The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 21 April 1910, Page 637

The Family Circle

IF If little girls were little boys They’d always go to bed When mother told them to, and not Say ‘ wait _ awhile,’ instead. They d come into the house like mice, So quiet and polite, And after they had eaten tea, Get up and say ‘good-night.’ If little boys were little girls They’d not be ’fraid of things, Like katydids and hoppertoads And bats with ugly wings. They wouldn’t yell when they were teased. And run and tell on you, Like all the little girls in town Most always want to do. If we were little- girls and boys, Instead of folks grown old, We’d never want to spank ourselves, Nor bullyrag or scold. We’d never wish to grow again. But just in childhood stay, As innocent as we were when Our'childhood went away. SOLDIER WHO STOOD GUARD no / JJ ea A tO nT e * J lnm ™ y ; wead to Baby.’ The invitation card for the Christmas - Eve reception slipped through her The brief desire to accept its summons slipped away as softly. She looked at her boy. Her great eves tml°’ qUent -- She lifted the book, and began where the ’ • had interrupted the story of Field’s ‘ And the soldier was passing fair.’ ‘W’at’s a soldier, Mummy; w’at’s a sojerP’ guards Wh ° kGePS watch over his nation i one who He was silent while she reaid : But the little toy friends are true! Ay faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand: 4 nd + tbe y wonder, as waiting these long years through What has become of our Little Boy Blue!’ Her voice grew tremulous at the period. ‘Me want sojer, Mummy; Baby want sojer I’ nwnW SU -fl lt olt , thls cap a P d cloak, and pinned on her own . hat with sudden resolution. Car fare and a new niching she couldn t wear the old one again—would swell W bfl? ei |f-U° f that i holiday reception to the price of the toy her child craved. Besides, it was almost Christmas. We will get the prettiest soldier man we can find’ she promised, smiling in deep content. ’ . - ”, was an event, buying the soldier. And they took turns to carry him home. The boy set him on a chair and repeated the line from the poem—- ' r ,. ‘ N ow don’t ’on do till I tome I’ .• J?** do Bab ? s ser guard?’ came the solemn question, the new word rolling trippingly from the moist, red lips ;, » Mamma s world, said the woman. ‘ Mummy’s world,’ he repeated, wonder-eyed. y „„„ ‘Mamma’s world— boy’s love! ’ and she clasped her son in passionately possessive arms. * **•••. rr The grey-haired _ woman went over the house again. Her young son s bride was coming to enter into possession to-morrow—the day before Christmas. They were on their wedding journey now. She, the mother, was to live with her widowed sister far away. .... * Your . wife will be ; happier so,’ she had said, and—bitterness I was uncontradicted. ' , . This was her last day as mistress in the home where her boy was born, where she had known so much of jov and sorrow, where the cradle had rocked and noiseless wheels had. seemed to roll across her heart as they bore away her husband s body under its burden of flowers. She closed the blinds against the brilliant winter sunshine pouring in the parlor, and picked a thread from the new carpet. Up the stairs the trembling limbs toiled; the mistress glanced from room to room. A cloud had suddenly dulled the sunlight and a depressing grayness seemed to veil the familiar objects in gloom. There was one drawer she had not yet cleaned out because it stuck. . Perhaps it would yield to her shaking fingers yet, if she persisted. She would have gone yesterday but for this drawer that her sick heart made a pretext of to linger on in the home no longer hers. She knelt before the old nursery bureau. The drawer gave way. At first it seemed empty. Then out of the shadows gleamed a glint of blue. She put in her hand and—alone kneeling— back to light the little leaden soldier, bought at this very season, just before Christmas

