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at sunset time.
The painted shadows fall
From the church windows tall; '
Its pictured saints look down,
Upon the quaint old town,
At sunset time
No tramp of horses’ feet
Disturbs the quiet street;
The distant hill-tops seem
Wrapt in a halcyon dre_
At sunset time.
A bird flits to and fro,
Above the branches low,
And sings in monotone
Of joys forfi'rer flown,
At sunset time.
Strange shadows, floating, rise,
Across the evening skies
As daylight wanes apace
In this sequestered place.
At sunset time.
The glowing tints grow dim,
And faintly, like a hymn
Heard through the half-closed gate,
They fade—and it is late,
At sunset time.
Pale watcher! though the night
Shall quench yon rays of light,
Know that all sorrows cease,
And troubling sinks to peace,
At sunset time.
We seek the fields where brigh
Streams run, and lillies white
And fadeless roses grow—
Where deathless summers glow,
At sunset time.
There is the perfect rest!
In pilgrim's garments drest,
We march, with staff in hand,
Straight to the Sunset Land,
At sunset time.
—New Orleans-Times Democrat.
THE HOUSE-CLEANIN'G.
BY HELEN FOBKEST GRAVES.
“Leah—Leah! are you most through
whitewashing is the cellar wall? The baby
down so cross, the and front Johnny has just fallen
two of his teeth, steps and and knocked out
hired your father and
two men are clamoring for their
supper, and I’m so tired out, I don’t
know which way to turn!”
Leah Falkirk stopped, with the white
wash-brush still elevated in air, and
listened.
“Where’s Jeannie, mother?” said she.
“She won’t leave her book,” returned
the nasal, melancholy voice of Mrs.
Falkirk. “She says the children are no
business of hers.”
though,” “Very well, mother; I’ll come. Al¬
Leah added, in a sort of solil¬
oquy, “I should have liked to finish
this place to-night. Of course it will all
dry in streaks, and I shall have the whole
thing to do over to-morrow. Oh, dear! I
don’t suppose there was ever any one who
toiled from morning till night as I do!”
She untied the coarse crash apron that
enveloped ened her her from head to foot, loos¬
folds of curly red-broan hair from the
a red cotton pocket-hander
chief that she had tied turbanwise over :
her head, washed her hands in a tin
basin by the aid of a bar of yellow soap,
and ran up the cellar steps to the kitchen,
where a kerosene lamp had just been
lighted to reveal a most uninviting re¬
past. Mrs. Falkirk
had been house-cleaning
all day long. Unfortunately for the
family, housewives she was one of those notable
who cannot clean one room
in ahouse without throwing all the rest
into hopeless confusion.
The rag carpet was taken up, the pa¬
per of it stripped hanging half off the walls, and half
in fluttering pennants,
and the “overflow” from the neighbor¬
ing with rooms was piled up in all directions,
a brooms step-ladder and two or three
stumpy balanced against it.
The table was set for supper in the
least occupied portion of the room; the
fire sulked and smoked as fires will
when an east wind-storm sets in during
the latter part of May; the lamp per¬
sisted in sending up spurts of flame on
one side of the wick. The men, who
had just come in from the fields,radiated
a sort of misty atmosphere of a disa
greeale damp as they stood around the
stove, In his looking hopelessly about them,
mother’s arms, Johnny was be
wailing himself, and the baby kept up a
cradle, melancholy monotone to his neglected
while two other children furtive¬
ly dipped their fingers in a dish of
apple-sauce, and stole a ginger-cookey
or so whenever they could.
Leah and Jeannie Falkirk were the two
daughters The of the farmer by his first wife.
present Mrs. Falkirk was the moth¬
er of the unruly flock who at present
reigned hard in the nursery, and she had a
time of it, more especially as Jen¬
nie, the younger and prettier of two
step-daughters, her absolutely rebelled
against step-mother’s rules.
