"There are tracks in the grass; and there is a cart-track in the dust, and it had two horses, and these foot-tracks went back to it. Why, the lath man must have taken it;" and so he had.

Que started towards the Point as fast as he could go, and consequently, when he got there, which was just fifty minutes after the bag got there, he had no breath left to ask any questions about it. Still he panted on to the post-office.

"Who are you?" asked the postmaster.

"I'm—a—bag," gasped Que.

"Bag of wind!" said the postmaster, emphatically.

"A—mail—bag!" said Que.

"Humph! So you're the new mail boy—are you? Send your bag down by express, and came yourself by accommodation—didn't you?"

"The lath man's got it; where is he?" Que had recovered his breath a little by this time.

"I don't know anything about the lath man," growled the postmaster.

But when Que began to cry, which he did at once, the postmaster couldn't stand that, for he had no children of his own, and his feelings, consequently, weren't hardened; so he dragged the bag from a corner, and threw it on Que's back.

"There, take your bag, and go home, and don't be two hours late the first day, next time." He didn't stop to think that there cannot be two first days to the same thing. Que didn't stop to think of it, either, but started homewards as fast as his bow-legs would let him. I think he approximated more nearly to running, that day, than he ever had done in his life before.

Que's nine brothers treated him with great respect, when he got home. The family had been to tea, but each one had saved some part of his supper for Que; so, though he had an indigestible mixture, there was plenty of it,—while it lasted.

"Did you have a good time, Que?"

"Was it fun?"

"Did you get anything for it?"

"Did you get tired?"

"Going to keep it up?"

"Can't I go next time?"

"Do you like it?"

"Did you see any boys?"

"Anybody give you a lift?"

How all together the questions did come! But the confusion of them saved Que from the trouble of answering the nine boys, and as soon as there was a lull, his father said,—

"You were gone some time, sir; I hope you didn't stop to play on the road?"

"O, no, sir," said Que. "I haven't played at all;" which was very true, you know.

"Did there seem to be many letters?" asked his mother; and be it understood, that she asked quite as much because Que looked as if the bag had been heavy, as from feminine curiosity.

"Didn't notice, ma'am; the bag wasn't very heavy;" and it wasn't, except on his conscience, and he knew his mother didn't mean that, at all.

For several weeks after that everything went on smoothly enough. Que had a pretty good time, and found it some fun, and felt that he was getting something for it, and didn't get very tired, and kept it up, and never took any of his brothers with him, and liked the business, and saw a good many boys, and got a large number of "lifts" from hay-carts and wagons, and particularly from the lath man. So, in course of time, all the brothers' questions were satisfactorily answered.

It is a way that the world has, to let you trip once, and then run on smooth ground some time, before it puts another snag in your way; and it made no exception in Que's favor. His drab clothes kept clean a long time, in spite of the leather bag, and washed well when they were not clean. The Gingoo postmaster took a fancy to him, and the Point post master refrained from tormenting him. The mails were not unbearably heavy nor the month of July remarkably hot after the first. Que had a good appetite for his supper, and plenty of supper to show it on, and slept long and heavily every night and a part of every morning, and thought that the world was a pretty good kind of place, after all. But that was only because he hadn't come to the second snag yet.

One day, in the first end of August, a wind sprang up. It wasn't a very uncommonly high wind, only no one was expecting it, because the days had been muggy, and that made every one say, "Why, what a high wind there is to-day!"

You and I can't tell why the wind should have gone on rising through the forenoon; but we can guess, which will answer our purpose just as well; for you know it is but little more than that that your father and his friends, and father's father and his friends, do, when they meet together and "express opinions."

I guess that the wind rose higher through the forenoon because, as soon as it began to play about in the morning, it caught the whisper of people's surprise, and thought it would take the hint, and blow them up a little.

"What a dickens of a wind!" said Que, when he stood, or tried to stand, on top of the hill with his bag.

Que had learned all the easy ways of carrying that bag long ago; of strapping it in a little roll over his shoulders when it wasn't very full; of carrying it on his head when it had enough inside to balance just right, and of strapping it round his body when it had nothing in it. But, as the days had been all stormless alike, he had been obliged to adapt himself only to the conditions of the bag, and not at all to the state of the weather.

As the masculine mind is capable of taking in only one idea at a time, as soon as Que put his mind to the state of the weather, it drew itself away from the manner of carrying the bag.

"Wish I had something between me and the wind," sighed he.

Just then the wind blew off his hat, to teach him the polite order of mentioning two persons, of whom himself was one.

Que followed after it as fast as he could, and let the bag drop beside him, and by chance it hung from his neck to the windward side.

The wind blew very strong.

"I do declare," said he, "I shouldn't wonder a bit if the wind blew me away."

Que was a truthful boy; but he did wonder very much when he found, two seconds afterwards, that the wind was blowing him away. But he didn't wonder at all, when he lay, a minute later, against a huge apple tree; partly because people generally get through wondering when they are at the end of anything, but mostly because the blow stunned Que, so that he didn't know anything for an hour.

When he gradually came to himself, he didn't know where he was. Then a little wind shook a green apple down on his nose, and he concluded that he was under an apple tree; which was quite correct.

Then he looked about to see whether he was in the United States or not; he saw the five juniper trees that had been standing in a row, half a mile from his father's house, ever since he could remember, and concluded that he must be; wherein he was again quite correct.

Then he wondered if any one would come for him, for he felt so stiff and sore that he thought he never could go home alone.

"They'll come for me, I know; for if I've had a gale they must have had one; and if they have had one they'll know that I've had one. Of course they'll come."

Que felt round for his mail-bag, and got his head on it, and waited. While he was lying there it occurred to him that the people down in the village wouldn't have been walking about with bags broader than themselves to windward of them, and mightn't have felt the breeze as he did; so his last reasoning wasn't correct at all.

"I'll bet they didn't feel it a bit!" thought Que; and by this time he was so fully in possession of his original faculties, that his reasoning was quite correct again. No one else had felt the gale.

Que put his head on the bag and thought that his end had come, and so cried himself to sleep.

His family had not felt the gale very heavily; but when tea-time came, and Que didn't, they felt that; and when darkness came, and Que didn't, they felt that; and when a report came, with a growl, from the Point that they wanted their mail, Que's father started out with a lantern to find it.

Que, having finished his nap, felt better, and tried to get up; but his ankle didn't want to move; and when he tried again it actually wouldn't move; so he lay down again to wait and watch. When he saw the lantern go by, he called, and his father came.

"What are you doing here, sir?"

"Nothing," said Que.

"Get up, then."

"I can't," said Que.

"You've been asleep, sir."

"Yes, sir," said Que.

"What have you done with the mail-bag?"

"It is the mail-bag that's done with me," said Que.

Then his father took him by the collar, and stood him up, and saw at once what was the matter. Que had sprained his ankle.

It seemed to Que, during the next four weeks, as if that ankle never would heal; but it did at last, and John Lee, who had carried the mail in the mean time, was loath to give the job to Que again. He felt for Que through his pain, but charged him one twelfth of fifty dollars for doing his work a month, and would like to do it a while longer.

There isn't much more to tell of Que as a mail-boy. The end of the year found him the possessor of forty-five dollars and five shillings.

The next year the Point afforded a horse, and Que took the mail on the horse's back; the year following they had a horse and wagon, and Que drove that; when they have a railway I have no doubt Que will be a conductor; and when the mail is blown through a tunnel, Que, of course, will blow it.

Even the second snag, you see, needn't lay you a dead weight on the earth.

MARY B. HARRIS.



WHAT THE CLOCK SAYS.

The clock's loud tick Says, "Time flies quick." "Listen," says the chime; "Make the most of time, For remember, young and old, Minutes are like grains of gold; Spend them wisely, spend them well, For their worth can no man tell."



THE SNOW-FALL.

Old Winter comes forth in his robe of white, He sends the sweet flowers far out of sight, He robs the trees of their green leaves quite, And freezes the pond and the river; He has spoiled the butterfly's pretty nest, And ordered the birds not to build their nest, And banished the frog to a four months' rest, And makes all the children shiver.

Yet he does some good with his icy tread, For he keeps the corn-seeds warm in their bed, He dries up the damp which the rain had spread, And renders the air more healthy; He taught the boys to slide, and he flung Rich Christmas gifts o'er the old and young, And when cries for food from the poor were wrung, He opened the purse of the wealthy.

We like the Spring with its fine fresh air; We like the Summer with flowers so fair; We like the fruits we in Autumn share, And we like, too, old Winter's greeting: His touch is cold, but his heart is warm; So, though he brings to us snow and storm, We look with a smile on his well-known form, And ours is a gladsome meeting.

[Decoration]



STITCHING AND TEACHING.

Will had had the croup. Then the measles took possession of him, and lastly, the whooping-cough, finding him well swept and garnished, entered in, and shook and throttled him in a manner quite deplorable.

His convalescence, however, was relieved of its monotony by a headlong fall from a step ladder in the library, whereby he sprained his wrist, to say nothing of the mischief that he made, in his descent, amid the ink, books, and papers.

Treading on a pin in the sewing-room was another diversion in his favor, giving him, for a while, a daily looking forward to bandages and poultices, and an opportunity to weigh the advantages of obedience in case he should ever again wish, and be forbidden, to jump out of bed and run barefoot amid the dressmaker's shreds in search of his top.

Now, all this is no uncommon experience for a small boy. I simply mention it by way of apology for introducing Will in an unamiable mood. One regrets to have one's friends make an unfavorable first impression.

This was Will's first morning at school since his recovery. He found that the boys had gone on in their Latin, had gone on in their French, leaving him far behind; they had got into decimals, and he way back pages; they had a new writing-master, and wrote with their faces turned a new way, to the great disgust of Will. They had had a botany excursion to Blue Hills, which he had lost. He was down at the foot of the class, and at the end of the morning he had made up his desperate mind to remain there forever. It was no use for a fellow to try to put through such a pile of back lessons.

