An Earthquake in a Flower-potP""*"!EOPLE often make use of the expres-

sion, "a storm in a tea-cup," when1 they wish to convey the idea that a

great fuss baa been made about noth-ing. I never bear the remark without think-ing of the words wi.ich mark the heading ofthis article, and being reminded of somethingwhich happened when I was a smajl boy atboarding school. *> . \u25a0. '.-.. '"\u25a0 p.I The "storm in a tea-cup" is, of course,merely a figure of speech, but the'incident Iam going to relate was, as you willsee, bter-rally a sort of "earthquake in a flower-pot."

That was a first-rate school, for we wereallowed to keep pets there—almost anythingwe liked in the animal line; and we had agood big yard and a lot of empty stables andouthouses at the back of the covered play-ground given up to us for the purpose.Here we maintained quite a menagerie—dogs, pigeons, mocking-birds, parrots, rab-bits, guinea-pigs, squirrels, hedgehogs andwhite mice.

One of the teachers would come and in-spect our live stock now and then, to seethat the animals were all properly kept andcared for; and so far from discouraging usin this taste for practical natural history, theprincipal himself used to give us all sorts ofadvice and assistance, as well as pleasant in-formation about the creatures which tookour especial fancy, telling us how best tofeed them, what to give them for beds, andhow to accommodate the conditions of theircapivity to their habits when in a state ofnature; all of .which goes a long way towardeffecting what every boy desires with regardto a pet taming it, and gaining itr confi-dence and affection.

1 forgot-what birds or beasts I had in par-ticular, except a couple of piebald rats,which escaped one night and gnawed throughthe wicker bars of another boys' cage, allowingthe tame dove therein to get away, aud leadingto a row next morning.

I know that sometimes by the end of theterm nearly the whole collection in the yardhad passed into my hands by purchase orexchange, for I was a great fellow at cricket,

,football and most other games, and gladlybartered away bats, balls, tops, marbles, paints,story-books, or any other portable propertyfor pets, which I liked even better than marsh-mallows and cinnamon buns as an investmentfor my pocket-money. ',\u25a0•-\u25a0\u25a0

, Boj-s go back to school with golden "tips"in their jurses nowadays; ten cents a week,was all I ever got, and thought myself verywell off on it, too; but it took a lot of savingup, week by week, till it "ran" to a rabbitor a white mouse. But I was self-denyingenough in this respect to cause my half-yearly arrival at home to be awaited withconsiderable anxiety by my parents, to whomI .usually, presented mvsclf shorn of birth-day • gifts and every other convertible article,but with animals enough to stock a show.And I think Lmav say that the noise theymade in the back garden occasioned the daywhen we all returned to school to be hailedwith delight by the whole neighborhood.

One \u25a0 day ; I found a big toad in the dryditch at the bottom of the ball ground, agreat,' buff-colored chap, with dusky-brownspots all over his wrinkled skin, and I pock-eted him and set him up as an addition tomv zoo.

"You have no idea, it you hava never kepta toad, what a splendid pet be made. Ipenned l.im off in a corner, but he used to

spend oil his time, after the manner of hiskind, under a stone in the corner, althoughhe had plenty of room for exercise if he hadchosen to take it. . ' ..

Here he scooped out a little cave for him-self in the soft earth just big enough for hisabode quite contentedly. -

I did not know what to feed him on at first,and tried him in vain with the staple provi-sions of our menagerie larder —bread and milk,boiled rice, lettuce and hemp-seed. But oneday I saw him shoot out his tongue with aclick and lick up a wriggling caterpillar closeto his stone; so, after that,*I furnished himwith a bountiful supply of earth-worms andgrubs. And I was never tired of watchinghim take these, ,it was better than any per-formance in a circus.'I would drop a worm quietly beside the

stone,' just in front of where I knew themouth of his cavern to be. Presently his headwould be nokeu out to inspect, then his shoul-ders and body would follow, and he wouldstand gazing intently at the food, the veryimage of eager, bright-eyed excitement, not abit like the dull, sluggish creature that mostpeople take a toad to be. - .-..-•\u25a0