fJ°^ ag r. the • sol 4 ier l hat was to guard a mother’s world the love of her joy I But the musket of the soldier was his° k leaden n feet 8 * had 6ateil into the iron standard down to , 1/q She knelt with the toy on her palm. Will it ever hold the same old place?’ she mused. . Then, as one who tempts an omen, she tried to stand the Guard of her World on the nursery floor. The little soldier wobbled, trembled, and, as her cold, thin finger 5 left him, stood erect I 6 • ji >V !T s *' °. f sunlight, as from gates sprung ajar, illuminated the window, beyond which wintry splendor sparkled in a long perspective. .The canary in his cage at the window broke into song. Wheels creaked on the frozen gravel and stopped at the door. 1 Mother 1 A man knelt beside her and clasped the drooping figure in strong, young arms. ‘ Mother, Louise and 1 have been talking over your strange desire to leave, and we shortened our journey to come home and tell you it won t do. It would be too hard on your spoiled boy, and just at Christmastide, too, mother.’ 1 y , I ! m sure it would, ’ chimed in the sweet voice of the hard%„u"d at"? 5,0,1 S °’ to °' 1 tllouebt if "' e both begged The woman looked from one face to the other , with swimming eyes. ‘What is this?’ and the new wife knelt by the rusteaten toy Oh, oh I its one of Harry’s old playthings! See how bravely the little fellow stands-he almost seems like a sentinel — sentinel on guard over something very precious!’ fa J ‘lt is’ said the mother, holding fast to her stalwart son, oh, it is! 11l tell you both some day how the toy has watched over my world.’ PURITY OF SPEECH . Purity of speech means something more than the omission of vulgar phrases that ought not to be used by any sen-respecting person. A young woman should carefully avoid falling into slangy or careless modes of speech. You can shut your- eyes and tell whether the woman next to you is a lady by listening to her conversation. There has been in recent years a reaction against the word ‘lady,’ because it has often been misapplied. There is really no reason why we should not use it in describing an attractive, agreeable woman. A charming writer has given the definition of lady as woman in a high state of civilisation. I am sure you prefer to be considered highly civilised to being thought savages and barbarians. When a woman says: ‘Gee whiz I’ 1 It was something fierce,’ or ‘ You’re up against it; you need nothing more to convince you that she is not altogether a lady. She may be a good-hearted, wellmeaning woman, but, friends, she proclaims to the universe that she is common. Nobody wants to be stamped as common. To say to anyone that she is kind-hearted, goodnatured, willing to serve a friend, and that she honestly pays her way, is to say that she is a respectable member of society, but to add to this that she is common and ordinary is to indicate a fatal defect. Purity of speech requires the omission of slang and silly, superfluous phrases. The latter, while perhaps not profane, are often not refined, and show that one’s association have been with ill-bred persons. THE SNAKE AND THE MONGOOSE A contributor to the Ceylon Times relates a true ‘ jungle tale ’ —the story of a fight between a great snake, a four-foot cobra, and a famous snakekiller, the mongoose: On first catching sight of the cobra rikki tik (as Rudyard Kipling calls the Indian mongoose) quietly smelt its tail and then hung around awaiting events with curiosity. But he had not long to wait, for the cobra spread its hood, hissed out its death sentence and prepared to dart from its coil at its natural and hated enemy. Now commenced a most interesting and deadly battle—of feint and counter-feint by the mongoose and strike and lightning-like recovery by his adversary, who was also on the defensive, all the time watching for the opportunity to get in his properly aimed bite. Time after time rikki tik squirmed slowly up to within reach of those terrible fangs, belly on ground, with every grey hair of his body erect with anger and excitement, his eyes glaring from his head, which, by the way, he invariably held sideways during this approach and attack, but the moment the cobra struck in a flash back sprang master mongoose, and although often it appeared as if impossible that he could have escaped the dreaded fangs, not a scratch harmed him, and there he would be again, wearing the cobra out and pressing his advantage inch by inch. At last, with a growl and sharp rikky cry, the plucky ; little beast flew in, avoided the strike, and seized the snake behind the head, never for a moment getting under its mouth, ‘but-right .at the nape of the neck and head, which he scrunched with a loud, cracking sound, despite the struggles and twisting and turning of the cobra. Again and again rikki returned to the now writhing reptile, and bit its head and body until it lay dying.

