got just under the hat.  It is the pocket you must aim at.  What is life and society—­what New York—­without money?  Say you love him to distraction.  Declare your existence is bound up in his. (Greenback binding.) Throw yourself at his feet at the opportune moment, and victory must be yours.  Impale him at all hazards.  Remember you are thirty-seven and well on in life.  Your own loving

MARIA ANASTASIA WIGGINS.

* * * * *

THE PUMP.

An Old Story with a Modern Application.

      Like rifts of sunshine, her tresses
        Waved over her shoulders bare,
      And she flitted as light o’er the meadows,
        As an angel in the air.

      “O maid of the country, rest thee
        This village pump beside,
      And here thou shalt fill thy pitcher,
        Like REBECCA, the well beside!”

      But a voice from yonder window
        Through my shuddering senses ran,
      And these were its words:  “MARIA-R! 
        MA-RIA-R! don’t-mind-that-man!”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  LUCIFERS LITTLE GAME WITH HIS ROYAL PUPPETS.]

* * * * *

HIRAM GREEN’S EXPERIENCE AS AN EDITOR.

Lively Times in the Editorial Sanctum.—­The “Lait Gustise” handled Roughly.

“Whooray!  Whooray!” I exclaimed, rushin’ into the kitchen door, one mornin’ last spring, and addressin’ Mrs. GREEN.  “I’ve been invited to edit the Skeensboro Fish Horn.  Fame, madam, awaits your talented pardner.”

“Talented Lunkhead, you mean,” said this interestin’ femail; “you’d look sweet editin’ a noose paper.  So would H. WARD BEECHER dancin’ ‘shoo-fly’ along with DAN BRYANT.  Don’t make a fool of yourself if you know anything, HIRAM, and respect your family.”

The above conversation was the prelude to my first and last experience in editin’ a country paper.

The editor of the “Fish Horn” went on a pleasure trip, to plant a rich ant who had died and left him some cash.

Durin’ his absence I run his paper for him.  Seatin’ my form on top of the nail keg, with shears and paste brush I prepared to show this ere community how to run a noosepaper.

I writ the follerin’ little squibs and put ’em in my first issue.

“If a sertin lite complexion man wouldn’t run his hands down into sugar barrels so often, when visitin’ grosery stores, it would be money in the pocket of the Skeensboro merchants”—­

“Query.  Wonder how a farmer in this town, whose name we will not rite, likes burnin’ wood from his nabor’s wood-pile?”—­

“We would advise a sertin toothles old made to leave off paintin’ her cheeks, and stop slanderin’ her nabors.  If she does so, she will be a more interestin’ femail to have around.”—­

“Stop Thief.—­If that Deekin, who trades at one of our grocery stores, and helps himself to ten cents worth of tobacker while buyin’ one cents worth of pipes, will devide up his custom, it would be doing the square thing by the man who has kept him in tobacker for several years.”