The Springfield Republican speaks of a new invention for a hen's nest, whereby the eggs drop through a trap-door, and so deceives the hen that she keeps on laying until she has laid herself all away.
POPPING THE QUESTION.—184.
One evening as I was a-sittin' by my Hetty, and had worked myself up to the stickin' pint, sez I, "Hetty, if a fellar was to ask you to marry him, what wud you say?" Then she laughed, and sez she, "That would depend on who asked me." Then sez I, "Suppose it was Ned Willis?" Sez she, "I'd tell Ned Willis, but not you." That kinder staggered me; but I was too cute to lose the opportunity, and so sez I again, "Suppose it was me?" And then you orter see her pout up her lip, and says she, "I don't take no supposes." Wall, now, you see there was nothin' for me to do but touch the gun off. So bang it went. Sez I, "Wall, Hetty, it's me; won't you say yes?" And then there was such a hulloballoo in my head, I don't know exactly what tuk place, but I thought I heerd a 'yes' whisperin' somewhere out of the skirmish.
NEGRO SERMON.—185.
"There are," said a sable orator, addressing his brethren, "two roads tro dis world—the one am broad and narrow road, that leads to perdition; and the oder a narrow and a broad road, that leads to destruction." "What i' dat?" said one hearer. "Say it again." "I say, my brethren, there are two roads tro dis world—the one am a broad and narrow road, that leads to perdition; the oder a narrow and broad road, that leads to destruction." "If dat am the case," said his sable questioner, "dis elluded individual takes to de woods."
GRANDPA'S SPECTACLES.—186.
"There now," cried a little girl, while rummaging a drawer in a bureau; "there now, grandpa has gone to Heaven without his spectacles. What will he do?" And shortly afterward, when another aged relative was supposed to be sick unto death in the house, she came running to his bedside, with the glasses in her hand, and an errand on her lips: "You goin' to die?" "They tell me so." "Goin' to Heaven?" "I hope so." "Well, here are grandpa's spectacles—won't you take them to him?"
TREMENDOUS GALE.—187.
We like to hear people tell good stories while they are about it. Read the following from a Western paper:—"In the late gale, birds were seen hopping about with all their feathers blown off." We have heard of gales at sea where it required four men to hold the captain's whiskers on!