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THC Thun PAA/rr lj VJlVlIv Clothing Shoes Shirts Pants Hai Suit Cases Trunks and m m m Men's Underwea Everything Ret BEG Thursday, Jul) I Closes Monday I , TEN DAYS A FAMILY 1 By ROSE E. > Mr. Dalton looked at the school bills and sighed. It was not that he begTudged the goodly array of dollars which every quarter demanded for the liberal education of his sons and daughters. On the contrary, the sacrifice which he made to send these young folks out into life well and truly equipped was reckoned amongst the burdens which he bore joyfully. "I am not a rich man, and probably never shall be," he would say quietly to himself, and then he always added: "Thank God, however, that with hard work I can manage to give my children the best." No, the school bills were not in themselves responsible for the fact that Mr. Dalton faced them with a sigh. Rather were they suggesters?recallers, as it were?of facts that ot late had obtruded themselves in painful^ hard distinct outlines across this busy man's horizon. It was not that his children were laggards in the nice for light and learning. On the contrary, they were hiiuwn as i>rani> yuuug iuiivs, auu medals and diplomas were the expected rather than the surprising facts of their school career. Neither could they be truthfully dubbed wild or unprincipled. People watching their daily walk and conversation affirmed that they played the game of life squarely and well and "that any father might well be proud of such a goodly bunch of frank, honest, smart boys and girls.' But Mr. Dalton was in no wise deceived by those ecomiums. He "faced the music," as was his wont, in straightforward, business-like fashion. "My children," he announced forcefully and finally to himself "are helpless." And then, glancing up from the school bills and the worrying thoughts which they suggested, he saw standing In his office doorway the portly form of Cousin Josiah Dobbs. Now it was a fact not to be explained by either psychology, theology or any other "ology," that this rough, plain farmer from the north country had a well developed faculty for diagnosing the ills to which flesh is heir. People came to him with lame horses, troublesome finances. church quarrels and unruly boys: and whilst it might not be said msa tday, th - YO m --V, ts y- V* \^%5 ?---:r;^>^ ^ H"-^ ^iv^* ySfearaf ^ heed at this Store INS HP I 1 18th- 1 I , July 29 YOR ONLY . EXCHANGE VAKEFIELD. that he was a universal saviour, U could truthfully be affirmed that he generally laid his finger upon the seat of the difficulty. Upon this particular morning in Lawyer Dalton's office he had no sooner finished his hearty greetings than he remarked in his usual direct, kindly fashion: "And now, Joseph Dalton, I'd like precious well to know what you are worry in* about. When I came in I felt dead certain either you'd lost your last case in court or that your children were agoin' to the bad." "The latter surmise is correct," Mr. Dalton replied, gravely, and then, because telling Joslah Dobbs one's troubles was as natural as for water to run down hill, he offered the following explanation: "They are not 'going to the bad," in the ordinary acceptation of the term, Cousin Josiah. I know where my boys are every night, and they are all of them clean-limbed, straight-living young fellows. My girls, too, are as modest, womanly lassies, as you will find in the countryside. Nevertheless, my children are developing many of the characteristics that make for failure in life, and I am as powerless as a baby to stay their careless, reckless pace." Cousin Josiah said never a word, but there were questiohs in his keen, gray eyes, and Mr. Dalton was courageous enough to answer them, every one, "You know," he continued, "Willis and Jack are half way through college, with a creditable standing, too, but I am supplying still every cent they spend, and I know this to be wrong. Why, man, when I was their age, back on the old farm yonder, 1 rose every morning of my life at four o'clock and worked fourteen hours a day, and never a dollar did my father supply for my college course. I literally dug my way through to whatever success I have made. You know all this, Josiah. Now, of course, I don't expect my boys to pitch in in that fashion. Times have changed, and I can afford to give them an easier row to hoe. But surely I am right in feeling that they should know the value of money and learn, too, to put it in its own true and proper place, that saving NCO e 18th> U SAVE Pliiil Ira : 1 for Ten D. C -IE TF KVILLE? I grace which we know as plain, everyday hard work. I have urged that they strike out during vacation, and last summer they were pledged to do this very thing. Jack declared that he Intended to earn every dollar of his winter's college fees and Willis even saw his clothes paid for to the last cent. r\..A. _i 1 1.. Dm aiuiiK lume a (jumping puny, unu first thing I knew, with Jack never being rol)ust and Willis pleading the possibility of finding minerals in that region that would help him in his college course, my two sons were off for what, instead of being work, looked