Then, smack! like a little kiss—you had tolook very closely or you would not catchsight of the tongue at all, it was bo rapidlydone—and the worm had either disappearedentirely or was seen sticking out of the cor-ners of his wide mouth.' A solemn gulp . and a sort of long wink,and then he would wipe his mouth with hispaw and settle back into his hole again. Hesoon got tame enough to snap Them out ofmy fingers, and even to sit on my hand andfeed. Any toad will do the same.

Would yon believe it, when the fellowsfound out what I had— I had, not saidanything about my late«t acquisition to any-bodythey made a most awful fuss about it,and threatened to throw the poor toad overthe hedge if 1 did not get rid of him? N

They "were sure he would spit at us andpoison somebody!

And though the masters did not quite takethis view of the matter, I am afraid they -looked upon my wrinkled pet with no greatfavor, though they did not actually forbidme to keep him.

Thus, public feeling ran too high for me tostand against it, so I removed mv toad, fear-ing that some evil would befall him if I lefthim any longer in the yard, and sought somefresh place of concealment for him.

I should tell you that we wen not only al-lowed to keep animals, but those who likedcould cultivate gardens of their own as well.A long narrow strip of ground, which ex-tended the whole length of the premises par-allel with the house, lawn both play-groundsand the meadow, was given up to us, dividedout into small square plots, each the propertyof one boy. \u25a0\u25a0\u25a0..-I do not fancy we raised many flowers, as

far as I can recollect; but we grew mustardand cress and radishes to any extent, andwere great at making paths and rockeriesand shell-borders, with very rustic seats onwhich to sit- down and rest from our agri-cultural labors while viewing the resultsthereof. . ......

I dug up worms in mine for the toad aslong as he remained in my possession. Someof the more enthusiastic tillers of the soiltransferred their choicest \u25a0 plants—jiansies,

(OOPXBKIHT BZ JAHJM \u25a0LTXBBONJ

mignonnette, reo daisies, London pnde andthe like—to flower-pots, wherewith tbey

adorned the window-sills of thei- bedrooms.Several such graced the dormitory where 1

\u25a0lept, but their display was not tie productof my own industry.

My menagerie absorbed most of mj ™fand attention out of school hours, and ourwindow-garden testified to the horticulturalsuccess of the other boys in my room.

But all of a sudden it strock me that 1

would set up a Bower-pot, too AccordinglyIprocured a big one, so big that it had to be

secured to the ledge with a oouple of nails

and a bit of string to prevent its topplingover.

In it I planted first a root of primroses,waich soon died; then I sowed some con-volvulus i -ds, which never came up. l «~always grubbing and gardening at it, witnoui

any viable result. . \u25a0 t tMy barren flower-pot was an object of

derision to the whole school, and was voteda disgrace to I widow-sill, especially whenI erected a lattice of firewood for the never-appearing convolvuluses to climb upon, anathe bare sticks rose gaunt and high aoovemy neighbors' bloor . , ,

One day there was a terrific thunder-storm, and a lot of us were standing at me

bed-room window watching the ra.n, wmencame rushing down with such violence that

it seemed to stand out like a glass wall.Just when the storm was at its fiercest, aboy called out, "Oh, I say, look here, loo*here—look at Arthur's flower-pot!

And, indeed, there wa* some cause forastonishment, 'me surface of the earth hadcollapsed and sunk in in the middle like a

vertiable landslip or volcanic subsidence inminiature; ihe firewood trellis, Whose occu-

pation had never come, tumbled over anddropped into the court below, and, most sur-prising of all, the fallen-in earth which now

scarcely filled a quarter of the pot, washeaving and convulsed with the wave-likemotion of an earthquake.

