The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 4 November 1915, Page 61

The Family Circle

GOOD-DAY AND GOOD-NIGHT. A little star comes every night. And through my window, clear and bright. Though he’s so very far away, He peeps at me, and winks ‘ good-day.’

‘ Good-day ’ he winks, ‘.my watch I’ll keep, Up here while you are fast asleep, And when you raise your drowsy head, And waken up. I’ll go to bed.’

Now just when he gets up, you see, It’s always bed time then for me, And so, when nurse puts out the light, 1 peep at him and wink ‘ Good-night.’

And early in the morning, I Can see him nodding in the sky. And when I wink at him ‘ Good-day,’ He winks ‘ Good-night,’ then fades away. Boston Pilot. A GOOD LOSER. It was raining hard. Emily May Bowker sat in the window seat and watched the raindrops come pelting down outside. The street gutters had become miniature rivers from the accumulation of the downpour and the lawn grass was half-drowned in pools of water. There was not a human being in sight. Emily had let the storybook she had been reading slip from her lap to the chintz cushion of the window seat, and her face bore a rebellious expression. 1 For a girl like Jane to carry off that prize I had so nearly won!’ she murmured, and the unpleasant lines deepened on her face. Jane and she were mates in the algebra class at high-school. ‘ That picture would have fitted exactly over my desk,’ she said as she frowned at the rain. A tall man had turned the corner. He held an

umbrella against the wind so Emily could not -see his face, but she knew it was Mr. Wilford. For a moment she forgot the lost prize for excellence in algebra. Mr. Wilford had been her father’s opponent in a political contest at the last election time, a contest in which her father had won. Emily had often thought of the evening hours the Bowkers had sat together waiting for the returns, and when the figures had made Mr. Bowker’s success practically certain, Mr. Wilford had telephoned congratulations. The quiet words with which her father had turned from the telephone had impressed Emily deeply. ,

‘ Mr. Wilford was a fair opponent and a good loser ! It takes courage to be that sort of a loser !’ Emily took the words home to herself now. A good loser! It takes courage. Was she proving that she possessed that courage ? Sitting here she was moping at the rain because Jane had won the prize picture ! 1 ‘ I’m going over to congratulate Jane right now,’ she said, jumping to her feet. ‘ They haven’t any telephone, so I’ll have to go to-the house.’ s Within ten minutes from the time she had seen Mr. Wilford come round the corner, Emily opened , the front door and went out into the storm. She wore a rain-coat and opened an umbrella as she went down the steps. The wind swished her skirts and raindrops blew under the umbrella and struck her sharply on the face. There were gutter-rivers to be jumped over at the street crossings and big puddles to be avoided on the walk. But for things like that Emily had no fear, and in five minutes she came to the cottage where

Jane lived. . Before she could slip the umbrella down and knock, the door was opened and Jane stood there with a welcome on her lips. -Emily knew instantly that she had come upon an i awakened J ane —the gray eyes were

■ brighter with - purpose than she had : ever seen ; them before the poise of'her head was more alert; the very voice in which she spoke her welcome was quivering with new energy. 'V'-"- - ,r "V ‘ Come right in !’ •- ■■ ‘ Emily stood her dripping umbrella in a corner and crossed the threshold. She had never been inside . Jane’s house before, but she had pictured it often as ill-kept and rather uninteresting. Jane had. always lacked cordiality in asking the girls there, and - four smaller brothers probably made disorder. Even" now Jane had. on a big gingham apron spattered with blue paint. ’ /" • , ‘I wanted to congratulate you about the'prize,’ Emily began, rather lamely. It- did take courage to 'be a good loser, but she was trying hard. • ° Jane was helping Emily to take off the dripping raincoat.

‘ It’s lovely of you to feel that way about my winning the picture. I 1 want to show you how I need it, answered Jane, and her eyes were wistful with longing to make Emily understand that a new purpose had come into her life.

Without more words she led her schoolmate up the uncarpeted stairs to her own room at the front of the house.

