MR. AND MRS. CLEVER WATCH THE TREND OF 
THE TIMES. 
RS. CLEVER is not a woman of fads, as fads go ; 
but on one occasion she did become really pos¬ 
sessed by, rather than possessed of, one. Although 
she has come safely through, as people do through 
measles, or even small-pox, it was severe while it 
lasted. Mrs. Clever’s fad was spelling reform. 
Certainly Mrs. Clever was an advocate who had the 
courage of her convictions She was one of the origi¬ 
nal signers of the late petition for dropping silent let¬ 
ters to improve the Government spelling ; and she was 
so truly in earnest, so permeated with the idea, that 
she even thought after the improved formulas, besides 
adding an occasional new trick of her own. These 
additions, however, usually consisted in omitting some¬ 
thing, a truly Yankee method of addition. All the 
Clevers are Yankees, even the Clevers by marriage. 
Mr. Clever could not agree with his wife on this 
point. He preferred to spell “scat ” s-c-h-g-h-a t, after 
the old style, and believed that thus nobility might be 
added to many words in our tongue. 
“ Here’s hoping you’ll soon see enough of your spell¬ 
ing reform fad ; it’s the rankest nonsense ever palmed 
off on a long-suffering public,” fumed he one morning. 
“ Now, just look at this—in a reputable paper, too : 
“ ‘ Mr. and Mrs. Skilervil hav just bin adid to the 
list of Prof. McAlister’s 400; it was an oversite that 
they wer omited from the first published list, for, as is 
wel knon, thar ansesters wer among the first to sel 
trousrs to the Indyans. Thus the number is realy 
402 ; and it is wel that the list is elastik. As in the 
sirkl of the King’s Dautrs ten ma at eny time men 
ateen, so, we belev, 400shud be alowd to men 499, if so 
meny of blud incontrovertibly blu ar resusitated from 
the arkivs of the past.’ 
“ Now, what rot that is, every word of it! In the 
first place, the pretensions of every man or woman with 
any claim to blue blood have been analyzed by McAllis¬ 
ter’s chemist long ago, and there is no possibility of 
adding to the list. And if there were—if this impostor 
of a ‘ Skilervil ’ had been of a real old family, to spell 
the name without the ‘ S c-h-u-y ’ would be desecra¬ 
tion worse than failing to worship one’s ancestral 
tablets! ” 
“ Don’t talk of desecration, dear,” gently urged Mrs. 
Clever. “ In this land of equality and of freedom of 
worship, I am sure it was only the Chinese and a few 
society pepl who evr realy worshipd their ancestrs. 
And the Chinese hav mostly gon, and they say that 
ancestral worship is evn going out of fashion in the 
highest circls ; it got to be a littl bit comon. But if it 
wer evr so comon, it could never be wise to spel ‘ Skilr ’ 
S-c-h-u-y, because it would make it almost as uninteli- 
gibl as evn the Chinese tablets seem to be.” 
“ So much the better,” interposed Mr. Clever. 
“ O, no, yu don’t considr ; of cours the tablets muht 
giv the names and titls and honrs of the deceasd an¬ 
cestrs, and they would be uttrly valules if undecifrabl. 
Yu must se that if wun’s grandfathr wer a society 
king, or a Lord Hi Windspout, wun would want pepl 
to no it.” 
“ That is a good enough point, as you look at it; 
but you can't seem to see that your miserable ‘ reform ’ 
made it worse ! ” 
“ Now yu sho prejudis, Solomon. Besids, if the 
Skiirvil ancestrs did sel trousrs, the fact establishs 
their claim in spite of analysis. Sometimes I think 
this analysis isn’t worth much more than the analyses 
of baking powdrs by the government chemists. And 
(lowering her voice) I wouldn't say it to anybody 
butyu, but I am oftn temptd to think one is as much 
a bit of advrtisng as the othr.” 
“ O schghat, you’re way off!” eagerly put in Mr. 
Clever. “ And, talking about baking powders, you 
had better send that you made to Mr. McAllister, and 
see if his analysis won’t affect our blood or the powder. 
Seems to me the amount of lightning in it wasn’t 
much to speak of. And if alum and ammonia and 
other scouring stuffs will put more lightning in the 
biscuit, I’ll get a pint or a pound, or some soapine, 
to-morrow. Mac. is a good cook, anyhow. He knows 
how to get up a good dinner, and make all the people 
who are invited think they had the tallest kind of a 
time ; and as for the others, his Satanic Majesty take 
them!” 
