but the perspiration stood in beads on his brow, and though it was broad
daylight, and his wife and children were about him, Jack thought things
were indeed crooked. In the first place, Jack was sure that his farm was
crooked, for his new addition was little better than stolen. His home was
crooked, for he had not made it a pleasant home. His children were
crooked, for he was not educating them right. And then, at bottom, he
knew that his own heart was the crookedest thing of all. The Lundys were
all packed ready to start that morning. Bitter were their tears. But a
messenger from Mr. Grip brought them a deed to their farm, and a note,
saying that, as some amend for the trouble he had given them, Mrs. Lundy
would please accept the amount still due on the farm as a present.

There are many crooked people in the world; some in one way, some in
another. When you get to be a crooked old man, or a crooked old woman,
will your life look crooked to you as crooked Jack's did to him?

THE FUNNY LITTLE OLD WOMAN.

Little Tilda Tulip had two lips as pretty as any little girl might want.
But Tilda Tulip tilted her two lips into a pout, on a moment's notice. If
any thing went wrong--and things had a way of going wrong with her--if
any thing went at all wrong, she would go wrong, too, as if it would do
any good to do wrong. Some people are always trying to mend crooked
things by getting crooked themselves. There are some little girls, and
not a few big ones, that seem to think the quickest way of straightening
a seam that is puckered is to pucker a face that is straight.

Sometimes her friends would ask what she would do if her face were to
freeze in frowns, but her Uncle John used to say that she was always too
hot to freeze. One evening she came to Uncle John with the usual frown,
showing him her new brocade doll dress. She had put it away carelessly,
and it was all in "beggars' presses."

"Just see, Uncle John," she whined; "dear me! I never get any thing nice
that it isn't spoiled somehow or other. Isn't that too bad? This dress
has been wrinkled for a week, and now it will never come smooth at all."

"That's bad, surely," said Uncle John, "but there is something more than
that. I know something of yours that is finer than that brocade silk,
that is all in 'beggars' presses.'"

"Why, no, Uncle John, I haven't any thing so fine as this, you know, and
now this is all puckered and wrinkled and krink