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e .~“j B \ “*—'f | ‘,—L/h . e ) . Wl C S N N 22 W/ & ) e _ NG AR 2 PRy e e N ‘ g 2 ' el g A 5 SN T o ] o X 2 STR B )oA ~ A S RIAR NI lIRLPRL o WY SN vk i 0 Y N W eO W I AR -/?5“3,,7;‘@, g ¥ o T A\ Pt LAk RS Ml ed oW/ SRR N\ O, TPR R AL AP >geT A ] | j - ,(?’;lty /:' i - vl o Wi S JiSl ¥ i ;:Q‘(fl -,éa——-//- g - s T R THE RAIN RAINS EVERY DAY. Said the robin to his mate In the dripping orchard tree: “Our dear nest will have to wait Till the blue sky we can see. Birds can neither work nor play, For tho rain rains every day, And th® rain rains all the day!” . Said the violet to the leaf: “I can scarcely ope my eye: So. for fear I'll come to grief, Close aloag the earth I lie. : All we flowers for sunshine pray, But the rain rains every day, And the rain rains all the day!” And the children, far and wide, _They, too, wished away the rain; All their sports were spoiled outside By the “black glove” at the pane— Very dull indoors to stay While “the rain rains every day, And the rain rains all the day!” Up and down the murmurs run, Shared by child and hird and flower. Suddenly the golden sun Dazzled through a clearing shower. Then they all forgot to say That “the -ain rains every day, And the rain rains all the day!” —Edith M. Thomas in St. Nicholas. TOMMY TODD’S GHOST. For the first time in the recollection of Tommie Todd’s mother, Tommie had gone to bed without her having to tell him it was time to do so. Maybe this unusuhl proceeding on Tommie’s part had something to do with the re markable experience that befell him during the night. At all events, Tommle, in telling the story, said that he had fallen asleep as soon as his head “struck the pil low” and had slept the sound sleep of the just until his slumbers were dis turbed by a peculiar sensation, as if someone were blowing an icy cold breath on his face, “l don’t want to give you the shiv ers,” said a rough voice, “but I can’t help it,” and, looking in the direction from whence it came, Tommie saw a sight that mnearly took his breath away. . Sitting on a chair with his legs crossed was the queerest looking in dividual that one would care to set eyes on—only he couldn’t exactly be called an individual, because he only *seemed to be made of fog or some thing very like it. ey He had long, vapory whispers, big gogle eyes, surmounted by great misty bunches of eyebrows, long, vapory hair hung down his back, and the rest of him seemed to be mainly composed of a huge hat of fog and a 2 vapory pair of colossal boots. “Now, don’t yell,” sald -this uncan ny object. “It makes me tired to hear people yell whenever they catch sight of me. I haven’t the least desire to harm anyone. - In fact, I’ve been try ing for, years to meet someone who would talk to me and not run away.” “You’re a ghost, aren’t you?” asked Tommie. “That’s what I am,” replied the obs ject. “In fact, I'm the only ghost that is, or was, and I'm not glad of it. Peo- ‘ ple think there are lots of ghests, but I'm the only one. Most of the ghost gtories aren’t true, but when they are true I'm the ghost that was seen.” | “Most times around graveyards or haunted houses?” Tommie ventured. ~ “Bosh,” said the ghost, “I never go near graveyards or haunted ‘houses, and there isn’t any such thing as a haunted house, anyway. What I waat is not to scare anyone, but to find someone who can tell me how I can quit being a ghost.” “Can’t you get dead?’ asked Tom l mie. ; . | “No, I can’t; that’s the trouble. I . want to get dead like other dead peo ! ple. You see, it’s this way: Before I became a ghost I was a pirate, and about as wicked a one as ever hap pened. I was the terror of the Span ish Main. Captain Kidd and old Mor gan didn’t amount to shucks alongside of me.when it came to pure cussed ness. Well, to get down to the real thing, they finally got me all right, and, after finishing off my trusty buc cancers and throwing them overboard to the sharks, they slipped a noose around my neck and hanged me up to a yardarm of my own ship, and set her ! adrift to float where the wind and tide ) might take her. : -~ “The ship