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Seeds and Words.
I dropped a seed beside a path,
ADd went my busy way,
Till chance or fate—I say not which—
Led me, one summer day,
Along the self-same path, and lo!
A flower blooming there,
As lair as eye has looked upon,
And sweet as it was fair.
I dropped a sympathetic word,
Nor stayed to watch it grow,
j.' or little tending’s needed when
The seed is good we sow;
But once I met the man again,
And by the gladsome way
He took my hand I knew 1 sowed
The best of seed that day.
Working for Uncle Sam.
A WOMAN CLERK S STORY.
The life of a feminine clerk in one of
the Government Departments at Wash
jngtoo is not by any means a bad ex-
istenee. I have tried it and speak from
experience.
One day not long ago I found my
way to the office of the Secretary in the
Interior Depart meat, A colored man
of great dignity sat outside of the door,
ail( j upon my entrance into the ante-
room rose respectfully and, taking my
I c^rrd waved me to a scat to await re*
suits while he disappeared through a
doorway opposite me.
In a few minutes I was ushered into
a large room, half office, half library,
aiK i facing a dignified gentleman who
rose and politely asked me to be seated.
He still held in his hand the letter I
had sent in by the porter together with
my card, the black border of which
looked as strange and forlorn as my
life was then. In as few words as pos-
sible 1 told him my history up to that
moment and why I had applied to him.
Would he give me a position as a clerk
in the Department?
He silently turned over several pack¬
ages of paper lying on the desk beside
him, and then said: ‘‘Do you know
your application makes 1001 that I
now have before mo, asking for clerk-
ships in this Department?”
One thousand and one! How quickly
a favorite waltz, “One Thousand and
One Nights!” The room and the man
before me faded before another vision—
a group of gay young girls dancing to
the music of that waltz as it dripped
from my careless fingers. “One Thou¬
sand andjOne Nights!” Less than that
many nights before I had been one of
a party listening to that music played
by a German band, “Under the Lin-
den” in Germany, loved and cared for,
with no thought of sorrow.
I was brought sharply back to the
present, with its bitter contrast, by the
entrance of the porter, followed by two
gentlemen. The Secretery shook my
hand as a farewell, and promising
to send me an answer in the morning,
bade 'h e porter see me safely to the car
in the next street. In arranging my
veil a watch guard unclasped and
dropped with a rattle to the floor. One
of the gentlemen who had just entered
picked it up, and looking significantly
at it and then to the Secretary, handed
it to me. It was the square and com¬
pass set m large white diamonds, be¬
longing to my husband. Ido not know
whether that little incident helped me
to gain my position or not, but have
thought possibly it did, as I saw the
same design hanging from a chain worn
by the Secretary of the Interior.
Next morning the bell boy brought a
note and a large official document con¬
taining my appointment to a clerkship
in the Pension Office at a salary of
$1003 a year. I was to go the follow-
ln g Monday morning at 0 o’clock for
examination and to be assigned to a
room with others thus employed. . The
next two days were spent in search for
a boarding-house. Of these I found
plenty, but at not one desirable place
could 1 get room and board without that
all-important thing, some recommenda-
tion, a thing I had never once even
dreamed of having.
I think my experience those two days
ought to be written, and would be in¬
toresting, to say the least, to students
of human nature. My only crime, un-
, fdness or whatever you may term it,
ns expressed or hinted, was my being
“so young,” “so pretty *» and “a
widow! ’ Think of it. I wished most
heartily that day that I might be old,
gray and hideously ugly. I am gad
there were no wicked fairies about that
could change peop e at their own wish.
1 fear I should hare been left repent¬
ing, a clerk to this day in that old
g-oomy building on the avenue. As I
could not change my facj, and certain¬
ly it was not my forture, 1 decided to
change my tactics, and through the
means of the telegraph I was enabled
to secure satisfactory references, even
for that particular and pampered class,
Washington landladies.
On the Mtoday following I went to
a building on Tenth street—I think the
same one where President Lincoln was
carried mortally wounded; if not, it
was next door to it—where the exam¬
inations were held. In answer to my
rap I was admitted to a long, low-
ceiled ro< m filled with writing tables
and chairs. At one of these tables
two ladies were busily bending over
pen and ink, evidently undergoing the
ordeal through which I must pass. A
short, stout gentleman with a pair of
large green glasses surmounting his
nose looked over my paper of appoint¬
ment, and giving me a chair at one of
the vacant desks, put before me seme
printed questions. I think I passed
creditably, for I was not requested to
rewrite or given any hints, as one of
the other two was.
