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fox t!)e J)mmg. 
TALKS BY UNCLE MARK. 
I am very fond of sweet corn. I guess I 
make that statement every year, but it is true, 
nevertheless. A supper of boiled corn, with 
plenty of good bread and butter, is good 
enough for anybody; when you add apple¬ 
sauce to it you get a meal that a king ought 
to take off his crown to eat. I always feel 
sorry for the people that have to get along 
without vegetables and fruit. I don’t believe, 
as some people do, that people should live on 
vegetables alone. I like good meat, but I 
think many people eat too much meat. Let 
them substitute good vegetables for a part of 
the meat and they would feel better. 
I like beefsteak about as well as any kind 
of meat, but there are different ways of cook¬ 
ing a steak. I have often been surprised to 
see how many people there are who cook 
steaks so that they are about as poor as they 
can be. Perhaps I ought not to say that. It 
may be that frying or smothering a steak 
suits them to a T; all I know is it doesn’t suit 
me at all. I want it broiled over a hot fire, 
browned well on the outside and well cooked 
through, and then well buttered and served 
hot. I am no cook myself, but I have watched 
this operation a good many times. I guess I 
could do it. If there are those who prefer to 
fry their steak in a lot of lard, all I can say is 
“ Every man to his taste.” I feel sorry for 
the fried-3teak folks because I know that 
broilng makes the meat taste better to me. 
One of the hardest things that a boy has to 
learn is the fact that he can’t by any possibility 
know as much as a man. Some boys are very 
smart. They can’t see why their ideas and 
plans are not worth as much as are those of 
their fathers. I have knownboys to get really 
angry because some one intimated that they 
would know a little more after a few years of 
rubbing against the world. Now this getting 
angry is ail wrong. It is foolish. Just think 
a moment. Say you are 18 years old. If a 
person should say your judgment is no better 
than that of a boy six years old, you would 
feel insulted; well, what makes your judg¬ 
ment better ? You have lived longer than the 
six-year-old boy, and you have seen more of 
the world and have seen more things worked 
out in their regular course. Good. Now on the 
same principle, if you know more than the 
six-year-old boy, what reason have you to 
suppose that a man 40 or 45 or 50 years old 
does not know more than you do ? You see 
what a foolish position you put yourself in 
when you place your 18 years of information 
against the 50 years of your father’s. Look 
out, young man. If you invite such a contest 
you are likely to be hurt. 
The flies must be fought now. This is an 
age of screen doors and windows. I can re¬ 
member the time when screen doors and win¬ 
dows were almost unheard of. The flies came 
into the house just about as they liked. An 
effort was made to keep them away from the 
food. For this end every housekeeper had a 
lot of wire arrangements, something like the 
baskets that gardeners used to put over melons 
or other tender plants. These would be put over 
the food on the table and the flies would go 
buzzing about them. The new plan is to 
keep the flies out of the house entirely. If we 
do this, these little wire baskets are not neces¬ 
sary. It is much the same with the fighting of 
other pests or bad habits. It pays to prevent 
them from making an entrance if you can. 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS. 
Dea Uncle Mark It has been some 
time since I wrote last. My other letter was 
printed and I hope this will be also. I have 
been working for Papa this summer, and have 
earned about $23. 1 expect to tie buds this 
summer for Papa when he buds peaches. We 
have about four acres of peach seedlings, and 
they are doing nicely. I have picked 500 
quarts of raspberries and 408 quarts of straw¬ 
berries, besides some currants and cherries. 
1 think it would be nice for some of the Cous¬ 
ins to correspond. From your loving niece, 
EDITH VAN EPS. 
Ontario County, N. Y. 
Dear Uncle Mark —I have never written 
to you before. 1 want to be a Cousin. I live 
on a farm of one hundred acres. I am 14 
years old. Papa has taken the Rural for a 
long time and I like to read the Cousins 
letters. I have been helping Papa with his 
crop this summer. Some of the Cousins may 
think it strange for a girl to help her Papa 
with his crop, but I don’t. We have 
jght horses, three cows, six pigs, seven ducks 
and lots of chickens. Hoping my letter is not 
too long and that it will not find the waste¬ 
basket, I remain your niece, ettie nixox. 
Labette Co., Kansas. 
A LETTER FROM WAYBACK. 
