Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1885-07-16

could own Higgins for father, for he
was about the most mangy-looking cit
izen ever saw.
Notwithstanding his economy in the
matter of stars we along swimmingly.
L took one every clear night and learned
, to be satisfied with that then thought
he had an idea his invoice of planets
and asteroids might run short. / found
ont differently later.
Il want to see q comet" said one
night.
"I'll find you one," remarked Lig-
gins, who was a very accommodating
person. "We will have comets to NOR
row."
Sure enough, he was as good as his
word, and trotted out q big comet
as promised. 1t was somewhat breezy
in the tail, and not exactly as 1 ex-
pected. spoke to my wife about it,
and she thought it was unbecominQ in
me to find fault with the solar system.
Next thing l would be talking positive
intidelity. l must learn not to set my
self up against Copernicus, Kepler,
Newton. La Place. Herschel, Lockyer,
Proctor, and all those. The Job lot of
names she fred at me sounded as If
they belonged to hard crowd to beat,
so L went out and smoked.
Although the cloudy nights came in
pretty thick about that time. we made
very rair progress, doing up Mars,
Uranus, Neptune, Venus, the Pleiades,
the Milky Way, the Dipper, Saturn,
and some others. Saturn with its rings
looked like target in O shooting gal
lery.
Liggins had been telling me about
a French astronomer by the name of
Verne, who built big common, and
crawling into hollow ball, shot him
self to the moon, proceeding which I
would consider trihe risky. He took
a flyer around the orb l4orb" is one of
ter post without skip, and lit on earth
again all right. It's funny the news
papers didn't say anything about it.
They usually do touch on such things.
Well, that little story got me inter-
ested in the moon, and we fixed date
to investigate it. My wife settled on
the same night for one of her sympo-
siums, to be followed by q little pro-
gressive eucher and toned up trife by
something in the refreshment line. My
wife is noted for her literary gather
ings.
Liggins came around as usual, and,
to alleviate his disappointment at my
not coming to time on astronomy, had
waiter carry out dollar, plate of
chicken salad, and q glass of cham
pagne. Unfortunately, the bottle was
left within his reach, and he went home
satisfied with every one on this earth,
and especially grateful to the solar sys-
known him he left his telescope on the
back porch.
We got up late the next morning
and my wife was cross, but frightened
up when 1 came home to lunch.
"Tom," said she, "do you know how
TO run chat telescope?"
"N-no-I don't know as do. Lig-
gins always attended to that"
She said nothing more about it and
/ went down town. When returned
I,found the girl on her knees scrubbing
a kerosene spot on the sitting room
carpet and the wreck of the telescope,
dissected by my wife, lying about the
floor. She grabbed me by the arm and
took me to window. There she held
up piece of dirty glass.
"What is that, do you think?" she
asked, in her superior way.
at looks like photo negative"
at looks like it. but it isn't"
"Now listen" Just as if could do
anything else but listen. "That miser-
.bio oastronorae.,v whom l told my friands
was distinguished savong in dis
tress, is nothing but o mean cheat
On this piece of glass is clumsy
picture of the moon in India ink. Hold
It up to the sun. That light spot is the
moon, and this Opaque part represents
sky"
My face showed that / didn't under
stand her, and it irritated her.
"That telescope was nothing but big
tin tube bronzed over with slide up
near the end, to slip this glass in, and
a place beyond it for a small hanging
kerosene lamp to light it up similar to
a transparency. That is what you have
been looking at all this time. Study
ing astronomy Good heavens!"
There are times when the English
language does not fill the bill as q
medium of expression.
Ny wife caught me struggling with
my overcoat. "Thomas Henry, where
are you goingP" !.
"i'm going to interview Mr.. Liggins."
"You shall do nothing Of the sort.
You will make yourself the laughing
stock of the town. Take of that coat.
NY wife was right, as usual.
"How did you discover the fraud 2 L
asked, after 1 had cooled down. My
wife looked embarrassed, d 1 saw
there was something in the wind. L
did not find out that day, nor the next,
but by q strict attention to business L
managed eventually to ascertain. She
had always believed the Livilgstones,
although they held their heads rather
high, did not have enough to eat on the
table half the time. As we can com
maud view of their dining-room from
our sitting-room window, by using q
powerful glass, she had tried to bring a
little science to bear on the problem,
with the narrated result
When Liggins came for his telescope
it was given him in pieces. Inever saw
him again, but some months later he
sent for me to pay fine for vagrancy.
He, however, went up for sixty days,
and shipped him o copy of Dicks
| Sidereal Heavens, one of my early pur-
chases, to comfort him in his seclusion.
THE love of distinction is the ruling
passion of the human mind; we Qrudge