Coining home, hiding himself in his own 
room, the first thing he saw was Miss Field’s 
crystal flask, which he forthwith dashed from 
its bracket ignominiouslv, saying, grimly, as he 
surveyed the fragments, “ You told me to break 
if' Then seeming to feel the light, white 
touch upon iiis arm, the beautiful eyes upon his 
face, sudden remorse seized lilm, and carefully 
gathering up the. mutilated remains of the poor 
“potted acorn,” he took them into the conser¬ 
vatory, and dislodging a superb African lily 
frcgn its vase, deposited his young oak therein. 
That night, William Dexter coming home late, 
and tottering under some burden as though the 
weight of twice hislyeara hail suddenly settled 
upon him, dung to the door-post in the hall and 
listened to the murmur of voices that came 
from the drawing-room beyond. 
Ilose and Raymond were both there. No, 
that was not Raymond’s voice, and suddenly 
throwing wide the door be entered and stood 
beside Rose. Rose, with her little hand in 
Frank Brandon’s, and her white eyelids droop¬ 
ing under his ardent gaze, started away from 
him with a low cry ns she saw her father look¬ 
ing so strangely; but Frank Brandon, after an 
instant’s disconcertment, said, with a straight¬ 
forwardness worthy a good cause, “ I have been 
asking Rose to be my wife, Rir; she will con¬ 
sent if you will.” 
“Will she?” said the old man strangely. 
“Well, go away now, young man, and if you 
come back to me to-morrow with the same plea 
on your lips you may have her and welcome.” 
The morrow came, and before it had passed the 
name of William Dexter, bankrupt, was being 
bandied from lip to lip. 
It. was an utter crash; everything was gone, 
even to Frank Brandon, who did not so much as 
send an apology for his non-appearance at the 
appointed time. 
Rose, reeling under it all, but, strangely 
enough, retaining some portion of her delicate 
senses, crept after her wretched father into the 
library just in time to thrust aside, with her 
frail but frantic hand, the deadly muzzle he was 
holding to his crazed temples. 
And then she staid by him till Raymond came, 
a very faded, sick little rose, but curiously, with 
courage enough in her for that, and too much 
pride to trust a servant with her fear. 
Raymond sent her away to her room when he 
came, but he heki her in his arms a moment 
first. The eyes of the brother and sister met, 
with a strange, new sympathy, in the hour of 
trial, and he said, as he let her go, “Never 
mind, sis,” He was thinking of Frank Bran¬ 
don then. 
Watching with the poor old man, to whom 
an opiate had brought sleep at last, he stole 
once into the conservatory, twisting in his fin¬ 
gers a note that had come to him at nightfall 
from Laura Mason. 
The young lady bad repented her grateful 
affirmative of the day before, and took the first 
opportunity of informing him to that effect. 
Raymond’s lips curled; neither this blow nor 
the other seemed to have crushed him. 
He bent a moraeut over the poor little potted 
acorn: it really looked like living after all; and 
Raymond turned away from it with a curious 
light in his eye. 
In the midst of all that chaos of bewilder¬ 
ment and confusion as to what they should do, 
the old man sat all day with his head fallen 
upon his bosom, and Rose staid with him, scared 
and sick, but sensible: and Raymond rushed to 
and fro like a rudderless ship, eager, brave, but 
uncertain. 
In the midst of all came a letter from a good 
old country gentleman, brother to William Dex¬ 
ter, offering the best at his command—a home 
to Rose and her father, and the lease of a small 
farm to Raymond. 
Raymond winced, but he had resolved delib¬ 
erately to accept the first honorable employ¬ 
ment that offered, and really nothing else was 
to be had. 
People knew too well how Raymond Dexter 
had been ream!. Nobody had a good enough 
opinion of him to have him in their counting- 
house or sales-room. And so, dandy as he was, 
or had been, he wrote grateful, if reluctant ac¬ 
ceptance of his undo’s offer. 
The three left town quietly, making no adieus; 
only, Raymond sent by a trusty hand to Victoria 
Field a small package, which, upon opening, 
proved to be merely some fragments of broken 
erystal. But Miss Field smiled tremulously 
when she saw them, and some tears from her 
beautiful eyes plashed among the broken bits. 
