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241laud, where we spent the whole summer; but the Swiss air seemed to have lost its virtue. Rosy was no better. At last, when winter was near at hand, we went to Wiesbaden, Germany. This is a very beautiful city, as you all know, and famous for its hot springs. Many invalids go there to be cured. We had been there only a short time when we met a kind lady, who, hearing of Rosy’s condition, told us that she knew of a dolls’ hospital, not very far from Wiesbaden, where old dolls were made young and sick ones quite restored to health. After much thought and discussion we at length decided to send our darling there. We bade her good by with many tears and kisses, laid her in a narrow box—how funeral it seemed!—and sent her away. She had been gone only a few days when the winter rains began, and soon there were great floods throughout Germany. For many long weeks we did not hear one word from her, says Mildred L. C—, in St. Nicholas. ‘Every day we went down to the doll establishment from which she had been sent, to inquire about her; but all in vain. At last, however, our sad hearts were made very glad. One morning, going down on our daily errand, we found Miss Rosy had arrived, and was waiting impatiently to see us. Oh, joy! there she lay in a box, just as plump and rosy as she could be. Her long golden curls fell about her lovely face, and reached down to her waist. When we arrived at home and tried on her dresses, none of them would fit. Would you believe it? She had grown a whole inch! I studied my tables over and over, and backward and forward, too; But I couldn’t remember six times nine, and I didn’t know what to do, Till sister told me to play with my doll and not to bother my head, ‘ If you call her ‘Fifty four’ for a while, you’ll learn it by heart,” she said So I took my favorite, Mary Ann (though I thought’t was a dreadful shame To give such a perfectly lovely child such a perfectly horrid name). And I called her my dear little “Fifty Four” a hundred times, till I know The answer of six times nine us well as the answer of two times two Next day Elizabeth Wigglesworth, who always acts so proud. Said, “Six times nine is fifty two.” and I nearly laughed aloud! But I wished I hadn’t when teacher said, “Now, Dorothy, tell if you can,” For I thought of my doll and—sakes alive!—I answered—“Mary Ann!” —ANNA M PRATT, in May St Nicholas If he had gone away at the first prompting of his conscience it would have been spared him—this shame and this consciousness of having burdened her! But motives strong as those which bade him go, implied him to stay All the money which his father had left him, as the result of his life of hard work and self-sacrifice, were involved in a business which, owing to a depression generally felt, had pressed upon him so hard that only the utmost judiciousness and attention could save it from wreck. From early morning till late night he had been at his office. Every expedient that his inexperience could suggest had been resorted to. He felt that he held that money in trust someway. He knew it had been the dream of his father’s life to leave a little fortune which should go toward found an American family. His father was an enthusiast on the subject of American families He believed in good stock. He wanted men and women to be at least as carefully bred as horses His son had this pride In him, too. It was his heritage, and he had always felt it to be a proud one. At college, though he was full of life, and had mixed up a deal of pleasure with his work, he always remembered that he could not afford to make the mistake of spoiling the career he had laid out for himself. He meant to succeed. He meant to follow in his father’s idea and select a woman who had been well bron and well taught. One who would be sure to bear him sons and daughters of amiability, and intelligence and industry. In short, whatever there is in a republic that makes good men in the most democratic and high sense of the word had been embodied in his theories of himself and of life. And yet, a few days ago he had been obliged to give up his fight with business adversity, and own himself vanquished. The fortune he had so proudly taken from his father’s keeping in the solemn but not disastrous hour when, with his dying hand, in love and trust, his father cosigned it to him, was gone. And on the heels of that had come the loss of honor. For instead of choosing from the world of women one true and good for his own, he had looked with the hotmadness of treason and passion into the humid eyes of his friend’s wife. He was a dishonored man. The fabric of an honorable career lay suddenly shattered at his feet lie felt that though he should fly to the uttermost parts of the earth he could not escape from the knowledge of his failure or of his sin. If there had been some physician at hand he would perhaps have told this young man that what he needed was a touic for his mind and for his body. But there was no physician there—there was nothing except but two gaunt companions, Regret and Remorse. And that was how it came about that Paul Sterling sat in the darkness, rubbing one nervous finger up and down the cool steel barrel of his pretty little instrument of death, and taking the trouble to go over for one last time the arguments for and against self slaughter. He wondered if the belief in the future state was a mere bit of heredity? Why not, just like the taste for certain foods Almost everything becomes instinctive in the course of a few generations. A man does not form his habits—not even his habits or thought. They are born in him. They are bequeathed him by his ancestors. If he had been further east, might he not have had in him as indelibly fixed as his present prescience of immortality. some vague beliefe in an ultimate fixed and endless calm and abeyance.’ ‘It’s all a matter of training,” he said to himself, feeling round and round that cold muzzle ‘Why, I can hardly get out of my mind the whole tawdry paraphernalia of harp and gossamer wang [esught?] from the material lore of the Sunday school. Is it for men to make his puny guess at the quality and sort of the vast hereafter? Am I not above the foolish impertinence of manufacturing and upholstering my own particular sort of heaven’ I guess if mother were here she’d say I’d better get out of this before I got in any worse mischief She’d think death was better than dishonor. And there is nothing but dishonor before me, especially if I look at the matter from her point of view. She always said that the man was corrupt in his thought was as bad as the man who was corrupt in fact. I don’t know whether she was right or not. But she believed only those were good who were pure in heart” He sat there staring before him in a sudden fresh realization of the blackness of his misery. “And I’m not that,” he groaned, “I’m not pure in heart.” There were other thoughts, more intolerable and less noble, that came to him. There were delirious moments when the pangs of acute jealously seized and shook him, and he paced the floor tortured. remembering that the woman whose lightest touch opened heaven, was for always and always the wife of another man. And he recollected how dear that man had been to him—how they had talked together about making an art of life and how they had agreed together that living in itself was merely an opportunity, and that it became significant only in proportion as the opportunities it offered were utilized. And here he stood with the horrible consciousness of having wasted them. Then to know that by this scurvy trick of fate he had been cheated of his rights it would never be possible, his burning heart asserted over and over, for him to offer his love to any woman. He could never have a wife. He would never again have any love to offer. His fate had been met And it offered only shame and disaster. Life did not look sweet. He had no temptation to live. All through those swift hours that he had sat there thinking, there had never been a time when he was tempted to put away that cruel little instrument in his hand. Only he wanted to settle things with himself. He had never for a moment vaccilated or hesitated. He had been merely finishing up life before he took to death. For after the last word is said there is a suspicion that death may be a Silence. But it was all thought out at last. He was ready. Death was best He felt curiously young—like a very little child, indeed. He almost wanted to cry. He remembered how his mother used to rock him to sleep after he had come in tired from his play in the summer. And she need to bathe his head with water, and her hands were very soft, and their touch was caressing. So, just a trick, a mere motion of the finger, oblivion so near and so easy to get. He leaped as if the bullet had pierced his heart, although as a matter of fact his finger had not pressed the trigger! There was a noise at the window! Only a slight noise, yet to ears attuned for the silence of eternity, sharp as the crack of ice in the northern seas. Sterling’s back was toward the window. He did not turn his body, but moved his head cautiously around and looked apprehensively over his shoulder. The room was very dark, and so was the night without, yet in the window he could see a blackness a little blacker than the night. Sterling trembled so that he could hardly hold the weapon in his hand His nerves, screwed to the sticking point of one terrible purpose, had not the adaptability to unflinchingly face a new apprehension Suddenly the window flew up noiselessly—it could hardly have been locked—and a bulk moved cautiously forward into the room, and then a sharp light was thrown full on Sterling’s face. It was then that he turned, with his muscles tightening again. The trembling ceased as he moved in three long steps toward that bulk, and the next moment he grappled with it. As his hands clutched that struggling figure he felt something relax in himself A wave of perfect relief swept over him. It was as if after long madness he had suddenly found sanity again. He was elated at his own strength. He put his teeth together as a strong, young god does when it sees it’s opponent. And he held the man’s arms down fast to his sides. Neither said a word. There was no chance to waste breath in that way. Sterling had his revolver in his hand but he could not use it for the reason that while his hand heled the revolver. it also clasped the left arm of the intruder, and he could not draw the weapon without losing that hand, which might find its way to a defense before Sterling could act. So they stood there, rocking back and forth, straining and tugging, each desperately bent on victory Not for a moment did it occur to Sterling that here was a way to get rid of life he has found so hateful and yet save himself the consequences of self slaughter. Not for a second did he contemplate relinquishing his tenacious hold Sterling felt the drops fall down from his face. But he liked the sensation. His exulted in the struggle. All his apprehension was gone. Once or twice he