BEFORE THE LEAVES FALL, 
Thanks to my hard work I" chimed in John. 
More thanks,” said I, “ to the perfect good 
health we have always had. We made all those 
promises * for better or for worse.’ Now, it has 
ieen for the better with us all the time. Had 
you been sick or honest misfortune befallen 
you, I should have managed some way to reduce 
our expanses so that you would feel the burden 
as little as might be. Mad I been sick, more 
care would have fallen on you. But we helped 
each oilier save and now I claim an equal right 
with you in spending money.” 
** W |,ew • ^Vby, that Is treason. But go on." 
If we occupied the respective positions of 
superior and subordinate, I should do what I 
do for you for a fixed stipend and no questions 
should be asked as to the use made of it. Being 
equals, Twill not ask compensation as a serv¬ 
ant; but because the contract we have made is 
lifelong and not easily- broken, I do not there¬ 
fore cail It very magnanimous In a prosperous 
man to accept these services and render In re¬ 
turn only my board and the least amount that 
will creditably clothe me.” 
You see r was growing Irate. John’s temper, 
too, was evidently on the rise. 
“ What, do you moan by services? Housework? 
I am sure a home Is as much for your satisfac¬ 
tion as for mine; and I am sure the tailor does 
not leave much of my sewing for you to do.” 
“ I don’t complain of housework nor of doing 
your sewing; but Ido think tho burden of little 
Johnny has all fallen on me.” 
“It strikes me," said he, with a provoking 
complacency of tone, *• that if you earned his 
living you would Imve less to say about tho bur¬ 
den falling: on you.'* 
“John," said I, "answer me honestly. Do 
you work any harder or any longer now than 
you did before ha was born?” 
“I don’t know as I do,” said he; “I always 
worked hard enough.” 
“ Well, and so do I, But now as to Johnny 
I presume you will allow yourself half owner 
or hltn, as the law allows your entire control 
over him. How much do you do for hirn ?” 
“ I maintain him, I do my part.” 
“ No ’ Jr ' bn i vo" wrong; you don’t do your 
part. From the first you never have. Did not 
weary months go by in which you bore no part 
whatever or the burdeu ?” 
“Well, that is curious complaining; wliat 
would you have me do ?” 
1 ^ ou might have got a servant, Instead of 
letting all the housework fall on me; or you 
might have kept a horse, so that I could ride 
out and enjoy the flue weather; but that Is all 
past now.” 
-uoum say mat it cost me enough for the 
doctor, nurse, *c., without talking about keep¬ 
ing a horse.” 
“ Trqe. lt cost enough ; but I am talklngabout 
the division of the burden. Was the part von 
boro In payment of those bills equal to my part 
" tbo “ aUor ? vv< ’" kl VO" have taken ray placo 
ror that money If it were to have been paid you 
instead of those who oared for you? I think 
not. 
‘ Didn’t I have all his clothes to buy?” 
“ No, sir. 1 went without i\ew clothes of any 
sort for a season and the money saved from mu 
wardrobe supplied all that was needed ; and I 
might add that all Ills other clothes have been 
got in the same way.” 
" ro,l lly, 1 had no Idea how much of a 
martyr you wero. Next you will be clothing me 
In the same way. Mow thankful I ought to be 
for so Calculating a wife !’’ 
• 1,1 twn years," said l, continuing 
in the face of his sneer, “ all of the care and con¬ 
finement consequent ou attending tbo child 
have fallen on me. I have managed some way 
to accomplish my housework and sewing as l 
used. I can hardly think how It has heer. done. 
Did It ever occur to you to fcbinfe how many 
times I have been to church since ho was born ?’* 
I on wouldn’t expect a man to take care of 
a y ‘L" ? T,mfc ,8n ’'’ * work ” 
Isn 11? said I, bitterly; "then I wouldn’t’ 
have a baby, t have boon to church Just four 
times and then some visitor ha« atom mic. 
Johnny. How 
T felt guilty, though T hardly know why, but It 
was late before r foil asleep. 
The next morning all was serene. No trace 
remained of the evening’s storm, but nothing 
moro wa» said about the obnoxious subscrlp- 
tions. Next, day I met Mrs. West, and she 
thanked me ver y heartily for doubling my 
money. 
Dear John 1 He didn’t moan to be unkind, 
but he had never stopped to think about such 
things. When bis next settlement came and 
he sMpped a f:l() bill Into tny band and said, 
‘ 1 bat 18 ft ' r yo«>' Private purse,” I really thought 
he was the best husband in the world. 
I wonder If oak and maple, 
Willow and elm and all, 
Are stirred at heart by the coming 
Of the day ihelr leaves must fall. 
Do they think of the yellow whirlwind 
Or of the crimson spray, 
That shall be when chill November 
Bears all the leaves away ? 
‘ If die we must,” the leaflets 
Seem one by one to say, 
We will wear the colors of all the earth 
Until we pass away. 
No eyes shall see us falter; 
And before we lay it down 
We’ll wear in the sight of all the earth 
The year’s most kingly crown." 
So, trees of the stately forest, 
And trees by the trodden tiay, 
You are kindling into glory 
This soft. Autumnal day. 
And we, who gaze, remember 
That more than all they lost, 
To hearts and trees together 
May come through ripening frost. 
