The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 8 February 1917, Page 61

The Family Circle

THE LAND OF ; STORY BOOKS. ...... . : . !' ... ' l ' 11 > ; At evening, when . the lamp is lit, m. t ' ■ Around the fire my parents sit; , f They sit at home s and talk and sing, * . * : And do not play at anything. ; ~ Now, with my little gun, I crawl All in the dark along the wall. And follow round the forest track Away behind the sofa back > , - v. : There in the'night where none can spy, All in my hunter’s camp I lie, And play at books that I have read, Till it is time to go to bed. These are the hills, these the woods, These are my starry solitudes And there the river, by whose brink . C' ' :<H The roaring lions come to ; drink. I see the others far away, As if in firelit camp they lay, And I, like to an Indian scout. Around their party prowled about. So, when my mother comes to me, I Home I return across the sea. And go to bed with backward looks, At my dear land of Story Books. MISS SALLY’S SOFA. Going down Maple street Celia Bennett and Nell Granger were startled by a sharp tapping upon the window of a small house they were passing. ‘ It’s Miss Sally Kinkaid!’ Celia exclaimed. ‘ She wants us to see her new sofa. She’s been waylaying everyone who passed all the week. Everyone’s laughing about it. There! What did I tell you?’ v Miss Sally, the wind blowing her thin hair about her face, her eyes as excited as a child’s, was running down the tiny path. V ‘ I want you to see my new sofa !’ she cried. *1 was so afraid you’d get by before I caught you. Lots of folks has seen it, and they all think it’s beautiful. Come on in, dearies. I want you to take a look at it any way, even if you can’t stop. It seems real providential I should be looking out the window just when you two passed.’ The girls followed her up the path. Their faces were decorous, but Celia was slyly pinching Nell’s fingers. Miss Sally led the way into the tiny entry and opened the door of her parlob on the left. Opposite the door a big piece of furniture carefully covered with an old sheet, seemed to fill half the little room, v, ‘ You’s better stand over by the stove,’ Miss Sally directed. ‘ You’ll get a better view that way. I keep it covered week days so’s ’twont fade, but I take the cover off Sundays. There, now, ain’t that handsome The girls looked. From beneath the covering sheet the sofa, with its brilliant scarlet, crinkled plush cover, seemed fairly to leap out at them. They gasped, and faced the situation valiantly. said. ‘ It looks so very hospitable, Miss Sally,’ Nell chimed in. Miss Sally gazed at it with rapt admiration, brushing an imaginary bit of dust from the crinkled plush. ‘ I expect I’ll "get it most wore out looking at it,’ she said happily. „ ‘ I didn’t s’pose I’d ever have anything like it in my life,, but when my nephew William Henry sent me 50 dollars, I decided I’d give' half to missions and buy a sofa with the rest. I asked Mr. Winter about it, and he said it was' all right. I guess you girls can’t know what, it’s like to have something bright in the house. There, now, I guess I’ll v cover it again; there’s a streak of ■'sun on that end.’ ’ r^

