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Influence.
The morning broke upon a sullen world;
A heavy mist encompassed sea and land;
The city’s smoke hung low on every
hand;
The roses stood with vel vet petals furled,
Like pouting maids with pretty lips half
eurled,
Waiting, with drooping heads and checks
un fanned,
Their zephyr-lovers—a dejected band;
While listlessly the languid windmill
whirled.
Then, suddenly, a ray of golden light
Fell on the earth; the gray mist slunk
away,
The smoke sped upward in majestic flight,
The zephyrs sung a merry roundelay,
The roses laughed, the windmill whirred de
light,
The sunbeams danced, and all the world
was gay.
— Emma V. Donx! in Youths' Companion.
THEIR NEW NEIGHBOR,
BY iSTE M. CLEARY.
‘Girls!’’ cried Margery Kearney,
‘‘I've seen him!—Clive Sterling!—Our
new neighbor!”
In quite a whirl of excitement Mar
gery hifl dashed into the cozy room
where her three sisters were sitting.
She was shining with rain, from the
hood of her silver-gray gossamer to the
very tips of her rubbers. The JGufly
brown curls across her forehead were
sprinkled with bright drops, and her
-cheeks were glowing from her rapid
walk.
“You did?” interrogatively cliorussed
three eager voices.
“I really did! ’
“Is he handsome?” asked Janet, who
appreciated all beauty as intensely as
-only a plain-looking person can.
I. “Intellectual-looking?” inquired Cio
'tilde, who dipped daily into Emerson,
and professed to adore Ruskin.
“Jolly?” queried little Bertie, who
was at the age when jolly people seemed
created for her especial amusement.
“No—no—no!” laughed Margery.
“Not handsome—or learned-looking—
or even jolly. He is simply the most
awkward-looking mortal 1 ever be
held!”
And she broke into a peal of heartiest
laughter at recollection of her encounter
with their new neighbor.
i » You see it was this way, girls, t 1
jerking off her gossamer, and disclosing
a form attired in a dress of chocolate
cashmere—a form that was trim, slim
and willowy as that of sweet seventeen
is apt to he. “I was running home in
a great hurry—for it’s chillier out than
you folks imagine—and just as I came
opposite the gate of ‘The Oaks,’ I
stopped very suddenly. For right there
was (he mo3t tremendous black dog I
ever saw. I said ‘Go way!’ and he
didn’t budge. I shook my umbrella at
him. He wasn’t a bit afraid. I said:
! 4 lf you don’t get out of tho way I’ll hit
youl’ and he actually grinned. There
was nothing to do but step out into the
the street—it was so muddy, too—and
walk around him. But just then—I
suppose my dilemma was apparent from
the house—down the path he came run
ning. Oh, lie looked so ridiculous! He
is about as tall as Jack's beanstalk, leau
as a lath and brown as an Indian.”
“Well! ’ exclaimed Janet. “He
must be charming.”
«i Oh?” cried Margery, going off into
a fresh paroxysm of laughter, “What
with his glasses, and his coat-tails fly
ing straight out as he rushed to my res
cue, he looked like some great, curious,
comical bird!”
“Birds don’t wear glasses,” corrected
Bertie. “Was his coat a swallow-tail?”
The appeal for information was ig
nored.
“Well, he callel off the dog, and
apologized for the monster, and—that’s
all.”
“I wish he’d offer me the use of liis
library,” sighed Clotilde.
“They say ‘The Oaks’ is a perfect
palace as far as furniture goes,” mur
mured Janet.
“I think I’ll ask him to loan me the
lovely little white pony,” decided Bcr
tie.
But this rnsh resolution was ruthless
ly crushed.
“The Oaks” had been shut up so
long—ever since the Kearncys had come
to live in the gray -green cottage near
iby. Its owner had gone abroad on ■the
death of his mother, three years ago,
leaving his handsome house in the care
of a couple of servants. But noav that
news of his return had spread, curiosity
,was rife in the fashionable suburb of
Itivcrview. And not tho least inter
osted were Clive Sterling’s new neigh
bors.
SCHLEY COUNTY NEWS.
A pleasant room this in which
sisters sat; a hemo-like room, even if
the carpet was threadbare, the chairs
venerable, the damask curtains darned
—perhaps all the more home-like for
these suggestions of social service and
experience.
Janet went on with her task of re
modeling an old dress, C.otilde went
over to (he window and looked wist
fully through the drizzling rain to the
red brick chimneys which rose above
the house which held the coveted books.
Margery, obeying a sudden impulse,
had snatched up her ever-ready sketch
book from the table, and was scratch
ing vigorously away. An ecstatic gig
gle from Bertie, who was peeping over
her shoulder, called the attention, of
the others to her work.
“What is it?” asked Janet.
Margery looked up with a nod and a
smile. “Wait a moment.’’
