JULY 22 
<04 
for i\)t 1)oittt0. 
OLD MOTHER GRAY AND THE 
KITTENS. 
Beautiful Mrs Grimalkin Gray 
Lives In the harn on top of the hay. 
Four little, kittens live there, too; 
.Don't you wish they belonged to you? 
Mrs. Grimalkin Is very proud 
Of her rollicking, purring little crowd; 
She never owned any kittles before, 
And that there'll ever be any more 
Like hers Is not to be believed, 
(Mothers are someilmea so deceived!) 
She cuddles and purrs them off to sleep. 
And each lies curled a downy heap, 
While off she trots to hunt for mice; 
But running back again In a trice. 
Gets them all up with “Meow! fuff, fuff! 
Wake up quickly; here's fun enough!" 
•’ Kvery one of you put on your bibs, 
.Tump up quickly out of your cribs! 
Old Mrs. Speckle has kicked an egg 
Out or the barrel with her leg!” 
Down In the barn yard Speckle; the hen, 
Was hopm f to hatch out chickens ten, 
in an old barrel she'd made her neat— 
A shaky house it must be ooufest. 
Speck le got tired and stretched her legs; • 
Out through a hole rolled one of her eggs. 
And then she begun to tremble with fright. 
For Mrs. Grimalkin had contain sight. 
Crackle, crackle, snapped the shell! 
Boor Mrs. Speckle knew perfectly well 
That the dear little chick at nightfall born 
Would never live to see the morn. 
Trouble would happen very soon; 
Yes, there they came with their bibs all on, 
That terrible tribe of Grimalkin Grays! 
Only too well she knew their ways! 
Down they sat. in front of the egg: 
Speckle cackled, "1 pray, I beg; 
Oh, do be merciful, dear Mrs Gray, 
And call your four little kittles away! 
" Must I sit and see that egg shell break. 
And those eats off my chick their supper make?” 
Her piteous prayers were all In vain, 
Mother Gray had no mercy, ’twos very plain : 
Snap went the egg shell, crackle, chip! 
Out popped a chick with a feeble ' yip!" 
Only one glimpse or the world had he, 
And then he was minced for an early tea! 
Mrs. Grimalkin, with many a purr. 
Braised her offspring and lapped down their fur 
While poor Mrs. Speckle filled with dismay, 
Addressed herself thus to Grimalkin Gray: 
"Take all the pleasure you can, old cat; 
Out of a cowardly act like that! 
A little longer here I must stay. 
But then—beware of a judgment day!" 
Golden Rule. 
-*-*♦- 
SOME CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT ELE¬ 
PHANTS. 
UNCLE MARK. 
Probably most boys and girls in the coun¬ 
try have seen “the elephant.” either as he 
•was passing along the road in connection 
with some circus troupe, or at the menagerie. 
There is always opportunity to see one or 
more at Central Park, in this city, and if ever 
any of the young folks come to the city they 
should not fail to pay the museum a visit. 
While the elephant can be trained to per¬ 
form very curious antics, some of its natural 
habits are quite as wonderful, showing the 
great intelligence of the animal. Probably 
the question has arisen in the minds of the 
young people (and perhaps of some older ones), 
“ Has the elephant a nose “O, yes !” some 
one replies, “it is his trunk !” Well, hardly! 
Unfortunately, perhaps, the poor fellow’s 
nose is in his mouth 1 He has but one nostril, 
so called, which extends from the air passages 
of the head downward and has its opening in 
the roof of the mouth and to this place he 
brings, with his long trunk, whatever object 
he wishes to smell. We can imagine that his 
manipulation of a fragrant bouquet, if he 
could smell its odor, would lie anything but 
graceful! However, the reply that “the 
trunk is the nose” would be partially correct 
since this nostril communicates interiorally 
with the front or lower part of the single 
cavity of the proboscis. There is a valve in 
the trunk just below that opening which pre¬ 
vents anything from the interior passing 
down into the trunk. The valve is under the 
control of the elephants will and he can open 
or close it at pleasure. 
