rattlesnakes, but
assured that they would always give the warning rattle before striking.

One hot day he was eating his noon luncheon on a pine log when he saw a
big rattler coiled a few feet in front of him. He eyed the serpent and
began to lift his legs over the log. He had barely got them out of the
way when the snake's fangs hit the bark beneath him.

"Son of a guna!" yelled Pietro. "Why you no ringa da bell?"

WASHINGTON, GEORGE

A Barnegat schoolma'am had been telling her pupils something about
George Washington, and finally she asked:

"Can any one now tell me which Washington was--a great general or a
great admiral?"

The small son of a fisherman raised his hand, and she signaled him to
speak.

"He was a great general," said the boy. "I seen a picture of him
crossing the Delaware, and no great admiral would put out from shore
standing up in a skiff."

A Scotsman visiting America stood gazing at a fine statue of George
Washington, when an American approached.

"That was a great and good man, Sandy," said the American; "a lie never
passed his lips."

"Weel," said the Scot, "I praysume he talked through his nose like the
rest of ye."

WASPS

The wasp cannot speak, but when he says "Drop it," in his own inimitable
way, neither boy nor man shows any remarkable desire to hold on.

WASTE

The automobile rushed down the road--huge, gigantic, sublime. Over the
fence hung the woman who works hard and long-her husband is at the cafe
and she has thirteen little ones. (An unlucky number.) Suddenly upon the
thirteenth came the auto, unseeing, slew him, and hummed on, unknowing.
The woman who works hard and long rushed forward with hands, hands made
rough by toil, upraised. She paused and stood inarticulate--a goddess,
a giantess. Then she hurled forth these words of derision, of despair:
"Mon Dieu! And I'd just washed him!"--_Literally translated from Le
Sport of Paris_.

A Boston physician tells of the case of a ten-year-old boy, who, by
reason of an attack of fever, became deaf. The physician could afford
the lad but little relief, so the boy applied himself to the task of
learning the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. The other members of his family,
too, acquired a working knowledge of the alphabet, in order that they
might converse with the unfortunate youngster.

During the course of the next few months, however, Tommy's hearing
suddenly returned to him, assisted no doubt by a s