He came stamping up stairs, kicked at the nursery door, slung in his bag of books, and stood on the threshold, pouting and glaring angrily at his sister Emily.

Emily sat in the window opposite, the sunlight sifting through the flickering ivy leaves on to her golden hair and fair sweet face. She was singing over her sewing as Will made his noisy entrance. She looked up at the scowling boy in the doorway, her pale cheeks flushing with surprise and then with pity.

"What's the matter?" she asked, gently.

"Matter?" roared Will; "I guess you'd ask, if you knew how old 'Crit' had been cramming the fellows, and me nowhere. I'll—run away to sea, or somewheres. I'm not going to stand it."

Will bounced his hand down so hard on a tea-poy, two little terra cotta shepherdesses bounded up from it, knocked their heads together, and fell clattering to the floor.

"O, Will," cried Emily, rising up with a scared face, and dropping her pretty work-basket, "don't talk so. You are tired now, and everything troubles you, because you have been sick so long. By and by, when you are a little stronger, you will feel differently. Don't think about the back lessons. Just try to be glad you are well enough to go to school again, and be with the boys."

"O, don't preach!" persisted Will, gruffly.

With the cloud still hanging over his handsome face, he shook himself away from the caressing hand which was laid upon his shoulder, as if to hold him back from running away to the great, pitiless sea.

"Asy! asy, now!"

This was Kathleen, the nurse, calling out in cautioning tones to Will, who had jerked against the tray she was carrying causing the two saucers of strawberries to click together sharply, and the buttered rolls to slip over the edge of the plate.

"You're tired with the school, poor craythur, an' no wonder at that same. Larnin's murtherin', bad luck to it! I tried it mysel oncet, a moonth or so, avenin's. It's myself was watchin' for ye, Master Will, and when ye came round the corner I had this bit sup arl ready for ye. 'The crame—quick—Bridget!' says I, and then I ran away up the two flights with it; and barrin' the joggle you give it, it's in foine, tip-top orther an' priservation arl tegither, bless your little sowl!"

Kathleen set out the crisp little rolls and the great crimson berries in the most tempting way she could devise, and went off, bobbing her head with satisfaction to see the children place themselves at table, and partake of her well-timed lunch.

Will, as an atonement for the ungentle way in which he had come in upon his sister after school, offered her the nicest plate of berries, and insisted that she should take the crispiest roll. He suddenly remembered that Emily, too, had had whooping-cough and measles at the same time, and quite as badly as himself. But, then, she had not sprained her wrist or lamed her foot; so it was no wonder her temper had not suffered. Besides, it was expected of girls not to make a fuss.

In view of these last circumstances, he suppressed the apology he was about to make for his late unpleasant remarks.

"It never will do to give up too much to girls," he reasoned, draining the last drop of cream from the pitcher.

"Your grandmamma is coming over from Brookline this afternoon in the carriage, to take the two of you home with her to spind the night."

This was Kathleen back again at the nursery door, and wiping her face with her apron as she unburdened herself of this forgotten bit of news.

"You won't run away to sea now," besought Emily, with imploring eyes.

"Maybe I mightn't," shouted Will, tossing up his cap in glee at this unexpected prospect of fun.

It was now only the middle of the long summer day. Such a tiresome journey as the sun had to go before it rolled quite away in the west! Will longed to give it a push, and to hurry up the clock to strike five, the hour when they should be on their way to beautiful Brookline.

Impatient little Will! Emily kindly helped him to get through with the lagging time. At her suggestion, he played ball a while on the lawn, while from time to time she nodded encouragingly to him through the open window. By and by the ball bounded up into a spout, cuddling down among some soft old maple leaves, where Will could not see it. Thereupon Will came into the house in a great pet, storming about till he was persuaded to sit on the floor and paste pictures in his scrap-book.

This quiet occupation did not amuse him long. His fingers, his chin, his cheeks, his curls even soon became stiff with mucilage. Mucilage on his trouser knees, mucilage on his jacket elbows—in fact, mucilage everywhere on and around him.

Emily, after having, with great painstaking, washed her brother and all the surrounding furniture, proposed that he should study a Latin lesson. The book soon went down with a bang. "Because," as Will sulkily explained to his sighing sister, "it made his head buzz."

Emily gently suggested a French lesson as a corrective of this unpleasant "buzz." The remedy soon proved to be a failure. The French book came down more noisily than the Latin book.

Emily laid aside her drawing in despair. It was such a relief to hear Kathleen's heavy step in the entry, and to remember it was time now for Will to be dressed for dinner!

Poor Kathleen had a thankless task before her. Master Will required a great deal of preparation. His curls were gummed and tangled; his fingers were inky, and suspiciously pitchy.

"You've been climbin' unknownst up that pine tree again, an' you a told not to?" questioned Kathleen, examining the fingers keenly.

"Hush up, and go ahead!" was Will's rude answer.

"How can you speak so?" reproved Emily, turning round upon Will, while she tied back her hair with a band of blue ribbon.

"Fie, fie, sir!" cried displeased Kathleen, "going ahead" with great energy, her mouth pursed up in disapproval of Master Will's manners, while she washed, and combed, and curled, and took off and put on his apparel.

"Where's your stockings, Master Will,—the blue stripes?"

"Dunno."

Will sat in a low chair, his stubby bare feet stuck out before him, and his two hands actively employed as fly-catchers. Suddenly he remembered having amused himself the day before in oiling his sled runners, using the striped stockings for wipers; but he did not trouble Kathleen just then with the tidings. The blue-striped stockings were not found. Then came a difficulty with his new boots.

"Aow! they pinch!"

"Where, sir?"

Master Will, not being able to say exactly where, was left to get used to the new boots as well as he could.

"Now see, here's your new suit; an' be careful with it, mind—careful as iver was. It's me afternoon out; and if ye go tearin' the cloos on ye, ye'll jist mind thim yersel, or else go in tatthers wid yer grandmamma."

This speech had no more wholesome effect on Will than to cause him to stick out his tongue at Emily, while Kathleen, standing behind him, arranged his buttons and his drapery generally.

"Now, if you could only be as good as you're purty," exclaimed Kathleen, wheeling Will suddenly round before his tongue was quite in place again, "you'd do well enough."

With a few finishing touches to Emily's sash ribbon, Kathleen went off to make her own gorgeous toilet for her afternoon out.

The dinner was next to be gotten through with. But that was not an unpleasant hour to Will. After dinner the children were permitted by their mother to amuse themselves under the shadow of the great elm behind the house. She knew that with Emily this permission simply meant liberty to sit quietly beneath the overhanging branches, gazing dreamily over the soft summer landscape, or listening to the sweet sounds that stirred the air around and above her. But with Will it might be more broadly interpreted into leave for frequent raids over fences and through bars for butterflies and beetles, or any luckless rover that strayed along. So she explained to her son in this wise:—

"Will, dear, remember that your grandmamma is coming for you, and you must not soil or tear your clothes by running about. Play quietly in the shade. The time will not be long now."

"Yes, mum."

Such implicit obedience as this "Yes, mum" implied! In fact, there was the promise in it of every one of the cardinal virtues.

The two children then went away through the long hall, whose doors stood wide open in the warm summer afternoon, and Will, dragging along the slower-footed Emily, hurried on to the elm tree.

"Don't pull so, Will; I shall drop my basket, and my spool and thimble will roll away."

"What do you want to bother with work for this beautiful afternoon?" inquired Will, slackening his pace.

"I promised mamma I would try and finish it this week," said Emily, "and I like to keep my word."

"I thought the machine sewed."

"So it does; but mamma says I must learn just the same as if there were no machines."

"Well, I'm glad I'm not a girl, to sit pricking my fingers, and jabbing needles in and out all day."

Patience was not one of Will's virtues.

How lovely it was out under the elm! The sweet-scented grass was warm with the afternoon sun, and musical with the chirp and hum of its insect homes. The bees fluttered in and out over mamma's rose garden, and all the air was filled with the delicate fragrance of the roses.

Emily, seated on the great gnarled elm roots, drank in all the sweet scents and sounds, her forgotten work-basket lying overturned in the grass before her. Will spread himself out at full length on the ground, and kept his eyes open for chippers and spiders, and all the busy little things that crept, or leaped, or flitted around him. Now and then the afternoon hush was broken by the faintly tinkling bells of a horse-car turning some distant corner, the rumbling of a heavy team going over the dusty turnpike, or the voices of the belfry clocks calling the hour to each other from the steeples of the neighboring city.

Master Will, however, soon became tired of this quiet. He scrambled up, and wandering away into the rose garden, lifted caressingly to his cheek the beautiful pink blossoms which leaned towards him from amid the green leaves. He was looking for a choice little bud to fasten in Emily's hair; and when he found it, he came whistling out into the clear grassy spaces again, a little bird in a bough overhead tilting, and twittering, and eying him askance.

Will rushed up to Emily, and hung the bud in her ear; he rearranged it in the blue ribbon of her hair, so that it nodded sleepily over her nose; he dropped it, as if it were a tiny pink egg, in the soft golden moss of curls which he upturned on his sister's head. Then he threw it away, and stamped on it; for Emily had drawn a book from her pocket, and deep in some fairy under-world story, was unmindful of his roses and his pains.

He ran recklessly away into the rose garden; he caught a bumblebee; he pursued a daddy long-leg with the watering-pot, going deeper and deeper all the time among the briery branches. The crashing of the stems caused Emily to come up from fairy-land a moment.

"Have a care, Will, dear. The roses have thorns. You may tear your nice jacket."

Crash, crash! rip, rip! The rose trees are dragging at Will with their prickly fingers. With great effort he burst away from them, and rushed out, with no worse mischance than a rent in his trousers.

"Aw! aw! aw!"

All the little knolls seemed to take up Will's sorrowful cry, and repeat it.

"You must not tear or soil your clothes."

Every cricket in the grass seemed to be screaming these words of his mother, and here was her luckless son with two green spots on his stockings, and a grievous rent in his new pantaloons.

