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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #52910 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52910)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pansy's Sunday Book, by Various
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Pansy's Sunday Book
-
-Author: Various
-
-Editor: Pansy
-        Isabella Alden
-
-Release Date: August 28, 2016 [EBook #52910]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PANSY'S SUNDAY BOOK ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-    PANSY’S
-
-    SUNDAY BOOK
-
-    BY
-
-    FAMOUS AMERICAN WRITERS
-
-    [Illustration]
-
-    _FULLY ILLUSTRATED_
-
-
-    BOSTON
-    LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY
-
-
-
-
-    COPYRIGHT, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO.
-    COPYRIGHT, 1888, 1893, by D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
-    COPYRIGHT, 1895, by LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.
-
-    _All rights reserved._
-
-
-    J. J. Arakelyan, Printer, Boston.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: IN LATE NOVEMBER.]
-
-
-
-
-A STORY TO REMEMBER, IN NOVEMBER.
-
-
-    IF you’ll sit on my knee
-      As still as a stone,
-    And listen to me
-      While we’re all alone—
-    While the wind whistles cold,
-      And the snow falls so fast,
-    While the young and the old
-      Feel the chill of the blast—
-    I will tell you about
-      A poor little lad
-    Who now, without doubt,
-      Is smiling and glad.
-
-
-    (_His picture._)
-
-    Brown and curly his head,
-      Bright blue was his eye,
-    His feet bare and red,
-      His look rather shy;
-    His face, somewhat soiled,
-      Unfamiliar with soap,
-    Was thin, while there curled
-      In his neck, like a rope,
-
-    Certain locks which had grown,
-      Unhindered by shears
-    That he never had known,
-      You would think, all his years;
-    His shirt was a sight,
-      You may think, to behold,
-    Through which shone the light
-      Unblushingly bold.
-
-    His trousers, in shreds,
-      His legs dangled round,
-    Long needing the threads
-      Which they never had found;
-    While his cap—what was left
-      Of the original pattern—
-    Of all shape was bereft,
-      And looked like a slattern.
-
-    Such, such was the creature
-      Who stood in the door;
-    In dress, form and feature—
-      Nothing less, nothing more.
-    May you love this, my lad
-      From the slums of the city;
-    Not think him all bad,
-      But regard him with pity.
-
-
-    (_The name._)
-
-    Though nameless he stood
-      Clad in rags in that door,
-    Whether evil or good,
-      He is nameless no more.
-    We’ll call him hereafter,
-      If you make no objection,
-    In tears—or in laughter,
-      On further reflection—
-    Thomas Tinker, all told,
-      But “Tommy” for short,
-    Until he grows old—
-      Perhaps then, when in sport.
-
-    But I’ll tell you I think, sir,
-      Before saying more,
-    This is not the “Tom Tinker”
-      You’ve heard of before,
-    But another, whose fame
-      Is as worthy of mention
-    As the first of his name
-      Who claimed your attention.
-
-
-    (_The story._)
-
-    We will trace him as we may, on his way
-    From that doorstep, where at play on that day;
-      We will see just how he earned
-      That for which his young heart yearned,
-    How from good he firmly turned not astray.
-
-    Selling papers he began, little man,
-    Then on errands often ran, like a “van”;
-      Then his matches he would sell,
-      Blacking boots the while, as well;
-    And with cheerful voice would tell all his plan.
-
-    Tried his courage was, I’m told; nor condoled
-    By humanity, which rolled, with its gold,
-      On its laughing, rushing way,
-      Like a crowd of boys at play,
-    Or a flock of sheep astray from the fold.
-
-    But his heart was brave and true, and he knew
-    That to flinch would never do; so say you?
-      Thus he bravely bore his part
-      With a true and loyal heart,
-    Never doubting from the start; “tried and true.”
-
-    The days seemed often long; but his song
-    Rang brave and strong; just the song
-      Of the wares he had to sell;
-      Of the news they had to tell—
-    Good and bad alike as well, for the throng.
-
-    And he worked, and worked away, every day,
-    With his heart as light and gay, as the May;
-      And he did his level best, late and early;
-      Never grumbling, never sad, and never surly;
-    With a smile ’neath his golden head and curly, as at play.
-
-    So he fought the fiends of hunger and of cold, true as gold;
-    Like a veteran tried and bold, I am told,
-      Was this soldier in life’s battle
-      ’Mid the daily hum and rattle;
-    Driven forth like sheep or cattle, to be sold.
-
-    Many brave fall by the way, every day;
-    Some survive, their country’s stay; well they may;
-      But of all the rank and file
-      Grandly marching up the aisle
-    Of stern duty, all the while, who can say
-
-    Which the most deserve the name, writ in fame?
-    Those who fell ’mid shot and flame, on land or main,
-      Or those who in obscurer strife
-      Have given heart, and soul, and life
-    For husband ill, for child, or wife, in duty “tame”?
-
-    Well, Tommy stood, sturdy and grave—no slave—
-    His soul had what we well might crave; no knave
-      Was he; but faithful in the daily fight,
-      Cheerful, happy, eager, bright—
-    A nineteenth century valiant knight, youthful, brave.
-
-    Perhaps you’d like to know his foes, who arose
-    To strike him down with deadly blows. Who knows
-      But such as he? Who else can tell
-      The horrid shapes, the cruel spell
-    These demons from the pit of hell disclose?
-
-    “Hunger,” you say, “sickness and cold; no fold;
-    No home that such as he might hold, to mould
-      And make them good, and true, and wise?”
-      Ah, yes! and on the streets before his eyes
-    Were Satan’s minions in disguise; so bold!
-
-    These dens of ill, they grow, you know;
-    We find them everywhere as we go, ready to throw
-      Their snares with fiendish skill.
-      Almost ’twould seem, to suit their will,
-    They’d gorge earth’s prisons to their fill below.
-
-    God looked on Tommy in the fight for right,
-    Saw darkness struggling with the light, so bright—
-      That light which shone on Eastern plain
-      Where shepherds heard angelic strain
-    Such as will surely come again some night.
-
-    God knew about the thrall, the small,
-    Weak hands which yet might fall, the call
-      Which all too loud might prove to be
-      For one so young, so little helped as he,
-    So tempted oft, and yet withal so free to fall.
-
-    And so, one cold Thanksgiving Day, so gay
-    With jingling bells, and sleigh and play,
-      The father sent a messenger in love,
-      To take poor Tommy to his home above,
-    Where, clad in garments whiter than the dove, he’ll stay.
-
-    And now no more he’ll walk that street, where sleet
-    And slush so cruel hurt his feet; repeat
-      No more his song of paper vending,
-      Shiver no more while restless horse attending,
-    But join in song triumphant, never ending and sweet.
-
-    But on this day of this November, remember
-    Tommies there are, with feet as cold and tender, remember,
-      As his once were, who now on golden strand
-      Meet rich and poor, of this and every land.
-    These need your store, your love, your helping hand, remember!
-                                              R.
-
-
-
-
-ROBERT TRUESDALE’S LOGIC.
-
-
-THEY were great friends, Robert Truesdale and Claire Waterman. During
-the long, bright summer at the seashore they spent as much time
-together as possible, and discussed all sorts of questions. They had
-opinions concerning everything under the sun, and agreed so well,
-generally, that to find a subject upon which they totally differed only
-added interest to the summer.
-
-One of these subjects was found one morning when they sat together on
-the beach. It began—that is, the discussion did—by Robert’s making the
-astonishing statement that he never went to circuses.
-
-Claire stopped playing with the sand which she was letting run idly
-through her fingers, and turned so that she could see his face. “How
-very queer!” she said; “I thought all boys went to circuses. Did you
-never go?”
-
-“I went once,” said Robert, low-voiced, “when I was quite a little
-fellow, and that was once too often. I never cared to try it again.”
-
-“I cannot imagine why. I think circuses are splendid. We never go in
-the city, of course. Why, they don’t have circuses in cities, do they?
-But I go to my Auntie’s every summer for two months—I always have until
-this summer—and Uncle West takes us children to the circus just as
-regularly. That is the reason I like the country so much better than
-the city, you can go to such queer out-of-door things. And I think the
-little circus ponies are too cunning for anything; I have always wanted
-one for my own. Mamma laughs, and says she doesn’t know but I will be a
-circus rider when I grow up—and then the clown is so funny. Why don’t
-you want to go, Robert? What happened when you went once? Was there an
-accident?”
-
-“No,” said Robert slowly, “I suppose not; I am afraid it was an
-every-day affair. It is a long story, Claire, and begins away back of
-that day. I have been brought up differently from you, you know. My
-father was a minister, and he and my mother did not approve of shows
-of that kind, and I was never taken to them when I was a small boy. I
-never heard nor thought much about them; we lived in a large town, but
-not too large for the traveling circus; but I got the idea, somehow,
-that only low people attended such places, and never coaxed to go.”
-
-Claire exclaimed over this, “Why, Robert, where my Auntie lives
-everybody goes, only the minister and a few old dried-up people.”
-
-[Illustration: “HOW VERY QUEER!”]
-
-“Yes, I know,” said Robert gravely; “some people in the country have
-different views from those which my father and mother had; but I did
-not know it when I was a little chap; I thought that all respectable
-people thought alike. The first time I changed my ideas any was when I
-had gone to spend the year with my Grandmother in the country—that was
-the summer after mother died, and my father had died the winter before.
-I found that a great many country people went to circuses. All the boys
-and girls who went to school with me in the little old schoolhouse were
-looking forward to going as a matter of course; and I heard more talk
-about the circus that summer than I had ever heard in my life before.
-I began to want to go very much. The more I talked with the boys, the
-more I became convinced that it was because my father was a minister
-that I had been held away from such places. ‘Of course ministers ought
-not to go,’ I told myself, ‘because’—and there I would have to stop; I
-knew no reason why they should not go where other people did, and could
-not reason about it any better than some grown people can nowadays;
-still I called it a settled point, and began to coax my grandmother to
-let me go to the circus. ‘Just this once,’ I said to her; ‘I want to
-see for myself.’
-
-“I have never understood how she came to let me have my way, unless it
-was because she was a very indulgent grandmother, and pitied the orphan
-boy, and could not bear to say ‘No.’ Any way, I received permission,
-and the necessary quarter of a dollar, and started off in great glee.
-
-“I ought to tell you,” he continued, after a slight hesitation—and the
-flush on his brown cheek deepened a little—“that although I was only
-a little fellow ten years old, I was a member of the church, and was
-trying to live my religion. There was a ragged little boy not much
-older than myself, very ignorant and neglected, but a leader in all
-sorts of mischief, whom I had had ambitions to help. I had been kind to
-him, instead of making sport of his rags, as the other boys did, until
-I had a certain sort of influence over him, and he had partly promised
-me to try to be a better boy.
-
-“Well, I went to the circus, and saw the ponies, and heard the
-jokes, and was delighted; but as I stood around outside afterwards,
-open-mouthed and open-eyed, I saw two of the men whom I had most
-admired in the ring, fighting. They had been drinking just enough to
-make them quarrelsome, and such horrid oaths as they were using I had
-never even imagined possible before. I stood still with fright and
-horror and watched the blows, and listened to the vile language, until
-somebody touched my elbow, and there was little Pete, the ragged boy.
-He was grinning wickedly. ‘My eyes!’ he said, ‘was you in there?’
-nodding toward the tent. ‘I was struck all of a heap when I see you
-come out. I didn’t think this kind was for you. I thought you belonged
-to the “goody-goodies,” you know. Miss Wheeler, she said when she was
-talking to us fellows about it, “O, no! Robert Truesdale won’t go to
-the circus, I am sure; he is his father’s own boy, and is walking the
-same road he did.” I guess you got off the road this time, didn’t you?’
-
-“I do not believe I shall ever forget the wicked leer in the little
-fellow’s face as he said those words; and I am sure I shall never
-forget the feeling of shame which I had as I looked at those two
-dreadful men with the blood streaming down their faces, and the vile
-words streaming from their mouths, and realized that I had spent my
-afternoon in laughing at their speeches, and had been found out of the
-road in which my father had walked—so far out that this street boy had
-noticed it! I turned and ran away as fast and as far as I could, and I
-do not think I shall ever attend another circus.”
-
-“How very strange!” said Claire; “but then, after all, Robert, bad men
-will swear and drink and fight. You did not make them any worse by
-going to see them ride.”
-
-“I can’t be sure of that, Claire. What if my twenty-five cents helped
-to encourage them to live the life which kept them in the midst of
-such temptations? That is what good men who have studied and thought
-about these things say of the circus. Besides,” and here the boy’s face
-took on a little touch of lofty scorn, “I want to grow up to be such
-a character that the jokes and jumpings of evil men cannot amuse me;
-I want to learn to be above them. Then you see what the ragged little
-street boy thought?”
-
-“Yes,” said Claire gravely; “I never thought much about it; I just
-went, of course, because the others did, but I shouldn’t like to be
-counted on that side, exactly. Robert, maybe I won’t go any more. I
-must think about it.”
-
-                                                 MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-HOW THE DEER KNEW.
-
-
-MY neighbor’s little boy one evening saw his teacher coming up the lane
-and called her in to take a look at his pet fawn.
-
-“Well, if he didn’t get half a foot taller since I saw him last,” said
-the teacher; “if he keeps on like that, Tommy, he will be a big deer
-the first thing you know.”
-
-“Yes, he’s growing,” said Tommy; “but I wanted to see you about
-something else. He seems to be sick, and we do not know what to do
-about it.”
-
-“Why, he looks all right now; what seemed to be the matter with him?”
-
-“He doesn’t eat,” said Tommy, “and he upset his water dish when I tried
-to make him drink. I went up on the hill to get him the best grass I
-could find, but it’s no use; he must be sick.”
-
-“Let me see that grass,” said the teacher. “I thought so,” she laughed,
-when Tommy took her to the fawn’s fodder corner; “you got a lot of
-wormwood leaves mixed up with the grass, and one of the leaves got in
-that water dish.”
-
-Tommy stared. “Oh! maybe that’s the reason he upset his water,” he
-burst out; “but I had no idea that would make any difference. What
-makes him so very particular about a few leaves, I wonder?”
-
-“You will know if you taste them,” said the teacher; “and maybe your
-fawn wanted to get even with you for teaching him to jump through a
-hoop.”
-
-“Why, he seems to like that,” laughed Tommy.
-
-“That’s just what I mean,” said the teacher; “he felt so much obliged
-to you and wanted to pay you back—by teaching you a good lesson. An
-animal, you see, won’t touch any bad-tasting food if it is in good
-health, and if you give it the wrong kind of drink it doesn’t mind its
-thirst, but waits till it gets something better. And that’s an answer
-to the question you asked me a few weeks ago, when you wanted to know
-how people could help getting fond of drinks that make them drunk and
-sick. They should let such stuff alone altogether, if they find out
-it does not taste right at first. You found out something about that
-yourself, didn’t you?”
-
-“About what—the ugly taste of bad drinks, you mean?”
-
-“Yes; don’t you remember what you told me about that hotel where you
-got thirsty, and tried a glass of something you thought was lemonade,
-and found it was beer?”
-
-“O, yes! I remember,” laughed Tommy; “I never tasted anything worse
-in my life. I don’t see how in the world people can get fond of such
-stuff.”
-
-“That’s just it,” said the teacher; “they should do as your little deer
-did this afternoon, and never meddle with a drink that tastes very
-bad the first time they try it, unless they should be sick and need a
-bitter medicine for particular purposes. If a healthy person should
-try to drink big glasses full of ugly medicine just for fun every day
-he would soon be sick, and few medicines taste as bad as some of the
-drinks so many people get drunk on.”
-
-“Cod-liver oil doesn’t, nor herb tea,” said Tommy. “I tried them, and
-know they are not half as ugly as beer. And they say beer isn’t the
-worst yet,” he added; “there are drinks that taste like burning fire,
-if you get a drop on your tongue. I don’t see how in the world anybody
-can get fond of such stuff.”
-
-“Let me tell you,” said the teacher. “The first time they try it
-they cannot help disliking it, and they should take the hint to let
-it alone altogether. But if they keep drinking it in spite of their
-horror, it will lead to a very strange result. Their nature gradually
-gets changed, till a time comes when they cannot do without a drink
-that made them shudder when they tasted it first. It is that way with
-beer and brandy, and even with a drink made of that very wormwood
-that would have made your deer sick if it had eaten it. Just rub one
-of those leaves between your fingers, and then put the tip of your
-finger to your tongue. That is just exactly the taste of a stuff called
-absinthe, and brandy and strong beer are almost as bad.”
-
-“You say people get fond of it if they drink it again and again,” mused
-Tommy, “but what makes them do that, I wonder? What makes them try it
-at all?”
-
-“They see other people do it,” said the teacher, “and so they try it
-themselves, and keep on trying, because they think Mr. So-and-so ought
-to know better than nature. Their own nature warns them against it,
-but they do not mind that warning, and keep on till it is too late
-to turn back. Now you might ask me to tell you who first took it in
-his head to make himself sick with such a foolish habit. That seems a
-puzzle, indeed, but it has been explained in this way. Before people
-drank wine they drank the fresh juice of grapes—‘must,’ as they call
-it—and probably tried to keep some of it in bottles and jars. Now in
-warm weather sweet juices of that sort are very apt to spoil—they
-ferment, as it is called, and their pleasant taste becomes sharp and
-disagreeable. Some stingy housekeeper in old times may have forced his
-servants to drink that spoiled stuff rather than throw it away, and
-after a while they got fond of it, and the foolish habit spread all
-over the country. Now wine is nothing but fermented or spoiled must.
-Beer is fermented barley water. They let barley get soaked in water,
-and then mix it and stir till it gets that sharp taste that made you
-sick when you tried it by mistake in that summer hotel last year.”
-
-“Yes; and on that same trip I once got in the wrong railway car,” said
-Tommy, “and that car was full of tobacco smoke enough to make my
-little brother cry, and I thought it would choke me before the train
-stopped and we got back in the right car. I know a boy who got so sick
-he had to go to bed when he first tried to smoke; but I am sure I shall
-never try it at all.”
-
-[Illustration: SHE’S SUCH A DARLING!]
-
-“That’s right, Tommy; let such things alone altogether,” said the
-teacher. “It’s very easy never to begin, but if you should get fond of
-such bad habits you might find it hard to get rid of them.”
-
-“I have a book about travels,” said Tommy, “and I read that the
-American Indians first taught white men to smoke. One of my cousins has
-been in Mexico, and when I asked him what made the Indians so fond of
-tobacco smoke, he said they first used it to drive mosquitoes out of
-their cabins. They burn tobacco leaves on a hot pan, and the gnats all
-fly out of the window.”
-
-“I should not wonder,” laughed the teacher; “and that would show that
-mosquitoes have more sense than those Indians.”
-
-                                                 FELIX L. OSWALD.
-
-
-
-
-SOMETHING FOR MAMMA.
-
-
-I GET the idea and most of the details from Harper’s Bazar. The article
-from which they are taken says the contrivance is for an invalid, but
-let me assure you that mamma will like it very much, or, for the matter
-of that, papa also, though they have not thought of being invalids.
-
-First, contrive to get a nice pine board about twenty-five inches
-long and twenty-one wide (if you are making it for me I should like
-the board a little narrower, but perhaps mamma might not); cover it
-with felt of any color you please—perhaps it would be well to have
-in mind the furniture in the room where it is chiefly to live, and
-secure a color which will harmonize, or at least not “fight,” with the
-prevailing color there.
-
-Perhaps, however, you will be in the condition in which I have
-sometimes found myself; namely, with a piece of felt of a certain
-color which obstinately refuses to turn into another, no matter how
-much I might desire it; in that case, if I were you I would go right
-ahead with my present; I feel sure mamma will find it useful, even
-though it is not just the shade which you and she like best. The same
-remarks will apply to material. I have used cretonne, or even calico,
-where I would have preferred felt if I could have got it. Well, we
-will pretend to cover this pine board with felt; we will have the felt
-so long and wide that it will reach say for six inches or so below
-the board at both ends, and on the front side. Then make neat little
-pockets for these ends and side, with a flap to button down over them
-when desired. These are to hold letters, envelopes, bits of poetry,
-scraps of prose, recipes, in fact anything which mamma desires to have
-convenient when she sits down to write. If mamma uses a fountain pen
-I think she will like exceedingly a little narrow pocket, just wide
-enough for her pen to slip in easily, and just deep enough for it to
-stand upright and put its head out for her to get hold of. If she does
-not, a “traveler’s inkstand,” leather covered, may be glued at the
-right end of the board; it has a “spring” cover, you will remember,
-and takes faithful care of the ink when closed. A stamp box of wood or
-paper may be glued at the other end.
-
-What a delightful present that will be when you get it done! I am
-sure “mamma” will appreciate and enjoy it. The Bazar says a row of
-brass-headed nails should be driven all around the edges of the board,
-I suppose to hold the felt firmly in place; but a little girl who had
-no brass nails could very easily sew her felt or cretonne or calico
-around the under side of the board, and make her pockets separately,
-sewing them firmly to their places, if she wished.
-
-In fact, there is room in this device for many changes and
-improvements. I can imagine an ingenious girl or boy—or perhaps it
-would be better to say girl and boy—putting their heads together, and
-making many variations which would be a comfort to the fortunate owner.
-Try it, and let me know the result.
-
-                                                 PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: SHE STRUGGLED WITH THE SLEEVES.]
-
-
-
-
-NANNIE’S THANKSGIVING.
-
-
-IT was very early in the morning; earlier, in fact, than Nannie was
-in the habit of being up; but on account of Thanksgiving Day, and the
-fact that they were all going, to Aunt Cornelia’s to dinner, Nannie
-thought she ought to be on hand early. She was waiting for mamma to
-give her her bath, and sat down to pet Rosamond Catherine Lorinda in
-the meantime. The middle name, Catherine, was in honor of Grandma
-Patterson, but Nannie did not like it very well, and felt obliged to
-place it between two names which she called “delicious,” in order to
-tolerate it. A bright thought occurred to her; she might dress the
-child for the Thanksgiving dinner while she waited. It was while she
-struggled with the sleeve which did not want to go on that the thought
-came which caused all her trouble.
-
-“This sleeve is too small,” she said; “I b’lieve my child’s arm must
-have grown a great deal since she wore this dress before; she ought to
-have had a new dress for Thanksgiving; she would look sweet in a white
-embroidered one trimmed with lace.” Just then the baby in the willow
-cradle at her side nestled in his sleep, and Nannie turned and looked
-at him.
-
-“If Rosamond Catherine Lorinda only had one dress like what Teddy has
-so many of, I should be too perfectly happy,” she said. “Just think, I
-b’lieve he has as many as ’leven or eight! Mamma might borrow me one
-just for to-day; it would be too long, but I could cut it off at the
-bottom; it would be just as easy to sew it on again when Teddy needed
-it; and the sleeves I could loop up with pink ribbons, and she would
-look too perfectly sweet!”
-
-The more she thought about it, the more the longing grew; at last it
-began to seem a positive injustice that Teddy should have so many
-clothes and not be willing to lend any to Rosamond Catherine Lorinda.
-“I know he would, if he understood,” said Nannie, looking approvingly
-upon the sleeping baby; “he loves my Rosamond, and kisses her just as
-cunning! And he has such a perfectly lovely lot of dresses! I just
-mean to look in the bruro drawer and count them.” Saying which, she
-tiptoed toward the bureau behind the cradle, and opened the second
-drawer. To be sure she was barefooted, and could not have made much
-noise; besides, if she was doing right why should she care if her
-footsteps were heard? Nevertheless, she instinctively tiptoed along,
-and opened the drawer as softly as she could; and it was not for fear
-of waking Teddy, either.
-
-There lay the dresses in a fluffy white heap; on the top was the one
-which Nannie most coveted.
-
-“Teddy hardly ever wears it,” she said reassuringly, as she drew it
-out; “I guess mamma doesn’t like it very much or she would put it on
-him oftener; and Rosamond Catherine will look too perfectly sweet for
-anything in it. I am most sure mamma would not care. I could cut it off
-right through all those little embroidery holes, then Grandma could sew
-them together again just as easy.”
-
-I grieve to tell you that she did exactly that dreadful thing. Not
-immediately; she resolved to try the dress on first, and see if it
-would do; and despite the fact that the waist was many times too large,
-and the limp arms were altogether lost in the sleeves, the waxen-haired
-beauty looked so enchanting to her mother’s eyes, under those billows
-of white, that in a very short space of time the shining shears were
-making a long, crooked line through the costly embroidery with which
-Teddy’s best dress was trimmed.
-
-O, me! the troubles which in this way were stored up for naughty,
-foolish Nannie. They began almost immediately; for despite the fact
-that Nannie had coaxed herself into the fancy that there was no harm
-in what she did, she found she was not willing to have her mother
-know about it, and crumpled the elegant dress into a small bundle and
-thrust it under the great rug at her feet when she heard her mother’s
-footsteps. All through the breakfast hour, and even at family worship,
-she was engaged in planning how she should get Rosamond Catherine
-Lorinda dressed and wrapped in her traveling cloak without any one
-having seen her; for fond as she was of exhibiting the beauty, she
-found that to-day she would rather her charms were hidden from all eyes.
-
-She was still planning ways and means when the discovery came. She was
-not prepared for it, because when Teddy had so many dresses, how could
-she suppose that when her mother opened the drawer to select one she
-would exclaim, “Why, what has become of his dress? I laid it on top so
-as to get it without disturbing the others.”
-
-A good deal of talk followed. Papa suggested that she had laid it in
-some other drawer, and Aunt Laura said perhaps Grandma had taken it to
-set a stitch in; and Grandma affirmed that she had not, and asked what
-Nannie was longing to: “Why don’t you take one of the others, daughter,
-and get the little fellow ready while he is good-natured?”
-
-“Well, but where can it be?” asked the puzzled mother, closing the
-drawer. “I am sure I laid it here, on the top. I wanted Adelaide to see
-him in that dress, because she sent me the embroidery for it, you know,
-and it is more expensive than any I should have bought.”
-
-Nannie caught her breath nervously over this; she had not supposed the
-embroidery was so choice; she might just as well have taken one of the
-other dresses if she had only known.
-
-Just at that moment Susan, who was bustling about, packing Teddy’s
-traveling bag, stooped down and pulled at something white under the
-rug, as she said, “Shall I put in some playthings, Mrs. Walters? Why,
-what’s this?”
-
-What was it, sure enough, but the lost dress cut in two, in a fearful
-zigzag manner, directly through the costly embroidery! Can you imagine
-what followed? I am sure you will not be surprised to learn that poor,
-naughty little Nannie had a whipping then and there. Her mother did
-not even wait for Susan to leave the room, as she generally did before
-punishing any of her children. It is true the whipping was not very
-severe, for Mrs. Walters was never severe; but the disgrace of it was
-terrible, for Nannie was very rarely whipped.
-
-However, this was by no means the worst of her troubles; behold, mamma
-declared that she could not go to the Thanksgiving dinner, but must
-stay at home with Susan and the cat. Now when you reflect that they
-were to ride four miles in a beautiful sleigh drawn by two prancing
-horses, and meet a baker’s dozen of little cousins, some of whom Nannie
-had never seen, to say nothing of the delights of the Thanksgiving
-dinner, and the little pies with their names on, done in sugar plums,
-which were to be ready for each cousin, I am sure you will feel with
-Nannie that her punishment was greater than she could bear. In truth,
-the others thought so. Papa said, “My dear, couldn’t you reconsider,
-somehow?” Aunt Laura said, “Jennie, I think you are horrid!” And even
-Susan ventured to say, “I don’t think she knew it was his best dress,
-ma’am; and she says Grandma can sew it together, poor little heart.”
-But Mrs. Walters was very firm. She did not deign to answer Laura
-or Susan, but said to her husband, “Richard, I don’t know how I can
-change, now. I said she couldn’t, and you know I ought to keep my word.
-Besides, the child needs a serious lesson; it is quite as hard for me,
-I think, as for her,” and the mother’s lip quivered a little. Then the
-father said soothingly, that of course he knew she was doing it for
-Nannie’s best good, and he could trust her judgment where he couldn’t
-his own. But Aunt Laura remained indignant, and the whole household was
-in trouble. “Our Thanksgiving is spoiled,” said Aunt Laura; “I’ve a
-good mind not to go.”
-
-Meantime, Grandma said not a word. It was nearly an hour afterwards,
-and the preparations for starting, which had gone on much more
-silently, were almost completed, when Grandma opened the door of Mrs.
-Walters’ room, dressed in her best black silk, with her beautiful white
-satin hair peeping out from under the soft laces of her best cap, and
-holding by the hand a little girl with very red eyes, and a red nose,
-who kept up a suspicious little sniffing, as though it was only by
-great effort she refrained from bursting into fresh tears. Grandma
-walked straight toward her daughter, and said, “Mamma, we have come to
-ask you if you will not forgive poor little Nannie, who is very sorry,
-and let her go to-day, for Grandma’s sake—not for hers at all, but for
-Grandma’s.”
-
-And the handsome mother, with a sudden glad light flashing in her gray
-eyes, stooped and kissed the cheek of her sweet old mother, and then of
-her own little daughter, as she said, “Dear mother, you know what you
-ask for your own sake I could certainly never refuse.”
-
-The years have rolled on since then, enough of them to make little
-Nannie twenty-six, and the mother of one Rosamond, who has golden hair
-like the dollie, her namesake, but who is mischievous, as Rosamond of
-old never was. And I heard the sweet mother say, last Thanksgiving
-morning, after having told this story of her past for the benefit of
-some young mothers, “I am thankful for two things: that I had a mother
-who taught me that wrong-doing must bring unhappiness, not only to
-myself, but to others; and that I had a dear Grandmother who taught me
-what it was to have a powerful friend to come between me and Justice,
-and say, ‘For my sake.’“
-
-                                                 PANSY.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: PAPA’S CHOICE.]
-
-
-    HERE stands my baby,
-      On two little feet;
-    With her bushy brown head,
-      And her dimples so sweet.
-
-    Her arms are all ready
-      To give me a hug;
-    So give me my baby,
-      And you keep your pug.
-                                R.
-
-
-
-
-NOVEMBER.
-
-
-    WHAT is thy mission, November,
-      Thou link ’twixt the living and dead?
-    What message would’st have us remember,
-      Writ on thy dried leaves, to be read
-        As lessons to youth and to age,
-        To the simple, the student, the sage?
-
-    Stern duty, thy scepter of power,
-      The husbandman readily sees;
-    And takes up the tasks of the hour
-      As the limbs bear the buds on the trees;
-        For he sows not, ploughs not, nor reaps;
-        He laughs not, he frowns not, nor weeps.
-
-    The frosts, without cost, starch the ground;
-      Spread a mirror o’er river and lakes;
-    While nuts scattered thickly around,
-      More treasured than apples and cakes,
-        The children may gather with ease,
-        With the squirrels which hide in the trees.
-
-    The apples are now in the bins,
-      The pumpkins upon the barn floor,
-    Save those which, bereft of their skins,
-      Hang to dry on the biggest barn door;
-        The banking’s high piled ’gainst the house,
-        To keep it as snug as a mouse.
-
-    Thou wast wisely ordained for man,
-      For time was much needed, we see,
-    In which for cold winter to plan,
-      And prepare for the storms which must be;
-        So, while few may sing of thy praise,
-        We will welcome and treasure thy days.
-
-    Not all the best things of this grand old earth,
-      Not all the hours of the year around,
-    Are welcomed here with the songs of mirth,
-      Nor in fields of pleasure are ever found,
-        For cloudy are the days of welcome rain,
-        And sharp the sickle for the golden grain.
-                                      G. R. A.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    THE soul that perpetually overflows with kindness and
-    sympathy will always be cheerful.
-
-[Illustration: NOVEMBER.]
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-WHAT MADE BABY LAUGH?
-
-
-BABY DALE’S mamma had a great many pictures of her little boy, but they
-were not pretty.
-
-The trouble was, he would not sit still even for one little minute. He
-was always jumping or clapping his fat hands, or saying “Baa, baa!”
-
-One of his pictures had three eyes, and one had no nose.
-
-One funny one had his mouth wide open like a big O, for he was crying.
-
-And there was one where he had his mouth shut, but he looked very
-cross. He had a frown between his eyes. Mamma said she would not know
-it was her sunny boy.
-
-But by and by a man came who could take pictures whether babies kept
-still or not.
-
-One day little Dale was in his high chair by the window. Outdoors it
-was snowing.
-
-Baby thought the snowflakes were pretty white feathers coming down from
-the sky. Mamma and he played with a feather once that came out of his
-pillow. It was nice.
-
-Such a lot of feathers! They made pretty white caps on the fence posts.
-And there were great heaps of them on the ground!
-
-“Some day,” thought Baby, “I will go out that door, and I will creep
-right down the steps, and I will go to that big pile of feathers, and I
-will get my hand full, and I will throw them away up, up, back into the
-sky!”
-
-Then baby laughed, and the man who had come to take his picture touched
-a button on a queer little box he had, and there was Baby just as you
-see him.
-
-That is how Baby Dale came to have a picture that mamma loved.
-
-All the aunties, when they saw it, said, “Oh! how sweet.”
-
-[Illustration: “I WILL GET MY HAND FULL.”]
-
-Mamma sent a picture to the grandma down in Flor-i-da, and one to the
-grandma up in Maine. One went over the ocean to Uncle John who loves
-Baby Dale very dearly. One went out West to Auntie Lou, and one went to
-Boston, to be printed for you.
-
-                                              MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    SOMETIMES in the early springtime,
-      The sunbeams floating ’round
-    Are caught out in the showers,
-      And are washed into the ground.
-
-    But, ere the summer’s over,
-      They take root in the sod,
-    And grow up with fresh brightness
-      In the form of Golden Rod.
-                              —_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-LORA’S SERMON.
-
-
-IT was Sunday morning, and all the family except Lora and her mother
-had gone to church. As a rule they, or at least Lora, were the first to
-be tucked into the sleigh; but on this particular morning Mrs. Wheeler
-had said she was not going; that she had a little cold, she believed,
-and was “all tuckered out” with the week’s work, and just in condition
-to get more cold very easily; and Lora’s coat did look too ridiculous
-to wear to church, so she had better stay at home with her.
-
-“By next Sunday you will have your new coat,” she said, to console the
-child, “and be all in order for church for the rest of the winter.”
-
-Lora looked sober for a few minutes; she was very fond of riding to
-church tucked in among the great soft robes, and she did not mind the
-service so very much, though the sermon was pretty long. However, she
-was naturally a sunny little girl, and her face soon cleared as she
-buttoned her somewhat shabby coat, and went out to watch the snowbirds,
-who were gathering in great numbers near the barn doors.
-
-Lora and the snowbirds were friends; indeed she made friends with all
-sorts of dumb animals, and had queer little ideas about them.
-
-“You will fall,” she said gravely, addressing a fat bird who swung on
-a tiny branch almost at her side; “you have picked out a very slimsy
-branch; it looks as though it was almost broked off; maybe it will
-break while you are swinging on it—I most know it will—then you will
-fall down in the snow and hurt yourself. I falled off of a limb once,
-and it hurted.”
-
-The bird paid not the slightest attention to this friendly warning, but
-Lora continued to stand still, looking at the swaying bush, her face
-full of earnest thought. She had already turned from the bird, and was
-thinking about the verse sister Nannie had taught her that morning. It
-was a long verse for a little girl, with some hard words in it; but
-Lora had mastered them, and said them over in her mind, revolving,
-meanwhile, the explanation which Nannie had made of them. “If a man
-abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered.”
-“Branches do wivver as soon as they are broked off,” said Lora. “I’ve
-seen them; and papa and Moses burn them up—that is what it said.
-
-“This stick is broked off,” she continued, carefully examining the one
-which she grasped with both chubby hands; “it used to grow, but it
-won’t ever any more. All the leaves have wivvered off it, and some day
-it will get burned up, I s’pose; it isn’t good for much.”
-
-Words stopped just here, but that little Lora’s brain went on with the
-great thoughts which she could not express, was evident from the look
-on her face. The Bible verse and Nannie’s careful explanation of it had
-taken deep root in her heart. She went into the house presently; the
-thoughts had grown so large that she felt as though she must ask some
-more questions.
-
-As a usual thing, Sunday quiet reigned in Mrs. Wheeler’s kitchen at
-this hour of the day. But this day was an exception. Mrs. Wheeler,
-bustling about doing up the last things connected with the morning
-work, had come across a bowl of mince meat and a lump of dough
-evidently left from pie crust. “I declare for it!” she exclaimed, “I
-thought Kate made up all the pies yesterday. What a careless thing, to
-leave this bowl of mince meat here over Sunday! It would make two good
-pies, and if all the folks come for Thanksgiving we may fall short;
-they set such store by my pies. I wonder what Kate was about? It must
-have got dark before she finished. These must be made up the first
-thing to-morrow—but there is pretty near everything to do to-morrow,
-too; it makes a great deal of work getting ready for such a house full;
-and pie crust is none the better for standing, either; I declare,
-I’ve a mind to slap this on to a couple of tins and set them in the
-oven; there is fire enough to bake them nicely, and it won’t take five
-minutes, hardly, and there are so many ways to turn to-morrow.”
-
-There were more thoughts about it not put into words, but it ended in
-the moulding board being spread out on the table, and the flour jar
-and rolling-pin and pastry knife being laid beside it. I wonder they
-did not all blush for shame, for such a thing had never happened to
-them before on a Sabbath. Mrs. Wheeler’s cheeks were rather red, and
-she felt what she would have called “kind of queer”; but she flew about
-very fast, and meant to be soon seated in the best room in her Sunday
-dress.
-
-It was just at that moment that Lora pushed open the kitchen door and
-entered, her eyes large with the thoughts about which she wanted to
-question. They grew larger as she took in the situation. Her mother
-rolling out pie crust! And it was Sunday! Such a thing had never
-happened in Lora’s experience. Nobody knows why the queer little brain
-put together the thoughts which had come to her outside, and the pie
-crust in the kitchen; but it did, and there came, presently, this
-question: “Did you get broked off, muvver?”
-
-“Did I what?” said Mrs. Wheeler, her cheeks very red. There was
-something in Lora’s look and tone which made them redder.
-
-“Get broked off. That is what Nannie said. She said folks that got
-broked off did things that Jesus did not want done; and kept doing
-them. Does he want you to make pies to-day, muvver?”
-
-“If I ever saw such a child!” said Mrs. Wheeler, making the rolling-pin
-revolve over the board at railroad speed. “What does Nannie mean
-putting such notions into your head? Go into the other room, child, and
-take off your coat; I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m not going to
-make pies; I shall wad up this dough and keep it until to-morrow.”
-
-And she did.
-
-                                                 MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-THAT RAINY DAY.
-
-
-THE Stautenbergers were not rich, neither were they poor. Their house
-was not large, neither was it very little; but there was none too much
-room in it.
-
-Mrs. Stautenberger was dead; had “fallen asleep,” as the father called
-it, that very autumn; so when he went to the shop for his day’s work,
-Pauline, the eldest, had to be both sister and mother to her three
-sisters, and one little brother.
-
-The teacher of the school in their district was very kind, and after
-her first call at the “home without a mother,” she said to Pauline, “Do
-not stay at home to care for baby sister; bring her with you, and we
-will manage in some way. I think she will be a good little girl.”
-
-Then Pauline felt sure she should love the teacher very much. When her
-father came home she told him what Miss Gilbert had said, and as he
-wiped a tear away, he, too, thought she would be a nice teacher, and
-must have a good heart to be so willing to help his motherless ones.
-
-There are a great many things I would like to tell you about this
-little family and their splendid teacher, but all I will have time for
-now, is the story of one rainy day, and what they did about it.
-
-The storm was so hard they could none of them venture out; certainly
-little Gretchen must not be taken out, so there seemed a prospect for a
-dull, dreary, lonesome day.
-
-The few dishes were soon put away, and all were hungry for school.
-
-“I know what to do,” said Pauline; “let’s play school. We can read and
-spell and make numbers, and maybe we can study geography a little; then
-when we go to school to-morrow teacher will be so s’prised to see how
-much we have learned; and then she’ll smile, and maybe she will kiss
-us, every one! Won’t that be fun?”
-
-She didn’t try to rhyme, but in her eagerness it came of itself.
-
-So they had school, and Metza played teacher, and Pauline sat by little
-Gretchen, and Fritz and Mary sat with them on the long lounge, and they
-had such a nice time they forgot that it was storming outside, and were
-much astonished when at noon papa came home to lunch, and so sorry they
-had forgotten to heat the water for his coffee.
-
-But when they told him what a nice time they had had, he smiled, and
-said, “My Pauline has been a good mother to-day.” And she thought, “I
-have the best papa in the world.”
-
-                                                 G. R. A.
-
-[Illustration: “THIS STICK IS BROKED OFF,” SAID LORA.]
-
-
-
-
-PERFUMED GLOVES.
-
-
-PERFUMED gloves were brought from Italy by Edward Vere, Earl of
-Oxford, after his exile, and his present to Queen Elizabeth of a pair
-with embroidered roses is mentioned in history. But the refinement of
-perfumed gloves had been known for three centuries in France before
-the days of the Virgin Queen, and in Spain the gloves were famous
-for the scent imparted to them long before her day. The luxurious
-court of Charles the Second used perfumed gloves, and those “trimmed
-and laced as fine as Nell’s,” you have no doubt read about. Louis
-the Fourteenth also issued letter patents of his “_marchands maitres
-gantiers parfeumeurs_.” In Venice, where the love of dress was
-conspicuous, perfumed gloves were introduced by a dogess as early as
-1075.—_Selected._
-
-[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH WHEN A PUPIL.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    THAT day is best wherein we give
-      A thought of others’ sorrows;
-    Forgetting self, we learn to live,
-      And blessings born of kindly deeds
-    Make golden our to-morrows.
-
-
-
-
-A SABBATH IN A BOARDING-SCHOOL IN TURKEY.
-
-
-I.
-
-IT was the dawn of a winter morning. Ding-dong-ding clanged the
-chapel bell. I sprang up and began to dress, while Marta went to the
-mission-house for a cup of coffee. As I fastened the last button, there
-was a rap at the door. “Come,” I called, and in walked the dear little
-maid with a cup of coffee carefully covered to keep in the steam, and a
-roll done up in a napkin, which the cook had insisted upon her bringing.
-
-Ding-dong began the bell again. “Tell the girls not to wait for me,” I
-said; and soon the clatter of many feet on the stairs indicated their
-departure. The coffee must be swallowed, and the little roll must not
-be wholly neglected; then putting on bonnet and ulster, I started to
-follow. Fido, our little spaniel, was standing disconsolate in the
-hall below. Her eyes were full of entreaty, and wagging her tail
-persuasively, she accompanied me to the door.
-
-“Go back, Fido. Can’t take little dogs to church!” I exclaimed. She
-knew it was no use to tease, and stood watching me as I opened the
-heavy door with difficulty, and slammed it after me—it would not latch
-unless slammed. As I reached the church door, I heard the organ—that
-meant the service had begun, and I was late! something I never meant
-to be, but this was so early to go to church! The Armenians are all
-accustomed in the Gregorian Church to a service even earlier, and when
-they become Protestant, or Evangelical, they still cling to the old way
-of making worship the first thing in the morning, and giving breakfast
-the second place.
-
-Instead, then, of going up the men’s aisle, and sitting at the further
-end where we missionaries usually do, I went on to the door at the
-left—the women’s—and slipped into a back seat. A little girl just in
-front of me passed me her hymn book, so that I could join with the
-congregation in singing “_Garode yem, voh garode yem_”—“I need Thee,
-O, I need Thee.” Just as the hymn closed, the sun’s rays struck the
-eastern window and streamed in; then the preacher arose and read the
-epistle to Philemon, and also 1 Cor. vii. 22. . . .
-
-The benediction was pronounced, and the congregation slowly streamed
-out. The walk from the chapel to the street is narrow, and as it is
-not proper for women to crowd in among the men, we waited till they
-had mostly passed on. While standing outside, Shushan, one of our day
-pupils, came along with her mother; both were completely enveloped
-in the white crapy wrap which is worn by the Armenian women in this
-section. Shushan’s bright-colored dress showed through, and at the same
-time set off the figure in the wrap.
-
-“_Par-ee loo-is_, Shushan; are you of the same mind as yesterday about
-going to Kozloo?”
-
-She returned my good-morning, and said she was; yes, indeed!
-
-“Why should we change our minds?” said her mother. “Are we not also
-Christ’s servants?” referring to the sermon we had just heard.
-
-You see, Shushan’s brother was bitterly opposed to her going away
-to teach, and I thought it quite possible that he had influenced her
-to give it up. It was years after girls’ schools were opened before
-people were willing to send their children to a woman teacher—I mean a
-native—still worse if she was “only a girl.” They would far rather send
-them to a man, however ignorant and incapable. That long struggle has
-ended at last in victory, and we have no more trouble in finding work
-for our girls; but we have another difficulty now. Well-to-do parents
-and brothers consider it a disgrace—at least many of them do—to have
-their daughters and sisters work as though they were obliged to earn
-their support.
-
-“Haven’t you food and clothes?” they ask indignantly, when a girl,
-filled with a desire to do something for her people, intimates a
-purpose to teach. Perhaps I may as well complete this little tale here
-and now, although it does not belong to the incident of the Sabbath I
-have been describing.
-
-A few days later the (native) pastor came to me and asked anxiously,
-“Can’t you persuade Shushan, for the sake of peace, to give up going to
-Kozloo? Her brother is very violent, and talks terribly, declaring that
-even if she were mounted, and going through the most public street, he
-would drag her off the horse; if she should by any chance succeed in
-carrying out her plan, she should never come home again—he would never
-again acknowledge her as his sister.” The pastor went on to say that he
-thought the brother had offered to send her away to school if she would
-give up “this crazy scheme,” as he called it.
-
-I sent for Shushan, and finding that her brother had made the offer
-referred to, advised her to accept it. The sacrifice of her will for
-the sake of avoiding scandal, would, I was sure, be as acceptable
-to the Master as the service she had intended. In less than a week
-thereafter, she was on her way to a distant school.
-
-We passed out through the arched gateway, and then parted with a mutual
-“_yer-tak par-rov_”—“good-by.” How the sun sparkled on the snowy
-street, on the mountains which seemed to stand across it, so near they
-looked, and reared their dazzling summits into the brilliant blue of
-the winter sky.
-
-The girls with their shawls modestly over their heads, crossed the
-street in a straggling little procession. Fido appeared in the window
-which she had pried open with her little black nose—windows are hung
-like doors—gave an eager and joyful bark or two, and rushed down to
-welcome them home. Then they sat down to their breakfast of tea and
-bread. The former was seasoned with white lump sugar (brown sugar is
-unknown), but there was no butter for the bread.
-
-I doubt whether my readers would have recognized the thin, whity-brown
-sheets, or the rags placed before one of the girls who had elected
-to take the pieces, as bread, but so it was. They have many kinds in
-Turkey, and this thin kind, a little thicker than blotting-paper, is
-very popular here. In the autumn it is a very common thing for a girl
-to come and say, “Teacher, mother says will you please excuse me from
-school to-day?” And she explains that they are baking bread, and need
-her help.
-
-“But why doesn’t your mother get some woman to help her?”
-
-Then I find that it is a regular “bee”—a bread bee! The neighbors are
-already there, and they will work all night—it is no small job to roll
-it out so thin. There will be no more baking till the worst of the
-winter is over. It is stacked away in a dry place, and when wanted the
-requisite number of sheets (about two feet long by one wide) is taken,
-sprinkled as you would clothes for ironing, and after a few moments,
-folded once lengthwise and laid around the edge of the table. If,
-instead of being sprinkled, the bread is held over the fire a moment,
-it becomes crisp and really nice; but this is seldom done.
-
-After the housework was done we had prayers, and then the girls were
-dismissed with a charge not to hang about the halls or stairways,
-as the boys were coming over again to sing, and to keep their doors
-closed. “Not ajar as last Sunday, to my mortification and your
-disgrace; most likely the boys thought you left them open on purpose so
-that they could look in.” Somehow the boys and girls are wonderfully
-interesting to each other all the world over.
-
-Soon the young fellows filed in, looking half-pleased, half-shy—big,
-six-foot Isaac, and clever little Bo-ghos; Sumpad, with his bright,
-frank smile; poor, awkward Deekran, the best writer in school, and
-his brother Arsen. We practiced “Hold the Fort”; there were two bad
-mistakes with which we struggled for a while. Then we sang “What a
-Friend we have in Jesus,” “Sweet By and by,” “Almost Persuaded,” “Go
-Bury thy Sorrow,” “The Ninety and Nine,” and others—all in Armenian, of
-course.
-
-Then I said just a word to Deekran about money I entrusted to
-him—merely a caution to be careful to return any money that might
-be left over. It was hardly the thing for the Sabbath, but I was
-not likely to see him for some days, and I wanted to prevent any
-carelessness—it is so important for boys that they learn to be careful
-and business-like.
-
-                              HARRIET G. POWERS, _in the Evangelist_.
-
-
-
-
-THE HARD TEXT.
-
-(_Matt._ xii. 31, 32.)
-
-
-MANY have been troubled over this text. Some have been in despair of
-being saved because they thought they had committed this unpardonable
-sin.
-
-Probably many are mistaken. Any one that truly feels sorrow for his
-sins, and really longs for forgiveness and hungers for holiness, shows
-some of the best signs that he has not committed this. God will not
-cast out such a person, if he comes in Jesus’ name.
-
-But there is a sin against the Holy Ghost so great that it cannot be
-forgiven, and probably when one has committed it he is so desperately
-wicked, so hard in heart, that he never asks to be forgiven.
-
-You will wish to know what this awful sin is, so that you may never
-commit it. The thought of being doomed never to see heaven and
-Christian friends after death fills you with horror.
-
-But then, why should you not tremble at committing any sin? One
-little sin leads to another, and so on, until the sin of sins is the
-end of it all. Take care!
-
-[Illustration: A SELFISH KID.]
-
-But how is it—or was it—worse to sin against the Holy Ghost than
-against the Son of Man?
-
-Well, the first might be done in ignorance. The Roman soldiers did not
-know what a dreadful thing they were doing when they nailed the dear
-Lord to the tree. They might be forgiven that. But the Holy Ghost comes
-to show one the truth; then that one has no excuse, you see. His sin is
-against light. It is most deliberate, willful, determined. It is much
-more. But remember it is sinning against light, great light.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-AN AMUSING ANECDOTE.
-
-
-SOME time ago an amusing little anecdote was related about the German
-Crown Prince whilst having a lesson in grammar from his tutor. One is
-now being told about the second son of the imperial couple, Prince
-Eitel Fritz. The Emperor is exceedingly strict about his son’s behavior
-at table. Not long since little Prince Eitel Fritz, using his fingers
-instead of his knife and fork, was corrected by his father several
-times to no purpose. At last the Emperor’s patience was exhausted, and
-he said:
-
-“Children who eat with their fingers are like little dogs that hold
-their food with their paws. If you use your fingers again you must
-go under the table, the proper place for little dogs.” The little
-Prince did his utmost not to forget this time, and used his knife and
-fork like a man; but all at once he forgot again and began using his
-fingers. “March under the table,” said his father. Prince Eitel Fritz
-crept under as bidden. After a little while the Emperor, thinking the
-Prince very quiet, lifted up the tablecloth and peeped underneath.
-There sat little Prince Eitel Fritz undressed. His father asked him
-what he meant by undressing himself. The child answered, “Little dogs
-don’t wear clothes; they only have skin.”—_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-A STRANGE GENERAL.
-
-
-YEARS and years ago there was a busy housekeeper thrown into a fever of
-anxiety because she heard a certain famous general was coming, and that
-she would be expected to entertain him. She flew about in the greatest
-haste, pressing all the people around her into service to help make
-ready for the distinguished guest.
-
-Among others was a man who, by his dress and general appearance, she
-took to be a neighbor’s servant. “Take hold and help us here a minute,”
-she said, and set him at some work in the kitchen. That being done the
-man volunteered to split some wood to a certain size, as it was greatly
-needed. While he was thus employed the lady’s husband, who had been
-absent, reached home, and was informed of the honor in store for him.
-He, too, set about helping with the preparations, and presently went to
-the kitchen, where the strange servant was just laying down an armful
-of the wood he had split.
-
-Imagine the man’s stare of astonishment, mingled with dismay, when he
-recognized in the stranger the famous general in whose honor all this
-bustle of preparation was going forward.
-
-In stammering confusion he approached the supposed servant, who, by
-the way, was slightly deformed, and asked for the meaning of such an
-extraordinary state of things.
-
-“Why,” said the helper, with a broad smile on his face, “I am paying
-the fine for my deformity.”
-
-I leave the Pansies to learn who this great man was, and who was the
-woman who in her haste to honor him mistook him for a house servant,
-and also what happened in consequence of this.
-
-                                                 PANSY.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    CRICKETS are bought and sold in various parts of
-    Africa. People capture them, feed them, and sell them.
-    The natives are very fond of their music, thinking that
-    it induces sleep. Superstitions regarding the cricket’s
-    chirp are varied. Some believe it is ominous of sorrow
-    and evil, others consider it a harbinger of joy.
-
-[Illustration: CASTLE QUEER.]
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.
-
-
-“CHRISTMAS is coming! Christmas is coming!”
-
-That is what little Lucy sang as she went through the hall with a hop,
-skip and jump, clapping her hands for joy.
-
-“And what is little daughter going to do to make somebody happy on
-Christmas day?”
-
-[Illustration: ONE OF THOSE LOVELY ROSES.]
-
-Papa asked this as he came out into the hall. Then he kissed Lucy
-good-by, took down his hat from the rack, and went out of the front
-door before she had time to tell him.
-
-Lucy stopped running, and looked out of the window and thought about it.
-
-Then she went upstairs to mamma and said:
-
-“Mamma, what am I going to do to make somebody happy to-morrow? What
-can little girls do?”
-
-“You can be just as sweet as a rose all day, and obey mamma as soon as
-she speaks. That will make me very happy,” said mamma.
-
-“But I want to give something to somebody to s’prise ’em and make ’em
-glad,” Lucy said.
-
-“Who is there that you would like to surprise?” her mamma asked.
-
-Lucy thought a minute, then she said:
-
-“Mrs. Bly.”
-
-Mrs. Bly lived in the “Home for Aged Women.” She was a nice old lady,
-and Lucy often went with her mother to call upon her.
-
-“Very well, dear,” said mamma; “there is your gold dollar; if you want
-to give it you may.”
-
-“May I buy ’zactly what I please, mamma?”
-
-“Yes, dear.”
-
-“O, how nice!” said Lucy. “Can’t we go now, right off, to buy it?”
-
-Mamma said “Yes” again, and Lucy ran off to get her hood and cloak and
-mittens. In a few minutes she was out on the street with mamma, gazing
-into all the shop windows. “What shall I buy? What shall I buy?” she
-kept asking.
-
-Mamma said a little shawl for Mrs. Bly’s shoulders would be nice, or a
-pair of warm stockings or some handkerchiefs. But Lucy shook her head.
