Porter Emerson came into the office yesterday. He had been out in the country for a week and was very cheerful. Just as he was leaving, he said: "Did you hear about that man who died the other day and left all he had to the orphanage?"
"No," some one answered. "How much did he leave?"
"Twelve children."
"I made a mistake," said Plodding Pete. "I told that man up the road I needed a little help 'cause I was lookin' for me family from whom I had been separated fur years."
"Didn't that make him come across?"
"He couldn't see it. He said dat he didn't know my family, but he wasn't goin' to help in bringing any such trouble on 'em."
"It requires a vast deal of courage and charity to be philanthropic,"
remarked Sir Thomas Lipton, apropos of Andrew Carnegie's giving. "I remember when I was just starting in business. I was very poor and making every sacrifice to enlarge my little shop. My only assistant was a boy of fourteen, faithful and willing and honest. One day I heard him complaining, and with justice, that his clothes were so shabby that he was ashamed to go to chapel.
"'There's no chance of my getting a new suit this year,' he told me.
'Dad's out of work, and it takes all of my wages to pay the rent.'
"I thought the matter over, and then took a sovereign from my carefully hoarded savings and bought the boy a stout warm suit of blue cloth. He was so grateful that I felt repaid for my sacrifice. But the next day he didn't come to work. I met his mother on the street and asked her the reason.
"'Why, Mr. Lipton,' she said, curtsying, 'Jimmie looks so respectable, thanks to you, sir, that I thought I would send him around town today to see if he couldn't get a better job.'"
"Good morning, ma'am," began the temperance worker. "I'm collecting for the Inebriates' Home and--"
"Why, me husband's out," replied Mrs. McGuire, "but if ye can find him anywhere's ye're welcome to him."
Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands.--_Addison_.
You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.--_Sydney Smith_.
CHICAGO
A western bookseller wrote to a house in Chicago asking that a dozen copies of Canon Farrar's "Seekers after God" be shipped to him at once.
Within two days he received this reply by telegraph:
"No seekers after God in Chicago or New York. Try Philadelphia."
CHICKEN STEALING
Senator Money of Mississippi asked an old colored man what breed of chickens he considered best, and he replied:
"All kinds has merits. De w'ite ones is de easiest to find; but de black ones is de easiest to hide aftah you gits 'em."
Ida Black had retired from the most select colored circles for a brief space, on account of a slight difficulty connected with a gentleman's poultry-yard. Her mother was being consoled by a white friend.
"Why, Aunt Easter, I was mighty sorry to hear about Ida--"
"Marse John, Ida ain't nuvver tuk dem chickens. Ida wouldn't do sich a thing! Ida wouldn't demeange herse'f to rob nobody's hen-roost--and, any way, dem old chickens warn't nothing't all but feathers when we picked 'em."
"Does de white folks in youah neighborhood keep eny chickens, Br'er Rastus?"
"Well, Br'er Johnsing, mebbe dey does keep a few."
Henry E. Dixey met a friend one afternoon on Broadway.
"Well, Henry," exclaimed the friend, "you are looking fine! What do they feed you on?"
"Chicken mostly," replied Dixey. "You see, I am rehearsing in a play where I am to be a thief, so, just by way of getting into training for the part I steal one of my own chickens every morning and have the cook broil it for me. I have accomplished the remarkable feat of eating thirty chickens in thirty consecutive days."
"Great Scott!" exclaimed the friend. "Do you still like them?"
"Yes, I do," replied Dixey; "and, what is better still, the chickens like me. Why they have got so when I sneak into the hen-house they all begin to cackle, 'I wish I was in Dixey.'"--_A. S. Hitchcock_.
A southerner, hearing a great commotion in his chicken-house one dark night, took his revolver and went to investigate.
"Who's there?" he sternly demanded, opening the door.
No answer.
"Who's there? Answer, or I'll shoot!"
A trembling voice from the farthest corner:
"'Deed, sah, dey ain't nobody hyah ceptin' us chickens."
A colored parson, calling upon one of his flock, found the object of his visit out in the back yard working among his hen-coops. He noticed with surprise that there were no chickens.
"Why, Brudder Brown," he asked, "whar'r all yo' chickens?"
"Huh," grunted Brother Brown without looking up, "some fool niggah lef de do' open an' dey all went home."