The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 5 February 1914, Page 61

The Family Circle

AN EXPERIMENT

Could I be mother for a day, W / And if she could be me, I’m sure she’d learn a lot of things ’Bout which we don’t agree. * I’d say; ‘Now, dearie, won't you have Another piece of cake? You've eaten three so far; Do, dear, another take.’ Then I’d say: ‘ Oh, don't go to bed; It’s very early yet. - Do sit up for an hour or two, Or longer, won’t you, pet?’ My school dress is a dull dark brown, * My best one’s bright and gay ; So I’d say : ‘ Daughter, you may wear Your best frock every day.’ 1 , Then I’d say, ‘Here’s some pennies, dear; Go to the candy store And spend them all for lollipbps, Next time you shall have more.’ Oh, yes, I’d show my mother dear Just how she ought to be If I could be her for one day And she be little me. But somehow, ’way down in my heart I have a feeling queer That I had better just stay me—And she stay mother dear. UNCLE JACK’S VIENNA STORY ‘ Oh, Arthur, Uncle Jack is home from Europe. I wonder if he will tell us stories just as he used to before he studied so much about medicine. Come on, let’s ask him.’ And Mabel, with her hand in her little 'brother’s, hurried out to the hammock under the trees where their uncle seemed to be waiting for them. ‘A story? What shall it be about?’ ‘ About some boy, over there, where you’ve been,’ answered Arthur, and Mabel nodded her head, knowing, her turn would come next. -‘Well, I’ve been for two years in Vienna, where some of the bread I’ve eaten was cut from loaves shaped like a half-moon. They looked queer, and I was told a story about the reason for their odd shape. It is of a baker and his little boy’s drum, and, best of all, many believe over there that it is true. ' ‘ / A long time ago the Turkish army came away up into the very heart of Europe from their land in the south-east. By one means or another this army conquered everywhere, until they came to Vienna.' There the Turks surrounded the city, putting > their soldiers into boats on the side toward the Danube, the long river up which they had come to capture this capital of a. 1 great Christian Empire. . -I' - ‘Food was growing scarce and even the general of the Austrian army was growing weak from hunger, for there ’ was no chance to get flour or grain from outside. ‘ Week after week went by. Scarcely a pound of flour was left in any house, much less in a bakeshop. The) father -of this little boy went down one day just as he had many times before, to search for something •to eat. He was a very earnest Christian, and could not believe that the Mohammedan Turks would win, even by starving) the city and trying that way to make it surrender. ‘ Standing there, still hoping to find some sort of •comfort/ though he knew there was nothing left that 7 could be eaten, the baker,heard a curious, tinkling little , sound/ ‘Down from the stairs he stepped and listened. . There was nothing. Back he went to the same place, ■■ and again he £ heard the tinkling. , ■ Straight he went //a toward the north-east corner of this underground room.