-
-“Wouldn’t she like a bu’ful dollie or a sweet little kitty better?” she
-asked.
-
-Mamma had to laugh at that.
-
-Just then Lucy cried out, “There it is! I see it! That is what I want.”
-
-Guess what it was.
-
-[Illustration: WHAT THEY NEED.]
-
-It was a beautiful large rosebush in a pretty pot. There were two roses
-on it and plenty of buds.
-
-So they went in and bought it. The man said he would send it up right
-away.
-
-Old Mrs. Bly was sitting in her rocking-chair knitting. There came a
-knock at the door. She opened it, and who should be there but Lucy and
-her mamma, and a boy with a rosebush!
-
-How surprised Mrs. Bly was, and how pleased, when she knew that little
-Lucy bought the plant with her own money.
-
-“You dear little lamb,” she said; “it will make me very happy. It is
-like the roses in my old home.”
-
-When Christmas morning came Mrs. Bly cut off one of those lovely roses
-and put it in a vase. She carried it to a poor old lady across the hall
-who was ill in bed, and it made her glad.
-
-So you see little Lucy made three people happy that Christmas day—the
-sick old lady, Mrs. Bly and herself.
-
-                                                 MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-
-
-
-FROM THE HEART.
-
-
-    ON the eve of Christmas,
-      Ready each for bed,
-    And with heart most anxious,
-      Bends each little head,
-    While the prayer was whispered
-      Close to Grandma’s chair.
-    Were the angels bending
-      O’er a sight so fair?
-
-    “Dear Jesus, please to listen,
-      For Christmas comes to-morrow,
-    And we so much need some dollies,
-      So we needn’t have to borrow!
-    Please have them made of wax,
-      Wiv blue eyes, and pretty curls;
-    And we’ll love you more than ever!
-      We’re your own dear little dirls.”
-                                        R.
-
-
-
-
-A LONG CHRISTMAS.
-
-
-THERE had been the usual Christmas-tree, which the cousins from three
-homes had gathered to enjoy. There had not been a Christmas since the
-oldest of them could remember—and he was sixteen—that the cousins had
-not been together in one of the homes, and had a frolic around the
-Christmas-tree. It was always hung with bright-colored balls, and
-strings of popcorn, and all the bright and pretty and useless things
-which people from year to year have contrived for such trees. It always
-had clustered about it the various sorts of fruits which refused,
-because of their weight, to be hung upon the branches—dolls, and kites,
-and wagons, and swords, and books and baskets. Every year the fruit
-grew stranger in some respects, with a dreary sameness in others, which
-was actually beginning to weary the hearts of the cousins.
-
-The first excitement was over. The fathers and mothers and maiden
-aunts, together with three grandmothers and two grandfathers, had
-retired to quieter parts of the house, and the young people were left
-to their enjoyment. It was not very noisy in the room, nor were most of
-the cousins absorbed in their gifts; in fact their faces were already
-sobering. Little Nell was still happy over her new building-blocks,
-and Dell, her other self, was trying to advise her concerning them,
-while Harold tried his new paints and brushes on the chair he occupied,
-his guardian sister leaning over the back of the chair, so absorbed
-the while in her own grave thoughts that she did not even notice the
-mischief he was doing.
-
-“It is all over once more,” said Holly. He was the sixteen-year-old
-cousin, and he thrust his hands in his pockets, and said it with a yawn.
-
-“Some of it is a good deal of a bore,” answered Tom, the cousin next
-in age, echoing the yawn. “I didn’t get the first thing I expected or
-wanted.”
-
-“Neither did I; but then I don’t know what I wanted, I am sure, unless
-it was a bicycle, and you can’t put that on a Christmas-tree very
-well.”
-
-“Why not, as well as the trumpery which is put on?” asked Tom
-contemptuously. “I tell you the whole thing is getting to be a bore.
-Even the small fry don’t care for it half so much as they think they
-do; there’s Nannie sulking this minute because her dollie, which she
-has deserted, is not so nice according to her notion as Lily’s is. And
-Ted has turned his back on the whole of it because he didn’t get a
-drum. This crowd needs something new.”
-
-“I don’t know what it would be; we have had everything imaginable, and
-if the simple truth were told need presents less than any young folks
-in the kingdom, I do suppose. My father says there is nothing new to
-get for pampered young people like us; and I don’t know but he is about
-right.”
-
-“There’s a whole lot of money spent about it every year, though.”
-This was from Hortense, the oldest of the girl cousins, and a sort of
-adviser of the two older boys.
-
-“I know it,” said Holly; “and a good deal of it is wasted. Nannie, for
-instance, did not need another doll any more than the cat needs two
-tails, and as for me I have seven jack-knives now.”
-
-At that moment Helen turned away from the paint brush which she had not
-noticed, and joined in the conversation.
-
-“Isn’t it funny? I have five new balls, and I don’t care for any of
-them. They keep giving us the same things over and over.”
-
-“They forget,” said Holly; “and there is nothing new for them to get
-us, anyhow.”
-
-“I know something that would be new.” It was Hortense again, speaking
-with grave thoughtfulness. The boys turned and looked at her
-inquiringly. “Don’t you know what Mr. Briggs told about the children
-out in the Colorado mountains, who never had a Christmas present in
-their lives, and didn’t know anything about such times as we have? I
-was thinking what if we could make up a box and put into it all the
-dollies, and balls, and jack-knives, and things that we don’t want, and
-some books, and perhaps a little candy, and send it out there, wouldn’t
-it be nice?”
-
-[Illustration: THEIR FACES WERE ALREADY SOBERING.]
-
-“Too late for this year,” said Tom promptly.
-
-“Why, no, it isn’t; if we hadn’t had any Christmas at all, ever, we
-would be willing to have one come to us in January.”
-
-The boys laughed, and Holly said heartily, “That’s so.” And Hortense
-began to tell a story that she had heard Mr. Briggs tell to her uncle,
-and the younger ones gathered about her, leaving dolls and paints, and
-the interest grew.
-
-It was the very next day that Hortense and Tom and Holly went to Dr.
-Parsons’ house to see Mr. Briggs.
-
-“Why, yes,” he said, looking perfectly delighted with them, when Holly
-explained; “let me tell you about a brave little chap out there, only
-eleven years old; his father was guide to the tourists who wanted to
-climb the dangerous and difficult mountains, and lost his life from
-exposure, hunting a party of men who had strayed away. Little Teddy
-is as brave as a soldier. He is a guide himself, though so young, and
-getting to be one of the surest and safest to be found in that region,
-only he is so young and small yet, that strangers are afraid to trust
-him. A dreary life Teddy leads; he and his mother live all alone in a
-little house at the foot of a mountain. The boy has only the clothes
-which his father left, made over for him the best way his mother can.
-He never had anything that fitted him; and he never had any playthings
-in his life, only what he picked up; as for knives, or balls, or any
-of the things which boys like him enjoy, I don’t know what he would
-think if one should happen to come to him. You needn’t suppose that
-he hasn’t heard all about Christmas; his mother used to live in a
-farmhouse in New York State, and the stories she has told have almost
-driven him wild. A few rods away from their cottage lives a family with
-five children—three little girls, and a four-year-old boy and a baby. I
-happen to know that Teddy set his heart this year on having some sort
-of a Christmas present for every one of those children—and failed! I
-did not mean that he should, but I was sick at just the wrong time
-after I reached home, and my plans did not work. I heard from there
-only last night, and poor Teddy’s plans did not work, either.”
-
-Holly had his note book and pencil in hand. “Will you give us his full
-name and address?” he said.
-
-Such a time as the cousins had packing that box! Every baby of them
-contributed, not only the toys which they did not want, but a few that
-they loved, and parted from with sighs. The same may be said of the
-elder cousins, especially when it came to books; Holly was a miser
-where these were concerned, and Hortense knew how to sympathize with
-him. It took these two several hours to be willing to pack in that box
-some of their handsomely bound volumes, written by favorite authors.
-
-But they had to go; for Mr. Briggs, among other things, had said, “I
-never saw a boy so hungry for reading in my life as Teddy; and he has
-only scraps of old newspapers, which he has picked up from time to time
-among the tourists.”
-
-And more than books and toys went into that box.
-
-“It is a shame for a fellow to have no clothes that fit him!” declared
-Tom. “I’ve been there myself, and I know how it feels. I had to wear my
-brother Dick’s overcoat once, and it was too large for me. Mr. Briggs
-says he is about the size of Roger”—he meant Teddy, and not Mr. Briggs.
-“We must ask mother about that.”
-
-They asked her to such purpose, and Aunt Cornelia as well, that two
-neat suits of Roger’s and Cousin Harry’s second best clothes went into
-the box.
-
-The day in which it was finally packed was a jubilee. The cousins were
-all invited to Aunt Cornelia’s to supper, and packed the box in the
-large dining-room after supper, with a little of Aunt Cornelia’s and
-Uncle Roger’s help.
-
-“I don’t know as I ever had so much fun in my life,” said Holly,
-looking up from the driving of the last nail to make the remark. “It
-is better than Christmas a dozen times; in fact it is a Christmas
-extension.”
-
-“And won’t it be fun to hear from Teddy?” said Hortense.
-
-But as for us, we cannot expect to hear from Teddy until January.
-
-                                                 PANSY.
-
-
-[Illustration: THE BELLS SWING AND RING.]
-
-
-
-
-
-VOICES OF THE BELLS.
-
-
-    IN yonder tower high hangs the brazen bell,
-            Tolling, tolling;
-    Upon the frosty air its echoes heave and swell,
-            Tolling, tolling:
-    The bell has a tongue that is easily heard;
-    When it is swung many hearts may be stirred,
-    Though its tale it tells with never a word—
-            Tolling, tolling.
-
-    It swings and dings in the morning air,
-            Ringing, ringing!
-    Tells of the birth of a baby fair,
-            Ringing, ringing!
-    Tells the glad news so that all may know;
-    Those in the village asleep below,
-    Those on the streets moving to and fro—
-            Ringing, ringing!
-
-    Aloft it swings in the schoolhouse tower,
-            Dinging, dinging;
-    With brazen tongue it proclaims the hour,
-            Dinging, dinging:
-    Calls to the work of storing the mind
-    With useful knowledge of every kind,
-    Urging the laggards left far behind,
-            Dinging, dinging.
-
-    Gently it swings in the steeple high,
-            Pealing, pealing;
-    The steeple that points to the upper sky,
-            Pealing, pealing:
-    Calling to worship on hallowed day,
-    Calling the faithful to come and pray,
-    Even to those who are far away—
-            Pealing, pealing.
-
-    Again it calls in a joyful tone,
-            Ringing, ringing!
-    Hinting that man should not walk alone,
-            Ringing, ringing!
-    And so they throng with the bridal pair,
-    And the glad bells sound on the clear sweet air,
-    For the bells all ring for the belle so fair—
-            Ringing, ringing!
-
-    Ah, me! but that tongue will swing again,
-            Tolling, tolling;
-    Swing again with a solemn strain,
-            Tolling, tolling:
-    It will tell how some one beloved has died,
-    How the cold dark earth has claimed his bride;
-    And ’twill seem in its strains as though it sighed—
-            Tolling, tolling.
-
-    But the bells above may swing and ring,
-            Swinging, ringing,
-    In the temple towers of the Lord the King,
-            Swinging, ringing;
-    And the bells below, with the bells up there,
-    May sound their joys for this Child and Heir,
-    Who is called to heaven its joys to share—
-            Swinging, ringing.
-                                        G. R. A.
-
-[Illustration: THE BELL HAS A TONGUE THAT IS EASILY HEARD.]
-
-
-
-
-EASTER LILIES.
-
-
-    A STALK of tall white lilies
-      Bloomed out in a garden fair;
-    Their breath, so sweet and fragrant,
-      Scented the ambient air.
-
-    As Easter day came on apace,
-      It seemed as if they tried
-    To grow still sweeter, for the morn
-      When rose the Crucified.
-
-    When dawned the holy Easter tide,
-      And they were full in bloom,
-    A sad-eyed woman gathered them
-      And laid them on a tomb.
-
-    And as she knelt in deepest woe
-      Beside the flower-decked mound,
-    And felt that all her hope was dead,
-      The lilies’ fragrance stole around.
-
-    It stole into her wounded breast;
-      The sacred odors seemed to be
-    A message for her bleeding heart—
-      “The Crucified pities thee.”
-          CAROLINE STRATTON VALENTINE.
-
-[Illustration: THE BELL HANGS IN THE TOWER.]
-
-
-
-
-CHARACTER STUDIES.
-
-
-I.
-
-EDWARD STEADMAN was at home for the Christmas holidays. Everybody
-was glad to see him, of course, particularly his mother; because in
-the first place mothers always are a little bit more glad over the
-home-coming of their boys than anybody else in the world can be, and
-secondly because she needed some help very much, and knew that he
-could give it. She explained matters to him that morning: “I want to
-get Grandma’s room all in order, Edward, and her new carpet down, and
-every thing, before Christmas, you know; and we shall have to work
-like bees. I’m so glad you came home this week, instead of stopping at
-your uncle’s first. To-day we can hang all her pictures, and put up
-the curtains and the wall-pockets, and do things of that kind; they
-will not make a speck of dust in putting down the carpet—it is new,
-you know. I want to get all those things done to-day, they are so
-puttering—take a great deal of time and judgment. I’m so glad to have
-you to depend upon; you are such a tall boy that you can reach where
-mother can’t; and Dick is so clumsy I hate to have him stumping about
-Grandma’s room. Your father was going to help me, though he did not
-know how to spare the time; he was as pleased as could be when I told
-him that you could do it all. ‘Sure enough!’ he said; ‘we have got a
-boy to depend upon once more; how good it seems!’”
-
-The sentence closed with a fond smile, and such a look in the mother’s
-eyes as ought to have made a boy happy. Edward was happy; he whistled
-as he went down the stairs, and thought to himself that there were not
-many fellows who had such a mother as his, and that he would show her
-just how tall, and how handy and how wise he was.
-
-She called after him as she heard the street door open.
-
-“Where are you going, Edward? We ought to get right to work; it will be
-an all-day job, do the best we can, and the light is good in Grandma’s
-room now for hanging the pictures. Must you go to the post-office
-first? O, well! that is but a short distance; run along, and get back
-as soon as you can.”
-
-“Halloo!” said Mr. Arkwright, the postmaster, who had known Edward
-ever since he was a little fellow in kilts and curls, “back again, are
-you? How you do shoot up, to be sure! I believe you are about a foot
-taller than you were in the fall. Here’s your mail; nothing but papers
-this time, but enough of them to snow you under!” And he pitched them
-through the little window so fast that they fell to the right and left.
-
-“Catalogues, some of them,” said Edward, smiling; “I asked them to send
-me a number of the new ones; and the reports of our commencement and
-society exercises are in these papers.”
-
-“Like enough,” said Mr. Arkwright; “had a grand time, I suppose? You
-carried off a first prize, I hear? Glad of it. I always knew it was in
-you. Do you happen to be going directly home? If you are, would you
-mind taking this letter and handing it in at Westlake’s as you pass? I
-see it is marked ‘Important,’ and it may save him some trouble to get
-it right away. He’s all alone in the office to-day; his boy is sick.”
-
-“Certainly, sir,” said Edward, reaching for the letter, and dropping it
-into his jacket pocket. Then he walked away, looking steadily at one of
-the papers, which he had already opened.
-
-“I do not see what in the world can have detained Edward!” said Mrs.
-Steadman, speaking as well as she could with her mouth full of tacks.
-She was mounted on a box which in its turn was mounted on a chair, and
-was trying to reach to fasten the curtain in Grandma’s room.
-
-“I should think you would wait for him,” said her daughter Fannie
-anxiously. “You ought not to climb up like that, mother; father would
-not like it at all, and I’m afraid you will fall. You are not high
-enough yet to get it right.”
-
-“I know it; and I can’t drive a nail away up here, either. I cannot
-understand why Edward doesn’t come; it seems as though something must
-have happened to him. I explained to him particularly what a hurry we
-were in, and how much there was in which he could help me.”
-
-[Illustration: “CERTAINLY, SIR,” SAID EDWARD.]
-
-“What has happened to him is that he has found something to read, I
-suppose, and has seated himself somewhere to enjoy it.” Fannie spoke a
-little irritably; she was worried about her mother, and they had been
-waiting for Edward for more than two hours. The short December day was
-hurrying toward its noon, and nothing had been done of the many things
-in which he was to have been a central figure. Fannie was very fond of
-her brother, but she realized his besetments better than the others
-did, or at least she said more about them.
-
-“O, no!” said the mother decidedly, taking a tack out of her mouth to
-enable her to speak plainly; “Edward wouldn’t do that, after all I said
-to him this morning. He knew how anxious we were to have everything
-ready for Grandma by Christmas. Something unusual has happened, I feel
-sure. I don’t know but Tommy would better run out and see if he can
-find him, only it seems rather absurd to be sending out in search of a
-big boy like Edward.”
-
-“I should think so!” Fannie said, and they waited another half-hour.
-Then a sharp ring at the door-bell startled Mrs. Steadman so that she
-nearly lost her balance. Fannie screamed a little, and ran toward her.
-
-“I didn’t fall,” she said, leaning against the window-casing for
-support; “but I think I shall have to get down. I don’t see what makes
-me so nervous. It seems all the time as though something was going to
-happen; I suppose it is because Edward doesn’t come. Did Jane go to the
-door?”
-
-Yes, Jane had; and now they listened and heard Mr. Westlake’s, their
-neighbor’s, voice.
-
-“Is Edward here?”
-
-No, Jane said, somewhat shortly, he was not; and as to where he was,
-that was more than they knew. Jane had been called from her work three
-times that morning to help with something which Edward could have done,
-and she did not feel sweet-natured.
-
-“Well, I wish you would ask your folks if they have any idea where I
-might find him,” Mr. Westlake said anxiously; “I have just come from
-the office—it was the first chance I had for going this morning—and
-Arkwright says he sent a letter to me marked ‘Important’—sent it by
-Edward nearly three hours ago, he should think. I have some business
-matters that are very important, and I thought this might be a summons
-to me to go away on the express, and there is but a half-hour or less
-before it goes.”
-
-Before this long sentence was finished Mrs. Steadman was at the door;
-but she had no information to give, and could only tell the annoyed man
-that she was sorry, and that she could not imagine what had detained
-Edward.
-
-“I can,” muttered Jane, as he turned hurriedly away; “his own sweet
-notion is detaining him; he’s enjoying himself somewhere, readin’ a
-book or paper, and letting others get along the best way they can.” But
-Jane was only talking to herself.
-
-The Steadman dinner bell was sounding through the house when Edward,
-flushed and embarrassed, came bounding up the stairs two steps at a
-time, to assure his mother how sorry he was.
-
-“I hadn’t the least idea how time was going,” he explained; “never
-was so astonished in my life as I was to hear the bell ring for noon!
-Why, you see,” in answer to her anxious questions, “I got a lot of
-papers at the office—all about our closing days, you know; of course I
-was anxious to see what they said about the examinations, and essays,
-and things, so I stepped into Dr. Mason’s office just to glance them
-over. The doctor was out, and I sat and read first one thing and then
-another, and talked a little with folks who kept coming in search of
-the doctor, until, to my utter astonishment, as I tell you, I heard the
-bell.”
-
-“Then nothing detained you, Edward?”
-
-“Why, no, ma’am; nothing but the papers, as I tell you. I had not the
-faintest idea”—
-
-She interrupted him. “Have you seen Mr. Westlake?”
-
-“Yes’m,” and now Edward’s face crimsoned; “I met him on the street and
-gave him his letter. I’m dreadfully sorry about that; almost as sorry
-as I am about keeping you waiting, mother.”
-
-“He said it might want him to take the train; do you know if it did?”
-
-“Yes’m, it did.”
-
-“And he missed it?”
-
-“Why, of course, mother dear; the train goes at eleven, you know. I’m
-awfully sorry. It is perfectly unaccountable what has become of this
-forenoon!”
-
-Mrs. Steadman made no comment; she did not want to trust herself to do
-so just then. She turned away with a sigh so deep that it would have
-cut Edward’s heart, had he heard it.
-
-And Jane nodded her gray head and muttered, “I told you so!”
-
-                                                 MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-A TEN-DOLLAR CHRISTMAS.
-
-
-ADELE CHESTER had never spent a Christmas in the country before;
-neither had she ever felt quite so desolate. Mother and father were in
-Europe, in search of health for the father, and Adele, who had been
-left in charge of Aunt Martha, had herself decreed that she would go
-nowhere for Christmas.
-
-“I can’t be happy and frolic when papa is sick,” she said; “and as for
-the country, if Aunt Martha can live there all her life, I think I can
-endure one Christmas.” So she had staid; but it must be confessed that
-the world looked dreary to her that wintry morning, with nothing but
-snow to be seen from her window. She almost thought she would have been
-wiser to have joined the Philadelphia cousins. “At least there would
-have been a chance to spend my Christmas money,” she murmured gloomily,
-as she tapped on the frosty window pane with restless fingers. “I’m
-sure I don’t know what I can buy in this little tucked-up place.”
-
-The “tucked-up place” was really a nice town with about five thousand
-people living in it, but to Adele, whose home was in New York City,
-it seemed absurd to call it a town. Aunt Martha’s farmhouse was only
-half a mile from some very good stores, where Adele had found a few
-things to suit her during the three months she had spent there, and on
-the whole she had managed to be quite happy. But she did not feel like
-being suited with anything this morning. Such a queer Christmas for
-her! She had had her presents, as usual—a new fur cap from Aunt Martha,
-a writing-desk well furnished from Uncle Peter, a lovely ring with a
-real diamond in it from mamma, and a new chain for her pretty watch
-from papa. What more could a reasonable girl want? Truth to tell, she
-wanted nothing but the dear home, and mamma’s kisses, and papa’s arms
-around her. The ring and chain were beautiful, but they did not seem
-like presents from them, when she knew they crossed the ocean weeks
-ago, and had been lying in Aunt Martha’s bureau drawer waiting for this
-morning. She valued the letter more which had arrived only the night
-before, and she drew it from her pocket and kissed it, letting a tear
-or two fall on the words, “My Darling Child,” as she read them once
-more. “Papa and I are so sorry to be away from you to-day,” the letter
-read; “we have tried to find something suitable to send on so long a
-journey, and planned to reach you on the very day, but have failed;
-papa has not been well enough to look about much for a few weeks, and
-I could not go alone. At last we decided to send you a fifty-dollar
-bank note and bid you go and spend it in the way which would make you
-happiest.”
-
-“The idea!” said Adele, smiling through her tears, as she refolded
-the letter, “just as though I could find anything here to buy to make
-me happy! Mamma must have forgotten for the moment where I was. Yet I
-want a few things, some Christmas bonbons, at least, if they know the
-meaning of the word in this little place, and above all, I want a brisk
-walk in the snow. I shall take ten dollars of my fifty, and go out and
-spend it; I won’t waste another cent on this old town. I wonder what I
-can do with ten dollars to make me happy?” She laughed half scornfully.
-Ten dollars seemed so very little to this girl, who had always spent
-money as freely as water, and done as little thinking about it as the
-birds do over the spring cherries.
-
-In a very few minutes she was wrapped in furs and out upon the snowy
-road. Aunt Martha offered her the sleigh and the driver, and her
-“leggings” and woollen mittens, but she would have none of them. She
-was a good walker, and had been used to miles in the city. She hid her
-nose in her muff, because the wind over this wide stretch of snow was
-very keen, and sped along “like a snowbird,” Aunt Martha said, watching
-her from the window. And then she sighed, this dear old auntie whom the
-country satisfied. She saw the shade on the face of her darling this
-morning, and was sorry for her, and wished so much that she could do
-something to brighten her Christmas day.
-
-The little town was reached in due time, and the streets were gay with
-Christmas finery; the stores were open quite generally, to catch the
-belated Christmas buyers. In an hour or two they would close for the
-day; but the custom in this thriving manufacturing town was to give
-the tardy ones a Christmas morning chance. Adele went from one store
-to another, dissatisfied, disconsolate. Nothing suited her. The truth
-is, when a girl does not need an earthly thing, and is yet determined
-to spend some money, she is sometimes rather difficult to suit. She
-halted at last before a show window and looked at the bright fineries
-displayed there. So did little Janey Hooper, who had come out with ten
-cents to buy a soup bone for the day’s dinner. Adele, turning from the
-window, jostled against her, and looked down upon the mite. She seemed
-not more than eight, yet there was a wise, grown-up look in her eyes
-which held the homesick girl’s attention.
-
-“Are you trying to make Christmas too? What do you see in the window
-you like?”
-
-“Everything,” said the little girl simply.
-
-“Do you? you are fortunate. Are you going to buy them all?”
-
-“O, no! not a single one. I couldn’t.”
-
-Adele, looking closely at her, was seized with a sudden impulse.
-“Suppose you could buy one thing, what would it be?” she asked.
-
-The little girl’s eyes flashed. “Oh! I would buy that shawl—that soft
-gray one with pussy fringe—it looks just like mother.”
-
-It was a dingy little shoulder shawl, of the kind which can be bought
-for two dollars. “Does your mother need a shawl?” asked Adele.
-
-“O, yes’m! she needs it badly enough; but we are not going to get one,
-not this year; we can’t.”
-
-There was decision and composure in the tone, like a woman who had
-settled the whole question, and put it beyond the range of argument.
-Her manner amused Adele.
-
-“That was for your mother,” she said; “what would you choose for
-yourself?”
-
-“Me?” said the child, surprised. “Oh! I don’t know. I might take that
-brown coat, maybe, or some mittens, or—I don’t know which I would take.
-What’s the use?”
-
-She was turning away; but Adele’s gloved hand detained her. The little
-sack she wore was much too thin for so cold a morning.
-
-“Wait a minute,” she said gently. “Tell me what your name is, won’t
-you, and where you live, and what you came out for this cold morning
-with so thin a sack?”
-
-“I’m Janey Hooper; we live down there on Factory Lane. It wasn’t far to
-go, and my sack is worn out, that is why it is so thin; but it will do
-very well for this winter. I came out to buy the Christmas dinner.”
-
-“Did you, indeed! Aren’t you very young to go to market?”
-
-“O, no, ma’am! I’m turned nine, and the oldest of four, and father’s
-dead. Of course I have to do all I can. I know how to choose a lovely
-soup bone.”
-
-“Do you? Are you going to have soup to-day?”
-
-“Yes’m, a big kettle full; I’ve got ten cents to buy a bone with. I
-generally get a five-cent one; but we thought for Christmas we would
-have it fine. My brother is to be home to dinner; he is most twelve,
-and likes soup.”
-
-There was a mist before Adele’s eyes that the frosty air did not make.
-She brushed it away and settled her plans.
-
-“Come in here with me a minute,” she said; “I want your help about
-something.” The child followed her wonderingly, with eyes that grew
-every moment larger, as the thick brown coat which hung on a wire
-figure was taken down and deliberately tried by the smiling shop girl
-on her quaint little self.
-
-“It fits to a T,” said the girl; “Janey has a pretty figure, and that
-just suits her.”
-
-“It is warm, at least,” said Adele. “Did you say it was two and a
-half? What an absurd price! Keep it on, child; it is for you. This is
-Christmas, you know, and Santa Claus sent it to you. Now that shoulder
-shawl.”
-
-A moment more, and it was in Janey’s astonished arms. Her eyes
-sparkled, but she made an earnest protest: “Oh! if you please, I don’t
-think I can; I am afraid mother would not”—
-
-“Your mother cannot help herself,” interrupted Adele. “Don’t you know I
-told you it was Santa Claus? He does what he likes always. Come along,
-I’m going to market with you; I want to see you pick out a soup bone.
-Is it to go in that basket?”
-
-She picked it out with grave care and with skill, Adele and the market
-man watching her the while. “Isn’t it a nice one, Bobby?” said the
-child, to a stout boy who had also stopped. Adele turned as the
-freckled boy nodded.
-
-“Who is this? Is he a friend of yours? Well, Bobby, Santa Claus wants
-you to do an errand for him, will you? He will give you four of those
-red-cheeked apples if you will.”
-
-The boy laughed good-naturedly, and said he didn’t know much about
-Santa Claus, but he would do whatever she wanted done.
-
-“Very well,” said Adele merrily; “I want that market basket which hangs
-up there. Can you lend it to this boy for a little while?” The market
-man declared his entire willingness to do so, and kept Janey Hooper
-waiting for her bone while he filled that basket with everything which
-Adele’s eyes could discover, which might add to a Christmas dinner.
-There was a plump chicken, a roast of beef, a string of sausage, some
-potatoes, apples, onions, turnips, a great bunch of celery, and, in
-short, whatever the market man suggested, after the girl’s skill was
-exhausted.
-
-“Is that too heavy for you?” said Adele.
-
-“O, no, ma’am!” Bobby assured her.
-
-“Very well; I want you to take it to this little girl’s mother’s house,
-and tell her Santa Claus sent it to go with the soup, and that it has
-given him a happy Christmas to do so. Will you remember?”
-
-He nodded brightly, stuffing rosy-cheeked apples into his pocket the
-while, and they trudged away, Janey trying to murmur her bewildered
-protests, while Adele paid her bill.
-
-“I’ve spent every cent of my ten dollars,” she told Aunt Martha an hour
-later. “I hadn’t even enough to buy you any Christmas bonbons; but
-I have obeyed mamma’s directions; I was to buy something to make me
-happy, and I haven’t felt so happy in weeks as I do this minute. When I
-get my things put away I’ll come down and tell you all about it.”
-
-Aunt Martha watched her bound up the stairs, a glow on her cheeks and
-a sparkle in her eyes which they had lacked when she went out; and
-whatever the purchase had been, she was grateful.
-
-As for Janey Hooper and her mother, to say nothing of Bobby, who took
-dinner with them, you must imagine how they felt.
-
-                                                 PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: MAKING THE SHEEP CLEAN.]
-
-
-
-
-MISS PARKER’S GIRLS.
-
-
-THERE were thirteen of them, all told. An “unlucky number,” one of
-them said, and laughed; they were girls who did not believe in “luck.”
-They laughed a great deal during these days, and were very happy. They
-had as lovely a secret on their minds as thirteen girls, all of them
-between the ages of eleven and thirteen, ever had. They were also very
-busy, and held many committee meetings, and discussed plans, and went
-in companies of twos and threes to transact business. “We were never so
-busy before at this time of year, were we?” they said to one another.
-“And we never had so much fun in our lives!” some one would be sure to
-say. To this sentiment they all agreed.
-
-“This time of year” was a few days before Christmas. The preparations
-for Christmas, so far as these girls are concerned, began two weeks
-before. It started on Sunday afternoon in the Bible class. Miss Parker
-had been even more interesting than usual that day. She succeeded in so
-filling their hearts with the lesson, especially with one thought in
-it, that Cora Henderson said, half enviously:
-
-“O, dear! I can’t help wishing that we had lived in those times. Of
-course it was dreadful; but then, after all, it gave one such splendid
-opportunities! Think of John having a chance to take Jesus’ mother home
-and do for her. And to know that Jesus wanted him to, and was pleased
-with it! I think it would have been just lovely; there are no such
-chances nowadays,” and Cora, aged thirteen, sighed.
-
-Miss Parker smiled on her brightly. “Are you sure of that, my dear
-girl? Remember we are talking about a history which is different from
-any other in the world, because Jesus is ‘the same yesterday, to-day
-and forever.’”
-
-“O, yes’m!” Cora said civilly; “I know it; but then, of course, things
-are different. His mother is not here on earth for us to take care of;
-I should love to do it, I know I should,” and Cora’s fair face glowed,
-and her eyes had a sweet and tender light in them.
-
-Miss Parker looked at her fondly. “My dear child,” she said, “I think
-you would; but do you forget how He said, ‘Whosoever shall do the will
-of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and
-mother’?”
-
-Cora looked a little bewildered, and Miss Parker explained.
-
-“I think we all forget that according to that verse Jesus has many
-‘mothers’ on earth, in the persons of his dear old saints, who are
-poor, and weak, and tired, and are only waiting to be called home.
-There are so many things we could do for their comfort, if we only
-remembered that they were the same to Jesus as his own dear mother.”
-
-The girls looked at one another wonderingly. This was a new way of
-putting it. Cora did more than look. “What a lovely thought!” she
-said; “I should never have thought it out for myself, but it must be
-so, because what would that verse mean if it were not? O, Miss Parker!
-couldn’t we girls do it? Do you know of any old lady whom we could help
-a little—make a pretty Christmas for, perhaps? Girls, wouldn’t you all
-like to do it?”
-
-So that was the beginning. Yes, Miss Parker knew an old lady; had had
-her in mind all the week; had wondered how she could set to work to
-interest her dear girls in her. She needed a great deal of help, and
-Miss Parker had very little of this world’s goods. She knew that some
-of her girls came from homes where there was plenty. “But I do not like
-to be always begging,” she told her mother. Then she had asked the Lord
-Jesus to show her some way of interesting the girls in poor Grandmother
-Blakslee. And here they were asking for the name of an old lady whom
-they could help! What a lovely answer it was to her prayer.
-
-[Illustration: “NOW LET US ASK A BLESSING.”]
-
-Grandmother Blakslee’s story was a sad one, though only too common.
-Her two daughters and her one son had died long years before, leaving
-a little granddaughter, who had grown to girlhood and married a
-worthless drunkard, who deserted her, and at last she died, leaving to
-Grandmother Blakslee the care of her poor little baby boy. In many ways
-life had gone hard with Grandmother Blakslee; and now in her old age,
-when she was too feeble to work, the thing which she had dreaded most
-in the world, next to sin, had come to her door. She could no longer
-pay the rent for her one little bare room, and must send her little boy
-to the orphan asylum, and go herself to the poorhouse. It seemed a very
-pitiful thing to Grandmother Blakslee that she should have had to plan
-to leave the bare little room on Christmas morning, but that happened
-to be the day when it was convenient for the man who had promised to
-take her and her old arm-chair. Poor little Johnnie was to go with
-her for that one day, and the next morning he was to be taken in the
-market wagon to the asylum. Poor Grandmother Blakslee! her heart was
-very sad and sore, but she tried to keep her face quiet and peaceful
-for Johnnie’s sake. She had not been able to make the little fellow
-understand that he was to be separated from her; the most he realized
-was that they were to take a ride together and spend the day in a big
-house, and he was happy. On the little three-cornered table was set a
-dish with baked potatoes and warm rolls, and the teapot stood near it;
-a neighbor only a little less poor than themselves had remembered them.
-Grandmother tried to have only thankfulness in her heart; but could she
-forget that she had lived in that town more than sixty years, and been
-a member of the church all that time? Occasionally she could not help
-feeling it was strange that there could have been no other way but to
-go to the poorhouse. “It won’t be long now for me,” she told herself,
-“and I should like to have kept Johnnie while I staid, poor little
-boy! But it was not to be.” Then she smothered a sigh and said, “Come,
-Johnnie, let us ask a blessing, then we will have our last breakfast
-alone together.”
-
-It was while Johnnie stood with clasped hands, saying after Grandmother
-the words of blessing, that a knock was heard at the little door. “Come
-in,” said Grandmother Blakslee the moment the words of prayer were
-spoken, and a strange head was thrust in at the door.
-
-“I can wait, ma’am,” said the owner of it respectfully. “I’m to take
-you in my rig, and my orders were to wait until you were ready.”
-
-“Did Mr. Patterson send you?” asked Grandma, her voice all in a
-tremble. “I thought he meant to come himself, and I thought he said
-about ten o’clock; but we’ll hurry, Johnnie and me; we won’t keep you
-long. Can you take the chair, too?”
-
-“Yes’m; them’s my orders; and no hurry in life, ma’am, take your time,”
-and he closed the door.
-
-Johnnie stuffed in the buns and potatoes, and pronounced them good; but
-poor Grandmother Blakslee only swallowed a few mouthfuls of tea which
-almost choked her. Life was very hard.
-
-She was soon ready; it would not do to keep Mr. Patterson’s team
-waiting. But she stared at it when she came out. It was not the market
-wagon; instead it was a handsome two-horse sleigh, with gay robes’ on
-the seats, and gay bells on the handsome horses. “You needn’t be at
-all afraid, ma’am,” said the strange man, “these horses is gentle as
-kittens, if they do love to go,” and he lifted her in as though she had
-been a kitten, tucked Johnnie under the robes beside her, and before
-she could get her breath to speak they were off. Just a gay dash around
-the corner, down one familiar street, up another, and they halted
-before a tiny white house set back among tall trees which staid green
-even in winter.
-
-“There is some mistake,” faltered Grandma Blakslee, more breathless
-than ever. “I wasn’t to be brought here; I was to go to the asylum out
-on the Corning Road, near two miles; I don’t know the folks that live
-here; I didn’t know it was rented.”
-
-The strange man chuckled. “I guess there’s no mistake,” he said, “and
-you’ll like to make their acquaintance; anyhow, I must do my duty and
-leave you here; I’m under orders.”
-
-Trembling and bewildered, poor Grandma, because she did not know what
-else to do, let herself be set down in front of the door, which the
-man opened hospitably, saying as he did so, “Step right in; the folks
-that live here will be glad to see you.” Then he shut the door and went
-away. They were left, Grandmother and Johnnie, in a little hall opening
-into a pretty room at the right. The door was wide open, and a bright
-fire burned in a shining stove. There was a bright carpet on the floor;
-there was a rose in blossom in one window, and some geraniums in the
-other. There was a large easy chair in front of the stove, with a table
-beside it on which was set out a lovely breakfast for two. On the stove
-the tea-kettle sang, and some genuine tea in a little brown teapot on
-the right-hand corner back, sent out its delicious aroma. In an alcove,
-behind some pretty curtains which were partly drawn, waited a plump
-white bed; and Grandma Blakslee stood in the midst of all this luxury
-and stared.
-
-“Grandma,” said Johnnie, “have we got there? Is this the big house?
-Where are all the folks? Where is this, and whose breakfast is that?
-Are we to eat it, Grandma? It is nicer than ours. Why don’t you sit
-down in that pretty chair? Here is a little one for me, with wed
-cushions. Can’t we stay here every day, Grandma?”
-
-Grandma, feeling unable to stand another minute, tottered forward and
-dropped into the softness of the easy chair, and spied, tucked under
-the edge of a plate, a sheet of folded paper. Then she fumbled for
-what Johnnie called the “speticles that could wead,” and read:
-
-    Welcome home, dear Grandma Blakslee. Merry Christmas to
-    you and Johnnie.
-
-                                  FROM MISS PARKER’S GIRLS.
-
-No, they hadn’t “done it every bit themselves.” There had been several
-fathers and mothers who were glad to help, as soon as they thought
-about it. Cora Henderson’s father had said, “Why, Grandma Blakslee
-might live in the little empty cottage this winter and welcome;” he
-wondered they had not thought of it before. Anna Smith’s mother said
-she would be glad to get rid of that carpet rolled up in the attic;
-she had no use for it, and it was a pattern she had never liked. Ella
-Stuart’s mother said the old arm-chair and the old lounge would do
-nicely if they were re-covered, and she was sure she did not want them.
-And so the plan grew and grew, and the girls were O, so busy and happy!
-It was the best Christmas of their lives, they all declared, especially
-after they made their call on Grandma, and found her almost too happy.
-
-“It is almost pitiful,” said Anna Smith, “to see a poor woman cry for
-joy over one little room and a few old duds!”
-
-And Cora Henderson, with her eyes shining like stars, said, “Isn’t it
-lovely? I’m so glad that verse is in the Bible, and Miss Parker thought
-it all out!”
-
-                                                 PANSY.
-
-
-
-
-A SABBATH IN A BOARDING-SCHOOL IN TURKEY.
-
-
-II.
-
-I MUST explain that some time before this I had learned that the boys
-in the boarding-school who had no pocket money, could not go to the
-bath as often as I thought they ought. While I was considering this
-problem, an Armenian gentleman gave me something over two dollars to
-use as I saw fit. Thinking “cleanliness next to godliness,” though the
-Bible does not say it in just those words, I used to give Deekran a
-quarter or so now and then to use for himself and the other poor boys.
-
-When they rose to go, I asked Sumpad if he could stop a moment, I
-wanted to have a little talk with him. How glad I was to find that he
-had a hope in Christ, and was trying to live for him. It was a great
-privilege to speak a few words of sympathy and encouragement.
-
-How can I believe the terrible news that has just come to me here in
-free America? How can I think of him in his young, Christian manhood
-as dead in a horrible Turkish dungeon! Why, what had he done? He had
-written a few lines of boyish admiration for the heroes of his own
-race, the Armenians. And so he must die alone of typhus fever after a
-four months’ imprisonment, utterly cut off from all his friends. Poor
-young martyr! No one could get access to him; yes, there was one Friend
-whose entrance neither bolts nor bars could prevent—the King of heaven
-and earth; what need of any other? Death has now unlocked the prison
-door, and opened the gate of heaven; no more tears should be shed for
-him—happy young martyr.
-
-But I have wandered far, both as to place and time, far from that
-peaceful, happy Sabbath.
-
-It was now lunch time; then came Sabbath-school. The men and boys met
-in the chapel, but as it was not large enough to accommodate more, the
-women’s, girls’ and the infant class met elsewhere. Isgoohe, a member
-of the senior class in the high school, took charge of the second of
-these. After going over the lesson, she began to ask personal questions:
-
-“Now, girls, what have you done for Jesus this week?”
-
-A hand was raised.
-
-“What is it, Marta?”
-
-“I let Funduk have my comb for Jesus’ sake. It was such a nice one, I
-did not like to have her use it; but Miss Goulding told me I ought to
-be kind to Funduk.”
-
-Then Armenoohe said that going home from school one day, a girl she
-did not know very well called out, “Armenoohe, run and get me another
-clog; mine’s broken.” (The clog is a wooden sole with a heel at each
-end, as it were, and a leather strap to slip the foot into. These heels
-are from one to three or four inches in height, and raise the foot well
-out of the mud or snow.) “At first,” said she, “I thought that it was
-no affair of mine, and that the girl was rather impudent to ask such a
-thing. Then I remembered what you told us, Isgoohe, about not pleasing
-ourselves; so I asked her which was her house, and got the clog and
-brought it to her, and she never even thanked me!” (It was not so very
-long since Armenoohe herself had learned to say “thank you.”)
-
-Two or three others told their little efforts at denying self; then the
-bell rang for the afternoon service.
-
-In the evening I invited any who wished to talk with me to come to my
-room. Soon afterward Rakel came. She was rather a pretty girl, with
-bright red hair; she was full of fun, and a dreadful tease. She dropped
-on to the hassock at my side in a bashful sort of a way.
-
-“Was there something you wanted to say, Rakel?”
-
-“Yes,” came the whispered answer; “I want to love my companions.”
-
-I enlarged a little upon the duty and privilege of loving others,
-and then waited for her to speak; but she was silent so long, that I
-finally asked if there was anything else she wished to say.
-
-“Yes; how can I love those who make me angry?”
-
-Well, that was a problem, to be sure! But then, the dear Saviour can
-help us solve every problem, so we knelt and prayed, both of us, for
-his help in this particular matter.
-
-She had been gone but a minute, when her cousin Sarra came, Bible in
-hand, to ask the meaning of the verse, “Whether therefore ye eat, or
-drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” There were
-several other verses she wanted explained, and then by a little gentle
-questioning, I learned some more of the trouble between her and Rakel,
-who she said was always teasing her, using her books, and leaving them
-about carelessly. Then she hung her head and confessed that when she
-found her Bible on the divan, and Fido tearing out a leaf, she had at
-once blamed Rakel, and retaliated by getting her Bible and banging it
-on to the floor.
-
-“Was that right, Sarra? Do you think that was one way to glorify God?”
-
-“No,” she replied honestly, but her voice was low and husky. Then we
-talked of the way Christ bore with men and their cruelty and sins, and
-we asked him to make us gentle and patient, kind to others, even when
-they were unkind to us.
-
-The retiring bell tinkled through the hall, and so ended the beautiful,
-blessed day.
-
-                              HARRIET G. POWERS, _in the Evangelist._
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-[Illustration: GOOD FUN!]
-
-[Illustration: THE BATTLE IS ON.]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: HE WAS COMING FROM THE OLD WELL.]
-
-
-
-
-“WHAT IF I HAD!”
-
-
-NEW YEAR’S morning and the snow lying deep over all the paths, drifted
-even to the tops of the fences! Plenty of work for Stephen Watson;
-he frowned a little as he looked out of his attic window in the cold
-gray of the early morning and saw his nicely-made paths all carefully
-covered. But almost before the frown had cleared away he laughed,
-and broke at last into a cheery whistle. “No great loss without some
-gain.” He stopped to make this wise remark aloud, then went on with his
-whistling. What he longed for just now was a holiday—a chance to take a
-run across lots to Dick Wheeler’s home and see the new book which his
-uncle sent him for Christmas. A beautifully bound book with “oceans of
-pictures,” and telling all about a journey to Europe. “Not a stupid
-history,” Dick reported, “but a regular story, telling all about how
-some folks went and had jolly times, and saw no end of things, and
-described them.” Stephen’s brain was fairly whirling with a desire to
-examine this book. It may as well be owned that a book of almost any
-sort had wonderful attractions for this boy; and books and papers, and
-indeed reading matter of any kind, were painfully scarce in the country
-farmhouse where Stephen was chore boy. Mrs. Griggs, the mistress, did
-not more than half believe in them; she eyed even Stephen’s Geography
-with suspicion, and occasionally asked her husband “What sense there
-was in that boy’s learning where all the rivers and mountains in
-creation with outlandish names were to be found. What good would it do
-him? He would never find them outside of a book.”
-
-Well, Stephen had smiled and whistled, because he saw that this heavy
-fall of snow was likely to further his plans for a holiday. If it had
-only drifted enough to make the roads to the ledge farm impassable then
-Mr. and Mrs. Griggs would stay at home and take care of the house, and
-when his chores were done, he might possibly be allowed to go over to
-Dick’s.
-
-Everything seemed to be shaping according to his plans. Mr. Griggs
-remarked at the breakfast table that there “wouldn’t be no sense in
-trying to get to Mary Ann’s that day; the ledge road always drifted
-if it could get a chance, and the wind was still blowing in that
-direction.” Mrs. Griggs had sighed, it is true, and said that “Mary
-Ann would be dreadfully disappointed,” but she, too, had said that she
-supposed there was no use in trying to go.
-
-Stephen went about his chores with a will, a trifle sorry for Mrs.
-Griggs, and a little curious over the idea that anybody in the world
-could be much disappointed over not receiving a visit from her and
-Mr. Griggs. “But then I suppose it is because they are her father
-and mother, and that makes a difference,” said this orphan boy, with
-a sigh. But he could not help being glad that they were not to go.
-What if he got the chores all done so early that there were several
-hours before dinner, and Mr. Griggs would let him go in the forenoon?
-Wouldn’t that be a lark worthy of the day! Dick Wheeler’s mother was
-always good-natured, and twice she had asked him to stay to supper with
-Dick; there was everything to be hoped for in that direction. He was
-coming from the old well with two brimming pails of water, when Mr.
-Griggs, out by the ash barrel, with his hands in his pockets to keep
-them warm, dashed the boy’s hopes to the ground. “Got about through,
-Stephen? Then I guess you may hitch up, after all. The wind has gone
-down, and Mis’ Griggs is disappointed, and she thinks we better try it.
-You may get things ready as fast as you can; we ought to be off if we
-are going; then you’ll have a long warm day in the kitchen. Don’t on no
-account leave the place; that wouldn’t do, of course.”
-
-Not a word said Stephen, though he would like to have thrown the pails
-of water over Mr. Griggs, and kicked the empty pails into a snowdrift.
-He had never been so disappointed in his life! “A long warm day in the
-kitchen!” If there was any day which he utterly hated it was such an
-one; not even a new almanac to read—Farmer Griggs had been waiting for
-one to be sent to him from somewhere, and it had not come. Of course
-there was nothing to do but obey; but Stephen felt that he hated New
-Year’s dinners, and wished that “Mary Ann” lived fifty miles away, and
-hoped that Farmer Griggs would encounter a drift so deep that Mother
-Griggs would be rolled over in the snow! Oh! he was fierce enough to
-wish almost anything.
-
-It was because of all this that a very glum-faced boy looked out of
-the small-paned kitchen window about two hours afterwards, and watched
-a single horse and cutter skim gaily along. Only one person in the
-sleigh, and he muffled in furs, and looking as though life was one
-long holiday. Stephen believed that everybody but himself was having a
-holiday. Suddenly the sleigh drew up in front of their gate. “Halloo!”
-said the man in furs, and Stephen ran out and down the snowy path.
-“Good-morning! Happy New Year,” said a pleasant voice. “Can you tell me
-whether this is the right road to Mr. Bennett’s farm?”
-
-“Yes, sir, it is.”
-
-“How far from here to Mr. Bennett’s?”
-
-“Five miles, sir; but there are none of them at home.”
-
-“They are not? How do you know that?”
-
-“I know the boy who drives their horses, and he went by awhile ago; he
-was on his way back from Dr. Freeman’s, where he had been to take Miss
-Carrie—Mr. Bennett’s daughter—and the boy said his folks were all away
-for the day, and he was going to his grandmother’s to dinner.”
-
-Stephen could not help adding that last, because it had been a very
-bitter drop in his cup of trouble. Mr. Bennett’s house could stay
-alone, it seemed, while the boy went to his grandmother’s to dinner,
-whereas this old farmhouse had to be watched as though there was danger
-of its running away.
-
-“That is the state of things, is it?” said the stranger. “Thank you; I
-do not care to take a five-mile drive through these drifts to find a
-shut-up house. Can you tell me where Dr. Freeman lives?”
-
-“He lives about a mile from here; but Miss Carrie Bennett isn’t there
-now, sir; she has gone with Miss Freeman to bring a Miss Banks, who
-lives two miles west, to eat dinner with them at the doctor’s.” Stephen
-told this story with an amused twinkle in his eye; it struck him as a
-queer thing that he should be so well posted concerning matters which
-evidently interested this handsome stranger. The stranger turned on him
-a keen, questioning glance. “You seem to understand your neighbors’
-affairs very well indeed, my boy. How does it happen?”
-
-Stephen laughed. “Why, Pete just happened to tell me about it, sir;
-he said he was in luck, and did not have to drive them there himself,
-because the doctor’s team drove up in just the nick of time and took
-them. Everybody is in luck except me.”
-
-“Is that so?” asked the stranger, his face breaking into a genial
-smile. “I am certainly, since I have found a quick-witted boy who has
-saved me ten miles of useless driving. Can you do me another favor
-now, and let me come in and visit with you for awhile, until in your
-judgment the doctor’s team has had time to find Miss Banks and bring
-her back? I do not happen to be acquainted with any of the party save
-Miss Bennett, and would prefer waiting until she is there before I make
-my call.”
-
-Mr. Griggs never refused travelers a chance to warm, and of course
-Stephen invited this one into the house and did the honors of the
-kitchen as well as he could. Somehow—he never quite understood how it
-was—he found himself telling the story of his bitter disappointment to
-this stranger—all about the wonderful book full of pictures and stories
-of travel. He was astonished afterwards to think how much he talked;
-but then, the stranger listened so kindly, and his eyes were so bright,
-and his smile so pleasant, and he asked so many questions, it seemed
-impossible not to confide in him.
-
-“So you like books,” he said, as at last he arose; “and books of
-travel? Well, I do myself; and it happens curiously enough that I
-have a package of books in my sleigh at this moment, two of which I
-think you would enjoy. I was taking them to a nephew of mine, and
-missed seeing him; probably because it was intended that you should
-have them instead. I owe you a debt of gratitude; and I’ll exchange the
-information you gave me for whatever information you can find in the
-books, which are yours to keep, you understand. And now don’t you think
-Miss Banks may have arrived at the doctor’s by this time?”
-
-Stephen helped him off in good style, but in such a flutter of
-excitement that he could hardly respond to the cheery “good-by,” for in
-his hands were two very large, very handsomely bound books, sparkling
-with pictures, and with the most inviting-looking reading. They must
-certainly be larger than Dick Wheeler’s one, for that had been minutely
-described to him. Besides, there were two of these; and besides, oh!
-besides, they were his very own, to keep!
-
-As he turned the leaves, like one in fairyland, he said aloud, “What
-if I had got a chance to go to Dick Wheeler’s this morning and missed
-this? O, my! what if I had!”
-
-                                                 PANSY.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-[Illustration]
-
-[Illustration: LOOK OUT! WE’RE COMING.]
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-WHAT HAPPENED TO BUNNY.
-
-
-BUNNY is the name of a squirrel with a very long tail.
-
-When nuts were ripe Bunny worked hard to pick them and store them up
-for his family to live on through the cold winter.
-
-His house was in a big hollow tree. The door to it was a little round
-hole. He had a nice large pantry.
-
-All day long, in the pleasant Oc-to-ber weather, when children were
-playing, Bunny was picking nuts and scampering down the trees to put
-them safe in his pantry.
-
-He had a good many kinds of nuts. There were butternuts and walnuts and
-chestnuts, and tiny beechnuts for the teeny weeny squirrels. At last
-Bunny’s pantry was full, and he was all ready for December with its
-cold winds and snowflakes.
-
-One morning something happened! Just as Bunny started out he found
-a wire cage in front of his door. He thought it was a pretty little
-house, so he walked in.
-
-Snap! went the door of this pretty little house, and shut itself tight.
-
-Bunny tried on every side to get out, but he could not. He was in a
-prison.
-
-While he wondered what he should do a big boy came and looked at him.
-
-“Hurrah!” he said.
-
-Then big boy took up the cage and carried it off home.
-
-He gave Bunny to his little sister Susie.
-
-Susie was kind to Bunny. She put him in a basket with a soft bed and
-gave him cake and candy.
-
-But Bunny was not happy. He was too warm in the house with his fur coat
-on, and he wanted to get back to his dear children. He would not play;
-he sat still and looked sad.
-
-“Poor Bunny!” said Susie’s mamma; “he is used to being outdoors, and
-frisking about. He wants to see his little children and eat the nuts he
-laid up.”
-
-“Then he shall go,” Susie said.
-
-[Illustration: “THEN HE SHALL GO.”]
-
-So she told him good-by, and carried the cage out in the garden and
-opened its door.
-
-Away went Bunny! He scampered over the fence and whisked up a tall tree
-as quick as wink.
-
-How happy he was to get to his hollow tree once more.
-
-Was not Susie a nice little girl?
-
-                                                 MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-
-
-
-A LONG CHRISTMAS.
-
-
-PART II.
-
-IT was a January night, very cold. The snow which was always on the
-mountains looked down on the snow which sometimes melted from the
-valleys, and seemed to smile at it in a hard, cold way, for supposing
-itself to be of any importance at all. The white cross made by the
-peculiar shape of the mountains, and the action of the sun on the snow,
-gleamed in the moonlight more beautiful than usual to Teddy Simpson,
-as he pushed back the overcoat several times too large for him, thrust
-his hands into his pockets, and leaned against the snow-covered hill
-to think. Hundreds of stars twinkled down upon him, brighter and more
-filled with jewels than they ever are in any other sky, I think; but
-Teddy’s thoughts were not of them.