While my pipers were being folded
and written upon I looked with curi¬
osity at my comrades. One was un¬
doubtedly a “schoolmarm.” It showed
for itself in many ways. Tall, thin,
plain, with an intellectual face, She
wrote carefully and without study her
answers to the questions and folded her
papers with a precision and neatness
that spoke well for any work entrusted
to her, and made me feel green with
envy. Both ladies had reached that
stage in life called one of “uncertain
age.” Why uncertain I could never see
plainly. But the other writer interest¬
ed me. A lady without doubt; once
“of the world,” but of it no more, was
written plainly on the strong, thought,
ful face and iu the diguititd, queenly
figure. Age and care had lined the
once handsome face and whitened the
hair. Later I learned her history
and that my surmises were correct.
By a stroke of fate our desks were next
to each other for many m nths and
through her eventually my life’s story
was changed. She was the widow of a
once noted army officer. Through the
carelessness of trustees her fortune was
swept away. The same government
that honored her husband while living
soon gave her means of earning her
bread. A bill had been introduced in
congress to give her a suitable pension,
but was delayed and seemed almost
hopelessly cast aside, Later it was
granted and she gladly resigned her
position to others more needy and less
interesting.
Wc all three left that building and
went to the pension office on Twelfth
street. It was a relief to me to be
with the two older ladieq and they
both assumed a care aud helpfulness
that I have never ceased to remember
gratefully. Another office, with several
desks, occupied by men busily writing
and messengers coming in and going
out, carrying papers, We waited some
time, and at last, our papers being seen
and approved, we were given cards,
with our name and number of building
and room thereon. The “school¬
teacher” said “good-by” and went to
another building, while the other lady
and myself followed a messenger up a
flight of stairs and into a large, well-
lighted room. It was filled with desks,
men, women and chairs, and all swam
in a confused circle before my frigkt-
ened eyes. In a moment of composure
1 began counting, and found .that there
were eighty clerks assigned in this
room, seventy of whom were men and
ten women, The desks were arranged
in rows, as at school, eight rows, with
six in a row.
The ladies (all, with one exception,
looked like ladies) had the lightest,
warmest side of the room and were in a
;ow by themselves, The scratch of
pens, or rattling of papers, with an oc-
casional subdued remark, was all that
broke the silence. At the end of the
room and facing the others were the
desks of the Chief and Assistant Chief
of the division. I almost expected to
see a pples, knives and marbles there; it
seemed like a “grown-up” school-room
over which two teachers presided. A
soldierly looking gentleman cams for¬
ward, and offering chairs, looked at
our cards. In a few minutes we were
shown the ladies’ cloak-room, a small,
neat room, cared for by an eideriy
colored woman (once a maid to one of
the mistresses of the White House), and
upon our return were given desks at the
end of the line of ladies.
The work was making out papers
f< r pension cases, eopy.ng old war
records and trying to rewrite the rec¬
ords of the revolutionary war. Theso
last were really interesting, containing
many quaint historical facts, that lie
hidden in the old yellow parchments.
In one of the payrolls was pinned a
receipted hill, made out to “George
Washington for ye shoeing of one
horse” by one “Pliineas Seely.” i
have forgotten the amount, but the
debt was paid. There were many
funny applications for pension?, the
reasons for applying being absurd be¬
yond belief. One old fellow applied
because “his wife’s first husband had
been killed in battle, and he, having
married her and endured her temper
and bad cooking for many years, until
death released her from this world
and himself from the two above trials,
he desired a pension on that ac¬
count.”
1 From 9 in the morning until 4 iu the
afternoon we wrote at our desks, with a
half hour for lunch, every day but Sun¬
day. Of the men employed as clerks
nearly ail had suffered in some way
from the war, through which most had
passed. Some few were there through
influence. Of the twelve (counting the
last two assigned) women employed,
eight were widows, either wives or
daughters of men killed in battle. The
four young women were orphans. The
most perfect decorum prevailed and I
can assert that no lady could fail to be
treated with greater respect by all with
whom she may come in contact.
I speak from only a brief month’s
experience, but in that time, on account
of rapid penmanship, I was sent from
one room to another to assist in work
needed in a hurry, I saw and heard
enough of the different people to write
many novels that would verify the old
adage that “truth is stranger than fic¬
tion .”—New York World.
Peculiar Prescriptions.
is We have the queerest kind of pre¬
scriptions callel for sometimes,” said a
pharmacist a few days since, “Not
very many days ago a reputable physi¬
cian sent to ask me if I could get him
some of the virus from a bee sting, to
be used, I think be said, in scarlet
fever. And another physician once
told me that he had secured marvellous
results in a case where powerful opiates
had failed, by using virus from the bite
of a rattlesnake.