* There lay his boy’s drum, still tightly stretched,' and on it were throe marbles dancing up and down, very, very softly. Then, they stopped. * > ‘Setting down his candle, the baker dropped himself flat on the ground with one ear next to the earth. Tappity-tap, danced the marbles. Thump, thump, came a heavier noise through the ground at the same time. Then everything was still. : V ■ ‘Over and over again this was repeated until the baker rose and, without brushing off the dirt from his clothes, rushed through the streets to the general’s headquarters. : ;7. ’ ~/■ ‘ “ What does a baker -know about the tricks of the Turks? Go back to your house and keep your story ■to yourself, or you will frighten all your neighbors. Don’t come here with such foolish ideas. You give the Turks credit for more knowledge of war than the Austrians. Go home.” ‘ But the baker would not obey the bluff-spoken general. _ ‘ “It is not much for you to do. Send a soldier to listen to what I have heard. It is for Vienna I ask it; not for myself.” ‘ At last the general agreed. . Following the baker there went a squad of soldiers. One of these was an expert in the tricks of war. The others waited in the empty, barren-bake-shop, but he went down into the collar and lay with one ear on the ground as the baker directed him. Close by was the drum, on which the three marbles were again lightly dancing. ‘‘‘You have saved the city,”- shouted the engineer, jumping up with the same flash of hope in his eyes that had been in the baker’s when he came before tire general. * . ‘ The general was convinced. Tracing the thumping sound in a certain direction toward the river, for you know Vienna is on the Danube, the engineer planned a deep-laid powder track or counter This, when exploded, destroyed the mine which the Turks had been digging in the rocks under the city. After that there was a short battle that left Vienna free forever from the Mohammedan invaders. ‘ When peace came', the Emperor of Austria sent for the humble baker. In the palace, before a great company of noblemen, the monarch said, “This is the man who saved Vienna. He shall have wealth, a title, and whatever else he may ask.” ‘“ I ask neither riches nor rank : I am only a baker. Grant to me and my family for all the years Austria is a Christian country the right to be the only family of bakers that shall shape their loaves of bread in the form of a crescent: By this sign-shall all Austrians who eat these loaves remembers that the soldiers of the crescent had to fall before the soldiers who believe in the Cross.” ‘ The Emperor issued this edict, and half-moon shaped Vienna loaves are said to be made even now by bakers of the same name as the one whose little boy left his marbles to play a tattoo on his forgotten drum during that long-ago siege.’ - • ” K - :'V | ■' Where? . A woman at a recent dog show noticed a pretty girl gazing around’as if puzzled. She went over to her and said .- * ‘Pardon me, but can’t you find the kennel you wish? If not, I shall be glad to assist you.’ '7 7 Oh, thank you!’ she replied. Would you mind showing me where they , are exhibiting the ocean grey) hounds?’ v . .... • ... ■■WO-. ■:> HAD CONFIDENCE IN FATHER ; Little Carrie’s father is a university professor, while the father of Alice is a real estate man. The two . children one day engaged in a heated argument as to the difference; between sa lie and a ‘ little fib.’ Carrie ‘ A fib is the same as a story, and a story is a lie.’o-0 : M ; - ../v/f. Alice: '/..N0, it’s not. .

Carrie, with 'growing indignation : Yes, it is. I guess 1 know; my father said so, and he’s a professor in college.V '• . • • -- Alice, still more indignant: ‘I don’t care if he is. My father s a real estate man, and he knows more about lying than your father does, so there !’ NAUTICAL INFORMATION Mrs. Smith was on her first trip from Lyttelton to Wellington. "v ■ * \v nai: 3 that down there?’ she asked of the captain. 1 ‘That’s the steerage, madam,’ he replied. ‘ Really ?’ exclaimed the woman in surprise. ‘ And does it take all those people to make the boat so straight. , v ■ . ° A HINT FOR THE BUSINESS M\N When Mark Twain, in his early days, was editor of a Missouri paper, a superstitious subscriber wrote him saying that he had found a spider in his paper, and asking him whether that was a sign of good or bad luck. The humorist wrote him this answer and printed it : ' Old Subscriber.—Finding a spider in your paper was neither good luck nor bad luck Tor you. The spider was merely looking over our paper to see which merchant is not advertising, so that he can go to that store, spin his web across the door, and lead a life of undisturbed peace ever afterwards.’ A NEW AILMENT People who go to chemists to have their diseases pi escribed for occasionally get very strange diagnoses. One day a farmer wearing a long countenance is said to have entered an apothecary ’s shop. and remarked : ‘I, seem to have, something queer in my stomach, and I want,you to give me something for it.’ ‘ What are your symptoms?' the apothecary asked. * Every little while something seems to rise up and then to settle back again, and by and by it rises up again.’ The chemist put his chin in the palm of his hand and meditated. Look here,’ he said gravely, ‘ you haven’t gone and swallowed an elevator, have you?’ JUST LIKE IT Prof. Thomas R. Lounsbury, of Yale, is a foe to the purist and the pedant, as his brilliant essays show. He who insists on saying to-morrow will be Thursday ’ will find no champion in Professor Lounsbury. ' On a New England vacation the professor, gazing out across the lake. one gray and sultry afternoon, remarked : • , , " ■ ‘ H looks like rain.’ A pedant was rocking in si rocking-chair near-by. What, looks like rain, professor?’ he chuckled.' ‘ Ha, ha, I’ve got you there. What looks like rain?’ ‘ Water,’ Professor Lounsbury answered coldly. V NOTHING ELSE WANTED In the old days of hand composition a printer known from New York to San Francisco as ‘Pilgrim’ Hazlett wandered into a Pennsylvania town and asked the editor of the weekly for a sit.’ ‘Well,’ said the editor, ‘ I can ; put you to work, but I’m afraid I can’t pay much money.’ ’* Make me an offer,’ said the Pilgrim. ‘ All right. I can give you two meals a day at my house, you can sleep here in the office on this lounge, and I’ll take care of your laundry. ’ Then if you: need tobacco, get : it across the street at - the grocery ; they J run an account with its. ' And up at the brewery you can get a can of beer- whenever you like. Besides,. I’ll pay ; you four dollars a week. Is .. that f satisfactory?’ ; ‘Gosh,’ said the Pilgrim, after repeating the offer to

