to tell anything. I can’t remember the first 
tiling.” 
“But the story, mother V” 
“How vexatious it is to be sure, that I 
can’t remember such a little thing as that! 
Well, one day when he was traveling alone 
—no, there must have been somebody with 
him, because he told me what he said to 
.somebcdy or other, and of course he 
•ouldift have said something to somebody 
d'somebody hadn’t been there to hear it. 
And yet he must have been alone. At all 
events lie was traveling. Oh! I have it 
now! no—I wish I could remember his 
name! Sounds something like ‘Hickory,’ 
but of course that wasn’t it.” 
“Perhaps it was Shagbark,” ventures 
••father,” facetiously. 
“What do you want to flustrate me with 
• our nonsense for, father? I declare you’ve 
( >ut me all out, and I can’t remember for 
the life of me what it was that happened to 
lim. But I know it was something awfully 
funny.” 
, “Father” has no doubt of it, but breathes 
;« prayer of thankfulness to know that 
Maria has run down at last .—Boston Tran¬ 
script 
Tlie Man in tlie Moon. 
> 11 , The Man in the Moon has a crick in his back: 
Whee, 
Whiram! 
Ain’t you sorry for him? 
Vnd a mole on his nose that is purple and black; 
and his eyes are so weak that they water and run 
If he dares to dream even that he looks at the sun; 
So he just dreams of the stars, as the doctors advise, 
My! 
Eyes! 
But isn’t he wise— 
To just dream of stars, as the doctors advise? 
Mid the Man in The Moon has a lioil on lus ear— 
Whee! 
Wiling! 
What a singular thing! 
• know! but these facts are authentic, my clear— 
There’s a boil on his ear and a corn on his chin- 
lie calls it a dimple—but dimples stick in— 
Yet it might be a dir> pie turned over, you know. 
Whang! 
Ho! 
Why iertainly so! 
And The Man in the Moon has a rheumatic knee — 
Gee! 
Whizz! 
What a pity that is! 
And his toes have worked round where his heebi 
ought to be. 
So whenever he wants to go north he goes south, 
And comes back with porridge crumbs all ’roum5- 
his mouth; 
And he brushes them off with a Japanese fan. 
\Vhing! 
Whang! 
What a marvelous man! 
What a very remarkably marvelous man! 
- -- 
Eight Acres Enough. 
There are no doubt many farmers in this 
country whose large estates are a positive 
damage to them. The following account, 
written by a correspondent of the New 
York 'Tribune , shows what can be done on 
a small farm: 
When I acquired title to the old home¬ 
stead and the great barns of the hundred- 
acre farm, now whittled down to eight, 
doubts appeared as to the ability of succeed¬ 
ing on a small surface, where a former 
proprietor had acquired a much larger area. 
Beginning with a retail route to a neighbor¬ 
ing city, I commenced to sell vegetablesr 
and supplied a steady and growing demand 
far “fresh goods right from the garden/ 
This finally took the form of fancy gar¬ 
dening, in my determination each year to 
add to my list of products such new vari¬ 
eties of vegetables as the popular taste de¬ 
manded, and which were unsupplied in the 
home market. This necessitated learning 
a great deal in experiments, both by suc¬ 
cess and failure in raising the articles called 
for; but as the articles raised were new. 
and I held all the supply, my trade grev* 
apace. 
Some things were dropped from the liss 
as unprofitable, by reason of the very lim 
ited demand; for I have found that if a 
market can be created any vegetable can 
be sold at a remunerative price. I de¬ 
termined on uniform and medium prices, 
which would insure confidence in the cus¬ 
tomers, and deter competition while it en¬ 
sured a safe and steady market for my 
products. My greatest trouble was in lack 
of ready money to buy what I imperatively 
needed in the prosecution of such a form 
of gardening; these were sashes for hoi 
beds, and a place to store in a half-growing 
condition such crops as I wished to market* 