Doubtless our present Indian war in the 
North-West was incited by the Sioux, whose 
recent barbarities in Minnesota are still fresh in 
the minds of our readers. Or it may be,—which 
is perhaps as probable.—the result of the insidi¬ 
ous efforts of agents of Jeff. Davis & Co. It 
will at least be interesting and timely to give 
herewith an Indian War scene —the Scalp 
Dance. The Indians inaugurate all gTeat events, 
celebrate their accomplishment, and worship 
with dances. To these they attach great signifi¬ 
cance and give names. And they are. perhaps, 
the wildest features of their wild life. 
“The Scalp Dance” Is a ceremony especially 
prevalent among tht Sioux, though uot confined 
exclusively to them. It is well known that the 
Indians scalp those whom they kill in war, 
taking off nearly or quite the entire skin of the 
head, with the hair attached. This is stretched 
on hoops, and elevated on poles, as seen in the 
engraving. Around these poles the warriors, 
on returning from a successful excursion, dance 
fifteen nights in succession. They dance in a 
circle, leaping, yelling, distorting their faees. 
brandishing their weapons, and boasting o 
their prowess in battle. They are dressed in 
their gayest costume, and their heads are 
adorned with feathers. Young women are 
sometimes permitted to assist by chanting in 
chorus, or by standing in the center of the ring, 
but are rarely suffered to join .in the dance. 
They are here seen in the background. 
LOOK TO THE BEDROOM. 
The editor of the American says be has often 
taken a chicken and played the “ chalk ” game. 
“Hold the bill of the fowL" says he, “just 
down to the floor, and then, with a quick stroke, 
draw a bright chaik mark along the floor. Let 
go of the hen gently, and she will stand for 
a minute or two gazing at the mark in a strange 
dazed maimer, when she will lift up her head, 
and, apparently realizing what a fool she has 
made of herself, will run off cackling ” 
1K two persons are to occupy a bedroom 
during a night, let them step upon weighing 
scales as they retire, and then again in the 
morning, and they will find their actual weight 
to be at least a pound less in the morning. 
Frequently there will be a loss of two or 
more pounds, and the average loss throughout 
the year will be more than one pound. That 
Is, during the night there is a loss of a pound 
of matter which has gone off from their lungs, 
and partly through the pores of the skin. The 
escaped material is carbonic acid and decayed 
animal matter of poisonous exhalations. This 
is diffused through the air in part, and in part 
absorbed by the bed clothes. If a single ounce 
of wood or cotton be burned in a room, it will 
completely saturate the air with smoke, that 
one can hardly breathe, though there can only 
be one ounce of foreign matter in the air. If 
an ounce of cotton be burned every half hour 
during the night, the air will be kept con¬ 
tinually saturated with smoke, unless there can 
be an open door or window for it to escape* 
Now. the sixteen ounces of smoke, thus formed, 
is tar less poisonous than the sixteen ounces of 
exhalations from the lungs and bodies of the 
two persons who have lost a pound in weight 
during the eight hours of sleeping, for while 
the dry smoke is mainly taken mto the lungs, 
the damp odor from the body are absorbed both 
into the lungs and into the pores of the whole 
body. 
Need mere be said to show the importance of 
having bedrooms well ventilated, and of 
thoroughly airing the sheets, cover-lids and 
mattrasses, in the morning, before packing 
them up in the form of a neatly made bed!— 
People's Journal of Health. 
THE AURORA OF THE 24TH OF AUGUST 
IDLE WORDS. 
This splendid phenomenon, though not very 
rare in this form, is still wonderful. It began, to 
be seen a little before 10 in the evening, lying in 
a circle from south of east to north of west, a 
little north of the zenith. Just after ten it had 
passed the zenith , in a curve parallel to that just 
noticed; and it moved very slowly southward, 
reaching from the eastern to the western hori¬ 
zon. Its form was that of a belt or band of eot- 
tondike form and splendid whiteness, more fi¬ 
brous th an usual, a degree in bread th, As light¬ 
ning was frequent in a distant thunder shower, 
its flashes were finely reflected from this white 
band. Its edges were finely defined, slightly 
and irregularly jagged. It began to disappear 
at the eastern part, at half-past 10, when it was 
several degrees south of tho zenith, and, when 
I last saw it. near 11, it had disappeared many 
degrees to the west of the meridian, and soon 
was gone. No motion westward, as is often ap¬ 
parent, was detected. All this time the whole 
western canopy was covered with most beauti¬ 
ful white light, the hue of the most perfect 
whiteness. 
