Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1873-01-18
TOO MUCH CREDIT,

MI. hctIlc, ~ SlIlCNu dItt llIH
farmer of Allcnborouoh, owned a large
flock OF sheep, and one Autumn, when
it came housing time he was greatly
annoyed upon missing a number of his
finest muttons, among them three or
four wcothcrs which he had raised and
tattencd for his own table. He was
sure it was not the work of dogs, and
the mo It he could do was to wait further
developments.
On the following Spring, when his
shocp We're turned out to pasture, he
instituted II careful watch, and ere long
he detected Tom Stickncy, IL ncirhbor-
ing farmer, in the act of pilfcriny u
sheep; but he made no noise about it
ut the time. S,ickney was n man we'll
10 do, and Kccnc did not care to expose
him.
Autumn came again, and upon count
ing up his fioch, Mr.. Keene found eight
sheep missing. He made out bill in
due form to Thomas Siickncy for eigh!
sheep, and presented it. Stickncy
cloi1 anl 'tammerel, but did not back
down. Like prudent man he paid
the money and poc!;etcd the receipt.
kccnes sheep again turned out. An
n;hot Autumn came, and the farmer
again took an account of his stoc,;
and this time, fifteen sheep were miss
int. As before, he made out the bill
to Tom Stici.noy for the whole number
missing; bat this time Tom objected
Its too much OF good thing, =
said he. " Fifteen sheep ! why. bless
your soul, hadn't had fifth part of
EN-"
Mr.. Kecnc was incxor.ble.
" There il the BILL" said he. d" I
have made it out in good faith. l have
made no fuss when my sheep have been
missing, because deemed your credit
good and sufficient.
Well" groaned Tom, with big
gulp, 81 suppose 1 must pay; but, !"
he added cmphnticallv, "we'll close
that account from this time. You have
given me to much credit altogether
some other rascal has been stealing on
the strength of it,
A BEAUTIFUL ILLusrRATIoN.--I q child
had been born and spent all his life in
the Mammoth Cave, how impossible
would it be for him to comprehend the
upper world Parents might tell him
of its light, its beauty and its sound of
joy; they might heap up the sands into
mounds. and try to show him by stall
octites how grass, flowers and trees
grow out of the ground; till at length
with laborious thinking, the child would
fancy he had gained true idea of the
unknown land. And yet, though he
longed to behold it, when it came that he
Was to go forth, it would be with re-
gret for the familiar crystals and rock
hewn rooms, and the quiet that reigned
therein. Bat when he came up some
May morning, with ten thousand birds
singing in the trees, and the heavens
bright and blue and full of sunlight
and the young leaves all aglitter with
dew, and landscape stretching away
green and beautiful to the horizon,
with what rapture would he gaze about
him, and see how poor were all the fam
cyinss and interpretations which were
made within the cave of the things
which grew and lived without; and how
he would wonder that he could have re-
grettedto leave the silence and drcary
darkness of his old abode.
SO when we emerge from this cave
of earth into that land where spring
grOwths are and where is eternal sum
mer, how shall we wonder that we could
have clung SO fondly to this dark, bar