The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 10 August 1911, Page 1549

The Family Circle

THREE SONGS j * Sing me, thou singer, a song of gold!' Said a careworn man to me; So I sang of the golden summer days, And the sad sweet autumn's yellow haze. Till his heart grew soft, and his mellow gaze Was a kindly sight to see. 'Sing me, thou singer, a song of love!' A fair girl asked of me; Then I sang of a love that clasps the race, Gives all, asks naught her kindled face Was radiant with the starry grace Of blessed charity. 'Sing me, 0 singer, a song of life!' Cried an eager youth to me; And I sang of the life without alloy, Beyond our years, till the heart of the boy Caught the golden beauty and love and joy Of the great eternity.

JIMMIE'S JOLT Jimmy was perfectly honest, but he was careless. ' If that boy,' said Atkinson, the senior partner, ' would only steady down and attend to what he is doing and use a little common sense instead of being so thoughtless, he'd be all right! I'd have hopes of his growing up into a financial power in La Salle street! He's the sort that you take into the firm out of selfdefence, and he's bright as a dollar!' ' Bright as the dollar of mine he lost when I sent him for cigars, I suppose,' added Brady, the junior partner. 'Yes, Jimmy's all right in his way. I can't help liking the lad. It's a comfort to have an office boy around with human intelligence, after some we've had. He just needs a jolt, that's all.' 'Well, he'd better get it pretty quick!' growled Atkinson. J Those papers he lost on the way over to Smith's caused a considerable row. If you want to get rid of anything, just give it to Jimmy to take somewhere ! If he sat up nights planning how to lose things with neatness and despatch he couldn't succeed better!' It really looked serious for Jimmy. Brady, glancing at the boy's bright, cheerful face, felt a good deal of concern. Jimmy was the sort that appealed to —you wanted to help him on. Two days later Brady" rang the bell for Jimmy. He' handed the boy a bank book and a bank bill. 'I want you to take this,' he said distinctly, ' at once to the bank. You'll have to hurry to get there before closing time. And be careful how you carry it, because, if you'll look at the bill, you'll see it's a big one —it's a thousand-dollar note.' 'Gee!' breathed Jimmy. He held the bill in the extreme tips of his fingers as he turned it over. ' Never saw one before.' Then he departed. Atkinson, during this little episode, had sat staring at his partner unbelievingly. As the door closed after Jimmy he recovered his breath. 'Have you gone quite insane?' he inquired. ' No/ responded Brady. 'He'll lose it!' declared Atkinson. ' Probably,' admitted Brady, still calmly. ' Now I know you're insane ['concluded Atkinson. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he flung around ' to his desk. Fifteen minutes later Jimmy walked in. He came as though invisible cords were nulling his feet against his will, and his usually cheerful" face was chalkv white He opened his lips once or twice, but no sound came forth. Then he crumpled up into a chair. "I told you!' said Atkinson, jumping to his feet and glowering at Brady. * What's the trouble, Jimmy?' asked Brady, in Jus usual tone. •"

I —l lost it!’ Jimmy got out, in a strangled voice, ‘ Honest, Mr. Brady, I don’t see how I could uv! It’s gone! A thousand dollars! ’ He almost hissed the last three words to express their awfulness. ‘ Did you take it out of your pocket after you left this room?’ Brady queried. ; Jimmy nodded miserably. ‘ I showed it to Sam in the office out there, ’cause I knew he’d never seen one, neither!. An’ then I stopped once in an alley to look at it, ’cause I knew I wouldn’t have a chance at the bank ! I was right at the bank, so I didn’t put it back in my pocket, but I held it with the book tight in my hand! An’ when I got to the bank window it was gone !’