very like play to me. I knew well that lots of other college men were working like trojans during vacation, and I just hated to think my two lads were less independent. I am continually preaching retrenchment in their monthly expenditure, but somehow, between keeping up with the 'college spirit,' as they phrase it, and some extra fees, the monthly cheques which I make out in favor of Willis and Jack Dalton are steadily growing. I have tried to have work round my big suburban place? you know I have a couple of acres? done by my three sons, but between Willis hating, fussing round a chicken house in his good clothes, and his being captain, too, of the college baseball team, and Jack laughingly declaring that snow shovelling and ash sifting are too strenuous for a fellow who has to take honors at both college and hockey, it is small wonder, I suppose, that young Nelson thinks his task of splitting wood for the kitchen stove and weeding the vegetable garden a sad and sorry burden. Two summers ago I wanted my wood-shed and verandah painted, and Willis and Jack were enthusiastically sure that they were the chaps to do it, but despile many reminders, somehow fishing. and boating and baseball pushed off this bit of home work, until late in September I hired a painter at two dollars a day to do the job." "So I understand your sons are lazy, procrastinating and extravagant?" Cousin Josiah asked the question mercilessly. "Hut with it all they are such clean, i smart lads," Mr. Dalton replied, with fatherly excuse. "Hut clean, smart lads have made failures many a day before this. Indeed, I have yet to see the extravagant, lazy, procrastinating young chap ?and I have beheld some of them fairly plastered with medals, and diplomas?who was worth moro'n his salt on life's march." And then Cousin Joslah paved the way for a most amazing: and revolutionary suggestion: "Your Kirls, I reckon," he said, "don't know much 'bout the grospel of hard work, neither." "No; it's all skating; parties and nntout teas in the winter till my house '5. G1 BEC and CI TEN BIG BA FROM 2 hilS! i P i ill I HI ^ ,Na*l ome the First Th iOMS( VHEREYOU keeper never seems to me to get a hand's turn of work out of them. And then, when we go off to our summer cottage?I'm selling the place, for it is only a snare?why, between corn roasts, and rowing and fishing parties, my daughters are rushed to death hunting pleasure. They declare plaintively that they've no time to learn housekeeping, and actually it seems the solemn serious truth." Cousin Josiah gave one of his big b uff laughs, and then fell his bomb. "Joseph Dalton," he said, "I reckon you and me had better swap families. One of my neighbors had a skittish critter of a horse one summer, and same time I owned a beast as was too lazy to do much hut eat. Well, we was both of us dead failures at getting any kind of a proper return for their hoard from those two animals. So we swapped. I took John Jones' high stepper and dressed her in a terrible stiff harness. Then I hitched her up with steady, common-sense old Dobbin and put the pair to ploughing one of my old clay fields, and In less than no time Dobbin had as sober a mate as you'd want to see. Same time, John Jones took that eternally lazy sorrel of mine and put her long side of his prize mile-in-two-thirty gray, and just to save her neck the creature had to stir her feet. Now this alnt' a perfect example I'm givln' you, for none of my family Is lazy or high steppers neither, but it proves that sometimes exchanges is better than sermons. My George and Tom are just dyin' to get a chance at some of your city summer schools, and Mary and Susan want a taste of domestic science as they call it, and* a term or two at business college. Suppose you agree to take my family and see what you can do for them, and then you ask me up for dinner, and bein' as you're sellin' your summer cottage anyhow, I'll warrant I'll coax every lad and lassie you own into waniin 10 spenu a summer with me at my place." And this is precisely what Cousin Josiah did. Mr. Dalton would never have believed that any man could have made his careless, pleasure-seeking young people actually long for the quiet, north country, but so skillfully did Cousin Josiah paint the glories of his broad acres and the splendid independence of his life, that when he said, "Come up iind help me this summer, and I'll send my young folks down to do your chores." the novelty and seeming romance of the suggestion, coupled with a seeming barrenness of other summer plans, instantly appealed to every young Dalton. "There's neither cottage nor camp nor anything else in sight for us this season. Let us take Cousin Josiah's offer," Willis announced, gaily. And when from Father Dalton down to young Nelson there was never a head GAN] j INS oses Mi RGAIN DAYS ;0 TO 5C iff la II ree Days-Thursda DNCC ??SO GET QUALI7 but nodded, the deal was considered closed. Thus It came* about that In less than three weeks Cousin Joslah Dobbs and Lawyer Dalton had actually exchanged families.