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his : th« vault to Zembla's frozen zone, ) his gaze all noxious vapors fly, And send before the sweet perfumes of spring; White merry larks glide up the rounded sky, ant their happy welcoming. f f New succor to their needful wants Dd bursting off their TO where the light reflects the sparkling de* itstretched haft^ i a sure supplf ^ Of oeral wealth to germinate the likd With golden grain that fronts effulgent ilijr. Aquarius O'er mc mountain, moor and placid giant main, And from his fountain haunts he quickly brings His liquid urn to dampen down the jrrain. fhen floral May appears, with roses gay, To deck the bier of those Death stole an 3Rten stay, thou prince of winter, stay you Th»,t fitful breath may coil that august And glimmer far above you where JIM SHANKS. Bay EL.. I" ' ,, p- & • lfcys used to couldn't understand a had tented with him at * * * * ; ^ ' , r : % %S | " t - i ¥ *" % ' i nan until you the front, and weight to the A comrade might be known as a jolly, good-natured fellow at home, but his whole nature would change in a week when you had him where the teal manhood and worth of a man came to the surface, or where a .miserably mean spirit took the place of it, and disgust­ ed you with him. A comrade who shared his last cracker, performed his full share of camp and field work, stood by you in sickness and divided cloth­ ing with you'ill health--such a man was more to you than all the brothers at home, and if he lived to come out of the war has not been forgotten. The army is the place where a man can be meaner than dirt and uglier than a wolf, and yet retain his place in the ranks, or he can be a white man all through and receive no reward: except the gratitude of his tent mate. Now, I never saw a meaner private soldier or a more sulky and morose tent mate than luck gave me in the winter of 1864-5. He came down in the fall to us a recruit, having enlisted for the lng bounty, and at the time the old vets who had faced shot and shell for several years had an edgewise feeling against these "fresh fish," who had pocketed $500 or $600 and come down 0 spend the winter in a warm hut. Some of the recruits realized this, and, by their good-nature and pleasant ways, soon banished the feeling so far as they were concerned. Others were nettled and indignant, and were not inclined that the old vets should get relieved of one single camp duty because of the arrival of new men. * Fate or luck sent me "Jim Shanks" ios a tent mate. He was Jim some one else, but the nickname was very appro- He was dogged and sullen from first, and we hadn't known each i two hours before we had a Next day we fought again, and after that we did not exchange a word for four weeks. When I found how mean he was, and that kind words, kind wishes, and friendly interest would not touch him, I let him alone as far as I could, and contented myself with know­ ing that every other member of Com­ pany £1 hated him as much as I did. One night a band of twenty-five men moved out of our camp for a scout across the Loudon valley, then held by Mosby, and luck placed Jim Shanks alongside of me. He was selected by accident, it being the intention to fafr* a better man, but he was there just the aame, silent, sullen, and ready to elbow or bayonet any one who accidentally brushed him. That night, as we filed along the muddy highway, speaking only in whispers, I saw Jim in front of me, and I whispered to myself: "Jim Shanks, if you don't get killed down here, youH be hung for murder before you aire out of the army a year." Just in the gray of the morning, and when within a mile of Union Town, Jim Shanks and I were sent forward to reconnoiter. I would sooner have gone alone, and ten times sooner V>wd the company of any one else, but luck de­ cided it. We said not a word. I watched Jim and saw that he was as 0001 as an old soldier. He knew as well as I did that we were advancing on Mosby's headquarters, but he stepped out boldly and with no change in his demeanor. When we had nearly reached the church, standing on the hill above the town and facing the road leading to Leesburg, I halted, knowing that a picket must be near. I had not exchanged a word with Jim for days, but now I whispered to him that we must proceed with caution. - "If you are tired, sit down in the fnad," he growled, striding along, and after a minute I followed him, both of us walking on Ihe side of the highway. I knew he would soon strike the picket, . but it was either follow Jim or turn back. Suddenly, and without a word, five or six men rose up in our path. I had barely discerned them when