It was Kathleen's afternoon out; she had warned him, and there was no help in that direction. He looked mournfully over his shoulder at the damages with a vague idea that he had perhaps some undeveloped capacity for mending.



"Couldn't you pin it up nicely?" he inquired, in most insinuating tones, of Emily, whose eye just then met his.

Emily burst into a merry laugh.

Will was mute with indignation, and tingling to his finger's ends, with this untimely mirth. His flashing eyes asked if this were a time for jesting.

"Come here, Willy, boy, and you'll see how nicely I'll sew it, not pin it. Never fret about it, dear; I will explain to mamma that you were really not so much in fault. It was only rather a mistake to get in so far among the bushes. If you had been chasing the cat, or turning somersets, she might, perhaps, be vexed; but poh! she will excuse this."

Will, unseen by Emily, wiped away with his thumb one big tear after another out of the corner of his eye.

"She is a good sister, anyhow, and I am a mean fellow ever to get mad with her, and say rude things to her," he said to himself, as Emily darned, and chatted, and bade him be of good cheer.

"My stockings, too, sister. There's a great green grass stain on both of them, and grandmamma expects us to be so nice."

Will coughed to choke down a sob.

"Perhaps you may have time to change them, Will. I will help you. But we must get the pantaloons all nicely done first."

So this kind sister stitched, and taught unconsciously as she stitched, lessons of love and patience, lessons of cheerful helpfulness and sweet unselfishness, which Will never forgot.

More than once, in after life, when, in heedless pursuit of life's roses, he had been wounded by its thorns, he remembered that sweet face of consolation, those dear hands held out to aid him, and all the sunshine and the song of that sweet summer afternoon, and fresh peace and hope came to him with the remembrance.

"It's all finished now, the very last stitch; and now for the stockings. Let me see the spots."

Will put his two heels firmly together, turned out his toes, pulled up his puffy pantaloons, and stooped his head and strained his eyes to look for them.

They were but little ones, after all, and a brisk rubbing with the handkerchief, and a judicious pulling down of the trouser bindings, almost concealed them. They were just in time with their repairs; for grandmamma's yellow-wheeled carriage was coming up the avenue.

E. G. C.



OUR DAILY BREAD.

A little girl knelt down to pray One morn. The mother said, "My love, why do we ever say, Give us our daily bread? Why not ask for a week or more?" The baby bent her head In thoughtful mood towards the floor: "We want it fresh," she said.



WILLIE'S PRAYER.

One sweet morning little Willie, Springing from his trundle-bed, Bounded to the vine-wreathed window And put out his sunny head.

It was in the joyous spring-time, When the sky was soft and fair, And the blue-bird and the robin Warbled sweetly everywhere.

In the field the lambs were playing, Where the babbling brook ran clear; To and fro, in leafy tree-tops, Squirrels frisked without a fear.

In his ear his baby-brother Baby-wonders tried to speak, And the kiss of a fond mother Rested on his dimpled cheek.

Zephyrs from the fragrant lilacs Fanned his little rosy face, And the heart's-ease, gemmed with dewdrops, Smiled at him with gentle grace.

Gliding back with fairy footsteps, Willie, dropping on his knees, Softly prayed, "Dear God, I love you! Make it always happy, please!"



SQUIRRELS.

How pretty little squirrels look perched in the branches of a tree! I like to watch them as they nimbly run up the trunk or spring from bough to bough. One or two are generally to be seen in a clump of great old beeches near a house in the country where I usually spend some happy weeks in summer; and I will tell you a story of a little squirrel whose acquaintance I made there last summer.

I happened to be up very early one morning, long before breakfast was ready or any of the family were down, and I went out into the garden to enjoy the fresh, sweet smell of the early day. The cows were grazing in the field beyond, and now and then lowing a friendly "good-morning" to each other. Some ducks were waddling in procession down to the pond, quacking out their wise remarks as they went. The little birds were singing lustily their welcome to the new-born day. Even the old watch-dog came yawning, stretching, blinking and wagging his tail in kindly dog-fashion to bid me "good-day" in the summer sunshine.

As I stood under the great beech trees, taking in with greedy eye and ear the sights and sounds of country-life so refreshing to a Londoner, I heard something fall from one of the trees, then a scuffle, and immediately afterward a white Persian cat belonging to the house bounded toward me in hot pursuit of a dear little squirrel. I was just in time to save the poor little animal by stepping between it and the cat. The squirrel passed under the edge of my dress and made off again up another tree; so pussy lost her prey.

Soon afterward, when we were at breakfast, the butler told us that one of the little boys of the village, who had lost a pet squirrel, had asked if he might look for it in the garden of the house. It had first escaped into some trees in the park, and he had traced it from them into the garden. It at once occurred to me that this must be the little creature I had saved from the cat. I remembered how it made straight toward me, as if asking me for protection from its enemy, which only a tame squirrel would do; and I proposed, when breakfast was over, that we should go out and help in the search.

Little Jack Tompkins stood under the beech trees, looking with tear-stained face up into the branches. Suddenly I saw his face brighten, and he called out, "I see un, ma'am; I see un! If so be no one warn't by, I be sure he'd come to I."

I need not say we retreated to a distance; then Jack called up the tree in a loud whisper, "Billee, Billee!" and in a minute down came the little creature on to his shoulder. I can tell you Jack was a happier child than he had been when he came into the garden. And when I told him what a narrow escape "Billee" had had from the cat, he said, "It would be hard if a cat eat he, for our old puss brought he up with her own kits." Then he told us how the squirrel, when a tiny thing, had dropped out of its nest and been found by him lying almost dead at the foot of a tree, and how he had carried it home and tried whether pussy would adopt it as one of her own kittens. The cat was kind; the squirrel throve under her motherly care, and became Jack's pet and companion.

Now, children, in this instance it was all very well to keep a tame squirrel. "Billee" seemed happy leading the life he was accustomed to; he had been fed and cared for by human beings from his infancy, and might be as incapable of finding food and managing for himself in a wild state as a poor canary would be if let loose from its cage. But generally it is cruel to imprison little wild birds and animals who have known the enjoyment of liberty.



PUPPET.

Puppet had two occupations. She had also a guitar and a half-bushel basket. These things were her capital—her stock in trade.

The guitar belonged to one of her occupations, the half-bushel basket to the other.

In consideration of her first employment, she might have been called a street guitarist. In consideration of her second, she might have been called a beggar—a broken-bits beggar.

Puppet would have been considered, among lawyers, "shrewd;" or, at a mothers' meeting, "cunning;" or, among business men, "sharp." That is to say, she knew a thing or two. She knew that being able to sing no songs was a disadvantage to her first occupation, as a large hole, half way up her basket, was an advantage to her second.

It seems odd that a hole in one's begging basket should be an advantage.

But because of the hole, she had always behind her a crowd of dogs, that seemed to have been just dropped from the basket, the last one never having fairly got his nose out; and because of the dogs she was known as "Puppet" all over the city.

To be known by a characteristic name is of great advantage to a beggar.

If Biddy, looking from the basement door, says to cook, "Och, an' there comes up the street our little Puppet, with her dogs all behind her, carrying her basket," cook is much more likely to see the broken bits "botherin' roun' on the schalves o' the cubbid," than she would be if Biddy should say, "Shure, an' thir cams to us a dirty beggar, it is."

But it is with Puppet's first occupation, and not her second, that we have to do. If you had not read more descriptions of faces within the last year than you can possibly remember in all the years of your life put together, I would tell you what sort of face Puppet's was; that it was a bright face, with blue eyes, just the color of the blue ribbon that went first round the guitar's neck, and then round Puppet's; that Puppet's teeth were as white as the mother-of-pearl pegs that held her guitar strings at the bottom; that her cheeks were as white as the ivory keys; that her hair was long, and yellow—just the shade of the guitar's yellow face.

But that would be very much like a dozen other faces that you have seen; so I will only say that it was a smiling little face.

It smiled as it bent over the guitar, while the little fingers picked their ways in and out among the strings; and it smiled yet more sweetly as she looked up to catch the coppers thrown from the fourth and fifth story, and sky-parlor windows.

Puppet once lived with a man who said that he was her uncle; and she believed him so thoroughly, that she let him box her ears whenever he felt like it, till he died. Since then Puppet had lived almost friendless and alone.

One hot July day Puppet was wandering through the streets of the great city, with her little guitar under her little arm. The city did not seem so great to Puppet as it does to some of the rest of us, because she was born and brought up there.

"O, dear," sighed Puppet, "what a mean place you are!"

No one had given her a copper since the cool of the morning. People seemed to have a fancy for spending their coppers on soda-water and ice-cream.

"What shall I do?" moaned Puppet. Whatever should she do? Puppet must have coppers, or she could not live.

She sat in a cool, shaded court, close to the busy street; but she couldn't get away from the heat, and the noise, and the people sighing, like herself, "O dear, O dear!"

"I'll try once more," said Puppet, tuning her guitar.

She played "Home, Sweet Home," with variations. But all the people who heard her were suffering, because their homes in the city were rather hot than sweet. "Home, Sweet Home" could win no pennies from "city folks" in July.

Then Puppet whistled to her guitar accompaniment a little "Bird Waltz," and whirled on the pavement in time, till I doubt if she herself knew whether the guitar had gone mad, and were waltzing about her, or she were waltzing about the guitar.

A boy came dancing into the court, singing,—

"O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad! O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad!"

But he danced out again, without leaving a penny behind him; so it would have been just as well if he had never come in. Still, he amused himself for a few minutes, which not many people were able to do in that hot July midday.

Puppet went from the little court, and wandered on and on. At last she left the city far away behind her.

And out and away from the city there were green fields.

Puppet had heard of green fields, but she had never seen any face to face before. As she looked at them, she had a dim remembrance that she had heard that they were covered with long, waving grass. But all these fields were close shaven, like the beautiful mouse-colored horses in the city.

