So amorously, my dove; A dark and deep desire, That glows beneath my bosom That murders my repose! Thy tresses on my cheek: I know the sweet devotion That links thy heart with mine,- And deem not that a shadow Ah, Jane! how white they be!- Of those delicious days, That fell upon my ear, By that great vow which bound thee And by the ring that made thee My darling and my bride! Thou wilt not fail nor falter, But bend thee to the task A BOILED SHEEP'S-HEAD ON SUNDAY Is all the boon I ask! THEORY OF A PERFECT FAMILY. A monthly nurse, having expressed the opinion that three was a perfect number for a family, her mistress, curious to know the grounds of such a theory, asked her to explain her ideal and how she would realize it. The nurse replied that it was simple enough, and thereupon set forth her view as follows: She would arrange that the first child would very properly be brought forth by the wife. The assortment second should justly fall to the husband's share, and the third would, of course, again go to the wife. But, by this time, in anticipation of his turn next, the husband would be likely to suggest that the number was already large enough, and he would generously forego his claim for increase and be content that his wife should remain in possession of the larger portion of the family jewels: from which the nurse concluded that three was the perfect number, inasmuch as it was pleasing to both husband and wife; whereas a larger number, though it might not be objectionable to the wife, was not, under the regulations, desired by the husband. The mistress did not become a convert to the nurse's interesting and rather original idea. RETALIATION.-A lady of a truly manly spirit, accompanied by a small poodle, is said to have sadly failed the other day, in an attempted reformatory movement. She entered the smoking-car of a Western train and solemnly refused to go into another car, observing that her presence would keep the occupants from smoking. One stony wretch, however, insensible to the claims of refinement and reform, began to enjoy his accustomed cigar, which was suddenly snatched from his lips, with the remark in high treble, "If there is anything I do hate it is tobacco-smoke!" For a time the offender was silent and motionless, then gravely rising, amid the plaudits of the assembled smokers, he took that little poodle and gently threw him out of the window, sighing, "If there is anything I do hate it is a poodle." WHY is a boy like a locomotive? Because he has to be switched to get him on | the right track. PARTING WITH THE FAMILY say so. 66 PET. it square." "And did she?" "Well, she kinder got reconciled after a while, especially as Jay seemed fond of playing with the children. One morning, soon after that, my wife's mother-whose family lived with me, you see didn't come down to breakfast. As all her false hair was hanging over a chair back, and Gould crawled out from under a bed, licking his chops, and his tongue a good deal coated The other morning, says the San Francisco Post, while the proprietor of the approaching circus and menagerie_was picking his teeth in front of the Russ House, a tall, sun-burned, bald-headed man, with pine burs in his clothes and a-mother-in-law was always taking things stick of sassafras in his mouth, approached for the liver complaint-we saw at once it and said " Be you the wild animal man, was another visitation of Providence and mister?" The proprietor of the circus that the heavy hand of affliction was admitted that such was the fact. "Then," again upon us. Well, as you may supproceeded the man from the mountains, pose, the old lady-that's my wife"I think I'll get you to make me an pranced around a good deal then, and got offer for a large-sized Californian lion down the breech-loader right away. I've got." "Good specimen, eh?" asked But just then arrived a gold medal the circus man. "Good! Well, I should from the S. P. C. A. Society, awarded on Measures eleven feet from his account of my forbearance in the Aunt nose to the tip of his tail. Caught him Maria business, and so I got her calmed myself when a cub. Just four years old down after a while." Pacified her, to-morrow." "Hum-good appetite?" eh?" 'Yes, I managed to arrange a Appetite? Great Scott appetite? reprieve for Jay somehow. You see, I Well, I should smile-that's just the was always fond of pets, and tenderreason why I'm parting with Jay-I call hearted, and all that, you understand. I him Jay Gould, because he takes every- argued that the poor animal didn't know thing in. If it wasn't for his appetite, that he was doing wrong-merciful man and the queer little things it makes him is merciful to his beasts, &c." "After do, I wouldn't part with Gould for a for- that you kept the animal chained?" tune." 