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laughed at, I don't mean, but one to carry around with you, to draw out once in a while to blow on-a sort of intellectual handkerchief.

When I went to bed that night, I apprehended trouble. Along one jaw, the left one, occasionally capered a grumbling sensation. It kept me awake an hour or so trying to determine whether that was all there was of it, or whether there was something to come after which would need my wakeful presence to contend against. Thus pondering I fell asleep, and forgot all about the trouble. I don't know how long I slept, but I fell to dreaming that I had made a match of fifty dollars a side to fight a crosscut-saw in a steam mill, and was well to work on the job, when the saw got my head between its teeth. I thought this was a favorable time to wake up, and I did so. It immediately transpired that I might better have stayed where I was, and taken my chances with the saw.

I found myself sitting straight up in bed with one hand spasmodically grasping my jaw, and the other swaying to and fro without any apparently definite purpose.

It was an awful pain. It bored like lightning through the basement of my jaw, darted across the roof of my mouth, and then ran lengthwise of the teeth. If every flying pang had been a drunken plow chased by a demon across a stump lot, I think the observer would understand my condition. I could no more get hold of the fearful agony that was cavorting around in me, than I could pick up a piece of wet soap when in a hurry.

Suddenly it stopped. It went off all at once, giving me a parting kick that fairly made me howl.

"What on earth is the matter with you," said a voice from one corner of the room.

I looked out into the dark astonished.

"Maria, is that you?" said I.

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'What there is left of me," was the curt reply, followed by a fumbling about the mantel.

Presently a light was struck and Mrs. Perkins appeared before me. She had on her short-stop clothes. Her hair stuck up in all directions. Her nose was very red, and her eyes were expanded to their fullest capacity.

"Well, I declare, Cyrus Davidson, if this hasn't been a night of it! What in the name of mercy is the matter with you? Are you gone clean crazy, or have you sat on a pin? For one whole hour you have been cavorting around on that bed, groaning like a dead man, and flopping your bony arms in all directions. I was literally knocked out of bed, and here I have been doubled up in a corner, the very life frightened out of me, and wondering whether you were going to set fire to the house, or bust out my brains with a hatchet. If you have got through with your contortions I'll come to bed, and try to get a wink of sleep."

I had got through, there was no doubt of it, and felt, in the relief I experienced, that it would be a comparatively easy matter to forgive Mrs. Perkins the suspicions of her alarm; as for braining her with a hatchet, I never thought of it. We haven't got one.

I thought I was rid of the teeth ache, but a grumbling set in again next morning. It was just like the feeling of the night before, and a still voice said to me," Look out, Perkins.”

I did. I went right away to the dentist who had pulled the teeth of our family and knew our peculiarities. There was an uneasy smell about his office. It was very suggestive of trouble, and as I snuffed it in I experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I looked at him and sickly smiled. He was never, even on a holiday, the handsomest of men, but now his appearance was very, very depressing. He looked like a corpse with a lighted candle inside of it.

I told him what was the matter with me, how that I had been up all night with a four-story pain, how my wife had been thrown out of bed by the violence of my suffering, how

He asked me if I wouldn't sit down. I sat down on what was once a hogshead but was now cut down and newly carpeted. He held back my head, opened my mouth, and went to fishing around inside with a piece of watch spring. And while he angled he conversed. Said he,

"You have caught a cold."

"I have."

"It seems the trouble is with one of the bicuspids," he remarked.

Of course I didn't know what a bicuspid was, but thought

it wouldn't look well in the head of a family being stuck with so short a word as that, and so I asked, with some vigor: "Which one?"

"The tumorous," he said.

"I am glad it ain't any worse," I replied, throwing in a sigh of relief.

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The frontal bone," he went on to say, "is not seriously affected. The submaxillary gland is somewhat enlarged, but it does not necessarily follow that parotitis will ensue."

"I am proud to hear that," said I, which I certainly was. although if the parotitis had ensued it isn't at all likely 1 should have minded it much, unless it was something that would spill, and I was dressed up.

He kept on talking and angling.

"The œsophagus isn't loose," he next remarked. "Ah," said I, winking at him.

