1.899 
775 
A Delayed Letter. 
The postmaster smiled a little when 
he passed out the mail, but Luther 
Wilkins did not notice. He was trying 
to remember whether it was a yeast 
cake or a pound of cheese he had meant 
to get at the store. He went out of the 
post office still pondering, and ended by 
forgetting both articles, his attention 
being diverted by the sight of two boys 
playing marbles on the sidewalk. This 
was the first sign of Spring Luther had 
seen, so it was no wonder that his mem¬ 
ory played him false. 
After he got home and had eaten his 
supper he thought of the mail in his 
overcoat pocket. He brought it to the 
table and sat down to examine it. There 
was the weekly county paper, a poultry 
journal, an agricultural monthly, and 
last of all a letter. 
“Well, now,” said Luther, picking it 
up, “I wonder who’s been writing to me. 
I don’t know when I’ve had a letter.’’ 
He looked at it eagerly, held it nearer 
his eyes, then farther off. He removed 
his glasses and polished them in nerv¬ 
ous haste. After replacing them on his 
nose he picked up the letter again and 
scanned it narrowly, then he looked 
over his glasses as if at some person and 
said: 
“I snum!” 
He sank into a reverie, out of which 
he roused himself with a start to study 
the envelope with renewed interest. 
“Mrs. Luther Wilkins,” he said. “Mrs. 
Luther Wilkins. And I an old bachelor 
who never so much as hardly thought 
of getting married! Mrs. Luther Wil¬ 
kins, why, where is she? And who is 
she? 
“Well, I guess I’ll see what’s in it,” 
He inserted the point of his knife under 
the corner of the envelope flap, then he 
hesitated. 
“What business have I opening of her 
letters?” he asked himself. “I never did 
open other folks’s letters, and I guess I 
won’t begin now.” He rose to his feet, 
and carrying it to the mantelpiece 
leaned it up against the clock. He set¬ 
tled himself to his papers, but thoughts 
of Mrs. Luther Wilkins kept intruding 
on what he was reading about patent 
nest boxes, and under-draining, and the 
news of the village. 
Thereafter, during all his waking 
hours, Mrs. Luther Wilkins was often in 
his thoughts. She even haunted his 
dreams at times. He wondered what 
she was like, and he thought of the kind 
of woman he would wish her to be, and 
enjoyed himself very much in imagin¬ 
ing how it would seem to have her meet 
him at the door when he came in from 
the fields, and how nice it would be not 
to have to get his own meals. 
At first he was a little cynical, and 
told himself that the imagining was 
much more satisfactory than the reality 
would be, but after a while he changed 
his mind, and would sigh heavily when 
he came into his lonesome house. The 
letter by the clock too began to trouble 
him. He had a devouring curiosity to 
see what was in it, and besides it did 
not seem just right to keep it so long 
before delivering it. 
One evening in June Luther put on his 
best clothes and walked three miles to 
see an old schoolmate who had an un¬ 
married cousin living with him. It 
seemed to. him that Eliza Elliott fitted 
in exactly with his idea of Mrs. Luther 
Wilkins. He came home quite early 
very much disappointed. Eliza wouldn’t 
do at all. 
He worked doggedly for a month try¬ 
ing hard not to think of the disquiet¬ 
ing subject. It was no use, and toward 
the end of July it was observed that 
Luther was becoming very neighborly. 
He spent his evenings at different 
neighbors’ houses, he accepted invita¬ 
tions to tea, he went to church regularly 
and to all Sunday school picnics. And 
still he could not find a suitable owner 
for the letter. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
“I must be terrible fussy,” he sighed. 
“I’ve got acquainted with about all the 
women in town; they’re nice women, 
every one of them, but somehow they 
don’t suit me. I guess I’ll have to give 
up beat.” 
It was one raw cold day in early No¬ 
vember that Luther sat at a window 
making clumsy attempts at mending a 
pair of very ragged socks. Happening 
to glance across the road he saw a wo¬ 
man out in the Hammonds’s yard. She 
was busy raking up the fallen Autumn 
leaves. 
“Letitia Hammond,” Luther com¬ 
mented, “Bill Hammond’s sister. We 
don’t see much of her lately. She don’t 
even go to church, there’s so many of 
Bill’s children to look after, and Bill’s 
wife is so took up with her clubs and 
things. It’s hard on Letitia, but she 
never finds a word of fault.” 