“But the mass of queer prescriptions
are brought in by ignorant people, and
are not vouched for by any member of
the medical profession. Not long ago
a young colored man brought in a bit
of paper that called for nearly twenty
different substances, among which were
a lock of hair from the head of a baby,
five whole black peppers, the tooth of
a cat, a nail from the left hind paw of
a dog, a bit of gum bezoin, and a drop
of blood from the veins of a living
man. All these were to be put to¬
gether at midnight when the moon was
in a certain quarter. To be taken in¬
ternally? Oh, bles3 you, no. It was
to be worn in a bag about the neck,
and was, I fancy, the relic of some old
superstition of plantation days.”— N.
Y. Sun.
Migration of Big Game.
Some of the Maine hunters report
that the caribou are fast leaving the
Maine forests aud arc going north into
Nova Scotia. John Darling informs
us that John Francis of the Trout
Brook region and Captain Barker of the
Rangeley lakes, two well-known hun¬
ters, report that the caribou have been
leaving their localities for the past five
years and now only a stray one is found
in the woods. The deer, on the con¬
trary, are growing more plentiful in
these parts and are fast leaving the
Macbias and Union river region. The
hunters are unable to assign any reason
for these movements of game .—Bangor
{Me.) Commercial.
The Question is Unanswered.
“You are an authority on feats of
strength, I believe?” remarked a stran¬
ger to the sporting editor,
The latter bowed, and replied:
“What can I do for you?”
“I wish you would tell me which is
the stronger, the female shoplifter or
the woman who holds up a train?”—
if unity's Weekly.
The Best He Could Do.
Mrs. Brown—What made you chalk
your name on my new table?
Little Johnnie—Cause I’d lost my
jackknife. ’’— Epoch.
ARCTIC SEALING.
How The Newfoundland Hunt¬
ers Capture Their Prey.
Slaughtering the Animals
Among the Icebergs,
Describing what he saw while on a
Newfoundland sealing vessel among
the northern ice floes, a writer in the
New York Times says: As the morn¬
ing brightened out the seals could be
seen with the naked eye, scattered here
and there in little coveys and lying
quite still. How glorious the sight
was when the clear, bright sun arose
out of the distant east! Everywhere
Mi uhed a white gleaming field; the
summits of the bergs sentineling the
flue caught the sun first and fairly
quivered and scintillated in flame.
The side turned to the east was burn-
ing gold; the side away from the sun
was a steel blue. Biids which make
these icy peaks their home till they
reach their breeding haunts further in
the south rose and circled iu swarms
about the top of the berg. But when
the sun rose about the smooth-ice level
it sent long spears of yellow fire, so
numerous and so bright that you could
not look at the pathway of scintillating
light.
It needs no orders from the Captain
to get the men out on ,ho ice such a
morning as this. Every man cf them,
except the regular crew, sailed forth,
his gaff in his hand. The gaff is a
weapon with a stout wooden handle
and a steel spear and gripping con¬
trivance at the end. This is the hun-
ter’s weapon of slaughter. He carries
a coil of rope on his shoulder and his
great knife in his belt.
He has no fear on this floe, for all
the armies of the world and all their
horses may vest upon it with safety. It
consists of a vast agglomeration of
“pans” or “cakes,” frozen together and
compact except when the floe begins to
break up. Ocean ice always foims in
this way, and never in great sheets, as
on rivers and still water. The wintry
ocean waves are forever in motion,
which would break up large areas of
thin ice. The bergs are regular ocean
wanderers and get imprisoned by the
flat ice, but they break away as the
spring advances and have a fondlcss for
the track of ocean ships. Of all other
floating things they are, in foggy
weather, the most deadly menace to
ships.
The writer went out for slaughter
with a great brawny hunter who soon
showed how the work was done. Here
and there on a broad ice pan was a
covey of three, four or five seals, all
sunning themselves, and apparently
sucking the ice. They have no other
food in this wilderness so far as can be
seen. They go on the ice to bring
forth their young, and also perhaps to
get a free ride down from Greenland to
Newfoundland and the shores of the
Canadian provinces.
They seldom make much effort to get
away as you come up to them, but the
hunters declare that there is a look of
terror in their soft, dark eyes, and they
have, moreover, the firm belief that the
seal sheds tears. Lifting his heavy gaff
the hunter strikes the animal on the
head, strikes every one of them in the
group, then taking out his knife he
strips off the pelt by opening the ani¬
mal back and front down to the lean
meat. The skin, which is gray, goes
with the'blubber or fat, and the carcass
is left on the ice. These pelts are left
where they are till all the animals in a
convenient radius have been secured.
