I met a man in Oregon who hadn't any teeth--not a tooth in his head--yet that man could play on the bass drum better than any man I ever met.... * * * * * Brigham Young has two hundred wives. Just think of that! Oblige me by thinking of that. That is--he has eighty actual wives, and he is spiritually married to one hundred and twenty more. These spiritual marriages--as the Mormons call them--are contracted with aged widows--who think it a great honor to be sealed--the Mormons call it being sealed--to the Prophet. So we may say he has two hundred wives. He loves not wisely--but two hundred well. He is dreadfully married. He's the most married man I ever saw in my life.... * * * * * I regret to say that efforts were made to make a Mormon of me while I was in Utah. It was leap-year when I was there--and seventeen young widows--the wives of a deceased Mormon--offered me their hearts and hands. I called on them one day--and taking their soft white hands in mine--which made eighteen hands altogether--I found them in tears. And I said--"Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?" They hove a sigh--seventeen sighs of different size.--They said-- "Oh--soon thou wilt be gonested away!" I told them that when I got ready to leave a place I wentested. They said--"Doth not like us?" I said--"I doth--I doth!" I also said--"I hope your intentions are honorable--as I am a lone child--my parents being far--far away." They then said--"Wilt not marry us?" I said--"Oh no--it cannot was." Again they asked me to marry them--and again I declined. When they cried-- "Oh--cruel man! This is too much--oh! too much!" I told them that it was on account of the muchness that I declined.--_Works_. FRANK R. STOCKTON. (BORN, 1834.) * * * * * OUR TAVERN. It was about noon of a very fair July day, when Euphemia and myself arrived at the little town where we were to take the stage up into the mountains. We were off for a two weeks' vacation and our minds were a good deal easier than when we went away before, and left Pomona at the helm. We had enlarged the boundaries of Rudder Grange, having purchased the house, with enough adjoining land to make quite a respectable farm. Of course I could not attend to the manifold duties on such a place, and my wife seldom had a happier thought than when she proposed that we should invite Pomona and her husband to come and live with us. Pomona was delighted, and Jonas was quite willing to run our farm. So arrangements were made, and the young couple were established in apartments in our back building, and went to work as if taking care of us and our possessions was the ultimate object of their lives. Jonas was such a steady fellow that we feared no trouble from tree-man or lightning rodder during this absence.