Mister Additer : Bein’ bespoke as to 
whether I could carry out Bije Wilkinson’s 
swath—which as to loppi-w? in and pintin’ out 
was smooth enough for anybody’s door-yard, 
or even for the gal’s crokay—it natrally toi¬ 
lers that suthin’ should be said as to why the 
ring of his quinnebang is no longer heard in 
the meadow. The fact is, he’s done mowin’. 
His short Blouchard, in the little old straight 
snath, with the shining tholes stuck so far 
forrard, and so wide apart, will hang on the 
ox-bow crook in the corn-crib forever, for all 
his taking on it down. No more will his 
cheerful call—“ Hollo-o 1 luncheon !”—rally 
the hay-makers. Never again will he take 
his turn at the runlet, tellin’ the youngsters 
after he’d wiped the puckers off his mouth— 
“ A swig o’ that stuff is jest as good, boys, 
as a whip is for a hoss—and no better.” 
Bein’ an olstile man, he oilers furnished in 
July, and he called the little kag set thick 
with hoops and hung by a leather bail that 
held the Santy Cruz, apigssit, which made the 
boy’s laugh regler. And they ginerally took 
the old man’s word as to the sperets, and 
stuck to the pail of switchell, or cool milk, all 
the more, perhaps, from seein’ how some old 
burnt-out worker of the party kep a dippin’ 
his bill into the runlet instead of follerin’ up 
the bannocks and butter, and cold beef, and 
gingerbread. Bije never raised no tipplers 
’round him, but he kept up the olstile to the 
last. In fact, I never knowed a boy that 
lived long with Bije Wilkerson, but what was 
a good un—up to all kinds of farm-work from 
handlin’ steers to handlin’ a post-ax, and 
willin’ to foller the day clean through to 
chore-time, and give the wimmen in the house 
a spell at parin’ apples in the evenin’. 
Bije’s boys oilers thort enough o’ themselves 
to clean up and go to meetin’ Sunday, and as 
like as not one on ’em might lead the singin’. 
The school he .kept was better ’n an ornary 
college. 
Uncle Bije didn’t run much in my beat. 
P’raps two sich warn’t needed. He was 
older’n me—and come over the mountain and 
taught school in our deestrict when I was but a 
shaver. He didn’t half let himself out in his 
ntins either. Jemima, Bije’s dorter, was 
pernikerty about the old man’s ritin—afeared 
of his makiu’ a larfin’stork of himself. She 
used to score out his best licks. The boss- 
mason, (sweet on Jemima) never exactly sooted 
the old man. Prob’ly his discernin readers 
noticed it. Not havin’ any boys of his own 
was a gret disappointment. But he’d alters 
cal’iated to leave his goods and chattels to a 
farmer. He’d set his heart on a smart lad 
who went to the war. But a spell arter the 
Malvern fight, a little bundle of his things 
come back with Jemima’s picter and a letter— 
it was a Reb that writ it—saying as how the 
shot that killed him, was a stray one that took 
effect jist as he’d crawled up to share his 
canteen with a gray jacket. 
P’raps you’d better not print these bye- 
gonts, for the bizness with the boss-mason is 
all settled, and he’s a puttin in new sills to the 
house, and a new brick underpinning and the 
old man’s bedroom is to have a bo winder, and 
foldin’ doors to make a back parler ou’t and 
things are being fixed up popular. Uncle 
Bije was set on keepin’ up the old well-sweep 
for his time. Tne pole was rather bunglin’ 
and one hired man (about the time of that 
bad news) wanted to work it down smaller, so 
as to soot Jemima’s hands, but the old man 
wouldn’t hear a word to it. Ths sweep is cut 
away now, and some new-fangled pump is pu- 
jn its place, as if a countryman must pizen 
himself with pipe water, because city folks 
can’t help but do it. 
There was that Iry as was pictered in the 
fence a-cotchin the old man’s gad. Iry tells, 
now the old man’s dead—and I believe him— ' 
how Jemima come that very night after he 
got the walloping, and brung his mother a 
basket of as nice Early Tarts as ever he seOj 
with sugar enough to sweeten ’em with, and 
Mr. Wilkerson’s respects and askin'after her 
rheumatiz, and patted him softly on the head 
as he sot on a cushion by the kitchen stove. 
Iry ’lowed that that visit of Jemima’s kep him 
away from the old man’s orchard mor’n the 
lickin he got. 
