s
on the giant's features, presented his bill, and returned. By nine
o'clock Sumner didn't have features enough left for a Sunday paper. He
looked as if he had been through the elevated station at City Hall and
Brooklyn bridge. He looked up sadly at me with his one eye as who should
say, "Have you got any more of that there red paint left?" But I shook
my head at him and he went away into a little patch of catnip and
stayed there four days. After that you could get that rooster to do
anything for you--except lay. He was gentle to a fault. He would run
errands for those hens and turn an icecream freezer for them all day
on lawn festival days while others were gay. He never murmured nor
repined. He was kind to the little chickens and often spoke to them
about the general advantages of humility.

After many years of usefulness Sumner one day thoughtlessly ate the
remains of a salt mackerel, and pulling the drapery of his couch about
him he lay down to pleasant dreams, and life's fitful fever was over.
His remains were given to a poor family in whom I take a great interest,
frequently giving them many things for which I have no especial use.

This should teach us that some people can not stand prosperity, but need
a little sorrow, ever and anon, to teach them where they belong. And,
oh! how the great world smiles when a rooster, who has owned the ranch
for a year or so, and made himself odious, gets spread out over the
United States by a smaller one with less voice.

The study of the fowl is filled with interest. Of late years I keep
fowls instead of a garden. Formerly my neighbors kept fowls and I kept
the garden.

It is better as it is.

Mertie Kersykes, Whatcom, Washington, writes as follows: "Dear Mr. Nye,
does pugilists ever reform? They are so much brought into Contax with
course natures that I do not see how they can ever, ever become good
lives or become professors of religion. Do you know if such is the case
to the best of your knowledge, and answeer Soon as convenient, and so no
more at Present."

AS A CANDIDATE

XII

The heat and venom of each political campaign bring back to my mind with
wonderful clearness the bitter and acrimonious war, and the savage
factional fight, which characterized my own legislative candidacy in
what was called the Prairie Dog District of Wyoming, about ten years
ago. This district was known far and wide as the battleground of the
territory, and generally when the sun