; Finally lie ate three or four inches of his mortal foe, but carefully avoided eating the fangs and poison glands, which I picked up-by a stick and found them broken, but with the venom sacks attached. Contrary to popular belief, I am of opinion the mongoose is not immune from the snake poison, else why should he so particularly avoid being bitten ? It is only by his marvellous activity that he escapes the spring and darting strike of his deadly enemy, the cobra di capella, HINDOO HUMOR A traveller who has spent many years abroad tells of several menus with which he was confronted when in Ceylon. The menu, he says, is an indispensable adjunct to a respectable luncheon or dinner table in Ceylon. As a rule, the head servant writes it out, and from his elementary knowledge of English, as ‘ she is wrote,’ springs a host of quaint blunders. At the same time, his fertile Oriental brain is ever apt to add foot-notes, which are, perhaps, his happiest achievement. At one lunch there figured among the dishes, ‘ roast beef,’ but it caused the hostess some consternation when she discovered the additional legend in very small letters, ‘ roast beef, smelling a little,’ the parenthetical note being meant to intimate that the dish was accompanied by a sauce of savory odors. On another occasion there appeared this following acknowledgment of deficiency ; * steak and kidney, pie, no kidney.’ It was altogether delightful, continues the writer, to find at one dinner our old friend, welsh rabbit, appearing as ‘ welsh rubbish.’ The same genius translated haricot mutton into ‘ hurrygod mutton.’ Our own boy, he adds, on the occasion of a hastily improvised dinner, was unable to accomplish a dessert. Consequently, he put the word ‘plates’ at the end of the menu. KNOW THIS SORT OF PERSON ? • Shortly after 2 o’clock one bitter winter morning a physician drove four miles in answer to a telephone call. On his arrival the man who had summoned him said: ‘ Doctor, I ain’t in any particular pain; but somehow or other I’ve a feeling that death is nigh.’ The doctor felt the man’s pulse and listened to his heart. ;' . . • ‘Have you made your will?’ he asked finally. The man turned pale. Why no, doctor. At my age—oh, doc., it ain’t true, is it? It can’t be true ’ ' ‘Who’s your lawyer?’ ‘ Higginbotham, but— — ’ - ‘ Then you had better send for him at once.’ The patient, white and trembling, went to the ’phone. Who’s your pastor?’ continued the doctor. ‘ The Rev,. Kellogg M. Brown,’ mumbled the patient. * But, doctor, do you think J Send for him immediately. Your father, too, should be summoned; also your ’ ‘ Say, doctor, -do you really think I’m going to die ? ’ The man began to blubber softly. The doctor looked at _ him hard. ‘ No, I don’t,’ he replied grimly. ‘ There’s nothing at all the matter_ with you. But I’d hate to be the only man you’ve made a fool of on a night like this.’ FAMILY FUN Here is a nice little trick performed with ordinary matches. Arrange ten matches in a row, about an inch apart; the trick is to form them into five pairs, jumping two matches at a time. Of course any pair formed counts two. The little puzzle will afford a good deal of amusement, and for the benefit of the reader I give the solution. Let us suppose the matches to be arranged and numbered as under : 11111 I I I I I 1234 56789 10 Then the five moves are i Place 6 on 9 Place 4 on 1 Place 8 on 3 Place 2 on 5 Place 10 on 7 - You want to see whether your friend is wide awake. Ask him to answer the following in quick time: — and B have equal claims to a flock of 100 sheep. A takes 60, B 40, and A pays B £4O; what is the value of the sheep? It is ten chances to one he will : give you £2 as the answer, instead of £4, the correct one. Again, there are 20 beds available in a hotel, and 33 men to be lodged. How many beds are occupied by two-men.. Simply take 20 from 33 for the answer. Similarly, 80 sheep are the dams of 100 lambs. How many sheep produced couplesloo miiiues 80 —so.- ■ ■■ • ■■ -