Uncle Bije was never great in town meetins 
—but oilers to the pint, and in caucuses it was 
his voice, stiddy like, suthin’ used to breakin 
steers—that mentioned as how they was a 
countin’ seven or eight more votes than there 
w as people in the room. He was no gret party 
man. He used to say that party strife was 
pizen to good town and neighborly doins. Yet 
I’ve heard of his puttin’ his old mare over the 
road to the city, wakin’ up the printers on a 
rainy froemanVineotin’-day mornin, to get 
out a new ticket for select man or town-clerk, 
and peddlin’ the same and runnin’ his wagon 
for votes all day. Sometimes the hull town 
would foller him—but when they didn’t it was 
all the same to Uncle Bije. 
He never was known to take offis but once. 
P’raps he never had it offered to him, for no¬ 
body ’sposed he wanted any. He’d been pes¬ 
tered by stray cattle a good deal, and some 
bright shote down in his street nomnynated 
him for Howard, and he was elected. Uncle 
B'je thought at fust he wouldn’t serve, but 
arter the feed got up and the road was swarm¬ 
in’ with cattle—for forehanded farmers and 
mechanics were not ashamed to grab for their 
share on’t—fust one neighbor and then anoth¬ 
er gin him a nudge about doin’ his duty and 
puttin’ the law in force. It was the sight of 
two ewe-necked, scrub bulls a-fightin’in front 
of the deestrict school-house that set him 
a-goin’. He hated a mean bull above ground. 
Uncle Bije took the oath, and rode ’round to 
see every man in his deestrict that owned a 
huff—and told ’em how things stood. He told 
four or five of the widders and poorer ones, 
that they could turn into his paster until they 
could do better—but there want a-goin’ to be 
no more cattle a ramblin’ around the streets 
arter sich a date. And he was as good as his 
word. He let the owners have their critters 
once, with the understandin’ that next time 
they was catched. in the road every huff 
should go to the pound and'every cent of fine 
the law allowed should be collected. 
He declared arterwards that he never made 
no enemies by it, except one—though he 
handled over three hundred head afore he got 
through with the scrape, and used to patrol 
the neighborhood Tevery mornin’. That was 
Dekiu Pettibone’s wife. (She that wuz Mehit- 
able Blish—Kernel Blish’s eldest darter by his 
fust wife—tall and strait like the old Kernel, 
and prouder of her cows and butter than ever 
her father was of a whole regiment of melish.) 
The Dekiu was a settin’ fence that spring agin 
his paster, and so used ter let the cows outarly, 
and they’d pick along the road up into Mam 
street, where they begun to browse folks’ 
hedges and dodge into gates and door-yards 
some. Uncle Bije happened along at one of 
these times and not to show no favors be 
hitched his mare and took the cows in hand. 
The way to the pound led right past the De- 
kin’s door, and when he got as far as that, 
Mis Pettibone she see the cows, and takin’ no 
notice of Bije, come out to open the gate for 
’em. (Masterly woman she was and rather 
peppery, in doors and out if all stories are 
true.) 
“ I wish you wouldn’t open that gate just 
yet, Mis Pettibone, not till I see the Dekin,” 
said Uncle Bije, hittin’ a nub o’ sand in the 
road with his black whip. 
“What bizness have you with those cows, 
Mr. Wilkerson?” said Mis Pettibone, a fumb¬ 
lin’ nervously with the latch, and finally jerk¬ 
in’ the gate part way open. 
“Shut the gate, inarm,” said Uncle Bije, 
rather sharply. “ Them cows are in my 
charge, and ‘11 get into the pound, unless I 
can make terms with the Dekin.” 
Mis Pettibone shut the gate, but she never 
forgave Uncle Bije that moment’s twist of the 
law. The Dekin came d’rectly, and was 
agreeable enough—and so was everybody. 
You’ll see widder’s children and sich out a 
baitin' their cows with a rope to ’em, but 
nothing in the way o’ stock runs loose in that 
street. Uncle Bije was a model Howard— 
though mebbe it would ha’ been as politic to 
have arranged matters with the Dekin's wife 
and let her have the cows—considerin’ that 
she was reely the head of the family. 
SAM CHEESEMAN. 
A valuable Truck Garden and Dairy Farm 
for sale, near Biiminghatn, Ala. For particu¬ 
lars, address, J. A. Jackson, Birmingham, 
Alabama. —A civ. 
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TELL YOUR FRIENDS. 
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