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Thanksgiving Day. When the orchards with blossoms are blushing, Pfie willows unrolling their leaves, And the fields the tender wheat flushing, 'that soon would be waving with sheaves, Not then went the toiler to labor, The task of subduing the earth, With the sound of the pipe and the tabor, With anthems of joyance and mirth. Nor yet when processional flowers Passed on through the light or the gloom, When the vivid and pioturesque hours Laughed out in a splendor of bloom. When the oriole, royal and golden, Flashes lot th like a jem in the sun, Still man by stern duty was holdeu, Not yet was the victory won. When the vines on the trellis was burdened With cluster’s all purple and sweet, When the hand of the worker w-as guerdoned With bounty ot harvests complete ; When wide over mountain and valley The banners of autumn, unfurled In a vast and magnificent rally, Shed lustre and pomp o’er the world ; — Then, pausing to think of the story Of promise, fulfillment and cheer, The hope and the faith and the glory, The crown of the beautiful year, From tbe stress of our care-weighted living, The strain of our hurrying days, We break and uplift a thanksgiving To God, who is worthy of praise. And what if the storms lie beforo us, The days that are weary and cold, Since the 1 >ve that is vigilant o’er us Guards ever the young and the old, Still answers the earnest endeavor With more than a measured reward, And suffers our weariness never To slip from the grasp of the Lord. So, silvered-haired father and mother, So, middle-aged sturdy and strong, So, dear little sister and brother, Join voices and hearts in the song ; To the sound of the pipe and the tabor Weave chorals of gladness and mirth, For the toiler may rest from his labor, And plenty hath dowered the earth. JACK’S MISTAKE. A THANKSGIVING STORY*. “We must try to keep Thanksgiving Day after a fashion,” sighed Mrs. Spikenard to her daughter Florelia; “though, to'be sure, two poor chickens and a bought pie won’t be much of a dinner. “IIow different it used to be in the country, where we used to kill the fattpst gobbler in the flock for Thanks¬ giving dinner, and made pumpkin pies with scuds of fresh eggs and rich milk in ’em ! An’ fur vegetables, we had .sweet potatoes, an’ squash, an’ pickled cabbage, an’— But, law ! it’s different in the city—that is, if you ain’t made of money ! The markets are lined with turkeys *u fowls of all kinds, an’ vegetables by the wagon¬ load; but it takes a forchin to get 'em a’most. I give thirty-five cents fur them two pore-lookin’ chickens, an’ ten fur that little measure of turnips. I did want to git a few cramberries fur sass, but Jack had sot his heart on havin’ a pie, so I got one.” Mrs. Spikenard shook her head as she turned over the contents of the little worn market-basket on the kitchen table. “Oh, we can make quiet a nice din ner of these,” said Florelia, lifting up the chickens; “and I have a nickel left, We can buy a dish of jelly with it. I walked home to-night, and saved it on purpose.” “But it won't seem quite like a Thanksgiving dinner unless we have some one to help us eat it,” persisted Mrs. Spikenard. “I’ve alius been used to havin’ the house full on Thanks giving Day, an’ it don’t seem jest right to set down an* eat what we’ve got all by ourselves.” “There’s old Mr. Barber, that lives up in the third story,” suggested Flor- ella. “He’s us poor as we are, if not poorer. Suppose we ask him to eat dinner with us?” “Why, to-be-sure,” said her mother, brightening up. “I’ll send Jack up to ask him as soon as he come3 in.” The Spikenards occupied two tiny rooms in the back part of a respectable three story house in Cote Brilliante. The rooms were small and not very comfortable, to-be-sure, but they were decent and cheap, and poor as they were it took about all Florelia could earn as “saleslady,” in a commercial house down town, to pay the rent and buy food, fuel and clothing for herself, her mother, and eight-year-old Jack, who went to school, and wore out more jackets and trowsers than he was worth, so his mother declared. Jack soon came in from the bakery, where he had been sent for a loaf of bread, and was at once dispatched to invite old Mr. Barber to the Thanks¬ giving dinner the next day. Mrs. Spikenard was setting the ta¬ ble for supper, and Florelia was cut¬ ting the loaf of bread, when he came running back. “All right, mother ! Mr. Barclay says he’ii come.” “Mr. Barclay /” cried Florelia. “Mr. Barclay !” shrieked the widow. “Oh, Jack, you never asked him!" “Yes, I did,” declared Jack, boldly. “W'hy, you told me to ask him !” “I said Mr. Barber, you dreadful boy! And