It was pleasant, but not very exciting to a city girl. The city girl presently grew tired of it.

"There seem to be houses farther along," she said; "I'll go and play there."

Puppet slung the little guitar about her little neck, and started off again.

Presently she came to a cottage with a little green yard in front of it, and in the middle of the little green yard was a great green tree.

Puppet sat down on the grass, leaned against the tree, and felt very hungry.

A lady was sitting by an open window, sewing. She was sitting so that Puppet could see only a bit of her left cheek, and her dark hair, just beginning to turn gray, and her right hand as she brought the needle up from her work. From what she did see, Puppet thought that she would give her something to eat, if she could but get her attention. Surely, she must be often hungry herself, or why should she have so many gray hairs?

Puppet, leaning against the tree, ran her fingers over the guitar frets in light harmonies; but the lady did not look.

Her thoughts must be far away, in a quiet and happy place, that Puppet's harmonies should seem a part of that place.

The guitar broke into a low, mournful minor. Still the lady gave no heed to Puppet.

Puppet was feeling very hungry. She would play the Fandango. That must rouse any one. She began at the most rattling part.

The gray-haired lady looked round quickly. "Bless me, bless me! what's this?" Seeing a little girl out by the tree, she put her sewing on the table, and came to the door and into the yard.

"Dear me! a little girl with yellow hair, and I just to have been dreaming of a little girl with yellow hair!"

"Is anything the matter with my hair, mum?" Puppet stopped playing, and ran her hands through the yellow mass of uncombed locks.

"Ah, no, little girl! there is nothing the matter with your hair. Only—" The lady was thinking how soft, and fine, and curly was the yellow hair of which she had been dreaming.

"What do you want?" asked the lady.

"I'm very hungry," said Puppet, "because of the walk, and—and—and all," concluded Puppet, remembering that the lady could not understand.

"Come in, then."

Puppet went in. Up in one corner of the sitting-room were a little tip-cart and a doll. Puppet ate her bread and meat, looking hard at the tip-cart.

"Where is it, mum?"

"Where is what, child?"

"The child, mum." Puppet pointed to the tip-cart.

"Gone, my dear," said the lady, softly.

"Dead?" Puppet remembered that that was what they said about her uncle when he went away. It was the only going away that she had ever known.

"Yes, I suppose so," said the lady, with a little shiver.

"That's bad, mum."

"No, not bad," said the lady, sorrowfully. "It is just right that it should be so."

"But it must be lonesome like, unless there were kicks and things." Puppet was still thinking of her uncle.

The lady wondered what the child could mean, and not knowing, said,—

"What's your name? How could I have forgotten to ask your name?"

"Puppet."

"That's a funny name. And where do you live?"

"Two or three miles away from here."

"Have you walked here to-day?"

"Yes, mum."

"What should make the child walk so far, I wonder?"

"Money, mum, and things to eat."

"Have you eaten enough?"

"Yes. I must go home now, or I shall be late."

"Are you sure you know the way?" asked the lady, a little anxiously. "You're such a little thing!"

"O, yes, mum! Go as I came."

"Well, good by."

"Good by, mum."

But was Puppet sure that she knew the way?

* * * * *

The next morning, a man walking on a road that ran by the edge of a meadow, was going to his work.

Hark! What did he hear? Was it a cry! was it a child's cry? And what was that? It sounded like a fiddle. He stopped to look around.

"I declare, we've had a high tide in the night!" said he, and trudged on.

But what was that? That was certainly a child's cry.

The man looked sharply about.

"It can't be she," he said. "Folks from heaven wouldn't cry, even if they were let to come—at least, if they were little children."

And so he still looked sharply about. And looking, what did he see?

He saw great haystacks of meadow hay out in the meadow, with the tide-water all about them. Then his eyes were fixed on one particular haystack. On its top, with her yellow hair and smiling face in sight, was—it could not be, though—but it was—a little girl, and dangling by the side of the stack was a guitar with a yellow face. The man waded through the water that lay between the dry land and the stack.

"Crawl down to my shoulders;" and he stood by the side of the stack till she was on his shoulders, with her arms about his neck.



"How came you there?"

"I went everywhere to try to get home, and it was dark, all but the moon; and I saw the stack, and a board went from the ground to the top of it."

"Sure enough, the prop."

"And I was so tired!"

"Poor child!"

"And I never saw the water come before, and it was only wet enough to wet my feet when I got up."

"Well, well! We'll go home and get something to eat."

The man walked into his kitchen with the little girl and the guitar on his shoulders.

"Why, John, are you back? Dear me, if there isn't that same child—Puppet!"

John went off to his work again. Puppet ate her breakfast, and told her story, and then said,—

"Please, mum, may I play with the cart?"

And because of her yellow hair, she might play with the cart.

"But aren't you sick, and oughtn't you to take some medicine, and go to bed?" asked the lady, whose hair had grown gray over sickness and medicine.

Puppet meditated. She felt very well. She thought that she had rather play with the tip-cart than to take medicine. So she played all day, and went to bed at night.

At night John come home from his work, and, as usual, heard of all that had happened through the day.

"I wish we could keep the little thing, John, dear. She has yellow hair, just like—"

"Yes," said John, "I saw."

"And she'd be such a comfort!"

"If she didn't die by and by," said John.

"But, John, dear, just think of a little thing like her spending the night in the middle of a meadow, with the water all about her."

John thought. And he thought that if she could stand that without being sick, she could stand their love without dying.

So Puppet and the guitar live with John and the gray-haired lady.

MARY B. HARRIS.



MERRY CHRISTMAS.

All the hill-side was green with maples, and birches, and pines. The meadows at its foot were green, too, with the tufted salt grass, and glittering with the silver threads of tide braided among its winding creeks. Beyond was the city, misty and gray, stretching its wan arms to the phantom ships flitting along the horizon.

From the green hill-side you could hear the city's muffled hum and roar, and sometimes the far-off clanging of the bells from its hundred belfries. But the maples and birches seemed to hear and see nothing beyond the sunshine over their heads and the winds which went frolicking by. Life was one long dance with them, through the budding spring and the leafy summer, and on through the grand gala days of autumn, till the frost came down on the hills, and whispered,—

"Your dancing days are all over."

But the pines were quite different. They, the stately ones, stood quite aloof, the older and taller ones looking stiffly over the heads of the rollicking maples, and making solemn reverences to the great gray clouds that swept inland from the ocean. The straight little saplings at their feet copied the manners of their elders, and folding their fingers primly, and rustling their stiff little green petticoats decorously, sat up so silent and proper.

So unlike the small birches and maples that chattered incessantly, wagging their giddy heads, and playing tag with the butterflies in the sunshine all the day long!

"How tiresome those stupid old pines are! No expression, no animation. So lofty and so exclusive, and forever grumbling to each other in their hoarse old Scandinavian, which it gives one the croup even to listen to! Of what possible use can they be?"

This was what the maple said to the birch one day when the Summer and her patience with her sombre neighbor were on the wane—one day when there was a gleam of golden pumpkins in the tawny corn stubble beyond the wood, and the purpling grapes hung ripening over the old stone wall that lay between, and the maple had brightened its summer dress with a gay little leaf set here and there in its shining folds.

The birch agreed with the maple about the pines, and the maple went glibly on.

"I've ordered my autumn dresses—a different one for each day in the week. Just think of those horrid pines never altering the fashion of their stiff old plaiting."

"We shall not be obliged to remain in this dull place much longer," said the tall pines loftily to each other, looking quite over the heads of the maple and the birch. "We shall soon be crossing the ocean, and then our lives will have just begun. We simply vegetate here."

"Ho, ho!" laughed the maple and the birch behind their fluttering green fans, pretending to be greatly amused at what the west wind was saying to them.

Now, though the trees spoke a different language, yet each understood perfectly well what the other said; so their rudeness was quite inexcusable.

When the summer was ended, the maple began to put on her gorgeous autumn dresses; but the pines looked much at the sky, and paid little heed to the maple. The other trees on the hill-side, quite faded with their summer gayeties, looked on languidly in the still autumn days at the maple's brilliant toilets.

Soon the cold rains swept in from the sea, blurring the wood vistas; and when they were gone, the frost came in the midnight, with its unwelcome message, and later the snow lay white above all the faded and fallen crimson and gold of the maple and the tarnished silver of the birch.

All the trees, brown and bare now, moaned in the wintry wind—all but the tall pines, and they were crossing the ocean; their lives had begun. The little saplings remained behind, but with their heads perked stiffly up above the snow; they had the air of expecting somebody.

They were not disappointed. One sunny morning, a boy and a girl came singing through the wood paths, each in a pair of high-topped boots, and each in a faded and closely-buttoned coat, the girl with a blue hood pulled over her rosy face, and the boy with a fur cap closely tied about his ears by a red comforter. The two drew a hand-sled, and peered about under the tall trunks as they went stamping through the deep snow. How they shouted as they spied the little pine trees perking up their heads! How they tossed aside the snow, and worked away with their jackknives, hacking at the little pine trees till they had cut them all down, all ready to be piled up on their hand-sled.

"Where are you going?" asked the giddy little birch of the pines, peeping out from a small window in her snow-house. Her nose was purple, and her fingers stiff with cold; but down under the earth her feet were warm, and that was pleasant, at any rate.

"It is of no consequence where," said the pines, in their grimmest Scandinavian.

The birch simply said, "O!" and drew in her little purple nose, hoping heartily they were all going to be burned, as that would be a good end and riddance of them.

But the little pines were not going to be burned; they were going away to the city that lay misty and still beyond the frozen meadows. Stretched out stiffly on the hand-sled, they were jostled along out through the wood, over the frozen turnpike, and across the mill-dam to Boston.

They alighted at the Boylston Market, and were ranged in a row against the dark brick wall.

"How much happens in a very short time!" they said to each other; "all those gaudy, chattering trees left without a leaf to cover them, our own friends all gone on their travels, and we here in the city, wrapped in our warm winter furs."

