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St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, May 1878
 
Jack-In-The-Pulpit
 

Something quite new to you, I dare say, for which of you ever heard of trimming cows with their own horns and ears? How should you like to see a cow with her ears—poor thing!—cut to the shape of a leaf with notched edges, and horns trained in some queer shape, twisted into curls, or divided into four, with two meeting overhead, and two turned down toward the ground? It would be a dreadful sight to me, I am sure; but the Africans admire such things. They consider this trimming of cows a sort of fine art. You don't see how they manage the horns? Well, they begin when the horns are young; divide each into two, or more, and gradually train them, while growing, in any way they choose. Of course it must hurt the poor cows, and take a great deal of time; but the people who train cows' horns have not very tender feelings, and they are richer in spare time than in anything else. Besides, they do not have to trim their own clothes much—they're savages.

Feet and Wings

I have been told that flies have suckers on their feet, and climb up window-panes by using them, much as boys lift smooth stones with a piece of soaked leather and a string. Is this so, little folks?

By the way, while you are thinking of flies, I once heard some schoolma'ams (I'm sure our little one was not among them) disputing about the number of wings that a house-fly ought to have. And they said, though it's hard to believe, that over the door of the Masonic Temple at Boston there are bees, cut in the stone, each with only wings enough for a fly!

Perhaps the sculptor had been reading Virgil before carving those bees, for, as I've heard, that ancient poet in one of his writings made a mistake as to the number of a bee's wings.

Cetus, Not Cygnus

One of my sharp eyed chicks, S.E.S., of Canandaigua, sends word that the star Mira, of which I told you last month, is in the star-group Cetus (the Whale), not in Cygnus (the Swan). S.E.S. is right, I find, and I'm much obliged to her.

PRSVRYPRFCTMN VRKPTHSPRCPTSTN

Deacon Green says that these letters were found on a wall in a church in Wales, painted, like a text, above an inscription of the ten commandments.

Some of you may have seen it before, he thinks; but, if not, it will be good fun for you to find out what it means. He adds that there is but one letter of the alphabet wanting, to make sense; this is used over and over, and, if you put it into the right places, the text will turn into a rhymed couplet.

A Remedy for Hard Times

I have a message from a bird on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina.

"Here," says my friend, "I lately found a remedy for hard times. Looking for food one day, I came close to the home of a silk-spider who was about to make a new web. Now, what do you think I saw him doing? Why, he was eating up the old web, so as to turn it into thread again, and use it a second time! Another curious thing that I found out about this economical old fellow is that, although he has a great many eyes, he can see only just well enough to tell light from darkness."

Now, what in the world can be the use of that spider's eyes, I'd like to know, if he can't see the things around him?

A Queer Churn

New Haven, Conn.

Dear Jack: Last year in April you gave us a picture of a very small doll-churn that a little girl had made, and I thought it was very 'cute. But I read the other day of another churn quite as odd. It is simply the skin of a goat, hung by a rope from the roof. It is used in Persia, and, when they want to churn, they fill the goat-skin with milk, and swing it forward and backward until the butter comes. The children do the swinging, and I think it must be better fun than turning a crank or working a plunger.—Yours affectionately,

O.T.

Cats in Spain

Cats have a nice time in Spain, I hear. No dismal moonlight prowlings over fences and back sheds for them! They have the roofs of the whole country for their walks, and need never touch the ground unless they choose. I'll tell you why. Grain is stored in the attics of Spain, because they are too hot for anything else. But rats and mice delight in attics, as well as in grain. So each owner cuts a small door from the roof, big enough for puss, and any homeless cat is welcome to her warm home, in return for which she keeps away rats. In a sudden rain it must be funny to see dozens of cats scampering over the roofs to their homes among the grain-bags.

"Sincere" Statues

Cambridge, Mass.

DEAR LITTLE SCHOOLMA'AM: In ST. NICHOLAS for December, 1877, Jack-in-the-Pulpit says that "sincere" is made of the words sine-cera, meaning "honey without wax." I have been told that it refers also to the Greeks, who, when they found a crack in a statue, would sometimes fill the flaw with wax; and that hence a "sincere" statue, one "without wax," would have no flaw, but be a true and honest statue.

I have not been able to find any authority for this, otherwise I should have written sooner.—Yours sincerely,

F.B.J.

My acquaintances the crows are very fond of corn, and have a way of picking it out of the ground with their bills just after it has been planted. So the farmers try all sorts of plans to keep them away. One of these plans is shown in the picture.
 

Ancients and Moderns

Now then, my dears, here's a capital chance to show your knowledge of history. Who can answer this question?

Boston, Mass.

DEAR JACK: Will you please ask some of your chicks to tell me when the ancients left off, and the moderns began?—and you will greatly oblige.

F.

Lumber and Timber, Again

The Little Schoolma'am says that "timber" generally means "felled trees," but is used sometimes to describe trees that are yet standing and growing; "lumber" means timber that has been made ready for use, by sawing, splitting, and so forth.

E.M. Ferguson, J. Harry Townsend, Lillie Stone, J. Dutton Steele, Jr., and N.Y.Z. all sent correct answers; but Virginia Waldo, G.V.D.F., and "Max" were only almost right in their replies.
 

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