I really believe that for a few momentsthe other fellows thought it was due in someway or other to the electric disturbance of

the thunder-storm, which they vaguely asso-

ciated with eruptions in general, and I tcr-vently wished that this idea could liave

remained undispeUed until I had the oppor-tunity of removing the true cause ot the

subterranean agitation to a place of eatety.

But, alas! in less than half a minute theipeckled head of my dear old toad bobbedup through the billowing mould, by this time

a mere paste of sloppy mud, and before 1could seize him he had scaled the slopingside of the flower-pot ,v . had tumbled over,clear of the lodg;, on to the ground beneath.

In an agony of mind I flew down thestairs and rut-hed out bareheaded in all thethunder, lightning and deluging rain; but itwas too late. He was gone, and I neversaw him more.

A bed of grass which ran along the wallhad received his fall, so that he was appar-ently uninjured by the descent, and the cook,who hsH been looking out at the weatherfrom the kitchen underneath the dormitory,saw him hop n: .bly away. In spite of allmy close companionship with this toad, Inever knew before that he could climb.

This was the explanation of the earth-quake.

At my wits' end to know how to concealmy humble pet, so as to let him live in com-fort, and yet be screened from prying eyes,I had suddenly hit upon the notion of lodg-ing him in a flower-pot.

I had observed that of his own choice healways preferred to remain in a very limitedspace, provided plenty of food came to himthere; and I thought that if I gave himwater and lots of worms, and let him out fora run on my bed every day, he would be asmuch at-home in a good big flower-pot as inthe pig-sty or his native ditch. So I cut outa circular disk of pasteboard about half aninch less in diameter than that of the rim,which just fitted the circumference about acouple of inches down.

Having put in the tiad, with a bed of softmoss at the bottom, I wedged the parteboarddown tight, forming a ceiling to hia newapartment, and covered it with a layer ofearth. • •-.z.^-'.-.n- \u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0'\u25a0.\u25a0

I was greatly puzzled to know how to givehim air, and at Crst I left the hole at the bot-tom open, and tilted the flower-pot up alittle, so as to ventilate it from below. Notsatisfied with this arrangement, I-next in-serted a shaft, made out of a quill pen,through the card, hiding the upper end of itunder the primrose root: Finally I drilledthree or four small holes through the pot it-self with a bradawl. \u0084v,_> "*.. ,-<i'.'.

But I need not have troubled myself onthis point. Plenty of air would have foundits way through t>.e chinks and crannies ofthe roof—a great deal more, comparatively,than people get who sleep in a room with thedoor and window shut.

Even ..ad this not been the case, a toadconsumes oxygen so slowly that the airalready in the char.ber would have been suf-ficient to last him for months without change.

tour short strings, attached to the edge ofthe disk and concealed in the mould, ena-bled me to lift it when 1 wished to inspect orfeed the inmate.

Of course it was the rain that ruined all—I had never thought of . that. Probably agentle shower would have done no harm,but the pouring torrent not only softened thepasteboard, but adued weight to the earth,and it caved in. My ungrateful captive tookadvantage of this accident, clambered overthe wall of his prison, and luckily falling onthe turf beneath, made good his escape.

Toads do not climb in the same way thatcats and squirrels do; they have no nails orclaws to hold on by. It is wonderful, how-ever, how high toads can reach standing ontheir hind . legs and stretch up. Thisusually unsuspected habit of theirs no doubt'accounts for their being found in all sorts ofunlikely places, though \u25a0 they can hop butvery little, and this was how mine managedjto get over the edge of-the flower-pot whenthe fallen earth afforded him a "leg-up-."

Our common frog is between seven andeight inches in' length, including the hindlegs, and the common toad not much less,while the bullfrog . measures much \u25a0 more.In contrast with these monsters is the littletree-frog of Georgia^ - hich lives among themyrtle leaves, and is only three-quarters ofan inch long, when full grown, legs and all.