It was the Christmas week. The shop windows were gay with toys and gorgeous Christmas offerings; the shop doors were opening and shutting on the crowd that came and went through them. A bustling throng of people passed incessantly up and down the narrow sidewalks, and carriages of all descriptions blocked the crossings, or drove recklessly over the frozen pavement.

The old woman in the quilted black hood and shaggy cape, who had charge of the little pine trees, drove a brisk trade that day in her wreaths and holly; but though many people stopped to admire the little pines, and even to ask their price, no purchaser had yet appeared for them.

The old dame was rubbing her mittened hands briskly together, and mumbling in a displeased way at the pine trees, when a carriage drew suddenly up at the curbstone, and out sprang a little girl.

"See, papa, how lovely! So green, and fresh, and thick!" she said, pointing to the row of pines.

A bargain was concluded in a trice. The money was dropped into the eager, outstretched mitten of the old woman, and a little Christmas tree dragged over the sidewalk, and set up in the buggy.

"We must have some of these lower branches cut off; they are in the way," said papa.

"Hev a knife, sir?" shouted a ragged little fellow, whipping a rusty old knife out of his pocket.

"Please, sir, lemme cut it for you. Say, where?" he cried, laying hold of the pine, as the gentleman in the buggy pointed to him where to cut.

The lower branches being trimmed to the gentleman's satisfaction, the Christmas tree, leaning comfortably against the crimson afghan, was soon on its way to Meadow Home, while its lower branches and some jingling small coin remained in the hands of the gaping urchin on the curbstone.

"This here's luck—fust-rate luck," remarked the small boy, stamping his feet, and staring stupidly after the retreating buggy wheels.

"Out of the way there!" growled a man in a farmer's frock, lifting a pile of frozen turkeys from a wagon.

The boy ducked aside, his ragged little trousers fluttering in the wind. Then he sat down on the market steps to count his coin.

"Hi! twenty-five cents. There's a mutton stew and onions for you and your folks a Christmas, Mike Slattery, and all this jolly green stuff thrown in free gratis. That chap was a gen'leman, and no mistake. Won't Winnie hop when she sees me a-h'isting of these here over our stairs, and she a-blowin' at me for a week to bring her some sich, and me niver seein' nary a chance at 'em 'cept stealin's, which is wot this here feller ain't up to no ways whatsomever. No, sir. Hi!"

Mike waved his Christmas boughs aloft in great glee.

An old gentleman with gold-headed cane and spectacles was going up the steps of the market, followed by a beautiful black-and-white setter. The playful dog sprang at the green branches. Mike held on to them stoutly. The dog suddenly let go of them, and bounded away, while Mike rolled over and over to the foot of the steps, clutching tightly the pine boughs.

"You'll ketch it," he muttered, setting his teeth hard together behind his white lips, and trying in vain to scramble up.

"Yer hurt, bub?" asked a wrinkled old apple woman, turning round on her three-legged stool, and thrusting her nose inquiringly out of the folds of the old brown shawl, which was wrapped around her head.

"You bet I be!" whimpered Mike, pointing forlornly with his one unoccupied finger to his bruised ankle.

"Been playin' pitch-pennies, yer mis'ble young 'un!" grinned a tall boy, strolling by with his hands in his pockets, and his ferret eyes on the sharp lookout for mischief.

In a twinkling he swooped up Mike's small coin, which had rattled to the pavement, and vanished with them in a struggling tangle of horse cars and omnibuses before Mike finished his desperate yell of, "Gim me 'um."

By this time a crowd had gathered about the prostrate Mike, who, faint with pain, was at last lifted into the chaise of a kind-hearted doctor, who was passing, and carried to his house in Bone Court.

There we will leave Mike for a while, and look after the little pine tree on its way to Meadow Home.

Such a group of round, rosy faces as were on the watch for it in the great bay window of Meadow Home, peering out in the red sunset, straining their eyes in the dim twilight, and peering still more persistently as the stars came out through the gathering darkness!

The fire danced in the grate, and the shadows danced on the wall, and the four little heads danced more and more impatiently in the window pane, as the cold winter night settled down on the world outside of Meadow Home.

"They're run away with and threw out. What will you bet, Mab?" shouted Will, turning away from the window in disgust, and indulging in a double somerset.

"Thrown, Will," corrected Mabel, just now more indignant with his grammar than his slang.

Mabel began to clear with her sleeve an unblurred peep through the pane, and then pressed her nose hard against the glass.

"It's my opinion," she said, with great pompousness, "that the Christmas trees are all sold. I told Ely not to put off buying till to-day. Don't you remember, Alice? And so papa is just coming home without them."

Alice poh-pohed. Alice was sitting up stiffly at a table by the fire, stuffing a pin-cushion, assisted, or, more properly, impeded, by her small brother Chrissy, who had offered his services, and would not listen to Alice's nay. Chrissy was not handsome in any light, but by the flickering firelight he looked like a little ogre. He sat hunched up in his chair, his knees drawn up to his nose, the sharp end of his tongue curling out of the corner of his mouth, and his small eyes actually crossed in the earnestness of his work, which consisted in snatching chances at the stuffing with a table-spoon and a cup of bran.



"I hear them," exclaimed Mabel, springing down from the window, her nose a spectacle.

Now away down stairs flew all the four, who had been wriggling for an hour in the bay window.

"Shut the door, Chrissy," nodded the dignified Alice to Chrissy, whose eyes had marvellously uncrossed, and whose tongue had disappeared at Mabel's announcement. Chrissy drew down his knees, and obeyed. "Spoon up the bran you spilled, Chrissy," directed Alice, calmly stitching at her pin-cushion.

The reluctant Chrissy's obedience was less of a success this time. The noise of a great commotion in the hall below reached the quiet chamber. Chrissy, with his face twisted inquiringly first over one shoulder and then over the other, spooned at random.

The sounds came nearer. Through the hurrying of eager feet and the clamor of glad voices was a tap-tapping on the wainscot and a thumping on the oaken stairs.

"May be it's St. Nicholas?" questioned Chrissy, spooning very unsteadily, his eyes and his ears wide open.

"No; it isn't time for him. He's doing up his pack now, and they are harnessing his reindeer."

"Who? Where?"

The door burst open, and in tumbled four children and the little pine tree. Chrissy darted forward, shrieking with delight, and fell headlong among the family group.

"What a pretty pine!" said Alice, calmly locking up the pin-cushion in her work-box.

Now Ely, still in her fur cap and sack, rushed in excitedly among her struggling brothers and sisters, and rescued the pine tree.

"Sitting up so piminy there, Alice Eliot, your two hands folded, and the beautiful Christmas tree just going to destruction, with those four wretched little thunderbolts pitching into it!"

Ely was purple with wrath.

The four little Eliots were on their feet again in a trice, giggling and nudging each other behind the excited Ely.

"It's a truly lovely pine," remarked Alice, composedly, shaking some bran from her skirt.

"You might have said so, if you had gone round looking for them in the freezing cold, as I did, and then couldn't find one fit to be seen, except—"

"Alice, didn't I tell her so?" interrupted Mabel, pulling Chrissy's fat fingers away from Ely's pocket just as they were about to grasp the protruding heels of a little dancing jack.

Alice now lighted the gas, Ely set the pretty pine tree carefully against the wall, and the four little Eliots danced hand in hand frantically about it.

Then Alice, and Mabel, and Ely went up close to the fender, and whispered together about the presents Ely had brought home to put in the children's stockings, and Mabel helped Ely empty her great stuffed-out pocket; and the fire laughed through the bars of the grate to see the parcels that came forth.

By and by Mabel and Ely took the pine tree carefully down stairs into a beautiful room, and Alice came close behind them with a great covered basket. The four little Eliots followed noisily, striving to peep under the basket covers; but Ely thrust them all out again into the hall, and locked the door upon them.

Now began the Christmas adorning of the little pine tree. Such beautiful things as were hung upon it, and folded about it, and festooned around it!

"How charming to be a pine!" murmured the little tree, with its head among the frescoed cherubs on the ceiling.

"Where are you, Mabel Eliot? Light up the burners now," commanded Ely from the top of a step-ladder.

Ely crept out from under the green baize around the foot of the pine tree, two pins in her mouth, a crimson smoking-cap on her dishevelled head, and a pair of large-flowered toilet slippers drawn over her hands.

"I crawled in behind there to see if there mightn't be a place somewhere for these," explained Ely, hastening for the torch, and proceeding to light up.

The pine tree now saw itself reflected in the great mirror opposite, and echoed the "splendid" of the three girls, who clapped their hands at the gorgeous effect. Then the lights were put out. The silver key was turned in the door again, and the girls went away, leaving the pine tree in darkness indeed.

The four small Eliots, after pinning up their stockings by the chimney, seated themselves in their night-gowns on the hearth-rug, and talked over St. Nicholas before they got into bed. Each agreed to wake the others if he "should just but catch Santa Claus coming down the chimney."

Chrissy, squinting up his eyes till nothing but two little lines of black lashes were visible, was sure "he should catch him; O, yes, he should."

So they all climbed sleepily into bed, pinning their faith on Chrissy.

The night darkened and deepened, the stars moving on in a grand procession. Somewhere about midnight St. Nicholas was off on his ride, galloping over the roof-tops, and knocking at every chimney-top that had a knocker, just getting through at day dawn with the deal he had to do. The "eight tiny reindeer" had barely trotted him out of sight, when thousands of little children in thousands of homes began hopping out of bed to look in their stockings.

The Christmas morning was breaking in joy and gladness, as if the dear Christ Child of eighteen hundred years ago were newly born that day. Little children, and old men, and maidens waked to give good gifts and greetings to each other, remembering whom the good Father in heaven had given to them on that first glad Christmas morn.

In an attic in Bone Court, Mike Slattery, wildly staring about him, bolted up in bed, waked by big Winnie, and little Pat, and Jimmy roaring "Merry Christmas" in his ears.

