The Press., 1883-05-17
{Harper's Young People.) A PLEASING EXPERIMENT
BY JIMMY BROWN.

EVefy tune Gry 10 improve my mlnQ with science I resolve that I will never do it again, and then I always go and do it. Science is so dreadfully tempting that you can hardly resist it. MT. Travers says that if anybody once gets into the habit of be- ing scientific person there is little hope that he will ever reform, and he says he has known good men who became habitual astronomers, and actually took to prophe- swing weather, all because they yielded to the temptation to look through telescopes, and to make figures on the blackboard with chalk
 I was reading a lovely book the other day. It was all about balloons aud para chutes. A parachute is thing that you fall out of balloon with It is something like an open umbrella, only nobody ever borrows it. If you hold parachute over your head and drop out of a balloon, it will hold you up so that you will come down to the ground So gently that you won't be hurt the least bit.
 I told Tom Maginnis about 1t, and we said we would make a parachute, and jump out of the second-sto1y window with 1t. It is easy enough to make one, for all you have to do is to get big umbrella and open it wide, and hold on to the handle. Last Saturday afternoon Tom came over to my house, and we got ready to try what the book said was "a pleasing scientific experiment.
 We didn't have the least doubt that the book told the truth. But Tom didn't want to be the first to jump out of the window neither did I-and we thought we'd give Sues kitten a chance to try a parachute. and see how she liked it. Sue had an um- brella that was made of silk, and was just the thing to suit the kitten. I knew Sue wouldn't mind lending the umbrella, and as she was out making calls, and I couldn't ask her permission, borrowed the um- brella and the kitten, and meant to tell her all about 1t as soon as she came home We tied the kitten fast to the handle of the umbrella, so as not to hurt her, and then dropped her out of the window. The wind was blowing tremendously hard, which I supposed was good thing, for it is the air that holds up parachute, and of course the more wind there is, the more air there is, and the better the parachute will stay up.
 The minute we dropped the cat and the umbrella out of the window the wind took them and blew them clear over the back fence into Deacon Smedley's pasture be- fore they struck the ground. This was all right enough, but the parachute didn't stop after it struck the ground. It started across the country about as fast as horse could run, hitting the ground every few minutes, and then bouncing up into the air and coming down again, and the kitten kept clawing at every ything, and rowling as if she was being killed By the time Tom and could get downstairs the umbrella was about a quarter of mile off We chased 1t till we couldn't run any longer, but we couldn't catch it, and the last we saw of the umbrella and the cat they were making splendid time toward the river and I'm very much afraid they were both drowned
 Tom and came home again, and when we got little rested we said we would take the big umbrella and try the pleasing scientific experiment; at least I said that Tom ought to try 1t, for we had proved that little silk umbrella would let a kitten down to the ground without hurting her, and of course great big umbrella would h ,ld Tom up all right. didn't care to try it myself, because Tom was visiting me, and we ought always to give up our own pleasures in order to make our visitors happy.
 After while Tom said he would do it, and when everything was ready he sat on the window-ledge, with his legs hanging out, and when the wind blew hard lie jumped.
 It is my opinion, now that thing is all over, that the umbrella wasn't large enough, and that if Tom had struck the ground he would have been hurt. He went down awfully fast, but by good luck the grocer's man was just coming out of the kitchep 'or as Tom came down, and he lit right ,n the mans head. It is wonderful how lucky some people are, for the grocer's man might have been hurt if he hadn't happened to have brlshel basket half full of eggs with him, and as he and Tom both fell into the eggs, neither of them was hurt.
 They were just getting out flom among the eggs when Sue came i'll with some of the ribs of her umbrella that somebody lad fshed out of the river and given to her. There didn't seem to be any kitten left, for Sue didn't know anything about it, but father and MT. Maginnis came in a few minutes afterward, and I had to ex- plain the whole thing to them.
 This is the last "pleasing scientific ex- pertinent" I shall ever try. I don't think science is at all nice, and, besides, I am awful sorry about the kitten.
 
 A ;s, ho