one seized my carbine, and'another tripped me down, while a third growled out: "If you make any fass, youH get a bullet mighty quick." I didn't propose to make any fuss, but Jim Shanks did. The two men who grabbed at him were brushed off like flies, and, whirling his carbine around his head, he cleared a path for himself and was lost in the darkness. More renew1"^ than, a dozen shots were fired after him, and, being intercepted on his retreat down the road, he made for the church on the hill. Before he reached it there were a score of enemies about him, and the reports of the carbines sounded more like a brisk skirmish than a con­ flict with a single soldier, and a raw re­ cruit at that. I think he meant to get into the church, though he could not have told whether it was a church or other building in the darkness. Fail­ ing to get in, he found a retreat under the front steps, and in the darkness the Confederates believed that he had es­ caped altogether. They, however, thpew a line of videttes across roads and fields, and it would not have been pos­ sible for Jim Shanks to regain the road by -which he had come. Had the rest of the command moved up on hearing the row, there might have been a show to release both of us, but they did not come. By the time the soldiers had given up the search for Jim our comrades were on the back track for the Potomac. I was retained at the picket post because Mosby's Lieutenant was there, and be­ cause he hoped to bribe or frighten me into furnishing him information of value. I was, therefore, in position to see the result of Jim Shanks' work, sin­ gle-handed and alone. When he broke* away he disabled one man by a blow from his carbine. In his flight he killed one and wounded two others. Wound­ ed and dead were brought to the picket post, and I saw them. Mosby's men were terribly incensed, and, but for the fear of an attack by our force, whose strength they did not know, I believe they would have hung me up in their first rage. It was the guerrilla chieftain's last dash into the beautiful valley. He was gathering forage and hurrying it back to Lee's lines, and many farmers were robbed of their last horse and their last ear of corn. In three days more they would have been out of the valley en­ tirely. At the first signs of daylight, and when the old church on the hill was hardly visible through the gray of the morning, came a bullet which bored a soldier through and through' and dropped him dead in his tracks. It was from the«carbine of Jim Shanks. Hid­ ing under the steps, he had only waited for daylight to open the fight anew-- not waiting to be hunted out and cap­ tured. All was excitement in an in­ stant, and as soon as Jim's location was betrayed th6 guerrillas scattered and formed a skirmish line. The fire of this was concentrated on the steps, and was as rapid as if opposed to a line of battle. The firing had just begun when one of the skirmishers fell away from a stump with a bullet in his head. In three minutes another was shot through the chest. Jim Shanks had forty rounds of ammunition, and he fired slowly and with precision. I could see splinters fly from the steps every time a ball struck, and I knew that many of the bullets were driving through the boards. For a long twenty minutes Jim held that skirmish line of thirty- five men at bay, killing three and wounding two. I counted his shots, and he fired just twenty-one times. A reinforcement of about twenty mounted men finally came up, and, hitching horses under cover of the hill, the men took the skirmish line. Just as the firing began anew, Jim Shanks suddenly left his cover and ran for the horses down the road. Every skirmisher rose up, and there must have been at least 100 bullets fired at the running man in the next minute. I saw them plow up the earth all around him, and one ef them sent his oap sailing into the air. As he got *in line with the horses the fire slackened, while the men saw his plan and rushed forward. Jim was in no hurry. Besting his carbine over a saddle, he wounded another of his pursuers, and it seemed a full min­ ute before he mounted and rode off to­ ward Leesburg. There was a rush for the horses, and away they galloped after the recruit, firing to they rode. The strange luck that had stood by Jim Shanks in his fight might have aided him to escape had he selected a better horse. After a gallop of half an hour he found his pursuers gaining, and, in trying to get into the fields, his horse fell, rolled over the poor fellow, and the pursuers found him dead when they rode up. His clothing was fairly riddled with bullets and yet flesh had not been