the pearl he hopes
to find in the oyster."

"An optimist is a man who cherishes vain hopes, and a pessimist a man
who nurses vain regrets."

"And what is a man who does both?"

"Oh, he's just a plain ordinary human."

ORIGINALITY

A certain little girl was discovered by her mother engaged in a
spirited encounter with a small friend who had got considerably
worsted in the engagement.

"Don't you know, dear," said the mother, "that it is very wicked to
behave so? It was Satan that put it into your head to pull Elsie's
hair."

"Well, perhaps it was," the child admitted, "but kicking her shins was
entirely my own idea."

OSTRICH

The ostrich is a foolish bird,
With scarcely any mind,
He often runs away so fast,
He leaves himself behind.

And when he gets there, has to stand
And wait around till night,
Without a single thing to do,
Until he comes in sight.

--_Mary Wilkins Freeman_.

OUIJA BOARD

"Do you think Mrs. Spinnix cheated at the ouija board?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say she cheated," replied Miss Cayenne,
"But I couldn't help noticing that it mispelled some of its words the
same way she does."

Harry came home about five o'clock and his face and hands were
very clean and his hair stood on end. His mother took one look and
exclaimed: "Harry, I told you not to go swimmin' with Bob Ross."

"How do you know that I have been swimmin'?" asked Harry.

"Never mind who told me, but I know that you have been swimmin',"
replied his mother.

After a while Harry said: "I'll just bet you anything that Mrs. Ross
was over here this afternoon, and you and Mrs. Ross had that ouija
board out."--_Judge_.

Breathlessly the spiritualistically inclined lady bent over the ouija
spelling out the communications from her departed spouse.

"John, are you happy there?" she asked.

"Yes, d-e-a-r."

"Are you happier than you were on the earth."

"Yes, d-e-a-r."

"Ah," she breathed. "Heaven must be a wonderful place."

"I g-u-e-s-s s-o, b-u-t I-m n-o-t t-h-e-r-e y-e-t."

"Well," said Farmer Corntossel, "I reckon I've done a pretty good
afternoon's work."

"But all you did," commented Jud Tunkins, contemptuously, "was to sit
on the fence and whittle."

"Yes; but what I whittled up was the family ouija board."

PARENTS

_When Ma Is Sick_

When Ma is sick she pegs away;
She's quiet, though; not much t' say.
She g