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READING DOWN 'iEu HERD'S GRASS Ey Charles Adams. I T was In haying time, and I !h weather was xo fall" that we had mowed all the grass In the "south field." Wo had doubts about cut ting iicMMi ho tini"li, for there wore only throe of us to take care of it; but the weather had cleared off bright and windy tliat morning, after a thunder thower in the night. "The re lire pretty Mire to lip throe or four days of good, hard weather now," said Napoleon, or "Polcy," as wo called him. "Let'H down with it!" And we did. There were six acres of it, nil i-dout grass, following clover the summer before; two tons r.nd a half to the acre of Ions stalked herd's grass, which, when dry and ready to go into the barn, Is about as stlfr and hard to pitch and handle as ho much wire. Any country boy who has ever "mowed away" knows what Rich grass is when it Is pitched off the cart to l:i:n in big forkful.?. The sun Phono hot all that first day. find heavy as the grass was it "niado" well. Wo raked it into windrows with the horsp rake during the afternoon, rather was away In the north part of the State, "cruising" for pine and spruce, in the employ of a lumber company, and Napoleon and I had the haying to do, with the assistance of one bird man. T," w.The next morning, as soon as the 'dev.- was off, we turned the windrows. There were about twenty rack-loads of the hay. We planned to haul in ten loads that second day and tea the next. 1 !ovon or eight tons or hay, a 'i t; iinvr.s or ill r.e young can,", f;- fear they would l.ouk those eoits. It car...- Into ny mind that I might make th in trend that hay down in the mow. My need of aid was pressing. I ran out to the lane and called the colts through the r.id into the I am. th-:i "d them itTx-s the barn 11 o r and urged them Into the mow. The hay was just about level with the barn tloor when I drove them in, and I put tip a hoard to 1 cop them from coming out. Th" Whltcomb load was hrilf off by this time; but I lulled a part of It buck, and then, bringing a horsewhip frun the wagon house, 1 ran tlu.se colts up and down the mow. They were line, plump, heavy colts, and the way they tramped that herd's grass down was a Joy to behold. The Whltcomb cart had no sooner backed out of the barn l'o-.r than In came our cart with its second lord. Napoleon had loaded it hastily, for the sky was darkening. 'Titeh It off! lloll it off!" I exclaimed I r r:i. Wo knew those colls (pjwr. If it were Sunday, of necessity, but that we mti-t g't In 8 line v ay c ;i It was really work how to manage it every one knows, are about as much as three men ought to handle in one afternoon. It has all to be pitched over twice wllh forks and trodden down in the haymow; and this latter part of the .work, in the case of coarse herd's grass, is the worst, for the tramping has to be done in a hot, close barn, amid choking dust. Until noon of the second day, when we began Hauling, tlio weather was fair; but immediately after 12 o'clock a change was apparent. A gray haze appeared In the south, soon followed by small shreds of cloud, which in creased in size. In Maine we knew those signs only too well during the warm season. Such southern rains come on suddenly. "It will pour by 5 o'clock," said Na poleon. "And all this hay out! What's to he done. The only thing we could do was to swallow a hasty luncheon and begin hauling as fast as possible. We sent word of our plight to our next neighbors, the Whiteombs, and as they had finished their haying a day or two previously, they kindly sent over their two hired men, with hay rack and ox team, to help us. We had been saving what we called the "west bay" of the barn in which to put this herd's grass. The usual cross girders had been taken out of this bay, making one long haymow of it, fifty feet by twenty, and we knew that the crop in the south field would fill it to the "great beams" of the barn, eighteen or twenty feet above the barn floor. When we drove in with the first load the hired man started to pitch it off into the bay, and I undertook to stow it. Napoleon had remained out in the field to roll the windrow up into "turn blcs," ready to be pitched upon the cart as' soon as it returned from the barn. The hired man was a large, strong fellow. At every forkful he flung off about a hundred-weight of that coarse, snarled hay, and I soon found that I was going to have quite as much work as I could manage, for I bM to pull the hay back into the long, deep bay, tread it down in the dust and heat. and return to the front in time to take the next tough, snarly forkfuls