"Oop, Mike, an' tak' a look at Winnie's Christmas fixin's foreninst yer two eyes," piped Jimmy, flapping the little breeches he was too excited to put on at the little pine branches stuck up thickly in the window.

"Isn't yer fut that better ye might hobble up to see what the good gintleman—him as brought ye home—left behind for yees and us arl—the Christmas things, ye'll mind?" inquired Winnie, combing her tangled auburn locks, and stooping compassionately over Mike.

"There's the big burhd for yees," cackled little Pat, staggering up to the bedside with a goose hugged to his bosom.

"Hooray!" cried Mike, swinging his pillow; "that thafe of a chap didn't do us out of our Christmas dinner, thin. Here's a go beyant mutton and onions."

"Blissid be thim as saysonably remimbers the poor," sniffed Mrs. Slattery, who was down on her hands and knees washing up the broken bit of hearth under the stove.

"That's so," chimed in the little Slatterys; and then they all fell again to admiring the goose.

The sun had climbed a long way up the sky, and was just looking in through the pine branches in the Slatterys' window, when a little golden head, surmounted by a blue velvet hat, looked in through the Slatterys' door.

"Merry Christmas. May I come in?"

Pat looked at Jim, and Jim looked at Mike, and all three, open-mouthed, looked at the little golden head in the doorway.

"I just came in to bring you some pretty story books of mine, and a cap of brother Jack's, and a nice new pair of shoes for Mike. How do you do, Mike, this morning? Papa—he's the doctor who brought you home, Mike—is coming soon to see you."

She had emptied her little leathern bag, laid down her gifts on a chair, and vanished before Winnie got up the stairs from the wood-house, or Mrs. Slattery, in the closet, had finished skewering up the goose, or a single little Slattery had found a word to say.

I cannot stay to tell you about the Slatterys' Christmas dinner, and Mike perched up at the table, with brother Jack's cap on his head, and the new pair of shoes on the floor by his side. I have just time to stop a minute at Meadow Home, where a little golden head, with a little blue velvet hat tilted atop, flits in before me at the great hall door. As I went quickly through the holly and under the wreaths, a little voice, in wheedling tones, called from the gallery above,—

"Stay to dine to dinner?"

At the same time a small dancing jack, dangling from somewhere overhead, caught by his hands and feet in my chignon, as if striving to pull me up. Ah, naughty Chrissy!

Chrissy clapped his hands in delight, and then dropping the string of the little jack, ran away swiftly to hide.

"Do stay to dine, aunt Clara," begged Mabel, and Alice, and Ely, all three springing forward at once to disengage the jumping jack from my hair.

"Ah, do, Miss Clara; I've something to tell you about a little boy I saw this morning," pleaded little golden-head, peering through an evergreen arch. "Do stay and see the Christmas tree lighted after dinner," besought all four, gathering closely around me.

But aunt Clara was engaged to dine at the square old house over the way, with the dear old lady who could not see the pine wreaths that made her old-fashioned parlor so sweet with their resinous, balmy fragrance.

"They remind me of the times when my girls and boys were all about me so gay and happy, and the old house resounded with their 'Merry Christmas.' 'Tis many a year now, dear Clara, since there was a merry Christmas here; but happy Christmases there have been, thank God, not a few. A happy Christmas, dear, to you, and thanks for brightening the day for me," said the old lady, with a gentle sigh, as I placed her at the quiet table.

A merry, merry Christmas to all the little "Merrys" who read this story. Do not forget that there are homes where live forlorn little Mikes and Jimmys, whom you can make glad in this glad time; and do not forget that there are sorrowing homes which the mere sight and sound of your bright young faces and voices will brighten and cheer.

E. G. C.



ANNIE.

I've a sweet little pet; she is up with the lark, And at eve she's asleep when the valleys are dark, And she chatters and dances the blessed day long, Now laughing in gladness, now singing a song. She never is silent; the whole summer day She is off on the green with the blossoms at play; Now seeking a buttercup, plucking a rose, Or laughing aloud at the thistle she blows.

She never is still; now at some merry elf You'll smile as you watch her, in spite of yourself; You may chide her in vain, for those eyes, full of fun, Are smiling in mirth at the mischief she's done; And whatever you do, that same thing, without doubt, Must the mischievous Annie be busied about; She's as brown as a nut, but a beauty to me, And there's nothing her keen little eyes cannot see.

She dances and sings, and has many sweet airs; And to infant accomplishments adding her prayers, I have told everything that the darling can do, For 'twas only last summer her years numbered two. She's the picture of health, and a southern-born thing Just as ready to weep as she's ready to sing, And I fain would be foe to lip that hath smiled At this wee bit of song of the dear little child.



IF; OR, BESSIE GREEN'S HOLIDAY.

It seems absurd to say so, and at first sight almost impossible, that that one little word of only two letters could have so much power, and yet there is no doubt that the constant use of "if" spoilt Bessie Green's holiday and took away from it all the enjoyment and pleasure which she imagined a long summer day spent in the country would give. How she had thought about it and looked forward to it for weeks beforehand! Her parents were poor, hardworking people who rarely left home, and so the very idea of a treat like this was delightful, and she scarcely slept the night before, so afraid was she of not being ready in time. I cannot tell you how often she got up in the course of the night, either to see what o'clock it was or to look out of the window and wonder whether it was going to be a fine or a wet day, but it seemed to her as if morning would never come. However, long before six she was up and dressed, and with one last good-bye to her mother through the kitchen door was off to the station. And very soon the train went speeding away from the smoky streets of the city toward the green fields and shady lanes of the country.

Now, if Bessie Green had been as wise as her companions, she would have done as they did—looked out of the window and admired all she saw passing by, and so have begun the enjoyment of the day; for to eyes unaccustomed to such scenes even the cows and sheep grazing in the meadows or the horses galloping off across the fields frightened by the train were all new and amusing sights. But our foolish little friend, instead of doing this, began to look first at her own dress and then at her neighbors', and thereby she grew discontented: "If I only had a felt hat with a red feather in it, like Mary Jones', instead of this straw one with a plain bit of blue ribbon round it, how I should like it! and if mother would buy me a smart muslin frock, such as Emma Smith wears, how much better it would be than the cotton frocks she always gets for me!" And she pouted and frowned and looked so miserable that her schoolfellows would have wondered what was the matter if they had noticed her, but they were so busy thinking of other things that they never saw there was anything amiss. Happy children! They had resolved to enjoy themselves, and they did so from morning till night, while unhappy little Bessie let discontent creep in, and so her holiday—that day she had looked forward to so much—was, as I said before, spoilt.

Ah! I fear there are many people in this world, both young and old, who do as Bessie did: instead of being contented with the state of life in which God has placed them, and doing their best to make themselves and others happy, they let this little word "if" creep in on every occasion, and in too many cases spoil not one day only, but their whole lives.



But to return to our story. The train went speeding along, miles and miles away from London, with its millions of people and houses and hot, dusty streets and courts, where almost the only green leaves were the cabbages on the costermongers' trucks, out into the pure, fresh, breezy country, where houses were as scarce as trees in the city, and the cornfields stretched away and away, till bounded in the far distance by sloping heathery hills. And what a shout of pleasure arose from the two hundred throats of our little travellers when at length they stopped at a roadside station and exchanged the train for a shady lane leading to a park, the kind owner of which had placed it at their disposal for the day! Now ought not Bessie to have begun at last to enjoy herself? No; foolish Bessie had seen a carriage at the station, and envied the ladies who got into it: "If I had a carriage and horses, how much pleasanter it would be driving up this lane, instead of walking as I am obliged to do now!" And so she went along at such a slow, sulky pace that she was far behind when the lodge gates were reached, and was almost shut out when the children and teachers were admitted into the park. And as they had shouted for joy at sight of the shady lanes, how much more did they shout when they saw the beautiful spot in which for a whole long day they were to amuse themselves! There were meadows covered with hay—not such hay as is seen in stables, brown and hard and stiff, but soft, green and grassy-looking, smelling sweetly, and just the thing to roll about in and cover one another up with; then there was a nice level cricket-ground, and all ready for the boys to begin a game; there were shady trees under which to sit and listen to the birds' songs, and woody dells and valleys full of ferns and wild flowers; ponds on which swans swam about and came on swiftly and silently through the water in hopes of food, and little streams trickling along with a murmuring noise between the rushes and yellow flags which grew on their banks. Certainly this was a delightful spot to be in; and when in the midst of the beautiful park they saw the house and gardens—a house so large that it seemed a palace in the eyes of the children, while the gardens were filled with flowers of every color—they shouted again, all except Bessie, who of course began again to envy: "Oh, what a splendid house! If I could only live there, I am sure I should never be unhappy again; if I could stay here and not go back to London; if—"

But at this point her grumbling came to a sudden stop, for at a given signal all the children, who had been racing over the grass, formed into line and marched straight up to the house to make their bows and curtseys to the kind lady and gentleman who lived there, and who had come out into the porch with her own little girls and boys to welcome the visitors. Of course Bessie found something fresh to be discontented at: "If I were one of that lady's little girls, I should be dressed as nicely as she is, and then, if I liked to play about here all day long, I could do so."

And in this way she went on all the day. After going to the house and listening to a few words from the owner, and in return singing one of their prettiest songs, the children were sent off to play, and in a few minutes they were scattered in all directions, amusing themselves in different ways; and though Bessie joined in many games, yet that one word "if" was in her mind the whole time, and she did not play as merrily as usual. Dinner came, and the children, called together by a bugle, sat down in a tent; but though the fare provided was better than Bessie was accustomed to, even on a Sunday, yet this spirit of discontent had so possessed her that it was only because she was very hungry that she ate what was given her, all the time wondering what the people who lived at the great house were eating for their dinner, and thinking over and over again, "If I had the chickens and other good things which they are sure to have, I should like it much better than this mutton and cherry pie."

Oh, Bessie, Bessie! when you are older and know more of the world, you will discover that living in a grand house and having good things to eat do not make people happier; they in their turn may be as discontented as you are, and be always wishing they had something else which does not belong to them, and that word "if" may be as frequently in their mouths as in yours.