-
-He was waiting for the teamster whose route lay along this mountain
-side, and who always brought the mail from the distant settlement, as
-well as any supplies or packages which the miners might need. Not that
-Teddy expected any mail! Bless your heart, he had never received a
-letter in his life, nor even a paper through the mails. To have done so
-even once would have almost taken his breath away. Yet he was deeply
-interested in the teamster’s wagon; as he stood still in the moonlight
-to think, there was an eager look in his eyes, and he listened for the
-sound of the cracking whip with such an air of expectancy as his face
-did not often wear. The fact is, Teddy Simpson had planned a wonderful
-surprise for his mother which his friend the teamster was helping him
-to carry out. Very poor they were, he and his mother; she cooked for
-the miners, and washed for them, and mended their clothes, but the
-miners, too, were poor, and could pay but little. The truth is, the
-people who lived and worked in this beautiful, desolate region were all
-poor together. Teddy had had plans, beautiful plans, for the Christmas
-three weeks behind him, and had failed in them. He and his mother
-knew all about Christmas; had not she hung up her stocking every year
-of her life until she was a great girl fifteen years old? Teddy never
-had, because Santa Claus seemed never to get so far West as where he
-lived; but while the father was alive Teddy always had at least one
-Christmas present, if it was nothing but a picture cut from some of
-the illustrated papers of the tourists, and framed by his mother with
-some bits of bright paper laid away for such purposes. Teddy had been
-a man grown now for two years—at least he felt like one—with no time
-for such trifles; but he had longed to make a bright Christmas for the
-miner’s family with five little children, their nearest neighbors. If
-his mother had not had a sick day when he was obliged to do her work as
-well as he could, and in doing it wasted some of the material and lost
-a good deal of time, he thought he should have accomplished it. As it
-was, he could not get the Christmas treat ready for them, but promised
-himself that another year he would be on hand. Then he had turned his
-thoughts to a surprise for his mother. That, too, had been a Christmas
-plan, but failing then, he resolved that he would not wait for the next
-season. The surprise was nothing more nor less than a half-pound of the
-best tea which the silver half-dollar he had sent by the teamster could
-supply. The poor little overworked mother was very fond of tea; he
-had often heard her say that a good cup of it after a hard day’s work
-seemed to rest her as nothing else would; but since the father died,
-she had bravely put it aside as one of the luxuries which they could
-not now afford.
-
-If there were time to tell you how long and hard Teddy had worked for
-that extra half-dollar, never taking a cent for it from the regular
-wages of the day which he earned as his share of the family support,
-you would not wonder that he had grown almost feverish in his anxiety
-as the weeks went on, lest he should fail in having the right amount.
-He had accomplished it, and the day had come for the teamster to go
-on his fortnightly trip, and the day and evening had arrived for his
-return, and here at a bend in the road Teddy waited for him.
-
-Away in the distance on the still frosty air broke at last the sound of
-a cheery whistle, and Teddy held himself still and listened. Jim Coon,
-the teamster, was a friend of his, and Teddy did not believe he would
-whistle if anything so cruel had happened as that the supply grocer had
-been out of tea.
-
-“Halloo!” said Jim, as he came with a flourish around the bend in the
-snowy road, “waitin’, be you? I thought it was a ghost froze stiff
-to the rocks. Climb up here, and we’ll be home in a jiffy. Beats all
-what a hurry this team has been in this afternoon—all owing to you, I
-s’pose. O, yes! I got it, safe and sound; the very best kind of tea
-ever brought to these parts, Joe Derrick says, and he put in a good big
-half-pound of it, I’m witness to that.”
-
-Then Teddy drew a long breath, and immediately the longing which he had
-kept in the background came to the front; also the problem over which
-he had been studying for weeks. Wouldn’t it on the whole have been
-better to have gotten a quarter of a pound of tea and spent the rest
-of the money in sugar? mother did so like a little sugar with her tea.
-But then, a quarter of a pound seemed such a very little bit, and the
-winter was long in this mountain region, and there was no telling when
-he would have a chance to get any more. But he wished, O, so much! that
-he knew how to get just a little sugar; that would make the present
-complete.
-
-“I got somethin’ else,” said Jim, with a curious note of suppressed
-excitement in his tones; “somethin’ for you.”
-
-“For me?” echoed Teddy, amazed.
-
-“Yes, sir, for you; Teddy Simpson is the name on the box, as large as
-life.”
-
-“On the box!” In his astonishment and excitement all that Teddy could
-do was to echo Jim’s words.
-
-“Yes, sir, on the box; a good-sized box, and as heavy as though it had
-been stuffed with lead. Come by freight; got there yesterday just about
-an hour before I drove into town; come all the way from New York State,
-too.”
-
-After that, the quarter of a mile between Teddy Simpson and home seemed
-endless. A box by freight for him! What would mother think, and the
-neighbors! Above all, what could be in the box?
-
-Before it was half-unpacked the question became what was not in it? Two
-suits of clothes for Teddy, two new dresses for his mother—or dresses
-quite as good as new—a warm, bright shawl, and a fur hood. Shoes, and
-stockings, and socks, and mittens, and oh! books, and papers, and
-pictures, and more books. Was ever anything so wonderful? Then there
-were toys—dolls, and balls, and tops, and wooden dogs, and wax cats,
-and cloth elephants—and some little bits of dresses and sacks which
-could fit only the children further down the mountain. Teddy felt this,
-even before he discovered that these were all labeled, “For Teddy to
-give to his friends, the little Perkinses.” Moreover, there was a
-little leather bag in the very bottom of the box, drawn together by a
-bright cord and securely tied, which when opened was found to contain
-seventeen bright silver dollars, the gifts of the cousins and aunts and
-uncles for Teddy to use as he thought best. Do you want to know what he
-thought of first? A whole pound of sugar to go with that half-pound of
-tea which was still lying snugly in his overcoat pocket, where Teddy
-meant to leave it until the next morning. Such a box as that, and a
-half pound of tea in the bargain, he considered altogether too much for
-his mother’s nerves in one evening.
-
-Such a wonderful morning as it was—such a wonderful day, indeed!
-The Perkinses were hopelessly wild all day, and their poor little
-half-discouraged mother was not much better.
-
-The next time teamster Jim went over the snow road between the
-mountains he carried a fat little letter written in Teddy’s best round
-hand—and he was by no means a bad writer; his mother had taught him.
-In this letter he described to the cousins just how he stood by the
-rocks and waited for Jim Coon’s team, just how surprised he was, just
-how the box was opened, just what he and his mother exclaimed as long
-as they had any breath for exclaiming, just how the Perkinses acted
-the next day—at least as well as language would do it—and altogether
-wrote so surprising a letter that Hortense said, drawing a long sigh of
-delight: “Isn’t it lovely? Hasn’t this been a long Christmas? It is
-better than the Christmas-tree a great deal, isn’t it?”
-
-“It is the jolliest Christmas I ever had,” said Holly.
-
-“And it has taught us how to have some more jolly ones,” said Tom.
-
-As for Tom’s father, he said: “That boy Teddy is a smart fellow; he
-ought to have an education. There ought to be a good school out there.
-Why wouldn’t that be a good place for us to send Richard Winston? He
-would be a grand fellow to work among just such people.”
-
-So the “long Christmas” is in a fair way to grow longer, you see, for
-every cousin in the three homes is interested in Tom’s father’s idea,
-and so is Richard Winston.
-
-                                                 PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: “HE STOOD STILL IN THE MOONLIGHT TO THINK.”]
-
-
-
-
-SOMETHING FOR MAMMA.
-
-
-YOU want it for Christmas, of course; and you are a little girl who has
-very few pennies of your own to spend; and mamma, like other mammas,
-thinks that something which her daughter has made with her own hands
-is of far more value than an article, however fine, bought at a store.
-You have been disconsolate for several days because there are so few
-“things” which you know how to make, and because you have so little
-money with which to buy material. Take heart, my dear, there are happy
-surprises in store for mamma.
-
-How much money have you for this particular gift? “Twenty-five cents,”
-and you blush and are troubled, and say in your heart, “Just as though
-anything worth having could be made for twenty-five cents!” Why, my
-dear, that is enough and to spare. Did you notice the table mats
-yesterday at dinner? They are made of bits of oiled wood ingeniously
-put together, and in their prime were pretty, and rather expensive; but
-they are sadly worn now—so much so, indeed, that Hannah declared only
-yesterday that she did not know what to do with the things; they were
-so much worn that she could not wash them any more. She knew what she
-would like to do with them; if she had her way she would “chuck” them
-into the fire.
-
-What I propose is, that you plan your Christmas present so that Hannah
-can have the pleasure of doing just that thing.
-
-What you want is a ball of macremé cord, of a delicate creamy tint,
-price fifteen cents, and a ball of candle wicking for three cents, or
-possibly five, though it ought not to be if your merchants are up with
-city prices. Positively that is all. O, yes! a crochet needle, large
-size; but that of course you have; or if not, I am almost certain that
-mamma, or better still grandma, will make you a present of one, because
-of the many useful things you can make with it; still, if you wish to
-be entirely independent, why, buy one, for five cents surely (a large
-price), and you are ready.
-
-Hold the end of candle wicking over your left forefinger and crochet
-the macremé cord over it with what is known as the long stitch; it is
-very rapid work after you have once mastered the stitch, and before you
-realize it, you will have a long, long rope of creamy cord. Do not pull
-hard on the crochet cord, but let the work lie up loose and fluffy.
-When you think you have enough done to experiment with, get your neat
-little work box, thread a needle with strong cotton—number thirty
-being a very good size—curl the beginning of your cord into a graceful
-circle, and take firm stitches on the under side to hold it there; then
-another coil, and another, sewed neatly and firmly, and continue until
-you have a table mat large enough round to take the vegetable dishes,
-or the soup tureen, or whatever you wish to set on it. Then cut off
-the supply, fasten the end firmly, and finish the whole with a pretty
-crocheted scallop all around. Just compare that mat with the slippery,
-stained wood one with frayed edges! You admire it now, but what will
-it be when Hannah has washed and starched it until it holds its shape
-as firmly as the wooden one, and yet is flexible and graceful? More of
-them? Certainly, an entire set, varying in size to match the uses to
-which they are to be put.
-
-Have I made a mistake? Are your vegetable dishes all oval? Well, my
-dear, your table water pitcher is not, I am sure. Just use this first
-one for it, and start your next sewing with an oval shape instead of a
-circle; it must be a very small oval for the beginning—not over three
-quarters of an inch in length—else your mat will grow too long for its
-width. Your best plan would be to experiment a little. Lay the work
-loosely, confined by a mere basting stitch, and see whether, when the
-mat has grown as long as your paper pattern, it will be of the proper
-width. You will not find the planning difficult; it merely needs the
-patience and carefulness which I feel sure you will bestow; and the
-result will be an entire nest of pretty and useful mats which will be a
-delightful surprise to mamma on Christmas morning, and a comfort to her
-as well as to Hannah throughout the year. Try it, and be sure to let me
-hear how you succeeded.
-
-                                                 PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: CHRISTMAS EVENING.]
-
-
-
-
-ETHEL CARLISLE’S FACE.
-
-(_Character Studies._)
-
-
-I CAN see her now as she looked to me that winter morning wrapped in
-furs, ready all but her fur cap to brave the frosty air, when she held
-up in triumph a spray of brilliant bloom, and said: “Look, Aunt Myra,
-did you ever see anything prettier than that from a conservatory? And
-they blossomed in my window-seat!” I was not her auntie, but was so old
-and intimate a friend of the family that the children had adopted me.
-
-“Hasn’t Ethel a beautiful face?” I said to Miss Margaret, another
-friend of the family, who, with myself, was a guest at the Carlisles’.
-“It is so very bright. Did you notice what a peculiar brightness there
-is to her eyes when she smiles? And she has a lovely smile.”
-
-Miss Margaret looked grave, almost troubled. “It is a sweeter face than
-it will be in a few years, I am afraid,” she said, shaking her head,
-which already had threads of silver in it. Miss Margaret was a wise
-sweet woman, not given to croaking, so I waited somewhat anxiously
-to hear her words. “Ethel is cultivating habits which will spoil her
-face,” she said; “I have not been here before for two years, and I
-notice a very decided change in it since then. She was one of the
-sweetest little children I ever knew, but if you watch through only one
-day you will discover what I mean. Unless something occurs to change
-her habits, there will be another spoiled face in the world in a few
-years.”
-
-I had been in the house but a day, and had been absent from the
-country for more than two years, so I knew very little of the younger
-Carlisles. Ethel had always been my favorite, and it made me sad and a
-trifle annoyed to hear Miss Margaret’s words. I felt sure she must have
-grown over particular.
-
-Of course, with such a warning, it would have been impossible not to
-have watched. Long before night I knew what Miss Margaret meant.
-
-“Where in the world is my French Grammar?” I heard Ethel’s voice, with
-a very sharp note in it, rasping through the hall. “I left it on the
-dining-room table while I ran out to speak to Nellie, and somebody has
-taken it. I declare, I cannot lay down a thing for a second and find it
-again. I do wish Ann could be taught to let my books alone!”
-
-“Indeed, Miss Ethel, I have not touched a book this morning; I have not
-dusted in the dining-room yet.” This was Ann’s voice; then Ethel’s,
-by no means sweetened: “That is perfect nonsense, Ann; I left it here
-not two minutes ago, and now it is gone. What do you think could have
-become of it? It couldn’t walk off without hands.”
-
-“Ethel!” from Mrs. Carlisle, in a reproving tone, “do not speak so to
-Ann, daughter; she has not been in the dining-room since breakfast.”
-
-“Well, but, mother, my French Grammar is gone that I just laid there,
-and the bell is ringing; I shall be late, and I think it is just too
-bad!” There was an ugly frown all over the fair forehead, and a sharp
-and at the same time whining tone to the voice which had been so sweet
-but a little while before.
-
-“Ethel,” called her older sister Nannie from the hall above, “here is
-your book; you left it on the hat rack a few minutes ago.”
-
-Away went Ethel without a word of explanation to mother or to Ann, and
-we heard her voice, still sharp, saying to Nannie, “Why couldn’t you
-have told me before, and not kept me hunting half the morning?”
-
-I heard the mother sigh, and was sorry for her, and glad that the
-alcove curtains shaded me from view, and that I had a book in my hand
-and could appear not to have heard.
-
-Ethel came home at lunch time, and was out of sorts with the soup
-because it tasted of onions, and with the squash because it had been
-peppered. She said she wished anybody ever consulted her tastes, and
-she would just as soon think of puffing tobacco smoke in the face of
-people as of eating onions for them to smell afterwards. She scolded
-her brother Tom for forgetting the music he was to call for; and when
-he said he was very sorry, and it was because he had so many important
-errands for his father that he forgot it, she tossed her head and said
-sharply, “Oh! you needn’t explain; of course you would forget what I
-wanted; I’m of no consequence.”
-
-[Illustration: ETHEL HELD UP A SPRAY OF BRILLIANT BLOOM.]
-
-In short, with my eyes opened as they had been by Miss Margaret I could
-not help seeing that Ethel spoiled the sweetness of almost every room
-she entered that day, and complained of unkindness or of discomforts at
-every turn. Yet at family worship, when she played,
-
-    “Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear,”
-
-and led the singing with a very sweet voice, she looked like an angel.
-It broke my heart to hear her, not ten minutes afterwards, scolding
-Baby Frank for overturning her spool basket. “You are just a little
-nuisance!” she said, sharp-voiced again; “I think mamma ought to whip
-you. Well, mamma, I do,” in response to a reproving look from her
-mother; “you are just spoiling him, I think.”
-
-“Is it possible that this is a fair specimen of that child’s days?” I
-asked Miss Margaret, as we went down the hall together.
-
-“I am afraid it is,” said Miss Margaret. “She is learning to frown and
-fret over the veriest trifles, and to answer even her mother rudely,
-as you noticed just now. How many years of such living will it take to
-utterly spoil the pretty face? Isn’t it strange that a young girl who
-believes herself such an ardent admirer of beauty, should deliberately
-undertake to spoil the lovely work of art which God gave her to take
-care of?”
-
-                                                 MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-ORIGIN OF A NEW ENGLAND INDUSTRY.
-
-
-IN 1798 Betsey Metcalf, of Dedham, Mass., made a bonnet out of oat
-straw, fashioning it after an English bonnet then very fashionable.
-She flattened the straw with the blade of her scissors, split it
-with her thumb nail, braided it into the requisite number of strands
-and bleached it by holding it over the vapor of burning sulphur. She
-afterward taught the young ladies of her vicinity how to do it, and
-thus laid the foundation of the extensive business now carried on in
-straw hats in New England.—_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-MOTHER DUNLAP’S STORY.
-
-
-IF my father and mother had been at home it would never have happened,
-but they started in the morning as soon as they could see the road for
-my Aunt Margaret’s, taking Emeline with them. I remember just how I
-felt when I saw them drive from our gate with Emeline sitting between
-them; it seemed so terrible, somehow, to think of her sitting in my
-place, because I was the one who always sat between father and mother.
-But Cousin Emeline was Aunt Margaret’s little girl, and word had come
-that Aunt Margaret was very sick, and that Emeline must be brought home
-as fast as possible; so of course they started, though there was every
-sign of a storm, Uncle Peter said, and he hardly ever made a mistake in
-the weather. He was our “signal service” in those days. Cousin Edward
-was at our house, too; he was Uncle Edward’s son, and always spent his
-short vacation with us, because his folks lived too far away for him
-to go home. He was thirteen years old, and thought he knew all there
-was to know in life. He was a smart fellow, and would have been real
-nice if he had not felt so sure of it himself. Father and mother had
-not been gone an hour when he began to plan to drive to town to the New
-Year festival which was to be held in one of the churches, and take me
-along. Kirke said everything in the world to hinder us from going; he
-thought it was going to storm.
-
-“Who’s afraid of a few snowflakes?” said Edward. “I want Nannie to have
-a cheery time for New Year’s; it is dreadful dull for her with Auntie
-and Uncle both gone.”
-
-Kirke was a boy who did chores at our house for his board, and went to
-school; we lived two miles nearer the schoolhouse than his mother did,
-and they were pretty poor, and Kirke earning his board away from home
-helped them a good deal. We all loved Kirke; he was a good sensible
-boy, and stood at the head of his classes in school. But I did not
-approve of him that day; I wanted to go to town. I was a silly little
-thing in those days, not afraid of anything; I laughed at the storm
-just as Edward did.
-
-“It will be more than a few flakes,” Kirke said, shaking his head
-gravely; “I think we are going to have the worst storm of the season.”
-Then Edward began to make fun of him—call him Uncle Peter, and ask what
-kind of a winter it was forty years ago; because Uncle Peter was always
-going back to old times and telling stories about the weather. Kirke
-kept good-natured, and laughed with me over Edward’s speeches, but for
-all that he did not stop trying to keep us from going to town.
-
-“Look here,” he said, “I have a tip-top plan for this afternoon. Mrs.
-Baker gave me a jug of molasses and some splendid ears of pop-corn to
-take home: suppose you and Nannie walk out home with me, and we will
-pop some corn, and make candy with hickory nuts in? We’ve got a bushel
-of nuts stored away in the garret, and we’ll have no end of fun. Nannie
-can stay all night—she has done it before, you know—and sleep with my
-sister Mary, and you and I will turn in with little Billy up in the
-attic; he likes company.”
-
-The picture looked quite inviting to me; I had often been out to
-Kirke’s house, for my father and mother liked their family very much,
-and were always willing to have me play with their children.
-
-But Edward was not to be persuaded. “No, you don’t, old fellow,” he
-said; “candy and nuts are first-rate things for any night in the year
-but New Year’s; a fellow needs something extra then. I’ve set my heart
-on seeing the festival tables, and watching them give out the prizes,
-and I’m going; my uncle said three days ago that I could.”
-
-“But he did not know that it was going to snow,” Kirke said, more and
-more anxious. “Really, Edward, I do not think Mr. and Mrs. Baker would
-like to have you take Nannie out when it looks so much like a storm.”
-Then Edward got angry and told Kirke to mind his own business, that
-we were not left in his charge at least, and that he should do as he
-liked; and Kirke was to remember that Mr. and Mrs. Baker were his own
-uncle and aunt, and that he might be supposed to know as much about
-what they would like as a stranger could. Kirke said no more, but he
-looked very much troubled. I was half-disposed to give up the plan,
-but Edward laughed at me. The good-natured housekeeper in whose care
-we were left never paid much attention to the weather, and made no
-objection to my going. I don’t know but that it would have come out all
-right even then, if Edward’s pride had not got the upper hand. He took
-a notion to drive to town by the old road.
-
-“O, don’t!” I urged; “you do not know that way at all, and Uncle Peter
-said this morning that the wind last night must have drifted the snow
-on the old road.”
-
-“Poh!” said Edward, “Uncle Peter is an old croaker; he’s an old man,
-Nannie, and always makes mountains out of molehills. The wind will be
-at our backs part of the time on the old road, and I’m going that way.
-What if I have not driven it? The horse won’t get lost, if you think I
-will.”
-
-Well, we started, and for the first ten minutes everything was right;
-then we began to come to drifts, and I was dreadfully scared. We almost
-turned over two or three times. I kept squealing out, and that provoked
-Edward. “Keep still,” he would say; “I did not know you were such a
-little coward.” To make matters worse, it began to snow harder than I
-ever saw it before, and grew so dark that we could hardly see our way.
-We had been riding a good while, and ought to have reached the town,
-but no sign of a town was to be seen.
-
-After a while Edward made up his mind that he must have taken the
-wrong turn, and said he was going back a little way to see if he had.
-He tried to turn around, but the wind blew so that the snow blinded
-his eyes; and it was not a good place for turning around, any way. The
-first thing I knew over went the sleigh, and I was in a snowdrift!
-That was not the worst of it, either; the runner of the sleigh snapped
-as if it had been a pipe-stem. Good old Jim stood still, fortunately.
-But there we were with a driving storm, with a broken sleigh! I do
-not think I was ever so glad of anything in my life as I was to hear
-Kirke’s voice above the roar of the wind.
-
-“What in the world are you doing there?” he said, bounding along over
-drifts of snow. “Is Nannie hurt? If she is not all right never mind
-anything else. Oh! the sleigh is broken. How came you to be on this
-road? This is not the way to town; it is an old wood road that was used
-early in the winter, but it is all snowed up; you could not have got
-much farther; you ought to have turned to the right a mile below here;
-I thought you knew the way. Now I’ll tell you what will have to be
-done. Nannie must go to our house—it is less than a quarter of a mile
-from here—and I’ll get a rope and tie up that sleigh somehow, enough to
-get it and Jim back to the stable; then I’ll tell your folks that you
-are going to stay at our house all night—shall I?”
-
-[Illustration: “THERE WE WERE, WITH A BROKEN SLEIGH!”]
-
-He seemed to have forgotten how disagreeably Edward had spoken to him,
-and was just as nice as could be. But Edward’s cheeks were pretty red.
-“No, sir,” he said firmly; “I started out to have my own way and ought
-to have the benefit of it. If you will take Nannie to your house I’ll
-get this rig home myself and take care of Jim; it is not fair that you
-should lose your New Year’s fun to help me out. I’ll foot it out to
-your house if it is not too late after I have been to see Mr. Ormstead
-about mending this sleigh; but I’m not going to let you go for me a
-single step.”
-
-No amount of coaxing could turn him from his purpose. So at last Kirke,
-after helping him to tie up the runner with some twine which they found
-in their pockets, tucked me under his arm, and we marched off to their
-little house.
-
-Their kitchen was the cleanest, brightest, cheeriest place you ever
-saw, and the molasses taffy was splendid. I had a lovely time; but
-there was such a dreadful storm that Edward could not get back that
-night, and Jim had lamed himself somehow in stumbling through deep
-drifts; and it cost four dollars to mend the sleigh, which Edward had
-to pay, because my father said he did not believe in boys having their
-own way and not being willing to take the consequences. To be sure he
-gave the money back again, and more too, when Edward’s next birthday
-came. But I don’t think Edward ever forgot the lesson. I ought to have
-been punished too, for I pretended to agree with Edward, even when I
-thought he was foolish; but some way I slipped through the trouble and
-had all the pleasure, just as girls often do, I think.
-
-[Illustration: THEY STARTED FOR AUNT MARGARET’S. (“_Mother Dunlap’s
-Story._”)]
-
-“Mother,” said little Cathie Dunlap, “father’s middle name is Kirke;
-did he have anything to do with the nice boy who took care of you?”
-
-“Why, yes,” said Mother Dunlap, laughing, “come to think of it, his
-full name was William Kirke Dunlap.”
-
-                                                 MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-HUNGER AND THIRST.
-
-
-THERE is a story of a little boy who was very fond of angling, and who
-one day told his grandfather that he had caught a fish as large as a
-horse.
-
-“Look here, Tom,” said the old man, “don’t you know it’s wrong for a
-little boy like you to tell such a big untruth? You are not six years,
-are you?”
-
-“No,” said Tommy; “I am only five, and I’ll not do it again. After this
-I’m going to tell only little bits of fish stories.”
-
-That boy often reminds one of people who talk about being “temperate”
-and “moderate” in the use of things which they ought to let alone
-altogether. A little glass of strong drink, a little cigar, are just as
-certainly wrong as a little untruth.
-
-But how can we know what is good or bad for the body? The answer is,
-that our body itself will tell us. The body has a conscience as well as
-the soul. Put your hand into a potful of warm water, and your hand will
-at once let you know if the water is too hot. Go out sleigh-riding in a
-light straw hat on a cold winter morning, and your ears will soon ask
-for a warmer cover. After a laborer has been hard at work for eight or
-ten hours, his body will ask for rest. Make a child sit down in a chair
-without moving for six hours, and its body will ask for exercise. Our
-body soon lets us know if a coat or a shoe is too tight, or if a burden
-is too heavy. And it can just as certainly be relied upon to warn us
-against unwholesome food. It is true that we can silence that voice of
-our body’s conscience. After a man has swallowed a good many glasses
-of bad drink or smoked a cigar every morning for a couple of weeks, he
-at last gets “used to it,” as we call it; his nature gets changed, and
-at last he is unable to let such things alone. But at the first trial
-our sense of taste will plainly warn us against unwholesome food and
-drink. Before an apple is ripe it tastes sour. The taste of over-ripe
-or spoiled fruit gets more and more disagreeable.
-
-An Italian naturalist, during his travels in Southern Africa, noticed
-that a little pet monkey of his never made a mistake in choosing
-its food, and could tell poisonous herbs and berries from good ones
-the moment he tasted them. The traveler made that little creature
-his kitchen master, as he called it, and always let it try a bit of
-every kind of food that was offered to him for sale. “If Jocko ate a
-spoonful of honey and stretched out his hand for more,” he writes, “I
-was satisfied that it was worth buying; if the little chap grinned and
-flung the sample away, I felt sure that the bees must have gathered
-their honey from poisonous flowers. Jocko never made mistakes in such
-things, and that our own people blundered so often might be explained
-by the fact that we have blunted our sense of taste with strong drink
-and hot spices.”
-
-A boy who has been brought up on perfectly wholesome food can tell
-injurious things almost as quick as that little monkey. He will dislike
-the taste of sharp pepper sauces, of pickles, of strong cheese, of
-spoiled meat, and will not be apt to mistake a bitter swamp berry for a
-huckleberry.
-
-Our stomach also lets us know when we should stop eating. In that case,
-too, it is not safe to disregard the warnings of our bodily conscience.
-If a boy keeps eating, just to while time away, after he feels that he
-has had enough, and after his stomach has asked him again and again to
-stop, his nature at last changes, and he wants to be stuffing himself
-all the time. I knew a little chap of ten years who seemed to think
-it a pity to lose a chance for gorging himself, and who had to be
-watched like a tricky cat to keep him from slipping into his mother’s
-pantry and helping himself to all the good things in sight. On his
-way to school he would stop to buy a package of peanuts or pick up a
-pocketful of apples on the outside of an orchard, and when he came home
-for dinner he ate away as if nothing had happened. All his schoolmates
-called him “Glutton Joe.”
-
-Such gluttons are apt to think that they are getting more fun out of
-life than other people. The truth is, that they hardly ever know an
-hour of real happiness. They feel dull and weary; they become too
-sluggish to play; they take no interest in their studies, and drop a
-new book or new paper after a short look at the pictures; they would
-rather not know the end of a pretty story than go to the trouble of
-reading it through. They feel drowsy as soon as the weather gets a
-little warm, but when they go to sleep their rest is broken by ugly
-dreams. Glutton Joe had no friends; he was so cross and lazy that
-nobody wanted him for a playmate.
-
-An old fisherman once told me that it was worth while going out sailing
-in bad, chilly weather, just for the fun of getting home again and
-taking a rest in a warm chimney-corner, and I have often thought that
-many people would find it worth while to fast once in a while, when
-they begin to complain that they cannot enjoy their meals. After a
-day’s exercise in the woods and mountains the plainest food tastes
-well. A supper of bread, milk and huckleberries tastes better to the
-poor Tennessee mountain boy, who has been out herding cows all day,
-than a banquet of thirty dishes tastes to a rich merchant who has
-not yet digested his last meal. There is no danger in an occasional
-fast, though some people seem to think it a misfortune to miss one of
-their three daily meals. There was a time when rich and poor thought
-it enough to eat one good meal a day. The old Romans and Greeks ate a
-biscuit and perhaps half a handful of dried fruit in the morning, and
-then did not eat again till they had finished their day’s work, when
-they took a bath, changed their dress, and then sat down to a good
-supper. An Indian hunter thinks nothing of going a day without any food
-at all. A few years ago an American physician thought it worth while to
-try how long a man could fast without hurting himself. People thought
-he was crazy, and told him he would kill himself in less than a week.
-He made no reply, and his friends changed their opinion when he had
-fasted forty days and nights. Few of those friends would have cared to
-try their own pluck in that manner, but they would certainly have been
-ashamed to complain of an accident that might lose them a dinner and
-oblige them to eat their principal meal in the evening.
-
-But though there can be no harm in a day’s fast, it is never safe to
-suffer for want of drinking water. The same doctor who passed nearly
-six weeks without a mouthful of food, took a sip of cold lemonade every
-few hours, and it is a curious fact that in warm weather a glass of
-water served with our dinner is by far the most important part of the
-meal. Hunger, or what we call a “good appetite,” often stops after
-the mealtime has passed without a chance of getting a mouthful of
-food, but thirst cannot be put off in that way, and becomes at last so
-intolerable that a starved traveler, after a three days’ journey in the
-desert, would give a wagon-load of food for a drink of cold water.
-
-                                                 FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D.
-
-
-
-
-WOULD AND SHOULD.
-
-
-A PUPIL in a quiet boarding-school in —— displayed some time since no
-small degree of industry in collecting autographs of distinguished
-persons. The late James Russell Lowell was one of the number addressed.
-The address to him was in substance: “I would be very much obliged for
-your autograph.” The response contained a lesson that many besides the
-ambitious pupil have not learned: “Pray do not say hereafter ‘I would
-be obliged.’ If you would be obliged, be obliged and be done with
-it. Say ‘I should be obliged,’ and oblige yours truly, JAMES RUSSELL
-LOWELL.”—_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
-
-
-YOU see it is most beautiful to the eye, though you Pansies of the
-great cities may think some of your churches quite as handsome. But
-none of them has such a history. This church was founded—started, as
-some would say—more than a thousand years ago! Now where’s your pretty
-“meeting-house” which was built only last year?
-
-Old King Siebert, a Saxon, built Westminster Abbey, and many of the
-Saxons really believed that the Apostle Peter dedicated it, though
-Peter had died nearly one thousand years before!
-
-[Illustration: A VIEW OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
-
-However, this building is not the very same that King Siebert put up.
-That one stood several hundred years, when Edward, “the Confessor,” as
-he was called, rebuilt it. Two hundred years later King Henry the Third
-enlarged it, making it look about as it now is.
-
-For years and years the English kings and queens have been crowned
-here, and buried, too, nearly all. Here the great ones of the nation
-are buried—Shakespeare, Milton, Ben Jonson, Wordsworth, and many more,
-the poets in the “Poets’ Corner.”
-
-Under the coronation (crowning) chair is the “Stone of Scone,” which
-some actually say is the very one Jacob laid his head upon when he
-dreamed! However that be, many kings have sat upon it when they were
-crowned.
-
-Of course you will search out the “Jerusalem Chamber” when you visit
-Westminster. The Presbyterian Church began in this chamber. Here, too,
-the Bible was revised (re-translated from the Hebrew and Greek).
-
-“Why do they call it the ‘Jerusalem Chamber’?”
-
-Probably because its windows came from that old city, and the Cedar of
-Lebanon forms the wainscoting.
-
-So this wonderful building has served many purposes besides that of a
-church. For some hundred years the House of Commons (something like
-our House of Representatives) made laws here, especially laws to secure
-the liberties of the people.
-
-So you see this building is something like Faneuil Hall of Boston and
-Independence Hall of Philadelphia.
-
-What a book Westminster Abbey could make if it only could write. But
-somehow, like Nineveh and such places, it will rise up in the Judgment;
-then what will it say of the people who have had to do with it?
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-A NEW YEAR’S TRIP.
-
-
-TO Africa! Yes; here it is ’92, January 1, early in the morning, and we
-are in the sleigh, and away we glide over the snow to Africa, to return
-to-night.
-
-“Twenty thousand miles in twelve hours, pooh! and going to hot Africa
-in a sleigh!”
-
-Suppose, then, we just think we are there, and we are there to all
-intents and purposes.
-
-“Well, here goes; I think I’m in South Africa at the mouth of some
-diamond hole (tunnel), January 1, ’92. Of course I’m there picking up
-diamonds to bring back for New Year’s presents, eh?”
-
-Indeed you—the best part of you, your soul, your thought—are. Just wake
-up your imagination, and it’s about the same. Now you step down into
-the dark hole. Deeper you descend, as down a steep hill, to the very
-bottom—eight hundred feet or more—through fields full of diamonds.
-
-See, just before you dim forms. They are naked natives digging. They
-fill up the small car of dirt, dotted with the precious stones, and
-away it goes up and out. It dumps its load and returns. It’s a dirty,
-dreadful place. Every little while there’s a roar; the ground shakes.
-There’s dynamite blasting to loosen the earth.
-
-Hurry out now; the tunnel may cave in, and you’ll be choked, as were
-several hundred a few years ago.
-
-Here we are outside. See, the ground is two feet deep with the earth
-carted out. They are harrowing it, or the rain is falling upon it. It
-is crumbling fine. Ah! see the shining treasures. But look out! Don’t
-put one into your pocket without permission; you are watched.
-
-Now back we come—in thought. There! have not we had one of the
-brightest New Year’s?
-
-Thus brighten up your imagination and you need not be bothering
-yourself forever with cars and steamboats and ships and seasickness
-and such things to see foreign lands. With a good book of travels or
-newspaper you can just trip over there—to Europe, Asia and Africa—in a
-moment, and see all you can carry back in a few more moments, and be
-home to tea the same day to show (tell) your treasures!
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-ON A VISIT TO GERMANY.
-
-
-HERE we are. It is midwinter—
-
-“In Maine or New Hampshire or Canada, I guess.”
-
-Guess again, you mistaken Pansy.
-
-“Norway, then.”
-
-Nor Norway, but just simply in Germany.
-
-“Such snow-storms in Germany?”
-
-Yes, and that miss with umbrella and fat face trudging on is—
-
-“Fräulein, I dare say. Isn’t that, or something like it, the name of
-all the German girls?”
-
-Wouldn’t that mix things in a family of six girls? Think of a mother
-calling each one Fräulein!
-
-But that girl is no other than Bessie—
-
-“Bessie a German girl? Never heard one called that in all my life.”
-
-Who said she was a German girl? Can’t one be in Germany and not be a
-German? Do you expect to turn into one as soon as you get to—“Sweet
-Bingen on the Rhine,” or Frankfort? Frankfort, once the home of the
-great poet, Goethe, some of whose sayings it may make your dear head
-ache to understand. Frankfort, once a free city, as free from any king
-or great ruler as—the United States is of Mexico; a queer, bright old
-city—
-
-“Bessie! Bessie! what about Bessie? Won’t she be lost in Frankfort? Who
-is she, any how?”
-
-A Pansy, quite likely from Boston, by that name, on a visit to Germany.
-She will spend a few months in Frankfort, studying German and seeing
-the German sights, among them Luther’s house.
-
-“But you do not explain what Bessie is doing out in a Frankfort
-snow-storm.”
-
-Maybe she is after red cheeks; she left Boston looking pale enough.
-Her mamma thought a sea voyage and a few months in France and as many
-more in Germany would color her face again with rose tints as formerly.
-You see how she has improved. Now the Christmas festival of Frankfort
-begins, lasting three days. There will be trees and trees, and so much
-more that paper can hardly hold it or ink write it.
-
-Bessie is on her way to the festival to see the German of it with
-Yankee eyes.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS BULL-TERRIER, “CAMP.”
-
-(_From the painting by Raeburn._)]
-
-
-
-
-A DELIGHTFUL WRITER.
-
-
-[Illustration: STATUE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, IN EDINBURGH.]
-
-WHEN you go to Edinburgh, Scotland—as some day go you may—you must not
-fail to visit one of the finest structures there, the monument of Sir
-Walter Scott.
-
-Before you go it would be well to read some of his charming books:
-Ivanhoe, Old Mortality, Tales of a Grandfather, etc.
-
-The Scottish folks are justly proud of Sir Walter. Few nations have
-produced so delightful a writer. So no wonder this grand monument was
-built. It is a Gothic edifice, the top of the spire of which is two
-hundred feet from the ground. The lower part is open, and here is a
-fine marble statue of Sir Walter, his favorite dog by his side.
-
-Seventy-five thousand dollars have been put into this edifice! Many of
-you would be satisfied with a house costing one thousand. Young Walter
-Scott did not expect to become so great a man when he first took up his
-pen.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-[Illustration: OUT IN A SNOW-STORM.]
-
-
-
-
-A HERO.
-
-
-AT Fort Smith, Ark., is Mrs. Edith M. Degen. She knows a great deal
-about Mr. “In.” If you will write her a letter saying you want to know
-something more about him, and if you will put in your letter a postal
-card addressed to yourself, it will soon get back to you with writing
-on the other side which you will like to read. Try it.
-
-Now this man is really Mr. Lewis F. Hadley of Massachusetts. He has
-been many years among the Indians, studying their Sign Language.
-
-You see the different tribes of Indians have different mouth or spoken
-languages, as do white people. To understand each other’s speech they
-must have an interpreter to give its meaning; but they all seem to have
-about the same sign speech; by using this the different tribes can
-understand each other when they meet.
-
-[Illustration: MR. LEWIS F. HADLEY.]
-
-You know the deaf and dumb talk with their hands. So with the Indians
-of different tribes when they can’t understand each other’s speech.
-
-Here is a specimen of the sign language:
-
-[Illustration: Country west I sit writing.
-
-Morning come I give it firewagon;
-
-go fast; pretty soon you catch it.
-
-Day you catch it you show it
-
-man, woman, all Maybe so give it
-
-money print book many. Printing
-
-done, I show it Indian The same
-
-see it, know it good. Done.
-
-Lightning Afraid Not.]
-
-Well, Mr. Hadley has been mastering these signs, and now, after many
-years’ hard study, you see he can write it.
-
-“What for?”
-
-To spread knowledge among the Indians. To give them the Gospel—the
-blessed good news about the Lord who came and died for them.
-
-“But has not the Bible been put into Indian for them to read, and don’t
-the missionaries preach to them in their own language?”
-
-Yes, indeed; but don’t you see that for each one of the many tribes it
-may be necessary to have just the Bible and missionary that each can
-understand? But if all the tribes now know this one Sign Talk, then all
-can read the Lord’s Prayer, and any other part of the Bible, if put in
-this sign talk. And all the more so because every one can understand a
-thing better if he can see the language as well as hear it.
-
-Now to do this good work Mr. H—— lived among the Indians. He is a
-missionary unlike any other. He has suffered much living as the Indians
-do to learn this language. Read what Mrs. Degen says: “Would you like
-to go out to dine where all the family kneel on an earth floor around
-the tin dish-pan in which the dinner has been cooked, and grab for ‘a
-little white meat,’ or ‘a little dark meat,’ or a ‘little of both, if
-you please’? Would you like to see your fellow diners throw the bones
-they have picked back into the pan? Or would you like to have your food
-brought to you in a wash-basin?”
-
-Now you can see something of what Mr. Hadley bears. He is a hero. You
-can help him. So write to Mrs. Degen.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-HIS GIFT.
-
-
-A LITTLE boy in Russia lay dying. But a few months before he had heard
-of Jesus and his love, and given his heart to that wonderful friend.
-His greatest desire in life was to have other Russian children get
-acquainted with Jesus. He meant when he grew up to be a missionary
-among his people; but God wanted him in heaven. Just before he died he
-called his father, and told him how much he wanted to have the Bible
-sent to people who were not acquainted with Jesus. Said he: “I haven’t
-much money, you know, father, but if you would take what is in my box
-and send it to the house where they print Bibles, I think there might
-be enough to dot the I’s in the name of Christ. I feel sure there must
-be enough to do that in one Bible, and I would like it so much! Will
-you, father?”
-
-You do not need to be told that the father carried out his boy’s last
-directions, and the little purse of money is helping to-day to “dot the
-I’s” in that blessed name.
-
-Surely that little fellow ought to have had engraved upon his
-headstone, “He hath done what he could.”
-
-
-
-
-WORK ENOUGH.
-
-
-SOME years ago—
-
-“Some years ago!” Why, it was as long ago as five times the age of your
-grandpapa—he was eighty, I think—a brave man and a few sailors got into
-a small ship on the coast of Spain, spread its sails, and away westward
-they sped, over the ocean wide and rough with waves. They found America
-at last. Others came. Villages grew up. Still they came.
-
-About this time, three thousand miles away, walked two—
-
-“Lovers, I guess.”
-
-Indeed they did love each other, if that is what you mean. See them in
-the picture of the “Two Missionaries;” were there ever sweeter faces,
-purer and more pitiful? It is because the love of God is shed abroad in
-their hearts. Dress and feathers don’t make beauty so much as a right
-heart, you must know.
-
-These two hearts were walking near the dear old church, and as they
-walked they thought of the sermon the day before about bearing the
-tidings—the Gospel—to the needy. They had heard of America, and their
-hearts bled for the people here.
-
-“And did they go to a seminary, and learn how to teach and preach,
-and get ordained, and get married, and come over here and have a
-Sunday-school and church?”
-
-They left all to follow Jesus—fathers, mothers, everybody, everything,
-“for Jesus’ sake,” for wild America.
-
-“And how did most of the people in America look when they got here?”
-
-How does this creature on the following page look? or that one?
-
-“Now you don’t mean that the Americans then were such objects?”
-
-The very same. And our two sweet, beautiful missionaries came to them
-and learned their language and lived among them, and taught them of the
-true God, and Jesus Christ, the Saviour.
-
-“Did they stay more than a year that way?”
-
-They lived and died among them. Then their children took up the work,
-and they have been carrying it on ever since!
-
-“And what came of it all?”
-
-[Illustration: ONE OF THE FIERCE SAVAGES.]
-
-Why, many of those fierce savages put off their war paint and wild
-ways, and settled down in good homes like nice Christian people,
-with churches and Sunday-schools and ministers of their own. Some
-of them now look almost as sweet as the two sweet faces of the Two
-Missionaries. That’s the way it often works when God puts his grace
-into a rough heart. It really changes the face too into beauty. God can
-make everything beautiful.
-
-“But what about the picture on the next page?”
-
-You mean that queer-looking man going ahead with a child in his arms
-and a big boy by his side?
-
-“It is a family on a journey somewhere.”
-
-The “somewhere” is America. They are peasants (the poor working folks)
-of—Denmark, maybe.
-
-They have heard of America—what a goodly land it is for the poor and
-homeless, and where they can be free to worship God—so they have sold
-the cow and poultry and a few other things, and putting into bundles
-what they have over, and saying a sad good-by to the dear old hut where
-they have always lived, they are on their march to the sea. They will
-soon be aboard the ship, Safety; then, after two months—
-
-“Two months! why, the Teutonic of the White Star Line has just crossed
-the Atlantic in five days, sixteen hours and a few seconds.”
-
-Yes, but this was long ago.
-
-But the two months are gone; they have landed at Castle Garden, New
-York, and now those nine have become ninety thousand. You see, no
-sooner had they got nicely settled upon a little spot of land, and in a
-neat cottage, and two or three cows about them, and a patch of potatoes
-growing near by, when away went a letter back to Denmark to their
-cousins to pack up and come too.
-
-Well, ever since the ships have grown larger and faster, bringing loads
-and loads of peasants, five hundred thousand some years, from almost
-every nation on the other side of the ocean.
-
-[Illustration: ANOTHER TYPE OF SAVAGES.]
-
-“And those two sweet-faced missionaries, did they teach all these low
-people the good ways of God?”
-
-[Illustration: DO YOU THINK THEY LIVE IN A PALACE? (_See “Work
-Enough.”_)]
-
-Yes; they and their children. Don’t you see, they stand for all good
-missionaries whom Jesus sends? They are all beautiful in his eyes.
-Where in the Bible does it say something like “How beautiful upon
-the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that
-publisheth peace, etc?” If beautiful feet, beautiful everything—so
-beautiful that all among whom they go with these tidings become
-beautiful too!
-
-[Illustration: GOING ON A JOURNEY.]
-
-See those children in the opening picture, coming down the road with
-bundles under their arms? Look them over, and say if you think they
-live in a palace, and if they wear silks or furs.
-
-No, no, poor things! a sorry dinner they’ve had. A bed of straw for
-them to-night. But in a few years some cousins in America will send
-them some money; then they will be here, and somehow they must be made
-beautiful as those two sweet-faced ones. Oh! so much work in this land
-for Jesus, to meet these heathen at Castle Garden with the good news
-and make them beautiful. Oh! for more home missionaries. What say you?
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-DOLLIES TO THE FRONT.
-
-
-I CAME across an old paper which told a pretty story that ought not to
-grow old. It was about a “doll’s reception” which a certain Mission
-Band gave. The dollies were lent by the members and their friends, and
-the friends of their friends, until there was a great army of them.
-Then they were arrayed in choice robes and grouped with artistic skill.
-On the piano, under a lovely marriage bell of sweet-smelling flowers,
-were two bridal groups, dressed in satin and old lace regardless of
-expense. The friends of the bride and groom were numerous. Some of them
-were old, appearing in costumes of sixty years before; some were in
-Mother Hubbard dress, and one very large rag doll, with lips made of
-beet juice and eyes of black beads, came to the wedding in the little
-wooden cradle which had belonged to her mother’s grandmother.
-
-There was an “old ladies’” group arranged on a round table, two of
-them dressed in Quaker attire, the others in the sweet old fashion of
-our great-grandmothers. Then there was a babies’ group, and a group of
-children fresh from the schoolroom; there was a German table, a French
-table, and I do not know what all.
-
-One hundred and thirty dolls were lent for the occasion. The
-description of each group was printed in rhyme made by the friends of
-the Band, and from time to time, as a crowd gathered near any of the
-tables, one member stepped forward and recited the descriptive poem.
-Ten cents admission was charged, and the hall was thronged on two
-afternoons. There was not a cent of expense in the entire affair, and
-there was nothing to sell. Over forty dollars were taken in at the
-door, and the Mission Band went home happy in the thought that they and
-their dollies had enriched a certain school in Japan by that amount.
-
-
-
-
-WHAT HAVE I DONE?
-
-
-    I LAY my finger on time’s wrist to score
-      The forward-surging moments as they roll;
-    Each pulse seems quicker than the one before;
-      And lo! my days pile up against my soul
-    As clouds pile up against the golden sun.
-    Alas! what have I done? What have I done?
-
-    I never steep the rosy hours in sleep,
-      Or hide my soul, as in a gloomy crypt;
-    No idle hands into my bosom creep;
-      And yet, as water-drops from house-eaves drip,
-    So, viewless, melt my days, and from me run;
-    Alas! what have I done? What have I done?
-
-    I have not missed the fragrance of the flowers,
-      Or scorned the music of the flowing rills,
-    Whose numerous liquid tongues sing to the hours;
-      Yet rise my days behind me, like the hills
-    Unstayed by light of mighty triumphs won;
-    Alas! what have I done? What have I done?
-
-    Be still, my soul, restrain thy lips from woe!
-      Cease thy lament! for life is but the flower,
-    The fruit comes after death; how can’st thou know
-      The roundness of its form, its depth of power?
-    Death is life’s morning. When thy work’s begun,
-    Then ask thyself—what yet is to be done?
-                    LILLIAN BLANCHE FEARING,
-                        _In Home Mission Monthly._
-
-
-
-
-WHEN ST. CHRYSOSTOM PRAYED.
-
-
-    ’TWAS not enough to kneel in prayer,
-      And pur his very soul away
-      In fervid wrestlings, night and day,
-    For those who owned his shepherd care;
-    But faith and works went hand in hand,
-      As test of each petition made,
-    And saints were helped throughout the land
-      When St. Chrysostom prayed.
-
-    Within the closet where he knelt
-      A box of Bethlehem’s olive wood—
-      “For Christ” engraved upon it—stood;
-    And ever as he daily felt
-    The pressure of the church’s need,
-      Therein the daily gift was laid;
-    For word had instant proof of deed
-      When St. Chrysostom prayed.
-
-    Beneath his folded hands he placed
-      Whatever gold was his; and when
-      He travailed for the souls of men,
-    So long by pagan rites debased,
-    The more he agonized, the more
-      The burden on his spirit weighed;
-    And piece by piece went all his store
-      When St. Chrysostom prayed.
-
-    O, golden mother! let this thine alms
-      Rouse us to shame who daily bow
-      Within our sacred places now,
-    With outstretched yet with empty palms!
-    We supplicate indeed; but has
-      Our faith brought answering works to aid?
-    Have words by deeds been proven, as
-      When St. Chrysostom prayed?
-                    MARGARET J. PRESTON,
-                             _in Missionary World._
-
-
-
-
-PUT TO SHAME.
-
-
-THEY were sitting in the window-seat, Magdalene and Mabel, busy with
-their work, and talking. “The Mission Band meets this week, you know,”
-said Mabel.
-
-“I know it,” Magdalene said, with a scowl on her face; “I’ve got to go,
-I suppose, but I don’t want to a bit; I haven’t any money to spare to
-give; I’m not going to give but a cent, anyhow, I just can’t afford it.
-Isn’t this blue silk sash lovely, Mabel? It just fits my dollie’s eyes.
-It was horridly expensive; I had to give twenty cents just for this
-little piece.”
-
-“Nell is going to Mission Band,” said that small woman from the carpet,
-where she played with her dollie. “Nell knows all about it; mamma told
-her. Nell doesn’t want to be a selfish little girl and not give to the
-heathens; Nell is going to give her bestest thing.”
-
-Magdalene nudged her friend’s elbow to call attention to what her
-darling little sister was saying, and the two listened.
-
-“What are you going to give, Pet?” asked Magdalene at last, as the baby
-voice ceased its talking.
-
-The little girl looked up with surprised eyes; she had not supposed
-anybody was paying attention to her.
-
-“What are you going to give to the Mission Band for the heathens?”
-
-“I’m going to give my bestest thing,” said the baby, with sweet
-gravity; “I shall give my wubber dollie, that I love.”
-
-Mabel laughed, but Magdalene looked sober. Nobody understood better
-than she how the “wubber dollie” was loved, and she knew that Baby Nell
-meant what she said.
-
-“I think I will give my twenty-five cents, after all,” she said, after
-a moment’s silence, “and let my doll go without a fur cape; there is a
-lovely fur cape for sale at the doll store for twenty-five cents, and I
-meant to have it; but I believe I won’t.”
-
-“You want to match Nell’s ‘wubber dollie,’” said Mabel, with a
-good-natured laugh; “but I don’t believe you can.”
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-SOME summer day you may be in Saratoga, N. Y. Among other sights you
-may see Indian encampments. Thither they come to sell their curious
-manufactures—bows, arrows, bead bags and many other queer things.
-
-The squaws (women) will be among them, dressed as Indian women have
-always dressed, but hardly so well as “Teweelema.”
-
-[Illustration: TEWEELEMA.]
-
-If you wish to see her you can now find her on her goodly farm near
-Lakeville, Mass., or traveling among the neighboring villages selling
-her wares—moccasins, necklaces of shells and beads, etc. She can chop a
-tree down or spade up the ground, and do almost any man’s work. She and
-her sister manage the farm. Her name is Wootonekanuske.
-
-At Oneida, N. Y., you may always see a few Indian women on the cars or
-at the station, looking something like Teweelema.
-
-But in a few more years there may not be any Indians left east of the
-Mississippi River. The Gospel is now among them, and maybe you will
-never again read of so fierce a warrior as Sitting-Bull or King Philip,
-Teweelema’s great, great, greatest grandfather.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-[Illustration: EVERYTHING IS GAY AND HAPPY.]
-
-
-
-
-CARL HAMMOND’S LESSON.
-
-
-FOR a boy who was usually happy, Carl Hammond certainly spent a very
-uncomfortable winter. It is true it was his first away from home, and
-some people thought he was young to be sent from home, but that was not
-the trouble. He was with Aunt Mary, which was almost the same as being
-with mother; and the schools where Aunt Mary lived were so much better
-than at Carl’s own home, that his mother had made the sacrifice, and
-sent him away.
-
-His unhappiness had to do with a certain September day which was as
-bright and beautiful as a sunny day in early autumn can be. Carl
-remembered every little thing about that afternoon—just how his
-father’s desk looked, and what books were piled on the table at its
-left, and above all, just how Bunce looked when he bounded in at the
-window. He was writing to Aunt Mary then, he remembered, telling her on
-what train to expect him, and he had held the pen in hand and turned to
-laugh at Bunce because he was so ridiculously glad over having found
-him. He had leaned over and patted the dog’s eager head, and had asked
-him how he was going to manage to get along without his playmate all
-winter; and Bunce had begun to run around his chair in that absurd
-fashion he had when especially pleased, and had bumped against the
-table just as Carl had shouted to him to “take care!” The shout came
-too late. Bunce succeeded in jostling the table, so that a ponderous
-book set too near the edge tumbled off, taking the great cut-glass
-inkstand with it, and the contents of that dreadful inkstand spread
-itself not only over the costly book, but the handsome carpet as well.
-If it had happened but the day before, Carl could not have remembered
-every little particular more vividly.
