The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 25 January 1912, Page 53

The Family Circle

THE PROPER TIME

‘ Will you play with me? Will you play with me?’ A little girl said to the birds on a tree. ‘ Oh, we have our nest to build,’ said they: > ‘ There’s a time for work and a time for play.’ Then; meeting a dog, she cried, ‘ Halloo ! ■ Gome play. with me, Jip, and do as I do.’ Said he, ‘ I must watch the orchard to-day: There’s a time for work and a time for play.’ A boy she saw; and to him she cried, ‘Come, play with me, John, by the greenwood side.’ ‘ Oh, no!’ said John, I’ve my lesson to say: There’s a time for work and a time for play.’ Then thoughtful a while stood the little miss, And said, ‘ It is hard,- on a day like this, To go to work but, from what they all say, j ’Tis a time for work, and not for play.’ So homeward she went, and took her book. And first at the pictures began to look; Then said, ‘ I think I will study to-day: There’s a time for work and a time for play.’

THE SPITE HOUSE

‘You’re jnean, Kitty Perkins.’ ‘ So are you, Patty Parker, and if you don’t look out, I shall take all my things out of this playhouse and have ’em somewhere else. Then how would yArnold playhouse look?’ To grandma, sitting on the verandah, .the cross voices were wafted loudly from the corner playhouse under the plum trees, and grandma looked troubled. Kitty ! Patty!’ she called clearly. At first Kitty and Patty did not hear, their own voices were too loud, but when grandma walked down across the lawn, and stood in the doorway of the playhouse, they both looked up, just a little ashamed." ‘ Did you ever hear about the old Spite House in Marblehead ?’ asked grandma smiling. ‘ Come up on the verandah and have a peppermint while I tell you about it.’ Kitty and Patty loved peppermints and, moreover, they loved grandma’s stories, so, without looking at each other, they walked stiffly beside grandma up to the verandah. ‘Down in the queer old town of Marblehead on the Massachusetts shore,’ began grandma, when Kitty , and Patty were settled qp either side of her, munching the pink peppermints, ‘ there is' a very odd-looking house. It looks just as if some one had taken a big knife and sliced out a quarter of it, just as you cut a square corner out of a loaf or cake,’ ‘How funny!’ cried Kitty. ‘What made it that way?’ asked Patty. * That’s just what I’ll tell you, if you’ll listen,’ said grandma. ‘ There once were four brothers who lived together in that house when it was a whole house and not threequarters of one. And then one day the brothers had a quarrel, and one of them said: . ‘ If I can’t have my own way I shall go off, and I’ll take my share of the house with me.’ y . ‘ But the other brothers did not give it up, and £he next day the other brother came with workmen, they measured the old house and divided it into quarters. Then they sawed and chopped and cut and took away one-quarter to.another place, and there the fourth brother lived all alone. Everyone in Marblehead knew about the quarrel; so the story has come down to this day, and if ‘you go’ to Marblehead and follow a certain winding little street to the water’s edge, there you will see the Old Spite House,’’ as it has been named,’ -

c • antl Patfc y were very quiet as grandma finished the story. Then Patty said slowly, ‘I guess we don’t want our playhouse to be a spite house. > Come on, Kitty lets have dinner for the dolls.’ .. J ‘All right,’ said Kitty happily. • • i And here are some pink peppermints for dessert,’ said grandma, as she kissed each little girl.

TENDERNESS TO THE OLD

cwfr l ”f .if more beautiful or Christ-like in the for ?ht eT i°J T, y ° Un than a kind ad gentle regard “-j o] f' ,Iie >’ ' whose failing steps are slowly 8 deZn d Tfi 16 SUn GSS tr of age have but one consola- " “ the years-speed by them, and that is the tenderness and consideration of those on whose lives the beauties of the morning are breaking. Age is a season terJd’ y i' Ca I infirmity, of mental retrospection, of shatorlhfolTisTb d earth i y disa PP int “ents, No more tor the old is there a glamor in the'rolling stars no years “d BP T§ ! n ° more a tri ““Ph in’ the off to their thol i sand melodies of the present sound far off to their aged ears and its charms are blurred in the ears and eyes whose tears fall on the graves of old affections.:, Treat them gently for by their travail -stance in the Ky^M 21 feSS God s blessing will' reward you if you do. ’

