through the windows from the wide, cheery 
kitchen within. Hero were the only present 
occupants of the dwelling—three girls, seated 
before, not the “huge old-fashioned fire¬ 
place,” for there was none, but the great 
“ Stewart,” a duplicate of many a modern 
housewife's joy and pride, which, with' the 
lamplight, bringing out, in strong relief all 
over it lights and shadows of glossy black, 
and reflected from the polished surface of 
the reservoir in the background was, if less 
poetically beautiful, far more practically at¬ 
tractive. 
The early supper was over; dishes washed, 
and all,—and now the trio were resting from 
the day’s labors. Susie and Vink with 
crotchet and tatting; the third happily com¬ 
bining instruction and amusement, alternate¬ 
ly read aloud from the “Grafton Weekly 
Chronicle,” and operated destructively upon 
a luscious looking red apple which claimed 
an equal share of attention. This was Cousin 
Roxana, a young lady of uncertain age, Just 
hovering on the verge of old-maidenhood— 
an inmate of the farm-house during the ab¬ 
sence of father and mother Grave, now away 
on a several-weeks’ visit to “ the old folks 
down East.” An extremely independent, 
courageous individual, she had come to 
watch over her timid young cousins, to pro¬ 
tect them from rude alarms of Wandering 
Jews, (modern edition, t. c., itinerant, ped¬ 
dlers,) by day, and those never-seen but ever- 
dreaded terrors supposed to stalk abroad by 
night. 
“Well, did you ever! Now girls, just 
look here,” and albeit her articulation was 
rather obstructed, Miss Roxy proceeded to 
read from the column of Crime and Casual¬ 
ties, set forth with nil the expressive and 
popular phrases wherewith local reporters 
are wont to garnish their paragraphs, an ac¬ 
count of a burglary effected by an expert 
who had contrived to gain entrance to the 
house of his victim by wrapping himself in 
a blanket and being deposited there by an ac¬ 
complice, as a peddler’s pack, “to be called 
for to-morrow." 
“ I read a story in a paper once,” she went 
on, “ how that very thing was done, and a 
boy in tin: house just up and fired into the 
pack and killed the man. Smart, wasn’t he V 
That's just precisely what I'd do.” 
“Oli, Roxy ! you wouldn’t,” shuddered 
Vink. “Only think!” 
“What’s the reason I wouldn’t?” cried 
Miss Roxana, with courage well befitting 
her namesake of old, who was denmefij 
worthy to be Mrs. Alexander the Great. 
“ Of course I would. It would be no more 
nor less than right. Hasn’t anybody a right 
to do it?” 
“ I don’t see how you could,” said Sue, 
tremulously; “1 tired off father’s gun once, 
trying to shoot a squirrel. It didn’t hurt 
him, but it almost killed me.” 
“ I’d rather lie robbed and murdered my¬ 
self than kill any one else," murmured Vink, 
“ I shouldn't know which end of a gun to 
point, any way.” 
“ Girls," said Miss Roxy, impressively, “ it 
would be no worse than doing it in war, and 
I wouldn’t hesitate a minute if I had a 
chance to-night. Oh, I’d like to be a sol¬ 
dier,” and waving her newspaper, she quoted 
enthusiastically an ancient nursery rhyme of 
her childhood, not being very familiar with 
the language of our best, modern poets: 
•* l would ko Into 'buttle, 
With iiiv rltli* in my hand, 
To hour din cannon rattle. 
And the mimic ul) bo grand!’’ 
After this truly sublime climax, solemn si¬ 
lence ensued. Susie and Vink grew de¬ 
cidedly nervous; fearful scenes shifted before 
their mental vision, and they looked warily 
about the room and at each other, wishing 
it was time for father and mother to come 
back, while tlicir courageous relative read 
quietly on, little imagining the vague fears 
which disturbed their timid souls. 
At last Vink’s fingers grew tired of shuttle 
ami loop, and rested in her lap. Iler blue 
eyes closed wearily, and her head nodded 
and drooped from one side to the other, 
like the dove of old, “seeking a resting place 
and finding none." Roxv finished her pa¬ 
per, advertisements and all, and sat abstract¬ 
edly gazing into vacancy, when Sue ex¬ 
claimed,— 
“ Hark I there, 1 beard the gate slam !” 