'Savage, eh?" "Well, no, I "Well, no. The fact is I set out to get don't know as I should call Jay savage a chain several times, but one thing and exactly-sorter nibblish though, he may another prevented, until one day last be. Has a kinder habit of gnawing up week I actually missed the old lady herthings, so to speak. In fact, the neigh- self. I looked around for a couple ot bors-I live in Bladder's Peak-have got days, when somehow of a sudden I sorter to be so fussy and particular of late that intentioned where she was. I gave I can't as much as unchain J. G. for a Gould half a pound of emetic right away, little fresh air without their getting but all we could get out of him was a grumpy about it." "There's no pleasing pair of high-heeled shoes and a chest some people," said the hippodromer. "I protector. It was too late, too late. We should say not. Now, for instance, about three months after Jay got to be as big as a boarding-house sofa, I came home one day from a picnic and found he had eaten up Aunt Maria, who had been left at home to mind the house-leastways she was nowhere to be found, and as Jay Gould seemed sort of bulgy-like, and kept coughing up hairpins and false teeth for a day or two, we kinder suspicioned the whole thing." "Maternal aunt?" inquired the showman, thoughtfully. "Exactly. My wife took on dreadfully for a day or two and wanted me to shoot Jay right off. But, as I told her that most likely he'd catched the rheumatism and things from the remains, we'd better call put the shoes and things in the coffin and had Jay led behind the hearse to the cemetery. Wanted to have as much of the corpse present as possible don't you see? We had the animal decorated with flowers and things as fine as you please. Folks said it was the touchingest thing that ever took place in them parts;" and the bereaved husband sighed heavily. "Don't wonder you want to sell the beast," remarked the menagerie man after a pause. "Well, I sorter do, and I sorter don't," said Mr. Skidmore, abstractedly. There's so many memories and things clustered round J. G.—seems kinder like parting with one's family burying-lot, as it were. On the other 66 hand, though, now that the old lady is gone, I sorter feel as though the old insect had-well, outlived his usefulness, so to speak. So suppose I have his box hauled around to your show after the performance this afternoon, and see if we can't strike a bargain." "All right," said the manager, "I'm going up Salt Lake way after a while, and perhaps I can work him off for big money to some of the Mormon elders." There's a mint of money in him as a family pet," said the other earnestly, and after striking the circus proprietor for a season deadhead, the widower shouldered his umbrella and drifted sadly down the street. HOW I KILLED A BEAR. [CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, born in Massachusetts, 1829; graduated at Hamilton College, 1851. After spending a short time in surveying on the Missouri frontier, he studied law in New York and began practice in Chicago, but in 1860 removed to Hartford, Connecticut, where he was assistant editor and afterwards editor-inchief of the Hartford Press. In 1867 he became assistant editor of the Courant, with which he is still connected. He is the author of "My Summer in a Garden" (1871); “Saunterings" (1872); "Back Log Studies" (1872); joint author with "Mark Twain" (Clemens) of " The Gilded Age" (1873), a novel; and author of "Mummies and Moslems" (1876), a book of travels in Egypt. As a writer he has a fine vein of fancy, a delicate humor, and rich thought.] The following is from "In the Wilderness," published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. So many conflicting accounts have appeared about my casual encounter with an Adirondack bear last summer, that in justice to the public, to myself, and to the bear, it is necessary to make a plain statement of the facts. Besides, it is so seldom I have occasion to kill a bear, that the celebration of the exploit may be excused. The encounter was unpremeditated on both sides. I was not hunting for a bear, and I have no reason to suppose that a bear was looking for me. The fact is, that we were both out blackberrying, and met by chance,-the usual way. There is among the Adirondack visitors always a great deal of conversation about bears, -a general expression of the wish to see one in the woods, and much speculation as to how a person would act if he or she chanced to meet one. But bears are scarce and timid, and appear only to a favored few. It was a warm day in August, just the sort of day when an adventure of any kind seemed impossible. But it occurred to the housekeepers at our cottage-there were four of them-to send me to the clearing, on the mountain back of the house, to pick blackberries. It was rather a series of small clearings, running up into the forest, much overgrown with bushes and briers, and not unromantic. Cows pastured there, penetrating through the leafy passages from one opening to another, and browsing among the bushes. I was kindly furnished with a six-quart pail, and told not to be gone long. Not from any predatory