2 
a 
JUNE. 
BY W. B. DERRICK. 
The gayest month of all the year— 
Bright, rosy June—is here; 
Sweet flowers in garlands seek her brow, 
And fi-agrance fills the air. 
The birds are warbling their sweet songs, 
And, singing, seem to say 
That Nature is enjoying now 
A happy gala-day. 
The weather has been warm indeed, 
And auite dry for awhile, 
But we've just had a pleasant shower, 
Enough to make one smile. 
The grass is much refreshed, and lo! 
The green corn in the field 
Is growing now so very fast 
The pigs begin to squeal! 
For well they know, or ought to know, 
That man who feeds them well 
Will kill them when they’re fat and sleek, 
To “cure” them, or to sell. 
The prospect now is verj T good 
For crops of every kind 
Throughout this beauteous prairie land— 
No better can you find. 
Then let us not desponding say 
This is a “world of woe,” 
But rather like the lark be gay, 
As through this life we go. 
Baileyville, III. 
CHOOSING A BUSINESS. 
The Carpenter’s Trade. 
A great change has come over the car¬ 
penter’s business during the last fifty years. 
Formerly carpenters made almost every¬ 
thing of which the material was common 
wood, from a clothes-peg to a kitchen-ta¬ 
ble, from a cow-shed to a church; and 
whatever they made they also mended. 
I can myself remember taking my sled, 
Antelope, to a village carpenter for repairs, 
and discovered him in his shop making a 
coffin. It was somethihg of a shock, and 
I was quite abashed at the idea ofj inter¬ 
rupting him for so trifling a job. At pres¬ 
ent coffins, like much other wooden mer¬ 
chandise, are not made; they are turned 
out by machinery. 
In the same way doors of all kinds and 
sizes are manufactured, from cellar doors 
of pine to parlor doors of rosewood and ma¬ 
hogany; sash also, blinds, stairs, mould¬ 
ings and many other things. There are 
large villages which are chiefly supported 
by some special manufacture ,of wood. 
There is one in Maine where they make 
boys’ sleds in incredible numbers, and of 
excellent quality. A boy now gets a bet¬ 
ter sled for a dollar than could be had forty 
years ago for three dollars, 
A carpenter told me, a few days ago, that 
he occasionally buys the doors of a house 
for less money than he could buy the rough 
boards of which they are made. Well- 
made doors, too, and thoroughly seasoned! 
I have myself, at Winchendon, Mass., a 
wonderful town for wooden manufacturers, 
seen clothes-pegs made at a cost of thirteen 
pegs for one cent, and a pretty good pail 
for eleven cents. 
At present, then, the business of a car¬ 
penter is to combine into some desired form 
or object a number of articles which he 
buys ready made to his hand. In a new 
sense of the word, he is a “joiner.” 
Nevertheless, the foundation of success 
in carpentry is skill in the use of the old- 
fashioned tools. A builder must be able to 
make a door or sash, and make it well, 
even if he never has to make one. Boys 
may rely upon it that with all the help car¬ 
penters get from machinery, it requires 
more skill and judgment to be a good car¬ 
penter than it did when he had to do every¬ 
thing with his own hands. 
If he only has to stand and direct the op¬ 
eration of a machine, he cannot be himself 
a machine, and the constant observation of 
a complicated piece of mechanism tends to 
elevate and educate him. 
I saw the other day a machine which 
planed both sides of a board, grooved one 
edge and matched the other, all in one op- 
eiation, in twenty seconds. By a little ex¬ 
tra pressure, two men could pass through 
that machine two thousand boards in ten 
hours. In other words, two men and the 
machine were doing the work of four hund¬ 
red skilled mechanics, and they appeared to 
be merely pushing a board along and pull¬ 
ing it out at the other side, without care or 
thought. 
If you watch them do this for half an 
hour, you will discover that they have 
charge of an exquisite and sensitive piece 
of machinery, which has to be continually 
