Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, June 3, 1899, Page 7

FOR BOYS AND GIRIS. SOME GOOD STORIES FOR OUR JUNIOR READERS. “A Letter from a Cat—Saw Herself in the Mirror—A Queer Indian Legend— Running from Death, a Strange Story from One of Our Seaport Towns. k Letter from a Cat, Dear Editor: I hereby take My pen in paw to say, Can you explain a curious thing I found the other day? There is another little cat Who sits behind a frame, And looks so very much like me You'd think we were the same. I try to make her play with me, Yet when I mew and call, Though I see her mew in answer, She makes no sound at all, And to the dullest kitten It’s plain enough to see That either I am mocking her, Or she is mocking me. It makes no difference what I play She seems to know the game; For every time I look around I see her do the same. And yet no matter though I creep On tiptoe lest she hear, Or quickly dash behind the frame, She’s sure to disappear! —St. Nicholas. An Indian Legend. A curious legend, which we are told that the Indians believe and relate to this day, is about a huge natural spire of weather beaten sandstone, which rises sheer and stark eight hundred feet from base to top.. This natural obel is in Arizona, in Dead Man’s Canyon, and is called “The Spider’s Tower.” It happened, man; centuries ago,that one of the peaceful cave dwellers was surprised azd pursued by a_ hostile tribe, and driven into this canyon, On and on he fled, vainly seeking a hid- ing place in which to take refuge. The enemy was steadily gaining up- on him, and his strength was nearly exhausted, when, coming near to this huge pillar of stone, he descried a sil- ken cord hanging from the top of it. With trembling haste he fastened one end of the rope to his belt, that his enemies cculd not reach it, and taking fast hold of it as high as he could reach, he began to climb, hand over hand, resting his feet in the jag- ged rock, Nearer and nearer the hostile band came, but when he had gained th summit of the’ rock, their arrows could not reach him, for the protruding edges protected him. Many days they waited for him at the base, but he fed upon dew and eagles’ eggs and defied their siege, And when at Izst they departed, and he returned to earth by means of the cord, he had learned that a seeing his distress, had spun rd of extra strength, and fasten- one end to the rock, had dropped the other that, he might be saved. For, like all the brute creation, the spider loved the quiet cave-dweller better than the unmerciful hunters; and it was in gratitude to his preserver that the Indian told his story to his tribe; and you, to this day, may visit the spot and see the “Spider’s Tower.” silken Sly Mr. Coon. Mr. Goodrich, of Potter County, Pa., missed a great many of his chickens, and one night not long ago he hid near his henhouse to catch the thief. He had not waited long when he saw a four-footed coon come stealing along the fence and squeeze in at a small hole near one corner, which he had not noticed before. As soon as the coon was safe inside Mr. Goodrich clapped a big stone over the hole and went inside to capture the coon, and closed the door after him. Through a window in the henhouse the moon- light came in so that he could see plainly all over the floor, but he could not find the coon any place, and had almost made up his mind that it had found some other way out when he chanced to look up at the roosts, where the chickens were sleeping, and saw two great eyes staring at Lim out of the dimmest corner. The coon had slipped up on the roost among the chickens, thinking that perkaps Mr. Goodrich would not see him. At first he had his back turned, but he was curious and had to see what was go- ing on. And that is why he got caught. Running from Death. {n one of our seaport towns lives a mother who determined that, what- ever happened, her son should never be drowned. Her father was a sailor, and wes drowned at sea. She lost her husband and her brother in the same way. ‘The horror of the great deep was upon her. Only those that have lived by the sea know what this terror is. To guard her only son from a watery death became a real passion yith her. The thought qualified all her jpans for his future and kept her in ceaseless watch of his movements, As the boy grew he was not allowed to paddle in boats or to learn to swim, and when he was old enough to earn his own living his mother sent him to an inland town in the neighborhood of Boston. “When you get started,” she said, “J will come and live with you. I don’t ever want to see the water again.” It was not long before the young man found work as a teamster, His work was satisfactory to him and to his employers, but one day the horses took fright and ran away. The heavy wagon swerved and upset upon a plank bridge, under which a little stream flowed. The driver was struck. and becoming unconscious was hurled into the brook. The water barely covered him. He was drowned.