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The quick dissolving vision vanished in midair, and left her standing on the sunny lawn with Dr. Whistler.

"Oh! please don't speak to Mamma Prairie; it would worry her," she begged, more and more dismayed that she had given Dr. Whistler a hint of her distress. "I'm going very slow in everything; Cæsar is only at war with the Belgians in Latin, and Cleopatra has just been bitten by the asp in history. I'm seanning the Lady of the Lake in English poetry, and am stuck fast not half-way through the algebra. I'm in the third position on the violin, and have been practicing a mazurka I'm to play to-night the best I can."

"That is not so bad as I expected," answered Dr. Whistler, with a smile, "unless the quagmire in the algebra has caused too great a mental strain. I feared you might be too ambitious to be ready for the Easter school, and were taking long lessons in too many books. The school must wait until you can enter it without taxation. You will need a vigorous mind and perfect health to fit you to become a missionary to our people. That is our chosen lifework, is it not?"

She was saved from answering, for "Little Annie Rooney burst on the ear in airy strains just then, and Ebenezer hurried from the stable, taking long strides toward the house.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CHARIOT.

"IT's the Tan-an'-freckle Soap-an'-di'mon' chariot, that's travelin' through the country; Sally's got my money under lock an' key," was the information he flung out in passing.

There now appeared in sight a gayly decorated but extremely dusty chariot, whose pair of fagged-out horses plucked up sudden energy in coming through the gate, bearing down on the tenant house like capering colts, and rattling the chariot like a charge of musketry. The musicians, an accordion girl and banjo boy, bounced upon their throne, clutched the pillars to the canopy for a support, and "Little Annie

Rooney," with a few expiring squeaks was choked off in the middle of the chorus.

It chanced to be a caucus day throughout the county, and the chariot was decked with a bewildering array of stars and stripes that charmed the patriotic eyes of quite a cavalcade of farmers' boys, who had been falling into line behind it all along the way.

There was an instant ripple of excitement on the ranch, for a peddler's wagon of such smart pretensions was a novel sight in this locality. Stout Mrs. Biddle waddled out to meet the show with flurried wonder, thither Ebenezer escorted Sally, and the hired men, just home from voting at the caucus, gathered round it.

"Oh! please take me over to 'e pwetty circus, Dewdwop quick! quick!" cried Miriam, dancing down the steps of the piazza.

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Well, run along, but keep to one side, and be careful not to let the elephant toss you up," laughed John.

When Piokee reached the spot with Miriam, the peddler was setting forth the merits of the Tan-and-freckle Soap.

"The Tan-an'-freckle Soap, ladies an' gentlemen, is the wonder of the age. Why, gentlemen, if I was in the habit of exaggeratin' I might say 'twould take the spots off of a bird's-eye maple door, sayin' nothin' of the blemishes on the sun an' wind-kissed faces of yer most admired young lady friends with otherwise beautyous complexions."

Here Ebenezer glanced at Sally, who tossed her head and turned away to hide a conscious blush; and the accordion girl, whose thickly spattered freckles were so many wondering little "o's" exclaiming at the peddler for daring to impart such merit to the soap, fixed her twinkling eyes on Piokee and smothered an uprising giggle.

"Only twenty-five cents a cake, an' a prize package with a piece of rare Eureky di'mon' jewelry, throwed in! Walk up, gentlemen, an' buy a present for yer lady friends. If yer so unfortunate that you hain't got no lady friends, you can use the soap to keep yer heads an' whiskers thick and shiny.

The soap found ready sale, notwithstanding the accordion girl's complexion, for the "dia

mond jewelry" was a tempting bait that allured many nibblers.

"We'll give ye some more soul-stirrin' music per-resently," remarked the peddler, while dealing out the soap. "You must excuse the absence of a fiddle; I'm on the lookout fer a girl-performer to jine our or-chestry an' be comp'ny fer my daughter. These yer musicians air son an' daughter, ladies an' gentlemen. We're a trav'lin' fambly, as it ware."

"Ye oughter hear Miss Dewdrop play the fiddle," said Ebenezer, pointing to Piokee with the silver dollar he was handing up for four cakes of soap and the included prize packages.

The peddler turned his glance on Piokee with an instant eye to business.

"Look here," said he, with animation, seeing that she was an Indian girl. "I'll offer you a good big salary to travel South with us dressed up in Injun toggery as a fiddlin' ghost dancer.

