they start out by taking two girls to a picnic, their whole lives are liable to become acidulated, and they will grow up hating themselves.  If a young man is good natured and tries to do the fair thing, and a picnic is got up, and the rest of the boys are liable to play it on him.  There is always some old back number of a girl who has no fellow, who wants to go, and the boys, after they all get girls and buggies engaged, will canvass among themselves to see who shall take this extra girl, and it always falls to the good-natured young man.  He says of course there is room for three in the buggy.  Sometimes he thinks may be this old girl can be utilized to drive the horse, and then he can converse with his own sweet girl with both hands, but in such a moment as ye think not, he finds out that the extra girl is afraid of horses, dare not drive, and really requires some holding to keep her nerves quiet.  The young man begins to realize by this time that life is one great disappointment.  He tries to drive with one hand, and consoles his good girl, who is a little cross at the turn affairs have taken, with the other, but it is a failure, and finally his good girl says she will drive, and then he has to put an arm around them both, which will give more or less dissatisfaction the best way you can fix it.  If we had a boy that didn’t seem to have any more sense than to make a hat rack of himself to hang girls on in a buggy, we should labor with him, and tell him of the agonies we had experienced in youth, when the boys palmed off two girls on us to take to a country picnic, and we believe we can do no greater favor to the young men who are just entering the picnic of life than to impress upon them the importance of doing one thing at a time, and doing it well.  Start right at first, and life will be one continued picnic buggy ride, but if your mind is divided in youth you will always be looking for hot boxes and annoyance.

[Illustration:  THE OLD BACK NUMBER GIRL.]

CAMP MEETINGS IN THE DARK OF THE MOON.

A Dartford man, who has been attending a camp meeting at that place, inquires of the Brandon Times why it is that camp meetings are always held when the moon does not shine.  The Times man gives it up and refers the question to the Sun.  We give it up.

It does not seem as though managers of camp meetings deliberately consult the almanac in order to pick out a week for camp meeting in the dark of the moon, though such meetings are always held when the moon is of no account.  If they do, then there is a reason for it.  It is well known that pickerel bite best in the dark of the moon, and it is barely possible that sinners “catch on” better at that time.

There may be something in the atmosphere, in the dark of the moon, that makes a camp meeting more enjoyable.  Certainly brethren and sisterin’ can mingle as well if not better when there is no glaring moon to molest and make them afraid, and they can relate their experience as well as though it was too light.