comers. A hardy lot of men was raised on the hasty-pudding, baked Indian pudding, Johnnycakes, and brownbread of our foremothers. With the hulls removed by strong lye, it becomes hulled corn, and is a dish much relished by those who like plain food. The Southern people grind the corn coarsely, and it is then hominy. The Southern people are adepts at serving the forms of corn and its meal. They know the toothsomeness of "pones" and hot breads from maize. It cannot be used alone, as it has little gluten, but it is rich in oily and fatty matter, and, therefore, very nourishing. Man, not content with using corn as food, has found means to convert it into drinks. A kind of beer called chica, a spirituous liquor, and vinegar are made from maize. It is only in these forms that it ceases to be useful. The young stalks are full of sweetness, and from them a syrup is extracted. The syrup is fermented, and makes another spirituous liquor. Even the husks have a value. Being soft and flexible, they are made into mats and mattresses. They are also used to stuff the seats of chairs. Oranges and lemons are wrapped in corn husks. In South America, cigarettes are made with husk covers. Paper has been made from the husks. Like the palm, so of the maize, almost all of its elements are of use to man. The house may have its roof thatched with the stalks. Does the owner want heat? There are more stalks for fuel. Stalks also will make the baskets he needs to hold his stores. He may cover his floor with matting from its husks, and at night he may sleep comfortably upon a bed stuffed with husks. For his breakfast he may eat a dozen preparations of the meal, or perhaps he will prefer the corn boiled on the ear, or some of these small ears pickled may be appetizing. Over his hominy or hulled corn he will pour the syrup made from the stalks, and if he cares for such drinks he will finish with a glass of its beer, or perhaps he will prefer a form of coffee made by browning the kernels in the oven and serving them ground with wheat and cooked like coffee. It is not bad, though it is not particularly good. After his breakfast he may reckon his accounts and write his letters upon paper made from corn, though he will not have a style of paper usual for correspond ence. 66 Should one lack pictures for ornament, the maize, with its straight stock, broad, branching leaves, its ears covered with golden grain or soft silk, lends itself readily to decoration. Though one commonly speaks of "golden" grains, in fact the kernels are white, purple, red, as often as yellow, and the various kinds combined make a 'symphony in colors,' as Whittier says. "There is more than the practical side to maize. Nothing is quite perfect which is only practical. 'Use must borrow robes from Beauty;' and our commonplace, useful grain has about it a tinge of romance which the Indian nature threw over all which came before it. Do you not know how Hiawatha, on the fourth day of his fasting, "Saw a youth approaching, Dressed in garments green and yellow, He tells Hiawatha to strive with him in wrestling, and that he shall be conquered, and that by his conquest Hiawatha shall bring profit to his people. He bids him "Make a bed for me to lie in, Where the rain may fall upon me, Where the sun may come and warm me." Hiawatha does as he was bidden, and keeps watch beside the grave, "Till at length a small, green feather And before the summer ended With its shining robes about it, Called aloud, It is Mondamin! Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin!'"' and the friend of man;' maize has ever since been." We think that the first really important impulse to the discussion of the question, "What Shall be Our National Flower?" was given by Mrs. Estelle M. H. Merrill of the Boston Globe, the present president of the New England Women's Press Association. The discussion has became so popular and general - hardly less so, Mrs. Merrill humorously observes, than that of the famous queries, “Is Life Worth Living?" and "Is Marriage a Failure?"-that the history of it, which she has recently published in a newspaper article, is very interesting reading. Her own first choice was the Mayflower, and she still dwells upon this with manifest affection, although recognizing that the popular favorite at present seems to be the golden rod, and giving her final, deliberate verdict in favor of the Indian corn. 66 All things considered," she says, most may be said perhaps in favor of the maize or Indian corn. A native American, maize played an important part in the early colonial history of our country; it has been immortalized already by Longfellow and Hiawatha, and sung by Whittier and others of our poets; symbolically it is everything that is desirable, while from an artistic point of view its capabilities are endless." We think that the final verdict of the country will be that of Mrs. Merrill, who started the discussion and has followed it most carefully. Shall we not set a stalk of corn upon the cover of the NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE. and settle the matter? 