It was a dull day for trade. The grocer sat by the stove rubbing his bald head. His clerk stood at the desk balancing accounts, and three or four men lounged around talking about the new party that is to be founded on the ruins of the falling ones. It was a serene hour. One hundred and fifty hornets had gone to roost in that nest for the winter. The genial atmosphere began to limber them up. One old veteran opened his eyes, rubbed his legs and said it was the shortest winter he had ever known in all his hornet days. A second shook off his lethargy and seconded the motion, and in five minutes the whole nest was alive and its owners were ready to sail out and investigate. You don't have to hit a hornet with the broadside of an ax to make him mad. He's mad all over all the time, and he doesn't care a picayone whether he tackles a humming-bird or an elephant.

The grocer was telling one of the men that he and General Grant were boys together, when he gave a sudden start of surprise. This was followed by several other starts. Then he jumped over a barrel of sugar and yelled like a Pawnee. Some smiled, thinking he was after a funny climax, but it was only a minute before a solemn old farmer jumped three feet high and came down to roll over a job lot of washboards. Then the clerk ducked his head and made a rush for the door. He didn't get there. One of the other men who had been looking up and down to see what could be the matter, felt suddenly called upon to go home. He was going at the rate of forty miles an hour when he collided with the clerk, and they rolled on the floor. There was no use to tell the people in that store to move on. They couldn't tarry to save 'em. They all felt that the rent was too high, and that they must vacate the premises. A yell over by the cheese-box was answered by a war-whoop from the show-case. A howl from the kerosene barrel near the back door was answered by wild gestures around the show window.

The crowd went out together. Uncle Tom was just coming in with his beef bone. When a larger body meets a smaller one, the larger body knocks it into the middle of next week. The old man lay around in the slush until every. body had stepped on him all they wanted to, and then he at up and asked:

"Hev dey got de fiah all put out yit?"

Some of the hornets sailed out of doors to fall by the wayside, and others waited around on top of barrels and baskets and jars to be slaughtered. It was half an hour before the last one was disposed of, and then Uncle Tom walked in, picked up the nest, and said:

"Mebbe dis will cure de stiffness in dat gal's neck, jist de same, but I tell you I'ze got banged, an' bumped, an' sot down on till it will take a hull medical college all winter long to git me so I kin jump off a street kyar!"

-Detroit Free Press.

THE OLD MAN IN THE PALACE CAR.

JOHN H. YATES.

Well, Betsey, this beats everything our eyes have ever seen We're ridin' in a palace fit for any king or queen;

We didn't go as fast as this, nor on such cushions rest, When we left New England years ago to seek a home out West.

We rode through this same country, but not as we now ride, You sat within a stage-coach, while I trudged by your side; Instead of ridin' on a rail, I carried one, you know,

To pry the old coach from the mire through which we had

to go.

Let's see; that's fifty years ago,-just arter we were wed; Your eyes were then like diamonds bright, your cheeks like roses red.

Now, Betsey, people call us old, and push us off one side, Just as they have the old slow coach in which we used to ride.

I wonder if young married folks to-day would condescend To take a weddin' tour like ours, with a log house at the end? Much of the sentimental love that sets young cheeks aglow, Would die to meet the hardships of fifty years ago.

Our love grew stronger as we toiled; though food and clothes

were coarse,

None ever saw us in the courts a-huntin' a divorce;

Love leveled down the mountains and made low places high; Love sang a song to cheer us when clouds and winds were

I'm glad to see the world move on, to hear the engine's roar, And all about the cables stretchin' now from shore to shore. Our mission is accomplished; with toil we both are through; The Lord just let us live awhile to see how young folks do. Whew! Betsey, how we're flyin'! See the farms and towns go by!

It makes my gray hair stand on end; it dims my failin' eye. Soon we'll be through our journey and in the house so good, That stands within a dozen rods of where the log one stood. How slow-like old time coaches-our youthful years went by!-

The years when we were livin' 'neath a bright New England sky;

Swifter than palace cars now fly, our later years have flown,
Till now we journey hand in hand, down to the grave alone.
I hear the whistle blowin' on life's fast flyin' train;
Only a few more stations in the valley now remain.
Soon we'll reach the home eternal, with its glories all untold,
And stop at the best station in the city built of gold.

MEMORY.-JAMES A. Garfield.

