| Summary: | Newsletter of the North Dakota School for the Deaf. THE NORTH DAKOTA BANNER THE CCST Of A QUARREL. NEARLY a hundred years ago there lived two wealthy farmers on a small island. They owned one hundred and one sheep between them, and were much admired and envied by their poorer neighbors. Things went well with them for a long time; but at last they quarreled, and decided to dissolve partnership. Then arose the question of how the sheep were to be divided. It was easy enough as far as the hundred were concerned—each could take fifty, and there would be an end of it. But how were they to divide the odd one? They ihought carefully over every possible plan, and held angry discussions about it, but could come to n.o agreement. So at last it was determined that the single sheep should belong equally to both of them. But this decision became a new cause of dispute. One of the owuers wanted some wool, and so proposed that the sheep should be sheared. The other refused to allow this. Finally, the matter was arranged by one side of the sheep being sheared. A few days after, the poor animal was found dead in a ditch. Even after its death it was the cause of trouble. For one of the men said that if out? side of it had not. been sheared, it would not hive caught cold and died; while the other declared that if the wool had been left ou the other side, the sheep would not have lost iis balance and fallen into the ditch. They went to law about, it; and it cost so much that they had to sell the hundred sheep to pay costs, and neither of them had a sheep or a cent left.—Selected. -r HOW TO LOCATE THE NORTH POLE. IN all the talk about 'finding the North Pole there has been one question that has been asked more than any other, “How does a man know when he has reached the Pole?” How is he to know when he stande on that charmed spot “where” as Commander Peary once said, “there is no north, no east, no west, and every wind blows from tin* south, and where it is but a step from midday to midnight?” There are three instruments that are used alike by the navigator on the sea and the explorer on the laud for determining positions,—the compass, chronometer and the sextant. Of .these, only the sextant is necessary in locating the Pole. • * = It is a matter of common observation that the sun is hivg.hre r in the ! sky -avt\ the noon than it is in the morning or evening. Even in the Frigid Zone, “The Land of the Midnight Sun,” where the sun never sets for weeks and months at a time, the altitude of the sun above the horizon at noon is greater than at midnight. The farther north ones goes the the less this difference becomes until at the Pole the sun would seem to roll around the heavens at an even distance above the horizon for a full day. All that is necessary then for the explorer to do is to make frequent observation of the sun with his sextant and when for twenty-four hours these give the same altitude he may be sure that he is at the Pole. ~Mt. Airy World. A A. JL * A MODERN PIED PIPER. ABOUT forty five years ago, the Smithsonian Institution was infested with rats, nothing in the building seemed to be rat-proof. They ate skins cured with arsenical soap, or taMe-linen, or the contents of Professor Henry’s pantry without discrimination. Every one in the city, from professor Henry to the bootblack, had one subject in common, and that was “rats.” As Professor Henry, who lived in the east end of the building, was listening to an account of the ruin wrought in his home during that day. Prof Spencer Baird walked in and said, just as if he had been following every word of the familv conversation, “1 have just been told that there is a man in Philadelphia who can rid this place of rats!” Professor Henry’s eyes expressed interest and incredulity at the same moment. “1 have' his address here,” *\ent on the assistant secretary. “He calls himself the Ratten lumlg.’ and won’t take a cent, if a rat remains and has—” “We’ll send for him if it takes our last thousand cents to do it!” said Professor Henry, and laughingly predicted the repetition of the famous ohl tale of the “Pied Piper of Haimlin,” Several days later, the “Rat King” appeared in Washington. He was almost, as short as he was broad, ami wore clothes too loose for descriptor!; they had no shape. He carried a large oilcloth sack and a covered basket. His penetrating blue eyes were almost covered by shaggy eyebrows, and his blond hair had not been cut, hut haggled. His manner, was short and brisk, and he went straight to the point, talking to Professor Henry in German. He declared that not a. rat would he in the building three days hence if his directions were olxiyed. During that time, he would stay in the basement, alone; every door was to be locked, and on no account was he to he disturbed until he gave them the signal. So they left him in absolute darkness and carried out his directions. On Sunday morning the queer old man emerged from the darkness, so confident of his success that he refused to accept the money which was his due then and there, but insisted.that Professor Henry mail the check to him in Philadelphia the following week. “Now you can leave your food in the basement and it won't be touched! And I won’t take a cent if you are troubled with rats,” were his parting words. Cheese and cakewere directly placed about the building to tempt the rats. Morning after morning they were found as they ha i been left, and from that day to this, the Smithsonian Institution has never been seriously troubled with rats. And no one has ever found our, the secret of the “Rat King’s” method.^The Youth's Companion. <*. * * <* ACME Of POLITENESS. THERE is not in all the world a more kindly, unselfish and consul eratesoul than Father Mack. He is a big, jovial Irishman, but his vohe i> soft and gentle and his manners those of a Chesterfield. It was something of a shock, therefore, to the Observant Parishioner who watched his behavior in a crowded trolley car one afternoon recently. Father Mack comfortably ensconced in a corner seat—or, remembering his displacement, let us say a seat and a half—was placidly reading his breviary. Two women eutered the car. and finding no vacant seats, stood in the aisle directly in front of Father Mack. Each woman had a book, which she read with apparent interest, and yet with an interest not too deop to permit of an occasional glance of hopeful expectancy at the large man who was occupying room enough for both of them. Finally Father Mack noticed them, pulled his large frame together as if about to rise, but immediately changed his mind and settled back again in his corner The Observant Parishioner was pained, and when he and Father Mack at. length alighted from the ear lie said to the goo l priest; “1 suppose those hot days are hard on a big man like you, father.” “No, my son,” said Father Mack, “and they don’t affect my mental acuteness, either. 1 know just what you’re thinking of—those two women to whom 1 didn't give my seat. Well, I’ll tell you. Each one of those women was reading Mother Eddy’s Science and Health. Of coarse, no real Christian Science lady is ever really tired; she only thiuks she’s tired so rather than insult the rcligons convictions of those two, I kept my seat, my son.”— The Catholic Standard-Timex.
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