Toads have fewer joints in their spinesthan are owned by any other animals whichhave spines at all. Some kinds have butseven. '/".:\u25a0'\u25a0

Fish and Food/*""\NE popular fallacy in connection withI*!J fUh may be noticed— the oft-fish may be noticed-namely, the oft-\_S^/ repeated assertion that the eating\\. of that particular food increases

brain power. No one who has studied thesubject can possibly believe the assertion.

• A man might eat a huge portion of fishevery day of his life, and on the day of hisdeath, if the quantity of phosphorus (the braininvigorator) consumed were to become visible,it would not amount to more than might

probably suffice to tip a couple of lucifermatches. -Pj;PP , \u0084 . ,

Communities have existed that bved almostsolely on fish, but these ichthyophagists werecertainly not famous for intellectual attain-

-1 ments. Nor are our fisher villages, in manyof which much fish is presumably consumed,the seats of any great amount of brain power.

None of our fisher folks are remarkable forIgenius, or even for what is called commonsense, their views of life and its responsibili-ties being shrouded in a haze of superstitionwhich they lack sufficient strength of mind tosee through.' ,:»•"' - . \u25a0 \u25a0

..No fishing community, so far as is knownto the writer, has given to the world a great

man. Men of mark— preachers, law-yers, warriors, philosophers and physicians-hove emanated from all classes except thefishing class. ,',''..

Upon one occasion, when some friends werepraising fish to Douglas Jerrold as the finestpossible food for intellectual people, "Yes,"said - the , wit; "I have -been a guest withinthese few weeks at thirteen white-bait din-ners, and Bee here (showing a packet of manu-script), that has just been rejected by afriendly editor, who says it is not up to mymark. What do you say to that?"

It is supposed that the idea originated fromthe phosphorescent light emitted Rom decayedfish. But this light is more in the nature offoxfire, and does not necessarily indicate thepresence of phosphorus, and, even. if it did,the brain could not be enriched by its con-sumption. ':\u25a0-\u25a0'.. .-P/r.'•.*".',-.?;'..'•' \u25a0;.•\u25a0'

Peculiar Plants

AIVERY odd plant, in the government

botanical garden at Washington, is__ I the . so-called "barber plant." Itcomes from the Orient, and is not

used, as its name might imply, to help bar-bers, but rather to their detriment, since itis rubbed on the face to keep the beard fromgrowing. -.-»\u25a0\u25a0It is not supposed to have any effect on a

beard that is already rooted, but merely toact as a preventive, boys employing it tokeep the hair from getting a start on theirface. It is also employed by some Orientalpeople who desire to keep parts -of theirheads free from hair, as a matter of fashion.

Also found in the botanical garden is the"cruel plant," which is so designated be-cause it catches butterflies and kills them forsheer sport. Its flowers attract the poorlittle flutterer by the honey it offers, andwhen the victim lights upon it, it- grabs thebutterfly by the head, and holds it fast untilthe captive dies. Then the flower drops it onthe ground, and lies in wait for a fresh un-fortunate. "••' *;s If

A curious-looking tree, from the Isthmusof Panama, bears a round red fruit as big asan apple, which has this remarkable faculty,that its juice, rubbed on tough beef or chicken,makes the meat tender by the chemical powerit possesses to separate the flesh fibre.

One is interested to observe in the botani-cal greenhouse three kinds of plants thathave real consumption of the lungs—leaves of course, being the lungs of a plant.The disease is manifested by the turning ofthe leaves from green to white, the affectiongradually spreading from one spot until, whena leaf is all white, it is just about to die.

Cruelly enough, as it would seem, the gar-deners only try to perpetuate the disease forthe sake of beauty and curiosity, all plantsof those varieties that are too healthy beingthrown away.

A Doctor's AdviceSome men never take a joke. There was

an old doctor who, when asked what was goodfor' mosquitoes, wrote back:

"How do you suppose I can tell, unless Iknow what ails the mosauito?"