scratched. The church steps were as full of holes as a colander and about the same distance apart, and yet Jim was not wounded. Mean- spirited, obstinate, and dogged as a tent mate, he had the courage of a lion and the gallantry of a Knight, and the first and last grave ever dug for a Union soldier by Mosby's men was hollowed out for a recruit who had never been at M.QUA* nn MOST BiMnrurrrm oi As an illustration of the luxuriant de­ velopment of tropical nature and the changes and varieties consequent upon natural selection, Mr. Wallace gives a detailed account of the family of the humming-birds. These beautiful little creatures are found only in America, and are almost exclusively confined to the tropical zone. There are 400 differ­ ent species, the largest about the size of a swallow, and the smallest scarcely larger than a humble-bee. They live upon honey, which they extract from flowers, but require also a oertain pro­ portion of insect food* In Juan Fer­ nandez *he humming-birds, which be­ long to a Chilian species, form a very good illustration, ^ in the changes through which they have passed, of variation and natural selection, the fac­ tors in these .changes being abundance of fopd and freedom from the competi­ tion of any rival species. The tongue of the humming-bird is tubular and retractive; it is very long, and is capable of being extended far beyond the beak and rapfdly drawn back, so as to suck up hor >y from the nectaries of flowers and capture small insects. Seen in its familiar haunts, poised on rapid wing in the vivid sun­ light, the humming-bird gleams like a jewel with the iridescent hues of the amethyst, the ruby and the sapphire; but, like the parrots of its native for­ ests, the basis of its brilliant coloring is green--not a sickly green, such as adorns the parrot's neck and breast, but a bright, dazzling, metallic hue, which seems to reflect every varying gleam of the sunshine. The flight of these little creatures is inconceivably rapid. " The bird," Mr. Wallace says, " may be said to live in the air--an element in which it per­ forms every kind of evolution with the greatest ease, frequently rising perpen­ dicularly, flying backward, pirouetting or dancing off, as it were, from place to place, or from one part of a tree to an­ other, sometimes descending, at, others ascending." It was long thought that humming­ birds would noi live in confinement; and this idea is so far correct that, though easily tamed, they will not live long in captivity if fed only on sirup. If confined to this food, they die in a month or two, apparently starved; whereas, if kept in a small rop^i, the windows of which are covered with fine net, so as to allow insects to enter, they may be preserved for a considerable time in health and beauty. Their nests are very curious; many of them are cup-shaped and very small, sometimes no larger than the half of a walnut-shell; and they are often beautifully decorated on the outside with lichens, so as to exactly resemble the branch, in the fork of which they are placed. They are formed of cottony substances, and are lined inside with fibers as fine and soft as silk. The nests of other species are hammock-shaped, and are suspended to creepers; the Pichineha humming-bird has been known to attach its nest to a straw rope hanging in a shed; their eggs are white, and they never lay more than one cor two. Once, when on the Ama­ zon, Mr. Wallace had a nest of young humming-birds brought to him, which he tried to feed on sirup, supposing that they would be fed on honey by their parents. To his surprise, how­ ever, they not only would not swallow the liquid, but nearly choked them­ selves in the efforts to eject it. He then caught some very small flies, and dropped one into the wide-open mouth of the poor little orphan humming­ bird; it closed instantly with a satisfied gulp, and opened again for more. The little creatures, he found, demanded fifteen or twenty flies each in succes­ sion before they were satisfied; and the piocess of feeding and fly-catching to­ gether required so much time that he was reluctantly compelled to abandon them to their fate. MAKES THJT BEST OF IT. It is scarcely necessary to remind reasonable men that if they wish to be sad and sour, to grumble and complain, there is always a chance. Seasons for being oast down and dejected are a• plenty as blackberries in the height of the blackberry harvest. If one thing goes right, you may be sure there is al­ ways something else going wrong, and if one thing is in order something else is out of joint, or, at any rate, soon will be. The chief difference in the feelings and