drifted and drifted and 'soon I was nothing but gas, but my gas didn’t float ofi“, I suppose because [ it was intended that I should become a miserable ghost to pay me up for my . wickedness. Oh, me, oh, my. I wish now I'd been good. “Well, anyway, my clothes rotted off, as did also the rope which held 'me ,and one day I fell on the deck just a ghost. I couldn’t work the ship because I was only gas, so it kept drifting north and next thing it got caught in the ice and was carried clear up. to the north pole.” ! “What was it like?” inquired Tom - mie. ’ “Why—and the ghost stroked his va por whiskers with a misty hand—‘it 'was much like a big icicle upside idown, only a hundred times bigger. | Well, anyway, it was almighty cold up there, I tell you. In less than a week I was turned into liquid air. Yes, sir. I'm the original liquid air. I'm 400 degrees below zero.” ; “Is that why people always get a chilly feeling just before they see ‘ you?”’ asked Tommie, “That’s the identical reason.” “Why didn’t you leave the boat be fore you got froze?” inquired Tommie. - “I couldn’'t. I can’t walk. I had to wait for a good‘ wind and go with it. It came finally, and I've been blown .a good many places since, but ot where I want to be blown. I was blown in your wiadow and I've got to wait until your door is opened so that a,draught will blow me out again.” “Oh,” said Tommie, “that’s why you appear on windy, stormy nights.” “You've struck it right.” ! “How do you keep on the ground?”’ | “Because I'm colder than the wing ; Hot air goes up, you kanow, and ¢sid | air keeps down. It's a good thigg for | me, too, I can tell you.” ' “Good for what? You ca®’t eat nor do anything here, can you?” “No, but supposing Id been blown up on the moon. Itfs colder there than I am, and I'd rfever get thawed | out. You see, I've rhagn trying for‘ hundreds of years to get thawed out, but I can’t do it. W;fxen a north wind comes I go with it Boping to get away down south wherejit’s blistering hot, | ‘but the north wind never keeps up long enough and some other kind of wind blows me off in another direc tion. It never stays hot long enough up here to do me any good. Can’t you think of something that will help me out? I just want to get dissipated into nothing at ail and become dead.” The ghost looked hopefully at Tom mie, who sat silent, thinking hard. “I've got it,”” he cried at last. “Get vourself blown into a hot wvoleano. Maybe that will melt yeu.” “You're a genius,” exclaimed the ghost. beaming with delight, “and to think I never thought of that! It's 30 easy, too, to get biown into a vaol cano because it must suck in the wind between puffs. My, my, I'm going right now, for I see Someone has opened your door.” : - And sure enough the door had opened and in the doorway was Tom mie’'s mother calling him that it was time for him to get up and go to school, but when Tommie looked around for the ghost it was nowhere to be seen.—J. A. Tello in The Atlan ta Journal. : THE HERMIT CRAB. | The hermit crab is a funny feilow. You may meet him if you go to the scashore this Summer. One reason that he appears to be so unsociable is that he often has to live in a house that is too small for ‘him. That’s worse than having to wear shoes that are too tight, and you know how uncom fortable that is. When the ‘*hermit crab cannot en dure his cramped quarters any longer, he looks about for new ones. He looks first at one shell and then at another. considering which will suit him best. - Whaen he sees one he likes, he asks the ' occupant to get out, and if he refuses ! tie hermit crab attacks him, They | fight, and whcever ,is the stronger gets the shell house. When the her - mit crab gets into a shell that suits | his larger growth better than his old l shell he-:stretches himself out to fill the new house, whatever shape it may bhe. His old shell he 12aves empty on the beach.