“Iam not a paid servant,” she was
wont Mrs. haughtily to remark, when poor
Falkirk appealed to her for aid and
comfort. “I can’t endure children, and
I don’t owe any duty to a woman who is
not my dear mamma.”
Which was, perhaps, very pretty and
sentimental of Jeannie, but came rather
hard on Leah t
“But,” said Leah, cheerfully, “I’m
not a beauty like Jeannie. Beauties are
always sensitive.”
So that she was not surprised at Jean
nie’s withdrawing herself into the easiest
chair in the room, by an especial lamp,
to read a new novel, while Mrs. Falkirk,
a pale-haired, watery-eyed little woman,
called plaintively to her (Leah) for as¬
sistance in this emergency.
Just then a tall, overgrown lad—the
eldest and probably the most ungainly of
the second flock of Falkirks—rushed
headlong into the room.
“Mother,” he shouted, “there's been
a load o’ hay overturned just front of
our house, and the teamsters they say
they can’t get no further to-night, and
can you keep ’em till to-morrow morning
—say?”
“ Sorry to intrude, ma’am,” said a tall,
rather pleasant-voiced man, whose face
was concealed by his rubber coat and
cape; “but our horses are dead beat,
and so are we, and the load of hay has set¬
tled the question by turning itself over
—so I don’t see how we can avoid be¬
coming pensioners on your kindness.”
Mrs. Falkirk looked nervously around.
“Oh, dear! ” said she, “I know what
the Bible says about entertaining angels
unawares, but we’re house-cleanin’,
and”—
“And,” added Jeannie, in sharp, in¬
cisive accents, “it’s a perfect imposition
for people to come here in this sort of
way. Exactly as if pa kept a tavern.”
“Folks is welcome.” said Abel Fal¬
kirk, slowly—“kindly welcome, if they
can put up with the sort of fare and ac¬
commodation my wife can give ’em at
house-cleaning it time.”
“Is far to the next house of enter¬
tainment?” the smaller of the two
strangers feel that questioned. intruding “Really Jones, I
we are unwarrant¬
ably--”
“No, ye ain’t! no, ye ain’t!” said
Mr. Falkirk. “Set down, strangers.
Lewis, put on another dry stick, and see
if ye can’t stop this everlastin’ smokin’.
Leah, my lass, see what you can do for a
bite o’ supper. I know things look sort
o’ straighten discouiagin’, but my Leah can
out ’most anything.”
Leah gave a quick, bright smile to her
father as she went past.
“It shall all be right, father,” said
she, “if the gentlemen don’t mind wait¬
ing “Gentlemen!” a little.”
nie. audibly sneered Jean¬
“Common teamsters! No, John,”
with a vicious push at the forlorn little
brother who was nestling up to her, “go
away and don’t bother me. “You’re a
naughty, disobedient boy, and it served
you right to fall down and cut your lip
open!”
“Jeannie,” said Leah, in a low voice,
“will you take the baby while mother
helps about the supper?”
“No, I’ll do no such thing!” said
Jeannie, contracting her pretty brows
into a most unamiable frown. “And
if you weren’t a fool, you’d keep out of
all this turmoil and confusion 1”
So saying, she drew the light nearer
to her and commenced on a new chapter
of her novel.
Leah only sighed and went more ac¬
tively than ever about her work. She
was used to this sort of thing, and as she
moved here and there she had a pleasant
word for poor, little, sobbing Johnny, a
smile for the others, an encouraging
whisper for Mrs. Falkirk.
“I dunno what we should do without
Leah,” said Mrs. Falkirk, as at length
her step-daughter brought in a smoking
dish of ham and eggs, a glistening tin
coffee-pot, and a plate of buttered waf¬
fles.
‘ ‘Leah’s a famous good cook,” observed
the farmer, complacently. “And she’s
always willin’to help her mother. Jean
nie’s different now. They’re both my
darters, but I’m a little afraid Jeannie’s
inclined to be selfish.”