dispositions of people results from the different way of looking at things. Few nights are so dark that no stars are to be seen; the thing is to look them out and keep your eyes on them, and make the most of what light you can discover. A WOMAN started to carry her twin babies five miles through the woods in Sand Hill, S. C., but lost her way, and was found almost dead at the end of ten days, with the' infants lying lifeless be­ side her. People who can look back to Calais as it was twenty years ago may ber a small shop kept by a tobacconist, which stood at the corner of the Bue de Guise, nearest to the Place. The house belonged to a maideq lady, who, like most French shopkeepers, lived on the ground floor, and .was glad to let the first and second floors, comprising some elegant apartments, to English families, who swarm over to Calais in the sum­ mer season for sea bathing. French people carefully abstained from renting these apartments, as the mysterious dis­ appearance of the last occupant three years before had caused rumors of all kinds to circulate in the town. The tenant in question was a military man, a Captain in the regiment then on garri son duty, was unmarried and lived by himself, passing most of his time in one of the numerous cafes, which are the invariable resort of French officers. He seldom had any visitors, but a sergeant of the same regiment came morning and evening to receive his orders and to at­ tend to his personal requirements. One morning this man walked into the shop below, where the mistress of the house was serving her customers, and asked her if she had seen his master, for he had found the private door open, and, on going as usual up stairs, had seen the bed had not been slept in, and that all the room was as he had left it the night before. The lady replied that she tad heard no sound whatever in the ^apartment above since the sounding of the retraite the night before at half past 8, when she certainly heard the hall door shut, and supposed it was the Captain coming in, as was his wont, at that hour. The whole town searched; the police were applied to; the sergeant, on whom suspicion at first fell, was subjected to a searching examination; but no result followed, except that upon looking over the things in his room one large sheet was missing from the newly-made bed. In short, his fate remained shrouded in the deepest mystery. Three years after this event the apartments, newly and elegantly fur­ nished, were let for the summer to the family of Judge D -r, consisting of his wife and some young people, mostly grown up. . Hav­ ing settled themselves comfortably, they were at tea one eveninf in a sitting- room which opened immediately on the stairs ̂ going down to the private en­ trance, and which reached to within a few feet of the hall door, which space formed a very narrow, dark passage, a common mode of saving room in old French houses. As the family sat at tea the drum on the place began to beat the retraite, and just as they finished three loud knocks were given on the door of the sitting-room. Haying in vain given the usual response, "Entrez 1" one of the family opened the door and looked down the staircase. No one was there, and, as was natural, they thought their unknown visitor had left the house. As this knocking occurred two or three evenings in succession with the same result, the family determined to lock the hohse door at the foot of the stairs and to watch for the mysterious knocker. The knocks came as usual when the retraite sounded, but before the third knock was given the watchers inside suddenly threw open the door, and confronted a tall figure closely wrapped in a large white sheet, which suddenly vanished down the stairs, and sank out of their sight at the bottom. The next night the same thing hap­ pened, and Judge D r found it nec­ essary to remove his family, who were much alarmed and agitated by what had occurred. Soon after this the owner of the house, finding it impossible to let her rooms, had the whole building taken down, and an entirely new house and shop built on the old site. When the workmen removed the staircase and took up the flooring of the narrow pass­ age at its foot, they found the decaying body of a military man wrapped round and round in a large white sheet. There could be no doubt that this was the un­ fortunate Captain, who had been foully murdered and buried in the silence of the night, but by whom oould never be found out, as the sergeant, who was al­ ways under deep suspicion, had died in hospital of dissipation and absinthe more than a year before the discovery. ECONOMY. In nothing can a woman