THE GENESEE FARMER. 



225 



<£$* 



i set I km to its. 



A DOT. 



"What's smaller than a dot- 

 Can mortal biped tell? 



'Tiss less than little spot, 

 And dark as magic spell. 



Important still is dot, 



Especially to i. 

 Absent In cold or hot— 



We with it live and die. 



What lots of dots in Life, 

 Of pun, of fun and wit ; 



There's Dicken's " Dot," the wife, 

 And little "Dot," the chit. 



The sky fives light in dots. 



Besprinkled here and there — 

 While children, brighter spots. 



Are Earth's stars everywhere. 



A Discriminating Shot. — Two men, Jones and Martin, 

 went deer hunting. After remaining together a while, 

 they separated, and soon Jones, hearing the report of 

 Martin's gun, went to him. Seeing no game, he asked 

 him if he had shot anything. "No," replied Martin, 

 rather carelessly, " didn't shoot anything." "What did 

 vou shoot at?" Martin seemed confused and evaded a 

 reply. Jones looked round a little, and saw a calf grazing 

 i short distance off. "Did you shoot that calf?" asked 

 Jones. " Yes," implied Martin, " I shot at it." " You 

 did not hit it, though," said Jones. "No, I did not hit 

 it." And Martin went on to explain. "You see, I was 

 uncertain whether it was a calf or a deer, and I shot so 

 is to hit it if it was a deer and miss it if it was a calf! " 



During the stormy days of 1848, two stalwart mobo- 

 crats eutered the bank of the late Baron A. Rothschild, 

 »t Frankfort. "You have millions on millions," said 

 they to him, "and we have nothing; you must divide 

 with us." "Yery well; what do you suppose the firm 

 of Rothschild is worth?" "About forty millions of 

 florins.' "Forty millions, you think, eh? Well now, 

 there are forty millions of people in Germany; that will 

 be a florin apiece ; here is yours." 



A Nice Man for a Small Party. — A country magis- 

 trate, noted for his lova of the pleasures of the table, 

 speaking one day to a friend, said : " We have just been 

 eating a superb turkey ; it was excellent, stuffed with 

 truffles to the neck, tender, delicate, and of high flavor ; 

 we left only the bones." " How many of you were there?" 

 said his friend. " Two," replied the magistrate. " Two !" 

 " Yes; the turkey and myself." 



Eligible to Preach. — A correspondent of a Boston 

 paper tells the following story of a fellow who applied to 

 a magistrate in England for a license to preach. He was 

 asked the usual question, "Can you read and write?" — 

 " Neither," said the aspirant to pulpit honors. " Then," 

 a»ked the licenser, " how can you think of preaching?" 

 "04i," replied the clown, "mother reads, aud I 'spounds 

 and 'sf loins!" 



Dr. Beecher says: "Never chase a lie. Let it alone, 

 and it will run itself to death. I can work out a good 

 character much taster than any one can lie me out of it." 



Gougii's Aposprophe to Cold Water.— Look at that, 

 ye thirsty ones of earth! Behold it! See its purity! 

 How it glitters, as if a mass of liquid gems ! It is a bev- 

 erage brewed by the hands of the.Almighty himself! 

 Not in a simmering still, over smoky fires, choked with 

 poisonous gases, and surrounded by the stench of sicken- 

 ing odors and rank corruptions, does your Father in f 

 Heaven prepare the precious essence of life, the pure cold J 

 water ; but in the green glade and grassy dell where the 

 red deer wanders aud the child loves to play— there God 

 brews it. And down, down, in the deepest valleys, where 

 the fountains murmur and the rills sing— and high up in 

 the mountain tops, where the naked granite glitters like 

 gold in the sun, where the storm clouds brood and the 

 thunder storms crash — and away far out on the wide sea, 

 where the hurricanes howl music and the waves roar the 

 chorus, sweeping the march of God — there he brews it, 

 that beverage of life — health giving water ! And every- 

 where it is a thing of beauty — gleaming in the dewdrop, 

 singing in the summer rain, shining in the ice gem, till 

 the trees all seem turned into living jewels ; spreading a 

 golden veil over the setting sun, of the white gauze over 

 the midnight moon, sporting in the cataracts, sleeping in 

 the bright snow curtains, softly about the wintry world 

 and weaving the many colored iris, that seraphs' zone of 

 the sky, whose warp is the rain drop of earth, whose 

 woof is the sunbeam of heaveu, all checkered over with 

 celestial flowers by the mystic hand of refraction. Still 

 always it is beautiful, that blessed life-water. No poison 

 bubbles on the brink; its form brings no sadness or mur- 

 der; no blood stains its limpid glasses; broken hearted 

 wives, pale widows and starving orphans shed no tears in 

 its depths. No drunkard's shrieking ghost from the 

 grave curses it in the words of eternal despair. Beautiful, 

 pure, blessed, and glorious — give me forever the sparkling, 

 pure Cold Water ! 



A man was brought up by a farmer, and accused of 

 stealing some ducks. The farmer said he should know 

 them anywhere, and went on to describe their peculiarity. 

 " Why," said the counsel for the prisoner, " they can't be 

 such a very rare breed ; I have some very like them in 

 my yard." "That's very likely, sir," replied the farmer; 

 " these are not the only ducks of the sort I have had 

 stolen lately." 



The Big Fiddle. — A shrewd clergyman was once tor- 

 mented by his people to let them introduce the big fiddle, 

 or bass viol, into the church. He told them the human 

 voice was the divinest of all instruments of music; but 

 they introduced their viol, and the old man rose and said : 

 "The brethren will, if they please, sing and fiddle the 

 Thirty-Ninth Psalm." 



Perfect Discontent. — An old lady was in the habit of 

 talking to Jerrold in a gloomy, depressing manner, pre- 

 senting to him only the sad side of life. "Hang it," said 

 Jerrold one day, after a long and sombre interview, "she 

 wouldn't allow there was a bright side to the moon !" 



A Good Idea.— That is a good idea of Clark's: "The 

 frost is God's plough, which he drives through every inch 

 of grouud in the world, opening each clod and pulverizing 

 the whole." 