instinct, but to save appearances, I took a gun. It adds to the manly aspect of a person with a tin pail if he also carries a gun. It was possible I might start up a partridge; though how I was to hit him, if he started up instead of standing still, puzzled me. Many people use a shot-gun for partridges. I prefer the rifle: it makes a clean job of death, and does not prematurely stuff the bird with globules of lead. The rifle was a Sharp's, carrying a ballcartridge (ten to the pound),—an excellent weapon belonging to a friend of mine, who had intended, for a good many could hit a tree with it-if the wind did years back, to kill a deer with it. He not blow, and the atmosphere was just right, and the tree was not too far offnearly every time. Of course, the tree must have some size. Needless to say that I was at that time no sportsman. Years ago I killed a robin under the most humiliating circumstances. The bird was in a low cherry-tree. I loaded a big shotgun pretty full, crept up under the tree, rested the gun on the fence, with the muzzle more than ten feet from the bird, shut both eyes, and pulled the trigger. When I got up to see what had happened, the robin was scattered about under the tree in more than a thousand pieces, no one of which was big enough to enable a naturalist to decide from it to what species it belonged. This disgusted me with the life of a sportsman. I mention the incident to show, that, although I went blackberrying armed, there was not much inequality between me and the bear. In this blackberry-patch bears had been seen. The summer before, our col ored cook, accompanied by a little girl of the vicinage, was picking berries there one day, when a bear came out of the woods, and walked towards them. The girl took to her heels, and escaped. Aunt Chloe was paralyzed with terror. Instead of attempting to run, she sat down on the ground where she was standing, and began to weep and scream, giving herself up for lost. The bear was bewildered by this conduct. He approached and looked at her; he walked around and surveyed her. Probably he had never seen a colored person before, and did not know whether she would agree with him: at any rate, after watching her a few moments, he turned about, and went into the forest. This is an authentic instance of the delicate consideration of a bear, and is much more remarkable than the forbearance towards the African slave of the well-known lion, because the bear had no thorn in his foot. When I had climbed the hill, I set up my rifle against a tree, and began picking berries, lured on from bush to bush by the black gleam of fruit (that always promises more in the distance than it realizes when you reach it); penetrating farther and farther, through leaf-shaded cow-paths flecked with sunlight, into clearing after clearing. I could hear on all sides the tinkle of bells, the cracking of sticks, and the stamping of cattle that were taking refuge in the thicket from the flies. Occasionally, as I broke through a covert, I encountered a meek cow, who stared at me stupidly for a second, and then shambled off into the brush. I became accustomed to this dumb society, and picked on in silence, attributing all the wood-noises to the cattle, thinking nothing of any real bear. In point of fact, however, I was thinking all the time of a nice romantic bear, and, as I picked, was composing a story about a generous she-bear who had lost her cub, and who seized a small girl in this very wood, carried her tenderly off to a cave, and brought her up on bear's milk and honey. When the girl got big enough to run away, moved by her inherited instincts, she escaped, and came into the valley to her father's house (this part of the story was to be worked out, so that the child would know her father by some family resemblance, and have some language in which to address him), and told him where the bear lived. The father took his gun, and, guided by the unfeeling daughter, went into the woods and shot the bear, who never made any resistance, and only, when dying, turned reproachful eyes upon her murderer. The moral of the tale was to be kindness to animals. I was in the midst of this tale, when I happened to look some rods away to the other edge of the clearing, and there was a bear! He was standing on his hindlegs, and doing just what I was doing,picking blackberries. With one paw he bent down the bush, while with the other he clawed the berries into his mouth,-green ones and all. To say that I was astonished is inside the mark. I suddenly discovered that I didn't want to see a bear, after all. At about the same moment the bear saw me, stopped eating berries, and regarded me with a glad surprise. It is all very well to imagine what you would do under such circumstances. Probably you wouldn't do it: I didn't. The bear dropped down on his fore-feet, and came slowly towards me. Climbing a tree was of no use, with so good a climber in the rear. If I started to