A new baby arrived at a house. A little girl—now fifteen—had been the pet of the family. Every one made much of her, but when there was a new baby she felt rather neglected.
"How are you, Mary?" a visitor asked of her one afternoon.
"Oh, I'm all right," she said, "except that I think there is too much competition in this world."
A farmer during a long-continued drought invented a machine for watering his fields. The very first day while he was trying it there suddenly came a downpour of rain. He put away his machine.
"It's no use," he said; "you can do nothing nowadays without competition."
COMPLIMENTS
Supper was in progress, and the father was telling about a row which took place in front of his store that morning: "The first thing I saw was one man deal the other a sounding blow, and then a crowd gathered. The man who was struck ran and grabbed a large shovel he had been using on the street, and rushed back, his eyes blazing fiercely. I thought he'd surely knock the other man's brains out, and I stepped right in between them."
The young son of the family had become so hugely interested in the narrative as it proceeded that he had stopped eating his pudding. So proud was he of his father's valor, his eyes fairly shone, and he cried: