"I know it, darling. Good-by, you dear old precious, good-by, and-oh, wait a second, Clarence; I've written a note to mamma; can't you run around to the house and leave it for her some time to-day?"

"Why, yes, dearie; if I have time."

"If you have time? O Clarence !" "What is it, little girlie?"

"Oh, to say ‘if you have time' to do almost the very first errand your little wife asks you to do."

“Well, well, I expect to be very busy to-day."

"Too busy to please me? O Clarence, you hurt my feelings so."

"I'm not a child, I'm a married woman, and I

"There, there, my pet. I

"No, no, Clarence, if I were your p-p-pet you'd

"But, Mabel, do be reasonable."

"O Clarence! don't speak to me so."

"Mable, be sensible, and

"Go on, Clarence, go on; break my heart."

"Stuff and nonsense."

99

"As if you need ask! But go-hate me if you will, Clarence, I"

"This is rank nonsense!"

"I'll go back to mamma if you want me to. She loves me, if you don't."

"You must have a brain-storm!"

"Oh! yes, sneer at me, ridicule me, break my poor heart. Perhaps you had better strike me!"

He bangs the door, goes down the steps on the jump, and races off, muttering something about women being the "queerest creatures."

Of course, they'll make it up when he comes home, and they'll have many a little tiff in the years to come, and when they grow old they'll say:

"We've lived together forty-five years, and in all that time have never spoken a cross word to each other!"

Jam them in, slam them in,
Keep the thing a-humming,
Ram them in, cram them in,
People still a-coming!
Millionaires, stenographers,
Office boys and editors,
Managers and auctioneers,
Entry clerks and engineers,
Wall Street men, optometrists,
Osteopaths and journalists,
Nondescripts and workingmen,
Seventeen and three-score-ten,
Crush them in, rush them in,
People still a-coming!

Show them in, throw them in,
Many more to follow,
Shoot them in, boot them in,

Don't take time to swallow!
Pretty maid and tailor-made,
Stylish maid and homely maid,
Jersey maid and ready-made,
Housemaid and old maid!
Billionaire and pauper air,
Bald head and golden hair,
Native-born and foreign race,
All alert and vacant face!
Squeeze them in, tease them in,
More and more to follow.

Bump them in, dump them in,
People should not worry;

Face them in, chase them in,
Everyone must hurry.
Take a place behind the gate,
Hustle or you will be late,
Grab a seat, don't give a rap
For the lady at the strap.
If your life is spared till night
You can tell your wife all right:
How the gateman pushed them in,
Paired them in, stared them in,
Piled them in, filed them in,
Backed them in, packed them in,
Coaxed them in, hoaxed them in,
Tossed them in, bossed them in,
Put them in, foot them in,
Hauled them in, bawled them in,
Drubbed them in, clubbed them in,
Poked them in, stoked them in,
Brought them in, fought them in,
Steered them in, jeered them in,
Called them in, mauled them in,
Took them in, shook them in,
Passed them in, massed them in,
Booed them in, shoed them in,
Dared them in, scared them in,
Slipped them in, tripped them in,
Talked them in, walked them in,
Drew them in, threw them in,
Rapped them in, snapped them in,
Urged them in, scourged them in,
Stacked them in, whacked them in,
Cuffed them in, stuffed them in,
Rolled them in, bowled them in,
Pitched them in, switched them in,
Hurled them in, whirled them in,
Knocked them in, locked them in,
To speed their homeward going!

THE VILLAGE ORACLE

BY J. L. HARBOUR

"Why, Mis' Farley, is it really you?

It's been so long sence I saw you that I hardly knowed you. Come in an' set down. I was jest a-wishin' some one would come in. I've felt so kind of downsy all mornin'. I reckon like enough it is my stummick. I thought some of goin' to see old Doctor Ball about it, but, la, I know jest what he'd say. He'd look at my tongue an' say, 'Coffee,' an' look cross. He lays half the mis'ry o' the world to coffee. Says it is a rank pizen to most folks, an' that lots o' the folks now wearin' glasses wouldn't need 'em if they'd let coffee alone. Says it works on the ocular nerves an' all that, but I reckon folks here in Granby will go on drinkin' coffee jest the

same.

"You won't mind if I keep right on with my work, will you, seein' that it ain't nothin' but sewin' carpet-rags? I've got to send my rags to the weaver this week, or she can't weave my carpet until after she comes home from a visit she 'lows on makin' to her sister over in Zoar. It's just a hit-er-miss strip o' carpet I'm makin' for my small south chamber. I set out to make somethin' kind o' fancy with a twisted strip an' the chain in five colors, but I found I hadn't the right kind of rags to carry it through as I wanted to; so I jest decided on a plain hit-er-miss. I don't use the south chamber no great nohow. It's the room my first husband and his first wife and sev'ral of his kin all died in; so the 'sociations ain't none too cheerin', an' I-I-s'pose you know about Lyddy Baxter losin' her husband last week? No? Well, he's went the way o' the airth, an' Lyddy wore my mournin'veil an' gloves to the funeral. They're as good as they were the day I follered my two husbands to the grave in 'em. When a body pays two dollars an' sixty-eight cents for a mournin'-veil, it behooves 'em to take keer of it, an' not switch it out wearin' it common as Sally Dodd did hern. If a body happens to marry a second time, as I did, a mournin'-veil may come in handy, jest as mine did.

"Yes, Liddy's husband did go off real sudden. It was this new

fashioned trouble, the appendysheetus, that tuk him off. They was jest gittin' ready to op'rate on him when he went off jest as easy as a glove. There's three thousand life-insurance; so Lyddy ain't as bereft as some would be. Now, if she'll only have good jedgement when she gits the money, an' not fool it away as Mis' Mack did her husband's life-insurance. He had only a thousand dollars, an' she put half of it on her back before three months, an' put three hundred into a pianny she couldn't play. She said a pianny give a house sech an air. I up an' told her that money would soon be all 'air' if she didn't stop foolin' it away.

"I wouldn't want it told as comin' from me, but I've heerd that it was her that put that advertisement in the paper about a widder with some means wishin' to correspond with a gentleman similarly situated with a view to matrimony. I reckon she had about fifty dollars left at that time. I tried to worm something about it out of the postmaster; for of course he'd know about her mail, but he was as close as a clam-shell. I reckon one has to be kind of discreet if one is postmaster, but he might of known that anything he told me wouldn't go no farther if he didn't want it to. I know when to speak an' when to hold my tongue if anybody in this town does.

"Did you know that Myra Dart was goin' to marry that Rylan chap? It's so. I got it from the best authority. An' she's nine years an' three months an' five days older than him. I looked it up in the town hist'ry. It's a good deal of a reesk for a man to marry a woman that's much older than he is.

"But, my land, it's a good deal of a reesk to git married at all nowadays. You never know what you're gittin' ontil it's too late to undo the matter. Seems to me there must be a screw loose somewhere, or matrimony wouldn't be the fizzle it is in so many instances. An' it's about six o' one an' half a dozen o' the other when it comes to dividin' the blame. You know my first husband was jestice o' the peace five years, an' he had considdable marryin' to do, an' I saw a good deal o' what loose idees some people had about matrimony.

"I recollect of one couple comin' in to git married one evenin'. They was both in middle life, an' them kind usually acts the silli