“Me! My land, how pleased I’d be. Why, it’d be like gittin’ to heaven—mighty nigh,” said Polly growing hot and cold by turns. “Now that the boys is both goin’ down to live with pa, too. Seem like things is turnin’ out too good to be true.” “Don’t it! Tobe, can we go soon?” Mary asked breathlessly. “Soon as you’n Polly can fix what you want to take along,” Tobe answered eagerly. “I’ll go over an’ fetch the chillun from the factory while you all git ready. We’d oughter git home by dark.” Then he rose and strode buoyantly across the sun-baked hill to the factory door and Mary rose, too, tremblingly, but without hesitation, while Polly held herself in readiness to support her frail figure should her strength desert her. But there was no further need of anxiety, for Mary had tasted the elixir of life during that brief, transfiguring hour when love had put to rout the dreariness of hope deferred and filled her heart with joy unspeakable. [Illustration] Bobby Jonks; His Hand and Pen Man is an animal, but you can easily detect him from the rest of them when he has his hat on. He is of few days and full of things that the doctors cut out if they get half a chance. My Uncle Bob is a bachelor. A bachelor is a man who smokes in bed and burns himself up every once in a while and goes to glory a-hollerin’, while everybody else says “Oh, pshaw!” and “Did you ever?” All bachelors are wise, but my Uncle Bob knows ’most everything; he says he believes he’d be in Congress right now if it wasn’t for his modesty—no, honesty. But, says he, there is one thing he never could fully make up his mind about, and that is whether clam-digging is fishing or agriculture. A hog is a quadruped; the love of money is the root of all evil—thus we see why the motto of a rich man so often is “Root hog or die!” A man is either a biped or a cripple, according to whether he has messed around in a sawmill or not. The difference between a biped and a quadruped is two legs. A three-legged stool is a tripod, and is mostly used by country editors. A turtle is a quadruped, but he can’t climb a tree and get off a good joke about making a noise like a nut. Neither can some people. On the only three occasions in a man’s history when he cuts any particular mustard he is called “it”—when he is a baby, a bridegroom and a corpse. And in all three instances he is said by his admiring friends to look real natural. Man was made to mourn, but Uncle Bob says the dad-dogged fool always thinks he can get out of it by marrying again. A woman may be as handsome as a circus horse but she is never satisfied to let another woman be handsome, too. It’s different altogether with a hog—he is perfectly contented to let everybody else be hogs if they want to. Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? _Assessment Insurance_ A HOMILY ON THE ROYAL ARCANUM BY MICHAEL MORONEY