now, what are we going to do?” Florelia began to cry. “Two little chickens as big as par¬ tridges, and a few miserable turnips and a pie. Oh, Jack, Jack! what made you do such a thing?” “Well, shall I go back and tell him not to come?” asked the boy, prac¬ tically. “No, no—of course not !” cried his sister, drying her tears and beginning to laugh at the ridiculous side of the affair. “We must make the best of it now of course; but what will he think of us? I can stuff these mis¬ erable little fowls with some stale bread-crumbs,” she added, as her mother looked hopelessly on. “And we must polish up our bits of silver and ‘ put the best foot foremost;’ but it will be a ridiculous Thanksgiving dinner, after all.” Mr. Bernard Barclay was a bach ellor, well-to-do, and good-looking, Florelia admitted, who occupied the second-story front-room in Mrs. Loyd’s house, and took his meals at a restau¬ rant, as Mrs. Loyd only kept “room¬ ers”—that is, she let lodgings only, without board. Mr. Barclay had frequently bowed to Mrs. Spikenard, as they met in the halls or on the stairway, and had even exchanged a few words with Florelia, on the front steps; and once he had brought her home from the street-car under his umbrella, during a heavy ■ ra i n But what would he think of them for inviting him to a Thanksgiving dinner?—and such a dinner, tool Florelia lay awake half the night puzzling her head over this problem. The sun shone out on a clear, frosty Thanksgiving Day, the next morning, and Florelia and her* mother were bustling about, putting the little ; rooms in holiday order, when shuffling steps came up the stairway, a thump j j n g knock sounded on the door, and a shock-headed boy asked: j “Mrs. Spikenard live here?,’ j “Yes, said the widow, wonderingly. “That’s my name.” j “This here’s fur you, then. Nothin’ j to pay.” And having deposited a well li led market-basket on the table, the boy shuffled away, leaving the widow and her daughter staring at each other with astonishment. “It’s a mistake!” cried Florelia. Rut no, there was a card, with Mrs. Spikenard’s name and number, care¬ fully attached to the basket; and hav¬ ing made sure it was meant for them, Florelia fell at once to rifling it of its contents. “A twenty-pound turkey, I do be¬ lieve! Just look, ma! and half a pumpkin! A paper of sugar. Eggs — two dozen of ’em at least—and sweet potatoes. Half a dozen lemons; now I can make some lemon-pies. And raisins, and currants, and citron, and ginger. What else, I wonder? This is sage, for the dressing, and here’s a bucket of something—oysters! And a paper of cranberries—and that’s all. But who could have sent them?” Florelia and her mother stared blankly at each other, while Jack helped himself to currants and raisins, unrebuked. “If ’twa’n’t fur the oysters an’ lem¬ ons, 1 sh’d think ’tvvas sister Sary sent ’em,” said Mrs. Spikenard, at last,” “It’s a God-send to us, anyway, wherever it came from,” declared Flo rella. “And I’m going to get dinner right away. And now we can ask old Mr. Barber, too, after all. The twenty-pound turkey was soon sputtering in the oven, and the aro¬ matic odor of lemons and spice filled the little kitchen and floated out through the hallway, penetrating even to Bachelor Barclay’s very door. The dinner was a success. The oys¬ ter soup, roast turkey, the sweet pota¬ toes, the lemon and pumpkin pies and cranberry sauce were cooked to perfec¬ tion, and Mr. Barclay could not Help contrasting his ionely dinners* at thu restaurant with this cozy meal; with kind-hearted Mrs. Spikenard presiding over the coffee-urn, and pretty, violet¬ eyed Florelia busy helping every one but herself. Old Mr. Barber, too, with his digni¬ fied, old-school manners, was no de¬ traction to the merry party around the well-spread board. And when it was all over, and Bachelor Barclay had gone to smoke a cigar in the solitude of his own room, he mentally decided, as the blue wreaths curled over head, that “it was not good for man to be alone.” In fact, before many moons had come and gone, pretty Florelia Spiken¬ ard had resigned her situation as “saleslady,” and assumed the more re¬ sponsible position of housewife, with the matronly title of Mrs. Bernard Barclay. And not until then, did Mr. Barclay confess that he had sent the basket which had so puzzled Florelia and her mother. “I overheard your conversation, when you discovered Jack’s blunder,” he confessed, “and, of course, on learn¬ ing the circumstances, I thought it was only my duty to help you out of the dilemma.” And Florelia only laughed at her husband’s explanation, and declared she had suspected him all along. But a load was lifted from Mrs. Spikenard’s mind, for, according to her own confession, “she couldn’t skeerse lev sleep o’ nights, fur wondering where on ’arth that basket come from.”