Will the coming voter be an automatic, legless, hairless mollusk with an abnormal ear constantly glued to the tube of a big tank full of symmetrical ideas furnished by a national bureau of brains in the employ of the party in power? UTAH BY EUGENE FIELD Bowed was the old man's snow-white head, A troubled look was on his face, "Why come you, sir," I gently said, "Unto this solemn burial place?" "I come to weep a while for one Whom in her life I held most dear, Alas, her sands were quickly run, And now she lies a sleeping here." "Oh, tell me of your precious wife, For she was very dear, I know, It must have been a blissful life You led with her you treasure so?" "My wife is mouldering in the ground, In yonder house she's spinning now, And lo! this moment may be found A driving home the family cow; "And see, she's standing at the stile, And leans from out the window wide, And loiters on the sward a while, Her forty babies by her side." "Old man, you must be mad!" I cried, "Or else you do but jest with me; How is it that your wife has died And yet can here and living be? "How is it while she drives the cow She's hanging out her window wide, And loiters, as you said just now, With forty babies by her side?" The old man raised his snowy head, "I have a sainted wife in Heaven; I am a Mormon, sir," he said, "My sainted wife on earth are seven." TALK BY JOHN PAUL It seems to me that talk should be, Like water, sprinkled sparingly; Then ground that late lay dull and dried Smiles up at you revivified, And flowers--of speech--touched by the dew Put forth fresh root and bud anew. But I'm not sure that any flower Would thrive beneath Niagara's shower! So when a friend turns full on me His verbal hose, may I not flee? I know that I am arid ground, But I'm not watered--Gad! I'm drowned! A WINTER FANCY (_Little Tommy Loq_) BY R.K. MUNKITTRICK My father piles the snow-drifts Around his rosy face, And covers all his whiskers-- The grass that grows apace. And then he runs the snow-plough Across his smiling lawn, And all the snow-drifts vanish And then the grass is gone. JACK BALCOMB'S PLEASANT WAYS BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON There comes a time in the life of young men when their college fraternity pins lie forgotten in the collar-button box and the spiking of freshmen ceases to be a burning issue. Tippecanoe was one of the few freshwater colleges that barred women; but this was not its only distinction, for its teaching was sound, its campus charming and the town of which it was the chief ornament a quiet place noted from the beginning of things for its cultivated people.