“Now, Solomon ! It does very wel for Mrs. Linton 
to swear in covert French ; she is a womn, and of cours 
it doesn’t do for a womn to say what she means, evr. 
But if yu want to use any plain words, I hope yu 
won’t try^ to sugr-coat them by putting them in un- 
abridgd languag, to make yourself think it isn’t 
swearing. 
“ Then, Mathilde, you won’t wan’t me to call you 
by your fir»t name any more? It is too French; and 
to be consistent, we shall have to introduce spelling 
reform, and make it plain Matildy ; or, to be short it 
must be Tildy. Or would you like Patty better ?” 
But the sparks were flying from Mrs. Clever’s bright 
eyes. “ The marage servis changd my surname and 
gave me your Clever one,” she declared vehemently, 
as some pretty little crocodile tears began to bestir 
themselves in order to put out the sparks before any 
damage followed ; “ but I nevr heard that either that 
or the speling reform gave yu librty to tampr with the 
name that my mothr gave me, and put in the family 
recrd. If yu dare to call me ’Tildy I shall feel like 
moving to Dakota and applying-” 
“ Oh, don't let’s begin to talk about the divorce 
question to day, dear,” soothingly. “ Apply your 
sensible rules of reform to the case and we shall come 
out beautifully. Let’s see : the reformed spelling, if 
you still insist inconsistently on the French pronunci¬ 
ation, will be ‘ M-a-t-ee-l-d,’ won t it ? That is better, 
I confess. Compromise is the law of the hour ; we 
will compromise on ‘ Mateeld.’ O revrawr, Mateeld !” 
Mr. Clever, having for once had the last word, closed 
the door hastily, and was heard whistling “ O, Kate 
She is a Bonny Wife” as he ran lightly down the steps. 
Mrs Clever looked blank, and as though she hardly 
knew whether to laugh or to cry would be more 
appropriate to the occasion ; but in a moment a light 
flashed over her face. 
“That’s just exactly the way he has always pro¬ 
nounced it. What a goose I was !” myra y. norys. 
“LA CANADIENNE’S WINTER SPORTS/' 
HIS has been, so far, an old-fashioned Canadian 
winter: dazzling sunshine, intense cold, and 
plenty of snow, differing from the last two or three, 
which made one almost decide that the data on 
Canada’s winter solstice must be alterei. However, 
this winter, everything is right again, and no sudden 
changes make us waver from our first winter resolves 
—to wear our flannels, keep our fires blazing, and see 
that the storm doors and double windows are all on. 
That is where the Canadian climate has the advantage. 
It is generally there to stay. Hot summers, cold 
winters, mellow autumns, and balmy springs. No 
blizzard raps at our doors till we are prepared for his 
onslaught, and can refuse him admission. No barking 
at our heels in October. His first growl comes in De¬ 
cember, and he is all thereby Christmas; but just fancy 
us lying down resignedly in our beds, to be found 
‘ frozen to death ” in the morning! We, who know 
what winter means, with our well seasoned wood- 
piles, our flannel night-dresses, and our home spun 
woolen sheets, do not fear to leave our firesides, but 
start out for our constitutionals at a brisk pace, and 
well wrapped up, and soon our cheeks redden, our 
eyes sparkle, and oxygenation goes on as rapidly as 
our walk. Young Kanucks are as hardy as their 
elders. They spy the first feathery flakes. “It is 
snowing. It snows! ” and hand-sleighs are exhumed 
from the attic, and, wherever there is a slant on 
Mother Earth’s surface, down the sleigh is speeding. 
I saw a little girl of five, the other day, tumbling on 
the lawn, with her dog, in huge snow banks, with the 
thermometer at 30 degrees below. Her long hair 
was the only covering over her ears, a felt sailor her 
only head-gear, but her extremities were well pro¬ 
tected, and a large pair of bloomers were drawn up 
over her skirts, buttoning round her waist under her 
thick long coat. It is amusing to see the little toddlers 
snap on their spring skates, and glide over the ice, but 
with many a merry tumble. 
We older and busier ones start off on a moonlight 
evening, for a snow-shoe tramp. Notice the two pairs 
of socks, over our stockings; then a pair of moccasins, 
and a skirt to the ankle. The socks and moccasins 
are the most serviceable covering for the feet for all 
our out-door winter sports, with the exception of 
skating; that requires good stout boots. A tramp of 
about five miles is generally my limit. Walking as 
we do, two and two, the front couple find it heavy, 
breaking the path; but when they feel like it, they 
stand aside, and bring up at the rear. One feels giant¬ 
like, walking over frozen lakes, covered many feet 
with snow; and crossing fields oblivious of the snake 
fence, which the deep snow has almost covered, and 
which only requires a little extra lift of the snow 
shoe to cross. At the close of the tramp we are in¬ 
vited into the home of one of the party, to partake of 
hot coffee, sandwiches and conversation; and so ends 
our jolly evening. 
