W, RiCO’S 
IMPROVED 
BUTTER 
COLOR 
JAN’S© 
So here's a lesson, my boys for you, 
The saying Is trite but ever true. 
If you dance the spring-time of life away. 
In age you'll have but a cheerless day. 
So work and study, 'twill make you bright, 
Fit you the bat tle of life to light, 
And one thing more ere 1 take my flight. 
The lesstfh Is this; be sure aud learn 
All your dimes to save as well as earn 
For when you are men, aud In business start, 
You wi ll need some cash anti a strong, brave heart. 
—SANTA CLAUS. 
Onondaga Co., N. Y. wirt n. bishop. 
[Your Graudpa is a good man to take care 
of you. Santa Claus gave us all some good 
advice in that poetry. We shall all remem¬ 
ber it. Cash is good, when you can get it 
honestly, but a good character with plenty of 
perseverance and patience will be worth more. 
—UNCLE MARK.] 
something of the good things of life depends up¬ 
on their own work. 
i .0 r c U a n c o u $' ch* r v t i 0 i n 51 
Rheumatism 
WHAT THE COUSINS SAY 
We doubt if there is, or can be, a specific 
remedy for rheumatism; but thousands whe 
have suffered its pains have been greatly ben 
efittnl by Hood's Sarsaparilla. If you have failed 
to find relief, try this great remedy. It corrects 
the acidity of the blood which is tlio cause of the 
disease, and builds Up the whole system. 
" I was afflicted with rheumatism twenty years 
Previous to 1883 I found no relief, but grew worse, 
until I was almost helpless. Hood's Sarsaparilla 
did me more good than all the other medicine 
lever had.” II. T. Balcom, Shirley Village, Mass. 
Hood’s Sarsaparilla 
Sold by all druggists. $1; six for So. Made 
only by C. I. HOOD & CO., Lowell, Mass. 
IOO Doses One Dollar 
Millie M. Myers would like to get some 
subscribers for the Rural, but says she is so 
little that she is afraid to try. These little 
people amount to a great deal more than they 
think. The largest people are not always the 
smartest by any means. 
Mary B. Bretr lives on a farm where there 
is a Jersey red hog that will weigh 1,000 pounds 
when he is fat. It must be hard to tell, from 
the looks of it, whether it is a hog or a cow. 
They also have two bulldogs and niue cows. 
Nina G. Clute writes about a poor little colt 
that seemed so weak and thin that her Papa 
wanted to kill it. Her Mamma took it and 
fed it on milk and oats. It is quite a nice colt 
now. That shows what good care aud treat¬ 
ment will do, 
Lottie E. Stevenson says the people found 
a great many piles of hazel nuts piled up by 
the mice. One man found 14 bushels. I wish 
some of those mice would move this way and 
go to work. 
Bertha Heeter is ten years old and has 
seven studies. She can milk. They have two 
muley cows, 
Walter G. Smith lives in Oregon. There 
are many Iudian mounds near his home, in 
which people find spear and arrow-heads. 
What a life these old Indians must have led, so 
long ago. Ocean shells have been found out 
there on the tops of the highest mountains. 
How did they get there? When you come 
to know more about geology you will see how 
they came there. Years and years ago these 
high mountains were entirely covered by the 
sea. The waters slowly and slowly moved 
away until these great hills were left. There 
are high mountains at the bottom of the ocean 
now. New laud is constantly being formed, 
and the great forces that have made hills and 
valleys are still slowly going on. 
Phcebe L. Sherman lives on an island near 
Washington Territory. That is far away from 
headquarters,- still our club is large enough 
to cover the whole country. They have plenty 
of fruit, such as apples, peal's, plums, peaches, 
prunes and cherries, 
Rosa C. Miller says she could do all kinds 
of kitchen work and sew on the sewing mach¬ 
ine. She has a doll with four dresses which 
she made herself. She finds it very hard to 
teach the cats any tricks. 
Lottie Noon lives in Illinois. She aud her 
sisters have two pet lambs aud a pet chicken. 
The dog. Carlo, is very playful. He will run 
after a ball when they roll it on the ground. 
Nellie R. Df, Cou enters the club from 
Iowa. She says they have had some awful 
blizzards out there. Think of 33 degrees below 
zero! Last Summer they had so much rain 
that the creek jumped out of its bank and 
washed the corn away. 