Vine was instantly wide awake. She 
sprang to the window, drew back with a 
suppressed scream, and then laughed nerv¬ 
ously at having been startled by the reflec¬ 
tion of her own face in the glass. 
“Mm, vina Grape, what ails you?” said 
Miss Roxy, sharply, “there’s nobody there.” 
“ Yea there is, Roxy,” said Sue, hurriedly, 
“somebody coming up the walk now. Don’t 
you hear?” 
There was breathless silence for a moment , 
during which were distinctly heard slow, ir- J 
regular stops coming up the walk from the 
gate to the house. 
“ Well, what if there is?” said Roxy, “ it’s 
ouly some of the neighbors; somebody’s 
sick, perhaps, or maybe some one wants to 
inquire the way." 
A loud thumping on the door announced 
the arrival of the dreaded comer. Our he¬ 
roine seized a lamp and marched boldly into 
the entry ; the others, not daring to follow, 
stood still, awaiLing the result. 
The instant Roxy opened the outside door 
a gust of wind swept through the long, nar¬ 
row passage, extinguishing her light and 
shutting violently the door which she bad, 
unconsciously, perhaps, left open behind her. 
“Come this way,” she said, confusedly, 
groping her own way hack in the darkness. 
“ Where’s the latch, 1 wonder! Girls, come 
and open this door.” 
Susie, her fears half quelled, came to the 
rescue, and the intruder silently followed 
Miss Row into the warm, bright kitchen. 
“ Oh!” exclaimed Roxy, after a fair view, 
“ it’s only Aunt Maucia’b —well, excuse me; 
take a chair, Mr. Woiiman.” 
Now, if there wasone individual whom, 
beyond all others, the Gkakp girls dreaded 
and feared, it was this same Jacob Won- 
man, “Aunt Marcia’s hired man,”—Aunt 
Marcia being a tlirifly, well-to-do widow, 
dwelling several miles beyond, ou one of the 
finest farms in Grafton, and Mr. Woiiman 
her chief factotum. His personal appear¬ 
ance was not t he most favorable for quiet ing 
excited nerves. A dark, weird-looking face, 
framed in heavy black hair, and crowned by 
an ancient hat beneath which two black 
eyes gleamed sharply from deep, cavernous 
recesses; this surmounted a tall, uncouth 
figure, apparently composed of black oil¬ 
cloth, now dripping with rain. 
Refusing the proffered chair, he stated 
concisely what brought Sue and Vine to 
the verge of catalepsy, and made even Miss 
Roxy’s stout heart quail for a moment—viz.: 
that Ip; bad been to Grafton Corners on 
business; awful going; neither wagoning 
nor sleighing; pitch dark; broke down a 
few rods from their gate; wagon all stove 
up; got to ride his horse homo; wanted to 
leave, a bundle there that night; couldn’t 
carry it possibly; drive over tomorrow and 
get it—“ Good night.” 
“ Stop! stop a minute!” cried Roxy, who 
had, for an instant, been deprived of all 
power of speech, now starting to the door 
which he bad closed behind him. “Where 
is it? Leave it outside.” 
“No—mustn’t let it get wet. Here ’tis, 
right in the entry.” 
“But—say; wliat is it?" 
“Nevermind—may bite you;” and with 
this, Mr. Wodman disappeared through the 
outer door into the darkness. 
Well! Roxy deliberately took a lamp in 
one hand, anil shading her cyss. with the 
other, looked into the entry. There it was 
large, uneven pack, closely wrapped in 
a rubber blanket. Sim looked steadily at it 
in a mystified, half-dazed way, hardly credit¬ 
ing the evidence of her visual faculties. 
Susie and Vine crept cautiously up behind 
bur, and shivered as they peered over her 
shoulders. 
After a full survey, Miss Roxy, with a long 
breat h, drew back, closed the door, set down 
the lamp, and “ grimly determined was her 
look.” 
“Well, girls,” said she, “this is a little 
queer. I never believed in presentiments 
before. But,” she added firmly, “I’mgoing 
to,—my mind’s made up." 