* Now perhaps it was only a bit of very natural ignorance that made Willis and Jack, not to sneak of the girls and Nelson, imagine, as they made their initial survey of Cousin Josiah's domains, that they had reached the land of realest ease and pleasure. May sunshine softly glinting across rolling fields, springing flowers in fhe tidiest of gardens, a splendid group of barns and a most hospitable old farm house, with Cousin Mary standing in the door ail ready to serve hot buckwheat cakes and maple syrup. These fair, smiling samples of life to be might well have deceived the very elect, and as it chanced that no young Dalton had ever spent a whole twenty-four hours in a farmhouse, it was small wonder that they everyone retired to their rooms that first night convinced of the astuteness of their summer choice. Promptly at four-thirty the following morning a knock at the boys' room door roused Willis to the sleepiest of convictions that "it was everlastingly early for getting up," but Cousin Josiah's voice was firm, though pleasant: "Only half an hour for dressin' round these parts, my lad," and Willis had no choice but to pass on to his brothers the unwelcome news. An hour later Cousin Mary summoned the two Dalton girls to work In her big. bustling kitchen, and they, too, felt with bitter conviction that the lines had fallen to them in anything but pleasant places. For an hour and a half they helped in the manufacture of hot biscuits, pies and cookies, not to speak of frying potatoes, stirring porridge and brewing coffee. Then In came four hungry men folk for breakfast, and almost before the nilo of dishes was washed Pniisin Mary was planning the noonday meal. Later she announced In business-like tones: "This afternoon there are stockings to be darned and an end of ironing to be finished. Then when it is cool we'll all go out and weed the flower borders a bit. That will give us fresh air and exercise before supper." "And after supper will we work again?" It was Janet Dalton who asked this question, and be it recorded that there was nothing of impertinence or rebellion in her tones, only u sort of girlish horror at the treadmill of unaccustomed duty, to which she seemed to be bound fast. "No." replied Cousin Mary. "I thought we would hitch up Sally and drive to the village for our mail. We all need a bit of freshening up after our long day's work." TIC Ji onday, , > PER CI intra ui^, sri iuun, uuiucoiiu ntnuui turned to follow Cousin Mary's swiftly moving feet. One week later, near the close of a similar day of bustle, Janet and Mary saw Willis and Jack and Nelson coming in from the barn with the very queerest sort of look upon tbetr onetime careless, jolly faces. All week these brothers and sisters had exchanged only the barest of comments upon their new experiences at Cousin Josiah's, but somehow this Saturday evening silence appeared no longer either commendable or possible. "Cousin Josiah sent us in to rest for a while before supper under the apple frees," Willis announced, soberly. "Put we are not so tired as we are disgusted," added Jack. And then the whole mournful story was told in their sisters' ears. "It seems," coldly stated Willis, "that we are regular gumps. Naturally, we wouldn't be very handy, especially Nelson, at milking a cow or handling a team of horses; but not V, Friday and Sat )MPAI UTH CARO] y Then looking hard at the two sober girls before her, she said, quietly: "You're almost women now, you know, and every woman should beasomehow a woman's share of the world's work. "But we go to school," faltered Janet. "And my kitchen Is a school," placidly returned Mary. "It is a school where useless, Incompetent hands grip the practical work of life and where girls who know bushels of theory get a chance to practice a bit. When I was your age," she added remlniscently, "I was taken out of your kind of school?and remember I have always set store by what I learned in that plain little back-woods building ?and all In a day I was put to manage a family of five motherless brothers and sisters. People said I bore myself like a real little housekeeper, but where do you suppose I should have been If I had not gone to school In my mother's kitchen many a year before a whole household was thus suddenly thrust upon me?" For answer Janet Dalton looked squarely at her own two strong, fair young hands, and unconsciously Jessie did likewise. "They are rather useless sort of hands, aren't they, Janet?" the younger girl remarked, thoughtfully. Whereupon Janet replied with the utmost candor: "They are regular dunces of hands. Can't make a pie, or roast a fowl, or Iron a blouse. And here they are. owned by two girls, who thought till today that gold medals and college diplomas were the whole of an education." "I guess they're only one-half," announced Jessie, with finality. And then, with new thoughtfulness upon their faces, these beginners In 11 V.U 'JLYS July tin LNT - Sir if ^ : urday. TELL YC MY I Tharsd r TXT A /II 1 x*i\ uosesi I TEN one of us chaps has known how to do well a solitary thing that Cousin Joslah wanted this week. We couldn't put In a couple of gate posts or mend i a barn door decently. Neither could we harness a horse, chop feed or put up wire fencing. As for ploughing