Dear Uncle Mark : We would like to 
join the Y. H. C. We had a Fuchsia that was 
frozen and hadu’t any leaves on it,and we cut 
it half way down last Winter, arid it began to 
bloom the last of July and did not stop until 
November. We had some very nice Petunias 
aud three kinds of Tigridias, they were red, 
white and yellow. They did not do very well 
with us, we only saw the red one. They are 
very pretty, but only last one day. We had 
some annual chrysanthemums, but they were 
very small. It must, have been a grand sight to 
see them in New York. We have a Yuccafila- 
mentosa that has never bloomed. How long 
does it take to bloom? We have a ageratum 
that bloomed all Summer: it was a Tom 
Thumb. We have plenty of Amaranthus and 
Verbenas. We had some very pretty tea 
roses, and perpetual aud moss roses. 
From your nieces, 
Wheeling. W. Va. annie and gracie cook. 
Dear Uncle Mark: We had a very nice 
garden last Summer. We raised 300 quarts of 
strawberries from a Vied containing two square 
rods. Our strawberries are the Sharpless aud 
Great American. We also have red aud 
black raspberries, red, white and black 
currants, cherries aud some choice apples. We 
raised tomatoes khol rabi, cabbage, lettuce, 
radishes, Hubbard and Summer squash, 
cucumbers, melons, beaus, beats, onions, 
salsify, sage and summer savory. Our garden 
has been represented at the dinner and tea 
table since early Spring, aud we often find 
ourselves wondering how people get along 
without a good garden, We found it more 
useful than ever at Thanksgiving. I have a 
small cabinet of curiosities. Some fine speci- 
of pyrites of iron: trinkets from the Centen¬ 
nial (brought me by my father) and from the 
New Orleans Exposition, a snake skin, a 
bullet Liken from the shattered arm of one of 
Papa’s friends in the late rebellion, are among 
the thiugs in my cabinet. I am very anxious 
to get some good agates. Your niece, 
L. MYRTLE FORTEU8. 
St. Lawrence Co,, N. Y. 
[The table is a good place for the garden to 
send its representatives. There ought to be a 
good garden on every farm.—u. M.] 
Uncle Mark: May I join your club? My 
name is Hylon T. Plumb. I am a boy 11 years 
Old, and my father keeps a nursery, I don’t 
care about living on a farm or any such 
thing. I want to lie a machinist. I make all 
of my boats and engines. I am at work now 
on an engine, which is to run by steam; I have 
it nearly done. I have a fine sail boat which 
is three feet long and two-aud-a-half feet 
tall. I live very near the railroad track, and 
there is a pond of water a little ways from the 
railroad, on which I curt sail my boat. There 
is a hill right side of my home, which gives 
me plenty of coasting, and there is splendid 
skating at the rink, but too much snow ou 
the pond just now. Your nephew. 
Rock Co., Wis. HYLON T. PLUMB. 
[Yes, you may join. We need good 
machinists, and I hope you will surely be a 
good one. I hope some day you will be able 
to have a farm too. You will like farm work 
better then. I would like to see your engine. 
OME of the Cousins have been 
writing me about the tremond- 
ous squashes they raised last 
year. I have thought of away for 
them to make some money. The 
Rural offers $10 for the largest 
J )|® Bird Canteloupe. Now cau’t, you 
® get your father to give you one 
or two seeds, or make you a present of a vine 
after it comes up? I believe you can. Then 
work at that vine the very best, you know how. 
It may be that some of the smallest of the 
Cousins may bring out the biggest canteloupes. 
Let us try this now. Don’t forget it. 
The Cousins send in reports of very cold 
weather. We are all having a touch of it, 
I guess, even those of us who live in the South. 
That makes me speak of one thing I have 
noticed about cold people. These who hate to 
move away from the fire have the hardest 
work to keep warm. The best way to keep 
the blood in circulation is to jump about and 
make thiugs lively. That is the reason peo¬ 
ple stamp their feet and slap their hands when 
their toes and fingers tingle. Keeping over 
the tire makes us tender aud more apt to get 
cold when we have to go out. Wheu I was a 
boy I had to go barefoot until quite late in the 
Fall. It used to be cold enough running 
through the frosted grass. I was glad enough 
to ran and step ou the places where the cows 
bad been laying all night. People used to tell 
me to take a little switch and whip my feet. 
It made them tingle but I believe it made 
them more comfortable. 