"Oh!" said she, "I couldn't be a ghost dancer, for I don't believe in the Indian Messiah. But I could wear an Indian costume and play the violin," thinking for an instant that in this way she could earn enough to pay her father another ransom. 66 Though of course I couldn't go they would never let me Mamma Prairie and the rest," she immediately bethought herself.

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No, no!" cried Miriam in alarm. Dewdwop couldn't go off wiv 'e circus indeed."

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My

no

"Wa-al, don't be too sartin," said the peddler. "We're goin' on beyond, an' shall be back in somethin' like two weeks. You can

talk with them that has the say so, an' may be we can strike a bargain. But it must be fair an' square. I don't incourage no e-lopements like some travelin' charioteers," and he again became absorbed in the disposal of his wares.

whispered she, bending over till the tassel of
her red cap brushed Piokee's head. "The cus-
tomers would stare at you, an' you would have
to eat cold beans an' camp out like a gypsy,
when we
couldn't strike a town in time.
Then, too, Sammy sometimes has a spell, right
while he's playin' the banjo, an' leaps clear out
of the chariot, an' scares the customers, an'
spoils the trade."

"Poor boy! does he have fits?" Piokee asked, with a pitying look at the youth upon the throne, who leaned his elbows on his banjo in an absent-minded way, and seemed to search the firmament with his eyes.

"Only trances. He's in first-rate health," responded the accordion girl. "Nothin' ails him but his second sight. He's a mind reader Sammy is. Some folks thinks he makes it all, but if anything was worryin' you distracted, I reckon he could tell exactly what it was by lookin' at you."

"Oh! don't let him how dreadful!" said Piokee, turning her back on the hawk-eyed banjo boy, in conscious dread that he might ferret out her secret.

"No danger now; Sammy can't do anything unless he has a spell," the accordion girl composedly assured her. He goes by fits an' starts, you see. Pa says if he could be depended on, there'd be a fortune in that second sight of hisn. Well, I like your looks, and you'd be company for me, but pa is apt to make big promises he can't carry out. If he should invest in you, an' pay you, 'twould eat up all the profits an' there'd be nothin' to send home to ma an' the other six children, down in Texas. If he didn't pay you, pins an' needles would be stickin' me to think how you was bein' cheated."

"Please don't let 'e music girl whisper in your ear," begged Miriam, clinging to Piokee's dress in wonder at the stifled interview. "Is she coaxing you to go away wiv her?" wideeyed with terror at the thought. “Oh! I must take Dewdwop home. I'm afwaid to twust her wiv vis kind of circus," and she bore Piokee off in trembling haste, while the accordion girl, with a farewell nod, remounted the throne. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Slipping down from her position on the drygoods box that formed the throne, the accordion girl dropped into a vacant niche below the dashboard, where she drew Piokee to her by a telegram from her twinkling eyes, while the oap was being dealt out from the rear.

"Don't you go a single step. It's horrid,"

my

Theodora R. Jenness.

The Leader of the Boston Tea Party.

MEN AND THINGS.

As the traveler, in passing along the highway a mile or so above the pretty village of North Haverhill, New Hampshire, reaches and passes the little pine grove, he finds a small graveyard (God's Acre), which contains the remains of some of the earliest settlers of this section of the State. And here for many years have reposed the remains of one that Boston should honor - brave McIntosh, the leader of the Boston Tea Party. For over eighty years spring flowers have blossomed and winter winds have blown over a grave unmarked by stone and known but to a few aged people now living, who remember his burial. This is wrong. For less than he did have arisen stately monuments and storied urns. He fills a pauper's grave, having died about the year 1810.

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Doubtless you are all familiar with The Original the man who is employed by business Sandwich. firms to walk about the streets sandwiched between advertising boards, but you may not know that the original sandwich was also a man, an English earl of the last century.

This Earl of Sandwich was a notorious gambler, so fond of the sport that he would not leave the gaming halls even for his meals, but satisfied his appetite with slices of bread and meat which he brought with him in a japanned box. So well known became this practice of his, that thereafter lunches prepared in that way were called "Sandwiches."

About the same time there flourished another English earl whose eccentricity in dress originated a new style of coat, called after him the "Spencer." Finding the tails of his outer coat an incumbrance, his lordship cut them off, and thus instituted the fashion for wearing short coats or jackets. These two inventions have been commemorated in verse by some unknown rhymster of their time:

"Two noble earls, who if I quote

Some friends might call me sinner;
The one invented half a coat,

The other half a dinner.
The plan was good, as some will say,
And fitted to console one,
Because in this poor starving day
Few can afford a whole one."

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Frederick the Great and the

Miller.