clay or sowing timothy, we were as clumsy as elephants put to sweep a parlor. And for my part, If I do know some chemistry and more Latin I am clearly disgusted with my stupid, Ignorant hands." "Jessie and I haven't fared any better," Interposed Janet. "We never thought we were slow and obtuse before, but after this week I guess we agree that we're both." ' "Shall we quit?" questioned Jack. And for answer five Dalton young folks looked Into each other's eyes and then, because after all it was good for them to be the children of their father, they said a stalwart resonant "No." Four months went by, and this same quintette of young people were found In their city home, discussing other but no less serious problems. It was the old story of panic In the business world and of a father who could In no wise keep up the former home and school pace. "We'll dispense with a housekeep-' er, and I will keep the house while Jessie finishes college," said Janet, firmly. "And Jack and I will pitch Into business somewhere and let Nelson get through." announced Willis. "Well, if you do, Jessie and I will work In our spare hours like ten beavers," declared Nelson. And then this fourteen-year-old lad added a bit of real philosophy. "I tell you," he said, "Cousin Josiah's plan has worked out pretty fine. Here, his family had Just an elegant time down here, taking all sorts of school courses and we Daltons had to go to the farm to find out that our hands were made to work. Honest Injun! I believe we used to think books and prizes were the whole thing, and we sort of rolled up our noses like a scroll when anyone talked about the dignity of labor. Now, of course, study is all O. K., but boys and girls are a heap better for owning smart hands as well as smart heads; and If they knew more about the amount of perspiring a fellow can do to earn one hundred cents they'd be a sight slower to let their fathers spend a hundred dollars on them. According to my way of thinking, this family exchange business is simply great!"?Christian Observer. Jtfl" Affectionate: Scads?Blinks is a lucky old dog: his wife fairly worships him! Stacks?Yes; but she carries it too far sometimes. I was out there to dinner unexpectedly the other day, and she served up a burnt offering.? Exchange. ??????????? % ALE ? OAfA COME Dry Goods Dress Goods ' Silks % Cotton Piece Goods 1 Hosiery Skirts oiuiiwaisis Notions and , Millinery. * IUR FRIENDS. ' IE BEGINS ay, July 18thHonday, July 29 ? DAYS ONLY _ 4 WORLD'S GREAT CORN YIELD. 8teady Development of Thro Cerool Is Marvel of tho Ago. The steady spread and development of Indian maize Into a world crop, says a Washington dispatch has been the agricultural marvel of our The corn of the Bible, the corn of Oieat M Brltian, is our wheat, not our "king W crop." But all the world hau co;mj to know and bless the generous grain. Though upward of 86 per cent of the 3,760,000,000 bushels, which constitute the world's yield, Is grown in this 4 country, Argentina, Hungary and Italy, yet the cultivation of corn has been gradually diffused around the globe. Next to our western hemisphere and Europe the most important areas are now planted in Soutnern and Southeastern Asia, chiefly in British India, French Indo-China and the Philippines. In 1910 the Philippines crop amounted to 14,276,846 bushels. The culture of corn is now general in Africa. It is the Egyptian fellah's staff of life, and Is even produced for export in the Union of South Africa, where the product is known as "mealies." In Mexico the tortilla, prepared from the grain, is the chief food of the masses. Canada and Cuba raise corn and it is grown in a small way in Australia and New Zealand. Save in Ireland, it is rarely used as human food throughout Northern Europe. Outside of the United States the cultivation of corn is most extensive in Southern Europe, centralized in a ^ group of states comprising Austria, Hungary, Roumania, the Balkin states and Bessarabia in Southwest Russia ?where the production ranges from 500,000,000 to 600,000,000 bushels annually. Corn is not only our king crop, it is also an uncertain and variable one. ijtiai. year, ior instance, tnere was a great decline In the world yield. The aggregate product of the four leading countries was more than 550,000,000 bushels less than the crop of 1910, W and 200,000,000 bushels short of the returns for 1909. The yield In 1911 In the United States was about 355,000.000 bushels and In Argentina about 148,000,000 bushels less than in 1910. ~ There were relative shortages In Hun- * gary and Italy. Just why this should be so our agricultural statisticians have not made clear, and there has been no sinister rumor of an international combination to restrain the acreage planted. An Absent-Minded Professor.?A very absent-minded professor was busily engaged In solving a scientific problem when the nurse hastily opened the library door and announced a great family event. "The little stranger has arrived, professor.' "Eh?" said the professor. "It Is a little boy,' said the nurse. "Little boy, little boy," mused the ^ professor. "Well ask him what hr. wants."?Woman's Home Companion.