[EASTER.]
Sing, that the winter is over,
Sing for the coming of spring,
For the showers and flowers and beautiful hours,
And the flash of the robin's wing.
Sing, for the gladness of Easter;
Lift up your voices and sing.
Deep in the heart of the forest,
Down at the roots of the trees,
There is stir of the violets coming,
And smile of anemones,
And many a kiss of fragrance
Goes out to the fragrant breeze.
Sing, for the coming of Easter,
And many a rare surprise
Of beauty and bloom awaiting
The looking of happy eyes.
Sing, for the Easter sunshine
And the blue benignant skies.
And carry the tall white lilies,
And the roses brimming sweet,
To the church where aisle and altar
Are sought by hastening feet.
Sing, to the Lord of the Easter,
Who is coming, your songs to meet.
Margaret E. Sangster.
[WHAT IS A MILLION?]
BY BARNET PHILLIPS.
I must own up I never could wrestle much with figures; they generally threw me. I am afraid I was born without the power of appreciating what is called proportion in figures. I do not take that for an excuse. I ought to have practised more, and it is probable that I should have improved on an imperfect sense.
How my breath was taken away when I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears a young Irishman, in a great New York dry-goods house, rattle out marvellous results which had stiff calculations in multiplication and addition, and he did it all in his head, and had no slate to figure on! His ability was of use in a practical way. A salesman would say to this Irishman something like this: "Fourteen cases of prints, 22 pieces per case, 38 yards to the piece, at 6-7/8 cents per yard." The salesman had no sooner stopped calling it all out than the lightning calculator had given him the result. The advantage to the house was that before the purchaser of the goods had left the building his bill was handed to him. All day long that living calculating-machine kept on figuring just in this way, and his work never seemed to tire him.
I had a friend who possessed this marvellous mental power. He was a bookkeeper in a large Southern house dealing in cotton, and sometimes when great lots of thousands of bales of cotton were sold he figured up the results.