run, I had no doubt the bear would give chase; and although a bear cannot run down hill as fast as he can run up hill, yet I felt that he could get over this rough, brush-tangled ground faster than I could. The bear was approaching. It suddenly occurred to me how I could divert his mind until I could fall back upon my military base. My pail was nearly full of excellent berries, much better than the bear could pick himself. I put the pail on the ground, and slowly backed away from it, keeping my eye, as beast-tamers do, on the bear. The ruse succeeded. The bear came up to the berries, and stopped. Not accustomed to eat out of a pail, he tipped it over, and nosed about in the fruit, "gorming (if there is such a word) it down, mixed with leaves and dirt, like a pig. The bear is a worse feeder than the pig. Whenever he disturbs a maple-sugar camp in the spring, he always upsets the buckets of syrup, and tramples round in the sticky sweets, wasting more than he eats. The bear's manners are thoroughly disagreeable. As soon as my enemy's head was down, I started and ran. Somewhat out of breath, and shaky, I reached my faithful rifle. It was not a moment too soon. I heard the bear crashing through the brush after me. Enraged at my duplicity, he was now coming on with blood in his eye. I felt that the time of one of us was probably short. The rapidity of thought at such moments of peril is well known. I thought an octavo volume, had it illustrated and published, sold fifty thousand copies, and went to Europe on the proceeds, while that bear was loping across the clearing. As I was cocking the gun, I made a hasty and unsatisfactory review of my whole life. I noted, that, even in such a compulsory review, it is almost impossible to think of any good thing you have done. The sins come out uncommonly strong. I recollected a newspaper subscription I had delayed paying years and years ago, until both editor and newspaper were dead, and which now never could be paid to all eternity. The bear was coming on. I tried to remember what I had read about encounters with bears. I couldn't recall an instance in which a man had run away from a bear in the woods and escaped, although I recalled plenty where the bear had run from the man and got off. I tried to think what is the best way to kill a bear with a gun, when you are not near enough to club him with the stock. My first thought was to fire at his head; to plant the ball between his eyes: but this is a dangerous experiment. The bear's brain is very small: and, unless you hit that, the bear does not mind a bullet in his head, that is, not at the time. I remembered that the instant death of the bear would follow a bullet planted just back of his fore-leg, and sent into his heart. This spot is also difficult to reach, unless the bear stands off, side towards you, like a target. I finally determined to fire at him generally. The bear was coming on. The contest seemed to me very different from anything at Creedmoor. I had carefully read the reports of the shooting there; but it was not easy to apply the experience I had thus acquired. I hesitated whether I had better fire lying on my stomach, or lying on my back, and resting the gun on my toes. But in neither position, I reflected, could I see the bear until he was upon me. The range was too short; and the bear wouldn't wait for me to examine the thermometer, and note the direction of the wind. Trial of the Creedmoor method, therefore, had to be abandoned; and I bitterly regretted that I had not read more accounts of offhand shooting. For the bear was coming on. I tried to fix my last thoughts upon my family. As my family is small, this was not difficult. Dread of displeasing my wife, or hurting her feelings, was uppermost in my mind. What would be her anxiety as hour after hour passed on, and I did not return! What would the rest of the household think as the afternoon passed, and no blackberries came! What would be my wife's mortification when the news was brought that her husband had been eaten by a bear! I cannot imagine anything more ignominious than to have a husband eaten by a bear. And this was not my only anxiety. The mind at such times is not under control. With the gravest fears the most whimsical ideas will occur. I looked beyond the mourning friends, and thought what kind of an epitaph they would be compelled to put upon the stone. Something like this: HERE LIE THE REMAINS OF EATEN BY A BEAR Aug. 20, 1877. It is a very unheroic and even disagreeable epitaph. That "eaten by a bear" is intolerable. It is grotesque. And then I thought what an inadequate language the English is for compact expression. It would not answer to put upon the stone simply "eaten;" for that is indefinite, and requires explanation: it might mean eaten by a cannibal. This difficulty could not occur in the German, where essen signifies the act of feeding by a man, and fressen by a beast. How simple the thing would be in German !— |