-
-Especially what followed; there is no denying that Carl was very much
-frightened. It seems a strange thing to say, but the truth is, he was
-not very well acquainted with his father. Mr. Hammond was connected
-with a business firm which sent him every year, and sometimes two or
-three times a year, to Europe; and between times he had to go South
-and West, and Carl hardly knew where else, on business; so that he
-was not often at home for many days together, and when there, was so
-crowded with business as to have little leisure for his family. Carl
-had once complained that whenever his father was at home for an hour or
-two it was always after he had gone to bed. Perhaps on this account he
-was the more frightened; for his father had great respect for books,
-and was particularly careful of the large one that Bunce had ruined.
-Carl could seem to hear his quick firm voice giving directions:
-
-“Remember, my son, you are on no account to allow Bunce in the study;
-he is a dangerous fellow in such a place; he can hardly move without
-doing injury. Be careful always to close the sash window when you go
-there, lest he might follow you.” And Carl had been in the study on the
-day in question for a half hour, with the sash window wide open. Not
-that he had forgotten, but he believed Bunce to be a mile away taking a
-walk with his young mistress; and he said to himself: “It is very much
-pleasanter with the window open, and of course papa does not care when
-Bunce is away.” As if Bunce could not return at any moment! which he
-presently did. Even then Carl might have ordered him instantly out and
-closed the sash, but the dear fellow was so absurdly glad to see him,
-and ran around in such a funny fashion to show his joy that it seemed
-too bad to dismiss him at once. Therefore the result which I have given
-you.
-
-But this was not the end of the story. Carl arose in great alarm, and
-without even attempting to repair damages, which indeed would have been
-beyond his skill, made all haste from the room, taking Bunce with him
-and closing the sash window carefully. Then, an hour afterwards, when
-his father’s stern voice questioned: “Carl, do you know anything about
-the accident in the study?” What did Carl do but ask: “What accident,
-sir?”
-
-“The overturning and breaking of the large inkstand and the spoiling of
-a very valuable book. Did you have anything to do with it?”
-
-“No, sir,” said Carl; “I had not.”
-
-The poor fellow told his conscience that he really did not have a
-thing to do with it, that the dog did all the mischief while he sat
-perfectly still, and that his father was the one who had left the book
-open on the table so dangerously near the edge. But his conscience had
-been better taught than that, and would have nothing to do with such
-flimsiness. It told him plainly before he slept that night, that the
-name of such talk, in plain English, was lying!
-
-Nobody questioned Carl further; his friends were in the habit of
-believing his word, and his father had been almost immediately
-called away by a telegram, so that indeed there had been no time to
-investigate. Two days afterwards, Carl himself left home. Now you know
-why his winter had been uncomfortable. The simple truth was, that
-he was an honorable, truth-loving boy, who had been astonished and
-dismayed at himself for telling what was not true, and who could not
-help despising himself for it. Moreover, he knew that if there was
-one sin more than another which his father hated with all his earnest
-nature, it was the sin of lying.
-
-It may be surprising to think that a boy like Carl should be half the
-winter making up his mind to tell the exact truth; nevertheless such
-was the case. The longer he put it off, the more impossible it seemed
-to him to write to his father and explain his share in the mischief.
-But at last, one snowy winter day, only two weeks before the holidays,
-he did it. He felt better as soon as the letter was mailed. He told
-himself that no matter what his father said in reply, he knew he had at
-last done right, and should be glad over it. Still he watched for the
-home letter more anxiously than ever before. It was from his mother,
-with a little note enclosed, for Carl’s private reading, from his
-father.
-
-“A fellow couldn’t have a better letter,” said Carl, wiping his eyes,
-and feeling a warm glow in his heart for the dear father who had been
-so kind and gentle, and yet honest and plain-spoken. Less than a
-week afterwards, Carl was on his way home. His mind was in a strange
-confusion as the train neared the home station. He could not help
-feeling just a little sorry that his father was at home. “Of course
-he will punish me,” thought the poor fellow. “I suppose he must; he
-always punishes disobedience. What if he should not let me see mother
-to-night! Or perhaps he will not let me go to Grandma’s with the family
-to-morrow. I’d most rather he would whip me, and perhaps he will!”
-
-Over this thought the twelve-year-old boy’s heart almost stood still.
-His father had not often punished him in this way, but on the very
-rare occasions when it had to be done, it was managed in such a manner
-that Carl distinctly remembered it. By the time the train ran into
-the station he had succeeded in working himself up to such a pitch
-of excitement that he was almost tempted to run away, to avoid the
-disgrace of this home-coming. But his father was there, waiting.
-
-“Here’s my boy!” Carl heard him say, and in a minute more the father’s
-arms were around him, and the father’s kiss was on his cheeks. Mother
-was waiting in the carriage, and not a word during the quick ride home,
-nor at the joyous supper table afterwards, was said to him about his
-fault. They went to Grandma’s the next day in great happiness, and
-the next day they went to Uncle Will’s. “I am having a holiday,” his
-father explained, “in honor of my boy’s home-coming. I am taking a
-longer vacation from business than I have had before in two years.” The
-days passed, and not a word was said to Carl about his disobedience
-and falseness. Nobody could be kinder or more thoughtful for his
-comfort and pleasure than his father, yet Carl could not help wondering
-when and how his punishment was to come. At last, one evening, when
-they were alone together for a few minutes, he resolved to discover.
-“Father,” he said, and his voice trembled a little, “when are you going
-to punish me?”
-
-His father turned astonished eyes upon him. “Punish you, my dear boy!
-For what?”
-
-Carl’s cheeks were very red. “Why, father, don’t you know—surely you
-remember? I wrote about it.”
-
-“But surely, my boy, I wrote you about it! Did I not tell you I forgave
-you utterly?”
-
-“O, yes, sir! but then I thought—that you would think”—Carl stopped in
-confusion.
-
-“You thought I must remember the sin, and punish the sinner, even
-though I had forgiven him? Is that it?”
-
-“Yes, sir,” said Carl, low-voiced and troubled.
-
-“No,” said Mr. Hammond, and Carl noticed how tender his voice was;
-“I do not remember anything about it in the sense which you mean. Do
-you remember my telling you once that God meant fathers to be object
-lessons to their children, giving them some faint idea, at least, of
-what kind of a father God would be to those who trusted him?”
-
-“Yes, sir,” said Carl.
-
-“Very well, then, here on this card, which I would like you to keep in
-your Bible, is my answer to your question.”
-
-The card was a lovely blue celluloid, and had printed on it in gold
-letters, the words, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember
-their sin no more.”
-
-One evening, when Carl was twenty years old, he repeated that verse
-in a Christian Endeavor prayer meeting, and said that his father’s
-commentary on it had made him understand it. Then he told, in brief,
-the story which I have given you.
-
-                                                 MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-[Illustration: HE REMEMBERED JUST HOW BUNCE LOOKED.]
-
-[Illustration: THE STATE HOUSE AT BOSTON.]
-
-
-
-
-HOWARD’S WAY.
-
-(_Character Studies._)
-
-
-THEY were all in the library after dinner, and were all talking at
-once, as the Edwards family were inclined to be. “I don’t see why
-we always have so much more to say than other people seem to,” Lora
-Edwards had once remarked, setting them all into shouts of laughter.
-Howard was not talking; his head was bent low over a Latin dictionary.
-They were waiting for some of the family, because they always gathered
-at this hour in the library for evening prayers; but Howard, while he
-waited, saved the minutes, remembering the hard lesson of the morning,
-and the liability to be interrupted in his study hour.
-
-The back parlor door was pushed open and Uncle Edward’s handsome form
-appeared. “Where is Ashman Square?” he inquired.
-
-Several voices at once attempted to answer him. “It is just off of
-Second Street,” said Lora. And Emma in the same breath said, “It is
-over by the river somewhere; near Park Street, isn’t it?” Then Dickie,
-“Why, Lora, it can’t be near Second Street, because Wyeth Avenue runs
-in there.”
-
-“No, it doesn’t; Wyeth Avenue crosses at Third Street.”
-
-Then exclamations from at least four: “Why, Lora Edwards! Wyeth Avenue
-isn’t near Third Street. I think Ashman Square is down by the Lincoln
-Statue; isn’t it, papa?”
-
-“I am sure I don’t know,” said papa, who just then entered the room.
-“The city changes so rapidly and adds so many fancy names that I cannot
-keep track of it. Who wants to know—Edward? There is a map about
-somewhere. I shouldn’t wonder if Ashman Square was down near the old
-Ashman place, towards the river.”
-
-“There!” said Emma, “I was sure it was near the river.”
-
-“But the river is quite a stream, my dear niece,” Uncle Edward said,
-smiling.
-
-“Yes; but Ashman Square is not very far down; it is near the Westfield
-car line.”
-
-Then a perfect babel of voices ensued.
-
-“O, Emma, no!”
-
-“Emma Edwards! it is a quarter of a mile from the Eastman line, I am
-certain.”
-
-“I don’t think Ashman Square is on this side at all; I think you are
-all confused.”
-
-“Yes, it is; I pass it every day, but I don’t remember on which side
-of the avenue it is. I go down one way and come up another, and so get
-things mixed.”
-
-“I don’t think any of you know much about it,” said Uncle Edward, and
-this time he laughed. Several voices began again in eager disclaimer,
-but Father Edwards silenced them: “See here, children, we must have
-prayers at once; I have an important engagement at seven. Afterwards,
-one of you can find a map and settle your discussion.”
-
-Lora struck the chord and the entire family joined in:
-
-    “While Thee I seek, protecting Power,
-    Be my vain wishes stilled.”
-
-In the momentary lull which there was as they rose from their knees,
-Howard spoke, for the first time that evening.
-
-“Uncle Edward.”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“About Ashman Square—do you know where the Station D post-office is?”
-
-“Perfectly.”
-
-“Well, Ashman Square begins two blocks east of that.”
-
-“So it does!” declared Lora; “why in the world didn’t some of us think
-of the post-office? that would have located it.”
-
-“I never noticed how near it was to the post-office,” said Emma. “What
-I would like to know is, why Howard did not speak before, and save us
-all this talk.”
-
-“Sure enough!” said Dickie. “Did you find the answer to that conundrum
-in your Latin dictionary? Why didn’t you look up, old fellow, and join
-the colloquy?”
-
-“Couldn’t get a chance,” said Howard, with a good-natured smile; “you
-all had a great deal to say, and were bent on saying it, all at once;
-I thought I would keep still until the shower was over, and in the
-meantime a grain of fact might be evolved out of it; but there wasn’t.”
-
-“Howard always waits until there is clear sailing,” said Lora. “I’ve
-noticed that he is the only one in our family who isn’t apparently
-burning to speak at the same moment when some one else is.”
-
-“And when he does speak it is to the point,” said Uncle Edward. “Much
-obliged, my boy; you have saved me a bewildering tramp in the effort to
-follow the directions of these voluble young ladies.”
-
-                                                 MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-ABOUT BOSTON.
-
-BY THE PANSIES.
-
-
-MAMMA told me why it was named Boston. There was once in old England
-a man so good and kind to sailors, and to people in distress on the
-water, that he was named St. Botolph, because the word “Botolph” is
-made from two words, which mean boat help. After a while the word
-“Boston” grew out of the name, and the place where this man had lived
-and died was called so. And Boston in New England was named for it.
-
-                                                 LUCY STEVENSON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I SAW a picture of the first house that was ever built in Boston. It is
-very homely. There are only a few windows, and one door, I think; and
-it looks like some of the log cabins of the West. A man named William
-Blackstone lived in this house all alone. It was built on a hill, and
-the place where it stood is now part of a handsome street in Boston.
-But the town was not called Boston when William Blackstone lived there;
-it was Shawmut.
-
-                                                 WILLIAM BLAKE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THEY used to have very strict laws in Boston about the Sabbath. From
-Saturday at midnight until six o’clock on Sunday evening no hired
-carriage could leave or enter the city, and during the hours of public
-service no wagon of any sort was allowed to move through the streets
-faster than a walk. Soon after the laws against using the bath-houses
-on Sunday were made, a person who thought himself witty had printed in
-the paper the following rhyme:
-
-    “In superstition’s day, ’tis said,
-      Hens laid two eggs on Monday;
-    Because a hen would lose her head
-      Who laid an egg on Sunday.
-    Now our wise rulers and the law
-      Say none shall wash on Sunday,
-    So Boston folks must dirty go,
-      And wash them twice on Monday!”
-                      REUBEN S. BENTON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I READ about a town meeting which was held in Boston in 1789, in which
-they voted that there should be “One writing school at the south part
-of the town, one at the center, and one at the north part; and that in
-these schools the children of both sexes shall be taught writing, and
-also arithmetic in its various branches, including vulgar and decimal
-fractions.”
-
-Another law passed at the same meeting was, that there should be “A
-reading school in the north part of the town and one in the south
-part, and that the children of both sexes should be taught to spell,
-accent and read, both prose and verse.” Girls were allowed to attend
-these schools only half the year—from April to October—but boys could
-go in winter. This latter rule was changed in 1828, and the girls were
-allowed to attend through the year until they were sixteen; boys could
-attend only until they were fourteen. The Bible was the only reader
-then in use.
-
-                                                 HELEN WESTOVER.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I WENT to Boston once to visit my grandfather, and he took me to lots
-of places, and showed me the picture of Ann Pollard; she lived to be a
-hundred and five years old, and she was the first to jump from the boat
-when the colonists came over from Charlestown; she was only ten years
-old then, and she gave a spring from the boat just as it was touching
-the shore, and landed. Grandfather showed her to me, and told me about
-her, because my name is Annie Pollard, and he said I had a little of
-the spunk of my old ancestor.
-
-                                                 ANNIE POLLARD.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-WE have been studying in school about John Hancock and his times, and
-our teacher told us about his wife’s breakfast party at the old Hancock
-House. It was in 1778, and a French fleet came into Boston harbor.
-Governor Hancock proposed that the officers be invited to breakfast;
-so his wife had her table set for thirty officers, and instead all
-the under officers of the fleet came also—a hundred and twenty more
-than were expected! Mrs. Hancock must have been in a panic for a few
-minutes, but she got out of her difficulties. First, she ordered all
-the cows on the Common milked, and the milk brought to her; then she
-sent among her friends and borrowed cakes and other things to help out,
-and gave them all a very nice breakfast.
-
-[Illustration: THE HANCOCK HOUSE.]
-
-The French count who commanded the fleet was very much pleased, and
-invited the governor and his wife to visit his fleet and bring their
-friends. This was Mrs. Hancock’s chance to be politely revenged upon
-him for bringing so many people to breakfast; she invited five hundred
-friends to go with her to the fleet! But they were politely received
-and entertained elegantly.
-
-                                                 FANNIE BROOKS.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-WE have a picture in our library of the old Hancock House. It isn’t
-much of a house as those things go nowadays, but when Governor Hancock
-lived there I suppose it looked fine. I like old John Hancock; it is
-great fun to read about him. Of course it was all nonsense for him
-to think that Washington ought to call on him first, that time when
-Washington went to Boston to visit in 1789, but for all that I think
-it was awfully cute, the way in which Hancock finally backed down. He
-had the gout, you know, so he did himself up in flannel and had his men
-carry him on their shoulders to call on Washington. If he had got to
-make the first call he meant to do it in state, and he did.
-
-                                                 JOHN STUART WINTHROP.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-WHEN I was just eight years old, my father spent a week in Boston with
-me, and showed me the Museum, the Navy Yard, the School for the Blind
-(I remember Laura Bridgman), the Idiot School, etc. He took me to the
-top of Bunker Hill Monument; I remember I counted the two hundred and
-ninety-seven steps. Not every father thinks that a child of eight
-could appreciate such things. Many and many a time since then, have
-I thanked my father for helping me to enjoy the remembrance of things
-which I never expect to see again. During that visit to Boston a boy
-ten years old took from my grandfather’s library a copy of one of
-the “Jonas” books which he coveted. The book was never missed, but
-twenty years afterwards the boy returned it with compound interest and
-apologies; his heart had never been at rest about it.
-
-                                             MRS. OLIVIA C. WARNE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY father was in Boston when the statue of John Winthrop was unveiled;
-he walked in that great procession, and heard the speech made in the
-Old South Church. I have been to Boston myself, and walked around that
-very statue. It is in Scollay Square. Governor Winthrop is dressed just
-as they used to dress in his time; he has a Bible in one hand, and a
-copy of the king’s charter in the other. There is a carved rope wound
-around a carved tree which stands for the ship that brought him over. I
-went to the beautiful State House, too. It is the one which was begun
-in Governor Hancock’s pasture! But it does not look much like a pasture
-where it stands now.
-
-                                               HARRY WESTFIELD.
-
-[Illustration: THE STATUE OF WINTHROP.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-ONCE I went to the old North Church in Boston. I went up the tower to
-the steeple, where General Gage stood and watched Charlestown burn.
-On the steeple is the date “1723.” The chime of bells on this church
-are just lovely! I heard them play. One of them has on it these words:
-“We are the first ring of bells cast for the British Empire in North
-America.” Another bell says: “Since generosity has opened our mouths,
-our tongues shall ring aloud its praise.” Inside the church are some
-queer wooden angels. The pews are very old-fashioned. The Bible in
-the desk was the one that George the Second gave to the church. After
-making this visit I learned “Paul Revere” and recited it at school; you
-know the signal lights which warned him shone from the steeple of the
-Old North.
-
-                                               MARY WINTHROP SMITH.
-
-[Illustration: THE OLD NORTH CHURCH.]
-
-    [For want of space, we must bring this very interesting
-    bit of history about old Boston to a close. It is
-    certainly not for want of material that we do so, and
-    our hearty thanks are due the Pansies and their friends
-    for the letters full of interesting items which have
-    come to us. It is noticeable that the young people of
-    to-day are interested in Boston’s past, which is a wise
-    thing, for its history is full of suggestion for the
-    future.
-
-    We earnestly hope that the city which we take up next,
-    viz.: Washington, D. C., may call out as many items of
-    interest from the young people.—EDITORS THE PANSY.]
-
-
-
-
-MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
-
-
-IF Bose and Fido and Sport and the rest will keep still long enough,
-I will tell you some things about myself which I should like you to
-remember.
-
-I am growing old pretty fast, and if I had not the kindest master in
-the world I would stand a slim chance.
-
-My smelling is good yet, and things taste nice enough, but my teeth
-are nearly gone. Bones which once would have been a luxury, now do me
-little good. The best I can do is to lap off a little of the meat and
-grease.
-
-Yes, I can bark loud enough yet, but it vexes me terribly when I see
-the cattle in the field where they do not belong, or some wicked boys
-in the orchard stealing apples, to know that about all I can do is to
-bark.
-
-I do not pretend that I have been a perfect dog, but I have had a great
-deal of experience in my day, and am not without the hope that you,
-my young friends, may profit by what I have seen and heard and felt
-myself, and known in the lives of others.
-
-No, I shall not try to tell it all to-day; I have no wish to bore you
-with “long yarns,” as the sailors say. Besides, there would not be time
-before Fido might be wanted to go with his mistress across the pasture
-when she takes that beef tea to Willie Jones. She never seems afraid
-with her pet along. Bose, too, will be wanted to drive home the cows;
-so I will tell you only a little to-day, and more another time.
-
-Where I was born I really do not know, but I am inclined to think it
-was a great way from here, perhaps in another country; we will never
-know, I suppose, though it seems to me it must be nice to know where
-one came into the world, and what kind of father and mother he had.
-But, dear me, I have seen some dogs, and folks too, who would have been
-happier if they had never known their parents!
-
-I can just remember seeing my mother once. I think she must have been
-beautiful. The man who took me away from her often said in my hearing
-that I had her hair and eyes.
-
-I can remember how mother cried when they carried me away. I had never
-seen her cry before, and though I was awfully frightened, yet I felt
-sorry for her.
-
-I was petted enough, and had plenty to eat, but the journey was long,
-and shut up in that little box I was dreadfully lonesome.
-
-But finally we reached home; then I had a warm bed, and a nice place;
-but some nights I was terribly scared there in the dark all alone. The
-boys had a pet donkey, and the first night I was there that fellow made
-his horrid bray. My! I thought I should die with fright. Well, when I
-had got a little used to the donkey, what should I hear in the tree
-over my head but a horrid “To hoo! to who?”
-
-Yes, Sport, you may wag your tail and laugh; you know “who,” for you
-are a full-grown dog, and know all about the great staring owl, but
-with me it was a different matter.
-
-As I remarked before, I think, my master was kind, and so was mistress,
-and they had no very small children to torment a little pup. Their
-little girl was so sweet and kind, it was always a pleasure to kiss her
-soft cheek; I do not believe she ever had any nice thing to eat that
-she did not wish to share with me.
-
-Her brother was a noble fellow, too. Not always so thoughtful as his
-sister, and sometimes pretty rough; but so long as he did not mean to
-be ugly and hurt me, I could bear it.
-
-The worst, I remember, was when their cousins and some of the
-neighbors’ children would come for the afternoon on a visit.
-
-At first I was glad to see so many little children, but I soon found
-that all children had not such sweet dispositions as my master’s, or
-else their parents had not taught them so carefully.
-
-We all ran and romped, and for a time it was jolly enough; but when my
-young master and mistress were out of sight, one of those rough boys
-would do something to torment me. He pulled my ears and my tail; once
-he boxed my ears so hard that I cried right out.
-
-Then they put me on that donkey’s back, and while I was held there, the
-creature made one of those dreadful noises! Then I cried so loud my
-little mistress came and took me away.
-
-Once I was so frightened by those rude children that I hid under the
-barn. I could hear them call my name and whistle for me, but I did not
-mean to come out till the children had gone.
-
-It seemed a long time, but they finally went—I mean the visitors—and
-then I was only too ready to get out, for it was growing pretty dark
-where I was.
-
-We were all very much frightened, but when master came home he took a
-big iron bar and pried a stone out, and made a hole big enough for me
-to crawl through as easy as need be.
-
-I cannot make myself believe that those children remembered with
-pleasure what they had done to me that day. They never looked sweet and
-happy like little Lucy and her brother.
-
-I long ago came to the conclusion that if one would be happy he must
-try to make others so; and I do not believe it makes much difference
-whether he walks upon two legs or four.
-
-Another thing, I believe one’s usefulness depends very much upon
-whether he keeps his eyes open or not. Why, one does not need to be
-a full-grown dog to be able to make himself useful, and so thought a
-great deal of.
-
-Take my case, for example: As I was saying, even when I was quite small
-the hired man used to take me when he went after the cows at night.
-
-I suppose this was to give me the pleasure of a run in the pasture;
-they took old Sport along to do the work of driving. He, poor fellow,
-was getting pretty old, and could not run fast; but he was a good dog,
-and was well educated.
-
-I did not at first understand how he could know so much—how he could
-tell the oxen from the cows, and the cows from the steers; and when
-there were other cattle mixed up with our master’s, on the road or
-anywhere, how he could know which ones to drive in, and which to leave
-or drive away.
-
-One day as we were waiting for the hired man to fix a little place in
-the fence, Sport said something that astonished me greatly.
-
-I think I had been saying how I wished I knew as much as he, and could
-do what he did. Then he gave me this hint. Said he, “I think our good
-master is planning to have you take my place in a few months. Soon I
-shall not be able to do the work, and if you watch out you will be able
-to do all that I have done. Even now,” said he, “you are beginning to
-save me a great many steps by starting up the cattle which are lagging
-behind, or that get out of the way.”
-
-I shall never forget how pleased I was. I almost felt like another
-dog, and was so glad to think that I could do anything worth any one’s
-notice. I feel sure it was a great help to me to have him speak like
-that, and cannot but think that a great many others might be encouraged
-in the same way.
-
-Proud little puppy that I was, I almost split my throat barking at the
-cattle that afternoon, and was much pleased to see that I could help.
-
-[Illustration: OLD MAJOR.]
-
-Well, it was not many weeks after that, when one day the hired man went
-off fishing, and the master was all alone at home. It was late in the
-afternoon, and he was resting upon the front steps, looking very tired,
-for he was not well. I remember I had been wishing for the time to come
-when I could do something, and would be big enough to watch things. You
-see the fishing party had taken Sport with them to watch the wagon. I
-was thought too young to be taken off so far.
-
-I had felt pretty sober all the morning, but the master had spoken very
-kindly to me several times, and while sitting there had called me to
-him and patted my head, and called me a nice little fellow. Finally he
-looked up from the paper he had been reading and said, “Well, Major, it
-is about time to go for the cows.”
-
-“Now is your chance,” I said to myself, and off over the big stone wall
-I went. About the only thing I feared was that he would call me back,
-but he seemed too much surprised for that; so I ran away as fast as my
-four feet could carry me.
-
-I did not know so well then where to look for the cows, but scampered
-around so fast that I soon caught sight of them and quickly had the
-whole lot on their way to the yard.
-
-My only mistake was in doing my job too well, for I drove up the oxen
-and steers and yearlings as well as the cows.
-
-When I had them all near the gate then I barked as hard as I could, and
-the master came and let down the bars, and drove in the cows and let
-the others go back.
-
-Then I remembered how it was generally done, and felt much ashamed of
-my blunder. But master called me to him and petted me, and told me I
-had been a good fellow. Then late in the evening, when the others came
-home, he told them how I had surprised him by driving up the cows, and
-never said a word about my mistake in driving up the other cattle. I
-think that was so kind of him! I know a great many who would have been
-either so thoughtless or unkind as to have made fun of a youngster’s
-little blunder when trying to do his best. But he was not that kind of
-a man. You may be sure I never made that mistake again.
-
-Then old Sport came over to my kennel, and congratulated me heartily
-on driving up the cows. All I could do was to thank him, and tell him
-it was because of the way he had encouraged me, helping me to think I
-might do something.
-
-There have been many changes in farming since I can remember, but the
-cows have to be got and milked just as ever, only there seem to be more
-of them, and so I must not keep you any longer this time.
-
-                                                        R.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-[Illustration: OUR GRANDPARENTS AT SCHOOL.]
-
-[Illustration: MAKING THE DUST FLY.]
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-A HAPPY LITTLE GIRL.
-
-
-BESSIE has good times. She lives in the country where the hills are
-white with snow.
-
-Every morning after breakfast she puts on her long cloak and her warm
-hood and mittens, and goes to school with her brothers. The schoolhouse
-is half a mile away, but she loves to go.
-
-[Illustration: BESSIE GIVES CARLO A RIDE.]
-
-Sometimes she runs and draws her sled. It is a new one, painted red,
-and is one of her Christmas presents.
-
-Sometimes she sits on the sled, and her brothers give her a nice ride.
-They play they are ponies, and run very fast. Then Bessie shouts and
-laughs, and is happy.
-
-Their home is in that little house beyond the hill. You can see the
-roof, and the smoke curling up from the chimney.
-
-They are on their way home from school now.
-
-Just as they got to the top of the hill Carlo came to meet them. He
-wagged his tail and licked Bessie’s hand, he was so glad to see her,
-for Carlo gets lonely without playmates all day.
-
-The boys saw a rabbit run through the fence, and they went up to watch
-for it.
-
-“Carlo shall have a ride,” said Bessie. So she took him in her arms and
-got upon the sled at the top of the hill.
-
-She gave it a little push, and away they went, whiz! down the long hill
-so swiftly and smoothly. Oh! it was good fun.
-
-Two more rides they took, then Charlie picked up the bag and said,
-“Come, Bess.”
-
-When they get home mamma will have a nice warm supper ready for them.
-
-After that they will go out and ride down hill until dark.
-
-                                               MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-
-
-
-THE SAND MAN.
-
-
-    EACH night a man goes round our town,
-      And into eyes of blue and brown,
-    He sprinkles, with a careful hand,
-      The finest, softest grains of sand.
-
-    Then as sweet blossoms close at night,
-      O’er shining eyes fall curtains white;
-    For all these precious grains of sand
-      Are gathered up in Slumber Land.
-
-    ’Tis there the peaceful river gleams
-      Where children sail in happy dreams;
-    The Sand Man takes them in his boat,
-      So off my little pet must float.
-                      MYRA GOODWIN PLANTZ.
-
-[Illustration: TEDDY AND MARGARET CLIMBED INTO THE STRANGE WAGON.]
-
-
-
-
-“IF I ONLY HADN’T!”
-
-
-NOBODY could have started out with better intentions than did Teddy
-Brockway that bright spring morning. It is true it was only March, but
-Teddy lived so far South that the month of March meant spring; he was
-dressed in a neat spring suit, had his little sister Margaret by the
-hand, and Sally Amelia, her dollie, under his special care, and was
-started for a trip all by themselves to old Auntie Blaikslee’s, almost
-a half-mile away!
-
-“Aren’t you afraid to let those two babies go off alone?” Grandmamma
-asked, looking up from her knitting with a somewhat troubled face.
-
-Mrs. Brockway smiled as she answered: “O, no! what could harm them?
-Teddy knows every foot of the way as well as I do, and every neighbor
-along the road; and everybody knows him. Besides, he is seven years
-old, and I must begin to trust him.” However, she went to the door and
-called after them: “Remember, Teddy, I trust Margaret to you. It isn’t
-every little boy of your age who can be depended upon to take care of
-his sister. And, Teddy, remember you are not to ride with any strange
-person who may ask you.”
-
-“Course not!” said Teddy, with dignity; “not unless he is Uncle Ben or
-Deacon West. I can ride with Deacon West—can’t we, muvver?”
-
-“O, yes!” said Mrs. Brockway, smiling. “He is not much more likely to
-meet Deacon West on this road than he is to meet the man in the moon,”
-she said laughingly to grandma, “but he has to provide for all the
-possibilities.”
-
-Two hours afterwards Teddy and Margaret, with Sally Amelia somewhat
-the worse for being handled by all the grandchildren of old Auntie
-Blaikslee, were trudging back in triumph. The errand entrusted to them
-had been carefully done, and Teddy had said over the message he was to
-give his mother until he knew it by heart, and had bravely resisted
-two invitations from good-natured teamsters to have a ride. He was
-almost within sight of the corner where they turned into their own
-grounds, and Margaret had been good and minded beautifully. Truth to
-tell, Teddy’s heart was swelling with importance; he had never before
-been sent on so long a trip with only Margaret for company. He felt at
-least ten years old. At the top of the hill he came to a halt. There,
-just in front of them, jogging comfortably along, was Jake Winchell,
-Judge Aker’s hired man. Everybody knew Jake and his old horse and cart,
-but nobody, or at least Teddy, had ever happened to meet him in that
-direction before; his road always lay the other way.
-
-“Halloo!” he said, getting out to fix something about the harness, and
-spying the children as he did so, “here’s luck; an almost empty cart
-and two nice passengers to have a ride in it down the hill. Don’t you
-want to jump in?”
-
-Teddy never wanted anything worse. For a small minute he hesitated.
-What was that “muvver” had said? “You are not to ride with any strange
-person who may ask you.” “Course not!” said Teddy again, indignant with
-himself; “just as though Jake was a strange person.” But even while his
-heart said the words, a voice away down deep contradicted it: “Teddy
-Brockway, don’t you know she meant anybody you are not used to riding
-with? And you never had a ride with Jake.”
-
-“What of that?” said Teddy’s other thought, still impatiently; “that’s
-because he never comes the way we live; but I’ve talked with him, and
-muvver said she thought he was kind to boys, and patient with them,
-and everything. Just as if she would care for Margaret and me to ride
-down hill to the gate! We’re most there; and it is a bad hard hill for
-Margaret; and she has had a long walk.”
-
-“Yes, sir, thank you,” he said aloud to Jake, smiling and bowing like
-a gentleman. “I should like to ride ever so much, for Margaret’s sake;
-she is tired.”
-
-“All right,” said Jake, with a good-natured chuckle; “climb in and I’ll
-tuck her in after you, and take you a few miles on your road as well as
-not.”
-
-Little Margaret, who paid small attention to cautions, and who
-expected that everybody in the world was bound to be kind to her and
-help take care of her, took this ride as a matter of course, and was
-soon seated beside Teddy, with Sally Amelia tucked safely under her
-arm. Jake decided to walk down the hill. “It’s a pretty steep pitch for
-this part of the world,” he explained, “and the harness ain’t none of
-the safest; I guess I better walk.”
-
-Teddy looked at the harness and trembled. What would his mother say if
-she could hear that? Even now it was not too late to ask Jake to set
-them back again on the dusty road, but how he would laugh and call him
-a coward! Teddy couldn’t, and the down-hill ride began.
-
-What made that poor old half-blind horse stumble on a hidden root that
-particular morning and pitch the crazy old cart forward with such a
-sudden lunge as to send Teddy rolling down the hill faster than the
-horse could have traveled? Above all, how did it happen that Margaret
-did not fall out, but lay flat in the bottom of the cart and screamed?
-Nobody knows how any of it happened. They only know that when the
-almost distracted Jake had succeeded in getting the horse on his feet,
-and lifting Margaret in his arms, and trying his best to hush her had
-stumbled with all speed to the spot where Teddy had stopped rolling,
-the poor little fellow had fainted, and had to be carried by Jake to
-the very door of his mother’s house, Margaret trudging solemnly along
-by his side, occasionally asking pitifully why Teddy went to “s’eep,”
-and why he didn’t wake up.
-
-Poor Teddy “waked up” almost too soon for his comfort. It had been a
-terrible pain, when he tried to pick himself up from the road, which
-had made him faint.
-
-Days afterwards, as he lay in his white bed with his leg done in
-“splints,” whatever they were, and watched the long, bright spring days
-full of Southern sunshine and sweet smells, and thought how long it
-would be before he could run about again, he would sigh out wearily,
-“O, muvver! if I only hadn’t!” Of course his mother tried to comfort
-him. Once she said: “But, Teddy dear, you did not mean to do wrong.
-You supposed of course that because Jake was considered an honest,
-clean-souled man, mother would be willing to have you ride with him.
-It was what we call an error in judgment. If I were you I would be glad
-that you escaped with only a broken leg, and that dear little Margaret
-was not hurt at all, and then try to forget about it.”
-
-Teddy considered this for some minutes with a grave face, and in his
-eyes an earnest longing to take the comfort to his heart. But at last
-he spoke, in the slow, old-fashioned way he sometimes had: “No, muvver,
-it was an error in want-to! I knew ‘not to ride with any strange
-person’ meant with any person that you had not let me ride with before;
-and I knew I wasn’t doing real heart right; so if Margaret had been
-hurt it would have been my fault. O, muvver! if I only hadn’t!”
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-
-
-
-ABOUT WASHINGTON.
-
-BY THE PANSIES.
-
-
-I READ a letter written by Mrs. President Adams in 1796. In it she
-complains that there are not nearly lamps enough to light the White
-House decently, and that the making of the daily fires in all the
-rooms, “to keep off the ague,” occupies the entire time of one or
-two servants. She says there are no looking-glasses in the house but
-“dwarfs.” I think Mrs. President Harrison must have found a very
-different state of things. It is just like women to complain about
-there not being looking-glasses!
-
-                                               JOHN WEST.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY great-grandfather used to be in Washington in Congress, when Daniel
-Webster was there. My father has told me all about it; they had great
-speeches. Grandfather heard Henry Clay when he made his wonderful
-speech. I’d like to have been with him! Father read to us last night
-about the speech, and in the book it said there were at that time two
-little boys, one eight years old and the other ten, whom nobody knew
-anything about until afterwards. One of them went to a primary school
-in Boston and studied a primer, and the other didn’t go to school at
-all, but had to work hard. The primer boy was named Sumner, and the
-other boy was Abraham Lincoln. I guess if the people in Washington had
-known what those two boys were going to do a little later, they would
-have been astonished.
-
-                                               LINCOLN STEVENSON.
-
-[Illustration: The Washington Monument 505 feet]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY father and mother lived in Washington in 1860. Father says it wasn’t
-much like a city then; there were no street cars, and they did not
-light the streets, only Pennsylvania Avenue, and they got their water
-from pumps or springs. There were no sewers, and the streets were not
-paved, and the parks were all full of weeds. He told me about it one
-day last spring when we were in Washington, and sat under the trees
-in beautiful Stanton Square. I could hardly believe that the lovely
-city ever looked as he described it. And to think that that was only a
-little over thirty years ago! Father says the changes seem like a dream
-to him.
-
-                                               LILIAN PRESCOTT.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-IN 1808 there were only about five thousand people in Washington,
-and lots of fun was made of the city. A great many people wanted the
-Capitol moved farther North, and the papers were filled with jokes
-about the “City in the mud,” “City of streets without houses,” “Capitol
-of huts,” and all that sort of thing. I wish some of those simpletons
-who wrote that way could ride down Pennsylvania Avenue now! But they
-can’t, because they are all dead.
-
-                                               ARTHUR BURKHARDT.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY mother used to be in Washington when the Northwest, where so many
-elegant houses are, was just a great swamp! When we were there a year
-ago she took me to walk on Connecticut Avenue, and showed me where
-she and Aunt Nannie used to play hide-and-seek. The elegant building
-belonging to the British Legation stands there now, and in every
-direction the houses and lawns are lovely! I asked mamma how they came
-to be allowed to play on such an elegant street, and she laughed, and
-said nobody in those days thought of such a thing as its ever being
-elegant around there. It seems queer to think what changes there must
-have been in a few years. My Auntie lives on Connecticut Avenue now,
-and I think it is one of the prettiest streets in Washington.
-
-                                               ALICE BARNES.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY brother Robert liked the great dome best, but I was very fond of
-the bronze door at the main entrance of the Capitol. I had just been
-studying all about Columbus when I went to Washington, and it was so
-interesting to see his history carved on the door. Then I staid in the
-rotunda a long time. I like round rooms when they are very large. The
-paintings are beautiful. There was one of Columbus landing, and one
-which showed the Pilgrims just starting, and one of Pocahontas being
-baptized. I like to look at pictures of things that I know about. Of
-course I went up the round-and-round iron stairway which leads to the
-dome. I stood under the statue of Freedom and looked down at the city.
-It was beautiful.
-
-                                               CARRIE FOSTER.
-
-[Illustration: VIEW OF THE CAPITOL.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-WE went, last winter, to the Library of Congress. My uncle went almost
-every day, and I had to go with him, because I had nowhere else to
-go while he was there; but I had a nice book to read, and I liked
-it. The room is made of iron—I mean the shelves and rafters and all
-those things are—and the roof is of copper. It is said to be the only
-library in the world that is entirely fire proof. There are more than
-six hundred thousand books, and thousands and thousands of pamphlets
-in this library. Every book which has been copyrighted has to send two
-copies to the library. It is about ninety years since books were first
-gathered there. It was in 1800 that Congress voted to use five thousand
-dollars toward buying books for a library. I suppose they thought
-that would get books enough to last for a century, but hundreds of
-thousands of dollars have been spent for them since. I saw the new
-library building going up. It is to cost nearly five millions. When it
-is finished they will have room for four million books! It is to have a
-gallery three hundred and fifty feet long, for pictures and beautiful
-things.
-
-My uncle says this letter is too long; but I do not know what to leave
-out, so I will send it.
-
-                                               MARGARET WINTERS.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I WENT to Congress two or three times last winter. They behave better
-in the Senate than they do in the House. In fact, I don’t think the
-people in the House were gentlemanly. They smoked, and they quarreled,
-and three or four tried to talk at once!
-
-                                               ANNA BROOKS.
-
-    [This by no means exhausts the items of interest
-    about Washington, but the article grows so long that
-    we must omit the others, sorry as we are to do so.
-    It is certainly a great pleasure to find our Pansies
-    so wide awake, and so successful in selecting items
-    which cannot fail to interest others. Remember the
-    next city, and be in time for us to make careful
-    selections.—EDITORS.]
-
-
-
-
-MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
-
-
-II.
-
-ALTHOUGH I am a dog myself I do wonder how some of my race can afford
-to waste so much love upon masters who have so little love for them,
-or, it would seem, for any one else.
-
-Now, for instance, there is Mr. Billings who lives on the hill; just
-think how he ill-treats and almost starves his dog, cuffing, scolding,
-licking him; and yet that poor fellow is just as glad to see him the
-next time as though he had been petted, and is ready to hunt, drive
-cows or sheep, or watch all night.
-
-I have known that dog ever since he came into the neighborhood, and I
-knew old man Billings long before.
-
-Being up that way I had a few words with friend Dash the day he
-arrived. I found him to be friendly—a dog that any man might love and
-be proud of. I was awfully sorry for him then, and have been ever
-since, for I did not think much of his master.
-
-Sometimes, when I see the poor fellow coming, looking so lean and
-hungry, I run out into the road with the best bone I have on hand, for
-a bit of a lunch, and leave it where I know Dash will find it. My! it
-does me good to see him take it down.
-
-I often think of him trotting for fifteen or twenty miles after that
-team, and as likely as not without a mouthful of breakfast before
-starting.
-
-This is not mere surmise; he told me so one day—said he had been all
-day with nothing to eat but a scrap or two which he happened to find
-on the way; for he had not time to hunt for anything while in town,
-because he had to stay and watch the things in the wagon. It’s too bad,
-too bad!
-
-Just think what Dash has done for that man!
-
-You never heard about it?
-
-Well, I will tell you. It was in the spring of last year—the time for
-washing sheep. When Mr. Billings went for his sheep, all his children
-who were big enough to help drive went along.
-
-As he never pets anything that he has, so he never petted his sheep,
-therefore as soon as they heard him call they were much more afraid of
-him than they would have been of our master, I really believe, so away
-they went as fast as their legs could carry them.
-
-If it had not been for Dash, Mr. Billings and all his boys could never
-have penned those creatures. But he seemed to know just what to do, and
-it was not long before they seemed to feel as though they had found a
-friend instead of an enemy in this dog; he worked like a good fellow,
-as he is.
-
-After much skillful maneuvering, hard running and gentle barking, the
-sheep were all finally gotten into the pen, where Billings and his boys
-could take them one by one and wash them with the water which fell over
-the dam.
-
-After the father and older boys were gone, little Bennie Billings, who
-is only a few months more than three years old, crawled through the
-garden fence and started after the others.
-
-His mother did not miss him, thinking he had gone with his brothers. As
-it was, Bennie came trotting along while the rest were absorbed in the
-work of washing sheep, and so was not noticed by any one of them.
-
-But faithful Dash had his eye upon him all the while, and felt that it
-was more important that he should look after the boy than the lambs.
-
-He tried hard to keep between Bennie and the water, but this he was not
-long able to do.
-
-Sliding down the bank the boy crawled out upon a slippery rock, and
-from that fell into the water.
-
-It was deep, and Dash had all he could do to drag the little fellow
-to the land. He could not pull him out; but holding on as well as he
-could, he growled very loud.
-
-Dash was getting pretty tired, and the case was growing desperate, when
-a neighbor hearing the growl, came to the rescue.
-
-Poor Bennie was almost gone; he would not have lived much longer; but
-if help had not come, Dash would have died with the little chap he was
-trying to save.
-
-Think of that father kicking Dash after that, or ever forgetting to
-give him all he needed to eat! You would think the boy’s mother would
-look after her child’s rescuer; but it is said she has little to do
-with.
-
-It would not seem so strange if the faithful fellow were not all the
-time doing things worthy of being remembered.
-
-It was only last fall, when the corn was well grown, that this hard
-master came home one rainy night and forgot to fasten the gate after
-him. There were a great many cattle upon the road, and Dash told me he
-could hear the bell upon one old cow dingling away as plain as day all
-the time the master was unharnessing the horses. He said he ran out by
-the gate and barked as loud as he could when Mr. Billings was going
-into the house; but it did no good. So there was nothing for him to do
-but go and stay there all night in the hard rain.
-
-Telling me about it he said: “I wouldn’t have minded it, though it was
-so cold and wet, if master had noticed it; if he had just said, ‘Good
-faithful fellow, you saved our garden and cornfield!’ but he never
-noticed me except to scold me for getting in the way when I came into
-the kitchen to warm myself a little, though he knew there were more
-than twenty head of cattle which would have been in that garden and
-cornfield if I had not kept them out.”
-
-But for all that he would do the same things over again, or anything
-else that he can do for the comfort and help of his hard master.
-
-I suspect Dash misses these little kindnesses more for the reason that
-he has not always been used to such treatment.
-
-You see he once had a good master; but the man was taken ill and had to
-go away, and for some reason could not take Dash with him.
-
-One day when we met down town near the post-office he told me this
-story.
-
-By some mishap the house of his former master took fire. How it
-happened he did not seem to know. The mistress had gone into a
-neighbor’s house for a few moments, and had left her baby asleep in the
-cradle, in charge of a little girl, while Dash watched at the front
-gate to see that no tramp came in.
-
-Said he, “I smelt something, and looked around just in time to see that
-little girl as she ran out of the front door crying ‘Fire!’
-
-“In a moment I thought of Baby, and saw that the girl had left it in
-the house; so I dashed through the door and into the thick smoke, and
-finding the cradle I caught the child by his frock, and pulling with
-all my might I got him out on the floor and dragged him to the door.
-Just as I got him to the first step, where we could breathe again, the
-mother arrived.
-
-“But she came too late to have saved her baby if it had been in the
-cradle then, for that was already in full blaze. As it was, the poor
-thing was almost smothered with the smoke.
-
-“How that mother hugged and kissed me! She made so much ado about it
-that I felt almost ashamed. Yet I must confess it was gratifying to
-know that the mother appreciated what I had done.
-
-“Well, after that there was nothing in the house too good for me to
-eat, no place where I was not welcome, no kennel too nice for me to
-sleep in, nor was there any lack of petting.”
-
-Just imagine what a change from a home such as that, to the miserable
-one he now has to endure.
-
-I do feel so sorry for him!
-
-Sometimes I feel as though I should not be as faithful as Dash is if I
-were in his place; yet I must not forget that duty is duty, and that
-one must not do wrong because he has not been treated as he should be.
-
-If this poor fellow’s case were a solitary one, it would not seem so
-bad; but I am sorry to say that all over our land there are as faithful
-fellows as Dash treated no better than he.
-
-Think of those dogs with drunken masters! Think how much they have to
-endure of hunger and cold and abuse, though they are as faithful as
-life. I can hardly keep from growling when I think of it!
-
-But I must not talk in this way any longer to-day. I have spent the
-hour speaking of another, so we must wait till some other time before I
-can tell you anything more of my own experience.
-
-Indeed I was not intending to talk all the time about myself; I would
-like to set before you a little of the lives of the best of our race,
-such as will afford you excellent examples for imitation, that your
-lives may be good and true.
-
-                                                        R.
-
-[Illustration: BENNIE’S FRIEND.]
-
-[Illustration: SILENT PARTNERS.]
-
-
-
-
-VESUVIUS.
-
-
-NEARLY two thousand years ago there was a mountain, and its name was
-Vesuvius. From the foot of it to the very top it was almost like a
-garden.
-
-At the bottom were two great cities, called Herculaneum and Pompeii.
-The mountain is there now, and near it is the city of Naples in Italy.
-
-[Illustration: ERUPTION OF VESUVIUS, 1880.]
-
-One day, when everything was going on in those great cities just as
-usual, an awful sound was heard like the firing of ten thousand of the
-biggest cannon; the earth shook as if it was going to pieces, then
-it grew dark like night. The sky was filled with flying cinders, or
-something like ashes; the air had a sulphurous smell. All the people
-wondered. Some ran into the street, some took to the boats and rowed
-away as fast as possible, some screamed. Children clung to their
-mothers, hiding their faces in their dresses. Animals broke away and
-ran furiously, dashing themselves against the rocks or plunging into
-the sea; the very birds sighed as they swept through the sky.
-
-The mountain—this Vesuvius—was on fire; the fire was spouting from its
-top in terrific forms. Smoke, such as you have never seen it, leaped as
-the darkest thunder clouds upward, while melted earth and rock ran down
-the sides of Vesuvius like a devouring flood. Before it, the gardens
-fled away. On it came, rushing, foaming, burning. It leaped upon the
-houses and buried them, whole streets at once. So suddenly it came that
-few of the people escaped. What a time was that!
-
-Think of a whole city, like Philadelphia, buried ten or twenty feet
-deep, so that in the place of the grand palaces, stores and temples,
-nothing was seen but a smoking furnace—red-hot lava!
-
-Not a great while since people began to dig. They dug and dug, and
-after years of digging there were the streets again and buildings, the
-merchant selling his goods, babies sleeping in their mamma’s arms, a
-bride and groom standing up to be married, a funeral procession coming
-from a house, a miser counting his money, a cruel father beating his
-child, a loving mother kissing her son, a marriage feast in this
-house, a dying parent in that. Just as the fierce, quick flood of lava
-found them, so it buried them, and so they were found after nearly two
-thousand years!
-
-Since that awful day the volcano, Vesuvius, has been on fire again and
-again.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-AURORA LEIGH.
-
-(_English Literature Papers._)
-
-
-HOW many of my Pansies are acquainted with her? She is “a woman in a
-book,” and the book was written by a woman of whom you have surely
-heard—Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I want you to know something about
-this story book and its author. There are those who think the story is
-too “grown-up” to interest children; but that is because they do not
-understand certain kinds of children very well. When I was a little
-girl of ten, I was very fond of narrative poems, and read some which
-were judged far above my understanding.
-
-Would you like a picture of Aurora’s room, as she describes it? Listen:
-
-    “I had a little chamber in the house
-    As green as any privet hedge a bird
-    Might choose to build in. . . .
-    The walls were green, the carpet was pure green,
-    The straight small bed was curtained greenly,
-    And the folds hung green about the window,
-    Which let in the out-door world with all its greenery.
-    You could not push your head out and escape
-    A dash of dawn-dew from the honeysuckle.”
-
-Poor Aurora lost her mother when she was four years old, and her dear,
-dear father when she was just a little girl. Then she sailed across the
-ocean from her home in Italy to her father’s old home in England. When
-she first saw English soil, this is the way she felt:
-
-    . . .  “oh, the frosty cliffs looked cold upon me!
-    Could I find a home among those mean red houses,
-    Through the fog?. . . Was this my father’s England?
-    .       .       .       .       .       .
-    I think I see my father’s sister stand
-    Upon the hall-step of her country house
-    To give me welcome. She stood straight and calm,
-    Her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight
-    As if for taming accidental thoughts
-    From possible quick pulses. Brown hair
-    Pricked with gray by frigid use of life.
-    A nose drawn sharply, yet in delicate lines;
-    A close mild mouth . . . eyes of no color;
-    Once they might have smiled, but never, never
-    Have forgot themselves in smiling.”
-
-You cannot imagine, I think, any life more unlike what Aurora had been
-used to in her home in Florence, than the one to which she came in
-England. She describes her aunt’s life as—
-
-    “A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage,
-    Accounting that to leap from perch to perch
-    Was act and joy enough for any bird.
-    Dear Heaven, how silly are the things
-    That live in thickets, and eat berries!
-    I, alas, a wild bird scarcely fledged,
-    Was brought to her cage, and she was there to meet me.
-    Very kind! ‘Bring the clean water; give out the fresh seed!’”
-
-You wonder what sort of a little girl she was? She tells us:
-
-    “I was a good child on the whole,
-    A meek and manageable child. Why not?
-    I did not live to have the faults of life.
-    There seemed more true life in my father’s grave
-    Than in all England. . . . . .
-    At first I felt no life which was not patience;
-    Did the thing she bade me, without heed
-    To a thing beyond it; sat in just the chair she placed
-    With back against the window, to exclude
-    The sight of the great lime-tree on the lawn,
-    Which seemed to have come on purpose from the woods
-    To bring the house a message.”
-
-So quiet was she, and pale, and sad, that her aunt’s friends visiting
-there, whispered about her that “the child from Florence looked ill,
-and would not live long.” This made her glad, for she was homesick for
-her father’s grave. But her cousin, Romney Leigh, a boy somewhat older
-than herself, took her to task for this. He said to her:
-
-    “You’re wicked now. You wish to die,
-    And leave the world a-dusk for others,
-    With your naughty light blown out.”
-
-Well, she did not die, but lived to be a sweet, proud, brave, foolish,
-sorrowful, glad, happy woman! You think my words contradict one
-another? No; they may belong to one life, and often do.
-
-I do not mean that you will be interested in all her story—hers and
-“Cousin Romney’s”—not yet awhile. Some day you will read it, study it,
-I hope, for the beauty of the language, and for the moral power there
-is in it. Just now, my main object is to introduce you, so that when
-you hear the name “Aurora Leigh,” you may be able to say: “I know her;
-she is one of Mrs. Browning’s characters—a little girl from Florence,
-who lived with an aunt in England.” Or when you hear Mrs. Browning’s
-name, you will say, or think: “She wrote a long poem once, named Aurora
-Leigh.”
-
-Why should you care to know that? Because, my dear, it is a little
-crumb of knowledge about English Literature, a study which I am hoping
-you are going to greatly enjoy by and by.
-
-Oh! Mrs. Browning wrote many other poems, though the one about which we
-have been talking is perhaps considered her greatest. There are some
-which I think you must know and love. For instance:
-
-    “Little Ellie sits alone
-      ’Mid the beeches of a meadow,
-    By a stream-side on the grass;
-    And the trees are showering down
-      Doubles of their leaves in shadow,
-    On her shining hair and face.
-
-    “She has thrown her bonnet by,
-      And her feet she has been dipping
-    In the shallow water’s flow;
-    Now she holds them nakedly
-      In her hands, all sleek and dripping,
-    While she rocketh to and fro.
-
-    “Little Ellie sits alone,
-      And the smile she softly uses
-    Fills the silence like a speech;
-    While she thinks what shall be done—
-      And the sweetest pleasure chooses
-    For her future within reach.”
-
-There are seventeen verses; of course I have not room for them, but you
-will like to find the poem and read for yourselves. It is entitled “The
-Romance of the Swan’s Nest.”
-
-Then there is that wonderful poem of hers called “The Cry of the
-Children.” Surely you ought to know of that. It was suggested to her
-by reading the report which told about children being employed in the
-mines and manufactories of England. It is said that Mrs. Browning’s
-poem was the means of pushing an act of Parliament which forbade the
-employment of young children in this way. The poem has thirteen long
-verses, every one of which you should carefully read. Let me give you
-just a taste:
-
-    “Do you hear the children weeping, O, my brothers!
-        Ere the sorrow comes with years?
-    They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
-        And that cannot stop their tears!
-    The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
-      The young birds are chirping in the nest;
-    The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
-      The young flowers are blowing toward the west;
-    But the young, young children, O, my brothers!
-        They are weeping bitterly.
-    They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
-        In the country of the free.
-    . . . . . .
-
-    “‘True,’ say the children, ‘it may happen
-        That we die before our time;
-    Little Alice died last year; her grave is shapen
-        Like a snowball in the rime.
-    We looked into the pit prepared to take her;
-      There’s no room for any work in the coarse clay;
-    From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
-      Crying ‘Get up, little Alice! it is day.’
-    If you listen by that grave in sun and shower,
-      With your ear down, little Alice never cries.
-    Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
-      For the smile has time for growing in her eyes.
-    And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled
-        In the shroud by the kirk-chime.
-    ‘It is good, when it happens,’ say the children,
-        ‘That we die before our time.’”
-
-It will never do to take more room with this paper, and I have told you
-almost nothing about the dear lady who voiced the children’s cry so
-wonderfully, and to such purpose! Suppose you let me take her story,
-little bits of it, for the next PANSY. Besides, I want to introduce you
-to her dear “Flush.”
