In Lighter Mood

NOTES. Take every chance you can get to be kind to your mother and father,. because some day there may be no more chances. Three things to admire: Intellect, dignity and gratefulness. Three things to hate: Cruelty, arrogance and ingratitude. We do not get many sunshiny reflections from the old frog pond*. Gloomy faces are like muddy pools. Smile into them and they give nothing back. Keep a cheery countenance. Cut loose from every mistake made last year and say "Good-by" toregret. Too late to feel sorry when you are slipping half-way down the barn roof. Dig in the fingers and toes and let every thing else wait. Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all things easy, and he that riseth late must trot all day, and scarce shall overtake his business at night; while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him.—Franklin. Little self denials, little honesties, little passing words of sympathy, little nameless acts of kindness, little silent victories over favorite temptations,—these are the silent threads of gold which, when woven together, gleam out so brightly in the pattern of life that God approves.—F.. W. Farrar, D. D. Men may not know how fruits grow, but they know that they can not grow in five minutes. Some lives have not even a stock on which fruits could hang, even if they did grow in five minutes. Some have never planted one sound seed of Joy in all their lives; and others who have planted a germ or two have lived so little in sunshine that they never could come to maturity.—Henry Drummond. We must often suffer before we can understand. "There are certain advantages," writes a great German musician, "in choirs composed entirely of boys; but many hymns and anthems, expressive of the highest worship, they cannot sing properly, because they have never suffered enough to understand them." Wonderful things in nature are done in silence; and much of thegood and enduring work of man is unheralded until itself speaks for its creator: The trees grow silently, and God alone Can hear the sap rise to the budding shoot;

NOTES. 229 And hear, how, in the day time and the night, The brown earth nourishes the hidden root. '"To give the white-haired father or mother not only respect, but confidence, to tell the joke and the secret to them first, to accord them cordially the central place in the merrymaking, may seem trivial matters, yet they are not trivial to those who, in the twilight of life, begin to think they are useless or forgotton, and to question whether they shall be missed when they shall go out into the nearing night. Courtesy is but a little thing and costs nothing, and if it is due to any one, it is surely due to the aged among us, especially when these are our parents.'' A pleasant story about Andrew Carnegie is told by a tourist from Scotland in the New York Tribune: "At Skibo Castle Mr. Carnegie had during the summer a beautiful rose garden. There were thousands of red and white and yellow roses always blooming there, and the villagers were free to saunter in the garden paths to their hearts' content. "One day the head gardener waited upon Mr. Carnegie. " 'Sir,' he said, 1 wish to lodge a complaint.' "'Well?'said the master. " 'Well, sir,' the gardener began, 'I wish to inform you that the village folk are plucking the roses in your rose garden. They are denuding your rose trees, sir.' 'Ah.' said Mr. Carnegie, gently,'my people are fond of flowers, are they, Donald? Then you must plant more.'" One of the most hopeful tendencies of the times is the reform which is going on, because of the demand made by large corporations that their employees shall abjure liquor, tobacco, gambling and bad company. This is a strong force for good. A young man who "plays the races," contrary to his father's advice and his mother's prayers, is frequently brought to his senses by the sudden realization that he must quit it in order to hold his position. Every time the point is mentioned, some other large house sees the great value of it and adds the requirement to its book of rules, and so the reform spreads. It tends to hasten the coming of a time when a man will have to be strictly moral in order to obtain and hold a position of trust.—W. P. Warren.

IN LIGHTER MOOD- Freshman: "That's a beautiful song. It simply carries me away."" She: "I'm sorry I didn't sing it early in the evening."—Ohio Wesleyan Transcript. A farmer says he has solved the drought problem. He plants potatoes, corn and onions together; the onions bring tears to the eyes of the potatoes in such quantities that the roots are kept moist and a big crop is raised. "Now, Tommy," said Mrs. Bull, "I want you to be good while I'm out." "I'll be good for a nickel," replied Tommy. "Tommy," said she, "I want you to remember that you can not be a son of mine unless you are good for nothing."—Louisville Courier-Journal. "Wouldn't you like to know how to catch rabbits?" asked a youth who thought himself smart. "Why, yes," said his friend. "Well, you crouch down behind a stone wall, and make a noise like a turnip." Quick as a flash came the reply: "Oh, a better way than that would be for you to go and sit quietlv in a bed of cabbage heads, and look natural." Soon after Singleton's first baby was born, Mrs. Singleton went up stairs one evening and found her husband standing by the side of the crib and gazing earnestly at the child. As she stood still for a moment, touched by the sight, the tears filled her eyes and she thought: "Oh, how dearly Charley loves that boy!" Her arms stole softly round his neck, as she rubbed her cheek caressingly against his shoulder. Singleton started slightly at the touch. "Darling," he murmured dreamily, "it is incomprehensible to me how they can get up such a crib as that for eighteen-and-six. "—Tit-Bits. Elihu Root, who has returned to the practice of law in New York City, has engaged a new office boy. Said Mr. Root: "Who carried off my paper basket?" "It was Mr. Reilly," said the boy. "Who is Mr. Reilly ?" asked Mr. Root. "The janitor, sir." An hour later Mr. Root asked: "Jimmie, who opened that window?" "Mr. Lantz, sir." "And who is Mr. Lantz?" "The window cleaner, sir." Mr. Root wheeled about and looked at the boy. "See here, James," he said, "we call men by their first names here. We don't 'mister' them in this office. Do you understand?" "Yes, sir." In ten minutes the door opened, and a small.

IN LIGHTER MOOD. 231 shrill voice said: "There's a man here as wants to see you, Elihu."—W. E. S. Fales, in Boston Ideas. Since the engagement of pretty Miss X has been an announced fact, her small brother has been puzzling his head to understand what it means. "Why," explained his mother, "Mr. Skaggs has asked sister to marry him. That means that she will live in his house after this, and he'll take care of her." "Buy her things?" asked the boy. "Yes." "Hats and dinners and ice cream and everything?" he persisted. "Yes," was the answer. The boy thought it all over for a moment, and then he said: "Well, ain't that man got nerve, though!"—Washington Post. Grayce: "War! War! War!" Gladys: "What on earth are you hollering 'war' about?" Grayce: "I just struck my thumb with the hammer." Gladys: "Well, what's war got to do with it?" Grayce: "Don't you know what war is?-"Louisville Courier-Journal. Revised Wisdom Again: The wages of gin is debt. You may lead an ass to knowledge—but you cannot make him think. Actresses will happen in the best regulated families. Imagination makes cowards of us all. He that is down need not fear plucking. Let him that standeth pat take heed lest they call. The doors of Opportunity are marked "Push" and "Pull." Nothing succeeds like—failure. Pleasant company always accepted. Charity is the sterilized milk of human kindness. Only the young die good. What can't be cured must be insured. He who fights and runs away will live to write about the fray. Never too old to yearn. The pension is mightier than the sword. A fellow-failing makes us wondrous unkind. Society covers a multitude of sins. From "The Entirely New Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom, for 1905." (Elder & Co., San Francisco.)