"No, ma, it ain't none o' mine."

"John," continued she, with a cold, unimpassioned earnestness,
"where did you get this thing?"

"Why, ma," returned the hopeful, "that's Pap's."

"John"--and there was just a touch of severity in her voice--"when
your mother asks you a question you should answer that particular
question. Where did you get this?"

"Out in the medder, then, if you're so derned pertikeller," retorted
the youngster, somewhat piqued; "the mowin' machine lopped it off."

The old lady rose and restored the head into the hands of the young
man. Then, straightening with some difficulty her aged back, and
assuming a matronly dignity of bearing and feature, she emitted the
rebuke following:

"My son, the gentleman whom you hold in your hand-any more pointed
allusion to whom would be painful to both of us-has punished you a
hundred times for meddling with things lying about the farm. Take
that head back and put it down where you found it, or you will make
your mother very angry." Deathbed Repentance.

An old man of seventy-five years lay dying. For a lifetime he had
turned a deaf ear to religion, and steeped his soul in every current
crime. He had robbed the orphan and plundered the widow; he had
wrested from the hard hands of honest toil the rewards of labour;