The following poem was written by the late President, during his senior year in Williams College, Mass., shortly before his graduation. It was published in the Williams Quarterly for March, 1856. Viewed in the light of recent events the concluding lines of the poem seem almost prophetic.

"Tis beauteous night; the stars look brightly down
Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow.
No light gleams at the windows, save my own,
Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me.
And now, with noiseless step, sweet memory comes
And leads me gently through her twilight realms.
What poet's tuneful lyre has ever sung,

Or delicatest pencil e'er portrayed

The enchanted, shadowy land where memory dwells?
It has its valleys, cheerless, lone, and drear,
Dark-shaded by the mournful cypress tree;
And yet its sunlit mountain tops are bathed
In Heaven's own blue. Upon its craggy cliffs,
Robed in the dreamy light of distant years,
Are clustered joys serene of other days.
Upon its gently sloping hillsides bend
The weeping willows o'er the sacred dust
Of dear departed ones; yet in that land,

Where'er our footsteps fall upon the shore,
They that were sleeping rise from out the dust
Of death's long, silent years, and round us stand
As erst they did before the prison tomb

Received their clay within its voiceless halls.
The heavens that bend above that land are hung
With clouds of various hues. Some dark and chill,
Surcharged with sorrow, cast their somber shade
Upon the sunny, joyous land below.

Others are floating through the dreamy air,
White as the falling snow, their margins tinged
With gold and crimsoned hues; their shadows fall
Upon the flowery meads and sunny slopes,

Soft as the shadow of an angel's wing.
When the rough battle of the day is done,

And evening's peace falls gently on the heart,

I bound away, across the noisy years,

Unto the utmost verge of memory's land,

Where earth and sky in dreamy distance meet,
And memory dim with dark oblivion joins;

Where woke the first remembered sounds that fell
Upon the ear in childhood's early morn;

And, wandering thence along the rolling years,

I see the shadow of my former self

Gliding from childhood up to man's estate.

The path of youth winds down through many a vale,
And on the brink of many a dread abyss,
From out whose darkness comes no ray of light,
Save that a phantom dances o'er the gulf
And beckons toward the verge. Again the path
Leads o'er the summit where the sunbeams fall;
And thus in light and shade, sunshine and gloom,
Sorrow and joy, this life-path leads along.

IMPRESSIONS OF NIAGARA.-CHARLES DICKENS.

We were at the foot of the American fall. I could see an immense torrent of water tearing headlong down from some great height, but had no idea of shape, or situation, or anything but vague immensity.

When I was seated in the little ferry boat, and was crossing the swollen river immediately before both cataracts, I

began to feel what it was; but I was in a manner stunned, and unable to comprehend the vastness of the scene. It was not until I came on Table Rock, and looked-Great Heaven, on what a fall of bright, green water!—that it came upon me in its full might and majesty.

Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing, the first effect and the enduring one-instant and lastingof the tremendous spectacle, was peace. Peace of mind, tranquillity, calm recollections of the dead, great thoughts of eternal rest and happiness; nothing of gloom or terror. Niagara was at once stamped upon my heart, an image of beauty; to remain there, changeless and indelible, until its pulses cease to beat forever.

Oh, how the strife and trouble of daily life receded from my view and lessened in the distance, during the memora ble days we passed on that enchanted ground! What voices spoke from out the thundering water; what faces, faded from earth, looked out upon me from its gleaming depths; what heavenly promise glistened in those angels' tears, the drops of many hues, that showered around, and twined themselves about the gorgeous arches which the changing rainbows made!

I never stirred in all that time from the Canadian side, whither I had gone at first. I never crossed the river again; for I knew there were people on the other shore, and in such a place it is natural to shun strange company. To wander to and fro all day, and see the cataracts from all points of view; to stand upon the edge of the great Horseshoe Fall, marking the hurried water gathering strength as it ap proached the verge, yet seeming, too, to pause before it shot into the gulf below; to gaze from the river's level up at the torrent as it came streaming down; to climb the neighboring heights and watch it through the trees, and see the wreathing water in the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful plunge; to linger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three miles below, watching the river, as, stirred by no visible cause, it heaved and eddied and awoke the echoes, being troubled yet, far down beneath the surface, by its giant leap; to have Niagara before me, lighted by the sun and by the moon, red in the day's decline, and gray as evening slowly