My friend Zacharias was accustomed to sleep with a heated stone at his feet; for the feet of Mr. Zacharias were as the feet of the dead. One night he retired as usual, and it chanced that he awoke some hours afterwards with a well-defined smell of burning leather, making it pleasant for his nostrils. “Mrs. Zacharias,” said he, nudging his snoring spouse, “I wish you would get up and look about. I think one of the children must have fallen into the fire.” The lady, who from habit had her own feet stowed comfortably away against the warm stomach of her lord and master, declined to make the investigation demanded, and resumed the nocturnal melody. Mr. Zacharias was angered; for the first time since she had sworn to love, honour, and obey, this female was in open rebellion. He decided upon prompt and vigorous action. He quietly moved over to the back side of the bed and braced his shoulders against the wall. Drawing up his sinewy knees to a level with his breast, he placed the soles of his feet broadly against the back of the insurgent, with the design of propelling her against the opposite wall. There was a strangled snort, then a shriek of female agony, and the neighbours came in. Mutual explanations followed, and Mr. Zacharias walked the streets of Grass Valley next day as if he were treading upon eggs worth a dollar a dozen. The Scolliver Pig One of Thomas Jefferson’s maxims is as follows: “When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, count a hundred.” I once knew a man to square his conduct by this rule, with a most gratifying result. Jacob Scolliver, a man prone to bad temper, one day started across the fields to visit his father, whom he generously permitted to till a small corner of the old homestead. He found the old gentleman behind the barn, bending over a barrel that was canted over at an angle of seventy degrees, and from which issued a cloud of steam. Scolliver _père_ was evidently scalding one end of a dead pig—an operation essential to the loosening of the hair, that the corpse may be plucked and shaven. “Good morning, father,” said Mr. Scolliver, approaching, and displaying a long, cheerful smile. “Got a nice roaster there?” The elder gentleman’s head turned slowly and steadily, as upon a swivel, until his eyes pointed backward; then he drew his arms out of the barrel, and finally, revolving his body till it matched his head, he deliberately mounted upon the supporting block and sat down upon the sharp edge of the barrel in the hot steam. Then he replied, “Good mornin’ Jacob. Fine mornin’.” “A little warm in spots, I should imagine,” returned the son. “Do you find that a comfortable seat?” “Why-yes-it’s good enough for an old man,” he answered, in a slightly husky voice, and with an uneasy gesture of the legs; “don’t make much difference in this life where we set, if we’re good—does it? This world ain’t heaven, anyhow, I s’spose.”