1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



347 



be well rinsed and wiped perfectly dry. Painted 

 or varnished floors {if both painted and varnished 

 you have the most durable covering you can get 

 for a floor) and painted carpets wash with a soft 

 cloth — woolen is best — in perfectly clean luke-warm 

 suds ; then rinse them with clean warm water or 

 skim milk and rub them dry. Much cleaning of 

 floors is saved by laying mats and rugs upon them; 

 which should be taken frequently to the back yard 

 and swept, — it spoils mats and rugs to beat them, 

 or to shake them much. 



Closets and cupboards are easily kept clean if 

 papers are laid upon the shelves, — which can be 

 occasionally remoVed and dusted, if soiled re- 

 placed with other ; the blank papers procured at 

 the newspaper ofiice are very good for this. Fit 

 them to the shelves, with about an inch hanging 

 over the front, which may be cut in scallops and 

 eyeletted by the children ; your closets then will 

 have a very nice appearance with but little trouble. 

 The shelves of pantries, store closets and pot clos- 

 ets should be covered with brown paper ; and small 

 mats cut from old painted carpet save a good deal 

 of work in the kitchen by being placed where hot 

 kettles and pans are set when baking and other 

 cooking is going on. 



OLD SCHOOLMATES. 



"Whenever a new scholar came to our school, I 

 used to confront him at recess with the following 

 words: — "My name's Tom Bailey; what's your 

 name ?" If the name struck me favorably, I shook 

 hands with the new pupil cordially ; but, if it didn't, 

 I would turn on my heel, for I was particular on 

 this point. Such names as Higgins, Wiggins, and 

 Spriggius were deadly affronts to my ear ; while 

 Langdon, Wallace, Blake, and the like, were pass- 

 words to my confidence and esteem. 



Ah me ! some of those dear fellows are rather 

 elderly toys by this time, — lawyers, merchants, 

 sea-captains, soldiers, authors, what not ? Phil 

 Adams (a special good name that Adams) is consul 

 at Shanghai, where I picture him to myself with 

 head closely shaved, — he never had too much hair, 

 — and a long pigtail hanging down behind. He is 

 married, I hear ; and I hope that he and she that 

 was Miss Wang Wang are very happy together, 

 sitting cross-legged over their diminutive cups of 

 tea in a sky-blue tower hung with bells. It is so I 

 think of him; to me he is henceforth a jewelled 

 mandarin, talking nothing but broken China. 

 Whitcomb is a judge, sedate and wise, with spec- 

 tacles balanced on the bi-idge of that remarkable 

 nose which, in former days, was so plentifully 

 sprinkled with freckles that the boys christened 

 him Pepper Whitcomb. Just to think of little 

 Pepper Whitcomb being a judge ! What would he 

 do to me now, I wonder, if I were to sing out "Pep- 

 per" in court ? Fred Langdon is in California, in 

 the native-wine business, — he used to make the 

 best licorice-water / ever tasted 1 Binney Wallace 

 sleeps in the Old South Burying Ground ; and Jack 

 Harris, too, is dead, — Harris, who commanded us 

 boys, of old, in the famous snow-bail battles of 

 Slater's Hill. Was it yesterday that I saw him at 

 the head of his regiment on its way to join the 

 Army of the Potomac ? Not yesterday, but five 



years ago. It was at the battle of the Seven Pines. 

 Gallant Jack Harris, that never drew rein until he 

 had dashed into the rebel battery ! So they found 

 him — lying across the enemy's guns. 



How we have parted and wandered, and married, 

 and died ! I wonder what has become of all the 

 boys who went to the Temple Grammar School at 

 Rivermouth when I was a youngster ? 



"All, all are gone, the old familiar faces I" 



It is with no ungentle hand I summon them 

 back, for a moment, from that past which has 

 closed upon them and upon me. How pleasantly 

 they live again in my memory ! Happy, magical 

 Past, in whose fairy atmosphere even Conway, 

 mine ancient foe, stands forth transfigured, with a 

 sort of dreamy glory encircling his bright red hair ! 

 — From T. B. Aldrich's ^'IStory of a Bad Boy" in 

 "Our Young Folks." 



AFRICAN ANTS. OK TERMITES. 



In Africa and in the Indies there are found in 

 great numbers several varieties of large ants, some 

 of which construct huge hills, or nests, ten, twelve, 

 and, it is even said, twenty feet high. These are 

 built by what is known as the Termites, a species 

 resembling, and sometimes improperly called, the 

 White Ant. The illustration at the head of our 

 article shows the nest of a white ant, which Da 

 Chaillu observed in the African forest. It is not 

 so large as the nest of the termites, being about 

 four and a half feet high. 



The termites are divided into four different 

 classes — the males, females, and the neuters — in 

 which are included the soldiers, whose duty it is 

 to defend the nest, and the workers, who perform 

 all the labor, both in constructing the building and 

 in maintaining the household. The workers of the 

 termites are a fifth of an inch long ; the soldiers 

 are twice as long, each one having an enormous 

 horned head, armed with sharp pincers. Each 

 soldier weighs as much as fifteen workers. The 

 males are still larger than the soldiers, weighing 

 as much as thirty workers, and, unlike either the 

 soldiers or workers, are provided with wings. The 

 female, when engaged in laying its eggs, attains 

 an immense size — its head being no bigger than 

 that of the male, but the stomach swells to a huge 

 proportion, becoming two thousand times as big 

 as the rest of her body. She attains six inches in 

 length, and weighs as much as thirty thousand 

 workers. One cannot help wondering what the 

 little ants— the fierce soldiers, and the busy work- 

 ers — think of such a monster. It seems, accord- 

 ing to the accounts, that they deligut in her — the 

 soldiers, at the least alarm, rush to defend her, and 

 the workers all day long attend to her wants. 



Her wants, indeed, are very numerous. She 

 does nothing but lie motionless in her cell from 

 morning to night and lay eggs, which she deposits 

 at the rate of sixty a minute, or more than eighty 

 thousand a day. Thousands of the workers busy 

 themselves around their queen-mother, feeding 

 her, carrying away the myriads of eggs that she 

 lays, and placing them in minute cells, where they 

 soon become juvenile ants. The queen-mother 

 seems to be adored by all the rest. She appears, 

 says a writer, to be their beau ideal, their poetry, 

 their enthusiasm. If a portion of their city should 

 be destroyed, you will see the workers setting to 

 work at once to build an arch which may protect 

 the venerated head of the mother. 



So remarkable is the increase of the termites, 

 that, if many other species did not combine to de- 

 stroy them, they would fairly become mastei-s of 

 the world. They would destroy everything but 

 the fish, and convert the earth into a vast ant-hill. 

 But birds of all kinds are very greedy after them. 



