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YEARS and years ago there was a busy housekeeper thrown into a fever of anxiety because she heard a certain famous general was coming, and that she would be expected to entertain him. She flew about in the greatest haste, pressing all the people around her into service to help make ready for the distinguished guest.

Among others was a man who, by his dress and general appearance, she took to be a neighbor’s servant. “Take hold and help us here a minute,” she said, and set him at some work in the kitchen. That being done the man volunteered to split some wood to a certain size, as it was greatly needed. While he was thus employed the lady’s husband, who had been absent, reached home, and was informed of the honor in store for him. He, too, set about helping with the preparations, and presently went to the kitchen, where the strange servant was just laying down an armful of the wood he had split.

Imagine the man’s stare of astonishment, mingled with dismay, when he recognized in the stranger the famous general in whose honor all this bustle of preparation was going forward.

In stammering confusion he approached the supposed servant, who, by the way, was slightly deformed, and asked for the meaning of such an extraordinary state of things.

“Why,” said the helper, with a broad smile on his face, “I am paying the fine for my deformity.”

I leave the Pansies to learn who this great man was, and who was the woman who in her haste to honor him mistook him for a house servant, and also what happened in consequence of this.

Pansy.

Crickets are bought and sold in various parts of Africa. People capture them, feed them, and sell them. The natives are very fond of their music, thinking that it induces sleep. Superstitions regarding the cricket’s chirp are varied. Some believe it is ominous of sorrow and evil, others consider it a harbinger of joy.

CASTLE QUEER.