“Going to what? Oh, Roxy!" cried 
both, “ don’t! for mercy’s sake, don’t!” 
“ Yes, I will, too,” slid answered, coolly. 
“There’s that revolver in the closet, all 
loaded. You can just go in your mother’s 
room and shut the door if you want to. It. 
won’t take half a minute;” and opening the 
narrow closet door, she drew down a clean, 
bright little revolver, and examined it care- 
fully. 
Poor Sue and Vine, well-nigh distract¬ 
ed, rushed into the sleeping-room adjoin¬ 
ing, and buried their heads in the pillows, 
trying to shut out all sound, and yet listen¬ 
ing breathlessly. 
Bang! crack ! Again — another—five— 
six—seven! No mortal pack could survive 
such a volley as that, and Miss Roxana shut 
the door, awed anil somewhat frightened, 
yet proudly conscious of having done some¬ 
thing heroic. 
The throe speedily retired, Miss Roxy de¬ 
claring her day’s work done ; but sleep was 
far from the eyes of the two young sisters, 
who were as thoroughly sick and wretched 
as two girls well could be, and even Roxy 
by their side slumbered uneasily, alternately 
beholding in her dreams her own name 
paraded in the columns of the “Grafton 
Weekly Chronicle,” and thence spreading 
over the entire country, as the dauntless 
heroine of the day, and then—the narrative 
curiously changing—graphic accounts of her 
own own public condemnation for having 
thus broken the sixth commandment. 
Finally, towards morning, Susie, and Vine 
partially forgot their troubles in slumber, 
and when they woke, the clear sunlight was 
streaming over them, as bright as if there 
had never been a rain-cloud or a night of 
terror. 
“Girls, I believe I’m sick,” was Miss 
Roxy’s morning salutation, as they entered 
the kitchen, where she had been up since 
earliest dawn. “ 1 never bad such work 
getting a breakfast in my life. I’ve made 
more blunders than I could count in a week, | 
and every thing goes wrong end foremost. 
And now—it’s just occurred to me—what’s 
going to he done with that thing in the en¬ 
try ? It can’t stay there.” 
“ Send for somebody to come and see,” 
suggested Vine. 
“ Well, we’ll see, after breakfast, that is, if 
ever 1 get any. There’s something smells 
so queer here," she went on, “ I can’t, for the 
life of me, think, — oh it’s that pie I put, in 
the oven to warm! ” and, springing to the 
stove, she withdrew from its inner regions a 
black circular article of pastry, looking as if 
ii might have been dug from the ruins of 
Pompeii. 
“Well, that’s just the way things go!” 
she ejaculated, “ and I’ve burnt every finger 
I’ve got. Here, when I got up my head 
ached, and I made a nice cup of tea,—want¬ 
ed it extra good, white sugar, you know,—so 
I just knew enough to go and put in a big 
spoonful of saleratus. Then 1 went to work 
and made another cup,—let it steep ten or 
fifteen minutes, to be good and strong,—and 
come to pour it out, 1 hadn’t put any tea in. 
And I’ve burnt the ham and warmed the 
potatoes in sour cream, made some biscuits 
and put in cream tartar instead of saleratus, 
caught a lock of my hair in the coffee mill 
and ground it off; and wliat judgment ’ll 
come upon me next I don’t know 1 ” 
The girls didn’t know either. They 
walked restlessly about the great room, not 
daring to go near thatentry door ; and when 
Miss Roxy, after a protracted period of “ Hy¬ 
ing round,” as she elegant ly phrased It, “ like 
a ben on a hot griddle,” in I be final crisis of 
breakfast preparations, announced that tlic 
savory meal was in readiness, they found it 
not in the least injured by her grievous cul¬ 
inary errors, for they could have found no 
gustatory pleasure that, morning in partaking 
of ambrosia and nectar. 
The three were sitting drearily round the 
table when there was a quick, plunging step 
in the entry, then the door swung open, and 
there entered cheery, portly Aunt, Marcia. 
Sue and Vink, forgetting everything but the 
desire for sympathy and relief, sprang to her 
side, quite surprising the good woman by 
their universally warm greeting, while Miss 
Roxy’s black eyes grew blacker, expanded, 
and then contracted closely, as a perfectly 
new Idea dawned upon her brain, which 
bad so recently been possessed of but one. 
