all of us have our defects; she had hers. In a fearful wind one day
I made the discovery by her being blown over. She had no feet! I don't
think she was the same woman after that terrible day, nor do I remember
that the nose, that was turned awry by the fall, was ever straightened.
When I spoke to her of the new law and her removal to a stand near the
counter, she said it was a good thing. "No woman of proper feeling,"
she said with some asperity, "would have borne it as long as I did.
I never wanted to stand there and be gazed at by men, it looked so
bold. As for those women of brass that like it, it is all very well,
but I couldn't stand it. Admiration can never compensate a right-minded
woman for the staring of men. A woman must be very bold indeed to enjoy
it. I like this retired corner much better than out on the walk. It
has a home feeling about it, and the domestic sphere is always a true
woman's choice." It was borne in upon me somehow, as I listened to
her, that a woman with a broken nose and no feet will always think the
woman with a pretty nose and two feet bold. There is a good deal in
this saying if you will only ponder over it. Ponder it.

* * * * *

Ignominiously stowed away in a back yard I saw an old friend that
always brought many reflections to my mind when exhibited on the
sidewalk--a coop of chickens. The most humiliated of all my old
acquaintances--a dominiquer rooster--had his head up through the slats
to explain the situation. "Here's a pretty howdy do!" he remarked.
"What sort of treatment is this? I can't see anything here except old
whiskey barrels and clothes lines and dry goods boxes. I can hardly
tell when it is daybreak in this miserable old yard. Why, this morning
I commenced crowing two hours too soon, and a Chinaman over there
raised the window and fired a tin can at my head. I can't attend to