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: MRS. BROWNING’S AURORA LEIGH.]
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-
-A GOOD TIME.
-
-THIS is Trudy. She is all ready to go with papa.
-
-They are going up in the woods to the “sugar bush.”
-
-It is April—a bright, sunshiny day, but the wind is cold, so she has to
-wear her warm coat and hood.
-
-[Illustration: JOHN BROUGHT THE PAILS OF SAP.]
-
-As Trudy ran along through the woods she saw a little bluebird singing
-on a branch, and she found yellow violets and tiny blue flowers with a
-long name. They had just poked up their heads through the snow. Brave
-little blossoms they were!
-
-Wooden pails hung on all the maple-trees. The sap was running into
-them. When the pails were full of sap John, the hired man, brought it
-into the little sugar house and boiled it, and made nice cakes of maple
-sugar.
-
-The house had a great fireplace. A bright fire was crackling there.
-
-Trudy sat down on a stool and warmed her toes.
-
-[Illustration: TRUDY.]
-
-There was a big black kettle over the fire; it was almost full of sap.
-It bubbled and boiled and made a good smell.
-
-John stirred it with a long wooden spoon. He stirred and stirred a long
-time, and the fire snapped and the sap boiled, and Trudy watched, and
-by and by it was done!
-
-Then papa got a pan of snow, and John dropped little bits from the
-spoon all over the snow.
-
-When it was cool Trudy put in her thumb and finger, and plump! went one
-of the little brown balls into her mouth. Oh! but it was good. Trudy
-thought maple candy was ever so much better than the pink and white
-stuff she bought at the stores.
-
-She ate and ate, till papa said, “No more, dearie.” So she carried the
-rest of it to little brother.
-
-They rode home on the wood sled, drawn by two big oxen. Trudy said it
-was just the “beautifulest time” she ever had in her life.
-
-She whispered to papa that she thought God was very good to make so
-many big trees full of candy just to please little girls and boys.
-
-                                               MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: The Little Queen]
-
-
-THERE you have a fine Holland house, a palace rather. Come, let us go
-in. Just think, you have a royal invitation. Well, here we are. In
-this elegant room is a kingly throne. In that beautiful chair sits the
-little Queen of Holland.
-
-Doesn’t this Miss look like a wise sovereign, able to command armies
-and navies and make laws?
-
-Now you laugh. But come out into her big back yard, and you shall see
-our little maid rule her subjects. See how obedient they are, running
-to her or fleeing from her as fast as their legs can carry them—and
-their wings too—
-
-“Wings!”
-
-Why, bless you, yes. This little Queen has one hundred and fifty cooing
-doves. She is their beloved mistress, feeding and fondling them,
-calling them by name, they laughing, singing, talking for her, after
-the dear dove fashion.
-
-But look! there comes the Shetland pony, and quick as a cat she is
-on his back, and away they go down the road, gallopty, gallop, she
-tossing back a kiss to her mamma, the Queen Regent, who looks from
-the palace window. There she comes back, her face full of roses and
-laughter.
-
-Twenty minutes more, and she is a student like any of you, with
-spelling-book, pen or geography, or thumbing the piano or reading aloud
-to her mother. She is her mother’s constant companion. She is up at 7
-A. M., and kneeling at her mother’s knee, says her morning prayers.
-
-She is often dressed completely in white, even to gloves and stockings.
-Watch and see what she will be in coming years.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-A WONDERFUL STONE.
-
-
-A MR. MENINGER of New Orleans, while visiting in the town of
-Chilpanzingo, Mex., saw a rock there which he—and others—says foretells
-rain twenty-four hours in advance!
-
-In fair weather it is grayish, very smooth and cold, but when it is
-going to rain it becomes a dingy red at the base, pink at the top, and
-it becomes warmer and warmer till the rain falls. If there is much
-lightning, the stone becomes charged (filled) like an electrical jar,
-so that you cannot safely approach it.
-
-After the rain it goes back to its first state of color and coldness.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-THE FIRST CHRISTMAS.
-
-
-    WHY so soon with flocks returning?
-      O, dear father, tell us why:
-    Scarce the night lamps ceased their burning,
-      Scarce the stars dimmed in the sky
-    When we heard the distant bleating
-      Of the flock come o’er the lea;
-    While the stars were still retreating
-      Thou wert coming o’er the lea;
-    Home so early in the morning!
-      Sheep and lambs so fast you’re leading
-    To the fold at early dawning,
-      At the time of sweetest feeding!
-
-    Ill, dear father, art thou? Surely
-      Suffering art thou? Tell us true!
-    Has some lambie been unruly—
-      Wandered far away from view?
-    Must thou go across the mountain,
-      Starting in the morning gray,
-    Search by vale, and rock, and fountain
-      For the lost one, gone astray?
-    But thy face is bright and beaming,
-      And thy step is free and glad,
-    And thy eyes with joy are gleaming
-      Surely nothing makes thee sad!
-
-    Thus she chattered to her father,
-      Shepherd of Judean plain;
-    Eager for some reason given
-      Which might satisfy her brain;
-    But the father, heart o’erflowing
-      With the story he could tell,
-    Felt the spirit in him burning—
-      Felt his soul within him swell—
-    And, with tender touch, down bending
-      Gently drew her to his breast;
-    His life-calling sweetly lending
-      Skill for what he loved the best.
-
-    Then his home flock, like the other,
-      In the home fold where they dwelt—
-    Father, children, precious mother—
-      All before Jehovah knelt;
-    Knelt to thank the covenant-keeping
-      God of Jacob, who alone
-    In their waking and their sleeping,
-      Safely shelters all his own.
-    This—and then began the story
-      Of the night before that morn,
-    When the angels came from glory,
-      Telling that the Christ was born.
-
-
-(_The story._)
-
-    On the hillside near our flocks were sleeping,
-    While we, reclining by, our watch were keeping;
-    The sun had set in a glow of splendor,
-    And the stars looked down so pure and tender
-    That we felt a hush pervading
-    Every breast; for the fading
-    Of the day had been so slow,
-    And the twilight’s gentle glow
-    Had left the earth so still
-    That over plain and hill
-    A gentle sleep seemed holding all
-    As quiet as beneath a pall
-
-    Of death. When every heart
-    Was hushed, and sure to start
-    At slightest move or sound,
-    From sky or earth or ground,
-    We would not break with song
-    The silence, which so strong
-    Had reigned supreme the while,
-    But sought we to beguile
-    With word of prophecy the hour,
-    Talking of Him whose conquering power
-    Our fallen Israel should restore,
-    And make her glory as of yore.
-
-    The Lord seemed wondrous near us then;
-    As when our father Jacob dreamed, or when
-    The great law-giver stood on hallowed ground
-    And heard Jehovah speak in words profound;
-    When, suddenly, burst on the ravished ear
-    A voice like music, or like trumpet clear,
-    And words most wonderful did there proclaim:
-    Tidings, glad tidings of the glorious Name!
-    He bade us haste to Bethlehem away
-    To find the Babe there born to us this day;
-    And then, when Paradise I see complete,
-    May it such strains to these glad ears repeat!
-    Then as from cloud the pealing thunder breaks
-    Till ’neath its voice the very mountain shakes,
-    So burst in chorus the celestial choir,
-    Each tongue aflame with heaven’s own altar fire,
-    To celebrate, as by Jehovah sent,
-    The long foretold and now fulfilled event—
-    Our own Messiah’s birth in Bethlehem town!
-    The Christ of God from heaven to earth come down!
-    The singing ceased, and all was still again
-    Save the sweet echo of “Good-will to men”;
-    The choir had flown; our flocks were all at rest,
-    And could we, after such a vision blest,
-
-    Await the dawning to behold the Stranger
-    Which cradled lay in Bethlehem’s lowly manger?
-    If we forgot our flocks, in haste to see the sight
-    Revealed to us by angel hosts last night,
-    Was it so strange, when honored thus were we
-    To be the first of all our race to see,
-    Worship and welcome to this world the King
-    Of whom the Prophets old did write and sing?
-    And so we hastened, sped, and tarried not
-    Until we found, O, joy! the very spot
-    Where lay this lily from sweet Paradise,
-    Angelic beauty there, before our eyes!
-
-    We bent, we worshiped, kissed the Babe so fair,
-    Then hastened back through all the perfumed air
-    To find our flocks by angel guards attended,
-    Better by them than by our skill defended.
-    Then each with gladness homeward sped away
-    To tell the tidings of this wondrous day.
-    The questions asked as round the father’s knee
-    The children pressed in eager ecstasy,
-    I will not try to tell. I cease
-    My story of the “Prince of Peace,”
-    This only adding—though the talk was long—
-    There followed it this burst of sacred song:
-
-
-(_The song._)
-
-    O, thou Infant holy!
-    In thy cradle lowly,
-    Feeble stranger seeming,
-    Though almighty. Deeming
-    It thy pleasure,
-    Even in this measure,
-    In this casket fair
-    Human woe to share.
-
-    We thy praises sing;
-    To thy cradle bring
-    Love, and thanks and treasure,
-    Offerings without measure;
-    Just now come from glory,
-    We have heard thy story
-    Sung by angel chorus,
-    While God’s light shone o’er us.
-
-    O, thou Baby stranger!
-    Hiding in a manger,
-    By crowded inn rejected,
-    By pilgrims all neglected,
-    For thee our hearts are burning
-    With a holy yearning.
-    Be thou our guest;
-    Our arms would now enfold thee,
-    Our hearts would gladly hold thee;
-    We love thee best.
-                            G. R. ALDEN.
-
-
-
-
-THE SPOOL-COTTON GIRL.
-
-
-PART I.
-
-SHE stood before a little old-fashioned twisted-legged toilet stand
-putting the finishing touches to her hair, looking, the while, into a
-queer little old-fashioned mirror which had been in the family ever
-since she could remember. Almost everything had been in their family
-a long while. Especially, Marion sometimes thought, her dresses had.
-“They do not wear overskirts like this any more,” she had said to her
-mother that morning, as she was looping it.
-
-“They do not wear overskirts at all,” said Renie, the younger sister,
-looking up from her book. Renie always knew what “they” did.
-
-“I know it,” answered Marion, from whose face the slight cloud had
-already passed; “but we do, because, you see, it hides the pieced part
-of our dress, and the faded part, and various other blemishes. Why
-should not there be a what ‘we’ do, as well as to be always quoting
-what ‘they’ are about?”
-
-Her mother laughed somewhat faintly. Marion’s quaint bright speeches
-were always restful to her; but the fact was undeniable that the dear
-girl’s clothes were old-fashioned and much worn, and the way to secure,
-or at least to afford new ones, was hedged.
-
-You would not have called her pretty had you seen her as she stood
-before that little old-fashioned mirror, pushing in the old-fashioned
-comb into her knot of hair, and trying to make it hold the hair in the
-way the pretty new style fancy pins which the girls wore held theirs;
-but you would have liked her face, I think; nearly every one did. It
-was quiet and restful looking. She gave very little time to the hair,
-for she was late. There was so much to be done mornings that she was
-very apt to be late—I mean hurried. They never called her late at
-the store; she was always in her place before the great bell ceased
-ringing, but it required much bustling about and some running, to
-accomplish this. She was only thirteen, and most of the girls in her
-class in Sunday-school were students at the High School; but Marion had
-been for more than a year earning her own living. She had charge of the
-spool-cotton counter in one of the large stores.
-
-It was a matter of some pride to her that she was a small saleswoman,
-instead of a cash girl. She had commenced, of course, in that way; but
-one happy day an unexpected vacancy had occurred at the spool counter,
-and she had fitted in so well that she had been kept there, although
-younger than most of the other salesgirls. Her face was quieter than
-usual this morning. Perhaps because it was such a rainy morning that
-she had felt compelled to wear the quite old dress, instead of the
-somewhat fresher one which had lately begun to come to the store on
-pleasant days. Marion had discovered that she needed special grace to
-help her through the rainy days and the old-fashioned gown.
-
-Not very many people were abroad shopping; but Marion had her share
-of work, for those who came were in need of such commonplace useful
-things as spool cotton, or tape, or needles. She bent carefully over a
-drawer full of various colors, holding a tiny brown patch in her hand
-the while, trying to match the shade. “No,” she said, shaking her head,
-“that is not quite a match, but I am afraid it is the best I can do.
-If I were you I would take a shade darker rather than the lighter; my
-mother always does.”
-
-The middle-aged woman, in a plain gossamer which covered her from head
-to foot, glanced up at the thoughtful young face and smiled.
-
-“Does she?” she said. “I like to hear a young girl quote her mother’s
-judgment; it is apt to be wise judgment, I have noticed, as I think it
-is in this case. Show me darker shades, please.”
-
-So another drawer was brought, and yet another, and the young head bent
-with the older one over them, and tried and tried again, and at last a
-satisfactory shade was found and the sale was made. Five cents’ worth
-of thread for fifteen minutes’ work!
-
-“Why in the world did you putter so over that old maid and her patch?
-I should have told her I couldn’t match it and sent her about her
-business fifteen minutes ago.”
-
-It was the girl whose stand was next to Marion who offered this bit of
-advice, while the “old maid” in question was but a few steps away from
-them looking at pin balls.
-
-Marion turned a warning glance in her direction, and lowered her voice
-to answer: “Because I couldn’t find a match sooner. We went over all
-the thread drawers on that side, but I think we secured the exact shade
-at last.”
-
-“What does it signify? Nothing but brown cotton. Wasn’t the patch part
-cotton? I thought so. The idea of making such an ado over a match for
-cheap goods like that! I wouldn’t fuss with such customers, I can tell
-you. Five cents’ worth of goods and fifty cents’ worth of bother. You
-couldn’t have done more for her if she had been your sister.”
-
-Marion looked after the plain woman thoughtfully, then looked down at
-the tiny pin she wore. “I am not sure but she is. Anyhow, I was bound
-to endeavor to please her. I’m an Endeavorer, you know.” She gave the
-pin a significant touch as she spoke. It was very small—almost too
-small to attract attention—but the letters “C. E.” were, after all,
-quite distinct.
-
-“O, bother!” said her neighbor, speaking contemptuously, “so am I; at
-least so far as wearing the pin is concerned. I wear it because it is
-pretty, and I have so few ornaments that I have to make the most of
-them; but as for putting sentiment into spools of cotton and balls of
-tape, I can’t do it; the things don’t match.”
-
-“They ought to,” Marion said gravely. “If you and I don’t put our
-pledges into spools of cotton and balls of tape of what use are they?
-Because we spend our days in just such work.”
-
-“I know it,” with a discontented yawn; “I’m sick and tired of it. It
-is a slave life; I’d get out of it if I could. If there was any chance
-of getting promoted it would be a little different. Belle Mason has
-been transferred to the ribbon counter, and she gets more wages and
-sees other sorts of people, and has lots of fun; she hasn’t been in
-the house as long as I have, either; it is just because she was put at
-a counter where she had a chance of pleasing people, and here we have
-just to poke over tape and cotton and pins, and such stuff. I think
-it’s mean!”
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: SAYING HER EVENING PRAYER.]
-
-
-
-
-HELEN’S “APRIL FOOL.”
-
-
-“MAMMA, is an April fool different from any other kind of a fool?”
-cried Helen Palmer, rushing into the sitting-room on arriving home from
-school.
-
-“Oh! good-evening, Mrs. Glenn,” she added, as she noticed a lady who
-sat sewing with her mother.
-
-“What does the child mean?” exclaimed Mrs. Glenn, returning Helen’s
-nod, then looking her astonishment at Mrs. Palmer, who said: “What do
-you mean, Helen?”
-
-“Why, the girls are all talking to-day about to-morrow being ‘April
-Fool Day,’ and they said a lot of things I don’t understand, about
-calling people ‘April fool.’ They all agreed to see who could make the
-most fools and tell about it Monday. They said I must too, and I didn’t
-want to tell them I did not know how to do it, or what it means.”
-
-“You don’t mean to tell me, Helen Palmer, that you don’t know anything
-about April fool?” cried Mrs. Glenn, in surprise.
-
-“No,” said Mrs. Palmer; “she doesn’t. This is her first year at school,
-you know; I have taught her at home, and in our country home she heard
-very little but what we told her. I never saw any sense or fun in the
-custom of fooling on the first day of April, and did not instruct her
-in it when I taught her of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, St.
-Valentine’s Day, Washington’s Birthday, Decoration Day and Fourth of
-July.”
-
-“But what is it?” insisted Helen.
-
-“Well, my dear, it is a custom which I’ve read has come down hundreds
-of years, to send people on ridiculous errands on that day and call it
-an April fool. It is done all over Europe, and the Hindoos of India do
-exactly the same thing on the thirty-first of March. As I’ve always
-known it, people not only send others on foolish errands, but they
-often play practical jokes, silly and cruel, and actually lie to each
-other to fool them. It is a custom much better forgotten than kept.”
-
-“I should think so,” cried Helen.
-
-“But, mamma,” she continued, “what shall I do? The girls expect me to
-tell my share on Monday.”
-
-“We’ll see, dear, by and by. Go and put away your things now.”
-
-Mrs. Glenn went away after tea, and Helen began at once to coax her
-mother to tell her how to come up to the girls’ plans without doing
-anything silly or wicked.
-
-“I think, if I were you, I would spend the day surprising people with
-something good. Do things to help or please, and when they show their
-surprise say ‘April fool!’”
-
-“O, mamma! that will be delightful,” cried Helen. “Tell me some things
-to do.”
-
-“No, my dear, that is your business.”
-
-All that evening Helen was very thoughtful, and next day she was
-unusually busy. At night she declared she had never been so happy.
-Monday morning she met the girls, and they began to tell their jokes.
-
-“I fooled everybody around the house,” said Carrie Andrews. “I filled
-the sugar-bowl with salt, and papa got a big spoonful in his coffee.
-You ought to have seen the face he made. He didn’t more than half like
-it, even when I called out ‘April fool!’ I sent George out to pick up
-a package of sand I had dropped near the gate. I rang the doorbell and
-got Ann to go to the door, and there I stood and said ‘April fool.’ I
-sent a letter to Louise, and tied mamma’s apron-strings to her chair.”
-
-Helen listened in amazement, as one girl after another told of such
-silly tricks.
-
-At last they turned to her. “Well, Helen, what did you do?”
-
-“Oh! I fooled every one in the family, but I did a lot of new things,”
-said Helen.
-
-“What were they?” cried the girls, in chorus.
-
-“Well,” said she, in a low voice, “I got up real early, and crept
-softly downstairs and set the table in the dining-room, while Jane
-was starting breakfast in the kitchen. She ’most always has it set at
-night, but mamma and the sewing woman were using the long table to cut
-out goods when Jane went to bed. She was hurrying as fast as she could,
-and rushed in, and when she saw the table set she threw up both hands,
-and said: ‘Well, now, however did that table get set? Was it witches’
-work?’
-
-“Then I jumped out from behind the door and cried: ‘April fool!’
-
-“‘So it is,’ she said; ‘an’ it’s a fine one you’ve given me; I’ll not
-forget it of you.’
-
-“After breakfast mamma was just going to get Baby to sleep, and some
-one came to see her on business. She asked me to keep him till she
-could get back. I took him, and rocked and sung to him, and he went
-to sleep. I laid him down in his crib, and then hid to see what mamma
-would do. I heard her hurrying upstairs and into the room. Then she
-stopped and stared. I stepped up softly behind her and kissed her, and
-said, ‘April fool!’ She thought it was a nice one.
-
-“Uncle Guy came in and asked mamma to mend his glove when she had time.
-As quick as I could I got my thimble and needle and silk and mended the
-glove; and when he came in again in a hurry and said: ‘Well, I can’t
-wait now for it to be mended,’ he drew it on and said, ‘Why, it is
-mended.’ Then I called out, ‘April fool, Uncle Guy!’
-
-“‘O, you little rogue!’ he said; ‘I’ll pay you up.’
-
-“Well, then I mended Frank’s sails to his boat when he started to do it
-and papa called him away, and”—
-
-“What did you do for your father?” asked Marjie Day.
-
-“Oh! papa said he must hunt up some papers in the library at
-lunch-time, so I looked them up and laid them on his plate, and when he
-said: ‘Why, how did these get here?’ I said: ‘April fool!’ And that’s
-all,” added Helen, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes.
-
-“Well!” exclaimed Carrie Andrews, “if that don’t beat the Dutch.”
-
-“Wasn’t it a good way?” asked Helen, almost crying.
-
-“Of course, you little goose! but who else would ever have thought of
-it?”
-
-“Mamma said she didn’t like silly jokes, and said I had better try
-surprising people with pleasant things. I like it so well I am going to
-do it every day in the year.”
-
-“There’s the bell,” cried Belle Adams; “but hadn’t we all better try
-it?”
-
-                                               F. A. REYNOLDS.
-
-
-
-
-ABOUT PHILADELPHIA.
-
-BY THE PANSIES.
-
-
-ITS first name was Coaquenaque. I am glad they changed it to
-Philadelphia, because it is easier to pronounce; but I like Indian
-names. I went to Philadelphia once with my uncle. I think Broad Street
-is one of the nicest places in the world. I went to Germantown to see
-where Charlie Ross used to live, but I was so small I don’t remember
-very much about anything, only Broad Street. I’m going again next year,
-and I’ll look around and write you what I see.
-
-                                               JOHN T. ROBINSON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I WENT with father to Philadelphia three years ago; we staid near
-Washington Square; it is beautiful there. The trees are just splendid.
-Father told me it used to be a great burying-ground. I could not make
-it seem possible. A great many unknown soldiers, father said, were
-buried there; it was in Revolutionary times. How sad it must have been
-to live then! I like the little parks in Philadelphia that they call
-“squares.” I saw the place where they held the Sanitary Fair, when they
-roofed over the entire square, and let the trees stand as pillars.
-
-                                               LAURA CREEDMORE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-ONE of the most interesting places I visited in Philadelphia was Mr.
-Wanamaker’s store. I did not know a store could be so large. It takes a
-hundred miles of steam pipes to heat it.
-
-[Illustration: FRANKLIN STATUE.]
-
-My uncle has a fruit farm of ten acres, and I used to think when I
-walked around it that ten acres was pretty big; but there are over
-fourteen acres of floor to walk around in Mr. Wanamaker’s store! The
-different departments are fixed up beautifully. They have lovely
-parlors and dining-rooms and bedrooms all rigged up with beautiful
-furniture, to show people how to furnish their rooms, and every few
-days they change and give you another style. But the most interesting
-part of the store, to me, was the way the money is sent to the
-cashiers. There are eighty-one pay-stations in the store; then there
-is a central cash desk where twenty-five cashiers are busy all day
-long receiving the money that is brought to them through the tubes.
-The clerk at a pay-station takes the money you give him, and starts it
-in one of the pneumatic tubes, and away it shoots to the central desk
-on the second floor; a cashier there looks at it, sees what change is
-needed, and shoots it back. I don’t understand it very well, but I mean
-to. I am going to study the principles of pneumatic tubing, and Chris
-and I are going to have one to reach from my window to his. We are only
-about fifty feet apart. In Wanamaker’s they have seven miles of tubing
-to carry their money around. We took dinner at the Wanamaker Dairy,
-right in the store; it was jam full, and it will seat eight hundred
-people at once. Chris and I are going into partnership when we get to
-be men, and are going to have a store just exactly like it.
-
-                                               HENRY W. GILMORE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I WENT to Philadelphia last winter and attended Mr. Conwell’s church
-on Broad Street. It is very big—the biggest in the world, I guess—or
-maybe I mean in this country. It will hold thousands of people. Mother
-says she thinks Dr. Talmage’s church is bigger, but I don’t see how it
-could be. The people can’t all get in; they have to have tickets and be
-let in by a door-keeper. The singing sounds just grand. There is a very
-large choir, and the organ rolls and rolls. I liked Mr. Conwell almost
-better than any minister I ever heard, except my own, of course. Then I
-went to Sunday-school; hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of children!
-I never saw so many together before. Of course I saw other things in
-Philadelphia, but what I liked the best was that church. It seemed so
-funny to see folks crowding into church on Sunday morning, and to have
-a big overflow meeting for those who couldn’t get in. Where I live they
-have to coax the people to come to church, and there’s lots of room
-always.
-
-                                               FANNY PIERCE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-ONCE I went to “Old Swede’s” Church in Philadelphia. It is very old.
-There used to be a log church on the place where it stands; sometimes
-it was used for a fort. That was in 1677, but about three years
-afterwards the brick church was built, and that is the one I went to.
-In the churchyard are many very old graves, and some new ones. Some
-of the names on the grave-stones are so old I could not make them
-out. It seemed very strange to be in a church which was built almost
-two hundred years ago. Then we went to the queer little old house on
-Letitia Street where William Penn used to live. Great big buildings
-have grown up around it, and they make it look very odd. Then we went
-to the old London Coffee House; I had studied about that in my history,
-and I was disgusted to find it turned into a cigar store. It is a very
-queer old building. I saw the house where the first American flag was
-made; that is on Arch Street.
-
-                                               HELEN STUART CAMPBELL.
-
-[Illustration: VIEW OF INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA. (_See “About
-Philadelphia.”_)]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY sister Helen has written all about old places and never mentioned
-Carpenter’s Hall! She says that is because she knew I would. I went
-there with father and Helen. I think it is one of the grandest places
-in Philadelphia. It is the “Cradle of American Independence.” That
-was where the first prayer in Congress was made the morning after
-Boston was bombarded. Before that some of the people had objected to
-having Congress opened with prayer, but after that morning nobody ever
-objected again. The inscription on the wall says it was here that
-“Henry, Hancock and Adams inspired the Delegates of the Colonies with
-Nerve and Sinew for the toils of war.”
-
-Then of course we went to Independence Hall, where the second
-Continental Congress gathered, and saw the old cracked bell which rung
-on the first Fourth of July. Helen says there was a Fourth of July
-every year before that time; but I mean the first one which was worth
-having.
-
-                                           ROBERT STUART CAMPBELL.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I THINK the prettiest place in all Philadelphia is Fairmount Park.
-If I lived there I should want to stay in the park all summer. The
-drive out is just as lovely as it can be. We crossed the Girard Avenue
-bridge, which is a thousand feet long. You can walk or ride across,
-just as you please. There is a sidewalk on each side of the carriage
-drive sixteen feet wide, and beautifully paved. The railing around this
-bridge is trimmed with flowers, vines and birds, made in bronze. We saw
-the old house which was built by William Penn’s son. And we went to the
-Zoölogical Gardens and saw the bear-pits and everything; then there is
-a part called the “Children’s Playground,” which is lovely.
-
-                                               JAMES HURST.
-
-    [The above are some of the gleanings from the many
-    letters received. Wish we had room for more. We are
-    greatly pleased with your efforts to help on this
-    department of THE PANSY. The main difficulty is, that
-    many letters come too late to be of use. Notice the
-    list of cities published in the December PANSY, and
-    make a start three months ahead, then you will be sure
-    to be on time.—EDITORS.]
-
-
-
-
-THE SPOOL-COTTON GIRL.
-
-
-PART II.
-
-“WHAT did you say?” This last sentence was addressed to a customer who
-had been standing for some seconds. “Green braid? No, we haven’t any to
-match that.”
-
-“Are you sure?” questioned the young girl anxiously. “Haven’t you a
-little darker, then? that will do.”
-
-[Illustration: THE LIBERTY BELL.]
-
-“No, we haven’t!” sharp-voiced and spiteful.
-
-“Saucy thing!” she added, as the girl turned away; “I told her I
-hadn’t; what business had she to ask again?”
-
-“O, Nellie! I don’t think you are sure. I think I found some in your
-upper row of boxes yesterday which would answer for the sample.”
-
-“Nonsense! as if you could tell without looking. I know I haven’t; I
-tumbled the whole lot over yesterday for a fussy woman, and I remember
-every shade in it. It is of no consequence, anyhow; a seven-cent braid!
-
-“O, Jean! look here; let me see your photographs. Are they good?”
-
-She had darted away to the counter below.
-
-Marion stood for a moment irresolute, then moved toward the girl. “Let
-me see it, please; I think I can match it.”
-
-The woman to whom she had sold a spool of thread turned at the sound
-of her voice and smiled on the girl. “Give it to her, Jennie, she will
-match it; she knows how,” she said. Marion answered the smile; her
-heart was warm over the simple words of commendation. She sought among
-the upper row of boxes for the one which her memory associated with
-yesterday’s shades, and found it. The girl made her seven-cent purchase
-and went away pleased, just as Nellie came back from her photographs.
-
-“Such a stupid day!” she yawned toward its close. “Not a person of
-importance has even passed our counter. I’ve sold about a dollar’s
-worth of goods to-day. How much have you done?”
-
-“Hardly that,” said Marion, smiling. “It has all been spools of cotton
-and darning needles. It has rained, you know, all day.”
-
-The next morning’s sun shone brightly, and the large store was thronged
-early in the day with shoppers. Both Marion and Nellie were busy, the
-latter not much pleasanter than she had been the day before; it all
-seemed such trivial work to her.
-
-“Are you sure you are not mistaken in the name?” one of the chiefs was
-saying, in a perplexed tone, to a lady who stood near Marion’s counter.
-“We have but one clerk of that name, and she is the youngest in the
-store.”
-
-“This one is quite young, and she sells spool cotton,” said the lady,
-catching Marion’s eye and smiling a recognition. She had laid aside the
-long gossamer, and was carefully dressed. “I have a fancy to be waited
-on by her.”
-
-“Marion,” said the chief, turning to her, “this lady wants to look at
-the light trimming silks; do you know anything about them?”
-
-“Yes, sir,” said Marion promptly; “I know the shades and prices.”
-
-“I thought so,” the lady said, and Marion moved down the archway at her
-side.
-
-“I have a fancy that you can match silks,” the lady said; “at least I
-think you will patiently try. A girl who could do her best on a rainy
-day for a spool of cotton, can be depended upon for silk, I believe.”
-
-From the silk department they went to the glove counter, and from there
-to the millinery, in each of which departments the young girl with
-wide-open eyes and deft fingers and careful taste gave satisfaction.
-“You ought to be in this room,” said the head milliner, smiling on her
-as she saw her select the right shade of velvet. “Where do you belong?”
-She laughed when told, and said that the spool-cotton department was
-fortunate.
-
-“That Marion Wilkes,” said the chief on Saturday evening, “what about
-her?” The clerk told briefly what he knew about her.
-
-“Promote her,” said the chief briefly. “Keep watch of her; if she
-succeeds in other departments as well, keep pushing her. She has been
-worth several hundred dollars to us this week. Miss Lamson told me
-she had expected to buy her niece’s outfit over at Breck’s, but was
-attracted here by that little girl selling her a spool of cotton on a
-rainy day. And Jennie Packard brought her mother here for the winter
-supplies for their family, because that girl matched a dress braid; in
-fact, I have heard half a dozen stories of the kind about her. She is
-valuable; we cannot spare her for spool cotton.”
-
-It was four years ago that this true story happened. Last Saturday,
-as I stood near the spool counter in the fashionable store, I heard a
-voice ask: “And what has become of Marion Wilkes? She used to be here
-next to you, didn’t she, Nellie?”
-
-“Why, yes, she was the spool-cotton girl; but she didn’t stay here
-long; she got to be a favorite with the proprietors somehow. I never
-understood it. She was a sly little thing; they promoted her all the
-while; you never saw anything like it. She gets the largest salary of
-any saleswoman in the store now, and I heard last week that they were
-going to put her at the head of the art department. That’s just the way
-with some people, always in luck. Here I have been at this tape and
-braid counter for years, and expect to be until my eyes are too dim to
-pick out the stupid things. I told you I had no tape of that width;
-what is the use in asking again?” This last sentence was addressed to a
-little girl who was waiting to be served.
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-
-
-
-THE SPOILED FACE.
-
-(_Character Studies._)
-
-
-“ISN’T he lovely?” asked Miss Henderson, as we three stood in front of
-Charlie’s portrait, which had just come from the artist’s hand. “He has
-such great expressive eyes, so soft, and yet so full of intelligence.
-The artist has caught the very expression. I think I never saw a more
-beautiful boy.”
-
-“I think I never saw a greater nuisance,” said Miss Maylie, speaking
-with a good deal of energy and with a slight frown on her face, as
-though some unpleasant memory was stirred by the sight of the lovely
-face in the frame. We both turned and looked at her in surprise.
-
-“Nuisance!” repeated Miss Henderson. “Why, what can you mean? I have
-heard that his character is as lovely as his face. He is one of the
-most generous little fellows, always dividing his goodies with the
-children.”
-
-“Oh! I don’t doubt it,” said Miss Maylie; “but there are other traits
-in children to be sought after besides that of dividing their goodies.”
-Then she laughed, as if half-ashamed of the warmth of her manner,
-and said: “I’ve been a recent victim to one of his habits, and feel
-somewhat deeply, perhaps. I had an important engagement with his mother
-yesterday—a business matter for which I had asked an interview—and
-told her I was pressed for time, and had but a half-hour. I suppose we
-had been together about two minutes when the door opened without the
-ceremony of a knock, and Charlie appeared to ask if he might go over to
-Uncle Harry’s. He was told that he could not, it looked too much like
-rain; and he argued the matter, assuring his mother that the wind had
-changed and was blowing from the west; that the cook said it was not
-going to rain any more; that he would put on his rubbers and bundle up,
-and I don’t know what else. He was listened to patiently by his mother,
-and impatiently by me, for my precious half-hour was slipping away. He
-shut the door at last with a frown on his face which, if it had been
-painted, would have made this picture much less beautiful, but I am
-afraid more natural.
-
-“It was certainly not five minutes before he was back, and this time it
-was, ‘Mamma, may I call Jerry to bring in the kittens?’
-
-“‘O, no, dear! not this afternoon; you are dressed for dinner, you
-know.’
-
-“‘That won’t make any difference; I won’t soil my clothes. The kittens
-haven’t been out in the mud. Do, mamma, let me.’
-
-“‘No, Charlie; I do not want them in the parlor, you know.’
-
-“‘Then I’ll go to the kitchen and play with them; Jane won’t care.’
-
-“‘Yes, Jane cares very much; the kittens annoy her. Charlie will have
-to get along without them this afternoon.’
-
-“Another slam to the door, with the scowl deepened. But we were by
-no means to be left in peace. I was just in the midst of the most
-intricate part of my business explanation, when Charlie arrived again.
-Now he was hungry; could not wait another minute, and wanted some
-bread and butter and syrup, and a piece of cake and a glass of milk.
-It was carefully explained to him that dinner would be served within
-the hour, and that syrup was not good for him, the doctor said—to which
-he replied that he did not care what the old doctor said—and that cake
-would be given him at the table when it was passed to the others.
-To each of these explanations he returned an answer which had to be
-answered, and when all was settled, he began over again to coax for
-something to eat! The fourth time he came he wanted the gas lighted
-in the library, and the fifth he wanted a certain great book which he
-could not lift placed conveniently for him to look at the pictures.
-When at last even his mother felt the strain on her patience and told
-him he must run away and not interrupt her again, he burst into a loud
-howl, and slammed the door after him so that my nerves all shivered at
-the jar.
-
-“I must say it would be difficult for me to admire his face to-day; my
-annoyances are too recent. Seven times during a single half-hour to be
-interrupted by a little boy, when you are trying to transact important
-business with his mother, has spoiled his face for me. If he had
-wanted one single thing which it was important to have at that moment,
-it would have made a difference.”
-
-“They all seemed important to him, I suppose,” said gentle Miss
-Henderson, who always tried to apologize for everybody.
-
-“Yes, they did,” said Miss Maylie; “that is just the trouble; he
-evidently considered himself a very important person, and thought that
-his mother should leave her business and her caller and attend to him.
-I should call him a spoiled child.”
-
-                                               MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-[Illustration: CHARLIE’S PORTRAIT.]
-
-
-
-
-MY LITTLE MAID.
-
-
-THIS is my little maid, Eva ——, though that is not her Chinese name.
-She will be a woman one of these bright days, and who knows but she may
-become a real princess or empress of great China?
-
-“What of that?”
-
-[Illustration: EVA.]
-
-Much every way, if she now loves the Lord Jesus, and grows up a noble
-Christian woman. Can’t you see how she could help the Gospel among her
-people if she had the great power of an empress? I hope you remember
-how the good Queen of Madagascar led her nation to give up idolatry
-and choose the Bible. And now they are doing things so cruel to their
-neighbors who have become Christians we wish our little Eva were the
-grand good empress to stop these wicked Chinese doings.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    THINK well over your important steps in life; having
-    made up your mind never look behind.
-
-
-
-
-SACRED ANIMALS.
-
-
-SOME nations think certain animals sacred; that is, they are so much
-better than other animals that they must not be harmed; of course they
-must not be killed. If they can they treat them almost as if they were
-human beings, dressing them up nicely, even richly. Just think of one
-of our bull-dogs dressed and fed and housed almost as well as a king!
-
-“Why do certain tribes of Africa almost worship the Lion of Lhiamba?”
-
-Perhaps because he is so strong and wise and terrible. He seems like a
-very god to them, they fear him so.
-
-“Now maybe,” they say to themselves, “if we respect this great, fierce
-beast, never lifting a hand to harm him, maybe he will not harm us.”
-
-“Does he ever harm them?”
-
-Always, if they cross his path when he is hungry.
-
-“Are there any other sacred animals?”
-
-Yes; the bull, the white elephant, the monkey, even the serpent, and
-how many more it is hard to say.
-
-Maybe you can guess which is sacred to the Egyptians, Chinese, etc.
-
-We should not needlessly harm any animal. Shooting birds for mere fun
-is wrong. Animals have a hard time in this world. Let us not make it
-harder. But we must worship God only.
-
-They are mere creatures, passing away after a short stay here; God
-lives forever. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
-
-                                                        L.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    EACH one of us is bound to make the little circle
-    in which he lives better and happier; each of us is
-    bound to see that out of that small circle the widest
-    good may flow; each of us may have fixed in his mind
-    the thought that out of a single household may flow
-    influences that shall stimulate the whole commonwealth
-    and the whole civilized world.—_Selected._
-
-[Illustration: THE LION OF LHIAMBA.]
-
-
-
-
-SADIE’S “HEATHEN.”
-
-
-NOBODY knew or even dreamed how large a thought was puzzling the brains
-of little Sadie Wilmot. It had begun at family worship that morning.
-Or no; perhaps it began back of that, at the meeting of “Cheerful
-Givers,” on Thursday. Mr. Wilmot said it was an absurd idea for such
-little dots as Sadie to be going to missionary meeting, but grandmamma
-quoted to him: “As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined,” and herself
-dressed Sadie for the gathering. Then Miss Harlowe, the leader, had
-told a story about a little heathen boy who prayed to an ugly little
-wooden image, with a hideous face; she showed a model of the little
-heathen’s god, and Sadie was shocked and distressed. She thought
-about the heathen a good deal that day. Now, this Saturday morning
-grandfather, at family worship, had read a Psalm. Sadie had not been
-listening very closely; in fact, it was hard for her to listen to Bible
-reading, some way, unless it had a story in it. This was not in the
-least like a story, and Sadie’s thoughts were, if the truth must be
-told, upon her dollie’s new hat and how she should make it, when she
-heard these words: “Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for
-thine inheritance.” It was that word “heathen” which caught her ear.
-Who was talking? To whom were the heathen to be given? Had some naughty
-king given them away to a bad man, and was that why they prayed to ugly
-wooden dollies? Sadie’s thoughts were in a turmoil; she could hardly
-wait until the prayer was over, before she was at grandpapa’s knee
-questioning.
-
-“Why, child,” said grandpapa, with a puzzled air, for he was not used
-to explaining the Bible to little people, “it means what it says; the
-heathen are to be given to Jesus.”
-
-“Given to Jesus!” said Sadie, amazed, “then why do they pray to ugly
-wooden dollies?”
-
-“Because He hasn’t got them yet; they don’t know they belong to him.”
-
-“Why doesn’t somebody tell them?”
-
-“They do. People are at work telling them. Did you never hear about the
-missionaries, child? I thought you belonged to a Mission Band?”
-
-Of course she did, and had heard about missionaries, and assured her
-grandfather that she gave five cents a month to support them. He did
-not say that that was a larger sum than he gave regularly for the same
-purpose; for some reason he did not care to do so; he only said:
-
-“Very well, then, you understand all about it. The Bible says the
-heathen will be given to Jesus, and the missionaries have gone over
-there to tell them about it, and show them how to serve the Lord.”
-
-“Has every single one of them heard it?” questioned Sadie, in great
-earnestness.
-
-“Well, no,” said grandfather; “I believe they haven’t yet.”
-
-“Why don’t they do it faster? Why don’t lots more missionaries go, and
-take Bibles, and hurry? Because maybe some of them will die before they
-hear it.”
-
-Sadie was in intense earnest, but her father laughed, and said: “That’s
-the question, father. Puts some of you Christians in a tight place,
-doesn’t it?”
-
-Sadie could not imagine what he meant; her grandfather sat at ease in
-his big leather-covered chair, and was not in a tight place at all.
-But she was disappointed at his telling her to run away and not ask
-any more questions for five minutes. If she only had a mamma, Sadie
-thought, she would ask her all the questions she pleased, for her
-friend Trudie Brown said that mammas never got tired of answering. But
-Sadie’s mamma went to heaven when she was a wee baby.
-
-She went away to think it over, as she had to do with so many of
-her puzzles, only to have it added to presently by words from her
-grandmother.
-
-“I declare!” said that good woman, coming in from the back yard, where
-she had been talking to Tony, the errand-boy, “that boy is a perfect
-heathen.”
-
-Sadie nearly dropped her dollie with a china head on the floor, in her
-dismay. “Is he truly, Grandma?” she asked.
-
-“Yes, he is,” said grandmamma, with emphasis; “I don’t believe there is
-a greater heathen in the depths of Africa than Tony. I have been trying
-to explain the simplest matter to him, and he does not understand me as
-well as a child of three ought to.”
-
-“How should he?” asked grandfather, to whom this sentence was chiefly
-addressed; “he has never had any chance to learn. The whole settlement
-over there where he came from live like heathen, and know no better.”
-
-Then came one of Sadie’s startling questions: “Grandfather, is he one
-of those who were given to Jesus?”
-
-[Illustration: THINKING IT OVER.]
-
-“What?” asked grandfather, in astonishment. He had already forgotten
-the morning’s questions.
-
-“Why, isn’t he one that you read about, out of the Bible, that was
-given to Jesus?”
-
-“Oh!” said grandfather, “I suppose so; why, yes, child, certainly.
-Jesus came to save him, as well as other heathen.”
-
-“Does he know it?”
-
-“What a child you are!” said grandmother; but as this was no answer
-Sadie waited, looking at her grandfather.
-
-“I doubt if he does,” he said at last, “or would understand if he was
-told.”
-
-“Why, then he ought to be told over and over, ever so many times, as
-you said you had to do with Bruce before he understood that he was to
-stand on his hind feet and ask for a bone, oughtn’t he?”
-
-Both grandfather and grandmother began to laugh, though Sadie had no
-knowledge of what there was to laugh about; she was often treated in
-this way, and did not understand it. She turned away with a dignified
-air, a trifle hurt that her logic should produce only laughter; but
-there was decision as well as dignity in the tone in which she said: “I
-mean to tell him.”
-
-That was the beginning of effort for Tony Black, as he was called for
-convenience, though his full name was Antony Blackwell.
-
-Faithfully did Sadie pour information on him and ply him with questions
-until, from staring and being stupidly amused, and then half-vexed with
-her, he at last became interested, and listened and asked questions
-himself, and began to think. “Sadie’s heathen,” he was familiarly
-called by certain amused friends, who were told the story.
-
-He was called so long after the name had ceased to fit him; for this
-is a true story of something which happened years ago. The years went
-by, and Tony Black became so utterly changed that people forgot that
-they had ever called him heathen, or even Tony. “Young Blackwell”
-was the name by which he began to be known; then, after a time,
-“Mr. Blackwell.” And one evening, when there was a great meeting in
-one of the largest churches of a certain city, he was introduced as
-“The Rev. Mr. Blackwell, who is under appointment to go to Africa
-as a missionary.” Who do you think went with him? Sadie herself! He
-told on the platform something of his story; of the time when he was
-called “Sadie’s heathen,” and of his joy and pride in having the name
-altered, until now, by her friends, he was called “Sadie’s minister.”
-But by mere acquaintances they were spoken of as Rev. and Mrs. Antony
-Blackwell.
-
-                                               MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-QUEER CREATURES.
-
-
-THIS is a scene in Africa. Those queer creatures scampering up the
-tree, are monkeys, to be sure; the other big lizards are crocodiles,
-you see. The way of it was that one of the crocodiles was sleeping—or
-pretending to sleep—on the bank of the river, when along came a
-careless little monkey, and his eyes were not where they should have
-been, or they did not look sharply at this thing that seemed to be but
-a log; when, before he knew what he was about, this “log” opened his
-big mouth, and with a sudden flap of his tail, in went the thoughtless
-monkey. That was the end of that young monkey. That’s about the way the
-saloons swallow folks. Don’t go near them!
-
-“But tell the rest. What did the mother monkey say?”
-
-She was mad as—“a setting hen.” She shouted at the top of her voice,
-and a great army of monkeys came galloping to her to know what was the
-matter. Now one monkey knows just how to tell the others what’s the
-matter; so they all set up such a hue and cry as you never heard. They
-scolded and insulted the crocodile, and twitched their faces and shook
-their fists at him, and jabbered such a bedlam that all the crocodiles
-ran together to see what was to pay. Upon the bank out of the water
-they climbed, and with open mouths and loud hisses, hurried after the
-scampering monkeys; but those spry creatures bounded up that big high
-tree, and from the lofty limbs looked down and scolded with all their
-might and main, and again shook their fists and snapped their long
-finger-nails to show how they would tear every hair out of the crock’s
-hide if they could get a chance—if there were any hair.
-
-It would have been better if they all, monks and crocks, had come
-kindly together and asked one another’s pardon and settled their
-differences, and signed a pledge never to eat or scold one another any
-more. Read this:
-
-    “We had a grand temperance rally here last night.
-    The children marched around the neighborhood, before
-    the meeting, with banner and song. The church was
-    beautifully decorated with vines, branches of
-    palm-trees, maidenhair ferns, calla lilies, white
-    orchid blossoms, etc. The place was filled. . . . There
-    were songs, dialogues, temperance catechism, temperance
-    stories and speeches. Over twenty came forward and
-    took the blue ribbon. One had been a ‘hard case.’
-    Among the natives pledging is almost equal to coming
-    to Christ. . . . Every day began with a sunrise prayer
-    meeting. A chorus of young people, the girls dressed in
-    white, occupied the platform. They enjoy music.”
-
-[Illustration: SCAMPERING UP THE TREE.]
-
-So writes Rev. Mr. Dorward of Umzumbe, Africa. You see there is a
-difference between the young folks of Africa and the monks and crocks.
-What is the difference? And which of the two meetings do you prefer?
-
-                                               L.
-
-
-
-
-THE HARD TEXT.
-
-(_Matt._ xiii. 57.)
-
-
-YOU would think people would be proud of a neighbor who does well.
-They are often jealous of him. When he becomes very great they often
-are all the more jealous, and say hard things about him, and he must
-sometimes actually get away to get peace and respect. When Columbus
-told his neighbors he was sure he could get to the East Indies by
-sailing westward they laughed him to scorn. He asked his own nation for
-ships and men to sail away on a voyage of discovery. He got nothing but
-opposition. He was compelled to go away to Spain for honor and ships.
-
-Jesus’ neighbors ought to have been proud of him; but they drove him
-away. They tried even to kill him, so jealous were they of him. But he
-got honor elsewhere. So it usually is. Do you honor him or drive him
-away?
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-WHAT HE COULD DO.
-
-
-I READ not long ago of a little fellow who was employed in a Boston
-office as errand boy. Four young men had the office together, and liked
-to spend their leisure moments in teasing the boy, who was very small
-for his years.
-
-One day, after they had been chatting together, and using many oaths,
-with which they were in the habit of mixing their conversation, one
-of them turned to the boy and said: “Dick, what do you expect to do
-for a living, anyhow? You can’t be a business man; there is no sort of
-business that you can do; you are too small. The fact is you’ll be a
-dwarf, and I don’t see how you are to get your living.”
-
-Said Dick, “I can do something now which you four gentlemen can’t do.”
-
-“You can, eh? What in the world is that?”
-
-“I can keep from swearing,” said the boy, in a firm, clear voice.
-
-One of the young men laughed, another whistled, and all turned and
-walked away, leaving Dick master of the situation.
-
-
-
-
-EASTER.
-
-
-    LONG nights she wept!
-    Sad days and weary weeks went by,
-    And life resumed its routine mournfully;
-    The tasks that once were easy to perform
-    Did seem vast mountains to the strength so worn;
-    And if the sun did shine, or if it not,
-    In shadow’s dwelt her heart; no ray, no spot
-    Of light or hope did penetrate the gloom—
-    This life seemed sadder far than death or tomb.
-
-    And still she wept!
-    ’Till to her tear-washed eyes there came,
-    Like “bow of promise” after summer rain,
-    A vision beauteous from that “other land”—
-    Sleep and a “maiden” walking hand in hand.
-    They passed among those homes of “silent dead,”
-    They found “her darling’s grave,” the “name” they read,
-    Then, bending on her soulful, tender eyes,
-    The “maiden” whispered: “Did our dear Lord rise?
-    Then wherefore fall these teardrops from thine eyes?
-    If ‘Christ is risen indeed,’ then shall not we,
-    His ‘friends,’ his ‘heirs,’ live through eternity?
-
-    “Why should the Christians fear, who thus believe?
-    Why will they not the ‘Comforter’ receive?
-    I come each year to raise the drooping head,
-    To whisper to the mourner, Is Christ dead,
-    That you so mourn your loved? Look upward, sing!
-    Behold yon butterfly on gorgeous wing!
-    Know that this grave is but the chrysalis—
-    Then light, and glory, where the Saviour is;
-    And ‘where I am, there ye shall also be’;
-    ‘Come, weary, heavy laden, come to me!’”
-
-    The vision fled,
-    But to her heart there softly came
-    Abiding faith in Jesus’ precious name;
-    A joy, that all her sorrow she could rest
-    Upon her Saviour’s sympathizing breast,
-    And, in the place of gloom and fear, was born
-    A perfect trust—on that fair Easter morn.
-                                    —_Exchange._
-
-[Illustration: HAVE A BITE?]
-
-[Illustration: SHALL I BITE OFF THIS BUTTON?]
-
-
-
-
-QUEEN ELIZABETH.
-
-
-ABOUT three hundred years ago England’s great queen died. She was not
-very beautiful. Some said this was a great trial to her, and that she
-took marvelous pains to “fix” herself up to look as well as any lady
-in the land. Fine feathers often make pretty birds, but all Queen
-Bess’ efforts failed to make her handsome. However, as she had royal
-power she had many admirers. They called her “charming,” “lovely,”
-“lily,” “rose,” and such other words to flatter her. She liked it,
-and persuaded herself that after all her features and complexion were
-nearly exquisite.
-
-However that be she had not a few offers of marriage. But none suited
-her, or may be she, as a queen, did not want to be bothered with a
-husband, who would be continually interfering in the government.
-
-It is sad to think of some things this woman did. Of course you will
-read about it. Sometimes she would have outbursts of anger so great
-that she would actually box the ears of those around her, no matter how
-distinguished they were.
-
-The great stain upon her character was her treatment of Mary, Queen of
-Scots, her own relative. Mary was imprisoned eighteen years, then put
-to death on charge of conspiracy.
-
-But England arose to extraordinary prosperity under the long reign of
-“Queen Bess.” There were great scholars in her day, and she encouraged
-all sorts of improvements. You Pansy girls must some day dress your P.
-S. President up in the Elizabethan style and say if you would like it
-nowadays.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-(_Sent with the gift of a Canary Bird in Cage._)
-
-    IN memory of the birdlings fair
-      Who from your nest have flown,
-    To try in Heaven’s serener air
-      The wings earth could not own.
-                                M. S. B.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-ELSIE’S PLAN.—I.
-
-(_Something for Mamma._)
-
-
-THE thought grew in Elsie’s mind, nourished by three remarks made by
-her mother and sisters. They were all at work except Irma, who was
-trying to teach Leoline to jump gracefully from her shoulder, instead
-of giving such a rude bound. Leoline was the cat. Irma was not apt to
-be at work, if the truth must be told; she was the only one of the
-little household who did not seem to understand the need for being
-industrious. She was two years older than Elsie, but the grown-up
-sisters often said of her that Elsie was at least three years ahead
-of Irma in judgment. I have sometimes thought if they had said in
-conscientiousness it would have been nearer the truth.
-
-At this particular time, while Irma struggled with the cat’s education,
-Elsie took neat stitches in the apron she was mending, her face looking
-thoughtful the while. Margaret, the oldest sister, was sewing swiftly
-on a dress of Irma’s, setting in new sleeves, and in other ways trying
-to make the half-worn garment look like a new one. Nannie came in,
-dustpan in hand, and with a handkerchief bound about her hair to
-protect it from the dust, just as her mother opened the door of the
-kitchen, with her hands filled with soiled napkins and towels.
-
-“Mother, where can I put that roll of matting?” Nannie asked, a touch
-of irritation in her voice; “I have reached the end of my resources in
-tucking things away. If I ever do build a house I will have all the
-closets I want; good-sized ones, too—and if there is any space left for
-rooms, there may be a few tucked in; but the closets I will have.”
-
-Mrs. Harding sighed. “Closets are certainly very scarce in this house,”
-she said wearily, “as well as many other things. I don’t know what to
-do with the soiled clothes; we need a clothes hamper very much. There
-is a corner in the upper back hall where one might stand, if we had
-it.” The sentence ended as it had begun, with a little sigh.
-
-Irma echoed the sigh in a sort of groan. “I saw such a pretty one,
-mother, last night, at Turner’s. It was only two dollars; I thought of
-you when I saw them unpacking it. And to think that we cannot afford
-even two dollars for a basket!”
-
-“There are worse trials in life than even that, I suspect,” said
-Nannie, darting an angry glance at Irma, as she saw the flush spread
-and deepen over her mother’s face. Margaret made haste to change the
-subject.
-
-“We each have our perplexities, it seems,” she said, with a light
-laugh; “mine has to do with dress. I don’t know what to do with that
-light sateen of mine; it is too gay to wear about the house at work,
-even if it were long enough, which it isn’t. It is not worth giving
-away, it is too good to throw into the rag bag, and there isn’t room
-for it in my closet. Now what is to be done in such a case?”
-
-Then Elsie spoke for the first time, eagerly, a bright look flashing
-over her face, as though some perplexity had just then been
-delightfully solved. “O, Margaret! will you give the dress to me to do
-just what I please with?”
-
-“To you, child! what can you do with it? It isn’t just the thing for a
-dollie, I should say.”