— Helen Whitney Clark. A straight line is the shortest in morals as in mathematics. — Maria Edgeworth. A Remarkable Experience. Mr. Arkcil, editor of the Albany Jour¬ nal,. who is only tnirty-one years of age, has a most remarkable history, writes a correspondant of the New \ ork World. lie is the son of Senator Arkell. He was in his father's factory when he was seventeen years of age, at the moment of a terrible gasoline explosion. The workman who was with young Arkell was blown out of sight. Not together enough was left of him to be gathered Arkell, who for identification. Young covered his did not lose consciousness, for mouth and eves, and made a dash the door. The building in which the explosion took place became filled at once with black smoke. The boy butted his way with his head through five doors, going literally through fire. In his passage he became frightfully burned. The time of the ac¬ cident was winter. When he finally reached the outer air he rolled in the snow, and left in the snow the front and back of both of his hands and the cover¬ ing of much of the lower part of his face. He was burned so hopelessly that the doctors for along time despaired of him. Senator Arkell, who was on one of the upper floor-; of the building when the explosion took place, escaped by drop¬ ping from a window down a fall of twenty-five feet upon a strip of bare rock. His son was in bed for two years. His face was so badly burned that it was im¬ possible for the natural skin to recover it. Ilis hands were equally afflicted. Senator Arkell discovered in his reading experiments in the direction of trans¬ planting skin from one person to another. He asked the surgeons in charge of his son to try this experiment. The result was one of the most interesting known in the chapters of surgery. Upon the face of young Mr. Arkell there were transplanted 85t> pieces of skin from the arms of various people. The result is that his face was entirely built up, so that to-day, while he bears very heavy scars, he yet looks very well, considering what he has been through. Mexican Peculiarities. The Mexicans exhibit perplexing ele¬ ments of character. They are industri¬ ous, but not thrifty. While Mexico is the market for the cheapest and most inforior goods, tLo population Is addict¬ ed to vanities of a luxurious and costly nature, to which the import trade con tributes very little except jewelry. Hats of uncut felt of gray colors, and adorned with silver embroidery, costing five to titty dollars, are everywhere met with. Saddles and bridles costing $100 to $500 are in general use. The country is full of small silver coin used for buttons and often as ornaments down the outside seam of the pantaloons. The national vanity shows itself among the beggars as well as the most profligate reduce class. Women will go without food, or their subsistence to beans and bread or take chances in the lottery, and the men will expend their last dollar on a mag¬ nificent sombrero. No country affords a more deeply interesting study, and while it is difficult to perceive that it is making any progress at all so far as re¬ gards the great body of the population, it is easy to see that it is patiently evolv¬ ing ideas of what a better condition means. The chronic disposition to defer every¬ thing to manana, and the slow, moving thought and physical action so annoying while to Europeans and Americans alike, it adds to the cost of every article in trade, is not wholly without reason in this peculiar climate. At the high alti¬ tude of the Mexican plateau, 7,000 to 9,000 feet above sea level, along which the Central railroad is built, the air is thin and dry, intensely Tariffed, evapora¬ tion is rapid, oppression of the heart common to all strangers, and physical and mental exertion lias limits that seri¬ ously interfere with business energy. The fact is so pronounced that it is something of a problem itself without reference to other obstacles, whether any* foreign colonization will ever sustain it¬ self on this plateau. —Boston Bulletin. A Novel Time Piece. A Salt Lake City jeweler has invented a novel time piece in the shape of a steel wire stretched across his window, on which a stuffed canary hops from left to right, indicating as it goes the hours of the day by pointing with its beak to a dial stretched beneath the wire and When having it the figures from 1 to 24. reaches the latter figure it glides across the window to 1 again. There is no visible mechanism, ail being inside the bird. The inventor says he was three years in studying it out.