* There is an ancient Jewish preverb, “Wheresoever a man is destined to die, thither will his feet carry him.” A curious corroboration of this saying is related in the Talmud. On one occa- sion King Solomon, attended by his two scribes, met Azrael, the angel of death. Seeing that the angel’s coun- tenance was sad, Solomon inquired the reason, and was told that the king’s scribes had been demanded at his hands. On this, Solomon transported his two favorites to the land of Luz, where, according to a current legend, no man ever died. The next morning Solomon beheld Azrael again, but this time the angel was laughing. “Why do you laugh?” demanded the king, surprised, “Because,” he answered, ”O King! You have sent these men to the very Place whence I had been ordered to fetch them.” To live one’s life naturally and righteously, without faithless worry and fret, is both good sense and good religion. Over-anxiety not unfrequent- ly invites the very disasters that im- agination dreads—Youth’s Companion, This Cat Works. Near Stockton, Cal., is a cat by the name of Bildad, whose mistress, Miss Angie Eddes, also owns some almond trees. When these nuts are ripe, and start to fall, Bildad begins work. His mistress sets a large basket out in the almond grove, and goes back to the house. Then Bildad picks up all the plump brown nuts, and carries them to the basket, never stopping till it is full, when the useful cat goes in and pulls at the apron of its mistress to let her know that it should be emptied, so Bildad can fill it again. Bildad also churns. Mr, Eddes has made a treadle to work the churn, and upon this Bil- dad stands and churns away. The cat can tell by the sound of the milk when the butter has come, and strikes with his paw on a little bell to let his mis- tress know that he is through. Besides all this Bildad plays and enjoys a romp as much as any other cat, Horses That Count. A Russian doctor has spent a great deal of time finding out how much ani- mals can count, and has found that horses can count more numbers than any other animals. He has found that a parrot can count jour, a cat six, crows ten and some few dogs twenty. But he found horses that could count more than this. One would plow across a field 20 times, and would then stop and rest, but it never stopped at 19 or 21. Always just 20. Another horse al- ways counted the miles along the road by the white mile posts that were set up, and stopped every 25 miles, as it had been taught to do, to be fed. An- other one was always fed when the town clock struck 12. When the clock struck 11 it would lift up its head and listen, but when the bell had stopped would again droop its ears. But when the clock struck 12 it always neighed loudly for its dinner. Bear Liked Sugar. In a Vermont mapie sugar camp, owned by a Mr. Forsythe, the owner this spring often missed cakes of the maple sugar which had been set out in the snow to harden. For a long time the men at the camp watched for the thief, but never caught him, until at last one day they found bear tracks leading away from the camp, and fol- lowed them until they came to a cave in the hillside. Mr. Bear was not at home, but in one corner of the cave they found their cakes of maple sugar neatly piled up. Mr. Bear had hidden away nearly 200 pounds of the sweet stuff, and when they went to carry it away they met him coming through the woods, walking straight up on his hind feet like a man and carrying more sugar in his arms. When he saw the men he did not wait to be shot, but dropped his sugar and ran away like any other thief. Wise Squirrels. In Kansas City there is park which is near a school, and in the trees of this park are many squirrels. All day long they frisk and scamper about, with their bushy tails up over their backs, peering around the limbs of the trees with their little, beady eyes, at the grown-up people without a bit of fear. But as soon as they hear the bell for school to let out they scamper for their nests, and by the time the first boy is out of the door there is not a squirrel to be seen. The wise little an- imals know that when the bell rings the boys will come out and stone them. More than this, the squirrels have learned never to show themselves on Saturday. This speaks will for the smartness of the squirrels, but ‘it speaks badly for the Kansas City boys. Long-Lived Prime Ministers Speaking of Lord Salisbury, who en- tered on his 70th year February 3, the London News says for a British states- man he can hardly yet be considered an old man. He is younger than Sir William ‘Harcourt by some three years, and he has colleagues in his cabinet who are his seniors. Moreover, meas- ured by the duration of the life of the queen’s prime ministers, bis career should have still many years to run. The cares of office seem to be favorable to longevity. Peel’s career was short by a tragedy, and Melbourne did not live to a great age. Other of her majesty’s premiers, - however—Lord Aberdeen, Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, Lord Derby, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, all exceeded the al- lotted three-score years and ten. Lord Salisbury is one of the oldest members of parliament, having entered the Commons so far back as 1853 as Con- servative member for Stamford. SCIENTIFIC TOPICS. CURRENT NOTES OF DISCOVERY AND INVENTION. A