Then,tying several of the pelts together
the hunter proceeds to collect them,
putting them all together, and marking
them with a miniature flag from his
ship.
Here is the advantage of the steamer;
she can work her way up, following the
lead of the men from day to day pick-
ing up the pelts, The sailing vessel
remains where she gets fast, and the
hunters are oliged to drag their trophies
for miles over the ice. They get lame
at first from ice travel and they all get
ice blind unless they wear green gog¬
gles, as they call that kind of glasses.
The seal is not the valuable fur ani¬
mal from which ladies’ jackets and
muffs are obtained; he is known as a
white-coat, and tho fur is not in much
request, being coarse and presenting a
bristly appearance. In about a week
:he ship had over 20,000 pelts, worth
about $5 esch, and in another fortnight
had added nearly another 10.000. This
tilled her to the hatches, and the men
slept on top of the cargo, Their
clothes were saturated with seal oil and
they smelled strongly of it.
There are hosts of sea birds on the
floes, and some ^ood sport can be had.
The greenhorns looking for adventures
would go after the huge 8temmatopu3,
or hooded seal, but they usually left in
much terror. Heavy seal shot has Littlo
effect on the “dog hood.” He covers
his head and lies defiantly on the ice
before the hunter’s gun. He is nearly
as large as an or.
A curiosity is the small white fox
known as the ice fox. He comes out
to feast on the carcasses left by the
scalpers, but if there is any chance of
an off storm, which would blow the
floe off from land, he scampers shore¬
ward. He is an exccUent weather
prophet.
The Laureate’s Salary.
There has been considerable discus¬
sion in some of our journals recently,
as to who will be Lord Tennyson’s suc¬
cessor as poet laurea e. As the laureate
is at present in good health and spirits
the discussion seems not only premature
but somewhat discourteous. It is to bo
hoped it will be along while before it
will be necessary to appoint any suc¬
cessor, for there appears to be no one
fit to step into the shoes of Tennyson.
Of course, everyone has his favorite
poet, and everyone thinks his favorite
the only one fit to wear the laurel
crowu. There is, after all, but little
honor connected with the poet. It is an
ancient office. Considerable over 600
years ago, in the reign of Henry I1L,
the “King Versifier” was paid 100
shillings annually, and I do not sup¬
pose this officer occupied a higher post
than the king’s fool did in those days.
James the First paid his laureate 100
marks year, and Charles I.
increased the salary to 100 pounds,
with one tierce of Canary Spanish wine
“to bo taken out of tho King's store of
wiue3 yearly.” Tho remuneration of
the laureate has remained tho same ever
since, but I am not clear whether Lord
Tennyson still draws a tierce of wino
annually from tho cellars at Windsor
Castle. I should think in all proba¬
bility he received the money value for
it. The laureate is scarcely expected to
sing to order in the present day. If
he were his salary is
terribly insufficient. It must bo
borne in mind that £100 a year
in the uays of Charles I. was a very
different thing to £100 in 3890. Why,
an industrious versifier could easily
make that sum by contributing to tho
journals and magazines of the day.
However, it is an age for the abolish¬
ment of ancient offices, old customs and
venerable institutions, and I should not
be at all surprised if, wheu Lord Ten¬
nyson has done with the post, it should
be abolished.
A Jeweller’s Superstition.
Nearly every jeweller, says one of the
craft in the Atlanta Journal, lays down
a rule never to credit anybody for a
clock or watch or anything that keeps
time. I don’t know why this is and
never heard any good reason assigned
for it, but nevertheless it is a fact.
And, moreover, we firmly believe that a
watch or a clock that is brought to us
for repairs or regulating will never keep
good time if the owner docs not pay
cash for the job. You know we do a
big credit business. I suppose jewel¬
lers do a larger credit business than any
other c’ass of merchants, and it no
doubt seems surprising that we have a
c’ass of trade that is barred from the
credit list on account of a superstition.
Showing His Itespect.
In Russia, it is customary for all
laymen, the emperor himself included,
to show their outward respect for tho
church by kissing the hands of its min¬
isters. On one occasion it is related
that a village priest, receiving a grand
duke at his church door, and having no
experiences of such exalted personages,
hesitated to offer him his hand; the
grand duke, getting impatient, ex¬
claimed: “Stretch out your paw, you
fool!”— Argonaut.
Thinks She is Still a Slave.
Mrs. Divens of Lee county, Ga., has
an old negro woman who does not
know that she is free. When freedom
dawned upon the negroes, and they all
started to leave, this old woman, who
is deaf and cannot talk well, could not
be made to understand it, and she has
not found it out to this day, and U
still living on the old plantation. —
Atlanta Constitution.