Humour.

West Coast Times, Issue 3055, 18 January 1879, Page 2 (Supplement)

Humour.

RAPID INCREASE.

Thb story is told up in Oonway, N.H., and the large farm is pointed out whereon the incident ooourred. Yonn? Tom Gloutman was iv love with Su3an Fietcher Odell, and his love was of the eager, impetuous kind. He would not take No for an answer. The more the father of Susan endeavoured to put Tom away, the more persistently did Tom re-appear, and the more pertinaciously did Susan bang bits of white oloth, shawls, etc, etc, out at h«r window to let him know that she was at home, in oase the old folks should declare that she was away. One day in late autumn, when Odell had his barn -floor cleared, and his wheat got ready for threshing, he said to young Gloatman : " Look ye, Tom, I've got an offer to make you. There's goin' to be a thresuin' to-day in my barn. Old Banfield's goin' to thresh out my wheat. Now you may take your flail and' go in. Catch as many kernels of wheat in your mouth as you can— catch 'em fair an* square,- as they fly — and when you've got 'em, you shall have land to sow it on. And I'll keep ie up till you're old enough to be married, Now let's see what you'll make of it." Tom went at the threshing gleefully, and for most of the time the old man was there to watch him. But the youth was fair and boneßt. Through tie long day, by every effort — by straining every nerve — he managed to catch four grains of wht at in his mouth — he caught them fairly, and agreeably to the contract, bb all were ready to ewear who Baw. Tom wintered his four grains of wheat in fine washed cotton, and in the spring he selected a quiet, retired nook, where the fieroe winds could not strike, and awaited the result. The result was four splendid heads of white wheat, with one hundred and twenty kernels to a head. On the next spring Tom came over and selected his little patoh of rich soil, and carefully planted his seed. He did not carelessly sow it, but be planted eaoh kernel as he t would have planted a choice bean. And what was the result of that? Many of those stocks were doub'e-headed, and in some instances three and four sprouts shot from a single seed. Tom did not stop to count these; but measured them, and found himself possessing very near a lull quart of fair and peifeot seed. The next year he bad more than a peok ay, very ' nearly two pecks — and he oalled for an aore of land for the ntxt year's sowing. The old man could hardly believe his fare, nor his, eyeß; but there it was, dearly demonstrated, and after scratching his head a while, he said : •' Look here, Tom, there's no use ingoin' on in this way. The whole farm will be yours at this rate, ere many more years have passed. Suppose we divide now. Wnat say you ?" Tom was agreed. So the old farm was divided, and Tom took his half, and took the wife with it, and to the day of hia fleath old Fletcher Odell never regretted the bargain he had made with Tom Gloutman.

"No cows, no oream," was the way a compositor set up the words, " No cross, no crown."