—Mirror and Farmer. A PAPAGO GAME. The boys of the Papago tribe in the Southwest have a game which the fel lows in Harvard and Yale would form rules about, if they played it, until it became very lively indeed. The:ze In dian boys make dumbbells of woven bickskin or -rawhide. They weave them tight and stiff, and then soakj them in a sort of red mud which sticks like paint. They dry thém, and tuen the queer toys are ready for use. To play the game they mark off goals, one | ' for each band or “side” of players. The object of each side is to send its i dumb-bells over to the goal of the ene ' my, The dumb-bells are tossed wiih l sticks that are thrust under them as they lie on the ground, The perverso f things will not go straight or far, and 'a rod is a pretty good throw for one. ' The sport quickly grows exciting, and the players are soon battling in a heap almost as if they were playing at foot ball. v 1 —Julian Ralph’s “Fun Among the Red Boys” in St. Nicholas. | . He Had the Match All Righty 1 R o | When traveling in Exgope Pierpontw Morgan is the sowl of geniality. He rather likes to“he approached by the natives irr"an casy, offhand manner, " andf’fifis rosponsiveness amounts to ae- ATial affability. The other day a Ger iman took a seat oppoazite his in a ' railway carriage and was much inter ested in the big black $1 cigar the 'financier was smoking. ‘“Vould you ! mint gifing me one like dat?” he final- | I ly asked. Although much astonishead | at the bluntness of the request, Mor- | ' gan readily complied therewith. The | German lighted the cigar, tcok a few ; puffs, and, beaming with good nature, ‘said: “I vould nod had droubled you; | but I had a match in mire poggid and I did nod know vat to do mit him," - Rochester Herald. l [ ABUDGET ({gf‘: _{’- ek W l‘f‘, 4\;4“‘«,\ \ OP o wia LSRR DR TR T e \3‘@"@%\%4%%? AT Shy, T 8 1‘,.;-)'.}; \{«l‘,"\ sf“ \ X i—é} (R ;‘-:':)* ~ Q) JOKER'S BUDGET. Hurrah for the victor! We cannot say now Just who he will be— ‘ But hurrah anyhow. 1 : —~Washington Star, ' ‘RELAEF IN SIGHT. “Your salarys isn't enough to supe port my daughter, sir.” . “I'm glad you've come to that con clusion so early, sir.”—Detroit Free Press. : STILL THE WORK GOES ON. “Any more germs, Doctor?” “Oh, yes. We are now in hot pur suit of the germs that eat the other germs.'—Detroit Free Press, = WELL MATCHED. A “They’re nice-looking unorses of yours; appear to be very well - matched.” “They are. One's willing to pull ~and the other’s quite willing to let him.”—Philadelphia Ledger. STOPPING SPARKING. ; “Do you have spark arresters on your suburban trains?” “Yes,” said the young man with a frown, who usually travelled with the blond girl; “they -have horrid con: ductors.”—Yonkers Statesman. AUTOPHOBIA. “Herbert had been running an auto 50 long that he had forgottea all about forseback riding.” ~ “What did he do when the horse ' balked?” ~ “He crawled under it to see what was the matter.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer. , HAD HER OWN IMPRESSIONS. “Your hushand says he established his hotel by honest toil,” remarked the woman who hears all that is said in the village. “Yes,” answered the tired-looking woman; “but he didn’t say whose toil, did he?’—Washington Star. HER CURIOSITY. “Mrs. Chellus looks bad, doesn’t ghe?” “Yes, and no twonder. She’s been awake every night for a week past.” “Tae idea! What was the matter?”’ “She discovered about a week ago that her husband talks in his sleep and, of course, she had to listen.,”— hiladelphia Ledger. : STILL AT IT. ; “Childhood’s hours are the happiest times of one’s life!” stghed the disap pointed man, i ‘ “Oh, I don’t know!” chirped his companion. “I don’t ses but that 1 can watch a ball game just about ag weil as I could forty years ago!”—De troit Free Press. ( TIME AND MONEY. . “Don’'t you sometimes think that gon should have devoted less time to getting money?” “yes,” answered Senator Sorghum “it occasionally strikes me that 1 ought to have made a fortune quicker. But, on the whole, I'm satisfied.— Washington Star. : SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT. “My dear,” asked the eminent com poser, “do you know where that postal card is that came yesterday?” “Why, no; I hadn’t noticed it,” re plied his wife; “was it anything im pertant?”’ “Well, yes. It had the libretto of my new comic opera on it.”—Pitts burg Post.