The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 6 May 1915, Page 61

The Family Circle

v THE DOG. I’ve never known a dog-to wag His tail in glee he didn’t feel. Nor-quit his old-time friend to tag At some more influential heel; The yellowest cur I ever knew Was, to the boy who loved him, true, I’ve never known a dog to show Half-way devotion to his friend, To seek a kinder man to know Or richer, but unto the end v The humblest dog I ever knew Was, to the man that loved him, true. I’ve never known a dog to fake Affection for a present gain, A false display of love to make, Some little favor to attain. I’ve never known a Prince or Spot That seemed to be what he was not. But I have known a dog to fight With all his strength to shield a friend. And, whether wrong or whether right, To stick with him until the end. And I have known a dog to lick The hand of him that men would kick. And I have known a dog to bear Starvation’s pangs from day to day With him who had been glad to share His bread and meat along the way. No dog, however mean or rude, Is guilty of ingratitude. The dog is listed with the dumb, No voice has he to speak his creed, His messages to humans come By faithful conduct and by deed, He shows, as seldoms mortals do, A high ideal of being true. AN OLD FABLE. Once a poor crane was caught in a net and could not get out. She fluttered and flapped her wings, but it was of no use; she was held fast. ‘ Oh’ she cried. ‘ What will become of me if I can not break this net! The hunter will come and kill me, or else I shall die of hunger, and if I die who will care for my little ones in the nest? They must perish also if I do not come back to feed them.’ Now Trusty, the sheep-dog, was in the next field and heard the poor crane’s cries. He jumped over the fence, and, seizing the net in his teeth, quickly tore it in pieces. ‘ There,’ he said. ‘ Now fly back to your young ones, ma’am, and good luck to you all.’ The crane thanked him a thousand times. ‘ I wish all dogs were like you,’ she said. ‘ And I wish I could do something to help you as you have helped me.’ Who knows?’ said Trusty. Some day I may need help in return, and then you may remember me. My poor mother used to say to me : * “To do a kind deed wherever we can Is good for bird and beast and man.” ’ Then Trusty went back to mind his master’s sheep, and Mrs. Crane flew to her nest, and fed and tended her crane babies. Some time after this she was flying homeward and stopped at a clear pool to drink. As she did so she heard a sad, moaning sound, and, looking about, whom should she see but Trusty, lying on the ground, almost at the point of death. She flew to him. - Oh, ray good, kind friend,’ she cried, ‘ what has happened to you?’

ty ■ ‘ A bone has. stuck in my throat,’ said the dog, ' and I am choking.’ ‘ Now, how thankful I am for my long bill!’ said Mrs. Crane. ‘ Open- your mouth, good friend, and let me see what I can do.’ ; Trusty opened his mouth wide; the crane darted in her long, slender bill, and with, a few good tugs loosened the bone and finally got it out. . ■ Oh, you kind, friendly bird cried the dog, as he sprang to his feet and capered joyfully about. ‘ How shall I ever reward you for saving my life?’ * Did you not save mine first?’ said Mrs. Crane. Friend Trusty, I have only learned your mother’s •lesson, which you taught me, that 1 “To do a kind deed wherever we can - Is good for bird and beast and man.”’ WHY MINNIE COULDN’T SLEEP. She sat up in bed. The curtain was drawn up, and she saw" the moon, and it looked as if it were laughing at her. ‘ You need not look at me. Moon,’ she said. ‘You don know about it you can’t see in the daytime. Besides, I am going to sleep.’ She lay down and tried to go to sleep. Her clock on the mantel went ‘ tick-tock, tick-tock.’ She generally liked to hear it; and to-night it sounded just as if it said, ‘ I know, I know, I know.’ ‘ You don’t know, either,’ said Minnie, opening her eyes wide. ‘You weren’t there, you old thing; you were up-stairs.’ Her loud voice awoke the parrot. • He took his head from under his wing, and cried out: ‘ Polly did.’ ‘ That’s a wicked story, you naughty bird,’ said Minnie. ‘ You were in grandma’s room, so now !’ Then Minnie tried to go to sleep again. : She lay down and counted white sheep, just as grandma said she did when she couldn’t sleep. But there was a big lump in her throat. Oh, I wish I hadn’t.’ ' Pretty soon there came a very soft patter of four little feet, and her pussy jumped up on the bed, kissed Minnie’s cheek, and then began to ‘ pur-r-r, pur-r-r.’ It was very queer; but that, too, sounded as if pussy said : ‘ I know, I know.’ ‘Yes, you do know, kitty,’ said Minnie; and then she threw her arms around Kitty’s neck, and cried bitterly. ‘ Andl guessl want——see —my —- mamma Mamma opened her arms when she saw the little weeping girl coming, then Minnie told her miserable story. ‘ I was awfully naughty, mamma, but I did want the custard pie so bad, and so I ate it up, ’most a whole pie; and then —I—ohl don’t want to tell, but I ’spect I must, —I shut kitty in the pantry to make you think she did it. But I’m sorry, mamma.’ Then mamma told Minnie that she had known all about it. But she had hoped that the little'daughter would be brave enough to tell her all about it herself. ‘ But, mamma,’ she asked, * how did you know it wasn’t kitty?’ WOMEN NOT AFRAID OF BIG THINGS. A young navy lieutenant was detailed as third in command in a perilous cruise. He was timid, his brother officers despised him as lacking in courage, and his admiral thought seriously of asking him to resign from the service, but men were scarce and he was sent (says ‘Looker-on’, in the Boston Pilot). The object of the expedition was the capture of a smuggling vessel. After they had been a short time at sea, cholera broke out on board. The crew threatened to mutiny unless set on shore. The captain and first officer went down with the scourge. Then the timid youngster’s mettle showed itself. He took charge, drove the men to their posts at the point of a gun, found' the smuggler, captured it, brought it back and then collapsed. He might have left the service branded by