as they came rolling down off the cart. I could not do it; no one could. My weight, indeed, was not sufficient to tread the coarse stuff down. This first load was no sooner pitched off and the cart backed out than in drove the Whltcomb rack, piled high with another load. One of the men with this team had remained in the field, rolling up tumbles; the driver was ready to throw off the hay. and tney all seemed to think, that I could take care of it. Finding myseif worsted. I ran into the house to see if I could not get some of the women to help me tread the hay down, but they had all gone raspberrying. As I ran back to the barn, however, I happened to see in the lane two three-year-old colts that we were pasturing for Grandfather Adams. They were handsome brown Morgan colts, of which the old gentleman was very fond, for they were well matched, and he expected to rxLll.it Ihem as a trot ting pair at the State fair. lie was cut nearly every day looking at his pets, giving them salt or titbits, and feeing to it that we kept the tratt-rlr.tr trough in the pumped fr"! ' a- .la He to the hired man. "I'll take care of It! I'll stow It now as fast as all of you can bring It to me!" I would wait till I had half a rack load of it rolled hack and distributed about a little; then I would get up on the front girders with the horsewhip and send those colts back and forth, from one end of the long bay to the other. Tight feet are much better than two for treading down hay, and the difference between 140 pounds of boys and lfioo pounds of colt was at once apparent. It was a great scheme! Meanwhile the loads came In hurry and haste. One was no sooner pitched off to me than another was ready. We were all working as swiftly as pos sible. Fut while throwing off the eighth load our hired man suddenly stopped, leaned on his, Jork, and began to laugh. Say," lie drawled, "I s'poso you see that this haymow is mini up pretty fast. It is up to the front beams now. 'Tain't any o' my business, but how are you poin' to git the colts down off' n the mow''" In the heat and hurry of the emer- ill X 11. Ill II'JI llll'US'H 171. 111.11, uuu they wore being elevated higher and higher with every load. In fact, they were up nine or ten feet above the barn tloor already; too high for them to Jump down without breaking their legs. The hired man stood and laughed. Those colts'll he up in the roof of the barn when this field of hay is in," said he. When ho drove out to the field he told Napoleon of the fix I was getting into with the colts, and Po'ey came running in to see about it. That's a pretty go!" he exclaimed. "What will Grandpa Adams say? I don't think you ought to have taken those colts for such a job. The dust is making them cough." Well, they might just as well be on the great beams as whore tney are," said I. "Now they are up here, I am going to keep them at it till this hay is in." There'll be the mischief to pay if grandpa finds it out!" replied Nano Icon. lie hurried back to the field, however, for the cart was waiting. I felt not a little anxious about the situation; but the loads were coming think and fast. As I could could not get the colts down, I kept them treading, and getting higher with every load. The rain did not begin until nearly five o'clock, and we hauled in eighteen big loads of that herd grass, there were only aoout two loaas that became too wet to get in. Fut those eighteen loads had filled that haymow quite up to the great beams of the barn. As the hired man had anticipated, the co'.ts were up in the top of that high barn with hardly room to stand under the roof. Truth to say, too, they were hot and sweaty. The men from Mr. Whiteomb's went off home, laughing over it; as for Napoleon and me, the more we studied the problem of getung the colts down, the more difficult it looked. We set a long ladder and carried up two buckets of water vo them, and let them stand in the hay and cat v.