Million Million—The Frobable Age of the World—Turning Wine Into Water, an Experiment—Electricity as a Puri- fer—Saluting a Phonograph. eet A Million Million. Prof. Wagstaff, whose very name suggests a pleasing first cousinship to akespeare, has lately been amusing mese:f and his audience at Gresham vcllege by speculations as to what might have happened if the father of our human race-had given up delving and taken to figures. Let us suppose that Adam had set himself to count a million million, or, in figures, 1,000,- 000,000,000. We will imagine that he could count three in a second, which, though not exactly rapid ciphering, will be found ample, if taken continu- ously. Now, if 6,000 years have elapsed since the gracious amenities of Eden formed the cradle of humanity, Adam would have been working for 189,216,- 000 seconds, and have reached a total of 567,648,000,000 figures. In other words, his task of counting a million millions would still have been unac- complished by over 400,000,000,000 of digits, All of which goes to prove what? There are many possible conclusions. The first is, of course, that Prof. Wag- staff is a very ingenious and by no means melancholy mathematician, but that hardly needed proof. A second de- duction, which we advance with all hu- mility, is that if Adam had only had habitual recourse to harmless dissipa- tion of this arithmetical kind, instead of betraying marital weakness and ‘a fondness for fruit, his descendants would have been very much better off morally and spiritually, though not, perhaps, in material comforts. And a third conclusion, eminently gratifying to those who refuse to believe that there is any serious discord between religion and science, is that Prof. Wag- staff, no doubt a man of distinction in scientific attainments, accepts without any demur Bishop Ussher’s chronol-, ogy. According to the divine, the world was created in 4004 B. C., and that added to the 1898 years which have elapsed since the Christian era, makes in round numbers the six thousand years on which the whole ‘calculation depends. Some wayward “scientists” have dogmatically affirmed that the world has been wagging along a good many more centuries than Ussher sup- posed, although there is a serious dif- ference, it is true, in his matter be- tween the astronomers and the geol- ogists. So, after all, perhaps if Adam had been reasonably industrious, he would have had time to accomplish his task, unless his brain had given way under the strain. Most of us have such vague ideas as to the meaning of larger figures that it is as well to be reminded by so happy an illustration how many units go to the making of a million. The only other conceivable fashion in which such instruction could be acquired is to become a South Afri- can “boss” of mines and diamonds, and that process, much as we may desire it, is, fortunately or unfortunately, not open to the majority of us.—Loadon Telegrap2. Purified by Electricity. The value of electricity as a means of purifying water has long been known, but it is only recently that the current has been applied to clearing water, in small quantities for house- hold use. Such a filter is shown here- with. The current has, it is claimed, the power of decomposing and destroy- ing all existing micro-organisms, dis- ease germs, noxious gases, disagreeable tastes and odors. The water, upon en- tering the inlet pipe, is conveyed to the top of the filter,where it passes through a very fine-mesh sieve, with a view of catching the larger foreign particles, and, after leaving the sieve, it is brought into direct contract and forced tospass through two perforated metal- lic plates, both charged with the elec- trie current, which ‘causes a thorough loosening and precipitation of the for- eign inorganic matter and the positive killing and destruction of all live mat- ter. In order to cleanse the filter it is only necessary to reverse the stream, as in the ordinary types of filters, Saluting a Phonograph, It will be remembered that Queen Victoria spoke a message of friendship and good will to Emperor Menelek of Abyssinia after the recent victory in the Soudan. The message created a marked im- pression on his majsty. The royal words were delivered on a Sunday, the phonograph working excellently. The tones of her majestys voice were repro- duced with remarkable clearness, and Menelek was so pleased that nothing would satisfy him but to hear the mes- Sage at least a-dozen times. First he would listen to the words as they came from the trumpet of the phonograph, and then he would use the ear tubes. When his curiosity and delight had been satisfied, he relapsed into solemn silence and ordered the royal salute, and remained standing while seventeen guns were fired. Menelek himself has tried to send a message by the phono- graph, so that he appreciates the diffi- culty of securing a satisfactory record. —Scientific American. : Turning Wine Into Water. Turning wine into water is by no means a profitable business, but it re- quires little outlay for machinery, etc., in order to make water from wine. 4 glass pickle bottle is required, and the outside of it must be covered with pa- per or painted black. You also require @ walnut and a few feet of very thin glass tubing. First partly fill the jar with water and then cork the bottle tightly with a large cork, through which two holes, large enough to admit the glass tub- ing, have been bored. Divide your tub- ing into three parts and place one through the cork into the bottle, but not touching the water. Another part is to be pushed through the cork and into the center of the liquid. Now take one-half walnut shell, and bore in the bottom of it a small hole and affix it to the top of the piéce of tubing which is not touching the water. The other half shell is to have a similar hole in the center, and the tubing which gods into the water is to be pushed through it, leaving about one-quarter of an inch protruding from the bottom of the shell, as shown in the diagram. A second hole is now to be cut in this shell and the third piece of tubing in- serted, just as shown in the illustra- tion. All joints should then be sealed up with wax. Now, if some claret be gently poured into the shell marked A, the air in the bottle will force the water up the other tube into the shell, B, where it will find its level and run out of the third tube. Thus wine is poured into the bottle and water comes out. The bot- tle must be coated with black or paper in order that the water inside is not seen. In the illustration an ordinary glass bottle is shown in order to clear- ly define the arrangements of the tubes, Walking on Water. There is a man in Berlin who sur- prises onlookers by exhibiting himself walking on the River Spree. He uses water shoes, not unlike snowshoes,they being about twelve feet long and no broader than his foot. The shoes are, however, not broad pieces of wood, but hollow zine cylinders, tapering to a point at each end, the feet being strap- ped to the centers. Along the bottoms of each shoe five square flaps are hing- ed at right angles to the length of the shoe. The hinges of the flaps allow them to bend backward but not for- ward, so that when he moves one foot forward through the water the flaps beneath that shoe swing back and lie flat, offering no resistance to the move- ment, while the flaps on the other shoe remain vertical and resist to some ex- tent the tendency of that foot to slide back. By this means, though every forward step involves a slight siide backward, he shuffles along with sur- prising speed and safety.—Philadelphia Times. Hair Green as Grass. In the districts surrounding the cop- per mines of Cornwall, Cuba, Chile and other places where the ore is abun- dantly found a curious sight is to be seen in the shape of men with hair that is quite green. This is not, as might be imagined, a fashionable fad, but the grave result produced by the men’s surroundings. The crude ore, in order to secure a more marketable ar- ticle, is roasted in enormous furnaces, and it is some strange omanation from the smelted copper that effects this chemical change in the hair of the miners and turns it as green as grass. Investigations have proved that the fumes from the furnaces contain a cer- tain quantity of arsenical matter, and this causes the startling change, al- though the texture and growth of the hair suffers no injury.—Philadelphia Inquirer. Dollar Watches Popular. About 175,000 dollar watches were. sold by a single firm of manufacturers last year. The same firm estimates that the sale for this year will reach a million. This is a pretty good ad- vance from the figures of 1894, the first year that the dollar watch really dawn- ed upon the country, The firm sold 30,- 000 that year. The price of the watch is surprising enough, but the really astonishing thing about it is the fact that a guarantee goes with the time- piece. A dollar watch is one thing. A guaranteed dollar watch is another. The dollar watch is really an evolution of the small clock. In his younger days Lyman J. Gage, secretary of the treasury, was an ath- lete, and could lift a thousand pounds. —Philadelphia Press, ‘ { i a In His Line. The Conductor—I don’t believe I got your fare, sir.” { ie The Misnomer—Ah, brother; you will not allow me to lead you from the walks of the unbelievers.—Philadel- phia North American. PATENTS. List of Patents Issued Last Weck to Northwestern Inventors John A. Anderson, Austin, Minn., bag holder; Samuel Desoe, Willow City, N, D.; hay rack; Fred*C. Koke, Mankato, Minn., purifier and roller mill feeding machine; Charles W. Mal- lory, Flandreau, 8. D., wire stitching machine; William Pepperling, Aitkin, Minn, steam engine; Joseph Torker, Brockway, Minn,, clock winding indi- cator;, Edwin C. Washburn, Minneapo- lis, Minn., bolt (design.) Merwin, Lothrop & Johnson, Patent At- torneys, 910 Pioneer Press Bldg., St. Paul. Without constancy there is neither Jove, friendship nor virtue in the world.