But now the dinner is over, and the merry troop have dispersed again—the boys eager to return to their game of cricket, and the girls to haymaking and swinging under the trees or other modes of spending the hours of this pleasant day; and judging by the laughter and shouts of joy, all are as happy as it is possible to be—indeed, it is a surprise to many when the bugle calls them once more together for tea, and they find that even a summer's day must come to an end at last, and that within two hours they will all be starting once more on their homeward journey. Very quickly did most of the children drink up the fragrant tea and the delicious milk, for they wanted to have a last look at the places where they had spent the day and picked wild flowers or made hay. Bessie was among the foremost of these; for now that she was going away so soon from it, she grew yet more discontented, and that little word "if" was used more than ever as she went about, not, as the others did, just to say good-bye to the fields and woods, but to look at them again and wish they were hers.

I need not stop to tell you of the evening journey, for it was like the morning one, excepting that now the hopes of a pleasant day had been fulfilled, and the children talked of what they had done, instead of what they intended to do. Bessie Green wondered, as she heard them talking, how it was that they all seemed so much happier than she did, and how it was that the longed-for holiday had not been altogether a day of enjoyment. When she arrived at home, she had very little to say about what she had done or seen; but as she has since then been more contented, we must suppose that her wondering has had some effect, and that she is beginning to see what made the day so different to her and to her companions; in which case we may hope that the next time she goes into the country she will not spoil her holiday by the too frequent use of the word "if."



THE FORCED RABBIT.

A FUNNY FACT TOLD IN VERSE.

You have heard of forced potatoes, have you not, dear little folks? Of melons forced, and cucumbers, and grapes in purple cloaks? But I have seen, and handled, too—and oh, the sight was funny!— A rabbit forced, a tiny one, a snow-white little Bunny.

Two little girls of ten and twelve—I love them very much— Once thought a tenant they would like for their new rabbit-hutch, So off to town they drove one day, and there a rabbit bought, And home the furry tenant in their pony-carriage brought.

They petted, nursed and fondled it, and showed it every care, And said before it went to bed its sheets of straw they'd air; They also begged it very hard itself at home to make, And hoped, although its bed was strange, it would not lie awake.

How happy was this Bunny white I really cannot tell, But certainly it happy looked, and was extremely well; Its eyes were bright, its nose was cool, its tongue a lovely pink. And for its pulse—well, that was strong and regular, I think.

When summer came, the little girls were taken to the sea, And left their rabbit with the groom—a youth of twenty-three. They bathed and dug upon the shore, and played with Cousin Jack; They heard the band upon the sand, and rode on donkey-back.

Then home they came, and went at once to see their Bunny dear, To stroke his ribs, and pat his head, and feel each wiry ear; But oh! alas! they found him not—the rabbit was not there! His hutch, like Mrs. Hubbard's shelf, was very, very bare.

Now, where is he? They called the groom, the youth of twenty-three, And said, "Oh, George, where's Bunny gone? Oh where, oh where is he?" "He's in the hot-house," George replied; "the gardener put him there, For he was growing thinner, miss, and losing all his hair."

They trotted to the garden then, and there the Bunny found, And 'neath a vine beheld their pet reposing on the ground. "Why, what is that?" they both exclaimed; "can that a rabbit be? I never in my life before so strange a thing did see!"



They were surprised, and certainly the sight was strange to view, For Bunny looked so very huge, and such a bundle too! Such fat he had, and lots of hair, they longed a bit to pull; He was exactly like a ball of living cotton-wool.

No tailor ever did produce a coat so superfine, 'Twas white as snow, and very thick on stomach, chest and spine— As thick as heads of stupid boys with countenances glum; And oh! the hair was very long—as long as any sum!

A host of friends and neighbors came the funny sight to see, To one and all a rabbit forced was quite a novelty; And everybody petted him, and loved him very much, And brought him goody-goodies for the larder in his hutch.

* * * * *

One day—and now my pen and ink the deepest mourning wear— They let him out upon the lawn for exercise and air; They turned their backs, two dogs rushed up, and one, with swelling chest, Seized Bunny by his woolly throat, and—you must guess the rest.



UP AND DOING.

Boys, be up and doing, For the day's begun; Soon will come the noontide, Then the set of sun; At your tasks toil bravely Till your work is done.

Let your hands be busy In some useful way; Don't neglect your study, Don't forget your play; There is time enough for each Every blessed day.



A DARING FEAT.

Remarkable for its spire, the loftiest of St. Petersburg, is the church of St. Peter and St. Paul. An anecdote connected with this church, and not known, I believe, out of Russia, is worth telling. The spire, which rises

"Lofty, and light, and small,"

and is probably represented in an engraving as fading away almost into a point in the sky, is, in reality, terminated by a globe of considerable dimensions, on which an angel stands, supporting a large cross. This angel was out of repair; and some suspicions were entertained that he designed visiting, uninvoked, the surface of the earth. The affair caused some uneasiness, and the government at length became greatly perplexed. To raise a scaffolding to such a height would cost a large sum of money; and in meditating fruitlessly on this circumstance, without knowing how to act, some time was suffered to elapse.

Among the crowd of gazers below, who daily turned their eyes and their thoughts towards the angel, was a mujik called Telouchkine. This man was a roofer of houses (a slater, as he would be called in countries where slates were used); and his speculations by degrees assumed a more practical character than the idle wonders and conjectures of the rest of the crowd. The spire was entirely covered with sheets of gilded copper, and presented to the eye a surface as smooth as if it had been one mass of burnished gold. But Telouchkine knew that the sheets of copper were not even uniformly closed upon each other, and, above all, that there were large nails used to fasten them, which projected from the side of the spire.

Having thought on these circumstances till his mind was made up, Telouchkine went to the government and offered to repair the angel without scaffolding, and without assistance, on condition of being reasonably paid for the time expended in the labor. The offer was accepted.

The day fixed for the adventure arrives. Telouchkine, provided with nothing more than a coil of ropes, ascends the spire in the interior to the last window. Here he looks down at the concourse of the people below, and up at the glittering "needle," as it is called, tapering far above his head. But his heart does not fail him; and stepping gravely out upon the window, he sets about his task.

He cuts a portion of the cord in the form of two large stirrups, with a loop at each end. The upper loops he fastens upon two of the projecting nails above his head, and places his foot in the others. Then digging the fingers of one hand into the interstices of the sheets of copper, he raises one of the stirrups with the other hand, so as to make it catch a nail higher up. The same operation he performs on behalf of the other leg, and so on alternately. And thus he climbs, nail by nail, step by step, and stirrup by stirrup, till his starting-point is undistinguished from the golden surface, and the spire dwindles in his embrace till he can clasp it all round.

So far, so well. But he now reaches the ball—a globe of between nine and ten feet in circumference. The angel, the object of this visit, is above this ball, and concealed from his view by its smooth, round, and glittering expanse. Only fancy the wretch at this moment, turning up his grave eyes, and graver beard, to an obstacle that seems to defy the daring and intrepidity of man!



But Telouchkine is not dismayed. He is prepared for the difficulty; and the means he used to surmount it exhibits the same remarkable simplicity as the rest of the feat.

Suspending himself in his stirrups, he girds the "needle" with a cord, the ends of which he fastens around his waist; and so supported, he leans gradually back, till the soles of his feet are planted against the spire. In this position, he throws, by a strong effort, a coil of cord over the ball; and so coolly and accurately is the aim taken, that at the first trial it falls in the required direction, and he sees the end hang down on the opposite side.

To draw himself into his original position, to fasten the cord firmly around the globe, and with the assistance of this auxiliary to climb to the summit, is now an easy part of his task; and in a few minutes more Telouchkine stands by the side of the angel, and listens to the shout that bursts like sudden thunder from the concourse below, yet comes to his ear only like a faint and hollow murmur.

The cord, which he had an opportunity of fastening properly, enabled him to descend with comparative facility; and the next day he carried up with him a ladder of ropes, by means of which he found it easy to effect the necessary repairs.



THE WORLD.

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful world, With the wonderful water around you curled, And the wonderful grass on your breast— World, you are beautifully dressed.

The wonderful air is over me, And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree; It walks on the water, and whirls the mills, And talks to itself on the tops of the hills.

You friendly Earth, how far do you go, With the wheat-fields that nod, and the rivers that flow, With cities, and gardens, and cliffs, and isles, And people upon you for thousands of miles?

Ah, you are so great, and I am so small, I tremble to think of you, World, at all! And yet, when I said my prayers to-day, A whisper inside me seemed to say, "You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot; You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!"

Lilliput Lectures.



C—A—T.

FOR THE VERY LITTLE ONES.

Be quiet, good Tabby! See how still you can be, For I'm going to teach you To spell C—A—T.

I'll show you the way Mother reads it to me: She looks very sober, And says C—A—T.

Fred says you can't learn, But we'll show him that we Can learn, if we please, To spell C—A—T.

To what little May said Tabby did not agree, And I doubt if she learned To spell C—A—T.



THE GIRAFFE.

The creature which forms the subject of this paper is the giraffe, or camelopard (Camelopardalis Giraffa) noted for its wonderful and beautiful form and its remarkable habits.

At the first sight of a giraffe, the spectator is struck by its enormously long neck, and will naturally ask himself how it is supported, and how its mobility is preserved. Every one who has the least acquaintance with anatomy is aware that a strong and very elastic ligament passes down the back of the neck, and acts as a strap by which the head is preserved from falling forward. In the giraffe this ligament (popularly called the paxwax) is of great length and thickness, and is divided into longitudinal halves, and proceeds, not only down the entire neck, but along the back, nearly to the tail. So powerful a band requires correspondingly large attachments; and accordingly we find that the vertebrae of the shoulders send out enormously long perpendicular processes, which give to the shoulder that height which is so eminent a characteristic of the animal. To these processes the ligament of the neck is fastened by accessory bands, which add both to its strength and elasticity.