“Getting lonesome, girls?" said aunty, 
disengaging leTself from the clasp of her 
nieces. “ RoxY.**t||#look tired; working 
pretty bard, I’m rf ra.il; guess you’ll all be 
glad when the folks get home. No, can’t 
slay a minute. I must hurry right hack. 
Wodman’ 8 going to use the team. He bad 
quite a time getting home last night. 1 was 
glad it happened so ho could leave his load 
here. You see, 1 sent my old feather bed 
over to The Corners to have it renervated.” 
At this Vine hastily made her disappear¬ 
ance, followed by Sue, both subsiding in 
the adjoining room in streams of laughter; 
the revulsion of feeling was perfect. Roxy 
manfully stood her ground before Aunt 
Marcia, who chattered away, all unsus¬ 
pecting, and finally stepping into the entry, 
dragged the huge bundle towards the inner 
door. 
“ Let’s see bow it looks,” she said, her 
stout hands tugging at the hard knots. “I 
most tumbled over it as I came in. You see, 
I’d heard so much about their rcuervatin’ 
’em, 1 thought I’d send the oldest leathers 
I’d got and see wliat they’d do. The tick’s 
new, though. I’ve had these more’n—why 
—but— what upon uirth /” 
What upon earth, indeed! Renovated, 
“just as good as new,” and pierced through 
and through, fairly riddled, as if it had been 
the chosen habitation of nest-excavating 
mice, or pendant between two hostile armies 
during a brisk engagement! Iloxv looked, 
and saw, and beheld with her own eyes—a 
great feather bed, and nothing more. 
“ Oh, I shall die,” she cried, throwing her¬ 
self upon the soft, shapeless pile, and thereby 
causing streams of feathers to issue from 
every gaping wound, while aunty stood by 
in blank amazement. 
Back came Sue and Vine, eager the tale 
to unfold. Up rose Miss Roxana, bespan¬ 
gled with liny, snowy, downy plumes, which 
rather heightened the pleasing eflert, and 
with merriment which could only come as a 
reaction from the terrors of the night, the 
truth, the whole truth, was revealed. 
“ Well, well,” commented aunty, wiping 
her mirthfully tearful eyes, “ the joke’s 
worth a dozen feather beds. Now, Roxana, 
mind what I say. Do you just take that 
thing and mend it up, and keep it for the 
first of your wedding set-out. That is, if 
ever you get married—but sakes alive! after 
this I don’t know who in creation ’ll have 
you 1” 
In spite of all Miss Roxy’s earnest efforts 
to suppress it, the story grew and spread, 
and waxed more popular in the select cir¬ 
cles of Grafton Corners and the region 
round about, and when she and her semi- 
accomplices will hear the last of it no living 
mortal knoweth. 
The moral is obvious. 
“PA’S MONEY.” 
BY GIIACR GI.ENN. 
Our May has a manner of saylnn cute things 
In a very short way, as a hribollnk sings; 
As for Instance, I said: •* When we lived by the mill, 
And the doctor’s gay ditnghterl above on the hill, 
How they sneered at us then, how they flatter to-day, 
What's the reaaon, I wonder J” Said laughing-eyed 
May— 
•* Pa's money 
She wa* sitting heside me, sweet, rosy-Cheeked May, 
On the porch with the vine-covered lattice, one day. 
When the Judge from the village rode galloping past 
A nd a smile and a bow to us graciously cast. 
" The Judge didn't know na a year ago; pray. 
Said 1, '• toll me what makes him so gallant to-day?” 
“ I’a’s money!" 
So we talked over much, for which yon would not 
care, 
How mamma had grown “ stately,” and wo boeomo 
“ fair;” 
How even at church they kept urging us higher, 
I rum " slips” In the Corner to “ seats with the choir.” 
'Til, as May still Insisted, I came to believe 
That wliat makes us ho charming is but,by your 
leave, 
“Pa’* money!’ 
Ionia, Mlcb, April, 1870. 
PLAN3 FOR SUMMER. 
