n it in lead pencil.

"How much will it cost me to send that message?" he asked.

The operator counted the words.

"Ten words; twenty-five cents."

The young fellow withdrew his closed hand from his pocket and emptied
out exactly twenty-five cents in pennies and nickels, sighed and went
out.

The operator sat down and sent the message. Then he sat looking at the
paper for quite a few seconds; then he turned to me and said,

"Well, I have been jerking lightning quite a while now, but there is the
biggest ten words I ever sent."

He handed me the message; it read--

"Kiss Mother good-by; I am too poor to come."

The second is just a letter which Miss Dayne received in Pittsburg, from
a poor old mother who thought she recognized in Miss Dayne her erring
daughter.

MCKEESPORT, PA., Mar. 5.

Dear Daughter Blanch.

i recognized your picture in one of the Pittsburg papers. Blanchie will
you write me a few lines and releived my heart and mind. if it is
concealment you dont want any one to know from me if you will only write
me a few lines i am your mother how i have longed to see you my health
is failing me the children often ask about you and wonder dont fail me
dear child you are just the same to me as the rest love to you Blanchie
from your heart broken mother

[Illustration: Mag Haggerty's Horse.]

TOMMIE RYAN'S HORSE

Tommie Ryan and his wife (Mary Richfield) live in a very charming house
at Sayville, Long Island. The Ryan horse lived in the barn. Although, if
Mrs. Tommie had had her way, he would have lived in the parlor. For
"Abner" was the pride of her heart.

Abner had been in the family so long he had become a habit. He had grown
so old that Tommie had to go out at night and fold him up and put him to
bed; then in the morning he would have to go out and pry him up on to
his feet again.

When Mrs. Ryan wanted to go for a drive, Tommie had to go along on his
bicycle, to push the horse up the hills and hold it back going down the
hills.

Abner's teeth had grown so long that he looked like a wild boar. Tommie
vows that he chewed all his hay for him for two years.

Finally Tommie got tired of acting as wet nurse to Abner and wanted to
dispose of him some way; but Mrs. Ryan absolutely refused; she said
Tommie had given her that horse "to keep" and she was going to keep him.

But finally, along towards fall, when it was time for them to start out
on their winter's tour, Tommie evolved