And such a room as it was to look at—such a state of disorder ; the floor was bare, and all the furniture stood in the middle of the room. Evidently the low ceiling had been freshly whitened, and a coat of blue paint had been applied to part of the dingy woodwork, the color of the blue bearing distinct relation to the paint on Jane’s apron. Such freshness as there was made the faded paper on the walls look doubly worn and soiled. U

Emily looked at her classmate for an explanation that would give her some clue to the connection of this with the prize-taking. ‘ I’m having my room done over so the walls will be fit to hang the picture on! Father did the ceiling for me last night, and I .was doing the window sash when I saw you coming.’ Jane sat down on the mattress, her soiled fingers clasped' closely to hide the paint stains. ‘ I needed the picture, Emily ! - When I tried to hang it here it compelled me to realise what my room lacked and" in fact the whole house, —my life,’ Jane spoke wistfully. ‘ I understand for the first time that if I had a mind to go to work the right way certain results could be obtained. It’s not going to take so much money as one might think to whiten and paper and paint so as to make the house quite respectable! Mother is so happy, to have me taking hold that I feel as if I were giving her a new lease of life. And father is just splendid !’ Tears of happiness now sprang to Jane’s eyes. She was being understood.

‘ Somehow the picture has led me to thinking what it may mean to be an older daughter, a real helper' to mother and daddy! Your gladness over my winning increases my belief that things here can bo righted.’ When Emily spoke her voice trembled. ‘l’m glad you won the prize, Jane! And what it means to you will help me to be a better home-helper, too, I trust.’ _ •

ECCENTRICITIES IN CALIGRAPHY OP FAMOUS MEN. Many stories can be told of the peculiar interpretations which have been placed upon bad writing. The eccentricities of Napoleon’s pen were such that his letters to Josephine from Germany were at first reading taken for rough maps of the seat of war. Captain Marryat Wrote such a minute hand that his M.S. had to be copied into a script adopted for ordinary eyesight before it could be handed over to the printers. The famous American newspaper editor Horace Greeley was the hero of numberless adventures as the result of his originalities of penmanship. One of his leaders on r Richard H. ; Seward came forth headed ‘ Richard the

Third.’ When he referred to certain electors 'as ‘freemen in buckram,’ the printer turned them into ‘three men in a back room.’ There is another weird tradition, that one of Greeley’s memoranda, placed in the hands of a druggist, was duly dispensed as a medical prescription. An employee of Greeley’s became editor of a Western paper on the strength of his testimonial, which was really a letter of discharge but, as no one could decipher anything but the signature, it was accepted as answering to the dismissed man’s description of it. A countryman of Greeley’s, a railway manager, almost equalled him as a writing expert. He wrote to a ■man, threatening to prosecute him unless he removed a barn he had run up on the company’s property. The recipient did not read the epistle, because such a feat was impossible. Still he made out the signature, and used the letter as a free pass for years. The Duke of Wellington once perpetrated a ludicrous blunder through the puzzling letter of a correspondent. This was C. J. London, a botanical author, who had a great desire to see the beeches of Strathfieldsaye, and whose letter contained a_request for permission to see the trees. The Duke misread the signature for that of the Bishop of London, C. J. Bloomfield. So he wrote this reply— ' ‘ My Lord, — I shall always be glad to see you at Strathfieldsaye, and my servant shall show you as many pairs of my breeches as you may choose to inspect : but what you want to see them for is quite beyond me.’