economize to more advantage than in the matter of cookery, provided that she is an experi­ enced cook; for in foods more depends upon the bkill of the cook than on any-' thing else. A prudent and economical housewife will make a soup of bits of cold meat and the broken bones of a roast, flavored with an onion, a carrot, and a bunch of parsley, that will be more savory than many a soup of thrice the cost made by a raw Irish girl. From the toughest parts of a fat and well- flavored piece of beef or mutton she will compound toothsome and appetiz­ ing stews and roasts and potted meats that will make the eater forget that there are choicer bits with whioh he might be regaled. Pieces of stale bread; SI she wiU dry in the oven before they mold, and have always on hand de- - "*• lightful crumbs to enrich soup or make ^ force meat to give flavor and richness, ^ to some pieoe of cheap but good meat. '1 *-'* If "hard times" teach people how to j- make a little go a long way, teaching hitherto extravagant folk how to1 ^ ^ economize and be satisfied with necessi-. t ties instead of luxuries, this trying timet ? will not be * ITEMS OF INTEREST. THE endeavor made at the last ses­ sion of Congress to abolish the Govern­ ment printing office, and give the pub­ lic printing to a private firm^was a fail- Like the beauty of the rainbow, Sign of heaven's < Like a dove o'er troubled waters. Like a hand to lead in blindnaM, ' where no wicked guile is. i! 1] -1? ;rs. >my pen r. i is knowing /Tou will find the following a and simple plan for ascertaining the quantity of type necessary for a paper of any dimensions: A page of type four inches by six inches weighs, on the average, seven and one-half pounds. Take this as a starting-point, and then add 40 per cent, to cover inequalities of sorts, and this will give you the weight near enough for all practical purposes. ALTHOUGH a printer may befitting all day, yet in his own way he is a great traveler, or at least his hand is, as we shall prove. A good printer will set 8,000 ems a day, or about 25,000 letters. The distance traveled over by his hand will average about one foot per letter, going to the boxes in whioh they are contained, and, of. course, returning, makes two feet for every letter he sets. This would make a distance, each day of 48,000 feet, or a little more than nine miles; and, in the course of a year,leav ing out Sundays, that member travels about 3,000 miles. A NEW paper substitute for earthen­ ware has been introduced in England. The ware has cotton pulp as its founda tion. To give its surface the brilliancy and smoothness of earthenware, it covered with a coating of a special man­ ufacture, into which a composition of melted glass largely enters. It is not brittle, but partakes of suffi< ticity to obviate the tendency to crack and to permit the admission of water into its substance. It is light, durable, and sufficiently strong to allow of rough ACCORDING to the report of the Ger­ man Postoffice Department, for the year 1877, the circulation of papers and jour­ nals in the German empire was as fol­ lows: In the German language--in­ cluding those from the United Statei 4,696; French, 831; English, 704; Ital­ ian, 142; Norwegian, 26; Swedish, 89; Portuguese, 3; Servian, 9; Spanish, 17; Armenian, 2; Bohemian, 18; Croatian, 3; Danish, 62; Finnish, 1; Greek, 9; Hebrew, 6; Dutch; 80; Lithuanian, 2; Persian, 2; Polish, 65 ; Roumanian, 32; Bomanish, 2; Russian, 69; Ruthenian, 27; Sclavic, 4; Turkish, 4; Hungarian, 28; Flemish, 5; Wendish, 6. STAY AT HOME. Young man, if you have a home m the country, stay there. Don't help to overcrowd the city. City life is a hard life, especially at the present time, when for every vacant situation there are half a dozen applicants. One out of a hun­ dred in a city may be able to lay up little money, and one out of 2,000 may become wealthy; a small portion will live in comparatively comfortable cir­ cumstances; the rest, even if they get and keep constant employment, arc drudges, who work hard, get poor pay, besides being condemned to unwhole­ some diet, and to breathe foul air. In the country very few men have an < ouse for being wretchedly poor. The nation would be richer, happier and better if the exoess of population in the cities would remove to fertile farms, of which there are an abundanoe, and en­ gage in tilling the soil. It is an occu­ pation quite as honorable as selling dry goods, and far more desirable than the drudgery or confinement of city life, that wears out the body before old age comes, and offers no adequate wages to sustain life in return.. If you axe wise, you will not desert