When the supper was over, Leah helped
her mother put the children to bed be¬
fore she prepared a sort of ‘ 'camping
down” room for the men, placing mat¬
tresses before the fire and bringing out
blankets. And almost the last that the
two asleep strangers beard before they fell
was her soft voice, in the adjoin¬
ing room, singing the fretful baby into
dreamland.
The sun shone brightly the next day,
and Leah came in as sunny as the morn¬
ing itself.
“We must finish thehouse-cleaning to¬
day, mother,” said she, in a low tone, as
she bustled around, helping to prepare
the breakfast. “Oh, don’t look so de¬
spairing do, 1 There really isn’t so much to
and I’ll help you myself with the rag
carpet,”
“Couldn’t I beat them for you, Miss
Falkirk?” ^ asked the smaller and younger
of the two guests, who just then came
in, without his heavy wrappings.
Leah started.
“Mr. Stafford!” she exclaimed. “How
came you here?”
“Didn’t you see me come,” said he,
“last night? Why, you were here!”
“But—that was a teamster.”
of “My hay companion was. It was his load
that was tipped over opposite
your barn door. I chanced to be coming
by, and helped him get the horses up.
And so, of course, I came in also, quite
unaware that I was crossing the thresh¬
old of your house! When I perceived
that you did not recognize me, with all
my made wraps, by the imperfect light, I
up my mind to continue a—com¬
mon teamster.”
He glanced, with a half-smile, across
to where Jennie sat, curl-papered and
untidily shawled, still crouching over
her novel. She looked up scarlet to the
very roots /of her pretty, half-brushed
hair.
“Oh, Mr. Stafford!”faltered she; “if
I had only known—”
“But you didn’t,” said Reginald Staf¬
ford. “Oh, pray don’t suppose that I
mean to criticise either of you in the
least degree! I was only too glad to
escape marshes a long walk across the dreary
to the hotel. And weather was
so dreadful!”
Mrs. Falkirk pulled the gown of her
elder stepdaughter.
“Leah, ” said she, only half under¬
standing the what was going on—“Leah, if
young man wants work—”
“Hush!” sharply whispered Jeannie.
“You get everything wrong, mother.
It's Mr. Stafford—the rich Mr. Stafford,
who is down here from the city, trout
fishing, at the Walpole Hotel.”
“What! the same one you met at Clara
Vail’s May-party?”
“Yes—do hush!”
Jeannie could have bitten off the tips
of her rosy finger-nails and torn her hair
with rage to think of the light she had
placed herself in before Reginald Staf¬
ford’s clear, amused pyes. Of all men,
she would best have liked to please him,
and somehow she did not think that she
had succeeded.
But Leah—poor, hard-working, plain,
patient Leah, who never got out of
patience and always toiled on, meek and
gentle as a Cinderella—how was it with
her?
She remembered her calico dress, her
coarse Mr. Stafford gingham apron; she knew that
was a little inclined to be
fastidious. But, after all, was it likely
that he would think twice about it?
She knew too well that she, unlike
pretty that Jeannie, was not the sort of girl
men grew wild about.
“But I do wish Jeannie had had on her
nice dress,” thought she. “Jeannie can
be so pretty when slis fixes herself up!”
Out under the budding apple bough,
however, where Reginald helped her
hang up the jubilant breadths of rag carpet, and
a certain robin darted to and
fro like a brown arrow, he detained her
when she would have gone back to the
house.
“Leah,” said he, gently, “stop a min¬
ask ute. you." I have something that I want to
(“It is about Jeannie,” she said to her¬
self.)
“To ask you, sweet Leah, if you will
be my wife,” he pursues “I have liked
and admired you this long time, but last
night, tient when forebearing I saw how sweet and pa¬
and you were, I learned
to love you. Will you trust yourself to
me, dear one, forever and ever?”
“And so they’re to be married rijght
off?” said Mrs. Falkirk. “And what
am I to do without Leah, goodness only
knows. ”
“You will have Jeannie left,” sug¬
gested a mischievous shook neighbor. her head.