A GENEROUS HORSE. The horse is generally rated as one of the mostintelligent of animals, and a pretty incident that was witnessed by a number of persons in St. Louis shows that generosity also enters into his character. ‘ Two fine-looking horses attached to single buggies were hitched at the curb oposite the entrance to the Merchants’ Exchange. They were hitched several feet apart, but the hitching straps allowed them sufficient liberty of movement to get their heads together if they so desired. The owner of one of them had taken the opportunity of a prolonged stop to give the horse a feed of oats, which was placed on the edge of the sidewalk in a bag. This horse was contentedly munching his oats when his attention was attracted by the actions of the other horse. The other horse was evidently very hungry.. He eyed the plentiful supply of oats wistfully and neighed in an insinuating manner. The horse with the feed pricked up his ears politely and replied with a neigh, which must have been in horse language an invitation to the other fellow to help himself. Evidently he accepted it as such, for he moved along in the direction of the bag as far as his hitching strap would permit. But the strap was not long enough, and his hungry mouth fell about a yard short of the bag. ' The other horse noticed and seemed to appreciate this difficulty. Fortunately there was some leeway to his strap. So he moved slowly along the curb, pushing the bag with his nose, until the other horse was able to reach it. Then, after a friendly nose-rub of salutation, the two horses contentedly finished the oats together.

THE BAILIFF OUTWITTED. A bailiff, who had tried many expedients to arrest a Quaker without success, resolved to adopt the habit and manner of one, in hopes of catching the offender.. In this disguise he knocked at Aminadab’s door and inquired if he was at home. The housekeeper replied,. Yes/

‘ Can I see him V

* Walk in, friend,’ says she, ‘ and he shall see thee.’

The bailiff, confident of success, walked in, and after waiting nearly an hour, rung a bell, and on the housekeeper reappearing, he said,

‘ Thou promised me I should see friend Aminadab.’ ,• /•.;'■ . ( ‘ No, friend,’ answered the female Quaker, ‘I pro- V mised he should see thee. He hath seen thee, but he doth not like thee, and hath departed.’

NOT WHAT HE WANTED. A rather loudly-dressed c gentleman ’ stepped into a mercer’s shop the other day, and in an imperious tone uttered the one word, ‘ Neckties!’ Then he threw back his head, as if the assistants were entirely beneath his notice.

This snobbish air aggravated the assistant, but he quietly displayed a number of the latest patterns. These,’ he said, very politely, ‘ are the very newest styles, and are excellent quality at half a crown.’ ‘ Half a crown !’ haughtily snapped the customer. Do I look like a man who would wear a two and sixpenny tie ? Is there anything about me to indicate that?’

‘ Beg pardon, sir!’ meekly interposed the assistant. ‘ The shilling counter is at the other end of the shop J’

ANOTHER TEASPOON.

It was on a local train. The ancient engine having wheezed laboriously over equally ancient rails, jolted to a restful spot at no place in particular. Time passed tediously. Some of the passengers ■ looked anxiously out of the windows, while others drew their' hats down over their eyes and tried to forget it. When a half-hour had elapsed the conductor came along, ‘ Hi, guard,’ said a querulous-voiced old man, ‘ as near as you can tell, what’s the trouble ?’

‘ We’re taking in water,’ was the explanation. ‘ Well, why on earth don’t you get another teaspoon ?’

WANT OF TACT. ‘Tact,’ said the lecturer, ‘is essential to good entertaining. I once dined at a house where the hostess had no tact. Opposite me sat a modest, quiet man. ‘ Suddenly he turned as red as a lobster and fell into a fit of confusion on hearing his hostess say to her husband:

‘ “How inattentive you are, Charlie. You must look after Mr. Blank better. ■ He’s helping himself to everything.” ’

LOST IT. ‘ Your husband’s pretty bad/ the doctor told the old lady. ‘ But I think we will pull him through. I’ll send you along some medicine, which must be taken in a recumbent posture/ Then he left the little house.

‘ Recumbent posture ! Recumbent posture !’ muttered the old lady, thoughtfully. * Whatever’s that? I haven’t got one of them.’ For a long time she puzzled about it. Then she decided to ask her neighbor if she had one. ‘ Mrs. Smith,’ she called over the back fence. ‘ Doctor says as my husband has to take his draught in a recumbent posture. . Can you lend me one?’ Mrs. Smith was just as ignorant as her questioner, but determined to hide her lack of knowledge. ‘ To tell you the truth/ she replied, with a regretful shake of the head, ‘ I had one once, but I’ve gone and lost, it.’