We know that the elephants trunk is its de¬ 
fensive and offensive weapon, but be is very 
careful how he uses it I The end of the probos¬ 
cis is very sensitive and a slight blow thereon 
will cause a very sharp pain. “I should 
think be would hurt himself” says some bright 
boy “ when he strikes things with his trunk 1” 
So he might but yet, he doesn’t. He is too 
sagacious for that I When he deals a blow 
he doubles back the eDd of his trunk and 
stiffens the muscles until they are like iron, 
and strikes not down but upward or side- 
wise. 
The tongue of the elephant is another cu¬ 
rious thing, and instead of being “bung in the 
middle and looseat both ends” like atalkative 
person’s, it is fast at both ends and loose in 
the middle. One can pass bis hand right un 
der it, though it would not be advisable to 
try the experiment unless the animal is dead. 
The tongue can be distended at any point at 
will, and the bunch thus made can be moved 
along either way. The usefulness of this can 
be seen when we state that the opening into 
the throat is about four inches above the 
level of the teeth, and all that tongue has to 
do is to hump itself up and move things 
toward the throat. 
To show that the elephant has a very high 
order of instinct or intelligence, let us see 
what he does with those little cavities, one on 
each side of the head, between the eye and 
the ear. These pass through about four inches 
of flesh and upward to the skull bone and into 
the brain cavity. For some good reason the 
elephant believes in keeping these cavities 
open, and to accomplish this he often resorts 
to ingenious methods. A man who has 
traveled much in Africa and has much ex¬ 
perience with elephants, says: “1 have often 
seen an elephant bunt for a slender stick, 
branch or splinter, and after holding it up and 
examining it. critically with one of bis keen 
little eyes, if he found it not sharp enough for 
his purpose, deliberately grind down its point 
by rubbing it upon a stone, and when its 
shape suited him, use it to pick out and open 
the issues.” So if we don’t know what the 
cavities are for the elephaut probably does, 
and that is sufficient. 
As strange as it may seem the wild ele¬ 
phant prefers to sleep in the water rather 
than on a straw mat' rass or a feather bed. 
They feed upon the high ground during the 
day and come down to a pond or stream at 
night to lie down and sleep. They will lie 
entirely under water with the exception of 
the end of the trunk, which they lay upon 
the bank to breathe .hrougb. Sometimes 
mosquitoes and other insects get on the sen¬ 
sitive end of the proboscis, and in order to 
keep them off the animal rolls the end of its 
trunk in the mud, and thus puts on it a pro 
tectiDg shield for the night. A knowledge of 
these facts may prove interesting to the 
young folks when they again “see the ele¬ 
phant.” 
-- 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS. 
Sabbat!) BcoMrui;, 
Dear Uncle Mark. —My garden looks 
very well this Summer, though it has been so 
cold that everything grows slow. 1 planted 
potatoes the last of April; some are six inch¬ 
es to a foot high now. The weeds have not 
yet started and the patch is perfectly clear of 
everything but potatoes. I put in one-sixth 
of an acre of cabbage. There is a good stand 
and I hope to sell all the plants where there is 
more than one to a bill. I planted one pound 
of peanuts May 17, but they have all rotted. 
I have a large patch of pop corn, but the cold 
weather is bad on corn. 1 planted the “ Prize 
Water melon” seeds, but only five from the 
six seeds grew. One of the seeds I received 
was flat and hollow. I marked the place in 
the hill where I planted it, and that is the 
very one which did not come up. I do not 
bother with the boe iu my garden now. I 
shall go through the whole garden once just 
to kill the weeds that may be starting, before 
I can go close enough to the plants with the 
cultivator; have already gone through with 
a one horse five-tooth cultivator between the 
rows, so will only have to hoe in the rows. 
After the plants get to be a good size will use 
the two horse wheel cultivator, the same as 
we do for com. I planted everything three 
feet apart for this purpose. Your Nephew. 
Dodge Co., Neb. Wm. J. Mason. 
Dear Uncle Mark. —I must tell you about 
my water-melons. Papa opened three holes 
about two feet deep and eight feet apart. 
