had been left $5,000 in cash, and advising her to come home and marry a man who owns three farms. She must feel very sorrowful!"

"Humph! And you didn't put too much work on her?"

"No."

"Nor make her feel her position ?"

"No. Her position was in the parlor about half

the time."

"Well, it seems very queer to me that so many of our girls leave. Everything will be upset now for a week, I suppose."

"Oh, no. You can cook, you know, and you are such a sympathetic soul that you ought to be willing to go into the kitchen for a day or two. I shall depend on you, Mr. Bowser."

"Oh, you will? Not satisfied with driving a dozen poor souls to destruction, you want a rub at me! I wouldn't have your spirit for all the money in the world!"

He went away with that, but he was home an hour earlier than usual, and when I inquired the cause, he said:

"What for? Why, the child and I have got to have something to eat, haven't we; and who's to cook it if I don't take hold?"

"I can cook."

"Mrs. Bowser, I've long felt it my duty to give you a few lessons in the culinary art. I have held off, hoping your pride would force you to take hold, but the limit has been reached. The time has come when I must sacrifice my business to enter my kitchen and prevent my child from feeling the pangs of hunger." "Please don't."

But I will. I'm driven to it.

I've got a wife who can't cook the northwest end of a last year's turnip, and who can't keep a cook over a week at a time. I've put up with it too long-much too long, Mrs. Bowser. I must sacrifice my dignity to preserve the life of my child."

"Shan't I help you get supper?"

"Not a help. You'd only be in the way. Just sit down in the rocker, Mrs. Bowser, put your feet on the lounge, get a piece of gum in your mouth, and sit and chew and chew, and think what mean things you are going to say to the next girl, to drive her away. When supper is ready I will call your royal highness."

He disappeared with that.

When he reached the kitchen he took off his cuffs and coat, pushed up his sleeves, and kindled a fire. His confidence began to desert him at this point, and he seemed to be studying deeply as he filled the teakettle even full and set it to boil. I had some fresh beef-steak in the ice box, and he got it out, scratched his head in a thoughtful way, and laid it on the kitchen table. Then he went down cellar after the hatchet, wiped the head of it on his right leg, and pounded away until a good share of the steak had gone into the board.

Mr. Bowser's next move was to hunt behind the pantry door for a spider, which we had never used. He carried it to the kitchen towel, gave it a wipe, and then placed it on the stove. He had heard that grease was necessary, and he put in some butter, dropped in his steak and soon had it sizzling. Then he started in for the biscuit. He got down the dish-pan, filled it almost full, and then reflected for a moment. I took

advantage of the occasion to open the door and remark:

"Mr. Bowser, you needn't figure on an elaborate supper, under the circumstances. Just make us a cup of tea, and we'll get along."

"Mrs. Bowser, you ought to know by this time that there is no half-way work with me," he replied, with great frigidity. "You can afford to neglect the comfort of this family, but I cannot. your gum and your novel."

Please return to

Then he went ahead just as any other husband would.

He had heard about soda and shortening in biscuit, and he mixed the flour with cold water, put in pepper and salt, slashed off half a pound of butter, and stirred it in, and then remembered the baking powder. There was nearly a quarter of a pound in the box, and the whole of it went in.

How Mr. Bowser managed to get a grease spot between his shoulder-blades, flour on his hair and baking powder in his hind pocket, I do not know, but it was probably while he was rolling that mass out. He didn't trifle with the mixing-board, but used the spot where he had pounded the beef. I heard the mass of dough fall to the floor three different times with a dull thud, but he wasn't a bit discouraged. He got it rolled out at last, cut some biscuits with a tea-cup and presently the oven door shut on his tins. He had just forty biscuits.

By this time the steak had burned black on both sides, and he set it down behind the stove and prepared the tea. To two quarts of water he used one teaspoonful. Ten minutes later he summoned me to

the banquet. He had the table-cloth on criss-cross, the butter on a pie-plate, the cake in the cheese dish, and his beef-steak was placed in the center of the table on a pie-tin.

Anything wrong?" he asked, as I sat down. "Oh, no. You have done splendidly."

"I am aware of it. This table has never looked so home-like before."

His biscuits were raw in the middle, while top and bottom were so wonderfully and fearfully made that I had to laugh.

Wait till you

I didn't taste, but he did. I was watching him, and a look of horror came over his face at the first mouthful. He wouldn't give in, however, but crowded a whole biscuit down, and pretended to enjoy it.

"I wouldn't eat any of that steak, Mr. Bowser," I said, as he eyed it suspiciously.

self."

"Wouldn't you? Perhaps you want it all your

"I don't think it is properly cooked."

"Well, I do! If that isn't a nice steak, then we never have had one in this house."

He ate at least a quarter of a pound, though every morsel choked him. I offered to wash up the dishes, but he put me out of the kitchen and went ahead. He washed everything together in the flour-pan, wiped them on whatever he could find loose, and it was a week before we got the pantry in order again. That night, after bragging of what a breakfast he was going to get, Mr. Bowser was taken with chills and colic, and when the doctor came and I showed him the beef and the biscuit, he said:

"Mr. Bowser, if you hadn't the stomach of a shark you'd have been dead an hour ago. You'd better quit this sort of nonsense if you want to live the year out."

And as soon as we were alone Mr. Bowser turned on me with:

"Don't expect me to shield you again! Your jealousy prompted you to put poison into that flour while I was down cellar! If this thing occurs again I will send you to the gallows!"

MISS EDITH HELPS THINGS ALONG.

BRET HARTE.

"My sister'll be down in a minute, and says you're to wait, if you please ;

And says I might stay till she came, if I'd promise

her never to tease,

Nor speak till you spoke to me first. But that's nonsense; for how would you know What she told me to say, if I didn't?

really and truly think so?

Don't you

"And then you'd feel strange here alone. And you wouldn't know just where to sit;

For that chair isn't strong on its legs, and we never use it a bit :

We keep it to match with the sofa; but Jack says it would be like you

To flop yourself right down upon it, and knock out the very last screw.