The St. Johns herald., 1890-01-16
LOSING A VACUUM.
How Mikes Kindness Was Rewarded by
 an Ungrateful Creature.

 How Mikes Kindness Was Rewarded by
 an UngratefuI Creature.
 The teacher of the Roseville High School was young man with an ardent love of science, and the boys and girls had all caught something of his spirit Twenty homes il Roseville gave evidence of the experimental work which was being carried on by the young people, and mothers and aunts held indignation meetings over the bugs and toads and snakes and birds, alive ard dead, that appear ed in unexpected places. One day Frank Newman found an unusually handsome mud-turtle. nearly as large as his hat, in which he carried it home.
 That evening after tea there Was an excited meeting of young people on the lawn. Tennis was forgotten as the boys discussed ways and means of preserving this turtles fine shell. Finally they decided to and asked their teachers advice. Mr. Dean was full of interest He told them that he had once cleaned a shell of this sort very easily. after he had killed the turtle by putting him under a glass receiver and pumping out the air with an air pump.
 Next day, therefore, the zooloSy class assembled after school in MT. Deans classroom to witness the ex- pertinent. Frank Newman put the big tortoise under the receiver, and Mir. Dean pumped out the air until the creature lay limp and lifeless, sprawl ing out of its shell.
 ''It is a painless death," said the professor. We will leave him here until morning, to be sure that life is extinct, before we remove the body from the plastron and carapace."
 On his way to the classroom, early the next morning, Frank Newman met the jaritor, with his dustpan full of fragments of glass.
 "Sure, Masther Newman, it's throuble you're maxim with yez animals and the glass bells," said he. "That big, expinsive one in Misther Deans room is smashed in slivereens by that shelled baste you left shut up-and here they areI''
 ''But he was deadr' cried Frank. ''How could he break the receiverP"
 ''Faith, I fetched him to life the poor craythur! I found him there a-gaspin' when I went to sweep out the room yesther evening, just afther ye'd gone, and l thought you'd been forget ting him, so 1 saved his life fur him; and then look how he broke the glass bellr"
 You saved his life for him! HowP';
 "Sure and l just slipped thin book under one side of the glass, to give him bit of fresh air. And to pay me he had to go and hump himself up and kick over the bell and smash it, bad luck to him!'
 "Whero is ho nowP"
 He's found the bad luck" said Mike. with Q slow smile. "I was some mad, to spake the thruH4, when 1 saw what he done, and before I stopped to think I'd picked him up from the floor where he was prancing about and give him fling out of the window. And there 1 see one of thim little ras calls from the patch a-licking off down the road wid him."
 "Well, Mike. I hope that in the future you'll not meddle with our ex- periments, said Frank, with some irritation. "We left the turtle over night in the receiver because we wished it to be there. If you hadn't let in the air the accident would not have happened. You see we had a vacuum" he concluded, condescend- ingly.
 ''Sure, was the craythur vacuum" said Mike, with great respect "I thought twas just common mud tur- tler'-Youth' S Companion.