-
-“No,” said Irma scornfully, “I should think not. Do let us have our
-dolls dressed in good taste and decent style, even if we cannot afford
-anything for ourselves.”
-
-“I don’t want it for my doll, Margaret. I have a plan, a real nice one,
-if you will let me have the dress, and if mother will give me the
-matting Nannie cannot find a place for. Will you, mother? There is only
-a little of it left.”
-
-“Is it the yellow plaid, Nannie? Why, yes, dear, if there is any
-pleasure to be gotten out of that yard and a half of cheap matting, by
-all means use it; especially since there is no place to store it.”
-
-Then Mrs. Harding left the room, giving Nannie a chance to say what she
-was longing to.
-
-“I never saw such a girl as you are, Irma; you omit no opportunity
-to remind mother of our poverty. Even so trivial a thing as a soiled
-clothes hamper must draw from you a woe-begone sigh. Why can’t you
-remember that it is hard enough for mother, at the best, without trying
-to keep the thought of our troubles ever before her?”
-
-“Why, dear me!” said Irma, “what did I say? Mother knew before I spoke
-of it that we could not afford even two dollars to buy a clothes
-hamper. I don’t think she is very likely to forget that we have lost
-our money.”
-
-“Not if you are around,” answered Nannie angrily. “I think you are a
-selfish girl; you do nothing but groan and regret, for your share.
-Well, I can’t help it,” she added, in answer to Margaret’s warning
-look; “that child’s selfish frettings do try me so!”
-
-“We must not expect old heads on young shoulders, remember,” Margaret
-said gently, as Irma put Leoline down with a decided bounce, and
-slammed the door the least bit after her, as she left the room.
-
-“It is the contrast that makes one notice it so,” answered Nannie, with
-a significant nod of her head toward Elsie. But Elsie neither heard the
-words, nor saw the nod; her mind was busy elsewhere.
-
-“O, Margaret!” she said eagerly, “I have the loveliest plan. You
-know to-morrow will be mother’s birthday, and I was all the evening
-wondering what I could give her; now I know. Nannie, I will take the
-matting out of your way. I mean to make a clothes hamper for mother out
-of that and Margaret’s dress.”
-
-Nannie laughed outright, and even Margaret smiled as she said: “Why,
-dear child, how can you? I am afraid that is a very large undertaking.”
-
-“No,” said Elsie positively; “I see just how I can do it. The plan
-flashed into my mind as soon as you and Nannie began to talk about the
-two things in the way. I almost know I can do it. If you will help to
-keep mother away from our room this afternoon, and she won’t give me
-anything special to do, I can make it and have it ready for to-morrow
-morning. I know just how to go to work.”
-
-“Let her try it,” said Nannie, with a wise nod of her head. “The child
-will make something; I never knew her to fail when she had undertaken
-to do a thing, and mother’s birthday ought to be noticed in some
-way, even though we cannot do as we used. I’m going to fix over her
-sewing-chair; I believe in useful presents myself. We will agree to
-keep mother in order, Elsie, and the sooner the matting disappears from
-the front hall the better.”
-
-So the little room occupied by the two younger girls was locked all the
-afternoon, while Elsie worked steadily, and Irma lounged on the bed
-with a book, encouraging her sister occasionally with: “You never can
-do it in the world, Elsie Harding! I don’t see any sense in trying. For
-my part I would rather give her no present than a bungling thing like
-that. You can’t sew matting decently; it ravels so.”
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-[Illustration: AN OLD-TIME MAY-DAY.]
-
-[Illustration: THE CUSTOM HOUSE, NEW YORK.]
-
-
-
-
-ABOUT NEW YORK.
-
-BY THE PANSIES.
-
-
-[Illustration: COOPER INSTITUTE.]
-
-I READ about it when it was called New Amsterdam. A thousand people,
-and it was just a straggling little town. Pearl Street they called “De
-Perel Straat.” The folks were very proud of this street; there were
-forty-three houses on it! One man thought his fortune was made because
-he had bought a lot two years before for fifty dollars, and was offered
-two hundred and fifty for it. And the lot was thirty feet wide and over
-a hundred feet deep! Think of a New York man to-day buying a lot of
-that size for two hundred and fifty dollars! My father says it would
-take a fortune to buy such a lot.
-
-                                               HENRY STUART.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY cousin and I had great fun reading about a family who took a long
-journey from New York to Albany. They went on a river steamer; started
-at daylight and reached Albany at sunset, and thought they had done
-a big thing. There were no railroads to ride on; not a single train
-going out of New York City! That was in 1827. It seems strange that
-such wonderful things can take place in one century. I think this is
-the grandest century we ever had.
-
-                                               ROBERT CAMPBELL.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I SPENT a week in New York, and boarded very near Madison Square. I
-was on Twenty-third Street, pretty near to Fifth Avenue, and Broadway
-streaks across the city right there, so I had a chance to see almost
-everything; because those who know anything about New York City know
-that if you see what is on those streets, why, you have seen a good
-deal. It is Broadway and Fifth Avenue going criss-cross that make
-Madison Square. There are lots of hotels around there. The park is just
-magnificent; I like it better than Central Park, because it is right
-there, you know. There is a splendid fountain in the middle, and a
-drinking fountain somewhere else, and statues of Seward and Farragut.
-Seward is sitting down, and looks as though he didn’t care.
-
-If I had room I could tell you lots of things about Madison Square; but
-since you only let us have a few lines, what will a fellow do? I’m
-going to the Christian Endeavor meeting in July, and that will give a
-good chance to study up that part of the city, because the meeting is
-to be in Madison Square.
-
-                                               DAVID G. DUNLAP.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY mother used to be a pupil in Cooper Institute, and when I went to
-New York a few months ago father took me to see it. It is very large;
-it cost more than six hundred thousand dollars. Peter Cooper built it
-about thirty-five years ago; and then he gave three hundred thousand
-dollars to keep the free library going which belongs to it. They have
-all sorts of schools in the building. You can learn how to telegraph,
-and to write on the type-writer, and how to draw and paint. My mother
-was in the painting school, and she paints beautifully. We went up to
-the reading-room; it is on the third floor; there are rows and rows and
-rows of books! It makes me dizzy to think of so many. The books are all
-covered, so they don’t look very pretty. There are long tables and lots
-of chairs; you are given a check made of brass, or tin, or something,
-when you go into the room; then if you want a book or magazine you go
-to the desk and ask for it, and give that check in return; you cannot
-get out of the room without that check, so you are apt to carry your
-book back when you are done with it, and get your check again. After
-all there are only about twenty thousand books on the shelves. I was
-disappointed; I thought there were millions.
-
-                                               EMMELINE ANDREWS.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-DICK WALTERS is in our “General Information” class, and when
-Trinity Church was talked about Dick declared he had been in the
-old building which was put there in 1697. I knew better, because my
-great-grandfather told about its being burned in the fire of 1776. But
-we couldn’t make Dick Walters give up the notion that he was in the
-very identical church built two hundred years ago. At last Professor
-Townley explained that it was the old site, but a new church built in
-1846. Since we had our fuss about it I have been there myself. It is
-a splendid building, I think, if it isn’t two hundred years old. The
-steeple is two hundred and eighty-four feet high, and the chimes are
-lovely. It is an old brown church, and looks solemn and still; it is
-right on Broadway, but when you step inside it seems just as still! You
-can hear the birds chirp on the trees in the churchyard, though there
-is a terrible roar of noise outside. Alexander Hamilton is buried in
-Trinity churchyard.
-
-                                               ROBERT PAXTON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-[Illustration: THE OBELISK.]
-
-I SUPPOSE everybody will write about Central Park; but I can’t help
-it, I want to tell some things about it myself. I was there in June.
-We went up to Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue and took a carriage.
-We drove through the Scholars’ Gate; this took us straight to the
-menagerie, and we saw the bear-pits and everything, though they say
-they don’t have the menagerie there any more. We took a row on the
-lake, and we saw the Bethesda Fountain with its real angel—well, I mean
-a carved one, of course—bending over the water. Then we walked through
-The Ramble, which I think is the loveliest part of the park, only they
-won’t let you break off the least little speck of a flower or leaf.
-There are lots of birds, and they seemed busier and happier than any
-birds I ever saw. We saw a sign directing us to the “Dairy,” so we went
-there and got some splendid milk and some bread and butter. We children
-wanted to go to “The Carousal”; that is a sign which points out the way
-to the children’s playground, where there are swings and everything;
-but father said we hadn’t time, and that we could have “carousals”
-enough at home.
-
-                                               LAURA J. WESTOVER.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-LAURA has written a letter about Central Park, and hasn’t mentioned
-the obelisk. Ho, ho! if that isn’t just like a girl. I have studied up
-about it since I was there. They had an awful time bringing it over
-here from Egypt. They had to cut a hole in the bow of the boat that
-brought it to get it in; and then mend the hole, of course, before they
-could start. And when the steamer reached New York it took thirty-two
-horses to draw just the pedestal down to Central Park!
-
-[Illustration: VIEW OF MADISON SQUARE.]
-
-The carvings on the obelisk are called hieroglyphics, and used to mean
-writing; but scholars have had a great time trying to find out what the
-writing says. They don’t agree about it, but they think it is a lot of
-stuff about some heathen gods. There are carved hawks on the top of the
-column, and these are said to be the birds that belonged to one of the
-gods, because they could fly the highest and could look at the sun.
-The obelisk is sixty-nine feet high, and it weighs three hundred and
-twenty tons. I don’t exactly see what we wanted of it; but it is rather
-nice to look at it and think it came all the way from Egypt and was
-presented to us by Ismail Pasha.
-
-                                               REUBEN T. WESTOVER.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THE nicest ride I had while in New York was along Fifth Avenue. We
-started at Washington Square and went up to Central Park. It is
-almost three miles, and all the way there were such beautiful houses
-and churches to look at, and the road was as smooth as the floor. We
-passed the white marble house built by A. T. Stewart; it cost three
-million dollars, and the people who now rent it pay thirty-seven
-thousand dollars a year for it. Only think! and we get three hundred a
-year for our house, and call it a good rent; but then, it didn’t cost
-three millions. Then we passed the elegant Vanderbilt houses, and the
-magnificent Lenox Library building, and O, dear! I can’t think what
-others. I thought I knew a great deal about them when I began, but
-they are all mixed up in my mind. But what I wanted to say was, that
-the drive from Washington Square away up to Eighty-first Street must
-certainly be the very splendidest in the world. I know I never saw so
-many beautiful buildings before; and I do like grand houses and grand
-churches and everything.
-
-                                               KATE W. GLOVER.
-
-[Illustration: FIFTH AVENUE.]
-
-    [It has been very difficult to select items for this
-    paper, because of the wealth of objects to choose from.
-    We could make the article twice as long just as well as
-    not, out of the material we have, if there were only
-    room for it in the magazine. Also, some of the best and
-    brightest items have been omitted, and others perhaps
-    not quite so interesting chosen in their place, because
-    they spoke of some building which we could show you in
-    picture. The Pansies will understand, I hope, that we
-    fully appreciate their efforts to help us, and that we
-    enjoy the many items which we do not use quite as much
-    as those we select. But do please be more prompt with
-    your letters.—EDITORS.]
-
-
-
-
-THE MORROW.
-
-
-    OF all the tender guards which Jesus drew
-      About our frail humanity, to stay
-      The pressure and the jostle that alway
-    Are ready to disturb, whate’er we do,
-    And mar the work our hands would carry through,
-      None more than this environs us each day
-      With kindly wardenship—“Therefore, I say,
-    Take no thought for the morrow.” Yet we pay
-    The wisdom scanty heed, and impotent
-      To bear the burden of the imperious Now,
-    Assume the future’s exigence unsent.
-      God grants no overplus of power; ’tis shed
-    Like morning manna. Yet we dare to bow
-    And ask, “Give us to-day our morrow’s bread!”
-                                    —_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
-
-
-III.
-
-IT is a nice light night, and if you youngsters have stared long enough
-at the moon, since neighbor Sport has come to call we will try to be a
-little more social.
-
-Pet and Spot and Curley may play on the lawn if they choose, and have
-as good a time as they like.
-
-You have come to ask my advice, have you, Sport?
-
-Well, it doesn’t cost much to give advice, but it isn’t always so easy
-to take it.
-
-What is the question in mind?
-
-Have been slighted and abused, have you? Tell us about it.
-
-Scolded you after you hunted birds all day for him, and then forgot to
-give you any supper. That was pretty hard; pretty mean treatment, I
-should say.
-
-Had your master been drinking?
-
-No? How came it about?
-
-“Why, just before time to start for home I found a big flock of quail,
-and showed him just where they were; and he crept up, gun in hand, and
-tried to fire, but for some reason the gun did not go off.
-
-“That put him out of humor, and he scolded the gun, and by that
-frightened the birds so they flew away.
-
-“Then he sent me to find them, and I could get no snuff of them,
-hunt as hard as I could. Then he spoke to me as he never did before,
-and throwing the gun upon his shoulder started for the house, never
-noticing me by any word, whistle or sign.
-
-“Well, I dropped my tail between my legs, and followed at a good
-distance.
-
-“He didn’t forget the cow, or the pig, or the pony, but took no notice
-of me, and I don’t believe I could eat now if I had a chance.”
-
-Poor fellow! come here and lie down by me. Never mind, never mind;
-these men seem sometimes to have no heart for us, no matter how
-faithful we have been.
-
-I am so thankful we have a master of another kind.
-
-One of you run and bring some of that supper that was left.
-
-We had a very nice supply this evening, and there is enough for two
-hungry fellows yet.
-
-You just say no more till you have had the meat from that bone, and
-see if you don’t feel better. Things hurt worse when one is tired and
-hungry.
-
-There, now rest a while, and I will tell you a story about a
-great-uncle of mine, who lived in Groton.
-
-He was pretty well educated, and did a great many things that some of
-his four-footed friends would not be trusted to do, even if they knew
-enough.
-
-Well, Diamond—that was his name—was pretty good-natured, but a little
-sensitive. Being very affectionate, it was easy for those whom he loved
-to hurt his feelings.
-
-His master was a mechanic, and had to go to his shop every day. The
-distance was so great that he did not come home to dinner; so his wife
-would prepare his dinner, put it in a pail, or in a basket, as it might
-happen, lay in the bottom a nice bone for Diamond, and give it all to
-him to take to his master. That he would do as faithfully as any one.
-
-When the master had finished eating what had been brought, or as much
-as he wanted, he would take the bone, and any scraps left, and give
-them to his faithful carrier, who had been, the while, lying under the
-bench, patiently waiting.
-
-But one day there was a break. The mistress said she was going shopping
-that day, and would take the dinner to her husband herself.
-
-That rather hurt Diamond’s feelings, though he said nothing, but
-followed on, and lay down in his usual place to wait for his bone. The
-master sat down to his dinner with no word for his faithful servant who
-was not permitted to bring the basket, finished his meal, closed the
-basket, and handed it to his wife.
-
-No bone was there, nothing for the one who had been waiting, hungry,
-but patient. The only notice taken of him was a call to follow the lady
-and carry the empty basket. With a heavy heart and drooping tail he
-obeyed. When the purchases were made and put into the basket, Diamond
-was ordered to go ahead of his mistress and take the burden home.
-
-On he trudged until he neared a bridge which they must cross, when a
-thought came suddenly into Diamond’s mind, and quickly darting forward
-to the middle of the bridge he went to one side of it, and deliberately
-let the basket and its contents fall into the stream; then ran for home
-as fast as his four legs could carry him.
-
-I am not telling you this because I think he did right, but that you
-may see that others are treated as badly as you have been.
-
-I suppose I am sorry that a relative of mine ever resorted to revenge;
-but it does sometimes seem very strange to me that more dogs do not
-revenge themselves in some way for the hard treatment they so often
-receive.
-
-You would not like to be guilty of such an act as that?
-
-Well, I am glad of it. Indeed, I think my kinsman was soon sorry for
-what he had done.
-
-Let me tell you how he proved it. His master had been out nearly all
-day with Diamond hunting. The next morning he discovered that he had
-somewhere lost a key. So he showed Diamond another, and told him his
-trouble, and ordered him to go and hunt for it.
-
-Off he went, and at three o’clock that afternoon returned, bringing the
-lost key.
-
-He was tired and hungry, but a good dinner was ready for him, and kind
-words soon made him forget his fatigue.
-
-In fact, I believe both master and dog were ashamed and sorry for the
-past, and inwardly determined to do right in the future.
-
-Now after these true stories of my great-uncle, I hope you feel better,
-and will go home, not to plan how you can be revenged, but how you can
-be true and faithful, and, if possible, win better treatment in future.
-
-                                                        R.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    OF the four hundred and thirteen species of trees in
-    the United States sixteen will sink in water. The
-    heaviest is the black-iron wood of Southern California.
-
-
-
-
-BARNYARD ILLUSIONS.
-
-
-SOMEBODY in one of our exchanges tells an amusing story of his attempt
-at studying human nature in the barnyard. He placed a large piece
-of looking-glass against the trunk of a tree, and scattered corn in
-front of it, then took a convenient position and watched. Some of the
-hens came up with cautious tread, to meet what they supposed were new
-acquaintances, and were simply astonished and bewildered by the result.
-Others pecked at the glass, and were anxious to get up a fight with the
-supposed intruders.
-
-The high-stepping rooster was bent on a victory. He advanced with
-skillful side steps, according to rooster fashion, and was amazed to
-lose sight of his enemy. Of course he had stepped too far to the left
-or right, and so gotten out of range of the glass, but this he did not
-understand. He gave an astonished crow, looked about him fiercely,
-saw no one, finally gave up and went back for a kernel of corn;
-behold, just in front of it was that other rooster, looking fierce.
-He made another attempt for a fight, with exactly the same result as
-before; but the second surrender to mystery brought him quite near to
-the mirror and his enemy. He ruffled his feathers, so did the other
-rooster. He made a dash forward, so did the other, and—the rooster was
-astonished; but you are prepared to hear that the mirror was broken
-into bits. The question which seemed to puzzle that rooster for hours
-afterwards was, What became of his enemy, that he could not find even a
-feather of him lying about the yard?
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-A GOOD man in France is said to have invented an instrument with a very
-fine tube to be inserted into the ear, by means of which sounds can be
-heard by the deaf.
-
-Professor Dussouchet saw the experiment tried upon many deaf mutes, and
-in every case with success. Sounds are sent into a large bell-shaped
-contrivance; thence they pass down the fine tube and strike the
-tympanum (ear drum).
-
-                                                        L.
-
-[Illustration: A SONG FROM THE HEART.]
-
-[Illustration: I NEED A CHRISTMAS DINNER.]
-
-
-
-
-THE BOYHOOD OF TITIAN (_Tish’-yan_).
-
-_Pœta nascitur, non fit._
-
-
-THERE, that is not Greek or German, but Latin, and some day your
-Pansy tongue will talk it off as readily, no doubt, as it now casts
-English to your cat. Won’t it be just splendid for you to be in the
-High School—and not at the foot of your class, either—reading Cæsar or
-Cicero or Horace?
-
-[Illustration: STUDYING ITS CHARACTER.]
-
-“But what does that Latin mean?”
-
-It means, “A poet is born, not made.”
-
-“So is every one ‘born.’”
-
-No, not born a poet, neither can be made into a poet by study; that is,
-a real true poet. Almost everybody can read poetry, and love it and
-make rhymes; but that is not being a poet.
-
-You might just as well now learn that bit of Latin and surprise your
-mamma some day at the dinner-table by saying: “_Pœta nascitur, non
-fit._” The next time you can say: “_Orator nascitur, non fit,_” for
-that is true too. It is true of an artist, and many, many others. We
-all have different gifts at birth. (See Rom. xii. 6.) Johnny Brown can
-sing and play upon almost any instrument. He is a born musician. His
-brother can’t play even upon a jew’s-harp, but he can make one. He can
-make a watch. His fingers can do all sorts of wonderful things such as
-Johnny’s cannot. Boys differ; girls differ. They can’t be made alike.
-One has one gift, one another.
-
-Titian was born an artist.
-
-What do you suppose he is doing there, one hand upon the limb of that
-tree?
-
-“Going up for chestnuts.”
-
-No; try again.
-
-“Going to climb for a crow’s nest.”
-
-Not he. See that bit of a branch in his right hand. He is looking at
-it to see its shape, the form and color of the leaves, and all about
-it. He will paint that whole tree in a little while—no, no; paint one
-on canvas just like it. When he is a few years older he will paint
-portraits, then great elegant pictures.
-
-He was an Italian boy, born in 1477.
-
-Columbus was then about thirty-five years old. He had just made his
-great voyage to Iceland and got back when Titian was a baby. I guess
-Titian saw the born voyager and discoverer, and as likely as not
-painted his portrait or ships. But one of his masterpieces, or greatest
-works, is St. Peter, Martyr; another, The Presentation of the Virgin.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-HANNIBAL’S VOW.
-
-
-MANY hundred years ago there were two magnificent cities on opposite
-sides of the Mediterranean Sea. One was Carthage and the other was
-Rome. But they were jealous of each other, and shook their fists at
-each other and went to war, each trying to do the other all the harm it
-was possible.
-
-In Carthage was a man by the name of Hannibal. He hated Rome bitterly.
-
-A little before his death he took his son out to the altar, where they
-burned sacrifice to the gods, and made him lift up his hands in a vow
-or promise to always hate and harm the Romans.
-
-It was an awful thing for any one to do, but how dreadful for a dying
-man. So young Hannibal swore by the gods, Jupiter, Juno, Apollo,
-Hercules, Mars, Triton and Neptune, and all the other Dæmons.
-
-The old man died. When young Hannibal was now twenty-four he was made
-commander of the troops, and, dressed in a coat of armor, he started
-from Carthage with a mighty army. Away he marched toward Spain,
-conquering and slaying his enemies on the way. On and on he went, over
-rivers and highest mountains. The Romans, when they heard that he was
-in Spain, laughed at the thought of his coming to Rome; they said none
-but gods could do such a thing. But they had not long to laugh. He and
-his conquering host clambered over the Pyrenees, then over the high
-steep Alps, then “down upon the soft and smiling plains of Italy.”
-Then all was excitement in great Rome. Every one became a soldier of
-some sort. “To arms! to arms!” was the cry. The city was turned into a
-fort. Mighty armies went out to meet Hannibal, but one after another
-was slaughtered or put to flight. In one of the great battles forty
-thousand Romans were slain!
-
-The Roman general, Fabius, was a great man, but he was compelled to
-retreat before Hannibal. But just then, when the people in the great
-city were trembling lest Hannibal would be upon them to burn the whole
-city and put the inhabitants to death, word came from Carthage that
-he must hurry home with his army and save Carthage from a Roman army
-coming upon it, led by a wonderful general, Scipio. Soon these two
-conquering hosts met at Zama, not far from Carthage, and here for the
-first time poor Hannibal was defeated, and in the course of time proud
-Carthage was utterly destroyed.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-THE WAR OF THE ROSES.
-
-
-FIVE hundred years ago began very troublous times in England, and it
-went on many bloody years. You see, there were two great parties, as in
-this country, each struggling to rule. In this country they fight it
-out at the ballot box, with bits of paper upon which names are printed.
-The man or party which gets the greater number of ballots rules. In
-England years ago they fought it out with blows. The party which could
-strike the harder blows ruled.
-
-The names of these two great parties were York and Lancaster. The
-Yorkers wore the white rose, the Lancastrians the red rose, so it was
-called the War of the Roses. Oh! the fierce battles, the groans of the
-dying and the banners rolled in blood; neighbors, sometimes brothers,
-killing each other.
-
-And their homes, the mothers and children, what happened to them during
-all those hundred years? You must not know. But what must the Lord
-Jesus have thought of it all?
-
-If it had been for some great good—to put an end to stealing, cruelty,
-drunkenness or some such dreadful thing—it would not seem so bad; but
-it was just to get upon a throne and then to be cruel to the defeated
-party. The great trouble was that this man or that wanted to be king
-just as in America a man wants to be president. Richard the Third
-wanted it so much that he caused his two little nephews to be smothered
-to death while asleep, lest they would grow up and trouble him! This
-was four hundred years ago.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-COME TO SUPPER.
-
-
-ONE pleasant summer day Jamie’s mamma said they would have tea out
-under the trees, because it was papa’s birthday.
-
-[Illustration: THE NAUGHTY ROOSTER.]
-
-She spread a pink cloth on the table, and brought out some pretty
-dishes. Jamie thought it was fine fun.
-
-He helped to carry out the biscuits and strawberries, and he put the
-knives and spoons by the side of the plates.
-
-They had to hurry, because pretty soon the five o’clock train would
-come in, and papa would be on it.
-
-When mamma went into the house to make the tea she gave Jamie a piece
-of cake and told him to sit down on the grass and rest his tired little
-feet.
-
-Jamie liked to sit in that pretty spot. There were green grass and
-daisies and buttercups all about him, and oh! how good the cake tasted.
-
-Pretty soon the old rooster saw that Jamie was alone, and that he had
-something good to eat.
-
-So he called to his family: “Come quick! come to supper.”
-
-Then the gray hen and the yellow hen and the speckled hen and the white
-banties came running as fast as they could run to get some of Jamie’s
-cake.
-
-Old Speckle got the first bite, a great big one, and carried it off to
-eat it. Then Old Yellow came up one side and the rooster came the other
-side, and one took a bite, and the other took a bite.
-
-Jamie began to cry. Mamma heard him. She came out, and said: “Shoo!
-shoo!”
-
-[Illustration: JAMIE BEGAN TO CRY.]
-
-And away went the chickabiddies as fast as they could fly, and no more
-supper for them that night.
-
-                                               MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    OUT in the garden, wee Elsie
-      Was gathering flowers for me;
-    “O, mamma!” she cried, “hurry, hurry,
-      Here’s something I want you to see.”
-    I went to the window; before her
-      A velvet-winged butterfly flew,
-    And the pansies themselves were not brighter
-      Than the beautiful creature in hue.
-    “Oh! isn’t it pretty?” cried Elsie,
-      With eager and wondering eyes,
-    As she watched it soar lazily upward
-      Against the soft blue of the skies.
-    “I know what it is, don’t you, mamma?”
-      Oh! the wisdom of these little things
-    When the soul of a poet is in them.
-      “It’s a pansy—a pansy with wings.”
-                                  —_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-THE HARD TEXT.
-
-(_Matt._ xiii. 12.)
-
-
-NO, it does not seem fair at all to give to him that has something, and
-to refuse it to one that hasn’t anything scarcely, and even to take
-away what little that one has! Just think of giving a rich Pansy five
-hundred dollars more, and then snatching away the last penny from a
-poor Pansy!
-
-Surely you don’t suppose the loving, gentle, merciful Lord Jesus meant
-any such thing? Of course he didn’t.
-
-“What did He mean?” Why, simply this, my dear; that one who makes good
-use of his gifts will have more gifts. He will grow wiser and better,
-and go up higher all the time, just like a tree that uses well the good
-ground and good air and good dew around it. And the tree, that for some
-reason won’t send its roots down and this way and that and set every
-one of its leaves to breathing, such a lazy tree will lose all its life
-and die, the first wide-awake tree sucking up that very life.
-
-It may be just so with two Pansies. One is good, true, active, the
-other one isn’t; how one will go up and the other down; how one will
-increase and the other decrease until one seems to have all the good,
-even the little the other started out with.
-
-You borrow from a bank one hundred dollars and pay it back with
-interest when your note is due, and quite likely the bank will loan you
-two hundred dollars then, if you want it, and so on, increasing it just
-as you are faithful. But if you don’t pay as you promised, because you
-were lazy, your one hundred dollars will be taken from you and loaned
-to one who may have ten thousand dollars, because he makes good use of
-it. We are all on trial. How happy we should be to be trusted by the
-Lord! It’s a fearful thing when he will not loan us any more.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    GOOD temper, like a sunny day, sheds brightness over
-    everything. It is the sweetener of toil and the soother
-    of disquietude.
-
-
-
-
-INASMUCH.
-
-
-    “IF I had dwelt”—so mused a tender woman,
-      All fine emotions stirred
-    Through pondering o’er that Life, divine yet human,
-      Told in the sacred Word—
-
-    “If I had dwelt of old, a Jewish maiden,
-      In some Judean street,
-    Where Jesus walked, and heard his word so laden
-      With comfort strangely sweet,
-
-    “And seen the face where utmost pity blended,
-      With each rebuke of wrong;
-    I would have left my lattice and descended,
-      And followed with the throng.
-
-    “If I had been the daughter, jewel-girdled,
-      Of some rich rabbi there;
-    Seeing the sick, blind, halt, my blood had curdled
-      At the sight of such despair.
-
-    “And I had wrenched the sapphires from my fillet,
-      Nor let one spark remain;
-    Snatched up my gold, amid the crowd to spill it,
-      For pity of their pain.
-
-    “I would have let the palsied fingers hold me;
-      I would have walked between
-    The Marys and Salome, while they told me
-      About the Magdalene.
-
-    “‘Foxes have holes’—I think my heart had broken
-      To hear the words so said,
-    While Christ had not—were sadder ever spoken?—
-      ‘A place to lay his head.’
-
-    “I would have flung abroad my doors before Him,
-      And in my joy have been
-    First on the threshold, eager to adore Him,
-      And crave his entrance in!”
-
-    Ah, would you so? Without a recognition
-      You passed Him yesterday;
-    Jostled aside, unhelped his mute petition,
-      And calmly went your way.
-
-    With warmth and comfort garmented and girdled,
-      Before your window-sill
-    Sweep heart-sick crowds; and if your blood is curdled
-      You wear your jewels still.
-
-    You catch aside your robes, lest want should clutch them
-      In its imploring wild;
-    Or else some woful penitent might touch them,
-      And you be thus defiled.
-
-    O, dreamers! dreaming that your faith is keeping
-      All service free from blot,
-    Christ daily walks your streets, sick, suffering, weeping,
-      And ye perceive him not!
-          M. J. PRESTON, _in The Independent_.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I READ of a boy who had a remarkable dream. He thought that the richest
-man in town came to him and said: “I am tired of my house and grounds;
-come and take care of them and I will give them to you.” Then came an
-honored judge and said: “I want you to take my place; I am weary of
-being in court day after day; I will give you my seat on the bench if
-you will do my work.”
-
-Then the doctor proposed that he take his extensive practice and let
-him rest, and so on. At last up shambled old Tommy, and said: “I’m
-wanted to fill a drunkard’s grave; I have come to see if you will take
-my place in these saloons and on these streets?”
-
-Harold laughed about his dream, but somebody who knew how Harold was
-being brought up, said: “Do you know, I shouldn’t be surprised if of
-all the offers he accepted the last? He has talent enough to become a
-judge, or a physician, or to make his fortune, but I am afraid he will
-grow up to take old Tommy’s place.”
-
-Who is willing to help fill “Old Tommy’s” place?
-
-
-
-
-FROM BIRDLAND.
-
-
-IF we only knew how to understand bird language, I fancy we might be
-made acquainted with a great many pretty secrets which now they keep to
-themselves.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-I have been reading lately about a gentleman in New York who has a
-collection of birds, and who makes a study of those who flit about
-his home in summer. At one time he had a blind sparrow among his
-collection, and a little bird named Dick seemed to have adopted it. He
-waited at the door of its house for it to come out, calling it with
-tender little chirps, and when the blind one finally appeared he would
-lead the way to the seeds and water.
-
-When his friend was ready to return home to rest Dick would shove him
-gently along the perch until he was opposite his own door, then give
-a chirp which seemed to say: “There you are, jump in,” and in would
-spring the little sparrow, safe at home. Surely Dick ought to be
-elected as at least an honorary member of the “Helping Hand Society.”
-What if he hasn’t any hands? He succeeds in being a very efficient
-helper.
-
-                                               EFIL SREDNOW.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    THERE are a few who make their life “a song,”
-    A silvery call to urge tired souls along,
-        A clear bell o’er the cope
-    Of the steep mountain they have had to climb
-    With such a patience, they have made sublime
-        The soul’s forlornest hope.
-    And when these dear ones hidden pass adown
-    “The other side,” beyond the mountain’s crown,
-        The silvery tinkling vein
-    Of gladness comes aback to touch us so—
-    New courage in our sinking heart doth grow,
-        We urge us on again.
-                                    —_Selected._
-
-[Illustration: AN OLD QUACK.]
-
-
-
-
-ANGIE’S CROSS.—I.
-
-(_Character Studies._)
-
-
-EVERYBODY said Angie Conran had a “perfectly lovely voice,” extremely
-well cultivated for one so young. Her music teacher was in the habit
-of patting her hand in a patronizing way, at the close of almost every
-lesson, and saying, in broken French: “Mees Angie, you will make what
-you Americans call a mark in the world; remember I tell you.”
-
-Angie was a member of the choir, and a very faithful one; a member
-of the “Choral Club,” and practiced early and late to help make it a
-success. On the particular evening of which I wish to tell you she was
-seated at the piano, giving a last half-hour of practice to the anthem
-before she went to rehearsal. Her mother and I sat in the back parlor,
-where we could have the full benefit of the music. How the exquisite
-melody filled the room, and how distinctly was every word spoken.
-
-    “Nearer, my God, to thee,
-      Nearer to thee,
-    E’en though it be a cross
-      That raiseth me;
-    Still all my song shall be,
-    Nearer, my God, to thee,
-      Nearer to thee!”
-
-“That is as good as a recitation,” I said. “How very distinctly Angie
-speaks her words.”
-
-“Yes,” said the proud mother; “she prides herself on being heard. She
-says she would never have any pleasure in singing Italian songs; that
-she would want the words as well as the music to be uplifting. Angie
-prefers sacred music, I think; her heart seems to echo the sentiment
-of the words. What she is practicing now is to be sung to-morrow
-morning, just before the sermon. Our pastor requested it. This is a new
-arrangement, with solo and quartette, and Angie takes the solo. If the
-other parts are as beautiful as the soprano, I think it will be lovely.
-Angie dear, isn’t it time you were going?”
-
-“In a minute, mamma; I want to try this minor strain first.” The
-sweet, tender sounds filled the room:
-
-    “Though like a wanderer,
-      Daylight all gone,
-    Darkness be over me,
-      My rest a stone.”
-
-“Isn’t that exquisite?” whispered the mother, when the last notes
-had died away. Then, in almost the same breath, “Angie dear, it is
-beginning to rain; are you prepared for rain?”
-
-“O, dear, how provoking! No, ma’am, I can’t say I am in the least
-prepared for it.”
-
-The mother arose and moved toward the music-room. “Why, dear child!”
-she said, in surprise, “you ought not to have that dress on to-night.
-Even if it were not a rainy evening it is not suitable to wear to a
-rehearsal.”
-
-“Why not, pray? ever so many people come to the rehearsals. I want to
-be as well dressed as I am on Sunday.”
-
-“My dear, that is a pretty evening dress, and the rain will spot it,
-you know. You would have to wear your gossamer, and that would crush
-the trimmings. Besides, it doesn’t look at all suitable for this
-evening. If you were going out to a social gathering you could not
-dress more than that. Do go and change it, dear; it won’t take you
-long.”
-
-“I assure you, mamma, it is quite out of the question that I should
-change my dress now. It is already late; you just said I ought to be
-going. It was quite a work of art to get this dress on, and I haven’t
-the least desire to change it; I am not at all afraid of it.”
-
-“But, my dear child, just consider how unsuitable it is. Those laces
-at the neck and wrists are real, you know, and as fine as cobwebs;
-you certainly could not dress more than that if you were going to a
-reception.”
-
-“O, mamma! how absurd. As though anybody would take notice of me, or
-care whether my laces were real or not. They fit the dress, any way,
-and as long as I don’t object to them I don’t see why anybody else
-should.”
-
-“My daughter, your mother objects to them. Moreover, the dress is lower
-in the neck than you have been wearing all day, and it is quite a cool
-evening; that in itself should be sufficient to make you change it. I
-really must insist on your putting on a more proper dress.”
-
-Angie’s pretty fingers came down upon the keys with a crash which
-made me start in my chair; then she whirled herself about on the
-music-stool. “Really, mamma,” she said, and the voice was so sharp it
-hardly seemed possible that it could be the same which had filled the
-room with melody, “I should think I was old enough to decide what dress
-to wear; I am almost fifteen, and I think I might have the privilege of
-choosing my own clothes once in a while.”
-
-“Do not speak in that tone, dear,” said her mother gently. “You shall
-have all the privileges I can give you; but we haven’t time to discuss
-it now. Run and slip on your gray cashmere, it is in order; I fixed
-that place in the sleeve this morning, and brushed it and got it all
-ready to put on.”
-
-“Mamma Conran! that old gray cashmere. As if I would go out in it
-to-night! Why, the Barnards come to rehearsal, and the Needhams, and
-their cousin from New York. The idea of rigging up in that old thing
-and standing out there to sing, the most prominent person in the choir.
-I just can’t do it! If I can’t wear the dress I have on I’m not going
-at all.”
-
-“My daughter, don’t be so foolish; the rehearsal surely doesn’t depend
-upon the dress you wear. You are wasting time; I cannot think of
-letting you go in that dress. If I had noticed it before I should have
-called your attention to it; but I hadn’t the least idea you would
-think of putting it on. The gray cashmere is entirely suitable, my
-dear. Your mother has not lost all sense of propriety, even though she
-is older than fifteen. You must allow yourself to be guided by her. I
-would not make a scene if I were you, and spoil the beauty of the music
-you have given us. There is ample time just to slip on another dress.
-Run along, and I will get out your wraps and have them ready for you
-when you come down.”
-
-“Mamma, I’m not going to do it. I told you if I had to wear that old
-cashmere dress I shouldn’t go out of the house to-night, and I meant
-it. Other girls can wear decent dresses. Carrie Wheeler wears a white
-silk to rehearsal often, and here I have got to rig up like an old
-woman and sing the leading part. You don’t know anything about it,
-mamma; it is so long since you were a girl you don’t realize how girls
-dress now. I wouldn’t hurt this dress and you know it. It is just too
-mean for anything. You always spoil my pleasure.”
-
-“Angeline!”—the mother’s gentle voice was growing stern at last—“I
-cannot allow you to speak to your mother in that way. There are the
-Wheeler girls coming up the walk now, to call for you. If you will go
-immediately and change your dress I will explain to them that you will
-be down in a few minutes.”
-
-A loud, angry cry from Angie, a sound like that from a naughty child
-who had lost all control of herself, and between the sobs she managed
-to get out: “I won’t go a single step, and you can tell them so; and
-you can tell them the reason, if you choose; then they will understand
-just what hard times I have.” And with another jarring crash of the
-keys the angry girl left the room, slamming the door after her.
-
-                                               MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-[Illustration: THE SCHOOL-GIRL OF 1830.]
-
-[Illustration: THE BLOSSOMVILLE BAND.]
-
-
-
-
-ELSIE’S PLAN.—II.
-
-(_Something for Mamma._)
-
-
-“I’M going to stop its raveling,” said Elsie serenely. “I’m going
-to overcast it, as mother does dress seams, and then line it with
-Margaret’s dress skirt; that is real strong, and will make it stand up
-beautifully.”
-
-Sure enough, by dint of patient, painstaking effort, a circle of
-matting measuring nearly a yard around was cut off, the raw edges
-“overcast” with a large needle and strong linen thread, then the dress
-skirt was ripped and carefully smoothed. A journey to the kitchen,
-where Mrs. Hobbs, the woman who washed and ironed on the same day for
-this fallen family, was at work. Elsie hinted that it would save her
-time if Irma would see to the ironing, but at that moment Irma was in
-the depths of her book, and seemed to be deaf. Back again with her
-ironed skirt, the yard of matting was laid on the floor, the cloth
-spread over it and neatly tacked at sides and ends; then the long side
-seam was sewed, amid statements from Irma that it could not be done,
-because whose arms could be expected to reach down such a ridiculous
-cylinder as that to sew! It was hard work. Twice Elsie gave up with a
-sigh, and once was on the point of going to Margaret for advice, but
-the strong desire to do the work herself held her, and she actually did
-accomplish it! To stand the cylinder on one end, and draw with white
-chalk a “head” for it, and then another a trifle larger for a cover,
-was comparatively easy. These two were lined by cutting out a circle
-of cloth three inches larger than the matting circle, running a strong
-gathering string around the edge, and drawing it up around the matting.
-
-“What is the use of that?” Irma demanded; and upon being informed that
-it was for strength and also to give something substantial to sew to,
-she said, with a little sniff, “Such a lot of trouble for what will
-only be an ugly bungle when you get it done.”
-
-“It will be a bungle that will hold the clothes nicely,” Elsie said
-merrily.
-
-She was so sure now of succeeding that she could afford to be merry.
-
-The small patient fingers sewed away, and Irma, watching, grew
-interested in spite of herself. “You are not making a true round for
-the cover,” she presently exclaimed. “The thing wiggles in and out so,
-it is hard to make a true circle; you ought to cut a paper pattern
-first, and work at it until you get it true, then cut the matting by
-it. Here, I’ll make a pattern for you; and if I were you I would wire
-the creature around the top; that would make it stay in place.”
-
-“That is an excellent idea,” Elsie said, “and I know just where there
-is a bit of wire that will do; I’ll run and get it.” She smothered a
-wee sigh as she went; it was a good plan to cut a pattern, and Irma’s
-eye for cutting was better than her own, but she had wanted to do this
-work entirely herself. The pattern was troublesome, but at last a fair
-circle was made, an edge of matting four inches deep sewed around it,
-the whole carefully lined, and the thing was done.
-
-“It really looks very well,” Irma said, “and will do to stand in the
-back hall. That wire around the top was a good scheme.”
-
-“Yes,” said Elsie heartily, “it was.”
-
-Mrs. Harding gave no faint praise the next morning when the matting
-“hamper,” duly addressed and wrapped, stood close to her seat at table.
-She examined the workmanship most minutely, declared that the idea was
-original, and the completed work most useful.
-
-“You have no idea how much more precious it is to me than anything
-bought with money could possibly be,” she said, kissing again the rosy
-cheeks of her youngest daughter, while the others looked on, smiling.
-Then truthful Elsie bethought herself. “Irma helped me,” she said
-quickly; “she made the circle true, and planned the wire for the top;
-it would not have been nearly so nice without her help.”
-
-“I didn’t do the least thing, mother, except to cut a paper pattern for
-her, and to propose that some wire be sewed around the top. She had it
-nearly done before I said a word. It is all nonsense to say I helped.
-All I did was to give a little advice.”
-
-The older daughters laughed merrily, for Irma was very fond of giving
-advice; but Mrs. Harding drew Irma to her side and kissed her lovingly,
-while she said: “There spoke my truthful girl. She is not going to be
-commended for what she has not done.”
-
-“Oh! but, mother, she did truly help,” was Elsie’s eager explanation.
-
-“Of course she did,” declared Margaret; “I have seen the time when I
-needed a little good advice more than any other kind of help.”
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-
-
-
-MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
-
-IV.
-
-
-I AM glad you do not get tired of my talking so much about myself, and
-what I have seen and heard. It shows how you have been brought up, so
-far; and if we old dogs live a great deal in the past you may pick up
-a little wisdom from us, after all, and be none the worse for what
-we say, if you only learn to profit by our experiences and avoid our
-mistakes.
-
-You want to hear more? Well, let me see, what shall I tell you about
-this time? I am reminded by the talk I overheard about the family going
-to the seaside, of the summer when I was two years old. I spent it with
-my old master at a place on the New Jersey coast. There did not seem
-to be any one with whom I could well stay at home; besides, my young
-master’s little girl was very anxious to have me go with them, so they
-finally agreed to it, and were not sorry afterwards.
-
-As I remember, I enjoyed the bathing as well as any of the party, or
-would have done so had I not been anxious all the time about little
-Lucy’s drowning. When those big waves would roll in, it seemed to me
-they meant to carry my little friend out of my sight forever.
-
-The summer proved to be one which we could all remember without trying.
-For the first few weeks there was nothing very unusual happened, and
-some seemed to think it was going to be very dull and monotonous. But
-it “is a long road that has no turn,” and a “turn” finally came which
-was exciting enough for all of us.
-
-The old settlers near the beach said we were to have a storm which
-would afford us a chance for a vacation in our bathing, and give us a
-sight of some “big seas,” for we would probably see the Atlantic in one
-of his angry moods before many hours.
-
-We felt ready for the change, and lay down at night thinking what a
-good time we would have the next day looking at the great waves roll in.
-
-I knew the wind was blowing pretty fresh, but had such a protected
-place that I did not know how the storm had arisen until towards
-morning I heard the sound of a big gun. It sounded again and again, and
-then there was a noise in the house, and a general turn out and rush
-for the beach. Of course I followed the crowd, and soon learned what
-was the matter. There was a ship in distress, and being driven upon the
-shore.
-
-The men were there with the life-saving apparatus, and soon a line was
-got out to the ship, and they were running a kind of boat back and
-forth upon it, bringing the passengers from the ship to the shore.
-
-Well, the people were all safety landed, but there was a splendid big
-dog on that ship, and no one had seemed to think of or to care for him.
-O, yes! he knew how to swim, but that was a terribly angry water, and
-the distance was great, and they said there was an ugly undertow. That
-means that water which has come pouring in upon the shore runs back on
-the bottom with such power sometimes as to carry anything with it that
-it can get hold of.
-
-Poor Hercules—that was the dog’s name—had seen himself left there
-alone, the while the great waves were breaking all over the ship. If
-the poor fellow had been a fool he might have suffered less, for he
-would have thrown himself into the water at once; but as it was he
-knew the danger. Why, we could hear his howl above the noise of the
-breakers! and some of the men were almost wild with anxiety to try to
-save him. I suppose none of them thought the poor dog would know enough
-to get into that little car which had brought the people to the shore;
-and if he had he could not have shut himself in. So there he was. His
-owner, having several children besides his wife and the nurse to look
-after, had entirely forgotten the dog.
-
-Hercules ran up and down the deck until there finally came a wave much
-bigger than any which had preceded it, and he was washed overboard. Of
-course he did then the best he could, and that was saying a great deal,
-for he was a powerful fellow; but those were terrible waves, and what
-could anything but a fish do in such a sea? We could see him now and
-then upon the crest of a wave, and then he would disappear. Every time
-we saw him he seemed to be nearer the shore, and we had a little hope
-that some big sea would throw him near enough for us to help him.
-
-[Illustration: HERCULES.]
-
-But the women and children must be cared for, so the people were soon
-gone, only a few of the boarders remaining to watch the sea, all
-believing the four-footed passenger to have been drowned. Looking
-steadily, I thought I caught sight of the fellow once, then again, and
-much nearer the shore. Yes, there he was, and a big wave landed him so
-near that his body actually rolled over on the sand, as the waves ran
-back to their home again. He was too weak to help himself; but I ran
-down, and before the next wave came seized him by the back of the neck
-and stopped his rolling; but he was too heavy for me to drag alone. My
-presence, however, seemed to give him courage, and he got upon his feet
-again; then came another wave and covered us both. This did not prove
-to be so heavy as most of them, and the men came to our assistance, so
-brave Hercules was saved.
-
-Those who had remained to see this part of the scene sent up a rousing
-shout, and both of us were petted at a great rate.
-
-I have never seen many happier moments in my long life than those which
-followed for a little while. I was so glad to see this stranger safe,
-and glad that I had been able to help save him!
-
-He understood it all, too, though he did not understand English very
-well. I need not tell you that we were together that summer all we
-could be. The man who owned the dog had gone off and left him, and my
-master said that Hercules belonged to him more than to any one else,
-because I had been the means of saving his life.
-
-But after a while the dog’s master came down there from New York to
-look after the wreck, and see if he could not find anything of value
-washed ashore which belonged to him. The place proved so pleasant
-that he sent for his family to come and spend a few weeks. They had
-experienced such a fright from the ocean the day of the wreck that at
-first they were very shy of the water, but it was not long before they
-were in with the others, enjoying the bathing.
-
-This lasted for some time, and the children became very careless,
-venturing out where they ought not. My new friend and his master had
-not met since the day of the storm, as they were bathing at another
-part of the beach. For some reason my master decided not to go into
-the water one day, and we took a stroll along the beach to where those
-people were bathing. We had hardly reached the place, and my master
-seated himself in a comfortable position to watch the bathers, when
-Hercules gave a loud bark, as much as to say “Come,” and bounded into
-the breakers. Of course I followed fast after him, on, on, out into
-the sea; and he had his master’s little Gretchen by the back of her
-bathing-suit and was starting for the shore. It was a hard struggle; it
-was all both of us could do to save her.
-
-The poor child was almost gone when we got to her, for no one had
-noticed her trouble and danger except Hercules.
-
-Well, there was a scene on the shore again, and for a time one could
-hardly tell which the father was most rejoiced over, the saving of his
-child, or the sight of the dog who had saved her life.
-
-Yes, we had a good time the rest of the summer, and then we had to
-part; for of course the man had his dog back again.
-
-How I have wished I might see the brave fellow once more. I think he
-will never be forsaken again.
-
-They went away from the coast a little earlier than we did. The
-children all bade me good-by, and Hercules’ master invited me to go
-with them. We had a long visit the night before they went, and both
-of us felt very sorry to part company; but some way people do not
-think that we dogs have much heart, or ever mourn for absent friends.
-There, excuse that tear, but it always makes me feel badly to talk of
-Hercules, and that delightful summer by the sea.
-
-                                                        R.
-
-
-
-
-FLY-LEAF WISDOM FOUND IN AN OLD BOOK.
-
-
-    READ slowly, pause frequently,
-        Think seriously,
-      Keep cleanly, return daily,
-    With the corners of the leaves
-        Not turned down.
-
-
-
-
-ABOUT CHICAGO.
-
-BY THE PANSIES.
-
-
-I THINK it is great fun to go to Chicago on a visit, and then come back
-and hear about it as it used to be. My grandfather went there in 1833.
-He was just a boy, but he remembers lots of queer things. He went to
-church in a kind of a barn; the front part was the church, and there
-was a curtain in the middle, and behind it the minister lived—slept,
-you know, and ate, and everything. Think of that for Chicago! There was
-a school kept in a little room on Water Street; the woman who taught
-it had twenty scholars. The mail was brought once a week by a man on
-horseback, and the postmaster had a row of old boots nailed up on the
-wall for mail boxes. Grandfather says the place had begun to grow real
-fast when he went there, and as many as two hundred frame houses were
-built within a short time. He was there when they voted to make it a
-regular town, with officers and laws. One law was that pigs must not
-run in the streets, and that people must not cut holes in their outside
-walls and poke stove-pipe through them.
-
-                                               ROBERT CHAPPELL.
-
-[Illustration: CHICAGO IN 1820.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THE word “Chicago” used to be spelled “Chicagoux.” Some people think
-it was named for the “Cheagomeinan River,” which is the Indian name
-for the Chicago River. The Indians called the Mississippi River
-“Chacaqua,” which means “divine river,” and I think they worked the
-name Chicago out of all these notions. My uncle says the name of the
-French fort in 1688 was Fort Checagou. I like to study about names, and
-find what they mean, and how many changes they have had before we got
-hold of them. I have never been to Chicago, but I expect to attend the
-Columbian Exposition. If you will wait until after that I will tell you
-something about the city. It is larger than it used to be.
-
-                                               THOMAS L. WOOD, JR.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY father knows about a man who bought a lot in Chicago in the year
-1832 for one hundred dollars, and sold it again about three years
-afterwards for fifteen thousand dollars! I think that tells a boy
-better than anything else could, how fast the town grew for a while. Of
-course it was a nice choice lot, in what suddenly became the business
-part of the town. I know I should like to have been its first owner.
-
-                                               ROBERT TOWNSEND.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I READ about how Chicago came to be called the “Garden City.” It grew
-out of hard times. They had what is called a business panic, when
-everybody owed everybody else, and could not pay them, and business was
-awfully dull, and people thought the town was going to ruin. The most
-people had to do was to take care of their grounds. They whitewashed
-the fences, cleaned up the yards, planted fruits and vines, and did
-everything they could think of to make their places look pretty. I
-suppose they hoped somebody would come along and buy them. And that is
-the way they got the name of “Garden City.”
-
-                                               ALICE PETERSON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THE people who lived in Chicago about the year 1843 certainly could not
-have had so high an opinion of the city as people do who live there
-now. A Mr. Miltimore built a schoolhouse on Madison Street which was
-called “Miltimore’s Folly,” because people did not believe that there
-would ever be children enough in the town to fill so large a building.
-The mayor of the city urged the Council to have it turned into an
-insane asylum, or sold, and the money from it used to build and care
-for a smaller building, suited to the present and future needs of the
-city! I don’t think he could have been a very bright man, because in
-less than four years from that time the building was not only crowded
-with scholars, but three others had to be opened in different parts of
-the city.
-
-                                               ROGER SHERMANN.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-CHICAGO is a great place for manufactories. It seems to me as though
-almost everything was made there. I know they make brooms, and bricks,
-and boilers, and hats and caps, and saws, and scales, and nails, and
-paint, and gloves, and carpets, and I am sure I don’t know what else; I
-guess they make everything. Once I went to the car-wheel factory where
-they make three hundred wheels every day. It was great fun to see the
-men work. I like to see things made, and that is what I am going to do
-when I am a man.
-
-                                               ROBBIE WILSON.
-
-    [We are almost certain Robbie means that when he is
-    a man he is going to help make things; not merely
-    stand still and see them made. Good for Robbie! What
-    would become of us if all the people who are hard
-    at work making things should grow tired of their
-    work, and conclude to—write books, for instance,
-    instead?—EDITORS.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-WE are reading in school about the Chicago fire, which was in 1871. I
-think it is perfectly dreadful to read about it. Just think! it all
-came from a woman milking after dark, when she ought to have done it
-before, I suppose; or maybe her little boy ought to have done it for
-her, and did not come home in time—well, the cow kicked her lamp over
-and set the hay in the barn on fire, and all that awful ruin came!
-
-I think that woman must have felt dreadfully. As for the cow, I don’t
-suppose she cared a bit.
-
-                                               LAURA JONES.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I KNOW a man who was in Chicago at the time of the fire, and he
-paid fifteen dollars for a hack to drive him half a mile! He says
-a hundred thousand people were made homeless that night. Folks ran
-through the streets as if they were crazy. Everybody was trying to
-carry something of theirs to a safe place. One woman tried to save her
-sewing-machine; she dragged it through the streets a long distance. One
-man walked along quietly, carrying an ice-pitcher. He said it was all
-he had left in the world.
-
-[Illustration: PICTORIAL CHICAGO.
-
-PALMER HOUSE
-
-STATE ST. LOOKING So.
-
-COURT-HOUSE & CITY HALL
-
-CUSTOM HOUSE & POST-OFFICE
-
-CHICAGO RIVER
-
-NO. SIDE WATER WORKS]
-
-The poor man had been made crazy by his losses, and did not know what
-he was about.