On her brisk pencil flew, the dimples
in her pretty cheeks deepening as her
mischievous smile grew.
“There!”
She held up the open book. The
others flocked around to her.
“Oh, Margery!”
i i He can’t look like tint l”
“What a caricature!”
Indeed, comical and grotesque was
the drawing of the long, lank figure,
with the spidery extremities, the flying
coat-tails, the tremendous goggles,
“Oh, just a trifle accentuated—not
quite a caricature,” she said, laughing
ly, as she scrawled under the picture
the words, “Oar New Neighbor. > t
“The rain is clearing off!” cried
Bertie; “I’m going to run and ask mam
ma if I mayn’t go out.”
And off she rushed.
Soon, with her kitten in her arms*
and her little spaniel at her heels, she
was out on the wet road. The rain
had quite ceased. The afternoon sun,
weary of sulking, was coining out in
splendid state. In its radiance every
drop on every clover leaf was a glitter
ing jewel, and the pools in the street
reflected bits of the brilliant sky.
On and on wandered Bertie, her scar
let skirt blowing backward, her yellow
hair tangling flossily as the breeze
caught and played with it. As she
passed “The Oaks” she paused to put
her small, inquisitive face against the
iron railing, aud peer through.
What a grand big house it was!
And how smooth aud green was the
large lawn, all lovely with beds of
bloom! And how sweet the flowers
smelled after the rain—the geraniums
and carnations, and sweet-brier, and
“I should so love to see the funny
man Sister Margery saw,” she said to
herself. And then, just as if she had
had a magical ring, her wish was grati
fi e d. For out on the main walk, not
twelve feet away, from a small side
path came Mr. Sterling.
He saw the little maiden outside the
railing—tho bright-eyed, curious face.
He liked children. He sauntered
towards the gate.
“Hello, little lassie! what is your
name?”
“Kearney, sir.”
“Oh, you’re one of the Kearney sis
ters, are you? Which one? ’
Bertie hugged her kitten more tightly
and looked very important.
“I’m not tho clever one,” she said.
He smiled.
“No?”
“No. Clotilde is the clever one.”
“Well.”
“And I’m not the good one. Janet
is the good one.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes,” with a nod. “And I’m not
the pretty one, either. Margery is tho
pretty one.”
“And you?”
“Oh, I’m the bad one. At least that
is the way Uncle Dick says we ought to
be dis-dis-distinguished!”
She w r as breathless from her strugglo
with the big -word.
“Then,” he said, laughter lighting
up lm quiet brown eyes—“then it was
Margery I saw to-day?”
“Yes, and I think,” indignantly,
“she was all wrong. I don’t think
you’re one bit awkward.”
“Eh!”
“I think you’re downright nice.
And some day—not now, because the
girls said I mustn’t, but some day, when
we’re better acquainted, I’m going to
ask you to lot me ride ou your little
white pony.”
He bowed gravely.
“Certainly.”
“JU’a so sweet!” growing friendly
and confidential. “Do you know that
last summer—keep still, Kitty Kear
ney?'’ to the pussy, -which was vrith
ingly attempting to escape—“last sum
met- Margery, who is the grandest artist
that ever lived, 1 think, made a sketch
of it when it was out at pasture. Just
wait here aud I’ll run and get it. Come
on, Twig!”
Away she scampered, her little dog
after her. Smiling amusedly, the tall,
brown gentleman by the gate awaited
her return.
In about fifteen minutes she was back
with a flat book under her arm.
‘It is in there; and he is eating
grass!’’
He took the book rather diffidently,
but very curiously, too. It could not
matter. Sketches were made to be looked
at. And this wa3 a sketch of his own
pet pony.
“By George!”
He almost dropped the book.
“Oh, please, please,” cried Bertie, in
an agony of remorse, “I quite forget
your picture was in there. What won’t
Margery say! Oh. never mind the
pony’s p cturc now!”
She snatched the book, turned, ran
home as fast as her feet would carry
her, leaving Clive S erling crimsoning
and laughing as he never had crimsoned
an 1 laughed before.
“Well, I’ve seen myself for once as
others see me, thanks to the pretty
one!”
He dropped his eye-glasses and saun
tered back to the house. For several
clays he neither saw nor heard any
thing of his neighbors. Then he
chanced to encounter Bertie.
“Oli, please, I can’t talk to you,”
the child said, “Tne girls say I’m so
unreliable. Y'ou know Margery caught
me when I was sneaking her sketch
book back, and made me tell her where
I had taken it to.”
i t And then?’
“Then,’’ confessed Bertie, with a
contrite gulp, “then she sat down and
cried!”
“Isay! No!”
“She did. There die is now! Oh,
Margery, Margery! ’ ’
The girl had come unexpectedly
around the corner. To avoid a meeting
was impossible. She was quite near
her sister and the master of “The
Oaks.”
