“Well, you quit.”

“Quit what?”

“Quit singing your religion on the cars.”

“I guess not,” I replied, “I don’t belong to the Quit family; my name is Mead.  For the last half hour you have been standing by your master; now for the next half hour I am going to stand up for my Master.”

“Who is my master?”

“The devil is your master—­while Christ is mine.  I am as proud of my Master as you are of yours.  Now I am going to have my turn, if the passengers don’t object.”

A chorus of voices cried out:  “Sing on, stranger, we like that.”

I sung on, and as the next verse was finished, the blasphemer turned his face away, and I saw nothing of him after that but the back of his head, and that was the handsomest part of him.  He left the train soon after, and I am glad to say I’ve never seen him since.  Song after song followed, and I soon had other voices to help me.  When the song service ended, an old man came to me, put out his hand, and said, “Sir, I owe you thanks and a confession.”

“Thanks for what?”

“Thanks for rebuking that blasphemer.”

“Don’t thank me for that, but give thanks to my Master.  I try to stand up for Him wherever I am.  What about the confession?”

“I am in my eighty-third year.  I have been a preacher of the Gospel for over sixty years.  When I heard that man swearing so, I wanted to rebuke him.  I rose from my seat two or three times, to do so, but my courage failed.  I have not much longer to live, but never again will I refuse to show my colors anywhere.”

HER DANGER SIGNAL.

By Emma C. Hewitt.

She did—­I am sorry to record it, but she did—­Letty Bascombe salted her pie-crust with a great, big tear.

Not that she had none of the other salt, nor that she intended to do it, but, all of a sudden, a big tear, oh, as big as the end of your thumb, if you are a little, little girl, ran zigzag across her cheek down to her chin, and, before she could wipe it off, a sudden, sharp sob took her unawares and, plump, right into the pastry, went this big fat tear.  Of course, if you are even a little girl you must know that it is as useless to hunt for tears in pie-crust as it is to “hunt for a needle in a hay-stack.”  So Letty did not even try to recover her lost property.  But it had one good effect, it made her laugh, and, between you and me (I tell this to you as a secret), Letty, like every other girl, little or big, fat or thin, was much pleasanter to look upon when she smiled than when she cried.  But she didn’t smile for that.  Oh, dear, no.  She smiled because she couldn’t help it.  She was a good-natured, sweet-tempered little puss, most times, and possessed of a very sunny disposition.  “Why did she salt her pie-crust with tears, then?” I hear you ask.  Ah, “Why?” And wait till I tell you.  The most curious part of it all was that it was a Thanksgiving crust.  There, now.  The worst is out.  A common, every-day, week-a-day pie, or even a Sunday pie, would be bad enough, but a Thanksgiving pie of all things.  Why, everybody is happy at Thanksgiving.