On the eve of April 9th, 1863, a similar arch 
astonished and delighted all spectators. It be¬ 
gan earlier and continued longer, was broader, 
especially all through the upper part of it, and 
sent out or had attached to it feather-like ap¬ 
pendages of the same material as the band. It 
began to disappear at the west, and had an evi¬ 
dent motion westward. I once saw such an 
arch divide into cross sections, all moving, like 
platoons, in regular order, to the west. Wheu 
a boy the old people fold me of most wonderful 
exhibitions of armies in the heavens tvs indica¬ 
tive of the French War of 1730, and of the war 
of our Revolution. 
And uow, w hat is this band, or cotton-llke 
cloud? No one has informed us. It. is attribu¬ 
ted to electricity; but what does that reveal ? It 
often occurs with the common form of the Au¬ 
rora Borealis, and is hence called by the same 
name. But, what is the Aurora Borealis? If 
it is electrical, what have you learned of elec¬ 
tricity, which teaches you hove electricity c m 
be thus exhibited? If we probably have cur¬ 
rents of electricity passing from east to west 
around the earth, how does it ever take on this 
form? You may suppose, or guess, or conjec¬ 
ture: but, what is known of the cause, or of any 
action like it? C. D. 
“Frank, where w r as the text to-day ?’’ said 
Mr. Raymond to his son, who sat near him at 
the dinner-table on the Sabbath., 
“ I cannot remember the chapter or the verse, 
father, hut it was, I know, something about idie 
words; and Mr. Seymour made it out to be a 
very wicked thing to say a great many words 
I’ve always been used to saying. I'm sure I 
never thought of there being any harm in them 
before.” 
“Such as what , my son?” said his father. 
“ Why, he said ' goodness ’ and • mercy' were 
very ofteu used thoughtlessly as exclamations, 
and because they were divine attributes, they 
should not be spoken lightly; and •gracious,’ 
too, father, he said wo ought uot to use so. Now 
please tell me what is meant by attributes ?” 
“ Do you remember the answer in your cate¬ 
chism, Frank, after the question ‘What is 
God?’” 
••Yes, father, it says. ‘God is a spirit, in¬ 
finite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, 
wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and 
truth.’ ” 
“ Those words which describe God. and which 
I explained to you the other day, are his attri 
butes. We should call them traits ot character, 
if we were speaking of a human being- Mercy 
is not particularly mentioned in this sentence, 
as goodness seems to be sufficient to express the 
same idea.” 
“ What other words were there# Frank ?” said 
his mother; “ did you feel as if our good pastor 
m:«i* too much of our useless every-day ex¬ 
pressions ?•’ 
‘ Y es, mother, it seemed to me he did not 
approve of any exclamations at all, but tried to 
make it out as sinful to say almost everything. 
I don’t believe I can possibly get along without 
saying—well, l don’t know — ever so many 
words.’’ 
“ Such as * plague on it,' or * confound it,’ ” 
rejoined his mother. “ It would, perhaps, be a 
hard task, my dear boy, for you to break your¬ 
self of these impatient expressions; and yet, 
don't you thiuk you would be happier and more 
agreeable without them?’’ 
Wheu dinuer was over. Frank brought his 
testament to his fathpr, and they found the text 
in the 12th chapter of Matthew, and the 39th 
verse. Suppose my readers look and see if I 
quote it correctly. ' “ But I gay unto you, that 
every idle word that men shall speak, they shall 
give' account thereof la the day of judgment.” 
Frank remembered it, after repeating it over 
several times; and when the u<: day in school 
he was tempted to use sonic of his uld expres¬ 
sions. it came into his mind iike a little bright 
star, and kept him in the right way. 
He found it very hard at first to break him¬ 
self of the habit, hut he knew his Heavenly 
Father was always ready to help those who 
pray to him. So lie fought against it, and asked 
God’s help, and in time was almost free trom the 
use of idle words. 
Dr Lardner says:—“ It is a startling fact) 
that if the earth were dependent alone on the 
sun for heat it would not get enough to keep ex¬ 
istence in animal and vegetable life upon its sur-' 
face. It results from the researches of Pouil- 
let that the stars furnish heat enough ia the 
course of the year to melt a crust of ice seventy- 
five feet thick—almost as much as is supplied by 
the sun. This may appear strange, when we 
consider how immeasurably small must be the 
amount of heat received from any one of these 
distant bodies. But the surprise vanishes when 
we remember that the whole firmament is so 
thickly sown with stars that in some places 
thousands are crowded together within a space 
no greater than that occupied by a fall moon. 