actually laughed sternly. Suddenly he got a violent push which sent him backward. But he caught himself and raised his weapon. It was too dark to aim well, but he fired. There was another report almost simultaneously. Then he saw the bulk at the window again, and there was silence. The man was gone. He wondered if he were wounded. He had always heard that at first a man felt little pain from a bullet. There was a pounding at the outer door of his flat. “Let me in, Sterling,” the voice cried clamorously, “Are you hurt? If you don’t answer I’ll break in the door. I say, old fellow, speak if you can, quick! Can you hear me? Answer!” Sterling got the door open. “Come in, Henderson,” he cried. “Light the gas. I say, old fellow, I don’t believe I’ve got a scratch! The man went out that window there. No, I hadn’t gone to bed yet By Jove! I’m as sound as a nut. I guess my time hasn’t come yet. And, I say, Henderson, shake hands with me. I’ve a great deal to be thankful for. I hope I’ll manage to live a few years yet without making a mess of it. There’s something for me to do yet, no doubt. Yes, you’re right. I’m a lucky fellow—if you call it luck. Perhap’s it’s Providence No, I’m not nervous, thank you. But I’ll lock my windows. Good night.” ELIA W. PEATTIE. Embryo Architect: Many German engineers prefer masonry to iron for bridges, and they have revived the practice of building masonry bridges with lead joints at key and points of rupture near the spring lines. The Romans used sheets of lead between cut stones, and in bridges built in England in 1833 bands of lead were placed in the joints for two-thirds of the distance above the spring line. The used of the lead is for maintaining the proper interval of joint and for uniformly distributing the pressures Bucklen’s Arnica Salve. The best salve in the world for cuts, bruises, sores, ulcers, salt rheum, fever sores, tetter, chapped hands, chilblains corns and all skin eruptions, and positively cures piles or no pay required It is guaranteed to give perfect satisfaction or money refunded. Price 25 cents per box For sale by Goodman Drug Company. TRUTHS OF NATURAL HISTORY. Minneapolis Tribune: A fish dealer in Bath, Me .found eight twenty-penny nails in the stomach of a yellow perch. Evidently the unfortunate fish had been making preparations to nail a few fishermen’s [?es] during the season. EVERY MAN AN ARCHITECT. Somerville Journal: A man never realizes how much valuable advice his neighbors have to give away until he announces his intention to build a house ABOUT IT. Cultivator Teacher—Now, Johnny, since I have told you about the crusades, perhaps you can tell me what a pilgrim was’ Johnny—A holy tramp, mum. Mr. John C. Ferlman, Albien, Ill. writes on January 18, 1891 ‘My wife has been a great sufferer from heachaches for over twenty years, and your Bradyrotine is the only medicine that has ever relieved her I can get you all the recommendations you want from here We take great pleasure in recommending it on all occasions’ | 241laud, where we spent the whole summer; but the Swiss air seemed to have lost its virtue. Rosy was no better. At last, when winter was near at hand, we went to Wiesbaden, Germany. This is a very beautiful city, as you all know, and famous for its hot springs. Many invalids go there to be cured. We had been there only a short time when we met a kind lady, who, hearing of Rosy’s condition, told us that she knew of a dolls’ hospital, not very far from Wiesbaden, where old dolls were made young and sick ones quite restored to health. After much thought and discussion we at length decided to send our darling there. We bade her good by with many tears and kisses, laid her in a narrow box—how funeral it seemed!—and sent her away. She had been gone only a few days when the winter rains began, and soon there were great floods throughout Germany. For many long weeks we did not hear one word from her, says Mildred L. C—, in St. Nicholas. ‘Every day we went down to the doll establishment from which she had been sent, to inquire about her; but all in vain. At last, however, our sad hearts were made very glad. One morning, going down on our daily errand, we found Miss Rosy had arrived, and was waiting impatiently to see us. Oh, joy! there she lay in a box, just as plump and rosy as she could be. Her long golden curls fell about her lovely face, and reached down to her waist. When we arrived at home and tried on her dresses, none of them would fit. Would you believe it? She had grown a whole inch! I studied my tables over and over, and backward and forward, too; But I couldn’t remember six times nine, and I didn’t know what to do, Till sister told me to play with my doll and not to bother my head, ‘ If you call her ‘Fifty four’ for a while, you’ll learn it by heart,” she said So I took my favorite, Mary Ann (though I thought’t was a dreadful shame To give such a perfectly lovely child such a perfectly horrid name). And I called her my dear little “Fifty Four” a hundred times, till I know The answer of six times nine us well as the answer of two times two Next day Elizabeth Wigglesworth, who always acts so proud. Said, “Six times nine is fifty two.” and I nearly laughed aloud! But I wished I hadn’t when teacher said, “Now, Dorothy, tell if you can,” For I thought of my doll and—sakes alive!