—Addison. There was a time, before dining cars became a fad, that the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road’s “Queen City Hotel,” i at Cumberland, Md., was noted for its service and cuisine. In latter years, the reputation declined, as few travel- ers partook of sustenance at the long tables in the big dining room, But an effort is to be made to restore the repu- tation of the seventies and eight‘es, a the hostelry has been placed in ¢ of J. N. Shattuck, who has been Dining Car Superintendent of several big Western roads. Considerable money will be spent on the hotel, and it will again try for first-class patronage. Many of our worst troubles those which we expect but never hap- pen. It is wonderful how near conceit is to vanity.—Jerrold. Miss Lucy Tueker, the daughter ot S 2 ‘ominent farmer of Versailles, Ind., was the victim of nervous pros- tration. confined to bed, and was on the verge of St. Vitus’ dance. It was a pit case which medical science failed to Most of the time she was conquer, Finally a doctor prescrib- ed Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People. Her father said: “ We began giving the pills at once, and the next day we could sce a change for the better in her. We gave her one pill after each meal until she was entirely well. She has not been sick a day since, We think the cure almost miraculous. “FRANK TUCKER, Mrs. F.TUCKER.” Mr. and Mrs. Frank Tucker, being duly sworn, state that the foregoing is true in every particular. Huen Jounson, Justice of the Peace. From the Republican, Versailles, Ind. Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People are never sold by the dozen or hundred, ee tiveat trom ine Be, Willams Medicine ym the Dr. Sou Sohanee acy, N. Y., 60 cents per box, are | , 17 (LETTER To wes. PINKHAM No. 46,970] ' «i had female com- plaints so bad that it ‘caused me to have hysterical fits; have had as many as nine in-one 1 ‘day. “Five bottles of Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound cured me and it has been a year since I had an attack. irs. Edna Jackson, Pearl, La. If Mrs. Pinkham's Compound will curs such severe cases as this surely it must be a great medicine—is there any sufferer foolish enough not to give it a trial? At the School Board. Inspector—Now, can any of you chil- dren state what is likely to be the fu- ture of China? One maiden | sir father Inspec mean? The Maiden—Sure to be broken by the force of circumstances. Class dismissed immediately —Puvch, after a fause)—Please, China’s like him. —Like him? What do you Ball Bearlogs on the Farm. It is probably a safe prediction that all manufacturers of harvesting ma- chinery will eventually adopt ball bear- ings wherever it is possible to use them. In 1891 the Deering Harvester Company of Chicago equipped all their machines with ball and roller bear- ings, and the great popularity of the idea led other manufacturers to ex- periment with several styles of roller bearings, hoping to apply them to their machings without appearing to imitate the originators too closely. The appli- cation of ball bearings is more costly, but popular demand will yet force all competitors to follow the lead of the Deering Company. Literally Speaking, Mrs. Secondtrip—You are meanest man alive, Mr. Secondtrip—Well, there is consolation. I presume that I » fer that the late lamented was m than I am.—Indianapolis Journal. just the Do Your Feet Ache and Burn? Shake into your shoe Ease, a powder for the feet. It 1 tight and New Shoes feel Easy. ns, Swollen, Hot At all Druggist Sample sent F Olmsted, LeRoy, > Read the Advertisements. You will enjoy this publication inuch better if you will get into the habit of reading the advertisements; they will afford a most amusing study, and will put you in the way of getting some excellent bargains. Our advertisers are reliable; they send what they ad- vertise. A man who looks at only one side of a thing imagine every other man does. the same. Don’t Sta im your own light. previous year. other reaper plant. 27 seconds. mean that Deering machines are the lightest DEERING HARVESTER CO., . nd in Your Own Light. Perhaps you intend to buy a binder or a mower this summer, and it may be that you have toncluded that a chesp machine will answer your purpose. This means that you are standing < It’s better to investigate. There are some things that you should think about before putting your dollars into so expensive a machine as a binder or a mower. Here are Some Pertinent Facts. Last season the sales of Deering harvesting machines were 50,000 greater than in any Think About Them. ‘The area of ground covered by the Deering works is 62 acres—twice as large as that of any 6500 employes are engaged in turning out the Deering product for 1899—more than three times the number at work in any other reaper plant. During the busy part of last season Deering machines were built at the rate of one every Don’t stand in your own light. Think about these things; they mean something. They in draft, the easiest to operate and the most reliable and durable grain and grass harvesters manufactured. Chicago. FARM LANDS FOR SALE DO YOU WANT A HOME? ACRES OF GOOD FARMING LANDS Long time and easy payments to actual settlers. s Come and see us or address, W. R. BOURNE, Mgr., SHELL LAKE LUMBER CO., SHELL LAKE, Wis. IN WASHBURN AND BARRON COUNTIES, Snadcaungsotaat $3+00 t0 $6.00 kcne. “A FAIR FACE MAY PROVE A FOUL BAR- GAIN.” MARRY A PLAIN GIRL IF SHE USES AAPOLIO->