WINDOWS

Without windows there would be no fresh-air fiends.  A single window may make or mar a whole household.  Used occasionally by burglars, small boys and lovers, the singular power of the window to control our destiny has not hitherto been recognized.  Without windows there would be no ghost stories, for how could the rain beat on the pane, or the wind come in short gusts through the cracks?  Neither would there be melodrama, for how could the heroine crouch on the floor if there were no sudden flashes of lighting or falling snow to gaze at through the window?  What poems have been written by just looking through a window; and as for literature in general, who does not remember the window in Thrums?  The first thing we look at upon entering a room is the windows.  At night the window is the last thing we adjust, and in the morning the first we gaze out of.  The first window was the beginning of civilization.  Consider the window of a cell, how symbolic it is of a dwarfed and misdirected life.  The composite health of any community can almost be predicated upon the number of its windows that are kept open at night.

Then there are the windows of the soul, without which no best seller would be worth the price of admission.

WISDOM

“Father, have you cut all four of your wisdom teeth?”

“Yes, son.  I have purchased a used car, accepted a nomination, been chairman of a local reception committee, and married your mother.”

  True wisdom laboring to expound,
    Heareth others readily;
  Fake wisdom, sturdy to deny, closeth
    Up her mind to argument.

  —­Tupper.

WISHES

MABEL—­“Oh, but I wish I had a nice big car, with blue plush upholstering and all the modern appliances.”

ALICE—­“You’d take me out with you, if you had, wouldn’t you?”

“No.”

“Well, why not?”

“Why, you’re perfectly capable of doing your own wishing, aren’t you?”

HE—­“But, Alice, you don’t want that!”

SHE—­“How will I know until I get it?”

WITNESSES

The day was drawing to a close.  Judge, jurors, witnesses, and lawyers all were growing weary.  Counsel for the prosecution was cross-examining the defendant.

“Exactly how far is it between the two towns?” he asked at length.

For some time Paddy stood thinking, then, “About four miles as the cry flows,” came the answer.

“You mean ‘as the flow cries!’” corrected the man of law.

The judge leaned forward.  “No,” he remarked suavely, “he means ’as the fly crows.’”

And they all looked at one another, feeling that something was wrong somewhere.

A lawyer was examining a Scottish farmer.  “You’ll affirm that when this happened you were going home to a meal.  Let us be quite certain on this point, because it is a very important one.  Be good enough to tell me, sir, with as little prevarication as possible, what meal it was you were going home to.”