Piano-Forte Technique

®lANOplaying among American girls

is so common that it may be said withtruth that everybody plays; but per-haps it is needless to point out that

not many play well. This is doubtless due to thefact that very few learners master the tech-nique of the pianoforte—that is, the art of

playing. To those who have neglected thisart the following hints may be useful:

The first thing to be thought about is thetouch, which must be acquired if anythingapproaching perfection is desired.

The secret of a full round touch—a touchwith music in it— a caressing pressure ofthe keys 'with firm fingers but loose wrist;

for as rigidity iB not compatible with beautyin art of any kind, so there must be nothing

stiff in piano-forte playing. -To illustrate: Take a simple five-finger

exercise, and, before playing, let the handbe placed naturally on the , keys, with thefingers rounded from both joints so that thetips cannot be seen, the thumb also to bebent and used freely from the top joint, same

as the fingers; this will prevent stiffness ofthe thumb. , ": ';''.:

The elbows and wrist must be on a linewith the keyboard, so the length of the armmust decide the important question of bowhigh or low the performer should sit.Should that part of the arm from the shoulderto the elbow be short, the player must sitlow, otherwise the force will proceed fromthe wrong place. .*, '", • .

To insure looseness, exercise the wrist upand down without altering the position of thehand on the keys. . . • \u25a0

Then proceed to play by pressing warmlyinto the keys, so that a very full tone maybe obtained without the strike being heard.To understand this perfectly, it may be prac-ticed • away from the piano—on the table,pressing down each finger with great strength,but quite noiselessly. :

\u25a0 The student must not be discouraged tofind that at first the tone thus obtained isvery feeble, for as the muscles get strongwith practice, so the tone win becomeStronger. ... * . "

Let this be a natural development; neverforce the tone, it causes it to be harsh. Keepthe fingers which yon ore not using well offthe keys; this not only insures clearness but

control of the muscles, only be careful not

to cramp the hand. \u25a0-*\u25a0\u25a0 " Pp'\

In passing from one note to another, bindthe tone so that it is perfectly legato, allow-ing at the same time free use of the fingers,and not unbending them. ". -:\u25a0 -

Practice everything slowly at first. Inpiano 'playing, you must make haste slowly.Constant exercise in scale-playing is the"daily bread" of the student. There is noth-ing like this exercise to produce pearly andbrilliant runs.

Practice all five-finger, and, indeed, mosttechnical exercises, with one hand at a time;so that, as one hand tires, the other may beused, and much time saved. There is, be-sides, so much to think of in the position ofthe hands, use of the fingers in the rightway, the touch and the tone.

Never practice too long at a time. Directlythe mind becomes weary, leave off and resta little. Two or three hours a day, or at mostfour, with the mental faculties employed, arequite sufficient. -It is a mistake to suppose that anythingbeyond mere mechanical dexterity- is ac-quired by the six or eight hours a day sys-tem; the nerves become shaken, and continu-al exhaustion ends in illness and consequentdelay.

In practicing chords, play from the wrist,and think of the inner notes; the outsideones are sure to be heard.

In staccato, play freely from the wrist toinsure elasticity and good control over differ-ent gradations of tone. In octave playing,the same. '.'"'*Perhaps the most difficult acquirement ofall Is pianissimo playing—to produce a \u25a0 soft,and yet full tone, without the use of the sec-ond pedal. This requires just as much pres-sure, but the force must be held back, as itwere. .

Try to produce these soft tones without thesecond pedal, for the effect is much greateron the rare occasions when it is intended tobe used. \u25a0 \u0084••\u25a0\u25a0•

The student will find a constant study ofBach's compositions very helpful; indeed,essential to the quality of ' touch and toneand a good legato. Above all, study intelli-gently, and play with the heart as well as thehand. Talent may be inherent, but patienceand study ore necessary for its development,however great the gift. . *

boys a**:d girls magazine section

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