-law (grimly)—“She
ought to know by this time. You’ve
been half full often enough.”
Too Narrow.
There was an estimable Quaker woman
who kept a boarding-house, and was so
prospered as to be often obliged to send
some of her patrons to lodge in the
houses of her neighbors. Recently a
company of a dozen or so of Baltimore¬
ans, who had been recommended to this
lady, arrived in the city, and st once re¬
paired to her residence.
“I can give thee all board,” said she
to the Marylanders, “but thee must sleep
in Coffin's."
“What!” cried the amazed spokes¬
man.
“That is the best I can do for theej
and if thee do not like it, thee can go
elsewhere.”
And the indignant visitors went.
The Unhappy Creditor.
First student—“Where are you going,
Tom?”
Second student— * ‘To my tailor. ”
“Going to pay him what you owe
him?”
“Not much. When he wants money
he has to come to me, and then I toll
him whento come again.”—[Siftings,
________