--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 3 number: 9 published: 1900-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "In Lighter Mood," *Improvement Era* 3, no. 9 (July 1900): 706.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera39unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera39unse start_page: 706 end_page: 706 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera39unse publication_year: 1900 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1900, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # In Lighter Mood IN LIGHTER MOOD. "Mister," said the small boy to the chemist, "give me another box of them pills you sold father the day before yesterday." "Are they doing him good?" asked the chemist, looking pleased. "I d'no whether they're doin' father any good or not, but they're doin' me good. They just fit my new air-gun." * * * Clara (after a tiff): "I presume you would like your ring back?" George: "Never mind; keep it. No other girl I know could use that ring unless she wore it on her thumb." * * * She: "Most people admire my mouth. Do you?" He (absent mindedly): "I think it is simply immense!" * * * A man who makes a thousand dollars is happy; so is a dog that has found a bone. * * * The opportunity to make fools of ourselves usually comes to us more than once — and always finds us at home. * * * "Punctuality, my children," said the old man, "is the thief of time. I have been a victim to the pernicious vice of punctuality all my life. I must have wasted years by being up to time and having to wait for people." Meeting Trouble.— A countrywoman set her daughter, a girl of fifteen, to bake, while she went to a neighbor's. When she returned, she found the oven sparkling hot, and her daughter in another apartment, in the greatest agony and tears. A sight so unexpected excited the tenderest sympathy in the maternal bosom, and solicitude for the cause. After much entreaty, the daughter spoke. "I was thinking, if I was married and should have a dear child, and if it should live to run about, and I should be baking, as I am now, and I should go out for fuel, and should leave it alone, and it should take a chair and should get up to the mouth of the oven, and should crawl in and should burn itself to death, what a terrible thing it would be! Oh, oh, oh, dear what should I do?'