; :• ■ ' it,-7 . r « & get it straight in his mind, - ‘if I get all that, what ‘ do i Avant with the four . dollars?’ ’ ‘. -iA PENITENT CROW - ■ M Yankee; ‘ Talking about scarecrows, why, I kn ./ an old farmer in America who put up a scarecrow in - his field, and the crows were so afraid of it that none of them would go near the field for nearly a year afterwards. ’ • '-v Pat: Oh, that’s nothing. Sure I remember an old scarecrow my father put up one time n his potato field which so frightened the crows that one old crow who had stolen three potatoes brought them back again.’ A YOUNG IDEA The schoolmistress was examining her pupils before some visitors. . ‘ ■ v . ‘ Who knows what useful article is furnished for us by the elephant?’ she asked. ‘And what do Ave get from the whale?’ ‘ Whalebone,’ answered several. Quite right. And what do we get from the seal ?’ b ‘ Sealing-wax !’ replied Peter, FAMILY FUN * The Potato Game.—Any boy or girl who likes to take a very little trouble can make a very good potato game at no cost whatever. It will be found that there is more fun to be had with this game than with many others much more elaborate and expensive. The materials needed for the game are a long box of cardboard about the shaiie of the boxes in which women’s stays arc sent home, four or five small potatoes (new potatoes are best), and several wooden spoons. Almost every home has several wooden spoons as a part of the kitchen -equipment, which may bo "borrowed for use in the game. The potatoes also may be borrowed from the pantry, and the box is usually to be had from one’s mother, aunts, or grandmothers. The potatoes should be as small as you can po.ssibly get. The lid of the box is used for the stand or board on which the game is played. Make four or five holes in the lid into which the ends of the potatoes will fit. These holes should be perfectly round and not so large that the potatoes will fit into them very easily. It is necessary that there should be a little difficulty in balancing the potatoes in order to make the game very amusing. Above each hole a number is written— loo for the first hole, 75 for the second, 50 for the third, 40 for the fourth, and 30, for the fifth. To play the game, place the board on the table, so that two or three persons may be at an equal distance from it. Each player takes a wooden spoon, and at the word ‘ Go ’ each player tries to lift a potato from the table with his wooden spoon and place it in one of the holes on the board so that it will stay in. As the holes are small, and only the end of the potato can get in, it is sometimes difficult to get them to stand up, and if they do not stand up in the holes they are sure to fall out again when the other players' are trying to get their potatoes in. The person who gets the potatoes - in'those holes whose numbers mount up to the*largest sum wins the game. - Only one hand must be used -in playing. When this game is used -for a party the guests can be divided into.groups, and a prize given tothe ope who makes the biggest score of all. - If you have not at hand the sort of box desired, \ you may easily' make ■ the stand of .an ordinary box. Cut a straight rectangle from a large enough box, ing down the sides and ends to make the standing part and riveting them together with bent wire. The standshould not be .more. than two inches high. *