--- 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: 8 number: 9 published: 1905-07 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* 8, no. 9 (July 1905): 707–708.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0809unse 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: improvementera0809unse start_page: 707 end_page: 708 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1905-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0809unse publication_year: 1905 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 1905, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # In Lighter Mood — — IN LIGHTER MOOD. We ought to get the truth now about the battle. The American admiral at Manila is holding an Enquist. N. Y. World. Supposing you were asked which you preferred — a half-yearly rise of $.100 or a rise of $400 a year — which would you choose? A tale of financial difficulties, but having a happy ending, is thus told by the Yale Record: Bill had a bill-board. Bill also had a board bill. The board bill bored Bill, so that Bill sold the bill-board to pay his board bill. So after Bill sold his bill-board to pay his board bill, the board bill no longer bored Bill. "There is a Persian story about a pessimist. This story is so old that no date can be assigned to it. It concerns a pessimistic farmer. " 'Good friend,' a visitor said to the farmer, 'you are fortunate this year.' He pointed to the heavy and rich grain fields spreading as far as the eye could see. 'You can't grumble,' he went on, 'about your crops this season, eh?' " 'No, I can't grumble,' whined the pessimist; 'but a crop like this " is terribly wearing on the soil.' The typical Marblehead boy of ten or twelve years is much averse to attending school, preferring to loaf about thewharves or to earn a nickle on the golf-links. One day last summer a Boston man who occupies a cottage there, while playing golf noticed that his caddie remained dangerously near the tee at each drive. After expostulating in vain he concluded to let the boy run the chance of getting hurt. They had played some time, when the lad, growing friendly and more communicative, suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, yer'd ought ter see the luck Jim Finnegan hed yesterday!" "What did he do?" questioned the golfer. "Why," said the lad, gleefully, "he got hit in the hed with a golf ball, the man giv' him a dollar, an' he won't hev' ter go ter school fur a whole week. Harper's. " — John Burroughs, the naturalist, is opposed to nature books that treat of animals too imaginatively —that impute to animals sentiments of love, pity, tenderness and refinement, which mankind has no way of proving that they possess. "Sometimes, in reading one of these fictitious nature-stories stories that many persons believe to be true — am reminded," Mr. BurI rougs said one day, "of the story of the intelligent copperhead. This story is quite as true as many that are implicitly credited. "According to it, there was a man who had the habit of teasing copperheads. He would find a copperhead's hole, and then he would wait beside it until the snake returned —until it had gotten so far into the hole that only the end of its tail protruded. This he would seize, and with a quick movement he would throw the snake twentv or thirty feet away. "One day the man did this to a copperhead of unusual intelligence. The snake, on alighting, did not make for its hole again immediately, as the others had always done, but it lay still, and regarded its tormentor, thinking. For a long while it thought: then very slowly it began to approach the hole, turned around, and entered backward —entered tail first —sneering slightly at the man whom it had thus duped." As the liner cleared the leads and the heavy swell of the open Atlantic became noticeable, dinner was served. The twenty-six places at the captain's table were filled, and as the soup appeared the captain addressed his table companions: "I trust that all twenty-five of you will have a pleasant trip," he said, "and that this little assemblage of twenty-four will reach port much benefited by the voyage. I look upon these twenty-two smiling faces as a father upon his family, for I am responsible for the lives of this group of nineteen. I hope all fourteen of you will join me later in drinking to a merry trip. I believe we seven fellow passengers are admirably suited to each other, and I applaud the judgment which chose from the passenger list these three persons for my table. You and I, my dear sir, are — The captain chuckled. "Here, steward, bring on my fish and clear away these dishes." Tit-Bits.