He filled these holes with farm pen manure, 
added a handful of guano and made the hill 
on this. I put two seeds in each hill. The 
weather turned cold and it rained for a week 
and I was afraid £ would lose all my seed, but 
one came in every hill; so I have three vines 
growing rapidly. I think 1 was very fortu¬ 
nate; and hope in August to send you a re¬ 
port of splendid melons. We have some cel¬ 
ery plants we are watching carefully, and the 
Fern-leaved Parsley is beautiful. Our Dian- 
thus and Carnations that survived last Sum¬ 
mer’s drought are blooming now, and are 
greatly admired. 
I have no “new method of gardening’’or 
any “invention” to describe, but I was read¬ 
ing lately of the “ Origin of the Seckel Pear,” 
as stated by Mr. Downing, so I send you a 
copy of that., hoping it will be as new and in¬ 
teresting to the members of the Club as it was 
tome. Your niece, Annie S. Daniklls. 
Prince Edwards Co., Va. 
The article will appear next week,—U. M. 
Dear Uncle Mark.— I write to you at 
least three times where I send once, so I do not 
trouble you often. We are very glad to make 
“Uncle Elm’s" acquaintance. I’m sorry to 
say that the huckleberry does not grow here, 
if it did I should do my best toward cultivat¬ 
ing it, or if I could get some seed I should be 
very glad to see how they look when they are 
growing 1 have to tend this year, besides 
my flowers, the watermelons, ‘some musk- 
melons and a pint of “ white marrow” beans. 
It was so cold and wet that 1 did not plant 
the melons till the 30th of May. 
Your Niece, Anne Winfrey. 
Warren Co., Iowa. 
SABBATH BELLS. 
REV. K. G. CHARLES WORTH. 
Coming to meet. me, 
Coming to greet me. 
From the church tower. 
O’er Held and bow or: 
Sweet bells, I listen. 
Sounds «g from heaven 
Are coming from ye. 
Oh, cease not ringing, bells; 
Ye nre bringing 
Views of the city— 
Where I would be ; 
Sweetest of flowers 
In sunny bowers 
Are not so sweet 
As ye are to me. 
Come oft to greet me ; 
Cease not cow ringing, 
Ye hallowed mirrors 
Of heaven’s city— 
Giving me foresight— 
A blemeii twilight 
Of eternity. 
- 
PRAYER. 
- j, — . 
away, and they-i? 
id around the dy U&: 
Some there are who have 
watched their best loved ones as 
they lay dying, who have seen 
the dear face growing paler and 
paler as life slowly, oh ! so 
slowly, ebbed 
who have stood 
ing bed have knelt, almost in¬ 
stinctively—and for what ? To 
ask for lengthened life and 
health renewed for those for 
whom they themselves would 
have died, if need be l Sorely 
not. Such prayer would have 
remained unuttered, as their 
hearts told them that to ask such 
a boon would be to ask a miracle. Not such 
their prayer, butyetthey prayed—forstreDgth 
to bear, for patience to endure that great and 
heavy sorrow they knew so near at hand ; for 
reunion, not here, but there ; and as they rose 
from their koees, and dim and chill the faint 
grey light of morning fell on the well-known 
features, rigid now in death, love, sorrowing, 
for irreparable loss, could yet find utterance 
in the Saviour’s words, “ Not as I will, but as 
Thou wilt." For surely, if He whom we 
worship and to whom we pray, be, as He must 
be, Almighty and All-wise, what and who 
are we, though all of human power and hu¬ 
man knowledge were in our grasp, what, and 
who are we to set bounds to the Eternal, and 
to say, “If Thou wilt do this thing, then I 
will believe in Thee.” The belief must pre¬ 
cede the prayer, or the prayer is a mockery, 
for the one great life-giving element in all 
prayer, private or public, individual or col¬ 
lective, is faith, and the two act and react on 
each other, as the body acts on the mind and 
the mind on the body. Faith produces prayer, 
prayer strengthens faith. Thus, day by day 
the bond grows stronger that unites the lower 
to the higher, that binds earth to heaven. 
