All this trouble over such little things as matches! Yet on these fire-tipped bits of wood millions of people depend for warmth, cooked food and light. They have become a necessity, and the day of flint, steel and tinder seems almost as far away in the past as are the bow and fire-stick of the Indian.
Some idea of the number of matches used in North America during a year may be gained from the fact that it is estimated by competent judges that, on an average, six matches are used every day by each inhabitant; this gives a grand total of 87,400,000,000 matches, without counting those that are exported. Now, this would make a single line, were the matches placed end to end, more than 2,750,000 miles in length! It would take a railroad train almost eight years to go from one end to the other, running forty miles an hour all the time.
How apt to our subject is that almost worn-out Latin phrase, "multum in parvo"—much in little! Much labor, much skill, and much usefulness, all in a little piece of wood scarcely one-eighth of an inch through and about two inches long!
BY MARY L. BOLLES BRANCH.
Teddy was such a rogue, you see! If Aunt Ann sent him to the store for raisins, the string on the package would be very loose, and the paper very much lapped over, when he brought it home; if he went to the baker's, the tempting end of the twist loaf was sure to be snapped off in the street, and a dozen buns were never more than ten when they reached the table. Boys are so hungry! Teddy knew every corner of the pantry: if half a pie were left over from dinner, it could not possibly be hidden under any pan, bowl, pail, or cunningly folded towel, but he would find it before supper. Pieces of cake disappeared as if by magic, preserves were found strangely lowered in the crocks, pickles went by the wholesale, gingerbread never could be reckoned on after the first day, and once—only once—did Teddy's mamma succeed in hiding a whole baking of apple tarts in the cellar for a day by setting them under a tub. The cellar never was a safe place again; Aunt Ann tried it with doughnuts, and the crock was empty in two days. She put her stick cinnamon on the top shelf in the closet, behind her medicine bottles, and when she wanted it a week after, there was not a sliver to be found. Then the loaf sugar—I don't know but that was the worst of all. Did he stuff his pockets with it? did he carry it away by the capful? It seemed incredible that anything could go so fast. One day, Aunt Ann detected Teddy behind the window curtain with a tumbler so nearly full of sugar that the water in it only made a thick syrup, and there he was reading "Robinson Crusoe" and sipping this delightful mixture. From that moment Aunt Ann made up her mind that he should "stop it."