-hat they wanted. In fact, we were tired out with our hard afternoon's work, and there were the cows ti milk, and all the barn chores to do. It was Satur day night and our hired man went home. While we were milking we heard Grandpa Adams calling the colts. It was now raining hard, and he had come over to see that they had opportunity to get under the barn yard sheds. "Now what shah we tell him?" said Napoleon, anxiously. Of course I ought to have gone and confessed. I knew it, but I did not want to have him find out what I had done. It disturbed me a good deal to hear the old gentleman out in ihe rain calling, "Nobby, nobby, nobby!" and "Cojack, cojack. cojack.' up and down the pasture but I kept quiet, and when at last he came hack to the barn and looked for us boys, xo ask about the colis. Napoleon aud I kept out of sight. Omd father at last decided that they must have taken shelter in the woods at the far side of the pasture, as they sometimes did, and 'although still somewhat disappointed by their non-appearance, he went home without making any further search. Dav had no sooner broken r.ext niern- und not Injure the animals Mas Home thing of a problem. We went quietly to Mr. WhiP'omb'F, and called out his two hired men, v.l hcM a conference. Vo hit upon a scheme and to carry It out we were obliged to go to a sawmill half a nillo distant and bring foir stlekn of timber, two by right Inches, and each twci (;.' four feet In length. These we Kt up aslant, close to gether, reaching from the barn floor to the top of the haymow, aial form ing a kind of a chute. Taking halters and hits of rope, three of us thou climbed on fho mow, and by pushing against their sides suddenly as they stood In the snarly hay, threw down first one, then the other, of the colts, and tied their legs securely, to prevent them from struggling. Then wo dragged ther.i forward to the ton of the chute. While we were thus employed Na poleon had gone to bring the long, large rope from a set of pulley blocks, and also an old buffalo skin. Having wrapped the tkln round o::e of th" co'.ts. to prevent injury to its sides, we then let the animal slide down the chute, steadying it with the large rope passed around its body. Wo were fortunate to get both of them down without accident, and we then untied their legs and turned them out. The colts were in thrt pasture, feed ing as if nothing had happened, when Grandfather Adams came at eight o'clock. He looked them ail over, but could not find a scratch or a mark on either of them. They did cough a little for several days afterward, but he'did not chance to hear or notice that. That v, inter, however, in December, when father began to take the hay out of the mow, he had some difficulty. Napoleon and I were from heme at the lime, teaching district schools several miles away, but ho wrote to us: "I should like to know how you two boys stowed that lord's grass hay last summer, and wdiat you did to it; you must have used a pile driver. I have sent for a grip fork, and I want you both to come homo Saturday and help me pull out two or three tons of it with a tackle and block." Youth's Companion. rv a f Uy the Ldltor of Collier's Weekly 'f ) r 0 i V&' ! d '.mi T may be maintained that nobody ever diri a natural Old ng". the pr mature old age, which Is the only k know, li a pathological condition. Such are the oplni. Dr. Kile- MetchnikolT, not a fakir, but a serious per.- -.i: Mudies things through a microscope at the Pasteur Ins Kaon of-us pwurms with tiny beasts of prey, which up r.nd down our body, seeking what they may devour, attacking cur beneficent cells, previously weakened by unwise life we nil lead, they produce an artificial seni the malady which kills those men whom In our ignorance we call very old. Looked at from Dr. Melt hnikoffs standpoint, old age Is merely a probb :n for medical science. IIjv: shall we help our beneficent cells In their struggh i:h. WO or , who lltute. uavi 1 . l'.y the f.v. our ancestors, linmedia' .,, . . . J"i against the ninny? One way would lo to take every baby and out oat larger Intestine, an organ which ought not to have been Included in our ai o:uy. At present tkh can not be done, as the operation Is risky. A, sec method would ho to destroy the beasts of prey. Hut wo do not yet know they exactly are. Some are a legacy left by remote, who suffered from heritable diseases. perhaps the precociously the bubonic diet, eating sour milk. his Others, more mystcrio- '''-'red. l'"n..J' reP-7 Che, I : lit: ii:a. our :ul t w o S ill. c, as hair d:avr Instruments of a t-ort of essential disease, of that old kibs all who do not die still earlier of tuberculosis, plague, or croup. I'ntll we know more we can only little meat or none, ami Ribsisting chiefly on butter, I!y these Imperfect menus we may prolong life a hundred years or so. Up to ninety, for example, we may be as active President of the United States, and thereafter, for a hundred years nn reflective as the Prime Minister of England. This would still leave v. a century for art, philanthropy, or croquet. P.ut when death does f'.naliv iiear.will not its approach b as distasteful as ever? l'.y no means, says ihe doctor. Under present conditions death is like an unnatural sleep, which over takes us early in the day-say before dinner. In