Some ladies are quite independent of their gentle¬ 
men friends on a toboggan slide ; they possess a 
toboggan, and their own dainty little moccasined 
toes guide their bark down in safety. “Whiz! bang ! ! 
walkee uppee two milee,” as the Chinaman described 
tobogganing; but who cares for the “ two milee,” or 
rather, the two or three hundred feet, when one 
climbs up with a pleasant companion, and is looking 
forward to that exhilarating shoot down ? 
Unless there are some enthusiastic curlers in the 
village, a small place finds it difficult to keep up a 
rink. The curlers build one for their own sport, give 
it up to the skaters a certain number of days and 
evenings out of the week, and so help to pay for the 
building and care-taker. If there are not enough 
votaries of the Caledonian game to do this, the skaters 
have to seize on any chance sheet of ice, when Jack 
Frost comes, and before the snow arrives. 
And when the fleecy mantle is spread, hear that 
tinkle, tinkle. Whiz, there’s the first sleigh; and the 
horses, with their musical ’bells, know it too. See 
their increased speed when drawing the smoothly 
gliding runners. Talk of pneumatic tires ! Come and 
try our runners on our snow-covered country roads. 
The village store-keeper rejoices at the sound of the 
merry jingle, for he knows that good sleighing means 
that wood, wheat, pork, etc., will be hauled out to 
market, and money will be more plentiful. 
Ontario, Canada. g. a. Holland. 
[Perhaps most of our readers will not know that 
“ curling ” is a Scotch game, described as propelling 
by the hand a heavy weight along the surface of the 
ice, to strike another heavy weight and drive it in a 
given direction.—E d.] 
WASHING DISHES MADE EASY. 
URING a visit I made my friend E-when her 
girls were small, I noticed some of her methods. 
At breakfast she said: “I want Jennie’s new apron pat¬ 
tern, and after you girls have finished doing the dishes 
you may run over to Mrs. Barlow’s and get it.” While 
they were taking up the dinner I heard her say: 
“Girls, after the dinner work is over, I wish you 
would look in the bottom of the old chest for that roll 
of pieces we wanted this forenoon.” Now the old 
chest held many treasures and they thought it a treat 
to look through them. At supper time E-remarked: 
“ Now, we’ll all three clear away the dishes, and be 
thro’ when Fred comes to try the new song for the 
concert.” 
The next morning it was: “ Girls, father is going 
to the wood lot this forenoon. If you work spry, you 
will be done with the table, and it will be a good 
chance to ride down and get the mosses and sticks for 
which the teacher asked.” At noon she told them that 
after they had put the dishes away all nice they might 
bring the dolls’ new patterns and we would help them 
make the dollies some new things. 
And so it went. Never once during my visit was 
there any lagging, or shirking, or pouting among the 
dishpans. The little girls were all animation and 
good cheer, and those dishes were promptly and ener¬ 
getically put back in their proper places after each 
meal. E-gave them a new train of thought, reach¬ 
ing out beyond the tiresome duty, and the rattle of 
the dishes was gaily accompanied with childish chatter. 
Indeed, E--herself, when performing some house¬ 
hold duty especially distasteful to her (for even the 
work we like to do usually has some unpleasant 
features), always looked beyond it to something 
pleasant waiting in the future. Is that faculty wholly 
a gift granted to the few, or many ; or may we all ac¬ 
quire it ? _ s. M. N. 
Thick, Firm and Cold. —I would like to add a word to 
“Sweet Fern’s” “whipped cream.” To insure suc¬ 
cess, the cream must be cold. If it be thick, firm 
and cold, it is a very simple matter to prepare this de¬ 
licious dessert; otherwise it is very apt to prove a 
failure. Those who do churning know that the butter 
will not come when the cream is very cold, and also 
that at this temperature it swells to double the 
quantity that was poured into the churn. This is 
exactly the condition favorable for preparing whipped 
cream. mrs. w. a. k. 
When Baby was sick, we gave her Castorla, 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castorla, 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castorla, 
When she had Children, she gave them Castorla. 