-
-                                               THOMAS JONES.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-WE lived in Terre Haute, Ind., at the time of the great Chicago fire—at
-least my folks did—and my father says that on Monday, the ninth, while
-the fire was still burning, a train loaded full of provisions went
-out of Terre Haute for them. I think that was nice. There is a boy
-in school who says that his folks, who lived in Pittsburg, raised a
-hundred thousand dollars before Wednesday night, and sent it to the
-Chicago sufferers, and another fellow said that was nothing; that his
-uncle in Louisville raised most a hundred thousand within ten hours
-after the fire began! He talked as though his uncle did it all, but I
-suppose some others helped.
-
-                                               WILLARD J. MOONEY.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I THINK the great big splendid temperance temple is the grandest
-building in Chicago, and I helped build it. I gave two dollars and
-seventeen cents that I earned myself, for it. In 1893 I am going to see
-it, and some other things. I think you ought to have waited until after
-the Columbian Exposition for letters about Chicago. Then we could have
-told lots of things.
-
-                                               MARY CLARKSON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I WENT to Chicago with my grown-up sisters when the Y. P. S. C. E. had
-its big meeting there. We stopped at the Sherman House. That is one
-of the nicest hotels in the city. At seven o’clock Sunday morning we
-had a prayer meeting in the billiard-room; more than a hundred young
-ladies and gentlemen spoke at that meeting in less than a half-hour,
-and the singing was lovely. The big meetings were held in Battery
-D. Ever so many thousand people were there all the time. Some of the
-speeches were splendid. Chicago is very large. My cousin and I took a
-ride on a street car as far as it went, then got out and took another
-line and went as far as its route, just to see the city. They have very
-tall buildings. I went to the Herald office; that is the handsomest
-newspaper building in the world, I guess.
-
-                                               LUCY J. HARTMANN.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-ONCE I went to the church where Mr. Moody used to preach. I heard the
-Rev. Charles Goss; he is young. I liked him. I went to a splendid
-store, but I don’t remember where it was. There was a newsboys’ dinner
-given while we were there, and I went to look at the boys eating their
-cake and cream. There were hundreds of them, and they ate fast and
-seemed to like it.
-
-A great many benevolent things like that are done in Chicago, but I
-think they need a temperance temple; I saw lots of drunken men, and one
-drunken woman.
-
-                                               ALICE PETERS.
-
-    [We have still more, about incidents which happened
-    in Chicago rather than about the city itself, but we
-    have already crowded our space. If the Pansies could
-    be induced to get their letters in earlier they would
-    stand a better chance of being selected from.—EDITORS.]
-
-
-
-
-THINGS WHICH SOME PEOPLE REGRET.
-
-
-HOW many of the Pansies have heard the “silver-tongued orator” lecture
-on his special theme, Temperance? All of you who have will be sure to
-hear him again at the first opportunity. Those of you who have not,
-let me urge to keep on the watch for a chance. Meantime, listen to
-his hint, which ought to help every boy who reads it to be a better
-educated man.
-
-    “I regret that the many hours of youth I gave to idle
-    pleasures were not used in storing my mind with useful
-    knowledge.”
-
-                                     Yours truly,
-                                           GEORGE W. BAIN.
-
-
-
-
-THE LAPPS.
-
-
-FRANCE is “sunny.” It loves shade-trees, fans and fountains. Laplanders
-must need have furs and fire and fat food. Of course you know why.
-Those Lapp faces would look equally well as Mr. William’s, if they
-were to exchange dresses, putting a Lapp where the Emperor now sits so
-loftily. Give the Lapp the very same chance, and maybe he would make
-just as wise a ruler of Prussia. People are not so unlike, after all.
-When God would raise up the greatest Prophet that ever appeared on
-the earth, he found him in the despised Nazareth. Maybe he is nursing
-a little child of one of these Lapps who will one day be as great as
-young Master Wilhelm of Prussia.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-[Illustration: INTERESTING FACES.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    ALTHOUGH the printing presses at Beirut are working
-    night and day they cannot supply the demand for the
-    Arabic Bible.
-
-
-
-
-EDMUND SPENSER.
-
-(_English Literature Papers._)
-
-
-JUST three hundred years ago, and just one hundred years after Columbus
-discovered America and planted his flag on San Salvador, there stood in
-the middle of a wide, boggy Irish plain a building better than most of
-those anywhere near it, called Kilcolman Castle. It was a time when the
-English Government was having a hard time to keep the Irish under their
-control, and we shall see after a while how the poor people of the
-castle suffered on account of this fact. But there lived at Kilcolman,
-in those days from 1586 to 1598, one of the most celebrated of the
-poets about whom we shall talk in our English Literature Papers. It was
-Edmund Spenser, and the old picture of him that has come down to us
-shows him to be a kind, gentle looking man, with a long thin nose and
-a high forehead, dressed in a black robe, and with a great lace collar
-coming up above his ears, which must have been very uncomfortable in
-warm weather.
-
-Spenser was born in a part of London called East Smithfield, right
-under the shadow of the great Tower; and it is a very disagreeable
-fact to one who is trying to write about him, that we know almost
-nothing about the little events of his life, and especially of his
-boyhood. Three hundred years ago, you know, people did not take notes
-of themselves so much as we do nowadays, or as they did even in the
-last century; or if they did they have not been kept for us. Just a few
-people have told us anything about Edmund Spenser, and the probability
-is that even his picture is not any better than many of those which we
-see nowadays in the newspapers.
-
-One of the few things which we find about him was that he entered
-one of the colleges at Cambridge when he was seventeen, as what was
-then called a “sizar.” These sizars were the poorer students, who had
-to work for their living in a much more disagreeable way than any
-students do now, by waiting on the older and richer ones at their
-meals and elsewhere, and were paid by their tuition in the college and
-the fragments of food which their employers left for them. I suppose
-if the student on whom Edmund Spenser waited could come back to earth
-for a little while he would be considerably surprised and perplexed to
-find that the only reason why the world would like to know more about
-him would be on account of the little sizar whom he used to have at
-Cambridge!
-
-When he had left college, in which we find that he was a very good
-scholar, Spenser taught for a while in the northern part of England,
-and began to write the first poetry which made him at all famous; it
-was a long poem in twelve parts, about the twelve months of the year,
-and he called it at first “The Poet’s Year,” and afterward the name
-by which we know it, “The Shepherd’s Calendar.” It was a very pretty
-poem, and described the scenery and the country life of England in a
-way that made all good Englishmen like the author. So Spenser fell in
-with some good friends, and was introduced to Queen Elizabeth. It is a
-curious thing that in those days the best writers did not depend for
-their payment upon the number of books which were sold, or what their
-publishers paid them; but it was the custom of the king or queen,
-whenever an especially good writer appeared, to support him at the
-royal court or elsewhere, in return for which the writer served his
-sovereign in any way he could, especially by paying him any number
-of compliments in his writings. It is as though whenever a promising
-young author should appear in New York or Boston, he should find a
-Congressman who would introduce him to the President at Washington; and
-if he found that he was likely to be a pleasing writer and a convenient
-friend to have near him, he should invite him to stay in the city, and
-should see that he had all the money he needed.
-
-[Illustration: THE AUTHOR OF THE FAERY QUEENE.]
-
-But we shall be sorry to find that although Queen Elizabeth received
-Spenser very pleasantly, and although he paid her any number of pretty
-compliments in his after life, she never did very much for him. The
-first piece of good fortune which seemed to come to him was when he was
-appointed secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, who was the Governor of
-Ireland. After that he was also given Kilcolman Castle, which we spoke
-of at the beginning, where he spent so many years. We shall see that
-he did a good deal of writing while there, and also acted as the agent
-of the English Government, in looking after whatever matters needed
-his attention. It was this that probably made the Irishmen dislike
-him, rather than any one thing which he did, for when he had been
-there twelve years there was a rebellion among them, and they burned
-the castle and forced the poet to run away to England. The saddest
-thing about it was that his baby was burned at the same time, and they
-tell us that the lonely father never recovered from his sorrow over
-this event. At any rate he died the next year in London, in a small
-lodging-house, and probably with very little money left. It was with
-him as with so many, many others, both in those days and now: the
-people did not begin to think enough of him until he was dead, and then
-they gave him a magnificent funeral, and buried him in Westminster
-Abbey, where the graves of all the greatest Englishmen are.
-
-We know nothing but what is good about Edmund Spenser; he seems to have
-been a kind man, loving everything true and beautiful, and when we
-have a chance to read his writings we shall feel certain that this is
-so. Besides the “Shepherd’s Calendar” he wrote a book in prose about
-Ireland while he was there, and it was also at Kilcolman Castle that
-his great poem, “The Faery Queene,” or as we should say “The Fairy
-Queen,” was written. This is a long, long poem, and was planned to
-be written in twelve parts, but it is probable that only six of them
-were ever finished. At any rate that is all which has come down to us;
-and some one has said that in this work “the half is better than the
-whole,” meaning that although Spenser wrote six very nice books, he
-could scarcely have written six more anywhere nearly so good.
-
-The “Fairy Queen” is what people call an allegory; those of us who have
-read “The Pilgrim’s Progress” have probably found out what is meant by
-that. In allegories the story seems to be about real people, but all
-the time the people stand for good or bad qualities, or something of
-that sort—like Christian and Mr. Greatheart, or the Fairy Queen and the
-Red Cross Knight. If we look in Webster’s Dictionary under “allegory,”
-we shall find that the “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “The Faery Queene” are
-spoken of as the most celebrated examples.
-
-I am sorry to say that we shall find the “Faery Queene” rather hard
-reading; not because the story is not interesting, but because there
-were so many good English words in those days that we have forgotten
-all about now. Then the spelling, as we have already guessed from the
-name of the poem, seems more like one of our PANSY “Queer Stories” than
-anything else. We will try to read just one very pretty verse, at the
-beginning of the second Canto, which describes the sunrise. Spenser put
-quaint little rhymed headings at the top of his cantos; the one here is—
-
-    “The guilefull great Enchaunter parts
-     The Redcrosse Knight from Truth:
-    Into whose stead faire Falshood steps,
-     And workes him woefull ruth.”
-
-In reading the description of the sunrise we shall want to remember
-that there was an old story that the sun was a golden wagon driven
-up the sky by the god Phœbus, and also that “chanticleer,” or
-“chaunticlere,” was the old-fashioned word for rooster. Here is the
-verse, and we will bid Spenser good-by with it:
-
-    “By this the northerne wagoner had set
-    His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre
-    That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
-    But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
-    To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre:
-    And chearefull Chaunticlere with his note shrill
-    Had warned once that Phœbus’ fiery carre
-    In hast was climbing up the easterne hill,
-    Full envious that night so long his roome did fill.”
-                              ELIZABETH ABBOTT.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-AN Englishman visiting Sweden and noticing their care for children, who
-were gathered up from the streets and highways and placed in school,
-inquired if it was not costly. “Yes,” was the answer, “it is costly,
-but not dear. We are not rich enough to allow a child to grow up in
-ignorance, misery and crime, to become a scourge to society as well as
-a disgrace to himself.”
-
-
-
-
-A COMING RULER.
-
-
-THE little fellow at the left of the man on a big dark horse, is the
-one for you to study. He looks like a prince already. He certainly
-rides like a soldier.
-
-What is the color of his eyes, the shape of his nose, or the kind of
-clothes on his back, and many more such things you would like to know.
-Perhaps you will know these and many more things about him when you see
-him in Boston, New York, San Francisco or at the Chicago World’s Fair.
-
-[Illustration: A STATELY RIDER.]
-
-“Will he be there?”
-
-As likely as not.
-
-“But who is he?”
-
-Ah! now you ask something. He is Master Friedrich Wilhelm, the Crown
-Prince of Germany. If he live long enough, he will do something more
-than hold the reins of that pretty, proud white pony; he will hold the
-reins of Prussia, one of the most powerful nations of Europe.
-
-His grandfather, Emperor William, died a few years ago, at a great age,
-greatly beloved by all Germans, and respected by other nations.
-
-That man, sitting in the carriage, dressed like a soldier, with folded
-arms and a stern look on his face, is the present Emperor William.
-
-There is the mother, the Empress, with the other children. Their faces
-are all turned toward you, so you can get a good look at them. But you
-need not expect to see so many princes and princesses at Chicago.
-
-It is the fashion nowadays for kings, rulers and coming rulers to visit
-other lands. Which of our presidents went around the world?
-
-                                                           L.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-IT is said that the native Christians in Japan, with less than
-one shilling a day as an average for wages, contributed last year
-twenty-five thousand dollars to mission work.
-
-[Illustration: JUST MOVED IN.]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-ROSY POSY.
-
-
-AT last July came, and Rose went to grandpapa’s to stay a week.
-
-She loved to go to the farm, because grandmamma let her work.
-
-Rose could shell peas and sweep the floor with a pretty little broom.
-She took up the dust on a bright new dust-pan.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-The first day she went out in the field with grandpapa and raked hay.
-
-Then she took a little watering-pot and wet the flowers.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-By and by Grandmamma put the kettle on to boil.
-
-“Now we will get supper,” she said.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-She spread a white cloth on the table, and Rose put on the cups and
-plates and spoons and knives and forks.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-They had apples and cream for supper.
-
-When the clock struck eight Grandmamma lighted a candle and went
-upstairs with Rose to put her to bed.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-Grandpapa said, “Good-night, dear Rosy Posy.”
-
-Rose lay still as a mouse, and soon she was fast asleep.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-In the morning when Rose opened her eyes the sun was shining in at the
-window. There was a big fly buzzing about trying to warm himself in the
-sunlight. Rose liked to watch him.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-And then a funny voice cried out: “Get up, Rosy Posy.”
-
-It was Poll. Grandpapa had taught her to say it.
-
-                                               MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-THE HARD TEXT.
-
-(_Matt._ xiv. 1-10.)
-
-
-HEROD seemed to think one must keep a promise, no matter what it is,
-so he put good, honest John the Baptist to death! One reason he gave
-was because of what his guests would say. But how did he know but they
-would say it was right for him to break such a bad promise? But why did
-he not think: “What will people all the coming years say to this wicked
-deed? What will the angels say? What will the holy mighty God say?”
-
-“But shouldn’t one keep his promises?”
-
-You see Herod should not in this case. Suppose the girl had said: “Give
-me your crown,” or “Let me cut your head or tongue off,” how then about
-Mr. Herod’s keeping his promise? Guess he would have found a way—not to
-keep his oath.
-
-No, it is never right to keep a wrong promise. That would be doing two
-wrong things instead of one. Herod had no business to take such an
-oath. How could he know what this artful dancer might ask? No one may
-make a promise about which one cannot know.
-
-Don’t ever do such a thing.
-
-“If you have done it?” Break it. Break it, and repent over your
-rashness. Beware of the state of your mind when you make a pledge. See
-that you know what you are about.
-
-Perhaps Herod would never have taken such an awful oath had he not
-been intoxicated with wine and this dancing girl. “When wine is in wit
-is out.” Many a person has lost his reason and committed some great
-crime by being in such society. Wine and dancing never helped any one
-heavenward.
-
-Take care!
-
-                                                        L.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    MANY blessings will occur to him who is in search of
-    them. Let us dwell lovingly and gratefully upon these;
-    let us weigh and consider how to make the most of them,
-    by neglecting no opportunity and shutting out nothing
-    from our life that can brighten and invigorate it.
-
-
-
-
-ANGIE’S CROSS.—II.
-
-(_Character Studies._)
-
-
-I WAS sorry for the mother. I heard her gentle, troubled voice in
-the hall, trying to make explanations. “Not going!” was the startled
-response of the girls; “what is the matter? O, dear me! what shall we
-do without her? Celia Lewis might sing the part if she had only known;
-but she thought she wouldn’t be needed, and she isn’t feeling very
-well, so she didn’t come out. Dear Mrs. Conran, cannot you coax Angie
-to come? I am afraid we shall have to give up the anthem altogether if
-you don’t. Harold says he cannot sing it without having one rehearsal.”
-
-“I am very sorry,” said gentle Mrs. Conran, “but I am afraid it is
-quite out of the question, Angie is so sure she cannot go to-night.
-Perhaps you can arrange a rehearsal early in the morning?”
-
-“No, ma’am, we can’t do that, because the Bible classes occupy the
-room, you know, until the last minute. O, dear! how I wish we had known
-it before. I don’t know what we shall do. Is Angie feeling very ill,
-Mrs. Conran?”
-
-“N-o,” said the mother hesitatingly, and I knew that her face flushed
-to her temples; “she isn’t sick, but she is very much—out of sorts. I
-regret it exceedingly, but you know how Angie is. When she once settles
-in her own mind that she can’t do a thing it doesn’t seem possible for
-her to get the consent of her will to do it.”
-
-“Well,” they said, turning away, “it seems too bad, when Dr. Brand
-asked for that particular anthem, and Angie is the only one who has
-sung it; but I suppose we shall manage some way. Good-evening.”
-
-Mrs. Conran closed the door after them and came slowly back to the
-parlor, I, meantime, wishing there had been some excuse for me to slip
-away, so that she need not have the embarrassment of meeting me. There
-was a weary attempt at a smile on her face, which had grown pale
-again, and she said apologetically:
-
-“Poor Angie! she is the victim of her own strong will. I sometimes feel
-very sorry that she matured in some things so early; she has an idea
-that her mother does not know what is suitable for young people to
-wear, and is growing a little too fond of dress, I am afraid. She has
-been put forward so much in her music that it has injured her. It seems
-strange that a sweet voice should lead one into temptation, doesn’t it?”
-
-I murmured something about girls being fond of their own way and about
-their having to learn by experience, the more to give the mother a
-chance to recover herself than because I felt that I had anything worth
-saying. I do not think she heard all I said, but the words “learn by
-experience” caught her attention.
-
-“Yes,” she said, after a moment, speaking with a long-drawn sigh, “that
-is it. Poor child! she must learn by experience, and experience is a
-bitter teacher sometimes. Often, when I hear her sweet voice roll out
-on those solemn words:
-
-    “‘Nearer, my God, to thee,
-    .    .    .    .    .    .
-    E’en though it be a cross
-      That leadeth me,’
-
-I wonder what the ‘cross’ will be that will lead Angie to think less
-of her own will and more of Christ. She is so strong-willed, so
-passionate, and has such a way of giving vent to the thoughts that come
-into her mind at the moment, without stopping to realize how they will
-sound.
-
-“In some way the child must be taught. It seems to me I have tried
-hard to teach her, but I have failed. I do not often speak in this way
-of her,” she added, with a sad smile; “I do not like to talk about
-her faults before any one, but to-night you heard all the talk, and I
-want you to understand that her words do not mean all they seem to.
-She would be startled and frightened at herself if she could have them
-photographed in some way and spread out before her.
-
-“But every exhibition of this kind only proves to me more clearly that
-she is in need of a solemn lesson, and I do not know how it is coming.
-
-    “‘Though like a wanderer,
-      Daylight all gone,
-    Darkness be over me,
-      My rest a stone.’
-
-“It makes my heart ache sometimes to hear her sing those words, because
-I cannot help wondering if she must have the ‘darkness’ and the ‘stone’
-to bring her to the true Light.”
-
-I did not know what to say to the pale mother, so I said nothing; but
-as I thought of her unnatural pallor, in sharp contrast with the two
-burning spots on her wasted cheeks, and remembered how constantly that
-little cough annoyed her, I felt sorry for Angie. I thought I could see
-the way in which the “cross” must come.
-
-I could feel how much heavier she was making it for herself; because
-some day, perhaps soon, her memory would recall with bitter tears the
-harsh, cruel words she had spoken to her mother, absorbed as she was in
-the eager desire to have her own way. If she would only consent to be
-led “nearer” by a pleasanter path!
-
-                                               MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-THINGS WHICH SOME PEOPLE REGRET.
-
-
-NOW we have something unique. Read the “Regrets” over carefully, and
-you will discover that we have had nothing like this. You recognize the
-writer, I presume, as an author who has interested a great many people.
-Let us hope that he will never have occasion to regret the regret which
-he has so kindly given us.
-
-    “I have regrets for the past, of course; but I have
-    rarely expressed regrets without afterward regretting
-    that I had expressed them.”
-
-                                  Yours truly,
-                                     GEORGE W. CABLE.
-
-[Illustration: WHO’S AFRAID?]
-
-
-
-
-THE FIRST FLAG.
-
-
-WOULD the Pansies like to see a picture of the first United States flag
-which ever floated from a vessel? Count the stars. Why do you suppose
-there are only twelve, when everybody knows that thirteen was the
-original number? The explanation is said to be that at the time this
-particular flag was made—that is in 1779—the Legislature of Maryland
-had not yet formally joined the Union, so her star was omitted.
-
-The flag was made by some Philadelphia ladies, and presented to Captain
-Jones. For a time it sailed proudly up and down the Schuylkill, fresh
-and beautiful. Then it went to war, and was shot and fell into the
-sea. A young lieutenant, Stafford by name, jumped overboard to save
-the flag. When it fell the British thought the Yankees had “struck
-their colors,” but in a little time it waved aloft again, trimmed with
-bullet holes. You must read in our United States history about the
-great victory which Captain Jones and his brave vessel, the _Bonhomme
-Richard_, gained at that time.
-
-When the war was over the flag was sent to Lieutenant Stafford as
-a memento of his faithfulness and bravery. It has been kept in the
-Stafford family ever since, although they have been urged many times to
-sell it, and as many as three thousand dollars have been offered for it.
-
-When the lieutenant’s daughter Sarah died the old flag was draped
-about her coffin. When President Harrison was inaugurated it came
-to Washington, and was carried by one of the Stafford family in the
-procession.
-
-We show you, also, the picture of Mrs. James Bayard Stafford, the wife
-of the lieutenant. She was over eighty years old when this picture was
-taken, but the face shows a sweet brave woman, strong for the right
-and the true, which was the character she bore. I do not know whether
-she is still living, but a few years ago she was the light of the home
-in Cottage City, Mass., and guarded the old historic flag as a sacred
-relic.
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-AN Indian arrow is quite a work of art. The head, or point, is made
-from a barrel hoop about three inches long, tapered to a point,
-and sharpened on both sides. In a bunch of arrows these points are
-absolutely uniform. The shaft is made of ash about twenty-three inches
-long. The feathers are glued on and lashed at each end with sinew. The
-head or point is inserted in the wood, and also lashed with sinew.
-And running along the arrow are three wave-like grooves from the head
-to the feathers. This, the Indians explain, is to make the arrow go
-straight. The bow is also made of ash, and with a string of twisted
-sinew taken from along the back of a beef. So that with an ordinary
-butcher knife and a file, if it is to be had, an Indian can make his
-own arms.
-
-[Illustration: PAUL JONES’S “STARRY FLAG.”]
-
-The penetrating force of an arrow is wonderful. An Indian can shoot an
-arrow right through a buffalo. I have heard it stated that bows and
-arrows would be much more effective weapons in the hands of Indians
-than such guns as they surrendered to General Miles.—_Selected._
-
-[Illustration: AN UNWELCOME BILL.]
-
-
-
-
-ABOUT BUFFALO.
-
-BY THE PANSIES.
-
-
-I HAVE been waiting for the time to come to write about Buffalo,
-because I knew something queer to write. Three of the nice streets
-there are named Niagara St., Erie St., and Church St.; but their names
-used to be Schimmelpennick Avenue, Vollenhoven Avenue and Stadnitski
-Avenue! Isn’t it a good thing they were changed?
-
-                                               MARGARET L. JOHNSON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THE Indian name for Buffalo is Teosahway. I think it is much prettier
-than Buffalo. Some people say the city was named for an old Indian
-chief who lived in a hut in the center of where the main business part
-is now located; the Indian’s name was Buffaloe. But others think it was
-named after the “creek,” where the buffaloes used to come in droves.
-
-                                               HENRY RICE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THE city of Buffalo used to be spelled with an _e_, and the citizens
-had a great time getting rid of that final _e_. Father says that years
-after it had been dropped the city of Binghamton, N. Y., which used to
-be spelled “Binghampton,” set to work to get rid of that unnecessary
-_p_. Buffalo, forgetting the trouble it had had, was the last to
-remember the change; long after others were pretty well educated, the
-Buffalo postmaster would send the Binghamton mail in a package marked
-“Bingham_p_ton.” At last the Binghamton postmaster made up a package
-for Buffalo and addressed it in very large letters, “Buffalop,” then
-wrote underneath: “If you are so fond of the letter _p_ take it.”
-Father says he believes this cured them.
-
-                                               SARAH H. ATCHISON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY grandmother used to live in Buffalo when the water supply was very
-different from what it is now. There used to be an old man whom they
-called “Water John.” He had a cart and an old horse, and he used to
-fill a hogshead with water at the lake, and go through the streets
-peddling it for a shilling a barrel. A shilling was twelve and a half
-cents. Grandmother says they always used to have to give Water John
-thirteen cents; and I don’t see why they did not call it thirteen cents
-a barrel, instead of a price which nobody could exactly pay.
-
-                                               LAURA HOLMAN.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I HAD a great-uncle who used to live in Buffalo when there were only
-about forty houses there, all built of logs; and I have an uncle living
-in Buffalo now who went there in 1825, when there were about two
-thousand inhabitants, and has seen it grow to its present size—about
-two hundred and fifty thousand; some say more than that. It must be a
-great thing to be able to look back on such changes.
-
-                                               JAMES CAMPBELL.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY grandmother went to Buffalo when she was a little girl and took a
-ride on the “Black Rock Railroad”; that was what they called it, but
-it was just a street car. Grandmother thinks it was the first horse
-railroad used in this country. There was a car for pleasant weather
-and one for storms. The pleasant weather one was like a great box,
-with an outside seat for the driver. The seats were just boards with
-straight backs. There was no cover, and the sun could pelt down on you
-as much as it pleased. For bad weather they had one with a top, and
-canvas curtains that buttoned down. The car was drawn by one horse, and
-Grandmother says they did not use any time table, but came along just
-whenever it happened. The fare was a shilling.
-
-                                               LUCY STEVENSON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-IT is great fun to read about Buffalo as it used to be. I was there
-last summer and stopped at an elegant hotel. I forget its name, but
-I know they said it was the handsomest in the city, and it was just
-splendid, I tell you! A little while after I came home I read about
-“The Farmers’ Hotel,” which was the grand hotel of Buffalo in 1832.
-I saw a picture of it; the queerest looking little old building you
-ever saw, with a bell on the top like a great cow bell; it was rung by
-a rope, and that is the way people used to be called to their meals.
-The book I was reading said it was a very useful bell, for it not only
-told when breakfast or dinner was ready at the Farmers’ Hotel, but was
-useful as a time-keeper in every house in the neighborhood; for there
-were very few people indeed in those days who carried watches, and
-clocks were very rare and costly.
-
-                                               REUBEN S. BENTON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I HAVE a letter which was written to my grandmother in 1836, by a lady
-who lived in Buffalo. Grandmother lived in New York, and the amount of
-postage which it took to carry the letter from Buffalo to New York was
-two shillings. This was marked in red ink on the outside of the letter;
-not on an envelope, for none were used, but one side of the paper was
-left blank, and the letter was folded in a curious way, and marked
-“Paid 2 s.” Grandmother said her sister in Albany used to get letters
-from the same lady, and hers were marked: “Paid 18¾.” At that time it
-cost less to write from Buffalo to Albany than it did from Buffalo to
-New York; and I must say that seems reasonable. Why should letters be
-two cents now, whether they travel ten miles or a thousand? But I am
-glad they are not twenty-five cents.
-
-                                               CARRIE FOSTER.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-BUFFALO is a great city. You can start from it and go anywhere you want
-to, at most any hour of the day or night. There are as many as thirteen
-different railroad lines to choose from, to say nothing of steamboats
-and all that sort of thing. But it is the queerest laid out city in
-this country. A man Ellicott planned it almost a century ago, and meant
-to build a palace for himself right in the center, but he never did.
-
-                                               JOHN JONES.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MOTHER says I ought to be able to write you a letter about Buffalo,
-because I’ve been there lots of times. But I can’t. What is there to
-write about a city, I should like to know? They are all alike; great
-long streets with big houses on both sides, or big stores or something,
-and churches every little way, and crowds of people in the streets
-getting in a fellow’s way all the time, and carts running over you,
-and carriages that you want to take a ride in and can’t; and an awful
-noise and smoke and hurly-burly. I’d rather spend one afternoon in
-the country in an apple orchard or a strawberry field, or by a trout
-stream, than to be a whole week in any city I ever saw. Buffalo has
-some splendid-looking houses and parks, and there is a lunatic asylum
-that I was interested in, because the people acted so queer. I don’t
-like Buffalo, however, nor any other big place.
-
-                                               TOM HURST.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I THINK they must make flour enough in Buffalo to supply the world
-with bread. My father says that twelve years ago there were eleven
-great flouring mills there, and he doesn’t know how many more have been
-started since. At that time they made every year about two hundred and
-fifty thousand barrels of flour; but dear me! it would take more flour
-than that to feed the world, wouldn’t it? What a lot of things we do
-have to eat!
-
-                                               JIMMIE TUCKER.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I SHOULD think Buffalo would be called the “City of Churches.” There
-must be hundreds of churches there. I went with my uncle and brother to
-look at different ones, and it took us two days just to see those which
-were on three streets of the city. Some of them are lovely, and some
-were great, dark-looking buildings, like jails.
-
-                                               LUCY STONE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    [On the whole we consider these Buffalo letters
-    decidedly unique. A little ahead of anything in that
-    line which the Pansies have yet given us. Certainly
-    some rather original ideas in regard to cities in
-    general have been advanced, and we have been given a
-    better chance than usual to mark the progress which
-    time has made. We are somewhat surprised that no one
-    has described a ride to or from the city on one of the
-    canal packets. That is a vivid memory of our childhood
-    which we would like to tell you about were there time.
-
-    Our material is as usual not exhausted, but our space
-    is. I presume Buffalo will fare like the cities which
-    have preceded it—that is, some of the best letters will
-    come too late to use. If our Pansies could only learn
-    to start three months ahead!—EDITORS.]
-
-
-
-
-MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
-
-V.
-
-
-THIS is a beautiful moonlight evening, but you would rather listen to
-me than bark at the moon?
-
-All right; I don’t mind talking when I have good listeners, but to try
-to tell a story and be constantly reminded that those to whom you talk
-are thinking of something else, is not pleasant.
-
-What shall I talk about to-night?
-
-“Something concerning our relatives away back?”
-
-So you want to know what kind of blood there is in our veins? That is
-an interesting theme for some, and why not for us?
-
-It is not three days since I heard our master boast that he had
-descended from the Pilgrim Fathers. We do not all claim to be related,
-but we are of one family now, and so interested in each other.
-
-I like to think that some of my relatives have done good and
-been faithful; so I think I will tell you what one of my
-great-great-great-uncles did a long time ago.
-
-His name was Sport, and at the time to which I refer he lived with a
-man by the name of Stillman. He was thought much of for hunting, and
-because of his skill in this direction he had a chance to earn the
-reputation which so many envied; that is, to earn it in just the way he
-did.
-
-I want my young friends to remember that the way is always open for
-any dog to get a good name if he will only try. Why, even a little
-insignificant poodle can be of use. There is our neighbor, Mr. Fellows;
-he had two or three dog sentinels all about his place, and the other
-night a man got clear to his front door, and none of these big fellows
-said or knew any thing of it; but the moment the man reached the door
-little Tip, the poodle, notified the whole house.
-
-Well, this dog Sport was taken by his master, one fall, away off into
-the wood. They went miles and miles beyond where anybody pretended
-to live, and there in a little hut they staid for days and days, the
-master hunting and fishing and resting.
-
-This was all well enough so long as nothing unusual occurred, though
-it was pretty lonesome for the four-footed one. The master seemed to
-take it for granted that his dog knew nothing but how to follow game,
-so said little to him, sometimes hardly noticing him from morning till
-night.
-
-As I said, matters moved on very well for a time, but there came a
-change. Mr. Stillman awoke one night feeling very ill, and by morning
-was sick enough.
-
-He took such medicine as he had, but grew worse and worse. The poor man
-could not sit up to write, and if he could have written, who would be
-mail carrier for him?
-
-He lay there and thought, and tried to plan. “If I only had a St.
-Bernard dog I might send him for help; but Sport is nothing but a
-hunting dog, and he cannot understand anything but how to follow a
-track.”
-
-In the meantime Sport was feeling badly, and trying to think what he
-might do, for his master was getting worse all the time. Walking around
-the room he saw an envelope with something in it, and while his master
-was seemingly asleep, he took the package in his mouth and started upon
-the run in the direction in which they came into the woods.
-
-He made pretty fast time for eight or ten miles; then he came to a
-trail, and knew a party had passed there not long before. So, putting
-his nose to the ground, he soon learned which way they had gone, and
-followed them at good speed.
-
-Fortunately he came upon them where they had encamped for the night. It
-proved to be quite a large party with an experienced guide.
-
-Sport dashed in among them and laid down his package and barked, to
-call their attention to it. The men examined the writing, and while it
-did not tell them how it was sent—it not having been sent—it seemed to
-be an attempt of some one to leave on record the condition he was in,
-his name and address, so that if he should die, any one finding this
-might be able to inform his friends.
-
-No one of those who first composed the party knew what to think of the
-paper, for there was little of it which could be read, more than the
-name; but the guide was not long in interpreting Sport’s meaning, and
-told them that the faithful dog had without doubt come from some one in
-distress, and that they must try to find him.
-
-“If I don’t miss my guess by a shot or two this four-legged
-mail-carrier will be dreadful glad to pilot us back the way he came;
-won’t you, old fellow?”
-
-Sport showed his readiness by jumping up and starting; but
-Simpkins—that was the guide’s name—called him back, patted him on the
-head, and gave him something to eat, promising to go with him pretty
-soon.
-
-[Illustration: SPORT BEFRIENDS HIS MASTER.]
-
-The guide told the party to remain there, all but one or two, till
-he should return. One of their number was a doctor, who was taking
-his vacation, and he volunteered to be one of the company to make the
-search for the supposed sufferer. Although all had believed themselves
-to be tired, yet they were soon off, Sport taking the lead, and so
-eager that he let his followers only just keep in sight. It was dark
-some time before the little hut was reached.
-
-When the men told the story afterward, they said it was a great wonder
-they kept on following a dog in that way, though the guide never
-hesitated; and the men probably preferred following him to being left
-alone.
-
-As they neared the place on the main trail, Sport would run ahead and
-bark, and then come back to the guide and whine.
-
-Well, they got to the hut at last, and it appeared as though the sick
-man had not moved while his faithful friend was gone; and what is more,
-the doctor said he never would have moved if help had not come.
-
-The men rubbed him and gave him medicine, and towards morning he opened
-his eyes. It took him a little while to make out what it all meant, but
-when Sport heard his voice he sprang to his side, and seemed wild with
-delight.
-
-There is a great deal more to this story which I will not take time to
-tell. The doctor tried hard to buy Sport after that, but his master
-said he would sooner let him have one of his hands; he kept him until
-he died of old age.
-
-Before he died Mr. Stillman had his picture painted by a fine artist.
-Master and dog have been dead for years, but I have seen both their
-pictures, made by the same man. Saw them often when I was little. Our
-folks used to tell the story to people who visited them, and then
-point to me and say: “This little fellow is related to that noble dog,
-and we hope he will be like him.” Then I would be so proud of the
-relationship, and resolve to be just as good if I could not be as smart.
-
-Now it is time to look around and see that everything is all right. If
-they have not forgotten to shut the hen-house door, we can take our
-places as usual till morning.
-
-No, I never had such a chance as old Uncle Sport had for making a name,
-but I have done what I could, and my master is not slow to show that he
-loves me.
-
-                                                        R.
-
-
-
-
-JACK’S DECISION.
-
-
-JACK was in a very doleful frame of mind. It was Sabbath morning, and
-as bright a day as even July could furnish to that part of the world.
-The birds in the trees, the leaves as they rustled, and the sweet
-odors in the air, all seemed to whisper that it was a perfect Sunday.
-Jack wanted to go to church. Not that he was devoted to church-going,
-either. The sermon often seemed long to him, and he sometimes grew very
-tired of counting the bits of stained glass of which the large round
-window was made; but on this particular morning, as he sat curled up
-in the large armchair with a great pillow at his back, he made himself
-believe that there was nothing in life he wanted so much as to go to
-church that day. It was not simply that the new carriage was to be used
-for the first time, and that Prince and Tony were harnessed together
-before it, and would look splendid, but in addition to these excellent
-reasons Jack had not been out of the house for nearly a week, and had
-not had a ride since last Sabbath, and it seemed to him he should fly
-if he had to stay in much longer. But then, Jack had the mumps, so it
-couldn’t be helped.
-
-Uncle Jack was to stay with him; or rather he was to stay with Uncle
-Jack, which was pleasant, for although this favorite uncle always staid
-at home on Sundays, and could not take a single step without somebody
-on either side to help, yet his nephew considered him the “jolliest
-kind of a companion.” This may have been partly owing to the fact
-that Jack the uncle was quite young to have that title—only a boy of
-twenty—and he was as sunshiny, in fact more so than many boys of ten
-contrive to be.
-
-On this particular day he exerted himself to his utmost to entertain
-his namesake, and succeeded so well that when the clock struck twelve
-the boy said, in round-eyed wonder: “Why, who would have thought it was
-so late? They will be home in a little while, won’t they?”
-
-“That’s a fact,” said Uncle Jack. “I think there will be just time for
-us to have our Bible story together, and a little talk about it before
-they come. You know that was to finish the morning’s programme, Jack.”
-
-“All right,” said Jack, settling back on his pillow, “go ahead; I like
-to hear you read the Bible better than anybody else, except mother, of
-course.”
-
-This was no wonder, for Uncle Jack had a way of reading between the
-lines, something after this fashion: “‘And a certain man, lame from his
-mother’s womb, was carried.’ Just think of that, my boy! Forty years
-old, and never had walked a step! That is worse than being lame for two
-years, isn’t it?”
-
-“How do you know he was forty years old? It doesn’t say so.”
-
-“It does in another place; I hunted it up once, to see how long he had
-been a burden on his friends. And just listen to this as the best they
-could do for him: ‘Whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple,
-which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the
-temple.’”
-
-“They were a mean lot,” said Jack; “they might have kept him at home
-and taken care of him.”
-
-“Ah, my boy! that is much the way it is to-day in countries where Jesus
-Christ does not reign; still, we must not be too hard on these friends
-of his; they may have been miserably poor, and to carry the man to
-the gate and leave him there may have been the utmost that was in their
-power to give.”
-
-[Illustration: DOLEFUL JACK.—(_See “Jack’s Decision.”_)]
-
-“Then they ought to have taken him to the hospital.”
-
-“There was none, Jackie. No provision whatever was made in that country
-for the suffering poor; such things belong to Christianity. Well, ‘Who,
-seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked an alms.’ He
-liked the appearance of those ministers, I fancy. I suppose he said,
-‘They look kind, and I shouldn’t wonder if they would give me quite a
-lift.’”
-
-“I should say they did,” chuckled Jack, who knew the outcome of the
-story. Reading in this way you can see how long it might take them to
-get through with even a short story; but Jack thought it a “tip-top”
-way to read.
-
-He sat lost in thought for some minutes after the lame man had gone
-leaping into the temple, then said, half-doubtfully, as though not sure
-whether it were just the proper thing to say: “Uncle Jack, wouldn’t it
-be a splendid thing if Peter were alive now, and should come home from
-church with the folks, and cure you so you could run all around?”
-
-Uncle Jack turned bright smiling eyes on his nephew. “You forget,” he
-said briskly; “it wasn’t Peter who did it; he was only the instrument.
-You might as well call the cup in which you take your beef tea the
-food, as to call Peter the physician in this case.”
-
-“Well, then,” said Jack, looking resolute, “I don’t understand why he
-doesn’t cure folks now—Jesus, I mean. People say he is here all the
-time, though we can’t see him, and that he is just the same as ever he
-was; why don’t he cure you, Uncle Jack, just as he cured the man at the
-temple gate?”
-
-“He has,” said Uncle Jack promptly; “He has performed a much greater
-cure for me than He did for the man at the gate.”
-
-And then Jack looked astounded. As though he did not know that his
-Uncle Jack had not taken a step in two years, and even the great
-surgeon from the city could not be sure if he ever would.
-
-The gay young uncle laughed over his astonishment, then said: “I see I
-shall have to tell you something, Jackie. Before I was hurt I was in a
-bad way—lame not only in my feet, but in my will power, which is much
-worse. I was making a headlong rush toward ruin, and when the accident
-happened which laid me flat on my back, I knew before many weeks that
-it was Jesus Christ trying to cure me.”
-
-Little Jack stared. “Couldn’t He have done it without that?” he asked.
-
-“No,” said his uncle confidently; “I don’t believe He could. I wouldn’t
-let Him, you see. He had called me hundreds of times, and urged me to
-let Him do the best things for me, but I wouldn’t. My will power, as I
-told you, was lame, sick—deathly sick; I couldn’t seem to want to be
-cured, nor to do any of my part of the work. There is always our part
-to do in a cure, you know.” Jack nodded, and remembered the bitter
-medicine which he had rebelled against swallowing. “Well, I wouldn’t do
-my part; refused out and out, and kept on refusing until I was placed
-on my back. I suppose the Lord Jesus knew that that only would bring me
-to my senses, and give him a chance to cure my heart sickness, so he
-let it come to me. Understand?”
-
-Jack was not disposed to answer. He was thinking. “Why doesn’t He cure
-your back now?” he asked, speaking part of his thought.
-
-His uncle’s voice was a trifle lower, and hinted at strong feeling
-which was being controlled. “I believe he will, Jackie, just as soon as
-it is best for me to be cured. I think I am going to get quite well;
-indeed, I may say I am almost sure of it, though the surgeon is not. I
-believe the Lord Jesus has decided to let me be well and strong again,
-so I can be a witness for him, as the lame man was, you remember. Why,
-we didn’t finish the story, did we? And there is no time now. Here
-come the people from church. You look that up, Jackie, in your Bible
-sometime, and see what an unanswerable argument the man was.”
-
-Jack the younger thought over the entire story later, while he was
-eating his beef tea. Thought and thought, and by a way which was clear
-to himself, came at last to this point: “I wonder if He let me have the
-mumps so as to stop me from doing different from what mother says? If
-I hadn’t thought it wouldn’t do any harm to run into Judge Howell’s a
-few minutes, even after she had told me not to stop anywhere, why, I
-suppose I shouldn’t have had these horrid old mumps. Maybe He knows it
-was the only way to cure me. Well, I tell you what it is; I believe
-I’ll be cured. I guess, after this, I’ll do just exactly as I’m told,
-and be a ‘witness’ myself, so that folks will begin to say of me: ‘Jack
-Campbell won’t do it; his folks told him not to, and you can’t move
-Jack after that any more than you could a stone wall.’ I declare, that
-will be tip-top fun. I’ll do it!”
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: JACK THOUGHT AND THOUGHT.]
-
-[Illustration: MY PRETTY DEER.]
-
-[Illustration: ONLY ONE LEFT.]
-
-
-
-
-CLAUDE’S STORY.
-
-
-CLAUDE TALMAN was ten years old. He lived in a marble house. Its floors
-had costly carpets, and all the furniture was elegant. His clothes were
-fine and rich; his food came from almost all parts of the world. How
-soft was his bed. Tenderly was he watched over. He seemed to have more
-than heart could wish—not his heart, however.
-
-[Illustration: CARACTACA BEGS TO BE SENT HOME.]
-
-One day as he looked from his elegant window he saw a poor boy passing
-drawn in a little wagon by a goat; then he set up a loud cry that he
-must have that very wagon and goat. It did no good for his mother to
-promise him just as good an one if it could be found in the Central
-Market, where almost everything could be bought. No, he must have
-that. That boy must sell it to him or it must be taken from him. What
-right had that poor boy to something that he (Claude) didn’t have?
-His mother reasoned with him, but all to no purpose; he stormed about,
-stamping his foot, saying he would have it if he had to kill the boy to
-get it. When he got over his rage somewhat his mother said: “You remind
-me of another Claude, only his real name was Claudius.”
-
-Then Master Claude quieted down and listened, for he was fond of
-stories, and now he knew his mother had one for him. So she went on
-thus: “Two thousand years ago there lived a large family in the country
-that is now called England. Their name was Briton. They were not the
-handsomest or wisest folks in the world, nor were they always gentle
-among themselves. Their houses were mere huts and their dress was the
-skins of wild animals. They were a brave people, but generally minded
-their own business. The great father of this family—I should say one of
-the big brothers—was Caractacus. He was strong and fearless, and very
-wise and good in his way. When they were in trouble they went to him,
-and somehow he always knew just what to do. So they thought of him just
-as American people think of Washington.
-
-“Miles and miles away across the great waters lived another family in
-an elegant marble palace”—
-
-“Now you are going to tell a story about me,” interrupted Claude.
-
-—“in an elegant marble palace. Everything without as well as within
-this beautiful mansion was costly and wonderful. There was nothing just
-like it on all the face of the earth.
-
-“But they were unhappy. They wanted something more. One day while they
-were sitting and feasting, dressed in purple and fine linen, and bands
-of music were playing, word came from one of their travelers about a
-fair island far away, and about this Briton family who owned it, and
-were living there so contentedly.
-
-“Then uprose the father of the Roman family—for that was their name—and
-the music ceased, the feasting was over, and the men put off their
-showy dress and put on their soldier clothes, and the father or big
-brother, whose name was Claudius”—
-
-“Now, mother, more about me?”
-
-“His name was Claudius, and he mounted his war horse and blew a loud
-blast that made the marble halls ring again, and with waving banners
-and peals of music away marched this Roman family to conquer the Briton
-family and make them give up their”—
-
-“Little wagon and goat?”
-
-—“give up their beautiful farm. On they went on foot and on horse and
-by boats till they landed one dark night and stole up to the back yard
-of the Britons.
-
-“Then of a sudden the dogs set up an awful barking. The Britons—women
-as well as men and children—sprang up in a jiffy, and a fierce fight
-followed. Sometimes the Romans got the better, sometimes the Britons;
-but after a long, long time, when many were killed on both sides, six
-of Claudius’ biggest brothers saw Caractacus fall, and the blood was
-streaming from his side by an arrow wound, and they leaped upon him
-and bound his hands behind him, and led him as best they could to
-Claudius. But Caractaca, his poor wife, followed, begging the soldiers
-not to harm her suffering husband.
-
-“When the brave Britons saw their leader fall, and knew he was now a
-prisoner, their hearts failed them, and they fled, many of them, far
-away into the forests.
-
-“But Caractacus and his sad wife were taken from their home and carried
-far away to the Roman palace as prisoners.
-
-“Now when they looked around this grand home and saw all its richness
-and glory they drew a deep sigh, Caractaca begging Claudius to send
-them back to their home, the brave Caractacus only saying he did not
-see why such a rich family cared for the plain hut he lived in.”
-
-Master Claude never again insisted upon having the little wagon and
-goat. Nay, he helped him to better ones.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-THE LONGEST DAY.
-
-
-IT is quite important, when speaking of the longest day in the year,
-to say what part of the world we are talking about, as will be seen
-by reading the following list, which tells the length of the longest
-day in several different places. How unfortunate are the children in
-Tornea, Finland, where Christmas Day is less than three hours in length!
-
-At Stockholm, Sweden, it is eighteen and one half hours in length. At
-Spitzbergen the longest day is three and one half months. At London,
-England, and Bremen, Prussia, the longest day has sixteen and one half
-hours. At Hamburg in Germany, and Dantzig in Prussia, the longest day
-has seventeen hours. At Wardbury, Norway, the longest day lasts from
-May 21 to July 22, without interruption. At St. Petersburg, Russia, and
-Tobolsk, Siberia, the longest day is nineteen hours, and the shortest
-five hours. At Tornea, Finland, June 21 brings a day nearly twenty-two
-hours long, and Christmas one less than three hours in length. At New
-York the longest day is about fifteen hours, and at Montreal, Canada,
-it is sixteen.—_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-THREE YOUNG MISSIONARIES.
-
-
-“WHO are they?”
-
-The one with his hat off and flag in hand—his name is Judson. The neat
-little Miss, her fingers tucked in that warm muff, and her satisfied
-face saying: “See what a nice big snowball we’ve made,” she is Miss
-Emily Chubbuck, to be sure. The third—wouldn’t you give a penny to
-see his face?—he looks like a young Scotch Highlander in plaids. He
-it is who fixed up the funny mouth, nose and eyes, and is now putting
-something sweeter than a nasty cigarette into his snow mouth; well,
-this one is Master Carey. Now they look only like children having fun.
-Not a hundred years after they became missionaries. Heard you ever of
-Carey? Of Adoniram Judson? Of his wife, Emily Chubbuck?
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-FIRST TIME AT CHURCH.
-
-
-    A GRAVE sweet wonder in thy baby face,
-    And look of mingled dignity and grace,
-    Such as a painter hand might love to trace.
-
-    A pair of trusting innocent blue eyes,
-    That higher than the stained-glass window rise,
-    Into the fair and cloudless summer skies.
-
-    The people round her sing, “Above the sky
-    There’s rest for little children when they die.”
-    To her, thus gazing up, that rest seems nigh.
-
-    The organ peals; she must not look around,
-    Although with wonderment her pulses bound—
-    The place whereon she stands is holy ground.
-
-    The sermon over, and the blessing said,
-    She bows, as “mother” does, her golden head,
-    And thinks of little sister who is dead.
-
-    She knows that now she dwells above the sky,
-    Where holy children enter when they die,
-    And prays God take her there too, by and by.
-
-    Pet, may He keep you in the faith alway,
-    And bring you to that home for which you pray,
-    Where all shall have their child hearts back one day!
-                                      —_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-AN IDEA THAT GREW.
-
-
-IT was Nancy and the book together which put the idea into Clara’s
-mind. They were slipping along in the shadows of the quiet river, she
-and Wallace. It was the Fourth of July, and most of the boys and girls
-of the region were busy with what firecrackers they could get—those of
-them who had not taken a five-mile tramp to the village to attend the
-celebration.
-
-But Clara was too old to care for firecrackers, and Wallace had had
-enough of them before he came; he was only here for a few days,
-and preferred a visit with his sister to all the Fourth of July
-celebrations that could be planned. She was reading aloud to him bits
-from a new book which he had brought her as a birthday present; for
-the Fourth of July was not only the birthday of freedom, it was also
-Clara’s birthday.
-
-“O, Wallace!” she said, “this is a lovely book.” She had said the same
-thing at least a dozen times that day. “Just see what queer ideas
-she had,” Clara continued, meaning the girl in the book; “she was
-very good—better than anybody I ever knew. I should think it would be
-lovely to do half the nice things she did. One plan was to pick out a
-friend—another girl—and try to help her in every way she could. Pray
-for her, you know, and talk with her, and influence her, until at last
-the girl would be converted; then they two would choose two others to
-help in the same way, and they were going to see how large a circle
-they could make of that kind. She thought perhaps she could reach all
-around the world; she was only a young girl, and she thought if she
-lived to be a woman perhaps she could. Wallace, what are you laughing
-at?”
-
-“At the modesty of the young woman and her ideas,” said Wallace,
-laughing afresh. “She hasn’t gotten around the world yet, I take it;
-I’ve never seen anything of her.”
-
-“I am sure the idea is beautiful,” said Clara, half-inclined to be
-vexed with Wallace for making sport of it. “And of course one could do
-a great deal of good in that way. I would just like to try it.”
-
-“Why don’t you?” Wallace asked, his eyes twinkling; “I’m sure you
-have a good field for work of the sort here among the natives. Look
-at that specimen on the bank at this moment. Her eyes are as large as
-sunflowers, and she looks as though she might take any amount of doing
-good to and not be hurt by it.”
-
-Clara turned around and stared back at Nancy on the shore.
-
-A little girl with a sallow, wistful face, and great mournful-looking
-eyes. She had on a worn and faded dress, an apron which was much too
-long for her, but seemed to have been put on to cover the deficiencies
-of the dress. She wore neither shoes nor stockings, and was hanging
-tightly by the two strings to her pink gingham sunbonnet, and gazing at
-the people in the boat with the most unutterable longing in her eyes
-that Clara had ever seen.
-
-“Poor thing!” said Clara; “she envies us our row. I wonder if she never
-has a chance to take a row on the river? Only see how hungry her eyes
-look.”
-
-“It is more probable that she envies you your hat and dress,” said
-Wallace; “she keeps her eyes on them. She has an eye to the beautiful,
-that is what is the matter with her. I am not sure but it is your hair
-she wants most, after all, though hers is arranged elaborately. She
-would make an excellent beginning for your scheme, Clara.”
-
-“I am not sure but she would.” Wallace was teasing, but his sister was
-grave and in earnest. “Row toward the shore, Wallace, and let me speak
-to her; I never saw a child who had such a wistful look.
-
-“Good afternoon, little girl,” she said pleasantly, as Wallace obeyed
-directions and the boat drew near, “are you having a pleasant Fourth of
-July?”
-
-“No,” said the child, without hesitation or ceremony.
-
-“Not? I am very sorry. What has been the trouble?”
-
-“Nothing,” said the child, as promptly as before. Then, seeming to
-consider something more necessary, added: “Nothing more than always
-is. We don’t never have no pleasant times to our house.”
-
-“You see,” said Wallace, in low tones, nodding significantly to his
-sister, “she is in perishing need of being chosen.”
-
-“So she is. Wallace, you are simply making fun, but I am in earnest. I
-wonder what I could do for the poor little thing? I have been here for
-two months, and haven’t done a thing for anybody. I have tried to get
-acquainted with a few of the girls of my age, but they are shy of me;
-this child does not seem to be shy.”
-
-“Not in the least,” said Wallace. “Very well, how shall we commence?
-Shall I invite her to sail with us this afternoon as a sort of entering
-wedge?”
-
-“Do you mean it?” Clara asked, well pleased, and she turned again to
-Nancy. “Do you ever go rowing on the river?”
-
-“No.”
-
-“Why not? Would not you like to?”
-
-“Never had no chance. We ain’t got no boat, and nobody won’t lend us
-poor folks any; and we don’t never go nowheres, me and Billy.”
-
-“Poor little girl! Who is Billy? your little brother? Would you like to
-take a ride with us this afternoon? If you would you may come down to
-the landing and get in the boat.”
-
-The child stared for a moment as though she felt her ears were not to
-be trusted, then turned and made a dash for the landing below. Wallace
-laughed and steered the boat in the same direction. A few moments more
-and they were off, with the barefooted Nancy seated comfortably beside
-Clara.
-
-It is only the very beginning of this story that I have space for. I
-am wondering if you Pansies cannot sit down thoughtfully and think it
-out for yourselves, perhaps write it out. The story is true, and it
-happened years ago. Such a girl as Clara, who was spending a summer in
-a backwoods region, for reasons which I need not stop here to explain,
-and such a girl as Nancy met first in the way I have described; and in
-the course of that afternoon ride Clara heard enough about the home
-where they “never had no pleasant times,” to make her heart ache. The
-beautiful idea in the book kept coming to her, or rather staid with her
-and kept asking if she could not do something of the kind with this
-Nancy. To be sure Nancy was not like the girl chosen in the book; she
-had been of about the same age and station as her friend. “But then,”
-said Clara to herself, “she did not need help half so much as this one
-does; and I think with this kind of people I might help one younger
-than myself better than one of my own age. At least I can pray for her.”