the future it will come after a full meal, when the Cay's work is done. Z7 T Aa Aristocracy m America? The Impossibility of an American Aristocracy of Wealth :: :: :: Dy Anna McClurc Sholl it OHO 1 IIIEI'TA upon two conditions depends an aristocracy the tinned possessionind exercise of power, and the conse. these laws. MIRROR ON THE HAT ERIM. rorm of I,Rr-I:olly,, by "Which tin Yi-aivr INIny Sep I'.cliiml Him. In all the larger cities it is a com mon tiling to see a mirror fixed on the front of a house so that the occupants may sit inside and enjoy the view up and down the street without being ob served and without cultivating the somewhat ungainly habit of leaning out the window. These devices hav acquired the popular name of "busy bodies," but to the trade they are known as window mirrors, which is somewhat prettier. A very similar device has been re cently designed to be worn on the brim of a hat or the visor of a cap in order that the wearer may enjoy n constant view of what is transpiring in his rear, without the necessity of constantly turning his head. It is said to be a very desirable piece of ap paratus for ae.toinobilists, bicyclists, vehicles as well as pedestrians, as it enables the wearer to keep in constant knowledge of the position of objects behind him, and yet without taking his attention from what is going on in front of him. The device is fastened to the hat brim or cap visor by means of a couple of screws, and the mirror is designed to rock on its pivot so that it can be fastened at any angle to suit the cir cumstances under which it is worn. It Is placed a little to one side of the cen tre of the hat brim, which is the best point for obtaining the desired sweep of the rear view. e co;v luent unity or aims and ideals. The aristocratic body In England, tor instance, is self-conscious; iff, members are united by mutual understanding. They acknowledge certain well-recognized laws of life and manners. They depend upon each other to uphold Individually, wealthy Americans may be both self-conscious and self-assertive, but collectively they are antagonistic to one another. Ihe ac cumulation of wealth implies struggle, and struggle does not bring forth the kind of qualities which make the gentle and stately men and women of Van Dyck's canvases one great family. One of the greatest perils of the republic, and one reason why a genuine American aristocracy can never be formed is that a strong class has arisen, without its strength being officially recognized, as in the aristocracy of -rank, and certain duties and obligations toward society are imposed upon it by that recognition. Tor if wealthy Americans lack social unity among themselves, they lack also to a greater degree, the sense of social responsibility, that mark of a true aristocracy. The sense of his public duties, inborn in an English aristo crat, is owing, to be sure, largely to the law of primogeniture, a law which also insures to him that wealth without which the aristocratic ideal can not be perfectly enforced, lie is expected to take his scat in Parliament, to give his aid in legislation, to perform certain public duties which have no connection with his own material prosperity. Another bar to unity of social aims and ideals among the wealthy is their frequent lack of genuine culture. To know rather than to feel is the aim, and ideals are not born of knowledge alone. The culture wl-.ich implies courtesy and humanity those aristocratic essen tials, is too often lacking. If tills unity of social ideals upon which an aristocracy largely depends does not now exist, is it likely to be evolved out of the present conditions? Its evolution would depend largely upon the permanent power of one e'.ass exercised in the right direction. T.ut though the second condition may bo possible, the first can never be. Under conditions peculiar to American life, great fortunes are constantly changing hands. Accumulated by the fathers, they are squandered by the sons, or divided among many children, or kc through mismanagement or speculation. The aristocracy of wealth constantly endangers its position by its very style of living, making large demands on even large fortune0. The law of decay, which eventually protects society from power of whatever nature, operates to disperse wealth so that t'.