It is now really the opening of spring, 
and planning for the summer is in order. 
Upon this subject we have a suggestion or 
two to offer. You who plan for ft season’s 
work, so shape your plans as to include also 
a little play. From April to December in¬ 
clusive—about the range of the farming 
season—is too long a time for uninterrupted 
labor. Somewhere in mid-summer, when 
the heat is scorching and work is more than 
ever a burden, there should come a few days 
of rest and recreation, enjoyed in travel and 
sight-seeing. 
Americans, as a people, arc great travel¬ 
ers ; but those travel, chiefly, who do not 
earn the right to recreation by diligent toil, 
while those who most richly deserve it. stay 
patiently at home. If a week’s tour be in¬ 
cluded in the season’s outlook,—off' to the 
8Cft-6horc or the mountains, or up the lake*,— 
it will prove an excellent incentive. Look¬ 
ing ahead to a change of scene, husband 
and wife will labor all the more earnestly 
through the mouths that precede it, and 
will come back to renewed work with re¬ 
newed vigor. “All work and no play 
makes Jack a dull boy,” and operates on 
housewives and their worthy husbands in 
the same way precisely. 
The summer jaunt should not be consid- 
ered a possibility, merely, with a whole train 
of \fn before it. It should be regularly in¬ 
cluded in the calculation as to yearly outgo, 
and may be charged to Hygiene in the ac¬ 
count, if you feel a trifle delicate about ex¬ 
pending fifty or a hundred dollars for pleas¬ 
ure solely. Better is it to quicken I be slug¬ 
gish system by a lively excursion than to call 
in the doctor’s services to the same end. 
Travel is a wholesome invlgorator, physical¬ 
ly. As a mental tonic it is invaluable. The 
man or woman who practices taking a year¬ 
ly tour for very love of it, will never become 
a miserable hypochondriac. Men and wo¬ 
men,—women especially,— need mental ton¬ 
ics. Shut in from much that refreshes the 
mind, and with fmv agencies, comparatively, 
to stimulate thought, the latter require just 
such mental stimulus as the summer jaunt 
will give. They should not he deprived of 
it. Therefore, good, careful husbands, plan 
for a brief rest. 
-- 
TERRIBLE TESTIMONY. 
“I wisn all the liquor was out of the 
world,” said Jack Reynolds, the other day, 
just before his execution. He was another 
witness against the demon of intoxicating 
drink. Brutalized by that, lie took anothe-’s 
life, and therefor gave up bis own. His 
wish was but natural, and all who realize to 
what liquor brought him will echo it ear¬ 
nestly. Ills gallows was another impeach¬ 
ment of rum and the ruin-seller,—another 
added to tho thousands that were already 
recorded, and that must some time be an¬ 
swered. 
Almost every murderer is personified tes¬ 
timony against intemperance. He is evi¬ 
dence terribly emphatic that strong drink is 
a curse. Ho wishes, with Reynolds, as 
every one else should, that “ all the liquor 
was out of the world.” The testimony is 
fearfully increasing. Murders are reported 
daily. Trace any one of them up, and ten 
to one you find the rumseller a jxirticerps 
criminis. Our jails and prisons everywhere 
hold witnesses without number to the truth 
of this. Drink brought them there, in a 
majority of cases. Ah! there is no more 
terrible testimony against any evil than that 
which, standing in view of the scaffold, vo¬ 
calizes itself in that sad expression,—“ I wish 
all the liquor was out of the world ! ” 
■ +• * »- 
An old bachelor says that giving the bal¬ 
lot to women would not amount to anything 
practically, because they would keep denying 
they were old enough to vote until they got 
to be too old to take any interest in politics. 
MAKE A STIR! 
Wiiat for? Because if you do not you 
will never accomplish anything. Life is a 
field into which harvest hands in great num¬ 
bers have been sent. Make a stir! Swing 
your scythe and cut down the grain. Use 
your hands, binding into bundles all that is 
ready for the garner. Make a stir! The 
ground needs plowing for other seed. There 
is no room for idlers, and busy people are 
sure to make a stir. Make a stir! Cut 
down the weeds that, grow rank the corn 
between. 