The sock he was mending fell to the 
floor and the wooden egg inside it 
struck with a such a loud bang that the 
cat started in his sleep. Luther did not 
notice. He was standing at the window 
staring out. 
“ ‘That is best which lieth nearest,’ ” 
he said solemnly. “What a fool I’ve 
been.” 
He found his hat and left the house, 
almost running across the road. He took 
the iron rake away from Letitia gently. 
“That’s too hard work for a little thing 
like you,” he said. 
Letitia’s blue eyes were full of won¬ 
der, but she yielded up the rake weakly. 
“You’d better go into the house, too,” 
said Luther. “It’s cold out here.” 
No one had been thoughtful of her be¬ 
fore for a long time, and Letitia couldn’t 
understand it. When Luther returned 
the rake she asked him to let her do 
something for him. He carried her his 
best pair of socks. She was horrified at 
their condition, and mended them in a 
very artistic manner. Luther looked at 
them in wonder and reverence. “I’ll 
never wear ’em,” he said, when he was 
at home again. “I wouldn’t have let her 
do it, only I knew it would make her 
feel better, and it gave me a chance to 
see her, too.” 
He found that it was an easy matter 
to invent excuses for seeing her, and 
finally, some time in the Winter, he 
asked her in fear and trembling if she 
would be Mrs. Luther Wilkins. 
At first she was afraid it would not be 
right to abandon her brother’s children, 
but her scruples melted away before the 
warmth of his eloquence. Then she con¬ 
fessed that she was tired. “It is so long 
that I have had to take care of other 
folks, and it will seem like Heaven to 
have some one to take care of me.” 
So it happened that in a little less 
than a year the letter to Mrs. Luther 
Wilkins was given to its rightful owner. 
“Circumstances over which I had no 
control have prevented ycur getting it 
before,” Luther said. 
“Why, it’s nothing but an advertise¬ 
ment of some new preparation of 
cereals,” she said, when she had opened 
it. 
Luther looked blank. 
“I see how it is,” she said, after a mo¬ 
ment’s thought. “They sent to the dif¬ 
ferent grocers for lists of their cus¬ 
tomers, and then sent these circulars to 
their wives.” 
“Let’s keep it,” said Luther softly. 
“If it hadn’t been for that-” 
“Yes, we’ll keep it,” said Letitia, 
blushing.—Anson Brown Robbins, in St. 
Louis Globe-Democrat. 
....Idleness and the consciousness of 
incompetency should make any man 
ashamed of himself, and drive him to 
do something that is worth the doing. 
It is within the grasp of every one to 
learn some one thing that will yield 
both pleasure and profit. Success comes 
only to those who seek it.—Saturday 
Evening Post. 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use “Mrs. Wins¬ 
low’s Soothing Syrup” for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best— A&c. 
With the Procession. 
-One of the rules which Andrew Car¬ 
negie it is said established for his own 
guidance upon the road to success is 
this: ‘ Never enter a bar-room, nor let 
the contents of a bar-room enter you.” 
A young man who does not understand 
that strong drink is a foe to professional 
advancement has not as yet mastered 
the A B C of the alphabet of success.— 
New York Observer. 
... .Absorption in the things of this life 
is the real worldliness. He who lives 
for business, she who lives for pleasure, 
are dead while they live. The remedy 
for this danger is not a lack of diligence 
in business, nor the suppression of 
amusements, but their right direction. 
Better than to forbid the trivial and un¬ 
important is to occupy the mind with 
the essential and the valuable.—The 
Evangelist. 
-“Would you know,” asks William 
Law, in his beautiful chapter on singing 
Psalms; “would you know who is the 
greatest saint in the world? Well, it is 
not he who prays most, or fasts most; 
it is not he who gives most alms, or is 
most eminent for temperance, chastity, 
or justice; but it is he who is always 
thankful to God, who wills everything 
that God wills, and who receives every¬ 
thing as an instance of God’s goodness, 
and has a heart always ready to praise 
God for his goodness.” 