The man or woman with whom prayer is a 
daily habit will be the better fitted for the 
daily task ; and this benefit (how great only 
those know who have experienced it) spriugs 
from the reflex action of prayer. The prayer 
for strength itself gives strength, and each 
request, “the soul’s sincere desire,” is but an¬ 
other link in that fast lengthening chain that 
hangs ’twixt earth and heaven. Only, what¬ 
ever the result, let prayer go band in hand 
with faith and with submission, in the spirit 
of Him who in His nature was both “ human 
and divine,” who taught us ever when we pray 
to say, “ Thy will be done.” 
Sabbath Bells. 
THE NIGHT-BELL OF PRAYER. 
WANTED. 
We want a religion that softens the step 
and tunes the voice to melody, and Alls the 
eye with sunshine, and checks the impatient 
exclamation and harsh rebuke—a religion that 
is polite, deferential to superiors, courteous to 
inferiors, and considerate to friends—a religion 
that goes into the family, and keeps the hus¬ 
band from being cross when dinner is late, 
and keeps the wife from fretting when the 
husband tracks the newly washed floor with 
bis muddy boots, and makes the husband 
mindful of the scraper and door mat; keeps 
the mother patient when the baby is cross, 
and amuses the children as well as instructs 
them; cares for the servants, besides paying 
them promptly; projects the honeymoon into 
the harvest moon, and makes the happy home 
like the Eastern fig tree, bearing in its bosom 
at once the beauty of the tender blossoms and 
the glory of the ripened fruit. We want a re¬ 
ligion that shall interpose between the ruts 
and the gullies and rocks of the highway of 
life and the sensitive souls that are traveling 
over them. 
“Pull the night-bell.” This is the inscription 
we often see written on the door post of the 
shop in which medicines are sold. Some of 
us have had our experiences with night-bells 
when sudden illness has overtaken some mem¬ 
ber of our households, or when the sick have 
rapidly grown worse. How have we hurried 
through the silent streets, when only here and 
there a light glimmered from some chamber- 
window! How eagerly have we pulled the 
night-bell at our physician’s door; and then 
with prescription in hand, have sounded the 
alarm at the place where the remedy was to 
be procured. Those of us who have had these 
lonely midnight walks, and have given the 
summons for quick relief, know the meaning 
of that Bible-text, “Arise, cry out in the 
night!"—Dr. Cuyler. 
All Christianity is a walk, because it is 
substantial steady progress. That is what I 
would like to realize iu the life of the church. 
I do not want a spasmodic religon here. I 
would like to have a sleady growth, so that 
this church would be like the old monk, Os¬ 
mund, who use to pray so much that even 
when he was not praying he had formed the 
habit of having his hands open on his knees, 
with the palms upward; as if he thought God 
might drop down a blessing any lime. We 
should stand with hands open to receive the 
blessing when the Lord sends it.— Judson 
There are times in one’s life when all tl 
world seems to turn against us. Our motiv* 
are misunderstood, our words misconstrue* 
a malicious smile reveals to us the unfriend! 
feelings of others. Oh! how hard it all seem 
and the more so that we cannot divine tl 
cause. Courage, patience, disconsolate on* 
Ood is making a furrow' in your heart, whei 
he will surely sow his grace. It is rare whe 
Injustice, or slights patiently borne, do n< 
leave the heart at the close filled with marv* 
lous joy and peace. 
“I have a pledge from Christ; I have Hi: 
note of hand, which is my supp rt, my refug* 
birI haven; and though the world should rage 
to this security l cling. How reads it? “ Lo 
lam witn you a) way, even unto the end oi 
the world ” If Christ be with me, what shall 
1 fear? If he is mine, all the powers of eartb 
to me are nothing more than the spider’s web. 
— Chrysostom. 
He that would understand the falseho* 
and deceit of sin, must compare its promis 
and its payments together.— South. 
He who swims securely down the stream of 
self-confidence, is in danger of being drowned 
in the whirlpool of presumption.— Mason, 