PATTY’S PLOT 
iiuv US* me netterthan the whole world, does 
he? Bald Patty Poronet, shaking her brown 
tendrllly rings of hair over a faded rosebud and 
a knot of crumpled ribbon. “Oh, I darn say 
but you see," gravely addressing space, "Pvo 
heard that sort of thing before. Love must be 
an awful epidemic nowadays. And all tho 
world's a lottery and 1 , for one, don’t want to 
draw a blank. O dear, dear I how I wish I could 
readily see Into a man’s heart! How I wish I 
had any means or ascertaining whether Ralph 
Penrbyn really enres for rno or whether he has 
heard of Unele Hutchinson’s $10,000! 0, dear 
me!” arid Forty sighed deep enough to stir all 
tho rod cinnamon roses that wero nodd ng tur- 
banod crests at the casement. 
And thou she jumped up and went about her 
ONE RIGHT OF A WIFE 
many times did you ever get up 
in the night to soothe him when he has been 
dlok arid fretful ?” 
“How do you suppose," said ho, “I could 
work by day if l didn’t get my night’s sleep.” 
Just tho same way that I do when my night 
la broken, exactly/* 
“ Well, Sarah, what Is the drift 
anyway ? for I don’t 
“John,” said I one night to my husband, as 
I put my basket of sewing away preparatory to 
retiring, “John, as you go down to-morrow 
business. 
Which chanced tube glrl-huntlng just then ■ 
for Mrs. Maurice Peronel, Patty’s cousin, was 
I chronically in the suds, so to speak, on the do¬ 
mestic service question, and Patty knew the 
Inside of every Intelligence oflico In town. 
“It’s a cook this time, Is it, Bessie ?” said she 
“A cook,” said Bessie. “O, Patty, Patty, don’t 
gel. married and go to housekeeping. It takes 
all the romance out of One.” 
“ 1 tlon ' t know but what you are right,” Patty 
assented, reflectively. And away she went to 
the Intelligence office. 
II. was crowded, on this hot July day, with the 
miscellaneous assemblage of forlorn femininity 
who are always seeking situations and, like the 
lover In tho “Mistletoe Bough," “And them 
not." Patty looked around dubiously. She 
was something of a physiognomist, and she 
did not exactly like the looks of the raw mate¬ 
rial wherewith she wa.< surrounded. 
“I had better bide my time a little," she 
thought, and down she nestled Into a corner of 
a prodigious sofa, to wait with 
I iiiiTiMiiiimUTl W,iat ' pBtlanow she might. 
As sbeseated herself the shrill, 
111 P'fdng voloeof an old lady be- 
of all this talk, 
see any use in prolonging 
“ Well, then, It la my original statement—that 
1 dlU °W P art of the family labor and took all 
the care «f Johnny, and you are a man in pros¬ 
perous circumstances, f am entitled to as much 
money for t hat ns if I were employed and paid 
by the month for the same work, and I have a 
right to spend money for things that don’t suit 
you If I Please to do so; and I may add,” said 1 
with a sudden vehemence, “that It is moan and 
contemptible In you to try to oppose or forbid 
ray doing so.” 
.lohu said no more. I saw by tbo look in his 
eyes that he was quite angry; and so was I. 
That was the first time In our married life that 
wo failed to kiss each other good night. Tndeed 
yond made silence vocal. 
“You won’t do for mo,” she 
said. “ No followers—that.A my 
rule. My kitchen ain’t a place 
for all the loafing rollers In town 
to smoke In. Ask overybody in 
DarJingvllle, If you want to know 
what kind of a housekeeper Ra¬ 
chel Feorhyn Is. Everybody in 
Dartl igvllle knows me. No fol¬ 
lowers, no ribbons, no hoop 
skirts." 
“ I guess thin, ma’am, ye won’t 
do for mo," said the Milesian 
damsel, with an Indignant toss 
of her jockey-hatted head; “I 
don’t go nowheros I can’t have 
me young man come and see me 
ofaSathnrday night.” 
Patty Peronel listened with 
mischievously sparkling eyes 
and cherry cheeks. This, then> 
was the eccent.rio Aunt Rachel, 
of whom Ralph had often told 
her—the grim old spinster who 
“kept house" all by herself in 
the quaint village of Darllngvllle, 
where the elms lined the streets 
like green-skirted sentinels and 
everybody went to bed at half- 
past nine o’clock. 
Very sudden resolves will sorno- 
time.-. ru«h through our brains, 
I iifltnirig -express rasbion, In a 
short space of time, and almost 
before the shrill tones of Miss 
Rachel’s falsetto voice had 
ceased to vibrate on the air, Pat¬ 
ty Peronel stood dipping odd 
little curtesies before her. 
“ tr you please, ma’am, would 
I suit?" 
Miss Rachel glared through her 
moou-shaped spectacle glasses 
at the trim figure robed in sober 
gray. 
"You child 1” quoth she. 
“ Why, you are suoh a chit of a 
thing!” 
“ I am nineteen, ma’am." 
“ What can you do?” 
“A little of everything ma'am,” 
Patty answered, demurely. 
“ What’s your name ?’’ 
“ Martha, ma’am, please.” 
Apparently the ofocs-examlna- 
tlon that followed was satisfac¬ 
tory to Miss Rachel Penrbyn, for 
she finally told Patty she might 
“ " ot no try” at $7 a month. 
“I may go homo for my clothes 
ma'am,” said Patty, with droop¬ 
ing eyelid* and hands folded. 
"Ycsj but be sure you meet 