—I answered—“Mary Ann!” —ANNA M PRATT, in May St Nicholas If he had gone away at the first prompting of his conscience it would have been spared him—this shame and this consciousness of having burdened her! But motives strong as those which bade him go, implied him to stay All the money which his father had left him, as the result of his life of hard work and self-sacrifice, were involved in a business which, owing to a depression generally felt, had pressed upon him so hard that only the utmost judiciousness and attention could save it from wreck. From early morning till late night he had been at his office. Every expedient that his inexperience could suggest had been resorted to. He felt that he held that money in trust someway. He knew it had been the dream of his father’s life to leave a little fortune which should go toward found an American family. His father was an enthusiast on the subject of American families He believed in good stock. He wanted men and women to be at least as carefully bred as horses His son had this pride In him, too. It was his heritage, and he had always felt it to be a proud one. At college, though he was full of life, and had mixed up a deal of pleasure with his work, he always remembered that he could not afford to make the mistake of spoiling the career he had laid out for himself. He meant to succeed. He meant to follow in his father’s idea and select a woman who had been well bron and well taught. One who would be sure to bear him sons and daughters of amiability, and intelligence and industry. In short, whatever there is in a republic that makes good men in the most democratic and high sense of the word had been embodied in his theories of himself and of life. And yet, a few days ago he had been obliged to give up his fight with business adversity, and own himself vanquished. The fortune he had so proudly taken from his father’s keeping in the solemn but not disastrous hour when, with his dying hand, in love and trust, his father cosigned it to him, was gone. And on the heels of that had come the loss of honor. For instead of choosing from the world of women one true and good for his own, he had looked with the hotmadness of treason and passion into the humid eyes of his friend’s wife. He was a dishonored man. The fabric of an honorable career lay suddenly shattered at his feet lie felt that though he should fly to the uttermost parts of the earth he could not escape from the knowledge of his failure or of his sin. If there had been some physician at hand he would perhaps have told this young man that what he needed was a touic for his mind and for his body. But there was no physician there—there was nothing except but two gaunt companions, Regret and Remorse. And that was how it came about that Paul Sterling sat in the darkness, rubbing one nervous finger up and down the cool steel barrel of his pretty little instrument of death, and taking the trouble to go over for one last time the arguments for and against self slaughter. He wondered if the belief in the future state was a mere bit of heredity? Why not, just like the taste for certain foods Almost everything becomes instinctive in the course of a few generations. A man does not form his habits—not even his habits or thought. They are born in him. They are bequeathed him by his ancestors. If he had been further east, might he not have had in him as indelibly fixed as his present prescience of immortality. some vague beliefe in an ultimate fixed and endless calm and abeyance.’ ‘It’s all a matter of training,” he said to himself, feeling round and round that cold muzzle ‘Why, I can hardly get out of my mind the whole tawdry paraphernalia of harp and gossamer wang [esught?] from the material lore of the Sunday school. Is it for men to make his puny guess at the quality and sort of the vast hereafter? Am I not above the foolish impertinence of manufacturing and upholstering my own particular sort of heaven’ I guess if mother were here she’d say I’d better get out of this before I got in any worse mischief She’d think death was better than dishonor. And there is nothing but dishonor before me, especially if I look at the matter from her point of view. She always said that the man was corrupt in his thought was as bad as the man who was corrupt in fact. I don’t know whether she was right or not. But she believed only those were good who were pure in heart” He sat there staring before him in a sudden fresh realization of the blackness of his misery. “And I’m not that,” he groaned, “I’m not pure in heart.” There were other thoughts, more intolerable and less noble, that came to him. There were delirious moments when the pangs of acute jealously seized and shook him, and he paced the floor tortured. remembering that the woman whose lightest touch opened heaven, was for always and always the wife of another man. And he recollected how dear that man had been to him—how they had talked together about making an art of life and how they had agreed together that living in itself was merely an opportunity, and that it became significant only in proportion as the opportunities it offered were utilized. And here he stood with the horrible consciousness of having wasted them. Then to know that by this scurvy trick of fate he had been cheated of his rights it would never be possible, his burning heart asserted over and over, for him to offer his love to any woman. He could never have a wife. He would never again have any love to offer. His fate had been met And it offered only shame and disaster. Life did not look sweet. He had no temptation to live. All through those swift hours that he had sat there thinking, there had never been a time when he was tempted to put away that cruel little instrument in his hand. Only he wanted to settle things