the country. THERE is an ordinance in San Fran­ cisco that requires the'Sheriff to cut off the queues of Chinamen who are sent to the county jail. One prisoner, who was thus treated, sued the Sheriff after regaining his liberty; he denied the constitutionality of the ordinance, and the question thus raised has been un­ der consideration by a United States Judge for some time. Meanwhile, the Sheriff continues to cut off the queues as' fast as he gets jurisdiction over them, and the Chinamen are bringing so many suits against him for repara­ tion that the Board of Supervisors have found it necessary to provide ex­ tra counsel for his defense. ) glowing. • . ELI OXUM vtwmi.T 0 To-day she walks the golden street*,; 'ofmorninteaV^ harp, 17 •• By God's own angel given. t*» v*. ' It i8 a glorious Sabbath morn, . ' The first that nhe in heaven has known. " PLTTSFIJBLD, Mass. HATTBI E. 8. C. PLEASANTRIES. *r A MAN of pluck--The fewl-stripper, %U To CURE a felon--Hang drel. EVERY baker'sshop haul-Stealing A BACHELOR who lately died in Man­ chester, England, left his property to he thirty women who had refused his matrimonii offers. He said in his will that to their refusals he owed the peace he had enjoyed during his life, and he felt himself their debtor. BoATON^xpenses this year are esti­ mated at $9,870,220. scoun- jtomach \ f > atomb- THE great Teller Committee--Wom­ ankind. DRESSMAKERS and butchers are ever weltering in gore. DON'T get in debt to a shoemaker, if you would call your sole your own. THE Government detective at the Mint may not be good enough to eat, even if he is a mint spy. THE man who sighed for the wings of a dove probably did not know that the legs were much better eating. now the washerwomen have an e National Laundry Jov/f* nal, just started in Chicago. "PA," said Pet, "may I det up and twoton your knee?" "Certainly," wad the ready reply, "let the little gallop." Ax accountant who visited Bunker Hill monument last summer says it is the longest column he ever footed up. I H IN Michigan etiquette permits a bride to be married without gloves--precise-^ ly the way she handles her husband.-- aBuffalo Express. THKBK'S one thing, boys, that you, mu»t shun, If you would win your suit; We know, for we've been there ourselves-- It is the old man's boot. "WHAT is the usual definition of con* science?" asked a man of his pastor.^ "A man's rule for his neighbor's con#^ duct is about the way it comes out prac- . tically," was the reply. A YOUNG man who was kieked off the front doorstep while endeavoring to 4 serenade his girl, by her enraged papa, was too cautious to call him an old pi- . rate, but he didn't hesitate to designate j him as a free-booter. AN obliging spirit prompted the Jer­ sey farmer, who put a two-pound whet- a stone in every turkey he sent to the j New York market. He knew the buy- , ers tfould find the stones indispensable when it came to carving the fowls. "COME, now, stupid," said the school- * 1 master, "you don't know how much two and five make. Now listen. In one pocket I have $2 and in the other $5. Now how many dollars have I got?" "Let me see them, ancf I will tell you." School WAITING FCR THE MAY. Come with your perfumed robes, winds of Mfty. (Pull her wide open and give her sand); Wrapped in your tender arms, bear me away Into some fairy enchanted land, Where the slumbering winter can never awake, Where the snow-clouds never loom up and break, Where there * * * ain't enough winter to Croat a cake, Give me a ticket to that fair land. MR. RAGSDALK, Treasurer of Jeffer­ son county, Ind., broke his engagement with a poor girl to marry a rich widow, and a jury compelled him to pay $900 damages. "Well," he said, as he hand­ ed over the money, "I am still about $20,000 ahead by the change." AN exohange notes the faet that there are other fields of ambition for young women than walking quarter-miles in quarter-hours, and points to the record of a Connecticut girl who achieved five divorces in five consecutive quarter- years, and she is still in good condition. I» YOU. • If you stick A stamp, It is stack. If yon lick A lamp, It is luck. If yon trick A tramp, It is track. --New York Matt. \ RECENTLY a young man was presented in a family where there is a marriage­ able daughter, and as soon he had taken his leave the friend who had introduced him said to the father: "Well, how would he suit you for a son-in-law, hey ?" "Yery well, indeed," says the father. All right; suppose he comes round to­ morrow and proposes?" Father (with dignity)--"To-morrow? Pooh, pooh; what are you 'thinking off That would be indecent haste. Say the day after to-morrow."