Year: 1873

ABOUT dLAANACS OENE lQeTe
are very few men who do not remember
or cannot recall, the Importance the alma
nae enjoyed in his boyhood's home. | re-
member it used to hang by string to the
kitchen wall and the member of the fam
lily who took it down for reference, Was re-
CURED to hang it up again when through
with it.


1t was generally medical almanac.
with yellow cover-snd a very bright
looking cover it was that winter but by
the next winter the corners of the cover
we're rolled up, or gone, and there were
conveniences for telling pretty accurately
how many h,es had enjoyed its retirement.


Over the leaf was picture of man
clothed in the fantastic garb of South
Sea Islander. with trap door in hus alb
domen, and cook reaches and scales and
other appliances of the grocery business
around him.


Then there was the calendar, where the
weather was hand ed, and where drunken
looking moons, and improbable suns and
highly impossible tides were made to 60
through performances that were intensely
eJlfyIng to the family.


lnterspersed were grammatically con-
structed letters ungrammatlcal people To-
Gated in unheard of towns in the distant
West, who had been raised from the grave
by pills, or drawn from eternity by plas-
ters, and having been restored to perfect
health, and having no further need of
either, send on and order ton of both.
A l. oh
cians in unknown localities, the whole set
off with pes for making puddings that
no one should eat, and cake that no one
would dare to. And when a recipe for
either was hedged in by the details of a
fever sore on one side, and the graphic
particulars OF hemorrhage on the other,
the symmetry of the whole was undenia-
BILE.


When l was boy lived one winter
with an uncle and aunt, and they did cot
keep their almanac hung up. Aunt never
cared to look at the almanac anyway, so
my uncle took care of it. He kept it in
4 drawer where be did his shaving appara-
tus, and odd hinges. and nails, and screws
and a weasel skin for cramp. and cover,
less novel. and two equally decrepid song
books. That drawer was a museum. Ii
was the family drawer, and the receptacle
Of everything handy. L don't really be
lleve either my aunt or uncle or the kitchen
stove had ever been in that drawer; but
about everything else had There was a
hank of black thread in among the con
tents, or, to be more exact, the contents
we're in among that thread, and whenever
anything was taken out, that thread had
10 be consulted.


Sometimes the drawer would come all
the way out, and very unexpectedly, and
nearly bury my uncle 10 the contents. He
was not profane man, and so he did not
swear. He merely observed that it was
sealed book to him why a woman never
had any system, and then left me to pick
up the things and continue the argument.


He had three or four years almanacs in
the drawer, and when he went To consult
about the weather, he was just as likely
to pore over three-year-old almanac as
the current Not that it made any partic>
ular difference, only there was always
something especially instructive to me to
see him looking over the wrong almanac,
and deduc'ng facts that appeared to be of
great comfort to him.


But then, you have had just such expe
riences yourself, and there is no need Of
dwelling upon them.-The DanJury Ne,cs
Mans almanac for 1874.