K. M.

When Frederick built his famous palace of Sans Souci, there happened to be a mill which greatly hampered him in the execution of his plans, and he asked the miller for how much he would sell it. The miller replied that for a long series of years his family had owned the mill, which had passed from father to son, and that he would not sell it for any price. The king used every solicitation, offered to build him a mill in a better place and pay him besides any sum he might demand; but the obstinate miller still persisted in his determination to preserve the inheritance of his ancestors.

Irritated at last by his conduct, the king sent for him, and said in an angry tone, “ Why do you refuse to sell your mill, notwithstanding all the advantages I have offered you?"

The miller repeated his reasons. "Do you know," continued the king, take it without giving you a penny?” "Yes," rejoined the miller calmly; for the Chamber of Justice at Berlin."

"that I could

"if it were not

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William Horner, long the station Facts Worth agent at Georgetown, Mass., and his Knowing. brother, took the first daguerreotype likeness in the county of Essex, as claimed by Haverhill artists, though the late Dr. Perkins of Newburyport commenced his experiments about the same time. Mr. Horner's camera was of his own construction- - a cigar box with pasteboard tubes, and a three-pronged apple-tree limb for a tripod. Some say he had leather lenses as a joke.

Paul Pilsbury, the inventor of the shoe peg, revolutionized the principal industry of Georgetown.

A hundred-year-old pear-tree in Keene, New Hampshire, is regarded as a great curiosity. We saw a pear-tree not long since, in the garden of the house where General Israel Putnam was born, which is known to be considerably over a century old. It was propped up in its old age, but still bore fruit. This old house is on the Newburyport turnpike in the town of Danvers (formerly called Salem Village). The house is still occupied by Putnams, who are always ready and willing to show the house to those interested. We saw the room where the hero of Bunker Hill was born, and were shown several interesting relics, including two autographs of Putnam. The older portion of the house was built in 1650, an addition was built in 1744. The whole establishment is replete with interest and well repays a visit. George B. Griffith.

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While the belief in talismans and Good Omens. omens is confined to the less educated portion of our population, even the most skeptical read with interest coincidences which simpler minds regard as prophesies. President Garfield, a few months before his death, related to a friend the following incidents:

As General Garfield entered the convention the day of his nomination, a man distributing leaves of the New Testament handed one to him which the engrossed politician folded and put in his pocket. Long after the nomination he took down the suit he had worn that eventful day, and before putting it on proceeded to empty the pockets. He drew out a paper pressed into a narrow fold, one It was this: "The stone verse only being visible. which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner."

Again, at one o'clock in the afternoon, the hour of the nomination in Chicago, an eagle, coming from no one knows where, lighted on General Garfield's house in Washington, and sat there several minutes. This occurrence was witnessed by many persons in the capitol.

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Kind lady you will no doubt remember of having Purchased four boxes of Strawberys of the undersined on the Afternoon of a week ago friday. You will also rickolect that thare was left unpade a ballance of (5) five sents on the above berries.

Now, kind and respected maddum, it is my pleasure to inform you that I have sold out my bizness to the barer, Mister James H. Graves Esq., and that he is Hereby orthorized to collect all dets due me by my former Patrons and that I ask for the said Graves Esq. a continyowance of the patronage so kindly extended the undersined by you and the manny other kind and beautiful ladies on my old rout. If convenient you will pleaze pay the said Graves Esq. the (5) five cents due the undersined and he will Properly reseet for the same by my awthority. With manny tanks for your Heretofore kind patronage and asking the same curtesy for my sucksessor who is a pore man with eight small children and a bed-rid ant over eighty years old I hereby remain

Ever your Kind Friend

An Appropriate Name.

John Henry Jones. J. L. Harbour.

People who live in small apartment houses are now called "Folding Bedouins."

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owls. It is so stupid to sit in the dark and eat mice," they said. "It must be ever so much nicer to fly in the sun and sip honey. Let's be humming-birds." So, one morning, bright and early, they flapped their way into the garden where the honeysuckles grew. They tried to dip their bills into the lovely blossoms, but they had not the bills of humming-birds, and they couldn't dip. "No honey!" they cried.

What shall we do?" Then one owl said, "Let's claw it out." So they turned around and thrust their claws into the blossoms, fishing for honey. And the honeysuckles were so rich and full that- what do you think? --the honey just stuck to the owls' claws and held them fast; and the honey was so thick that it drew and it drew until it sucked the owls in, all but their heads. And now, if you look at that honeysuckle vine, you can see those nine disconsolate owls peering out from the petals, all of them so sorry they ever tried to be humming-birds. John Derwent.

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