“This is Mr. Sterling, Margery. You
know you weren’t reg-regularly intro
duced before. I’ve boen telling him
how you cried about—’’
A delicious blush of mortification,
regret, pleading, swept across Margery’s
wild-rose face. Frankly she held out
her hand, lifted her clear eyes.
“I am so sorry for having been so
rude! Will you forgivo me, if you
can? And come over and play tennis
this afternoon?”
“Thank you. Y'es!” he said.
“Why, Margery,” the others said to
her, when he, after a rattling good
game, had returned home, “he is just
splendid? ’
“Good-looking, too!”
“And a gentleman!”
“All three!” decided Margery,
promptly, as she sought the sketch ot
their new neighbor and deliberately
tore it up.
She is Mrs. Clive Sterling now.
Bertie was her bridesmaid. — The
Ledger.
A Desirable Name.
“In tho jmar 16154,’’says tho Leeds
(Eng) Mercury, “ on tho 5th day of
December, the English ship Menai was
crossing the straits, and capsized in a
gale. Of the eighty-ons passengers on
board but one was saved; his name was
Hugh Williams. One tho same day, in
the year 1785, a pleasure schooner was
wrecked on the Isle of Man. There
were sixty persons on the boat, among
them ono Hugh Williams and family,
Of the threescore none but old Hugh
Williams survived the shock. On tho
5th day of August, 1820, a picnicking
party on the Thames was run down by
a coal barge. There were twenty- five
of the picnickers, mostly children un
der twelve years of age. Little Hugh
Williams, a visitor from Liverpool,
only fivo years old, was the only ono
that returned to tell tho talc. Now
comes tho most singular part of this
ntory: On the 19th day of August, in
the year 1889, a Leeds coni barge, with
nine men, foundered; two of them—
both Hugh Williams, an undo and
nephew—wore rescued by some fisher
men, and were the only men of the
crew who lived to tell of the calamity.
These are facts which can bo substan
tiated.
A LUMP OF OLD.
The Largest Piece of Auriferous
Metal Ever Found.
Its Discovery Cost Three Men
Their Lives.
IIow many know where the largest
single lump of native gold ever seen in
America was found? In California?
No. In Colorado? No. In the Black
Hills, Coeur d' Alene, Nevada, New
Mexico? No. In Old Mexico, Peru,
Bolivia, in Potosi, in the Callao of
Venzaela? No. Where then? In North
Carolina. And its story is as weird aud
fateful as the Rhinegold’s.
A poor and ignorant Irishman, living
in the mountains, solitary and lonely,
propped open the door of his cabin
with a lump of metal. He had found
it sticking out from a water- washed
gully and carried it home as a curiosity.
Though no larger than a small cymling,
it was a weighty lug for a mile. It wa<
a dull yellow, irregular in shape, and
pieces of stone were imbedded in it •
For over two years a fortune lay upon
the floor of his hovel, while he toiled,
early and late, making a little whiskey
and digging giaseug root to earn a
scanty living. A companion mountain
eer, who had known more of the out
side world, thought this strange stone
might be sold at Asheville as a curiosi
ty for a lot of money—ten dollars per
haps. This was in the flush days be
fore the war. He had seen quartz crys
tals from Roan Mountain bring that
much. A third mountaineer was called
in consultation. Ten dollars was a lot
of money. The third man had been a
traveler, a regular globe trotter. He
went to Asheville four times a year, aud
had been clear to Wilmington.
Walking aronnd the dump he gazed
at it from every side, touched it with
his toe, spat upon it, aud breathed
heavily.
“Hit air with nuthin’, er hit air a
pile,” said he. “Hit air nothin’ but
brass, er hit air-” He looked around
on the other two with a queer expres
sion— 1 ‘goold. ”
“Ef hit air brass’’—ho drew a clasp
knife and scraped the dull metal till a
new surface glittered—“vinegar’ll rust
hit. Ef hit air goold, hit won’t.”
He poured some vinegar from a jug
which was brought to him, upon the
fresh facing of the lump. The three
men hung over it intently. Five, ten,
fifteen minutes passed and still the metal
shone clear and untarnished.
4 t Hit’s goold!”
“And I’ve heerd goold was wuth
more’n two hundred dollars a pound!”
said the second.
What a d—d fool I have been!”
groaned the owner of the cabin. “For
two years I’ve worked, an’ wealth 1
never dreamed of kickin’ undher my
feet.”
“I claims a third,” broke in the as
sayer. “Ye’d never a knowed what hit
war, but for me.”
4 t An’ a third for me,” said the other.