Life is a battle-field. Make a stir or you’ll 
never win a victory. Only the ignoble, tbe 
cowardly and base are afraid in this hottest 
of strifes. Satan and his hosts are on the 
alert. They press sore upon the poor earth- 
soldier. Contest eagerly every inch of ground 
over which you pass. Never yield except in 
death. So shall the Loud, who watches each 
battle, crown you with victory’s laurel. 
“Still waters run ile pest,” many say. 
“ Be quiet, don’t make a stir 1” The oceans 
are deep enough, arc they not? They arc 
never still. Wave after wave disturbs the 
surface. They are always ranking a stir. 
Deep minds, pure aud earnest hearts, will 
make a stir; one, too, that the senses can 
appreciate. Mus. J. S. Wanghop. 
- -♦♦♦ - 
“ SOMETIME." 
Tiir following Is one of Mr. Prentice’s 
little waifs, so many of which appeared in 
the Louisville Journal in years gone by: 
“Sometime —It is a sweet, sweet song, 
warbled to and fro among tbe topmost 
boughs of the heart, and filling the whole 
air with such joy and gladness ns the songs 
of birds do when the summer morning 
comes out of darkness, and day is born on 
the mountains. We have all our possessions 
in tbe future which we call * sometime* 
Beautiful flowers and singing birds are there, 
only our hands seldom grasp the one, or our 
ears hear the other. But, oh, reader, be of 
good cheer, for all the good there is a golden 
‘ sometime ;’’ when the bills and valleys of 
time are all passed; when the wear and 
fever, the disappointment and sorrow of life 
are over, then there is the place and the 
rest appointed of God. Oil, homestead, 
over whose roof full no shadows or even 
clouds ; and over whose threshold the voice 
of sorrow is never heard; built upon the 
eternal hills, and, standing with thy spires 
and pinnacles of celestial beauty among 1 1 it: 
palm trees of the city on high, those who 
love God shall rest under thy shadows, 
where there is no more sorrow nor pain, nor 
the sound of weeping, ‘ sometime.’ ” 
SOCIAL CURIOSITIES. 
Not bad for a little girl of ten, whose 
knowledge of geography is somewhat imper¬ 
fect :—On bearing her father speaking of go¬ 
ing to the polls to vote, she very innocently 
inquired if the people of the South voted at 
the equator. 
An old gentleman, aged eiglity-four, hav¬ 
ing taken to the altar a damsel of about six¬ 
teen, the clergyman said to him :—“ The 
font is at tbe other end of the church.” 
“What do 1 want with the font?” said the 
old gentlemen. “Oh! I beg your pardon,” 
said the clerical wit; “ 1 thought you had 
brought this child to be christened.” 
Sir John Lubruck, in his observations of 
the Indians of South America, gives a curi¬ 
ous trait in sonic of the tribes. He says that 
the kiss which we think so natural, is un¬ 
known to some of tbe tribes. There are 
some who stand positively in fear of it. 
When any one attempts to embrace them 
they regard it as an evidence of a desire to 
eat them—as a mode of lasting them. 
In “ A Book About Words," the author 
gives an explanation of the phrase " Nine 
Tailors Make a Man.” In the olden times 
the strokes of the passing bell were called 
“ Tellers,” and as nine strokes indicated tbe 
death of a man, while three announced that 
of a child and six that of a woman, tho 
words “ nine tellers,” were easily perverted 
into nine tailors. 
A pleasant story comes from Washing¬ 
ton county. Two young men took two 
young ladies out riding, and, stopping at a 
hotel, went in to drink, leaving tbe ladies out 
in the cold ; whereupon one lady got in the 
other’s cutter, and tbe two indignantly drove 
home, as they should have done, leaving 
their ungallant attendants to follow at their 
leisure. 
An Ohio clergyman, several years ago, re¬ 
ceived a bright new cent as a wedding fee. 
The other day he met the bridegroom, who 
mentioned the circumstance,and said : “ My 
wife was a comparative stranger to me at the 
time we were united in wedlock. I had not 
learned her value, and paid accordingly. I 
find her a jewel; so here is an additional 
fee," at the same time handing the aston¬ 
ished minister a twenty-dollar gold piece. 