Now is the time when the hens ought to Lie 
kept as warm as toast. If they are standing 
about with frozen combs and legs, they will 
not lay many eggs, and I for one don’t, blame 
them at all. Some people think that animals 
only suffer when they ai'e out in a bitter cold. 
I think it is just as bad for them in a damp or 
windy day, I know that I feel better on a 
clear, cold, day than I do when it is damp and 
rainy. 
I hope the Rural dogs will not have the hy¬ 
drophobia. I don’t believe any of them will. 
From what I can lea.ru, our dogs mast be 
pretty well behaved animals. I wouldn’t let 
a dog lie with his head under the stove. It 
will make him lazy and stupid. It is a bad 
plan, too, to plague dogs. Sometimes they 
are taught to bite in this way. I know of a 
dog that was plagued by having his tail and 
hair pulled. He got so that he would snap 
whenever his hair was pulled. One day the 
baby put its little hand on the dog’s side and 
Frisk snapped so quickly that he bit the baby’s 
arm. 1 never thought that bite was really 
intentional, aud yet the dog had to be killed. 
It pays to be fair and honest with animals. 
They know moi'e than we think they do, and 
they will take their revenge when we least 
expect it. 
How many of the Cousins have “spelling 
schools” in their districts? I used to go when 
I was a boy. I can remember the first one 1 
ever went to. Our school drove over to an¬ 
other district and spelled against the school 
there. I don’t think I bad better tell you 
what word I missed. It was too easy. If 1 
should tell you you would all say at once that 
you knew more than Uncle Mark did. How 
should I feel then? 
KNOW THYSELF. 
clbif In man. A book for every man. young, middle- 
aired and old. 11 contains I9ft prescriptions for all 
acute nnd elironic diseases, each one of which Is 
invaluable. So found by the author, whose expe¬ 
rience for 58 years In such has probably never before 
fell to the lot of any physician. 300 pages, bound 
In beautiful French muslln, embossed covers, full 
Kilt, guaranteed to be a titter work In every sense- 
mechanical, literary and professional than any other 
work sold In this country for #2.80. or the money will 
be refunded in every Instance. Price only $1 00 by 
mull, postpaid. Illustrated sample 6 cents Send 
now. Gold medal uwarded the author by the National 
Medical Association,to the officers of which he refers. 
The Science of Lite should be read by the young for 
Instruction, and by the afflicted for relief. It will 
benclli nil. —London Lancet. _ 
There Is no member of society to whom The Science 
of Life will UOt he useful, whether youth, parent, 
guardian. Instructor or clergyman. -ArQcmnut, 
Address the Peabo.iy Metical Institute.or Dr. W. H. 
Parker No. -1 Butflneb Street, Bostou.Mass ,who may 
be consulted on nil diseases reumrlng skill aud expe¬ 
rience. Chronic ana obstinate JTT? AL dl ?i 
noor.o Ihnl l,nv„ llAfflCd tllO Skill Of AAXiAXJJ all 
case's t’bnt have baffled the skill of all 
other physicians u specialty. SuclitriTycrTT 
treated successfully without an-*- ai. * uajajx 
I nstance of failure. 
Mention this paper. 
r A r klCCC its Causes nnd Cure, by one 
CArWCva who was deaf years. Treated 
ny most of the noted specialists of the day with 
no benefit- Cured himsetf in three months, and 
postal note). Mokes 16 
K, JR.. Littleton. N. C. 
TMtllS.llidilni \ in**. etc. I prettyHiiiK-ontlU anil pres 
Viit.stl Jo<. filoUAOf. 0.1, Itpiin rd.lliBr.inniu.Ct. 
Saiuplr Bo.ils of bpjuitlful Cord,. Noreltloi, 
3c w-Ii-t, etc. Send Jc. «t*unp for postage. 
St-su i’cnuauiMl Co., lllrmlngbiun. Conn. 
A 1,1.. Si.'JO a ivcelc and expenses 
Outfit worth A*, aud particulars 
P. O. VICKERY. Augusta. Maine. 
■ OO Fancy Pictures nnd £.> 
I A&r9lV I Elegant Cimb in (.III Edge, 
LBbJ) m Silk Fringe. Bidden Name, 
w■ »1 ■ W0 W I Ac. 1 Songster, i x.TO Prize 
Pnzzle, nnd R Parlor (isines, all for IO els. Game 
of Aut hors. | Oe. IVY CA RD CO., Clintonville, Ct. 