The owner of the gold gavo a sullen
assent. They obtained a pair of steel -
yards and weighed the gold. It turned
the scales at over a hundred poun ds
avoirdupois and they roughly estimated
it to be worth $25,000, over $8000
apiece. That night all three sat up and
watched the treasure, unable to sleep
from excitement and thoroughly sus
picious of each other. The next day
they rolled it securely in a cloth and
started for Asheville afoot with the
gold slung to a pole and carried between
two.
It was the devil’s gold. At the first
halting place the Irishman and the sec
ond mountaineer conspired to kill the
third and he was shot dead from be
hind. Hastily throwing his body into
a clump of busho3, the murderers faced
each other in the road. Suspicion
roused in each guilty breast saw treach
ery in each other’s glance.
“Here,” said one, forcing an uneasy
laugh. “There’s only one way to set
tle this. Let’s divide the gold and
each go his way.”
“Agreed,” said tho other.
The lump was laid in the roadway and
chopped in two with a hatchet.
“Take your choice,” said one. As
the other bent to lift his half his com
panion split the head of the stooping
man with his hatchet. The gold was
his. With blind fatuity ho dragged
tho second victim to tho side of tho
road, lifted the bloodstained treasure
and went on. At Asheville ho took it
to the Lank and had it shipped to the
United S ates mint. In less than a
week, and before any return couid be
had from the mint, the bodies of the
two murdered men had been discov
ered and the crime traced directly
home. The miierablc wretch was
thrust in jail, and there he died within
a year. The witch goll fortune never
crossed his hands, remaining in the
Federal treasury for lack of owner
shi p.
The region where the lump was found
has been scoured foot by foot, but not
another lump like that has ever been
discovered in that or any other section
of America. It is said that a few weeks
ago an English company, which is
working the Nacoocheo mine in Georgia,
took out a nugget weighing 1000 pen
nyweight, yet the North Carolina lump
weighed over 1503 ounces. — Washing
ton Post.
Concerning Cassava.
With regard to the new bread plant,
which has attracted so much attention
of late from the milling journals, a
newspaper in Florida has this to say:
“The cassava thrive! and produces
splendidly. The eat able portion of the
cassava is the roots or tubers. When
the roots are grated or mixod in equal
proportion with flour, nice dishes can
be made of it, fit to be set before a
king. In custard, puddiug, pies and
fritters it can not be beat, whib mixed
with equal quantity of corn meal and
made into fritters it will deceive an old
oysterman. It is enormously productive,
producing many tons per acre. It is
fine feed for hogs, catt e, sheep and
poultry; hogs will quit corn for it, and
thrive and grow fat on it. I candidly
believe there is no single article of food
on the globe that will produce more to
the acre. It succeeds well on good
light soil that is well drained. It re
sembles in growth the castor
bean, and is an ornament to
any garden. It should be planted
on wide ranges (six feet) and
set four feet apart on the ridge. First
cut your stalks in pieces four inches
long, with two or three good eyes, and
set them perpendicularly, just deep
enough so the end may be even with
the ground. Cultivate as you would
sweet potatoes, except in the latter p–rt
of the season give shallow culture, so as
not to cut the roots, which usually ex
tend four or five feet around the plants
in all directions. The tubes •will not
keep a week in the open air. We dig
them as we want them, or turn our hogs
on them. The roots or tubers will keep
all winter in the ground when planted
on well-drained soil. We keep the
stalks through winter by sawing them
close to the ground an d banking them
up with sand, a layer of sand and a
layer of cassava stalks, until It is made
steep; then put a shed over that so as
to shed off the rain. It will stand a
certain amount of moisture, but no
•water-soaked soil. It stands drouth
well, without wilting a leaf. Cassava,
no doubt, will be largely planted in tho
South when better known.”
Educating a Worm.
Last March, says a writer in Bon
Bells, found some children going to kill
a poor little slow worm they had un
earthed from the hedge. Giving them
a few pence, 1 rescued the pretty thing,
and explained to them how harmless it
was and how useful in a garden. Aftei
I thought they understood something
about it I took it in my hand to carry it
home, when there came a chorus of
voices: “Oh, put down the gashly
(ghastly) thing; he’ll bo sure to sting
’ce. Kill’un—kill ’un!”
A man coming by was just as bad,
and would not believe it was harmless.
“What do you call him, ma’ am—-a
rc pU!° or a Linsect ?
“Neither; a hanimal that was a
piece of natural history improved,” but
I couldn’t help it—the temptatioa was
too strong.
The slow worm I kept in a basket
half filled with moss, and every time t
fed it with little flies I whistled. II
was then half torpid. When the warm
weather set in I made it a snug retrea 1
in the rockery, warm and dry, and now
if I go out and whistle tho little fellow
comes to me, and seems to like being
fondled. I have tamed several before
this one; they are very tractable.
Tsvo Birds.
He: “Will you marry me?’
She: “No.”
He: “Then will you marry Bob Saw
ycr? lie wanted me to ask you for
him, too, while I was about it.”—