; As the girls went; down > the street; their eyee met. ‘ I’m ashamed because I laughed,’ Celia said. ,‘I never gave half my money to missions.’ . ,■ . And when: you think what her life has been taking care of one ; sick relative after another, Nell added. ‘ May be, after all, what a thing 'means—spiritual ..content . as - Miss Condit would sayis more v than its color or proportion.’ . Miss Sally’s . sofa, after all, had given its message. - " ' - ' - ■ ■" TALKING HIM OUT. v . ■ * • EM-i 1 i,? • b?.< t .. .' •...i :. ■ , -t .. A young lawyer .was defending an old convict the charge of burglary in one :■ of the American | States, where the court rules allow each side one hour to address the jury. . The young .lawyer, somewhat-nervous, consulted a veteran member of the bar who t happened to be standing near. . >, ‘ How much time do you think I - should take up in addressing the jury?’ he asked, in a rather pompous manner. ' --,i > . Take the full hour,’ was the gruff reply. L , s * The full hour! .. Why, --I-. intended to take- only • fifteen minutes.’ . . . .. . ‘ Take the full hour,’ repeated the old lawyer. > ‘ But why ?’ ‘ Because the longer you talk the longer you will keep your client out of gaol.’ A TERRIBLE PARENT. /' ■ ■« .... It is related of the Queen of Denmark that she once paid a visit to the Danish colony ■> of Iceland, where the good old bishop exerted 1 himself 'to the utmost in her entertainment. His most successful effortin that direction, it is stated, followed upon the explanation of a mistake which had at first greatly scandalised his Royal mistress. i The Queen paid many compliments to her host, and having learned that he was a family man, graciously inquired how many children he had. ’ ••• •■?'// " It happens that the Danish word for ‘ children ’ is almost identical in sound with the Icelandic word for ‘sheep,’ and' the worthy bishop promptly " answered ‘ Two hundred.’ ‘ Two hundred children !’ cried the Queen, ‘ How can you possibly maintain such a number?’ ‘Easily enough, please your Majesty,’ .replied, the prelate, with a cheerful smile.' ‘ln the summer I turn them out upon the hill to grass, and when the winter comes I kill and eat them.’ WHAT HE WAS TRYING TO DO. A country hotel proprietor, glancing but of a rear window, saw his new waiter chasing a chicken about the yard. ■ . ‘What have you in that bowl demanded the hotel man, referring to a utensil he was hugging. ‘ Mushrooms,’ responded the new waiter. - ‘ There’s a gentleman that wants chicken smothered with mush- , rooms, and*l’m trying to smother him, sir!’ A LARGE ORDER. ‘ Over 5000 elephants a year go to make our piano keys,’ observed the boarder, who was always full- of such thrilling tit-bits of information. ‘You don’t say .so murmured the landlady, ‘Ain’t it wonderful what animals can be trained to do nowadays N ■'■ • ■ i ■ SOME CURIOUS COLOR FACTS. A volume on Color and its Application, by M. Luckiesch, which has been recently published, contains some little-known facts regarding r color and color illusions. A color may ,be affected by nine different factors, and changed from its , original appearance so much that the human eye will see things that are not present. ;' ■ .iff: l --- \ * ...

■ v a \v, ><*,*••■ "-■» < w»-*cvv.''-r *-. .- { ■;>>•, •->•-* «-_■-*■' Z',.- T ' * • *>' > - •' For instance, hold, a piece of. red paper at arm’s length 5 so that the light from a window will be full upon it. • 1 ?f Put ! behind the red paper larger piece of green | paper, ! ; and f move the - two in ? horizontal * lines with the eye ' fastened : closely upon the 1 red -patch. The latter : will seem to I vibrate and 'to ; move ; aimlessly 3 and inde-; pendently of the green. ? ■fH? A color varies according r to the illumination upon ; it. A green . hue will tend toward blue as the' light; is lowered. : Red -garments appear red in the sunlight : arid black when seen under'a blue or a green illumination. Very few blue fabrics appear blue under electric or gas lights because there-are no blue rays from such illumination centres. . - If the eye is I fastened steadily upon a white sur- ’ face in the sunlight a immediately after staring upon some brilliantly-colored objects, it will behold the images of those objects clearly at first, then with increasing dimness, fading gradually through a series of colors, blue, green, indigo, violet, .pink, dark orange, and so on, until they' fad© from sight. If the eye has stared lengthily upon a red surface, and then .suddenly, is shifted to green, the intensity of the latter will be greatly enhanced for the first few moments. Painters take the various applications of this law into effect. • • A MISER'S CLOTHES. John Whittaker, a miserly millionaire, was approached by a friend, who used his most persuasive powers to induce him to. dress more in accordance with his station in life. . : ‘ I am surprised, .John,’said the friend, ‘ that you should allow yourself to become shabby.’ : ‘ But I’m not shabby,’ firmly interposed the millionaire miser. # ‘ Oh, but you are,’ returned his friend. ‘ Remember your father. He was always neatly, even elaborately dressed. His clothes were always finely tailored , and of the best material.’ ‘ Why,’ shouted the miser, triumphantly, ‘ these clothes I’ve got on were father’s!’ WHY HE WAS DISPLEASED. Editor: * I’m sorry to hear, parson, that you are displeased with the church announcements in our last issue.’ , . . * Parson: ‘Displeased! Read this, sir. ext Sunday evening the Rev. Mr. Parsons will speak upon the evils of strong drink. The address should be well worth hearing, as Mr. Parsons is always full of his subject.’” : MERE MAN’S INSPIRATION. With tense, eager faces the great audience of women leaned forward in their seats, eagerly inking in the noted speaker’s every word. Mere man,’ she was saying, is wont to belittle woman’s ability to enter the fields already usurped by him. As a matter of fact, she is capable of filling any post of public or private office now held by man, and, if appointed to it, could even perform man’s tasks with greater faithfulness and greater daring. ‘ Name, if you can, one post for which she cannot fit herself. Name one office to which she would not, could not, give the greatest measure of capability, the highest degree of courage, the———’ A mere man, who had slipped unnoticed into a back seat, rote at this point, and the light of sudden inspiration gleamed in his eye. ‘ Rat-catcher!’ he shouted. And then he fled. . QUITE IN EARNEST. Soon after a certain Judge of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island had been appointed, he went down into one of the southern counties to sit for a week. He was well satisfied with himself. - ■