himself and all who knew him as a coward. The crisis enabled him to find himself. v' There is timidity, and a lack of confidence that come from inexperience. Abnormal introspectiveness may blind a man and his associates to the real quality of his courage. If a crisis comes of sufficient importance it will sweep away the small doubts and fears until the naked character stands out like a rock on the wind-swept desert. If the stuff is there, events will bring it out. Women are proverbially timid. But it is a fear of small thinks like mice, not big things like death. Women ordinarily are sheltered from the perils to which men grow accustomed, but the critical moment finds many gentle matrons and girls to possess a. courage that shames the valor of the veteran - of many battles. Noble ladies went to the guillotine during the French Revolution, as if they were going to a ball. The history of the Indian Mutiny is filled with incidents showing forth the heroism of women who had been petted and protected all their lives. They looked death in the face and found themselves. WHAT SHE MEANT. Several villagers were discussing a departed sister, who had been given to good deeds, but was rather too fond of dispensing sharp-spoken advice. ‘.She was an excellent woman,’ said the deceased lady’s pastor. ‘ She was constantly in the homes of the poor and afflicted. In fact, she was the salt of the earth.’ ‘ She was more than that,’ remarked a villager. ‘She was the vinegar, the pepper, and the mustard as well. She was a perfect cruet-stand of virtues.’ A LIE’S PUNISHMENT. • ‘ Oh, Percy, dear, your birthday gift was so beautiful!’ remarked the young lady, with her best smile. ‘ And you unintentionally left the pricemark on — TIC).’ ‘Oh, how careless of me!’ replied Percy. ‘ And I see you bought it at Payne’s. Now, I know you wouldn’t mind taking it back and exchanging it. for one of those lovely X‘lo sable muffs they have in the window, would you ?’ Oh, not at all ; with pleasure!’ he replied. An hour later that young man was lamenting the foolish act of buying an ornament for £2 and sticking a <£lo label on it. DIPLOMACY. A well-known English politician was much annoyed by reporters. One day he was enjoying a chat at a London hotel, when a strange young man came up who seemed to have something of importance to communicate, and led him across the room. Arrived in a corner, the stranger whispered, ‘ I am on the staff of an evening paper, and I should like you to tell me what you think of the Government’s foreign policy.’ Mr. Dash looked a little puzzled; then he said, ‘ Follow me.’ Leading the way, he walked through the reading-room, down some steps into the drawingroom, through a long passage into the- dining-room, and drawing his visitor into the corner behind the hatrack, ho whispered, ‘I really don’t know anything about it.’ BULLS, HIBERNIAN AND BRITISH. In a new book, just out, the author relieves the Irish from a distinct burden of responsibility when he says that bulls do not feed on Irish pasture alone (says a writer in the Universe). Mr. Bonar Law, for instance, rather lost himself in the meshes of his metaphor

when, he spoke : ‘ of the ? habit of * the Government in . letting things drift until they run against some precipice which brings them to ; a standstill/ :V . It ,is always damaging to the cause when a temperance speaker perpetrates sentences such as this ‘ Let us take our guns on our shoulders and plough the waste places till the good ship Temperance sails over the land/ A native bank clerk in Calcutta, who had to make a report to some high official, was met on his return by an Englishman, who asked him what the official had said. ' He replied, ‘ In the language of your William Shakespeare he praised me with faint damns.’ It was a Hindu baker in Bombay who catered for the English community, who advertised himself as a ‘ first-class British loafer/ , . But although these examples of oratorical error are fairly good, we must return to Ireland for the real thing. Sir Edward Carson declared that ‘ Mr. Asquith was like a drunken man walking along a straight liile —- the further he went the sooner he fell.’ Mr. Birreil, in the House of Commons, spoke of a certain report as ‘a garbled version of what never took place/ This is an extract from a report of a meeting dealing with sweated labor: ‘ Mr. Thornton Burke gave a terrible picture of life in the East End of London where, he said, there were thousands of people grinding their faces in the dust of poverty and trying at the same time to keep their heads above water.’ I forget for the moment who it was who, speaking of a certain man’s perilous position, said lie was ‘ walking on the thin ice of a burning volcano.’ HE DID NOT MEAN IT. The proud father had come up from the country to see his sailor son on board his ship. He had never seen a battleship before, and accordingly marvelled thereat. Just as he caught hold of the two ropes which hung over the side to assist sailors to the deck, he was somewhat surprised to hear a clanging of bells—the eight bells of seamen’s time. As he stepped on deck he met the officer of the watch. He saluted him and said timidly: I beg your pardon, sir, I’ve come to see my son Jack, but, pun my word, I didn’t mean to ring so loud.’ AN ABSTRACT NOUN. : A teacher was taking a class of small children in English grammar, and was explaining the difference between a common and abstract noun. ‘ An example of a common noun is dog,’ he said, ‘ for you can see it, while you cannot see anything that is an abstract noun. For instance, have any of you seen abundance?’ There was silence for about a minute. Then a little boy got up and said : ‘ Please, sir, I have never seen a bun dance, but I have seen a cake walk.’ STILL WEARS LAST SEASON’S FEET* In a bootshop store a stout man appeared to be. having considerable difficulty in finding just what he wanted. After showing him a dozen or more pairs the salesman blandly observed ‘ Now, here is a pair that I think will suit you to perfection.’ After examining the boots the stout man exclaimed : ‘ I don’t like them. They are too narrow and too pointed.’ ‘ Ah,’ returned the clerk, ‘ but they are wearing narrow, pointed shoes .this season.’ ‘ Possibly,’ returned the stout man, * but I am still wearing my last season’s feet.’ ,