with himself. He had never for a moment vaccilated or hesitated. He had been merely finishing up life before he took to death. For after the last word is said there is a suspicion that death may be a Silence. But it was all thought out at last. He was ready. Death was best He felt curiously young—like a very little child, indeed. He almost wanted to cry. He remembered how his mother used to rock him to sleep after he had come in tired from his play in the summer. And she need to bathe his head with water, and her hands were very soft, and their touch was caressing. So, just a trick, a mere motion of the finger, oblivion so near and so easy to get. He leaped as if the bullet had pierced his heart, although as a matter of fact his finger had not pressed the trigger! There was a noise at the window! Only a slight noise, yet to ears attuned for the silence of eternity, sharp as the crack of ice in the northern seas. Sterling’s back was toward the window. He did not turn his body, but moved his head cautiously around and looked apprehensively over his shoulder. The room was very dark, and so was the night without, yet in the window he could see a blackness a little blacker than the night. Sterling trembled so that he could hardly hold the weapon in his hand His nerves, screwed to the sticking point of one terrible purpose, had not the adaptability to unflinchingly face a new apprehension Suddenly the window flew up noiselessly—it could hardly have been locked—and a bulk moved cautiously forward into the room, and then a sharp light was thrown full on Sterling’s face. It was then that he turned, with his muscles tightening again. The trembling ceased as he moved in three long steps toward that bulk, and the next moment he grappled with it. As his hands clutched that struggling figure he felt something relax in himself A wave of perfect relief swept over him. It was as if after long madness he had suddenly found sanity again. He was elated at his own strength. He put his teeth together as a strong, young god does when it sees it’s opponent. And he held the man’s arms down fast to his sides. Neither said a word. There was no chance to waste breath in that way. Sterling had his revolver in his hand but he could not use it for the reason that while his hand heled the revolver. it also clasped the left arm of the intruder, and he could not draw the weapon without losing that hand, which might find its way to a defense before Sterling could act. So they stood there, rocking back and forth, straining and tugging, each desperately bent on victory Not for a moment did it occur to Sterling that here was a way to get rid of life he has found so hateful and yet save himself the consequences of self slaughter. Not for a second did he contemplate relinquishing his tenacious hold Sterling felt the drops fall down from his face. But he liked the sensation. His exulted in the struggle. All his apprehension was gone. Once or twice he actually laughed sternly. Suddenly he got a violent push which sent him backward. But he caught himself and raised his weapon. It was too dark to aim well, but he fired. There was another report almost simultaneously. Then he saw the bulk at the window again, and there was silence. The man was gone. He wondered if he were wounded. He had always heard that at first a man felt little pain from a bullet. There was a pounding at the outer door of his flat. “Let me in, Sterling,” the voice cried clamorously, “Are you hurt? If you don’t answer I’ll break in the door. I say, old fellow, speak if you can, quick! Can you hear me? Answer!” Sterling got the door open. “Come in, Henderson,” he cried. “Light the gas. I say, old fellow, I don’t believe I’ve got a scratch! The man went out that window there. No, I hadn’t gone to bed yet By Jove! I’m as sound as a nut. I guess my time hasn’t come yet. And, I say, Henderson, shake hands with me. I’ve a great deal to be thankful for. I hope I’ll manage to live a few years yet without making a mess of it. There’s something for me to do yet, no doubt. Yes, you’re right. I’m a lucky fellow—if you call it luck. Perhap’s it’s Providence No, I’m not nervous, thank you. But I’ll lock my windows. Good night.” ELIA W. PEATTIE. Embryo Architect: Many German engineers prefer masonry to iron for bridges, and they have revived the practice of building masonry bridges with lead joints at key and points of rupture near the spring lines. The Romans used sheets of lead between cut stones, and in bridges built in England in 1833 bands of lead were placed in the joints for two-thirds of the distance above the spring line. The used of the lead is for maintaining the proper interval of joint and for uniformly distributing the pressures The best salve in the world for cuts, bruises, sores, ulcers, salt rheum, fever sores, tetter, chapped hands, chilblains corns and all skin eruptions, and positively cures piles or no pay required It is guaranteed to give perfect satisfaction or money refunded. Price 25 cents per box For sale by Goodman Drug Company. Minneapolis Tribune: A fish dealer in Bath, Me .found eight twenty-penny nails in the stomach of a yellow perch. Evidently the unfortunate fish had been making preparations to nail a few fishermen’s [?es] during the season. Somerville Journal: A man never realizes how much valuable advice his neighbors have to give away until he announces his intention to build a house Cultivator Teacher—Now, Johnny, since I have told you about the crusades, perhaps you can tell me what a pilgrim was’ Johnny—A holy tramp, mum. |