‘ Mary,’ , he. said ,to the Irish ,t waitress at the ! hotelp|||| where he was, ' you’ve been in this country how long V ‘ Two years, sir,* said she. ‘Do you like it & ; * Shure it’s well enough,’ answered Mary. ‘ But, Mary,’ the judge continued, ‘ you have many privileges in this - country which you’d not have : in Ireland. -u Now at home you would never be in a . 5 ! room with a Justice of the Supreme Court, and chatting : j familiarly with him.’ : m ; ‘But, shure, sir,’ said Mary, quite in earnest, ‘ you’d never be a judge at home!’ TAKEN LITERALLY. He: ‘As to modes, I think modern dress reveals the vanity of the human heart.’- ’ M * .**- P She: Oh, I never saw one cut as low as that.’ SMILE AND BE HAPPY. Scowling with children is a habit, a very bad one. It requires perseverance, patience, and tact to break a child of it, but it can and should be done. The following brief conversation overheard between a mother and a daughter indicates that one woman at least is on the right track. : f The mother was- sitting at the open" window, and the daughter was standing on the walk outside, with her books strapped together and tucked under her arm, in readiness to set out for school. On her face was a scowl, the awful scowl of the stage villain. Evelyn,’ her mother called to her. ‘I don’t think you’d better start just now.’ ‘ Why not, mamma; I’m all ready.’ ‘ Oh, no, you’re not,’ responded her mother pleasantly. You won’t be ready for school,until you get rid of that dreadful scowl you’ve got on your face.’ ‘ Oh, I forgot!’ And the scowl vanished as if by magic. • ■ • ' A dozen words tactfully spoken had dispersed the clouds and caused the sunshine of good nature to brighten her pathway and the pathway of others with whom she came in contact during the day. Children should be trained to smile instead of scowl. The smiling habit is as easy to cultivate as the other and the child who smiles' at this or her work or play will enjoy life better and accomplish far more than the one who goes about with a perpetual scowl. Smile, and keep on smiling until it becomes a fixed habit, a sort of second nature. THE PIPE HE HAMMERED. A devoted young couple got married a time ago, and took up their abode in a dainty villa in a suburban quarter. Everything in the house was of the latest, and gave unmixed satisfaction. . But one evening when the husband returned from business he found, to his disgust, that a water-pipe had burst. The rooms were flooded, and the carpets, which were the husband’s special pride, were in danger of being spoiled. ‘Well, well,’ said he, impatiently, to his wife, * why on earth didn’t you hammer the pip© up? Here, give me a hammer, and I’ll do it in a twinkling.’ - He got the hammer and pounded away at a pip© down in the cellar.- When he had finished he paused to examine the result of . his labor. Then, to his complete chagrin, he heard the sweetly-chiding voice of his wife at the top of the stairs. ‘Howard!’ said she, ‘the gas has gone out, and the water is still running.’ Then he sent for the plumber.