300 1 GAMES. fnul,% l-srlor Hagir, Conundrum’., 
_ I Song*. Alhom (inotntlon*. f :m l.rolitorr Rnlpni, 
Kua I nnd pack of Nnno- Cards, Gill Kris's Silk Fringe. 
IOC.1 Ridden Nunc. Todd Uaill Co., Ounlonrillo. Ct 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS, 
HUMPHREYS’ HOMEOPATHIC SPECIFICS 
Sold by Druggists, or sent postpaid on receipt of prico. 
Dear Uncle Mark: I do not belong to 
the Y. H. C. but. I suppose I may write you a 
letter, because I read the Rural. I have no 
father to take the paper, for he died five years 
ago, before I was eight years old. I am the 
oldest of the children. Then Grandpa, who 
had no boys, took Mamma, brother Glenn, 
two years younger than I, little sister Arlie, 
baby Daisy and myself, all home to live with 
him. We go to school every Summer aud 
Winter, work in the garden, pick up potatoes, 
and put wood in the wood-house. Brother 
Glenn likes to farm it, but 1 like to use the 
saw, hammer and plane. They call me the 
carpenter. We did not think Santa Claus 
would remember us, but on Christmas morning 
we found some candy in our boots, and m 
one of them was a letter from him in rhyme. 
It was dated in Chicago and was written on 
paper that had a picture of the Pacific Hotel 
on it, a nd contained two dimes, one for each 
of us. Perhaps some of the Rural Cousins 
would like to know what he wrote us. It was 
this: 
As I rode through town at reindeer speed. 
Looking for all the children In need. 
For girls and boys who liked to work, 
Who told the truth, and would not shirk. 
I spied two laddies hauling wood: 
And I said I think those boys are good. 
So I wrote their names in my gift book, 
And on I sped, for more to look. 
When I came back they had chopped the meal 
That made the sausage line to eat: 
So I dropped a dime In each stocking toe, 
And gathered up my reins to go. 
Butlo! the coins looked rusty and old, 
So that Ihelr worth could never he told; 
They had Idle lain, bo long a time. 
They appeared no more a shining dime. 
The boys might think them only a penny, 
But tt»e would make them as bright as any. 
Idleness will every virtue dim. 
Make pockets empty, and purses slim. 
A shabby vesture and tarnished name 
Are the results of the very same. 
■WVHMPVMI IF YOU REALLY WISH 
i'J| if.f HIJKi to use the very best Butter 
Color ever rn.uioj ono that 
never turns rancid. always 
gives a bright natural Color, 
and will not color the butteiv 
JIB H 5 "J millc, iu.U tor Wol la. Rich- 
lj I nfl ■ ■ ot-dsou &, Co's., and take no 
Other. Hula everywhere. 
JaiVaTbI more of it used 
I ^ than of nil '.hr multcu com. 
PTWJ Am billed. Sind for OUT valuor 
■■■MH bio circulars. 
WELLS, TUCK A UPSON St CO.. Burlington. Vt. 
GOLD MEDAL, PARIS, 1378, 
BAUER'S 
£7 Warranted absolutely pure 
Cocoa, from which the excess of 
OH has been removed. It hnsC-ee 
times the strength of Cocoa mixed 
with Starch, Arrowroot ur Sugar, 
and Is therefore far more economi¬ 
cal, costing less than one cent a 
cup. It Is delicious, nourishing, 
etrengthenlng, eueily digested, and 
.admirably adapted for Invalids as 
| well as for persona in health. 
Hold by Grocer* everywhere. 
Is there a wood-box in your house? If there 
is, I hope you are keeping it well filled. We 
never want to see the bottom of a wood-box. 
I should be very sorry to think that any of my 
boys are willing to have mother bring in wood 
herself, when they have such stout arms for 
playing ball and thron ing snowballs. I would 
like to have all such boys go without dinner 
once or twice; then they would realize that 
N«w Rlvl*. Chrnmo 11 Idden N ame 0 **.G*dm 
Auihurw.lllc. Acme Card Ki»ctory,OUnU>uvUU/A 
CDIIM’Q StarChurna, Rapid lee Cretan Freezers, Ini- 
01 AIH w proved Tree Tubs, all made of CEDAR. 
nuilDMO Send for illustrated clreulur and prices. 
uHUHRS. Clement A Dunbar, Philadelphia, Pa, 