Brady coughed and did not look at the wretched Jimmy. ‘l’ll have the police look for it,’ he said. ‘ Meanwhile, you go home, Jimmy, while I decide what to do with you ! You’ve always been careless, and scolding doesn’t seem to make an impression on you, but this is the limit!’ ‘ He looked as though he was going to be hanged,’ commented Atkinson. ‘ Pretty expensive experiment of yours, Brady!’ a That s all right,’ said Brady. * Jimmv’s got something to think about now!’ ‘ I’d think I had, too, if I’d thrown away a thousand dollars,’ said Atkinson. It was nearly noon next day before Brady summoned Jimmy, who had been waiting in the outer office all the morning to learn his fate. ' ‘Have they found it?’ he gasped out, as soon as he got inside. / No, said Brady shortly. Then he saw Jimmy’s face. Brady has a tender heart. ‘ Look here, son,’ he said, ‘ I guess you’ve had your jolt. I was dead sure you’d lose that money when I started you out, because you are never anything but careless. And I wanted you to see what trouble you’d eventually get into if you didn’t cultivate a little responsibility. It was a counterfeit note, and a bad one at that, and not worth a copper cent. But, you see, it might have been real. Do you think ’ Oh, Mr. Brady!’ half sobbed Jimmy, in an agony of relief, I’ll never be careless again, s’lon’s I live. Never! If I can stay!’ ‘Confound you!’ Atkinson said to Brady, when Jimmy had shut the door carefully after him. ‘You had me almost as worried as you had Jimmy!’

MIGHT HAVE BEEN WORSE Notwithstanding her tender years, Catherine's characteristics are in evidence; and the most pronounced of them all is the unfailing tendency, in the most harrowing situations, to look on the bright side. On one occasion, having got hold of a hammer she ambitiously endeavored to drive a tack into the wall, on which to hang her doll's hat. After repeated allures to hit the troublesome tack by clutching the hammer in both fat hands and thus delivering a terrific blow, she next tried holding the tack in one hand, dealing a less powerful stroke with the hammer in the other hand. The result of this experiment brought the whole family running to the nursery After the damaged finger had been bathed and kissed and bandaged, in the midst of various consolations and commiserations, Catherine's tears began to stop and her philosophy to rise. ft s 'lt don't hurt so awful bad now, mamma "Sides when my finger got hit, I was jus' holdin' the hammer in only one han'—an' jus' s'pose I'd been strikin' with both hands!' i EDUCATING THE FARMER A farmer wrote to the editor of an agricultural paper as follows: ' I have a horse that has been afflicted for the past year with periodical fits of dizziness. Please let me know what I should do with him, as he seems to get worse instead of better. lam afraid he will be unfit for work if something is not done soon.' In the next issue this answer appeared:

'When the horse is looking all right sell him to someone.' • , ~ WORSE THAN PESSIMISM Andrew Carnegie, at a dinner in Washington, deplored the world's excessive armaments. - All these billions wasted on battleships,' he said, ' are declared to do good in providing work, in creating, prosperity. That is a shallow and false optimism. That, in fact, reminds me of the man who said, when his wages , were cut down: '"Well, there, is one comfort. When I'm laid up sick I won't lose as much money as I used to do." ' THE JOYS OF AN EDITOR ' The editor is one of the happiest men in the world,' wrote a Sydney schoolboy in his essay on newspapers. 'He can go to the circus in the afternoon and evening without paying a penny, also to inquests and hangings. He has free, tickets to the theatre, and gets wedding-cake' sent to him, and sometimes gets licked, but not often. While other folks have to go to bed early, the editor can sit up every night, and see all that is going on.' SOMETHING TO BE THANKFUL FOR Lord Decies was talking about American cab fares. They seem to be intended only for the rich,' he said. ' I was amused by a cabby who, after a drive that would have cost a shilling in London, said: "You're an Englishman, sir, and so I'll only charge you two dollars." He made me think of a lawyer, who, having won a case involving a hundred pounds sterling, kept eighty pounds for his fee, and said, as he handed over the balance of twenty pounds to his client: "I am your friend, sir. I can't charge you my full fee. I knew your father." "Thank goodness," said the client warmly, "that you didn't know my grandfather.'" SAVING HIS LIFE A story is told of an Englishman who had occasion for a doctor while staying in Peking. 'Sing Loo, greatest doctor,' said his servant 'he savee my lifee once.' 'Really?' queried the Englishman. ' Yes; me tellible awful,' was the reply; ' me callee in another doctor. He givee me medicine; me velly, velly bad. Me callee in another doctor. He come and give me more medicine, make me velly, velly badder. Me callee in Sing Loo. He no come. He savee my life.' FAMILY FUN The Remainder. —A very pleasing way to arrive at an arithmetical sum, without the use of either slate or pencil, is to ask a person to think of a figure, then to double it, then add a certain figure to it, now halve the whole sum, and finally to subtract from that the figure first thought of. You are then to tell the thinker the remainder. The key to this lock of figures is that half of whatever sum you request to be added during the working of the sum is the remainder. Any amount may be added, but the operation is simplified 'by giving only even numbers, as they will divide without fractions. i