"O, no; the ligaments are quite firm. I might say-" "Murder! fire!" I shouted, in bewilderment.

"Did it hurt you?” he asked, looking as calm and cool as the lid of an ice-cream freezer.

"Hurt me? Great heavens! did you expect to split me open with a watch spring, and not have it hurt me? What was the matter-did you slip ?"

"Certainly not," he said; "I was simply getting hold of the tooth. Just hold your head back an instant, and I will have it out at once."

"I guess I won't try it again," said I, with a shiver. "The toothache is bad enough, but it is heaven alongside of that watch spring. You may come up sometime and pull it out when I ain't at home. I think I could endure the operation with necessary calmness if I was off about eight blocks. Come up when you can."

And I left. I hope he will come. I am boiling some pure spring water for him. -Life in Danbury.

FAITH AND WORKS.

Good Dan and Jane were man and wife,

And lived a loving kind of life;

One point, however, they disputed,
And each by turns his mate confuted.

TTTT

"Twas faith and works. This knotty question,
They found not easy of digestion.
While Dan for faith alone contended,
Jane equally good works defended.

They are not Christians, sure, but Turks,
Who build on faith and scoff at works,"
Quoth Jane; while eager Dan replied,
"By none but heathens, faith 's denied.

I'll tell you, wife," one day quoth Dan,
"A story of a right good man;
A patriarch sage, of ancient days,
A man of faith, whom all must praise.
In his own country he possessed
Whate'er can make a wise man blessed;
His were the flock, the field, the spring,
In short, a little rural king.

Yet pleased he quits his native land,
By faith in the Divine command.
God bade him go; and he, content,
Went forth, not knowing where he went;
He trusted in the promise made,
And, undisputing, straight obeyed;
The heavenly word he did not doubt,
But proved his faith by going out."

Jane answered with some little pride:
"I've an example on my side;

And though my tale be somewhat longer,
I trust you'll find it vastly stronger.
I'll tell you, Daniel, of a man,
The holiest since the world began ;
Who now God's favor is receiving,
For prompt obeying,-not believing.
One only son this man possessed,
In whom his righteous age was blessed;
And more to mark the grace of heaven,
This son by miracle was given.

And from this child, the word Divine,
Had promised an illustrious line.
When lo! at once a voice he hears,

Which sounds like thunder in his ears!
God says, 'Go, sacrifice thy son!'
'This moment, Lord, it shall be done.'
He goes, and instantly prepares
To slay this child of many prayers.

Now there you see the grand expedience,
Of works, of actual, sound obedience.
This was not faith, but act and deed:
The Lord commands the child shall bleed:

Thus Abraham acted," Jennie cried. "Thus Abraham trusted," Dan replied. "Abraham," quoth Jane, "why that's my man." "No, Abraham's he I mean," says Dan, "He stands a monument of faith."

"No, 'tis for works the Scripture saith."
""Tis for this faith that I defend him."
""Tis for obedience I commend him."

Thus he, thus she; both warmly feel,
And lose their temper in their zeal.
Too quick each other's choice to blame,
They did not see each meant the same.
At length, "Good wife," said honest Dan,
We're talking of the self-same man;
The works you praise, I own indeed,
Grow from that faith for which I plead.
And Abraham, whom for faith I quote
For works deserves especial note
"Tis not enough for faith to talk.
A man of God with God must walk.
Our doctrines are at last the same,
They only differ in the name.
The faith I fight for is the root;
The works you value are the fruit.
How shall you know my creed sincere,
Unless in works my faith appear?
How shall I know a tree's alive,
Unless I see it bear and thrive?
Your works not growing on my root,
Would prove they were not genuine fruit.
If faith produce no works, I see,

That faith is not a living tree.

Thus faith and works together grow,

No separate life they e'er can know.

They're soul and body, hand and heart;

What God hath joined, let no man part.”

COMPENSATION.

There is no sunshine that hath not its shade,
Nor shadow that the sunshine hath not made;
There is no cherished comfort of the heart
That hath not its own tearful counterpart.
Thus, through a perfect balance, constant flow
The sharp extremes of joy and those of woe;
Our sweetest, best repose results from strife,
And death-what is it, after all, but life?

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