Airs. Falkirk
“Jeannie takes the loss of her sister
awful hard,” said she. “She don’t do
nothin’ but cry from mornin’ till night.
shoulders. The neighbor smiled and shrugged her
“The loss of her sister," said she, “or
the loss of her own chance in the matri¬
monial market? ’
“La!” said Mrs. Falkirk. “I never
thought of that !”—Saturday Night.
King of Man Eaters.
A very large and ancient looking shark
has been swimming about Taboga Bay
recently. It is known to the islanders
and generally down the bay by its marks,
and by those who know it is* called the
“Somberera,” owing to it having seized
and eaten a man off Anton some years
ago under peculiar circumstances.' It
appears a schooner was sailing slowly
along off Anton Point when the hat of
one of the crew was blown overboard.
The man jumped he into the seized sea to regain this
his hat, when was by
shark, which promptly dived with its
prey. Subsequently, off the Morro Isl¬
and, brother the same animal was seen Salinas, to seize of
the of the Rev.
Taboga, while he was bathing, and to
carry him under. No further traces o t
his second victim were ever seen.
The same shark is credited by the bay
sailors with other deaths, but the in¬
stances mentioned are vouched for by
many. The natives, who claim to recog¬
nize it as an annual visitor, speak of
these incidents as a matter of island his¬
tory, dating from the period when the
factory of .the Pacific Steam Navigation the
Company was at the Morro, and when
animal first acquired notoriety by eating
an Englishman who attempted to swim
from a vessel then at anchor there to
another.
All the fishermen have a peculiar, and
it appears, well-founded terror of this
animal, and none will dive in the vicinity
of its haunt, although the water is not
over five feet in depth. In connection
with this carniverous monster, the old in¬
habitants of Taboga relate a legend, and
in which they appear to have perfect
faith, which is worth recounting. They
believe that below the spot where lie so
constantly swims, when on his periodical
visits to Taboga, there lies a valuable
coral bed, and when in that vicinity the
shark believes it to be its peculiar duty to
keep constant and careful guard over
that treasure.
One thing in connection with this pe¬
culiar legend is, however, certrin, and
that is that none of the bay divers—and
they are all good men, as they have
proved when pearl fishing—will attempt
to dive in that vicinity, and you cannot
persuade any of the islanders, addi -ted
they the water, to bathe in that ’
as are to
place. This animal, we are informed, is
of the shark species, and not a marine
monster of the flat-headed type, such as
was the last big one c aught there some
few years ago by an Italian man-of-war
which was then at anchor off that island.
—Panama Star.
The Size of Texas.
The area of Texas is more than equal
to the area of all tlic New England
States, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Illinois, New Jersey and Lelaware com¬
bined.
Texas contains more than four times
the area of all the New England States.
Texas would make 241 States as large
as Rhode Island, or nearly six States as
large as New South York, or nearly nine States
as large as Carolina, cr nearly
seven Texas Kingdoms large as large as Portugal. Britain and
is as as Great
Ireland, Turkey in Europe, Portugal,
Greece and Switzerland combined.
Texas would make more than three
States as large as Kansas.
Texas is as large as the German Em¬
pire and Alabama combined.
“The land in actual use for growing
Indian corn, wheat, hay, oats and cotton
in the United States now consists of
272,500 square miles, or a little more than
the area of Texas.”
“The entire wheat crop of the United
States could be grown on wheat land of
the best quality selected from that part
of the area of Texas by which the State
exceeds the area of the German Em¬
pire.” “The world’s supply of cotton
present
could be giown upon an area equal of to
only seven per cent, of the area
Texas.”
The man does not live who can com¬
pute the and possibilities the probability of this grand is that, Em¬
pire, of A. D. now 2000, Texas
after the census
will have a greater number of Congress¬
men than any State in the American
Union .—Fort Worth Gazette.
In the international skating contest at
Amsterdam James Smart and George
Lee, British, beat all the Dutchmen. fifty-six.
Two miles in six minutes and
seconds.