THE GENESEE FARMER. 



S75 



THE GOLDEN MAXIM OK SIR MATTHEW HALE. 



A Sabbath well spent 



Brings a week of content, 

 And health" fur the toils of t' -moTrow; 



But a Sabbath profaned, 



Whatsoe'er ma; be gained, 

 Is a certain forerunner of sorrow. 



A Good ghost story is told in Auckland's Curiosities of 

 Natural History: "Speaking of ghosts, I have heard that 

 some years ago, there was a lone house standing by itself 

 near a plantation, not far from Guildford- This house 

 nobody would ever take because it was haunted, and 

 strange noises heard in it every night after dark : several 

 tenants tried it but were frightened away by the noises. 

 kt last, one individual more courageous than the rest, 

 resolved to unravel the mystery. He accordingly 

 irmed himself cap-a-pie, and having put out the light 

 remained sentry in one of the rooms. Shortly he heard 

 >n the stairs pit, pat; a full stop, then pit, pat; a full stop 

 igain. The noise was repeated several times, as though 

 some creature, ghost or no ghost, was coming up stairs 

 A.t last the thing, whatever it was, came close to the door 

 >f the room where the sentry was placed and listening; his 

 leart, too, chimed in with the tune pit, pat, rather faster 

 ;hau it was wont to do. He flung open the door — hurry, 

 ikurry, bang J something went down stairs with a tre- 

 mendous jump, and all over the bottom of the house the 

 greatest confusion, as of thousands of demons rushing in 

 ill directions, was heard. This was enough for oue night, 

 rhe next night our crafty sentry established himself on 

 ;he first landing with a heap of straw and a box of luci- 

 'er matches ; soon all was quiet. Up the stairs again 

 ;ame the pit pat, pit pat. When the noise was close 

 ;o his ambush he scraped his match and set fire to his 

 straw, which blazed up like a bonfire in an instant; and 

 vbat did he see? only a rabbit, who stood on his hind 

 egs, as much astonished as was the sentry. Both man 

 md beast having mutually inspected each other, the biped 

 lurled a sword at the quadruped, who disappeared down 

 stairs quicker than he came up. The noise made was 

 )nly the rabbit's fore and hind legs hitting the boards as 

 le hopped from one stair to the other. The rabbits had 

 !;otiuto the tiouse from the neighboring plantation, and 

 aad fairly frightened away by their nocturnal wanderings 

 ;he rightful owners thereof. The more courageous seu- 

 ,ry was rewarded for his" vigil, for he held his tongue as 

 o the cause of the ghost. He got the house at a reduced 

 •ent, and several capital rabbit pies made of the ghosts' 

 Dodies into the bargain. 



The Childhood op Self-Made Men. — Sir Edward 

 Saunders, Chief Justice of England in the -reign of 

 Charles II., was once a poor beggar boy, strolling about 

 ;he streets,, with no knowledge of his parentage. Sir Thos. 

 jIreensham, who under the patronage of Elizabeth, be- 

 :ame the founder of the Royal Exchange, in London, was 

 he son of a poor woman, who, while he was an infant aban- 

 loued him in the fields, and his life was preserved by the 

 mirping of a grasshopper, which attracted a little boy to 

 he place where he lay. Our own Hamilton was the of- 



fice boy and runner of his patron. William Jones, the 

 friend of "Madison and Jefferson, once Secretary of the 

 Navy, and first President of the United States Bank,— 

 served his apprenticeship to a ship-builder. All have 

 read of the sexton's son, who became a fine astronomer, 

 by spending a short time every evening gazing at the 

 stars, after ringing the bell for 9 o'clock. Sir William 

 Pnrrps, who at the age of forty-five had attained the or- 

 der of knighthood, and the office of high sheriff of New 

 England and Governor of Massachusetts, learned to read 

 and write after his eighteenth year, and whilst learning 

 the trade of a ship-builder in Boston. David Ritten- 

 house, the American astronomer, when a plow-boy, was 

 observed to have covered his plow and the fences with 

 figures and calculations. James Ferguson, the great 

 Scotch astronomer, learned to read by himself, and mas- 

 tered the elements of astonomy while a shepherd-boy, in 

 the fields by night. 



A Timely Scrubbing. — "Abigail ! water — soap— towels 

 — quick! — a brush — get me his tooth-brush, nail-brush, 

 scrubber — anvthing. Hurry, quick — the brown soap — 

 anything! Oh! fill his mouth— plaster it in— the nasty, 

 filthy stuff! Hold him, James ! hold his mouth open, 

 head back— fast, James !" and all this in a perfect tem- 

 pest of excitement; and hastily throwing a towel around 

 the boy, and rolling up her sleeves, she 'enters upon the 

 cleansing operation. 



"Good gracious? Mrs. Osborne, what is the matter! 

 You're goin' on drefful," said Abigail, hardly knowing 

 whether to laugh or to cry at the strange catastrophe. _ 



"Has he hurt hisself, Mrs. Osborne?" ventured to in- 

 quire James, holding the' struggling boy in his firm grasp. 

 " Has he got the toothache? What ails you, Willie?" 



"Tobacco, James, tobacco!" eagerly resumed Mrs. 

 Osborne. " Our boy, our Willie, chewing pig-tail ! — had 

 his mouth full— teeth all black— tongue all dirty— breath 

 —ah ! pah ! shall I ever get it clean"?" And in went the 

 soap and the dripping brush, until the child's mouth 

 looked like a shaving-pot, and he was nearly strangled in 

 his efforts to resist the offensive application. 



"Hold still, child, hold still," she exclaimed; "soap's 

 clean, but tobacco isn't! Ah! the dirty, poison stuff! 

 Hold still ; I'll scrub it off if I can. There, now, rinse 

 v'our mouth ; rinse it well ; gargle the water in your 

 throat;" and the mother, suffering the flurry to subside, 

 sank into a chair. The three witnesses stood by amazed. 



" If ever I seed sich a time!" said Abigail, as she re- 

 turned, laughing;, to her cooking-stove." 



"Soap's healthy; they say It cures bile," remarked 

 James, dryly, as he proceeded to his ordinary routine of 

 business; "but I declare 'tain't so pleasant to have it 

 chucked down vour throat at that rate." 



"Rinse it well, Willie," said his mother; "take plenty 

 of water — three, four, a dozen times." 



There was no need of that exhortation, for more rins- 

 ings and gurglings than could be counted were necessary 

 to'take the taste of that strong, coarse soap out of the 

 poor child's mouth. At last, after gaspings and swal- 

 lowings innumerable, he recovered his speech, while 

 tears of anger, fright, surprise or shame, or perhaps all 

 together, flowed freely down his cheeks. 



"You're too bad, mother; you 'most killed me. 

 'Twan't Dig-tail at all — 'twas honev-dew." 



'"Twa's tobacco, child, tobacco; that's what it was, and 

 that's enough. No matter what the name is; no matter 

 how much they honey and sweeten it up ; 'twas tobacco, 

 the filthy poisonous weed, in my Willie's mouth. What 

 do you think father'll say ?" — Boys' ComiKinion. 



Thk two Wats. — "There are two ways of doing it,'> 

 said Pat to himself, as he stood musing and waiting for a 

 job." "If I save me four thousand pounds, I must lay 

 up two hundred pounds a year for twenty years, or I can 

 put away twenty pounds a year for two hundred years — 

 now which shall I do ?" 