66 "My dear," said Mrs. after a slight dispute at the breakfast table, "do you think I am generally ill-natured?" "No," he replied, "I think you are particularly so." AN Irishman had accepted a challenge, and was about to fight a duel. Just before the distances were paced off, he insisted that owing to his near-sightedness he should be permitted to stand six paces nearer to his antagonist than the latter did to him, and that they should both fire at the same time. A FARMER unexpectedly went into his field and found twelve of his laborers reclining under a tree. He sarcastically offered a dollar to the one who would prove himself to be the laziest. Eleven of the men jumped up at once, each one asserting his right to the money. The farmer, however, decided that the dollar belonged to the twelfth man, who had remained on the ground. He announced his decision, and offered the money to the winner, who thanked him with the inquiry, "I say, can't you put it in my pocket for me?" DURING the Millerite excitement an eccentric individual was invited by some graceless youths to go with them to an evening meeting of the Adventists. His companions requested him to speak, telling him that it would be especially gratifying to hear remarks from any stranger. It was a very cold time, and the snow was deep. The meeting was an enthusiastic one, and the believers were much excited. They were sure the Great Day was at hand. One old woman was loud in her predictions. "The Lord is coming speedily!" she cried. "He is coming! I hear his chariot-wheels!" -jumped up, exclaiming, "No ma'am - it can't be! If He comes now, He must come on runners!" W THERE is a school not far from Boston which still maintains the custom of having yearly oral examinations conducted by the trustees. The school assembled recently for the ordeal, and the pupils were questioned by turn on the subjects they had studied during the year. Finally one of the trustees began to put questions in physics, and asked a bright looking boy about the properties of heat. "The chief property of heat is that it expands bodies, while cold contracts them," replied the boy. "Very good indeed; can you give me a familiar example?" "Yes, sir; in summer, when it is hot, the day is long; while in winter, when it is cold, the day becomes very short." The learned trustee closed the examination with the remark that he was amazed that so familiar an instance had escaped his own observation. WHEN the more liberal religious views began to make inroads upon the stricter Calvinistic doctrines in our New England towns, fifty years ago, many good people were much disturbed. The people in a certain little town in New Hampshire were disturbed as they began to discover the new views working their way into their old pastor's sermons. They were disturbed especially at the larger part that preaching about "good works" was coming to play in the sermons. At last they felt it their duty to remonstrate, and a committee waited upon the parson. Various weak places in his theology were touched upon, but the chief grievance was with the "good works." The old divine frankly admitted all that they charged. He certainly had been led to feel that the doctrine of "good works" had been dangerously slighted in the New England churches, and new views on that point were sure to prevail. gentlemen," he said, "you need not have any anxiety about that here. I have preached here thirty years, and know the town well; and I assure you that in that time there have not been good works enough done in this town to damn a single soul." "But, AMONG the most interesting natural phenomena in the State of Maine are the famous Underwood Springs near Casco Bay. They get their name from their first European owners, a Dublin family; but Weymouth, the early English explorer of the Maine coast, first made them known to the Euro pean scientific world. It was a theory of Descartes's that all springs have their source in the ocean and are supplied by a kind of capillary attraction; and this spring revealed by Weymouth certainly seemed to fit the curious theory very well. It poured out then, as it pours out now, its quarter of a million gallons a day, with no discoverable source. Weymouth found the spring guarded by a small tribe of Indians known as the Sekokis, who maintained a permanent camp around it, guarding it from their neighboring foes, though they permitted him to fill his casks with the pure water from their prized fountain. He found mounds in the vicinity, evidently of great antiquity, which told of earlier occupants of the region than the decaying tribe then in possession. These mounds are still to be seen. The Underwood family, into whose possession the springs came, were not as generous as the Sekokis to Weymouth, attempting to levy a tax on the English vessels coming to the Casco Bay forests for cargoes of masts and spars and seeking at the springs supplies of water for their homeward voyage. |