SECOND THOUGHTS

reoentl young widow went to select a monument for W recently deceased husband. After ? picked out a stone an d ordered the following inscripbear ? 'tIT" l K~' My S rief is ™rethfn l ean a little tardy in ddng™ trtt^dTrmmarS thlThe nThtt'♦ Th . iS faCt W ° rried him, as heTaied c™ ? ht h " e , to oiango the wording of the inscrip«n.. So he called upon the lady and told her that Wa ask 7n ead -I do his work ’ and after some l.esHathe inscription '/n any"'" ‘° the WOrdin S of add MSfcffSi 1 on, y

HISTORIC DOGS

The brave pioneers in the New World had verv W consolations, so it makes one feel triad S * faithful dogs U When 6 Eal3 yod the . “J? Panionship of sr. aapwre e.x p sSi ss£r- £ it Spaniards once sprang J S I favonte do g> a splendid hound, whA warned De Maisonneuve, founder -of Mmtreaf

WIT

follows merit where Everett goes.' The briSatTslT 6 learning^may^ttainlij T°. whatever he.ghts judioi.d toTwS^gnU 1116 ' aPPtaSe follow^Tj^

WHY CAT FAMILY DIDN'T MOVE ajaj^

Mrs. Dappled Gray lived in the barn where the hay was stored with her . three little kittens.. One Kitty was black and one white and one gray, just like his mamma cat. ; ' „ - When they got big enough to open their eyes, Mrs. Dappled Gray told her kittens all about the lovely big house and the milk and bread which they should have when they got big enough to go there for their meals as she did. . Every time Mamma Cat came back from the house she told the kittens about , the lovely romp she had with the baby; and how sunny and nice it was there, till they could hardly wait to go and see it all for themselves. _ ; ‘ " - N One day Mamma Cat said, ‘ I have found a nice new house for, you in a very large trunk, where some old clothes are kept, and I think we will-have it at once.’ " ■ ' _ • Then she picked up black kitty - and walked right out of the barn with him in her mouth. Mamma Cat went into the hall upstairs and dropped ; black kitty into the open trunk there. Then she started for the white kitty. But what do you think! The lady who owned the trunk came out, and,, .seeing it open, shut it with a bang. She did not know that a dear little fat kitten was in there, .. . ' , • Oh, how frightened Mamma Cat was when she came back with white kitty! She scratched and clawed the trunk, and rushed to the lady who was playing with” her baby in another room. ‘ Mee-ow, mee-ow ! . You have your baby and I want mine,’ she cried,, and rubbed against her dress. ' , ' The lady saw Mamma Cat jump on the trunk and scratch it with her sharp claws. * What can the matter be?’ said the lady; and she opened her trunk. There cuddled up in the clothes was black kitty, -sound asleep. Before the lady could ask Mamma Cat a single question, she had picked up black kitty out of the trunk and started for the old home and the barn. When she got the three babies back in the hay, Mrs. Dappled Gray Cat told them that the house was a very nice place to go, but the barn was the best home to bring up little kittens. '

FAMILY FUN

: "v A Trick With Numbers,— ‘Mind-reading’ games are popular at gatherings of young people. If any boy wants to contribute something of the sort, here is an old law of numbers which will enable him to "mystify the unintiated. v If from any number of two or . more digits you subtract the sum of the digits, the remainder will always be divisible by 9, and the sum of the digits in the remainder will be 9, or a .multiple of 9. For example, take 25 as your number. The sura cf the digits, is 7. Subtract 7 from 25, and you have 18 — which is twice 9. Or “try a larger figuresay 7985. The sum of the digits is 29. This subtracted from 7985 leaves 7956, which is just 884 times 9, and the sum of whose digits is 27, or 3 times 9. - So much for the principle. The trick consists in applying it backwards. Ask some one first to choose a number; second, to add together the digits composing it; third, to subtract this sum from the original number fourth, to drop out any-one figure from the remainder; and fifth, to tell you what he has left. : By adding together the figures that he gives you, and subtracting this sum from 9, or from the first multiple of , 9 that is large enough, you can at once announce , the figure that was dropped out. Suppose he says that he has 795 left. The sum of these digits, added together, is 21. This you' subtract from 27— the nearest multiple' of 9 that is larger than 21—and discover that 6 was the figure dropped out. It will take your friends a long time to find out how you perform this marvel.