-! powerful class can not be the permanent class, can not therefore form an an aristocracy. It is the safeguard of the aristocracy of rank that its power is mystical as well as material; can never, therefore, wholly perish. Another bar to unity and permanency in the wealthy class is the constant inundation of newcomers. Into the rose-lighted drawing-room may stride at any moment a lively Westerner, or a member of the first generation, his riches raw upon hi:;:- McCIure's Magazine. "'v I 7 J5? :H?2 Cere of Children's Eyes . D. Goats to Kill Snakes. That useful animal, the goat, is being put to a new use on a farm ten miles northwest of Columbia. A carload of them was turned loose on a piece of ground on the Branham-IIearn farm for the purpose of exterminating rat tlesnakes. The plot of ground is ; thickly covered with undergrowth and j there are so many rattlesnakes on it j that workmen are afraid to enter it to j clear it up. ("oats were suggested, i and Hewitt P.rothers, the proprietors of ; the farm, ordered a carload at once. : The experiment is being watched with , much interest. Goats on the State j farm at Columbia have proved their ; efficiency in the clearing of thickly covered ground, but some doubt if they will be able to exterminate the i snakes as well. Kansas City Times. j I vrTz I j listing than Napoleon aud I were, at me Tarls' Womtcvful Clock. j The Grand Palais in Paris possesses ; a wonderful, clock, which was shown j in the Paris exhibition of lSod. It was i the work of Collin, aud has just been overhauled. It is claimed for this chef d'ocuvre, says the Debats, that it does not vary more than the hundredth part cf a second in a year. It is four and a half meters in height, ai d indi cates the time in the twelve chief cities of the world, each city having its own dial. The (dock not only marks tli year, month and day of the week, but its pemluluin forms a barometer ol singular prechfio::. By D. T. Marshall, M gpeasizaxiBsab RIOINAL research in a large eye clinic has proved to me that many parents, even or lair intelligence, are extremely neglect ful of the eyes of their children. Either from some congenital defect of the inner eye, or from the presence of squint aud the consequent inability to fix both eyes upon an object, the work is thrown upon the better eye, and the poorer eye gradually becomes less capable from mere disuse. It would be well for parents to test the vision of their children by covering first one eye and then the other with '.- a small card or book, and asking them to read some sign or . describe some object at a convenient distance. It is often a matter of great surprise for one to find that a child sees very little with one of his eyes. If children having such eyes are fitted with suitable glasses when young, flio vision of the poor eye may be made equal to that of the other, aud by use become stronger instead of weaker. Children with squint can often be cured without operation by wearing proper glasses. This is a contagious disease wLieu is characterized by the growth on the inside of the eyelids of small granules as large as pin-heads, or larger, which look very much water. In some cases there is sooner or later redness, and sensitiveness to light. Later on 1 there may be clouding of the cornea (the tranparcnt part of the eyeball), ex treme sensitiveness to light, and in extreme cases blindness. Even when tke disease gives rise to no symptoms, later in life it may cause a contraction t" the inner surfaces of the lids, which causes the eyelashes to turn in and nib on the eyeball, thus giving rise to great discomfort and loss of good vision. The method of exposing the inner surface of the eyelid is very simp:?. For the lower lid, the most common seat of trachoma, simply put the finger on the lower edge of the lid, and pull down, at the same time telling .he child to look up. To examine the upper lid, take hold of the eyelashes with th? thumb and forefinger of one hand, and with the other hand gently press a pencil-point or the edge of a card against the fold above the stiff part of the lid, and fold the lid backward, at the same time telling the child to loo'.: down. The eyelids turn back with a snap. It docs not hurt. If the insid :' of the lid is not smooth and clear, the child had better he taken to an ocuiist like grains of pearl sago after they have been soaked in cases ibis disease gives rise to no symptoms, but iii mo.st; for examination. is called upon to sand do g them out The abovr method of turning the lid is useful when one remove a foreign body from the eye. Cinders and grains of t into the eye. and it is not always convenient to get a doctor to take Turn the lid back, and with a t t'. phk or hairpin, around the end of whi'h a bit cf cotton has been smoot offeiding object. If you have no cotton at 1 find crush it up, .. s forming a kind cf ury- u;d. gently wipe out t the end of a toothpick.