The eye c&nnot see more than a thousand at the 
same time in the clearest heaven, yet the num¬ 
ber is probably infinite. From the first to the 
sixth magnitude inclusive, the total number of 
visible stars is 3,126.” 
Fresh air is an indispensable aid in curing 
consumption. “ It is wonderful,” remarks Dr. 
Hail, “how afraid consumptive people are of 
fresh air, the very thing that would cure them, 
the only obstacle to a cure being that they do 
not get enough of it; and yet what infinite pains 
they take to avoid breathing it, especially if it is 
cold, when it is known that the colder the air is 
the purer it must be; yet if people can not get 
to a hot climate they will make an artificial one 
and imprison themselves for a whole winter in 
a warm room, with a temperature not varying 
ten degrees in six months: all such people die, 
and yet we follow- in their footsteps. If I were 
seriously ill of consumption. I would live out of 
doors day and night, except it was raining or 
mid-winter; then I would sleep in an unplas¬ 
tered log housed’ 
IV. 
Uncle Tom Dexter, as every one in that re- 
;iou called Raymond’s uncle, stared and shook 
lie head diseourugiugly at sight of his tenant. 
PLAYING AT HEN AND CHALK, 
A CORRESPONDENT of the Scuntijic rimeri- 
can tells the following:—1 hare often tried 
the “ hen and chalk ” doctrine, by first placing a 
hen with its bill touching the floor, then begin¬ 
ning at its bill, rapidly marking a straight white 
line directly from it. The hen will seem to be 
apparently dead, but with its eyes open, neither 
can it move right or left, but will remain in any 
position it is placed. It appears to be in deep 
thought, as a man wheu his eyes are fixed on 
vacancy; forgetting even to wink to moisten 
them. 
The above philosophy or doctrine, whatever 
it be. may also apply to the followingTake a 
bird—I took a canary—place it on its back or 
lav it on its side ami begin to wave a feather 
over its head, about au inch above, aud it will 
die. to all appearances as naturally as if its life¬ 
blood were Lust dripping away. But there is 
something else which l have not only heard of 
but seen doue. It is the power of making a 
wasp perfectly harmless, so that it cau be 
handled with impuuity. The secret of this 
power lies merely in holding the breath. 
Raymond colored and laughed, but succeeded 
in persunding his uncle “to give him a try.” 
it was what Uncle Tom called “up-hill 
work.” 
City exquisites are uot transformed into hard- 
worluug farmers at a momeut’s notice. But 
Raymond had made the one resolve so necessary 
to success in any undertaking, viz . whatever he 
did. that he would do with all his might. 
Amidst all the rough and tumble of this new 
life.'his hitherto dwarfed energies, physical aud 
mental, seemed to shake off letters. 
He stood forth a mao, intellectually and phy¬ 
sically, a son, a brother, filling the last days of 
his old father with peace, a guard to his sister, 
that no Frank Brandon ever again baffled. 
In the fullness of time ho brought home to 
the little farm—now , his own, aud something to 
be proud of, for the very reason that he had 
made it his own—Victoria. 
In the soft purple twilight he led her up the 
walk his wife, stopping a monieut by a young 
sturdy oak of some throe years’ growth, aud 
saving, “God helping me, dear, 1 mean to grow 
withU.” And so he has. 
Rose is married to a man worth a thousand 
like Frank lfraudou. I am not at all sure that 
the “crash” did not beuelit her as much as 
Raymond. 
M. Delisle once observed a fly only as large 
as a grain of '••and, which ran three inches in 
half a second, and in that space made the enor¬ 
mous uumberof 540 steps. If a man were able 
to run as fast, in proportion to his size, suppos¬ 
ing his step to measure two feet, he would. In 
the course of a minute, have run upward of 
twenty miles. A flea can leap two hundred 
times its own length; so also can the locust 
Some spiders can leap a couple of feet upon their 
prey. 
Fish in Cisterns. “This spring,” says a 
correspondent of the Buffalo Express, •• mv da¬ 
te ni got quite filthy, and had a great many angle- 
worms in it. and t could scarcely use the water, 
l procured a couple of live fish and put them in 
the cistern, and since that time it has been tree 
from dirt and worms and smell. The fish will 
live and grow finely. 
