University of Virginia Library

MR. COVILLE'S EXPERIMENT.

MR. COVILLE has got but one apple-tree; but it is a good tree. It has hung full of blossoms, and in the past week has been a very beautiful ornament in his little yard. We do think apple-blossoms the sweetest flowers ever created. On Mr. Coville's tree worms have made a huge and unsightly nest. It was not only an objectionable shadow upon the glory of the foliage, but it threatened to cover the tree with an enemy which would destroy the fruit, and make its place loathsome with their bodies. Mr. Coville learned that the only sure way of getting rid of the nest was to burn it away. This was to be done by a lighted bunch of rags saturated with camphene, and tied to the end of a pole so as to be applied to the nest. It was on Friday evening that Mr. Coville did this business. His wife helped him. He put a barrel

under the tree to stand on, as he did not have a pole long enough to reach the nest from the ground. He tied a lot of rags on the end of a stick, and dipped the mass into a basin of camphene, and then touched off a match, and applied the ball of flame to the nest. High as he was from the ground, still he had to stand well up on his toes to make the remedy effective. But Mr. Coville did not mind that at all, because the flame was doing the work most beautifully.

"That'll sizzle 'em, by gracious!" he shouted down to his wife, who stood by him, while his eyes were rivited on the devastation above his head.

"Wah, ooh, ooh!" suddenly rent the air above the apple-tree; and, before the startled woman could comprehend from whence came the dreadful cry, she received a blow on the head from a ball of burning rags, and went down like a flash, striking the ground in time to see her husband descend, seat first, on a similar ball of flame, and rise again as if called up by an unseen but irresistible power.

It was all explained in a minute, while Mr. Coville sat in a large dish of cold water. It appears that a drop of the lighted camphene fell from the ball, and struck Mr. Coville on the chin just as he was in the very climax of enthusiasm, when every nerve seemed stretched to its utmost tension in fond anticipation of the most gratifying results. The shock was too great for his nervous

system to withstand. The barrel went over in that awfully unexpected way which a barrel has of going over; and, in the descent of his person, Mr. Coville fetched his wife a wipe over the head with his fireworks, as forcible as it was unintended; and wound up the performance by sitting abruptly and inexplicably down upon the illumination itself. Mrs. Coville lost some hair, and was scorched on one ear, and Mr. Coville has had to have an entirely new sag put in his pants; but the barrel was not injured in the least, and the torch is about as good as new, if any one cares to use it.