ow slightly pale,
Yet wonder at the calm reply:
"All our tears are but idle, gentlemen,
Go bring in the eels and set him again."

[Illustration]

THE BRONCO COW.

BILL NYE UNDERTAKES TO MILK HER WHEN THE SIGN IS NOT RIGHT--DISASTROUS
RESULTS.

When I was young and used to roam around over the country, gathering
water-melons in the dark of the moon, I used to think I could milk
anybody's cow, but I do not think so now. I do not milk a cow now unless
the sign is right, and it hasn't been right for a good many years.

The last cow I tried to milk was a common cow, born in obscurity; kind
of a self-made cow. I remember her brow was low, but she wore her tail
high and she was haughty, oh, so haughty.

I made a common-place remark to her, one that is used in the very best
of society, one that need not have given offense anywhere. I said
"so"--and she "soed". Then I told her to "histe"--and she histed. But I
thought she overdid it. She put too much expression in it.

Just then I heard something crash through the window of the barn and
fall with a dull, sickening thud on the outside.

The neighbors came to see what it was that caused the noise. They found
that I had done it in getting through the window.

I asked the neighbors if the barn was still standing. They said it was.
Then I asked if the cow was injured much. They said she seemed to be
quite robust. Then I requested them to go in and calm the cow a little
and see if they could get my plug hat off her horns.

I am buying all my milk now of a milk-man. I select a gentle milk-man
who will not kick and I feel as though I could trust him. Then if he
feels as though he could trust me, it is all right.

AUTUMN THOUGHTS.

There can be nothing sadder than the solemn hush of nature that precedes
the death of the year. The golden glory of autumn, with the billowy
bronze and velvet azure of the skies above the royal robes of oak and
maple, bespeak the closing hours of nature's teeming life and the silent
farewell to humanity's gauze underwear.

Thus while nature dons her regal robe of scarlet and gold in honor of
the farewell benefit to autumn, the sad-eyed poet hies away to a
neighboring clothes line, and the hour of nature's grand blowout dons
the flaming flannels of his friend out of respect for the hectic flush
of the dying year.

Leaves have their time to fall, and so has the price of coal. And yet
how sadly at variance with dec