89--. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



323 



"That's ^Ybat happened to yon 

 and me and will happen to thou 

 sands of others. Your wife cracked 

 your cocoanut. " 



"Is it possible?" gasped the vic- 

 tim. "Now that I think of it" — 



"Now that you think of it you re- 

 member that when you came to she 

 had her jaw set and an icy look in 

 her eye?" 



"Just so — just so." 



"And about the first words she 

 spoke to you were that it served you 

 right, and next time you'd come 

 home sober and at a reasonable 

 hour." 



"Exactly — just her words. Ana 

 I wasn't struck by a falling star?" 



"Not at all, sir." 



"But by my own wife?" 



"By your own wife, sir." 



"And you could have solved the 

 mystery any time in the last six 

 years?" 



"Any time, day or night." 



"Well, by gum! Drummer, I 

 thank heaven that I met you ! You 

 have rendered me a favor to win my 

 everlasting gratitude. Give me your 

 card that I may always cherish your 

 cognomen and also come and take a 

 drink with rao. So it was my wife 

 ■who whacked me? Yes, it must have 

 been — must have been — but I never 

 suspected it — never ! Drummer, fol- 

 low me to the convivial bar and 

 nominate your brand." — Detroit 

 Free Press. 



Hawaiian Iiava Tunnels. 



In these volcanoes the orifice 

 through which the lava flows is 

 made high up on the mountain side, 

 and in its gradual flow down the 

 slope a long cylindrical mass is 

 formed, the outside of which cools 

 and hardens. This mass separates 

 into branches, so that the whole 

 formation may be compared to a 

 tree with its trunk and branches, its 

 head lying down the mountain side. 

 As the exterior cools a tube is form- 

 ed, from out of which the melted 



lava flows, and when the whole mas^ 

 is cooled gruat tubes, some of them 

 10 or 15 feet in diameter, remain, 

 into which the explorer may ven- 

 ture. Were it not for the fact that 

 the sides and top of the tubes be- 

 come crusiied, they might be fol- 

 lowed for Hi lies in some cases. Tho 

 interior of the tubes is ornamented 

 with stalactites of lava, but of course 

 not like the stalactites of limestone 

 Qavi^s..— L(.-s ture la- G. H. B arton. 



A Kemarkable Potato. 



Andrew Maxwell, a well known 

 merchant in Glasgow, was in the 

 island of Arran some years ago with 

 his mother and sisters. The weather 

 was unusually warm, and his vener- 

 able mother suffered so much from 

 the heat that her hands became 

 swollen, and as her marriage ring 

 was fretting her finger one of her 

 daughters, after no little coaxing, 

 persuaded her to allow its removal. 

 To the disinaj^ of the daughter the 

 ring was lost, but she procured an- 

 other so like the old one that the 

 change was not noticed when it was 

 placed on her finger. 



Next year the family went back 

 to the same house, and in the au- 

 tumn, when the farm servant in a 

 neighboring building, having boiled 

 potatoes for the pigs, was crushing 

 a potato in her hand, she felt some- 

 thing hard, and, on looking at this 

 thing inside the jiotato, she ex- 

 claimed to one of the Maxwell serv- 

 ants who was beside her, "Hero's a 

 ring in the potato," and showed a 

 thin, worn marriage hoop. "1 be- 

 lieve," said the other, "it is my 

 mistress' ring, and we can find that 

 out because her initials were inside 

 the hoop. " On examining it there 

 were the initials, and the lost ring 

 was identified. It had evidently been 

 swept out among the ashes, the ash- 

 es thrown upon the ash pit, the con- 

 tents of the ash pit on the potato 

 field, and the rina: absorbed by the 

 potato inside of which it was found 

 a vear after it had befan InstJ- 