The natives of Southern Africa make great use of this ligament, which is carefully removed and dried. When the native wishes to make a kaross, or any other article of apparel, he soaks a piece of the ligament in water, and then beats it with a stone. This treatment causes it to split into filaments, which can be worked to almost any degree of fineness, and with these the native sews his leathern dress. I have now before me a piece of this Kaffir thread, as it is called. In its dry state, it is shrivelled and contracted, and no one who was not acquainted with it could guess the purpose to which it was originally devoted.

Although the neck of the giraffe is so enormously long, it only consists of seven vertebrae, as is indeed the rule throughout the mammalia. It seems very remarkable that in the neck of the elephant and of the giraffe there should be precisely the same number of vertebrae. Such, however, is the case, and the difference in length is caused by the great length of those bones in the giraffe, and their shortness and flatness in the elephant.

The giraffe is a swift animal, and even upon level ground will put a horse to its utmost mettle; but on rough and rocky ground, especially if the chase be directed up hill, the horse has no chance against the giraffe, which can hop over the stones with the agility of the goat, and even leap ravines which no horse will dare to face. So energetic is the animal when chased, and so violently is the tail switched from side to side, that the long, stiff hairs hiss sharply as they pass through the air.

Sometimes, but very rarely, the giraffe will miss its footing and fall to the ground; but it recovers itself immediately, and is on its feet before much advantage can be taken of the mishap. When it lies down intentionally, it is obliged to pack up its legs in a manner which seems extremely awkward, although the animal can lie or rise with perfect ease; and, like the camel, it possesses callosities upon the knees and breast, on which it rests while reposing.

The height of the giraffe is rather variable, but on an average is from twelve to eighteen feet.



THE LION ON THE THRESHOLD.

At Rietriverspoort, South Africa, writes Lichtenstein, we came to the dwelling of a farmer named Van Wyk. Whilst we were resting our tired oxen, and enjoying the cool shade of the porch, Van Wyk told us the following story:—

"It was something more than two years ago that here, in this spot where we are standing, I had to make a daring shot. My wife was sitting in the house near the door, the children were playing about, and I was busy doing something to my wagon on the other side of the house, when suddenly what should we see, on the doorstep, but the shadow of a great lion darkening the bright daylight. My wife, quite stunned with terror, and knowing also how dangerous it often is to try and run away in such cases, remained in her place, while the children took refuge upon her lap. Their cries made me aware of something having happened; and my astonishment and consternation may be imagined when I discovered what guest was blocking up my entrance to my own house.

"The lion had not as yet seen me: but how was I, unarmed as I was, to defend my family? Involuntarily I moved along the side of the house towards the window, which was open; and, most happily for me, I saw, standing in a corner of the room near the window, a loaded gun. I was able to reach it with my hand, though the window, as you see, is too small for any one to get through. Still more providential was it that the room door happened to be open, so that I could see the whole terrible scene through the window. The lion had got into the house, and was looking steadfastly at my wife and children. He made a movement, and seemed about to spring upon them, when, feeling that there was no longer any time to waste in deliberating what was to be done, I uttered a few encouraging words to my wife, and with God's help, shot right across the room into the passage, where I struck the lion in the head, so that he could not move again. The ball had passed close to the hair of my little boy."



The same writer, Lichtenstein, says that the lion, like a cat, takes its prey by springing upon it, and never attacks a man or animal which does not attempt to run away from him without first placing himself at a distance of ten or twelve paces off, and measuring his spring. This habit of the lion has been turned to account by hunters, who make it their practice never to fire at a lion until he has so placed himself: long practice enabling them to know exactly where and when to hit it with effect while the animal is preparing for his spring. If any one is so unfortunate as to meet a lion unarmed, the only hope of escape is presence of mind. To run away is certain destruction; if a man has the coolness to remain standing where he is, the lion will not attack him. He will not attempt the spring if the man stands motionless as a statue, and looks quietly into his eyes. The erect figure of the human species of itself alarms the lion, and when, in addition to this, he sees his antagonist calm and unmoved, the feeling of awe is increased. A sudden gesture, indicative of alarm, will of course disturb this impression; but if the man continues to show self-possession, the lion will at last be as afraid of the man as the man of the lion. After a time he slowly raises himself, looks carefully round, retreats a few steps, lies down again, makes a further retreat, and ends by taking a rapid flight, as if his desire were to get as far out of the presence of the human species as he possibly can. Indeed, we are told by the settlers at the Cape, that it is not likely that the experiment has been very often made. Formerly, when there were more lions to be seen there than at present, and when, at the same time, the settlers were inexperienced in lion-hunting, large numbers of hunters used to go in chase of the lion, whom they would endeavor to entice into the plain, and round whom they used to form a circle. They shot at him first from one side and then from another, and if the poor animal tried to break through the left side of the human wall, they would attack him from the right. At present, however, experienced lion-hunters generally prefer going alone after their dangerous prey, and sometimes pursue him to his den. Such species of sport is always dangerous, however, and is often attended with fatal results. We have heard from a reliable source that in many sports among the mountains near the Elephant River, lions are to be seen in such large numbers, that on one occasion our informant saw as many as three and twenty together. Most of them were young, and only eight quite full grown. He had just loosened his oxen on an open place, and took the rather cowardly than humane course of escaping to the tents of some Hottentots, and leaving his oxen to the mercy of the lions, without firing a shot.



THE SNOW-MAN.

Look! how the clouds are flying south! The wind pipes loud and shrill! And high above the white drifts stands The snow-man on the hill.

Blow, wild wind from the icy north! Here's one who will not fear To feel thy coldest touch, or shrink Thy loudest blast to hear!

Proud triumph of the school-boy's skill! Far rather would I be A winter giant, ruling o'er A frosty realm, like thee,

And stand amidst the drifted snow, Like thee, a thing apart, Than be a man who walks with men, But has a frozen heart!

MARIAN DOUGLAS.



BARN SWALLOWS.

When I was a youngster,—and that, let me tell you, young friends, was some time ago,—they used to say that swallows lived in the mud all winter, as the eels do. The books made no such stupid blunder; only the ignorant people, such as never seem to use their eyes or their reason. It was one of the popular errors of the time. Silly as the notion seems, it has been held by a great many respectable persons.

Possibly the error may have arisen from the fact that the moment the swallows appear in any locality, in the spring of the year, they immediately search out some muddy place, where they can get materials for their nests. First they carry a mouthful of mud, then some threads of dry hay or straw, then more mud, and so on. These frequent visits to a marshy locality might readily lead an unobserving person to imagine that the birds came from the muddy recesses in the banks. But, of course, they are on a very different errand.

Having commenced their nests, the swallows rest during the warmest part of the day, so that the sun may dry their work, and make it hard and strong. Then more mud is plastered on—more threads of straw; and so the industrious birds continue until the body of the nest is completed. A nice, soft lining of fine grass or hair finishes the whole, and makes a summer home for both birds and their young.

Unlike most other birds, swallows often repair old nests, if the frosts and storms of winter have injured them, as they generally do; and sometimes the birds come back to the same locality for several years. They select some unexposed corner, under the eaves of a barn or house, if possible pretty high from the ground, and in a very few days the entire dwelling, lining and all, will be completed.

If unmolested, barn swallows will form quite a colony in the space of a few years. But, if their nests are injured or torn down, or their young ones are stolen away or disturbed, the birds forsake the locality forever. Where a number of families live together, their chattering, when, as the evening comes on, they are catching gnats and flies for supper, or feeding their young ones, is very pleasant and diverting. And there is music in their language, too—music which a thoughtful person is ever glad to hear.

Last summer, when business was dull, I went on a vacation, away up into the Granite State. While passing through the town of Unity (my little niece insists upon calling it Utiny—but she will speak plainer one of these years), my attention was called to a small village church on the wayside. Around the entire building, under the eaves, were brackets, some three inches in width, and perhaps as far apart. In the spaces thus formed were hundreds upon hundreds of swallows' nests. Hardly a single space was left unoccupied, while many contained two, and sometimes three nests. Not content with the eaves, the colony had commenced upon the belfry, and far up towards the spire every possible nook and corner seemed to be spoken for.

I stopped to contemplate the very interesting spectacle. A villager informed me that the colony came regularly every year, and, as near as could be judged, the same birds; that for ten years the birds had been petted by the inhabitants, and protected by all, old and young. He said that the swallows had all disappeared in a body, about a week previous to my visit, adding, "You don't know what a lovely spectacle it is to witness the evolutions of these birds on a summer evening, when they are teaching their young ones to fly. They swarm around the building like bees, and their music is most delightful to hear."

I could readily imagine the beauty of the scene, from the great number of nests, though I mean to see the colony at their devotions this year. "Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God."

It would be interesting to know where these birds go as winter approaches. It is very easy, and perhaps very true, to say that they "go south." But to what part of the south? Do they keep in a body there, as here? Do they have nests, and rear their young, there, as with us? There is a fine field for inquiry, which it is hoped some of our boys will go into by and by. For the present, if any of them are passing through Unity, let them remember the church which has its largest congregation on the outside.

W. WANDER.

[Decoration]



GRATITUDE OF A COW.

A gentleman passing through a field observed a cow showing many symptoms of uneasiness, stamping with her feet and looking earnestly at him. At first he feared to approach her, but afterward went toward her, which seemed to please her much. She then guided him to a ditch where her calf was lying helpless; and he was just in time to save it from death, to the no small delight of the cow. Some days after, when passing through the same field, the cow came up to him as if to thank him for his kindness. As among the various animals with which the earth abounds none is more necessary to the existence of man than the cow, so likewise none appears to be more extensively propagated; in every part of the world it is found, large or small, according to the quantity and quality of its food. There is no part of Europe where it grows to so large a size as in England, whose pastures are admirably suited to its nature. The quantity of milk and butter varies according to the difference of its pasture; some cows in favorable situations yield twenty quarts of milk in a day.