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Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,

And then went back to his bees and cows.

This is the story of old John Burns;
This is the moral the reader learns:

In fighting the battle, the question's whether
You'll show a hat that's white, or a feather.
Bret Harte.

SCATTER THE GERMS OF THE BEAUTIFUL.

CATTER the germs of the beautiful,

SCA

By the wayside let them fall,

That the rose may spring by the cottage-gate,
And the vine on the garden wall;

Cover the rough and the rude of earth
With a veil of leaves and flowers,
And mark with the opening bud and cup
The march of summer hours.

Scatter the germs of the beautiful

In the holy shrine of home;

Let the pure, and the fair, and the graceful there In the loveliest lustre come;

Leave not a trace of deformity

In the temple of the heart,
But gather about its hearth the gems

Of nature and of art!

Scatter the germs of the beautiful

In the temples of our God-
The God who starred the uplifted sky,
And flowered the trampled sod!

When he built a temple for himself,
And a home for his priestly race,
He reared each arm in symmetry,
And covered each line in grace.

Scatter the germs of the beautiful
In the depths of the human soul!

They shall bud, and blossom, and bear the fruit, While the endless ages roll;

Plant with the flowers of charity

The portals of the tomb,

And the fair and pure about thy path

In Paradise shall bloom.

THE BUREAU-DRAWER.

HE man who will invent a bureau-drawer which

THE

will move out and in without a hitch, will not only secure a fortune, but will attain to an eminence in history not second to the greatest warriors. There is nothing, perhaps (always excepting a stove-pipe), that will so exasperate a man as a bureau-drawer which will not shut.

It is a deceptive article. It will start off all right; then it pauses at one end, while the other swings in as far as it can. It is the custom to throw the whole weight of the person against the end which sticks. If any one has succeeded in closing a drawer by so doing, he will confer a favor by sending his address to this office. Mrs. Holcomb was trying to shut a bureau-drawer on Saturday morning; but it was an abortive effort. Finally she burst into tears. Then

Mr. Holcomb told her to stand aside, and see him do it.

"You see," observed Mr. Holcomb with quiet dignity, "that the drawer is all awry. That's what makes it stick. Now, anybody but a woman would see at once, that to move a drawer standing in that position would be impossible. I now bring out this end even with the other-so; then I take hold of both knobs, and, with an equal pressure from each hand, the drawer moves easily in. See?"

The dreadful thing moved readily forward for a distance of nearly two inches; then it stopped abruptly. "Ah!" observed Mrs. Holcomb, beginning to look happy again.

Mr. Holcomb very properly made no response to this ungenerous expression; but he gently worked each end of the drawer to and fro, but without success. Then he pulled the drawer all the way out, adjusted it properly, and started it carefully back; it moved as if it was on oiled wheels. Mr. Holcomb smiled. Then it stopped. Mr. Holcomb looked solemn.

"Perhaps you ain't got the ends adjusted," suggested the unhappy Mrs. Holcomb.

Mr. Holcomb made no reply. He pushed harder at the drawer than was apparent to her; but it did n't move. He tried to bring it back again; but it would not come.

"Are you sure you have got everything out of here you want?" he finally asked, with a desperate effort to appear composed.

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Oh! that's what you are stopping for, is it? But you need n't. I have got what I wanted; you can shut it right up." Then she smiled a very wicked smile.

He grew redder in the face, and set his teeth firmly together, and put all his strength to the obdurate drawer, while a hard look gleamed in his eye. But it did not move. He pushed harder.

"Ooh, ooh!" he groaned.

“I'm afraid you have n't got the ends adjusted," she maliciously suggested.

A scowl settled on his face, while he strained every muscle in the pressure.

"I'd like to know what in thunder you've been doing to this drawer, Jane Holcomb?" he jerked out. "I hain't done anything to it," she replied.

"I know better," he asserted.

"Well, know what you please, for all I care," she sympathizingly retorted.

The cords swelled up on his neck, and the corners of his mouth grew white.

"I'll shut that drawer, or I'll know the reason of it!" he shouted; and he jumped up, and gave it a passionate kick.

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed.

He dropped on his knees again, grabbed hold of the knobs, and swayed and pushed at them with all his might. But it did n't move.

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'Why, in the name of common sense, don't you open the window? Do you want to smother me?” he passionately cried.

It was warm, dreadfully warm. The perspiration stood in great drops on his face or ran down into his neck. The birds sang merrily out the door, and the glad sunshine lay in golden sheets upon the earth; but he did not notice them. He would have given five dollars if he had not touched the obstinate bureau;

he would have given ten if he never had been born. He threw all his weight on both knobs. It moved then. It went to its place with a suddenness that threw him from his balance, and brought his burning face against the bureau with force enough to skin his nose, and fill his eyes with water to a degree that was blinding. Then he went out on the back-stoop and sat there for an hour, scowling at the scenery.

F. M. Bailey. (The Danbury News Man.)

ROMEO'S BANISHMENT.

Romeo, just after being married to Juliet, is sentenced to banishment for killing Tybalt.

RIAR. I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.

FRIAR.

Rom. What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?

Fri. A gentler judgment vanished from his lips, Not body's death, but body's banishment.

Rom. Ha! banishment? be merciful, say-death: For exile hath more terror in his look, Much more than death: do not say

banishment.

Fri. Hence from Verona art thou banished: Be patient, for the world is broad and wide. Rom. There is no world without Verona walls, Hence banished is banished from the world, And world's exile is death: - then banishment Is death mis-termed: calling death - banishment, Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe, And smil'st upon the stroke that murders me.

Fri. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!

Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,

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