"Look hyar, Johnny! Here is a position you might git if you had only
done as I have teached and learnt your lesson at school." And Uncle
read, slowly:
Wanted.--A BRIGHT, HONEST, IN-
telligent boy: good Christian; A No. 1
writer; quick at figures, not fond of
play; never reads novels or smokes, or sets
a bad example in any way before children.
Address, * * * * *
"Grandpa, that is a sad reminder," said Fanny, as she came up and looked
over his shoulder at the paper.
"Why?"
"Because God loves a shining mark, and all those boys are dead. On their
tombs should be written: 'Here lies one who lived not wisely, but too
well.'"
"Tut! tut! child, how you do talk!"
"Here, father, here is the one. You know I've always wanted a parrot."
Exchange.--WILL EXCHANGE FINE
Parrot, good talker, for a pet monkey.
Address, * * * * * *
"But, Fanny, where's the monkey to exchange?"
"Why, Johnny, of course. I know it would be a trade," she said,
rapturously.
Johnny had come up in the meantime, and was leaning on Uncle's right
shoulder. At Fanny's words he eyed her suspiciously for a moment, and
then, pointing his finger at another advertisement, said: "Father, send
Fanny to that place at once. Her first meal will take the people a month
to digest, and that will be a big saving, for she won't have to make but
one meal a month, and she will never be bothered about doing so much
fixing up." The advertisement read:
Cook WANTED.--NEED NOT WASH.
Address, * * * * * *
Uncle crumpled the paper up in his hand and said emphatically, "O you
children git out."
But they felt more like talking as they were accustomed to do of
evenings at the farm. Johnny had told his adventures and Uncle and Aunt
had seen wonderful things which they knew were only interesting to them.
What they had seen was to them an awful revelation of what the world was
doing in the various lines of work while the farmers were busy with the
cares of the farm and isolated from the great industries of life where
genius subdues and achieves.
"Somebody brought a heap of wool all the way from New South Wales in
Australia, and I felt ashamed of myself when I seed farm products that
was brought all the way from the Cape of Good Hope and I hadn't brought
nothing from Villaville. We seen farmers from Japan, and China, and
Ceylon. I was shocked to see how them Japanese like to have snakes and
hobgoblins a crawling round their pavilions but when I seed the
Americans jammed all around when there was nicer products in the other
places, I just concluded that maybe after all it was our people that
liked 'em too, and so made 'em set the fashion here.
"The Canadians tried to beat everything with their twenty-two thousand
pound cheese. There is lots of fool extravagance in that place but I
guess it was necessary to show what we farmers can do when we make up
our minds."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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