....No intemperate man can succeed at 
anything. He may apparently keep his 
place in the line, and even seem to move 
ahead a little, but do not be deceived; 
he is not in the same class with a man 
of equal ability who is temperate. Con¬ 
ditions being equal, the temperate man 
will always pass him in the end. I do 
not wish to be understood, as one fre¬ 
quently is, as confining my remarks on 
this subject to overindulgence in alco¬ 
holic stimulants; there are other forms 
of intemperance just as deadly to suc¬ 
cess.—H. H. Vreeland. 
-Mil A. H. Verrill, writing in Pop¬ 
ular Science, describes an American 
spider, which haunts evergreen trees, 
and catches its prey by means of a kind 
of lasso. The web of this spider is tri¬ 
angular in form, consisting of four lon¬ 
gitudinal lines and a large number of 
cross fibers connecting them. Two cor¬ 
ners of the triangle are attached to 
twigs, but the other corner, which ter¬ 
minates in a single thread, is held by 
the spider perched on a neighboring 
twig. When a fly striKes the web, the 
spider loosens his hold, and the elastic 
threads instantly entangle the victim. 
NA CLOSET $10.95. 
This China Closet, made of quar¬ 
tered oak, 70 In. high. 38 in. long, 
has beveled edge French plate 
glass 16x16 in. has removable 
shelves and retails for $20.00. 
Our price is S10.5)5. Just think 
of the money you can save in a year's 
time if you had our immense 304 
page Catalogue of everything to fat, 
Use and Wear. It saves you money 
on every article you buy , it costs us 
69 r but we send it free to you. 
Price $10.95 Address this way: 
JULIUS HINES & SON, 
BALTIMORE, MD. Dept. 320 
Housework is 
with even the best 
soap which needs 
hard muscular rub¬ 
bing to make 
things clean. Gold 
Dust does all that 
soap does and saves 
time and much 
rubbing. 
Send for frca booklet— “Golden Rules 
for Housework.” 
THE N. K. FAIRBANK COMPANY 
Chicago St. Louis NewYork Boston 
Time Tells 
The Story. 
There is a big difference between the 
cost of making a first-class sewing 
machine, embodying the best of mate¬ 
rials and workmanship, and one which 
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buyer of the cheap machine soon pays 
the difference of price in the constant 
cost for repairs, to say nothing of its 
annoying inefficiency. 
Singer Sewing-Machines do good work 
during a lifetime. 
Sold on instalments. 
Old machines taken in exchange. 
The Singer Manufacturing Co,, 
"Sewing-Machine Makers for the World." 
B. & B. 
remarkable line of 
Dress goods 35c. yard 
—style and quality never before 
approached at the money. 
Values that will show so con¬ 
vincingly this store wants your 
preference on a small profit basis, 
as will make you a money saver 
if you investigate. 
Best inexpensive Dress goods 
this store ever offered. 
36-inch novelties—dark grounds 
with small zigzag stripe 35 c. 
36-inch all-wool neat dark 
checks—styles like $1 50 Tailor 
checks, 35c. 
40-inch novelty mixtures 35c. 
42-inch all-wool plaids —styles 
that have style to them, 35 c. 
50c. silk and wool imported 
Plaids—styles and colorings spe¬ 
cially for waists and children’s 
dresses, 35 c. 
44-inch all-wool Black Storm 
serges, 35 c. Get samples. 
BOGGS & BUHL, 
Department C, 
ALLEGHENY. PA. 
I §7.50 BUYS AS, PERFECTION EsK 
' Knits everything. Hosiery, mittens anil all fancy 
— stitches from homespun or factory yarns Send 
- for true catalogue and samples of work desciib- 
«• log hosiery and underwear knitters. Address, 
4 Perfection Knitting Machine Co., Clearfield, Pa. 
RIVFN ' 0 Lndlea,(-iris and Roys, distrib- 
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particulars A Catalog of oyer 100 Free I’reud- 
uniH.Watches Dress floods. Suite, fllrycles,C«ueliea, 
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Thrice-a-Week World 
Gives you all the news of the whole world 
every other day. It’s the next best thing to a 
daily paper—18 pages a week, 156 pages a 
year. It is independent, fearless, and is with 
the plain people as against trusts and mono¬ 
polies. We can send it in combination with 
The Rural New-Yorker, one year, for $1.65. 
Hard Enough 