-
-[Illustration: ON THE QUIET RIVER.]
-
-Now the story for you to work out is begun, and I will give you just
-a few more facts, and then jump to the end of it—that is so far as I
-know it—leaving you to fill up the blank space. It was a stony, hilly,
-desolate country side, where the people were very poor, and were cursed
-with more rum saloons than with any other form of business; where the
-nearest church was five miles away; where there was no Sunday-school,
-and no day-school except for three months in the winter. And Nancy,
-being questioned, showed that she not only did not know what Fourth of
-July meant, but she did not know what Sunday meant in the true sense of
-the word; nor did she know about Jesus Christ, save as she had heard
-“Pap swear his name sometimes!” Did ever girl need helping more?
-
-Now for the end, so far as it can be said to be ended, for the people
-are still living. Nancy is a young woman who wears the neatest of
-dresses and hats, and the nicest fitting boots and gloves. She is
-herself a teacher in the day-school in that part of the country where
-her home has always been. The school is in session nine months of
-the year. She is a teacher in the Sunday-school, which has a room
-of its own, opening from the pretty church where every Sabbath day
-the people gather to hear of Jesus Christ. And Nancy’s father is the
-superintendent of the Sunday-school! And there is not a saloon left
-within two miles of the neighborhood; and the change began that Fourth
-of July afternoon, when Clara, reading from her new book, caught an
-idea which grew.
-
-You will perhaps be glad to hear that Wallace, although he professed
-to be only amused, was much more than that, and helped to form Clara’s
-“circle” so effectually that he preaches in the little church whenever
-he comes to this part of the world for a few weeks of vacation. “You
-haven’t reached around the world yet,” he said to Clara not long ago;
-“but I am not sure but you will. Do you know that boy Billy wants to be
-a missionary and go to China?”
-
-Billy is Nancy’s youngest brother.
-
-Now see if you can plan ways by which Clara may have helped to bring
-about such changes. No, better than that; look about you and see what
-you can do to make a circle of good that shall reach—as far as it can.
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: THREE YOUNG MISSIONARIES.]
-
-
-
-
-TEACHING THE CHINESE.
-
-
-AND so you thought the Chinese do not know anything?
-
-Look into this school; see wise Mr. Ah Lee sitting before his thirteen
-youngsters. See how bright they look. And surely they know how to
-get as much fun out of a cat’s tail and get rapped over the knuckles
-as hard as any American boy. Yes, they sit upon the floor, and they
-don’t seem to have blackboards and maps and many other nice school
-contrivances, but they manage somehow to learn one of the most
-difficult languages in the world.
-
-[Illustration: A CHINESE SCHOOL.]
-
-Our poor missionaries do have such a time in mastering Chinese so they
-can converse with the people and preach the Gospel to them. The trouble
-is that a word may mean one of a dozen different things, just as you
-happen to give it this tone (sound) or that.
-
-A Mr. Meadows once wished to say “bargain money” to a Chinaman. He used
-the proper Chinese word for it, but pronounced it as though it meant to
-the Chinaman “Do you hear? do you hear?” And what said John Chinaman?
-Just nothing at all, but came nearer and nearer to Mr. Meadows, turning
-one side of his head then the other to listen.
-
-Once Mr. Pohlman asked a Chinese family if they drank wine, but he
-pronounced the word wine (_tsén_) so it sounded to them like their word
-for land (_t’sēn_).
-
-At another time he asked a mourning family if they had buried (_tái_)
-the body of their dead grandmother. But he sounded it _t’ai_, which
-means to kill. Imagine their looks.
-
-But the missionaries work away at the queer Chinese words and tones
-until they can tell the “old story” plainly—and hundreds have heard and
-understood, and now believe.
-
-You know how hard it is for the Chinaman to speak our language. He says
-“Amelican” for American, our _r_ is so difficult for him to get.
-
-But the time is coming when every one of God’s family will know the one
-great language, and there will be no hard schoolmaster to scold or whip
-it into them.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-WHEN HE WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD.
-
-
-    OUR little lad, our bonnie twelve-year-old,
-      Has journeyed to the city of the King;
-    Our happy boy—ere heart could grow a-cold,
-      Or soul turn bitter—in youth’s joyous spring,
-    Went up to keep the feast in that bright place,
-      City of Peace, where restful mansions be;
-    And straightway looking on the dear King’s face,
-      Remembered naught but joy that face to see!
-
-    Long time ago, when He was twelve years old,
-      The Holy Child climbed fair Judea’s hills,
-    And his young mother in her heart did hold
-     Strange words concerning him, whose mystery fills
-    Her soul with wonder.—On their homeward way,
-      The reverent pilgrims haste; and sorrowing
-    She seeks her Son, and lo, in calm delay,
-      He lingered in the temple of the King!
-
-    She, coming to the sacred portal, waits
-      With tear-wan face; her fair first-born she seeks;
-    Weary and grief-worn, at the shining gates,
-      With faltering lips his sweet home-name she speaks,
-    And He is in her arms!—With tender word
-      Of gentlest chiding, each to each revealed
-    The love that to the depths of feeling stirred
-      Hearts that brief absence near and dearer sealed.
-
-    O mother, mourning for thy fair first-born,
-      He tarries in his Father’s House of Light,
-    With God’s beloved; and thou in some glad morn,
-      Finding the glorious gates beyond the night,
-    Shalt breathe his name, and ere it leaves thy lips,
-      In thy dear arms, aglow with life and joy,
-    All strong and beautiful—death’s long eclipse
-      Forgotten in the first kiss of thy boy!
-                      ROSA EVANGELINE ANGEL.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MISS HALSEY read a letter from Miss Patton, of India, who after wittily
-describing some of the daily trials of housekeeping there, between her
-rising hour, five o’clock, and that of reaching her first school, says:
-
-“This school, over a mile away, is upstairs in a large house in an
-alley. The children looked so nice and bright this morning, I wish you
-could see them. Prayers are over, so I begin by taking the wee tots in
-the first class and teach them the Lord’s Prayer. Then I take class
-after class until half-past nine, when with pony and queer little
-two-wheeled tonga I go on about half a mile to the other school. There
-I teach until nearly eleven and then drive home to breakfast, after
-which we have English prayers. By that time the gun has gone off, and
-that means twelve o’clock. The gun is the signal for our servants and
-native Christians living near to come in and have Marathi prayers.
-
-“Then I teach my servants to read, and ask a few questions in the
-Catechism, then teach the Christian girls and young women whom we want
-to train for Bible women, from two until three P. M. At three o’clock
-we have a cup of tea and some bread and butter; then I am free to
-settle ‘cases’ and hear ‘tales of woe’ until half-past four, when I go
-into town to teach the women and girls in the zenanas. I get home in
-time to have a good bath and get into a fresh dress before dinner at
-half-past seven. After dinner we talk over our experiences and plans of
-work, and sometimes one reads aloud while the rest of us sew until it
-is time to retire, generally an early hour.”—_Interior._
-
-[Illustration: AN OLD-TIME WARRIOR.]
-
-[Illustration: THE MILKY WAY.]
-
-
-
-
-YOUNG FOLKS OF ALASKA.
-
-
-THIS face is not like yours, but more like some of the young folks of
-Alaska. Of course you want to know a bit about the boys and girls away
-off there.
-
-Here it is from Mrs. Cady, who was there not long ago:
-
-“Mr. Austin, the missionary, and these boys dragged all the timber by
-ropes to build the first house.
-
-“The Sabbath evening service was opened by a fine anthem, these boys
-and girls being among the singers. Mr. Austin read a Psalm in English,
-which was interpreted by a boy fourteen years old.
-
-“He asked a girl twelve years old to offer the closing prayer, and she
-expressed it beautifully in English.
-
-“They are very polite. If a boy taps at the door his hat is off before
-the door is opened. Their table manners are good. One boy is head
-waiter.
-
-“He can offer thanks or call upon some other boy to do so, or sing a
-blessing.”
-
-[Illustration: AN ALASKA CHILD.]
-
-Of course you ought to know just how the grandmothers of these bright
-Alaska children look. Our picture will enable you to judge somewhat of
-their appearance.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-[Illustration: ALASKAN WOMEN.]
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-POOR TABBY.
-
-
-TABBY thought she was a very smart cat, but there were some rats living
-in the barn who knew almost as much as Tabby did herself.
-
-[Illustration: THE GRAY RAT TANTALIZES TABBY.]
-
-One morning Tabby went to the barn. She had tried for days to catch a
-rat, but just as she got her paw out to strike one off he scampered.
-“To-day I shall get the old gray rat, see if I don’t,” said Tabby to
-herself as she walked down the path.
-
-She stepped softly into the door. But what was this new shining thing
-she saw?
-
-Why, Farmer Jones had put a big trap there to catch the rats.
-
-Now Tabby had never seen a trap, and she said to herself:
-
-“Why, here is a pretty little house! It must be for me; I will walk
-right in. How nice!”
-
-So she stepped in. Snap! went the door, shut! and there poor Puss was
-in prison.
-
-She tried to get out, but she could not. She cried, but nobody came to
-let her out.
-
-While she sat there feeling sad, two rats came and looked at her. The
-old gray one, as he stood on his hind legs, said:
-
-“Aha! I see; I see! Anybody who goes into that door does not come out.
-I shall never go in.”
-
-By and by Tommy Jones missed his pussy and went to the barn to look for
-her.
-
-Oh! was not Tabby glad to see him coming?
-
-                                               MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-
-
-
-DAVIE’S WITNESSES.
-
-
-IT was Fourth of July morning, and Davie Carson had been up since a
-good while before the sun, not firing crackers and torpedoes, nor
-watching the firing of the great cannon, but doing the chores. He was
-in tremendous haste. An entire holiday was a thing he did not have
-twice in a year. A hard-working boy was Davie, with not only his own
-bread to earn, but with a great longing in his heart to help earn the
-bread of two sisters and a brother younger than himself. He lived in a
-small village where there was little chance of a boy of his age earning
-much. The best that he had been able to do, so far, was to seize odd
-jobs as they happened along; or rather as he hunted them out. Not very
-pleasant jobs, all of them. Davie liked horses, and was glad of a
-chance to lead Dr. Bristol’s to water; but to like to clean out their
-stalls was another thing. But he knew how to do this work, and did it
-well, and had put on his great work apron this morning for the purpose
-of taking that job next.
-
-It was his last one for the morning; after that breakfast, and then
-a four-mile brisk run to the next village to the Fourth of July
-celebration. His mother had not made the least objection to his staying
-to the celebration. On the contrary she had said heartily: “I am glad
-the doctor wants an errand done there; it will give you a good excuse
-for going. Of course you may stay, and welcome; and I’ll put you up a
-nice Fourth of July lunch; and if there is something to see, or to buy,
-that doesn’t cost more than ten cents, you just have it, or see it,
-whichever it is. You deserve a treat, Davie.”
-
-Davie laughed gleefully. It was pleasant to hear his mother speak such
-words, but he had a very different plan. Hurried as he had been that
-morning, he leaned on his spade and thought it all out. In the village
-where the celebration was to be was a large book store, where he had
-once or twice been sent on errands for Dr. Bristol, and had feasted
-his eyes upon the rows and rows of books and magazines, and thought
-what a thing it would be to have a chance to handle them. The day
-before, while holding the horses and waiting for the doctor, his eyes
-had rested on an advertisement in the paper—WANTED: A BOY. Then had
-followed a brief statement of the kind of boy, and what his duties
-would be, and the whole was signed by the proprietor of the book store.
-
-Davie’s cheeks had glowed so while reading it, that the doctor,
-returning just then, had looked hard at him, and asked him if he was
-getting up a fever. The splendid plan which the boy had thought out
-leaning on his shovel was, that he would clip around to the book store
-the moment the doctor’s errand was done, and try for that place!
-
-To be sure there was hardly a possibility that he would succeed, but
-then he might, and certainly he would never accomplish anything if he
-did not try. But he did not mean to let any body know of his ambitions,
-so he had only a laugh for his mother’s suggestion.
-
-“If I get a chance to see the procession and hear the music and a few
-such things it will be all the lark I want,” he said cheerily, “except
-the lunch; I’ll be sure to want that. You are sure you can get along
-without me for such a long time?”
-
-“O, yes, indeed!” the mother said, smiling back on him. It was so like
-her Davie to think of mother.
-
-Davie made good speed over the road, though it was up hill and dusty,
-and the day was warm. He believed himself to be in ample time to see
-the parade which was to be made in honor of the day. At the corner he
-halted and glanced wistfully toward the book store; it was within half
-a block of him, and who knew but that if he should appear so early in
-the day he might get ahead of somebody?
-
-“No, it can’t be done,” he said at last, speaking aloud and firmly.
-“Davie Carson, I am ashamed of you! A package of medicine in your
-pocket that the doctor said an old lady was anxiously waiting for, and
-you thinking about stopping on an errand of your own. Just march down
-to Coleman Street as fast as your feet can carry you!”
-
-And the order was meekly obeyed. Here he was detained for minutes which
-seemed like hours to him. The sound of martial music was heard in the
-near distance, and people all along the streets were dodging to the
-doors to see if anything was to be seen; but the old lady’s daughter
-wanted to write a note to the doctor to send back by Davie. She would
-not be a minute, she said; but she was.
-
-“I might call for the note on my way home,” Davie timidly suggested.
-But she said, “O, no! that was not worth while; she could just as well
-write it now, and make sure of it; she would have it ready very soon.”
-And the sound of music drew nearer and nearer, until it passed the
-corner and faded in the distance; and the note was ready at last.
-
-Davie crowded it into his pocket, tried to listen respectfully to
-several messages besides, and went down the stairs three steps at a
-time to follow that fading music. The street was nearly deserted; all
-the boys had rushed out of sight with the procession. Davie took long
-strides in the same direction, and wondered if it would be improper to
-break into a run.
-
-Appearing at that moment around the corner ahead of him was a belated
-group—a father, mother and two children; odd-looking people, queerly
-dressed, and seeming to be entirely out of place in a town.
-
-“Halloo! what’s the matter now?” Another corner had been reached and
-turned by the people ahead of him, with the exception of the youngest
-of the group, who had tumbled down; it was her outcry which roused
-him. He picked her up, brushing the dust and soil from her clothes,
-straightening the much bent sunbonnet, and urging her not to cry, that
-they would find the others in a jiffy. She stopped crying the moment
-she discovered herself in kind hands, and looked confidingly at Davie
-out of great blue eyes, and slipped her small brown hand into his with
-great satisfaction. Then they two turned the corner, and were at once
-in a crowd. The thing which astonished and troubled him was, that
-the father and mother and older sister of his little girl seemed to
-have disappeared. For a weary half-hour the two jostled against the
-crowd and stared and hunted. At last there darted toward him an angry
-father, talking broken English in loud tones, followed by an angrier
-mother and a crying little girl. “What was he doing with Gretchen? How
-dare he steal their Gretchen and make off with her! Bad, wicked boy!
-The police should know all about it, that they should!” In vain Davie
-tried to explain; they were too excited and frightened to listen to
-explanations. In the midst of Davie’s attempts two well-dressed boys
-standing near, broke into laughter, and so confused him that he stopped
-short, and the enraged family trudged away, his little girl in his
-arms, and the father shaking his head at Davie. But the little girl
-looked back and smiled lovingly on him.
-
-Then Davie found that the crowd were trying to get near the band stand.
-
-“Come this way,” said one of the boys who had laughed, touching
-his shoulder; “there is a chance to slip in behind here and get a
-first-rate position.” Davie thanked them, and was just going to slip
-in, when a little girl who was flying past, going in the opposite
-direction from the pushing crowd, jostled against him, and as she did
-so dropped from under her arm a small package. Davie picked it up
-and looked eagerly after the girl, shouting, “Hold on, you’ve lost
-something!” But she flew like the wind.
-
-“You can’t catch her,” said a man; “she is lost in the jam by this
-time. You may as well pocket the bundle and call it Fourth of July
-luck.”
-
-“And you will lose your chance in here if you don’t come this minute,”
-said one of the boys, trying to keep a way open for him.
-
-“Thank you,” said Davie, “but I think I ought to find the little girl,”
-saying which he struck into the crowd, and began his search.
-
-It was several hours afterwards that a boy who was very tired, and who,
-if he had not been so disappointed, would have been hungry, came out
-of the handsome book store and with slow steps started for his long
-walk home. He had delivered the medicine for which he came in the first
-place; he had the note for the doctor safe in his pocket; he had picked
-up a little German girl, and after much trouble given her back to a
-father who was angry at him about it; he had followed a little girl, or
-rather followed the road over which she vanished, for two weary hours,
-and at last found her and restored the lost parcel, only to hear her
-laugh gleefully and declare that there was nothing in it but some
-dried-up sandwiches, which he was welcome to if he wanted them. And not
-a glimpse of procession, or sound of martial music or voice of public
-speaker had he seen or heard that day, save the few strains in the
-distance which had lured him in the morning.
-
-Moreover, he had called at the book store only to have the proprietor
-shake his head and say: “Of course, my boy, I couldn’t engage you for
-such a place as this without references. For whom do you work when you
-are at home?”
-
-Davie explained that they had been but a short time in that part
-of the country; he had no regular place, but did odd jobs for Dr.
-Bristol—cleaned out the stable and such things. No, Dr. Bristol did not
-know much about him—nobody did but mother—and he had not known that a
-recommendation would be needed.
-
-“I might just as well have staid at home and helped mother,” said
-Davie, as he walked slowly, with head down. “I’ve lost a day, and
-gained nothing at all. I wish I had—no, I don’t either. I did what I
-thought was right. I’m glad I did it.” Whereupon Davie whistled.
-
-“Who was that boy, father, and what did he want?” A young man asked the
-question of the bookseller as he came back to his parlor; he liked the
-looks of the boy.
-
-“Do you know anything about him?” replied the father, and before he
-could answer a bright-faced little girl chimed in: “O, Uncle Edward!
-what is his name? Don’t you know? I’m so sorry if you don’t; papa
-wants to know it.”
-
-“No, sir,” said the young man; “I don’t know him; but he is the chap I
-was telling you about who wandered around with that little German girl,
-and took patiently a hard scolding from the father afterwards, and a
-laugh from two well-dressed, thoughtless boys.”
-
-“Is he, indeed?” said the father; “I wish I had known it.”
-
-Then the little girl: “And O, Uncle Edward! don’t you think he is
-the very same boy who hunted after me for two hours to give me those
-sandwiches. Papa said I was a little dunce not to ask his name; that he
-ought to be rewarded for honesty and faithfulness.”
-
-“I know his name,” said Uncle Edward, “and I believe I will reward him.”
-
-The next morning, when Davie was out in the little garden hoeing and
-whistling, a strange thing happened to him; he received a letter—the
-first letter with his name on the envelope which he had ever received.
-It was short and to the point:
-
-    After you left me yesterday two witnesses to your
-    honesty and faithfulness, as well as to your good
-    temper under provocation, called upon me, and made me
-    decide to give you a month’s trial in the store if
-    you still wish the situation. Call on me to-day if
-    possible; if not, to-morrow will do.
-
-                                 Yours sincerely,
-                                         EDWARD HAMMOND.
-
-“Mother,” said Davie, as they went all over the plans for the third
-time, “who could have called on him who knows anything about me? I
-can’t imagine.”
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: A SUMMER DAY IN THE COUNTRY.]
-
-[Illustration: A STITCH AT A TIME.]
-
-
-
-
-ABOUT ST. AUGUSTINE.
-
-BY THE PANSIES.
-
-
-THE way it came to be called St. Augustine was this: it used to be
-named Seloy on the river Dolphins. That was when it belonged to the
-Indians. The French people named the river, and they gave it that name
-because they saw a great many dolphins playing in the mouth of the
-river. After awhile the Spaniards came and took the town on the day
-which was sacred to their saint, Augustine, so they named both town and
-river San Augustin.
-
-                                               RUFUS HUNTER.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-IN the American Revolution Florida was the only colony which was
-loyal to the king. When they heard the news of the Declaration of
-Independence they burned John Hancock and Samuel Adams in effigy,
-calling them rebels. After that some of the “Liberty Boys,” as our
-soldiers were called, stole powder from the British brig _Betsey_,
-which lay at anchor at San Augustin and slipped away with it, to be
-used at Bunker Hill.
-
-                                               HARVEY DENNISON.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I READ about the services which they used to hold in St. Augustine
-on Palm Sunday. They marched from the church to the platform of the
-convent, where was a beautiful altar trimmed with flowers and fruits.
-The congregation knelt on the ground while the priest said mass, then
-the nuns took baskets of rose petals which were brought by many little
-children in the procession, and strewed them before the altar in honor
-of the Virgin.
-
-                                               LAURA EASTMAN.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I LIKE to read about St. Augustine when it was a walled town with
-earthworks and batteries; when you had to enter the town through the
-great gate or by the drawbridge. At sunset a gun was fired, which meant
-that the bridge was raised, the gate barred, and both were guarded by
-soldiers. I can imagine them pacing back and forth challenging people
-who passed. “_Centinela alerta_,” they said, and “_Alerta esta_,”
-answered the outsider if he knew enough. I think it must have been
-great fun. I should like to understand the Spanish language, the words
-have such a musical sound. But the outsider might say “_Alerta esta_”
-as much as he liked, after the gates were closed he could not get into
-the town until next morning, no matter if his home was just the other
-side of the gate. Once in a long time came a messenger with news for
-the governor so important that for him they would open the gate; but
-this was very unusual.
-
-                                               JOHN L. PARKER.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THEY had one fashion in St. Augustine in the early days when the town
-was ruled by Spaniards which might work pretty well nowadays in some
-places. When a fellow became a great nuisance, would not work, and
-disturbed people by making noises in the streets, and things of that
-kind, they used to make him dress himself in some ridiculous fashion,
-put him at the head of a procession made up of anybody who wanted to
-join it and help make fun of him; then the drum and fife started up and
-he was marched out of the town, and he could not come back again.
-
-                                               HELEN DUNNING.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I WENT with my father and mother to St. Augustine only last winter.
-We went through the Ponce de Leon, which I think must be the finest
-hotel in the world. It is built of some kind of stuff that glitters in
-the sun, and looks in the shade as if it were blue, and the trimmings
-are of terra cotta. The floors of the halls are inlaid with little
-bits of marble, and the marble columns everywhere make you think for a
-minute that you are stepping into an art gallery instead of a hotel.
-The rotunda is just lovely! It has eight oak pillars to support it,
-each beautifully carved. The rotunda is four stories high, and has
-corridors on each story with more columns and lovely arches. The dome
-has wonderful paintings and carved figures, giving in pictures the
-history of Spain and France. You can look straight up through an
-opening to the great copper columns which form the lantern at the top.
-The large parlor is perfectly splendid. It is a hundred and four feet
-long, and fifty-three feet wide; but there are arches and portières, so
-that it can be divided into five rooms whenever the people wish. It is
-magnificently furnished. I think, however, that the great dining-room
-is really more beautiful than the parlor. More than eight hundred
-people can take dinner there at one time, and you can look out of the
-windows at lovely orange groves, and hear the mockingbirds singing, and
-there is a band of music which always plays while the dinner is being
-served.
-
-                                               ANNA WHEELER AUSTIN.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-A BAND of singers used to go about the streets of old St. Augustine on
-Easter eve, playing on their violins and guitars, and stopping under
-the windows to sing:
-
-    “_Disciarem lu doi,
-      Cantarem anb alagria,
-     Y n’arem a da
-      Las pascuas a Maria._”
-
-It seems almost impossible to sing such queer-sounding words, but
-translated they mean:
-
-    “Ended the days of sadness,
-      Grief gives place to singing;
-    We come with joy and gladness,
-      Our gifts to Mary bringing.”
-                              MARY GEDDIS.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-IN the year 1821 Spain gave Florida to the United States, the old
-yellow flag of Spain was taken down forever, and in its place our own
-beautiful stars and stripes floated over the old town. I wonder if the
-people living there knew enough to shout for joy?
-
-                                               HENRY STUART.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-IT is all very well for my brother to talk about the people shouting
-for joy when the stars and stripes floated over their town; but I guess
-he forgets what an awful time they had only about fifteen years later,
-when the Seminole War broke out. That was because the new people who
-had come in wanted the lands which had always belonged to the Indians,
-and wanted them driven further West. For the next seven years I think
-the people had reason to be sorry that they had ever seen the stars and
-stripes. Not but that I love the old flag as well as my brother does,
-but I think the Indians were ill-treated. It makes me very sad to read
-how they were at last cheated into a surrender, and carried away by
-force from the land they loved so well.
-
-                                            CHARLES MORTON STUART.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY sister Anna thought the hotel was the nicest part of St. Augustine,
-but I liked the old fort the best. It used to be Fort San Marco, but
-when the United States got hold of it they named it Fort Marion, after
-General Francis Marion. I would like to describe it, but I don’t
-understand just how. It is in shape what is called a polygon, and has
-a moat all around it. The stone or shell of which it is built is used
-a great deal in St. Augustine, or used to be; it is called coquina. I
-think the narrow streets and queer-looking old houses are much more
-interesting than the new streets, which are just like any other city.
-At least I liked them better; but girls always like elegant hotels and
-splendid furniture and all such things.
-
-                                               GEORGE WHEELER AUSTIN.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY mother used to live in St. Augustine years ago. She has told me
-a good deal about the streets, and the sea wall, and the little old
-houses. She has described St. George Street and Tolomato Street until
-it seems to me I could find my way up and down them almost as well as
-she could. But mother says things are very much changed since she was
-there; she reads in the papers about the beautiful new hotels, and
-says it does not seem possible they are in old St. Augustine. The old
-streets were very narrow; I suppose they are still. Next winter I am
-going there to see things for myself.
-
-                                               SARAH CASTLETON.
-
-    [The Pansies have seemed chiefly interested this month
-    in the history of old St. Augustine, rather than in a
-    description of the city. But I think our readers will
-    agree with me that they have managed to crowd a good
-    deal of information into a small space. Sorry we have
-    not room for all they said.—EDITORS.]
-
-
-
-
-REUBEN AS AN ERRAND BOY.
-
-(_Character Studies._)
-
-
-REUBEN MINOR was in his own room in his shirt sleeves, and the sleeves
-rolled to his elbows. His paste pot was on the table, sheets of
-paper and scraps of pasteboard were on the floor, and Reuben, with a
-queer-shaped box before him, was in what Maria called “a brown study.”
-
-[Illustration: “IN A BROWN STUDY.”]
-
-The stair door opened, and his Aunt Mary’s voice called, “Reuben!”
-
-“Yes’m.”
-
-“Don’t you forget those errands that you’ve got to do in town. Have you
-got ’em all in your mind?”
-
-“Yes’m.”
-
-“There’s only the eggs and the kerosene and the vinegar, you know, so
-you won’t need to have ’em written down—just three things.”
-
-“All right.”
-
-Silence for a few minutes, during which Reuben turned the box endwise
-and squinted at it. “Let’s see,” he said, leaning his elbow on the
-table and his head on his hand, “I wonder how that would do?” Then he
-started for his row of shelves, seized upon a good-sized book in the
-corner, and dived into its pages. Something was not clear. The stair
-door opened again, and his aunt’s voice sounded: “Reuben!”
-
-“Yes’m.”
-
-“You must take that next car, you know, because there isn’t another for
-an hour, and I’m in a hurry for the eggs; if I don’t have them by noon
-there’ll be no pumpkin pie for Sunday. Are you all ready for the car?”
-
-“I will be in a minute, Aunt Mary.”
-
-“Well, you better get ready right straight off, then there won’t be any
-mistake; it will be along now in a little while.”
-
-There was no reply to this, and the door closed again, Reuben,
-meantime, deep in his book. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, then a
-sudden, sharp call from below: “Reuben, there’s the car coming. Hurry,
-now! don’t you miss it for anything.”
-
-Reuben hurried. He made a frantic dash for his coat, ran his fingers
-through his hair by way of combing, concluded to go without a necktie,
-and tore down the stairs and out of the kitchen door and across the
-lawn, to the tune of his aunt’s words: “I believe in my heart you’ll
-lose that car, after all!”
-
-No, he didn’t. He hailed it, panting and breathless, some minutes after
-it had passed the corner, and at last was seated in it, mopping his
-wet forehead, for the morning was warm. But he had not forgotten the
-big book. Four miles in a street car, with not many passengers at that
-hour, gave him a good chance to study up that puzzling portion which
-he could not get through his mind. So he studied and puzzled, and the
-car rumbled on, and stopped, and went on again many times, and people
-came in and went out, and Reuben knew nothing about them. At last he
-looked up; he believed he could make that box now, partitions and all,
-if he were only at home. Halloo! they were in town already, and were
-passing Porter’s. Why! then they must have passed the corner grocery
-where Aunt Mary always traded. What a nuisance! Now perhaps he could
-not get this car on its return trip. He must try for it. So he pulled
-the check, and made what speed he could back, three, four, five blocks,
-to the corner grocery. As he left the car he wondered how they managed
-the flap that made the fastening of the inner box, and still puzzling
-over it, presented himself at the counter of the city grocery.
-
-“Well, sir,” said the clerk, after waiting a minute for orders, “what
-can I do for you?”
-
-What indeed? Reuben stared at him, grew red in the face, stammered,
-mopped his face with his handkerchief, gazed up and down the rows and
-rows of crowded shelves, gazed about him everywhere. What had he come
-for? That was the awful question. What had Aunt Mary said? She had said
-several things, he remembered. He tried to recall the all-important
-one. Butter? No, of course not; they made their own butter. Flour,
-perhaps, or starch—women were always wanting flour and starch—or it
-might have been tea. He was sure he did not know, and the longer he
-thought the more confused he seemed to get. And there was the return
-car! Unless he took that he would have to wait a solid hour, and for
-what? Was there any likelihood that he would remember? Reuben asked
-himself that question in a most searching manner, then sorrowfully
-shook his head as he owned to himself that he did not believe he ever
-knew; he had not paid any attention to that part of the business.
-
-Aunt Mary was watching for the return car. “Reuben has come,” she
-called out to Maria in the kitchen, as she caught a glimpse of him.
-“I must say I am relieved; I don’t know how we could have managed
-without those eggs. If I ever get hold of any hens that lay again,
-I’ll venture to say I won’t sell all my eggs to my neighbors and have
-to depend on store ones for myself. Why, what in the world has the boy
-done with them? He seems to be empty-handed! Hurry up, Reuben, we are
-waiting for the eggs. Where are your things?”
-
-Poor red-faced, shamefaced Reuben! It was hard work, but there was
-nothing for it but to own that the first he had heard of eggs was at
-that moment; and as for the “things,” he had no more idea than the man
-in the moon what they were.
-
-“I believe that boy is half-witted,” the clerk at the corner grocery
-had said, after watching him for a few minutes, and seeing him make
-a dash for the return car, not having bought a thing. But bless your
-heart, he wasn’t. He had wits enough. “Too many of ’em,” his Aunt Mary
-said. The trouble with Reuben was that he had never learned to withdraw
-his thoughts from the thing which wanted to absorb them, and fix them
-for the time being, instead, on the thing which ought to claim his
-attention.
-
-                                               MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-THE ADOPTED FAMILY.
-
-
-IT was a beautiful summer day when the Westwoods arrived at their
-country home, most of them very glad indeed to see the dear old place.
-They had staid in town very late that season, Mr. Westwood’s business
-being such that there was a time when he feared he could not get away
-at all. Now here they were turning the corner which brought the house
-into view; the great wagon following close behind, piled high with
-baggage, and every one was glad, save Herbert. He was eleven years old,
-and fond of his city home, and of the school which he attended, and of
-the boys in his class, and felt very lonely and desolate. He “did not
-know a single boy out here,” he confided to his mother, “that he ever
-cared to see again.” “And when a fellow hasn’t any friends,” he said
-dolefully, “it is very lonesome.”
-
-“Poor boy!” said Mrs. Westwood, when he was out of hearing, “I am sorry
-for him; I wish he liked the country as I used to; the long bright
-summer days were just crowded with happiness for me; but then I had
-sister Fanny to play with, and brother Will. Perhaps it would have been
-different if I had been all alone.”
-
-“Children must learn to make friends of the birds, and the squirrels,
-and all sorts of living things,” answered his father. “When I was
-Herbert’s age, I used to know the note of every bird in the woods, and
-I don’t believe he can tell even a robin when he sees it.”
-
-“No,” said his mother; “he has but little chance for that sort of
-education; and moreover he has no taste for anything of the kind; I
-wish he had.”
-
-The carriage which had been winding up the drive, stopped in front of
-the old-fashioned, wide piazzaed country home. It did seem a pity that
-anybody should feel doleful coming to such a pleasant place as that;
-but Herbert felt doleful; as he stood with his hand in his pockets, and
-stared down the country road, he winked hard to keep back the tears,
-when he thought of the boys in town having their military drill at this
-hour. Meanwhile his father and mother, and Peter and Hannah, bustled
-about, opening doors and windows, and planning where the luggage should
-be set down. Presently Herbert heard an exclamation from his mother.
-“For pity’s sake!” she said—and in the next breath—
-
-“Herbert, come here and see what I have found!”
-
-So Herbert swallowed hard, and brushed away a tear or two, and went
-round to the side piazza from where his mother’s voice had sounded, and
-saw a sight which made him go on tiptoe and gaze in delight.
-
-Pushed back, well under shelter from the summer storms, in the
-southeast corner of the piazza, was an old, somewhat dilapidated willow
-chair, large and very comfortable in its time, but which had long
-since been assigned to the piazza, and not considered worth bringing
-in out of the dews or the rain. In the fall when the family closed
-the house, the old chair had been forgotten. It had stood there all
-winter, deserted and lonely. But in the spring it had evidently been
-mistaken by a certain family as a house which was for rent, and they
-had rented it and moved in and set up housekeeping on a splendid scale;
-the consequences were, that fastened ingeniously to the back of the
-chair was a luxurious nest, most carefully woven, and within it at this
-moment were three of the prettiest speckled eggs that Herbert had ever
-seen. In fact his knowledge of birds’ eggs was limited; he had seen but
-very few.
-
-“O, mother!” he said softly, “how pretty it is. There is one of the
-birds on the branches near by—a splendid fellow. Where is his mate, do
-you suppose?”
-
-“Not far away, you may depend,” said his mother. “What a cunning place
-it is in which to build a house. How fortunate that the chair is so
-near that door instead of the other one. We can get along for awhile
-without opening that door at all, and they can raise their family
-without having trouble. If I were you, Herbert, I would adopt them
-and look after their interests and help to bring up their young ones;
-wouldn’t that be fun?”
-
-“Well,” said Herbert, with more glee than he had shown since he had
-left his city home, “I believe I will. I will call that fellow up there
-on the bush Denny, and he and I will be companions this summer.”
-
-“That will be splendid,” said Mrs. Westwood, very much pleased, for
-Denny was the short for “Denison,” her boy’s best friend in town. It
-was certainly a delicate compliment to name the bird after him, and
-showed to the mother the degree of friendship which Herbert meant to
-cultivate.
-
-“We shall get along comfortably now,” she said to her husband
-laughingly; “he has adopted the birds in the old chair, and named the
-singer ‘Denny,’ so he will not lack for companionship.”
-
-Ah! I wish I could tell you about the lovely summer. Never was a
-brighter, more congenial companion than Denny. He sang his sweetest
-songs for the lonesome boy, and accepted his overtures of friendship in
-the most genial manner possible. Before the season was over not only
-he but his wife would allow Herbert to come close enough to the old
-chair to drop special dainties into the nest for the children, and were
-voluble in their thanks. More than that, Denny actually learned to come
-and perch himself on Herbert’s finger and eat sugar out of his hand.
-And one of the children grew so fond of Herbert that she took many a
-walk perched on his shoulder, chirping occasionally to let him know
-that she was there, and was happy.
-
-“I never knew that birds could be so pleasant,” Herbert said to his
-mother; “they are better than boys and girls in some respects; they
-never get vexed at a fellow, you know, and refuse to speak to him for
-days together. Even Denny got mad at me once, and wouldn’t speak for a
-whole day. Now this Denny never forgets to say ‘How do you do?’ even if
-I haven’t been out of his sight longer than five minutes.”
-
-On the whole the birds did a good thing for Herbert Westwood that
-summer; they turned what they thought would be a weariness into a
-season of great delight, and of daily increasing interest. More than
-that, he did a good thing for the birds. Before the season was over he
-had made the acquaintance of dozens of boys in the neighborhood and
-formed a society, the pledge of which was protection to the birds. No
-stones were to be thrown, no snares to be set by these boys or any whom
-they recognized as friends; neither were any nests to be molested, and
-not a few of the boys became so interested in Denny and his family that
-they determined for another season to adopt a family of their own, and
-study birds.
-
-“They are wonderful creatures,” said Herbert thoughtfully, as he was
-reporting to his mother some of the bird stories which had been told
-in the society that afternoon, “just wonderful creatures! I don’t know
-how I ever came to pass them by without thinking anything about them. I
-tell you what, mother, God must have thought about them a great deal.”
-
-                                               EFIL SREDNOW.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    GOD’S promises are fulfilled a hundred cents on a
-    dollar.
-
-
-
-
-A PRETTY GIFT.
-
-(_Something for Mamma._)
-
-
-THE materials needed for this gift are a smooth thin board about two
-feet long and six inches wide, some bright-colored plush, some pretty
-cretonne, a dozen or more brass hooks of varying sizes, none of them
-very large, a couple of “cock eyes” such as are used for hanging small
-picture frames, and a yard or two of ribbon, color to match the plush,
-or contrast nicely with it.
-
-The smooth board is to be covered on one side with the plush, on the
-other with the cretonne, the edges neatly sewed; then the hooks are to
-be screwed in at regular intervals on the plush side, the ribbon drawn
-through the rings or “cock eyes,” and tied in a bow ready for hanging,
-and your work is done.
-
-When it comes into mamma’s possession she will select a convenient
-spot on her wall, and hang it as though it were a picture. Then on
-the little hooks she will hang her glove buttoner, her small scissors
-which are forever slipping out of sight, her shoe buttoner, her watch,
-perhaps, when it is not in use, and it may be her favorite ring which
-she removes when she washes her hands. I am sure I could not enumerate
-the little bits of useful articles which she will be only too glad to
-hang on such convenient hooks, that she will find not a disfigurement
-but an ornament to her room.
-
-Now having told you just what and how, let me go carefully over the
-story again and remind you of its possibilities. For I can well imagine
-a little girl who wants to make her mother a neat and convenient
-present, but who has no plush nor ribbon, and does not even know how to
-get the right kind of a board.
-
-My dear, you are just the one I want to help. About the board; it need
-not be exactly two feet long and six inches wide; it may be of the
-length and width which you find convenient, and which you decide will
-look well in the space where it is to hang. There are light boards used
-by wholesale merchants in packing certain goods which are just the
-thing, and they can often be had for the asking at the store where your
-mother does most of her shopping. Neither is plush a necessity. I have
-a friend who made a pretty “Wall Toilet” such as I have described, out
-of a bit of soft silk a friend had given her to dress her dollie. The
-silk was old, but she smoothed it neatly, padded it with a sheet of
-white cotton padding, and it looked very nice; but you may not happen
-to have the silk? Never mind, don’t you remember those pieces of turkey
-red calico in your auntie’s piece bag? They are just the thing, and
-your little friend who wants to make one, and has no turkey red calico,
-has some bright blue cambric which will be very pretty. All thin
-material will look better if the board is first padded with the cotton
-I spoke of. The brass hooks are quite cheap, and so useful that I think
-we must have them; but a red cord, or a neat band of cretonne, or some
-tidy cotton twisted into a cord, finished with tassels made out of it,
-will take the place of the ribbon very nicely indeed. In short, the old
-motto, “Where there is a will there is a way,” will serve you well in
-making this gift, as indeed it will in almost any emergency in life.
-
-I know by experience how useful the little contrivances are, and I
-earnestly hope that many a mother will have her birthday enriched this
-season by one of them, made by her own little daughter’s thoughtful
-hand.
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: AS WE USED TO DRESS.]
-
-[Illustration: A DEER CHILD.]
-
-
-
-
-OR MISS MOON’S FACES.
-
-
-TRUTH to tell she does make up faces, very different and queer ones,
-and no one Pansy sees exactly the same one at the same time, and since
-there are ten thousand Pansies, more or less, you see Miss Nancy Moon
-is smarter in “making faces” than some of you.
-
-Another “truth to tell” is that the “moon’s phases” means appearances,
-or looks, and so why is it not quite the same as Nancy Moon’s faces?
-We’ll think it is.
-
-Every Pansy knows some astronomy or—ought to. Come, then, and from this
-time on till you are a hundred years old know that astronomy means
-star-law, or all about the bright worlds in the sky. Now you know
-some astronomy. The moon is one of these worlds, and is very near our
-world—only two hundred and forty thousand miles away—and is one of the
-lamps to light it up. You must begin to learn about it. That you may
-call moonology. One of the first things to learn in moonology is how
-she makes so many faces; once a month a long, narrow bent face, then a
-little fatter, and so on till it is full as a—beer keg. Of course you
-mustn’t think she really drinks that stuff. I guess there is no license
-in Moontown.
-
-If you will study the picture with all your might and main a half-hour
-to-day, another to-morrow, and so on, and then get grandpapa to put on
-his specs and help—you’ll surely answer the riddle, how the faces (or
-phases) are made.
-
-Then some day you may become a great astronomer—like Tycho Brahe or
-John Kepler.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-[Illustration: THE MOON’S PHASES.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    WHEN you’ve got a thing to say,
-    Say it! Don’t take half a day.
-    When your tale’s got little in it,
-    Crowd the whole thing in a minute!
-    Life is short—a fleeting vapor—
-    Don’t fill up a ream of paper
-    With a tale, which, at a pinch,
-    Could be cornered in an inch!
-    Boil it down until it simmers;
-    Polish it until it glimmers.
-    When you’ve got a thing to say,
-    Say it! Don’t take half a day.
-                              —_Selected._
-
-[Illustration: AT THE PARIS OBSERVATORY.]
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-JOHNNY’S PILLOW.
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-[Illustration]
-
-ONE day Johnny was taking a walk in the orchard with Nurse.
-
-He was hunting for berries, and what do you think he found?
-
-He found some big white eggs hidden in the tall grass!
-
-Johnny wanted to put the pretty eggs in his basket and take them home
-to mamma.
-
-But Nurse said:
-
-“No, no, come away, dear. That is a nest. Hush! there comes the old
-goose. She will sit on the eggs and keep them warm, and by and by she
-will have some pretty goslings.”
-
-After that Johnny went with Nurse every day to take a peep at the gray
-goose sitting on her eggs.
-
-She sat and sat a good many days, and then one morning when Johnny went
-to look, sure enough, the goslings had come!
-
-They had no feathers on, and they had long, ugly necks and big feet.
-
-“I don’t like ’em,” said Johnny.
-
-The little goslings grew fast. They had a nice farmyard to live in, and
-a little brook to paddle in.
-
-At night the farmer shut them up in the barn, so that the cats and dogs
-could not eat them up.
-
-In a few days they were all covered with pretty feathers.
-
-Then Johnny liked them.
-
-By and by the little goslings were old enough to go with their father
-and mother and aunts and uncles to swim in a big lake. That made them
-very, very happy.
-
-Then they grew to be big geese, and wore a lot of feathers, and Johnny
-had a pillow, which he enjoyed very much, made from the soft down that
-grew on their white breasts.
-
-                                               MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-
-
-
-WHO WAS TO BLAME?
-
-
-“NOW you see, Emeline Frances,” said Celia, pushing herself up among
-the pillows and speaking in slow, stern tones to the dollie lying on
-her arm, “it is really your fault, and no other person’s; if you hadn’t
-been bound and determined to go out this afternoon, why, we shouldn’t
-have gone, that’s all. It had been raining, of course it had, and
-the walks were all damp, and you had no rubbers to wear over these
-shoes. Besides all that, you had been told that you must not go out
-this afternoon; but you were so vain of your new dress and hat, and so
-anxious to show them to Lulu Parks, that you would insist on going, and
-making me get my feet wet. Now here we are! A whole hour yet before it
-will be dark, and just a lovely time to play, and company downstairs
-in the parlor, and just the kind of cake for tea that I like the best,
-and we have to come upstairs and go to bed! I hope you are satisfied,
-Emeline Frances, with your afternoon’s work. I shouldn’t have thought
-of going out if you hadn’t have been so crazy to show your new hat. It
-is just a pity that you think so much of fine clothes. The dampness
-took the curl all out of your new feather, and it will never be so
-pretty again; but you had your own way, and will have to take the
-consequences. The worst of it is that you make me suffer with you. If
-this were the first time you had disobeyed perhaps I shouldn’t feel so
-badly, but as it is, I am almost discouraged. I do not see how you can
-be so naughty and forgetful.”
-
-The lecture closed with one of Celia’s longest sighs. The door which
-led from her room to her brother Stuart’s was ajar, and he, sitting at
-his desk supposed to be studying his Latin for the next day, listened
-with the most unqualified amusement to the whole of it. He repeated the
-story downstairs at the tea-table, amid bursts of laughter from the
-entire family, his mother excepted.
-
-“Mamma looks as grave as a judge over it,” Stuart said at last, when
-the laugh had subsided. “What’s the matter, mamma? Don’t you think the
-poor baby’s version of her troubles is funny?”
-
-[Illustration: CELIA TALKS TO EMELINE FRANCES.]
-
-“It has its funny side,” said Mrs. Campbell, with a grave smile upon
-her face, “but really, it has its sad side too. You are a very good
-mimic, my son, and gave Celia’s voice and manner to perfection, in
-doing which you have reminded me of her besetting sin. Have you never
-noticed that the child, in her own estimation, is always led into
-trouble through the fault of others? If she cannot blame Nora, or
-Josie, or some of her playmates, why then poor Emeline Frances has to
-bear it. I am really very much troubled by this habit of hers. To judge
-from Celia’s statement of the case, she is forever led astray by the
-evil propensities of other people. If it were true, it would be sad
-enough, to have a child so easily led in the wrong way; but sometimes
-there is as much foundation for her theory as there is in this case,
-when the vanity of poor Emeline Frances is supposed to have caused all
-the trouble. I have tried to reason the child out of such excuses, but
-when she reaches the folly of actually blaming the doll for leading her
-astray, I hardly know what to think of her.”
-
-“It is a curious development,” said Celia’s father, “but I have known
-older and wiser people than she to indulge in it; I knew a young man
-once, who charged a moonlight night of unusual beauty with all the
-folly of which he was guilty that evening.”
-
-After this sentence Stuart Campbell finished his supper in silence,
-with his eyes on his plate; but perhaps no one but his father knew that
-his cheeks were redder than usual.
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-
-
-
-A VERITABLE POEM OF POEMS.
-
-
-A LADY of San Francisco is said to have occupied a year in hunting up
-and fitting together the following thirty-eight lines from thirty-eight
-English-speaking poets. The names of the authors are given below:
-
-     1. Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?
-     2. Life’s a short summer, man a flower;
-     3. By turns we catch the vital breath, and die;
-     4. The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh.
-     5. To be is better far than not to be,
-     6. ’Though all man’s life may seem a tragedy;
-     7. But light cares speak when mighty cares are dumb,
-     8. The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
-     9. Your fate is but the common fate of all;
-    10. Unmingled joys here to no man befall.
-    11. Nature to each allots her proper sphere,
-    12. Fortune makes folly her peculiar care;
-    13. Custom does often reason overrule,
-    14. And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
-    15. Live well, how long, how short, permit to heaven,
-    16. They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.
-    17. Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face—
-    18. Vile intercourse where virtue has not place;
-    19. Then keep each passion down, however dear;
-    20. Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear;
-    21. Her sensual snares, let faithless Pleasure lay
-    22. With craft and skill to ruin and betray;
-    23. Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise.
-    24. We masters grow of all that we despise.
-    25. Oh! then, renounce that impious self-esteem;
-    26. Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
-    27. Think not ambition wise because ’tis brave,
-    28. The path of glory leads but to the grave.
-    29. What is ambition? ’Tis a glorious cheat,
-    30. Only destructive to the brave and great.
-    31. What’s all the gaudy glitter of a crown?
-    32. The way to bliss lies not on beds of down.
-    33. How long we live, not years, but actions tell;
-    34. That man lives twice who lives the first life well.
-    35. Make, then, while yet ye may, your God your friend,
-    36. Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend.
-    37. The trust that’s given guard, and to yourself be just;
-    38. For, live we how we can, yet die we must.
-
-1, Young; 2, Dr. Johnson; 3, Pope; 4, Prior; 5, Sewell; 6, Spenser;
-7, Daniel; 8, Sir Walter Raleigh; 9, Longfellow; 10, Southwell; 11,
-Congreve; 12, Churchill; 13, Rochester; 14, Armstrong; 15, Milton;
-16, Baily; 17, Trench; 18, Somerville; 19, Thompson; 20, Byron; 21,
-Smollett; 22, Crabbe; 23, Massinger; 24, Crowley; 25, Beattie; 26,
-Cowper; 27, Sir Walter Davenant; 28, Gray; 29, Willis; 30, Addison;
-31, Dryden; 32, Francis Quarles; 33, Watkins; 34, Herrick; 35, William
-Mason; 36, Hill; 37, Dana; 38, Shakespeare.
-
-
-
-
-LITTLE LENA.
-
-
-DID the Pansies read in the papers about Lena Haupt?
-
-She was only five years old when her mother died, and three months
-afterwards her father, who had kept her with him by the kind help of a
-neighbor, fell from a building where he had been working, and was so
-badly injured that in a short time he died. He had his little girl with
-him a few hours before his death, and explained to her as well as he
-could that he was going where her mamma had gone, but could not take
-her with him yet. She must be a good little girl; she had an uncle and
-aunt and little cousins in Chicago, and they would take care of her and
-love her if she was good.
-
-Only a few days after that Lena started alone on her long journey. Her
-uncle had telegraphed to “send her on,” and he would meet her at the
-Chicago depot. There was a card tied around her neck by a ribbon, and
-on the card was written: “Please take care of me.” There was a letter,
-also, fastened to the same ribbon, which told Lena’s sad little story,
-and asked the passengers to be kind to her, but to please not give her
-any candy. She had a wee purse fastened to the buckle of her belt which
-had nearly two dollars in it.
-
-As for her ticket, it had been bought and paid for, and the conductor
-had it in charge. Before night of that long day almost every passenger
-on the crowded train had called on Lena, and her wee purse was filled
-to its utmost capacity with shining quarters and half-dollars. She
-herself made a great many journeys in the porter’s arms to the parlor
-car, to visit with some ladies. And at last, as night was coming
-on, and Lena’s eyes were beginning to droop, and the conductor was
-considering how he could make her comfortable for the night, came a
-lady and gentleman and begged to have her transferred to their sleeper,
-where they bought a berth for her and put her to bed.
-
-[Illustration: IN THE MIDST OF HARVEST.]
-
-And all along the line little Lena found loving friends. I think her
-father and mother in Heaven must have been glad to see how warm were
-the hearts of even strangers toward their darling.
-
-
-
-
-POSITIVE PEOPLE.
-
-
-I WANT to call the attention of all Pansies to a statement made by
-Benjamin Franklin in his story of his life. He says he tried to form
-the habit of expressing himself always with great modesty. He was
-careful not to use the word “certainly” or “undoubtedly,” or any of
-those words which give an air of positiveness, when the subject was one
-which might be disputed. He tried always to say, “It appears to me,”
-or “If I am not mistaken,” or “I should think that,” etc. He declared
-this habit to be of great use to him in persuading others to think as
-he did, and that moreover it gave him a chance to learn a great deal
-more than he would otherwise have had; for he said he had noticed that
-people did not care to give information to those who acted as though
-they already knew all that it was possible to learn.
-
-In many respects Benjamin Franklin was a wise man, and perhaps in no
-small way could he have shown his knowledge of human nature better
-than by adopting such rules. But I really do not think he has many
-followers. Just watch the conversation of even quite young people for
-awhile, with this thought in mind, and see how many of them seem to be
-absolutely sure of their position, even in regard to subjects where
-wise men differ. If we could have more doubt about things which have
-not yet been decided, and more certainty about things which God and the
-Bible have decided for us, we should have a much better, as well as a
-much pleasanter world.
-
-                                               HANNAH HEARALL.
-
-
-
-
-OFF FOR BOYLAND.
-
-
-HO! All aboard? A traveler Sets sail from Babyland! Before my eyes
-there comes a blur; But still I kiss my hand, And try to smile as off
-he goes, My bonny, winsome boy! Yes, _bon voyage_! God only knows How
-much I wish thee joy!
-
-Oh! tell me; have you heard of him? He wore a sailor’s hat All
-silver-corded round the brim, And—stranger e’en than that— A wondrous
-suit of navy blue, With pockets deep and wide; Oh! tell me, sailors,
-tell me true, How fares he on the tide?
-
-We’ve now no baby in the house; ’Twas but this very morn, He doffed his
-dainty ’broidered blouse, With skirts of snowy lawn; And shook a mass
-of silken curls From off his sunny brow; They fretted him—“so like a
-girl’s,” Mamma can have them now.
-
-He owned a brand-new pocket-book, But that he could not find; A knife
-and string were all he took. What did he leave behind? A heap of
-blocks, with letters gay, And here and there a toy; I cannot pick them
-up to-day, My heart is with my boy.
-
-Ho! Ship ahoy! At boyhood’s town Cast anchor strong and deep. What!
-tears upon this little gown, Left for mamma to keep? Weep not, but
-smile; for through the air A merry message rings— “Just sell it to the
-rag man there; I’ve done with baby things!” EMMA HUNTINGTON NASON. */
-
-[Illustration: ON THE LOOKOUT.]
-
-
-
-
-THE OLD WORLD TOO.
-
-
-AMERICA is still the “New World.” Each day pick up something new about
-it. It is your world now. But there is an “Old World.” You must know
-about that too. If you could go and see it, so much the better. The
-eye is a little contrivance, but large enough to take in all England,
-Ireland, Scotland and any other land it gets a chance to see.
-
-If you go abroad you must sail. There is no railroad or cable to
-carry you yet. A hundred years hence people may cross the Atlantic in
-balloons. But you can’t wait so long. Why should you? Here is the good
-ship Majestic—not exactly the one shown in the picture on the first
-page—which will take you over from New York to Liverpool in less than
-six days.
-
-Once it took weeks. Sometimes a big iceberg came sailing along right
-across the ship’s path. Then there was a crash. Perhaps the poor little
-ship went to splinters and the passengers—well, you know what happened
-then. Sometimes a dreadful storm came down upon the ocean and the waves
-went up and down, looking like mountains and valleys. Not every frail
-ship could stand it. There was a wreck. But in spite of all these
-dreadful things most passengers get there and see the sights, and have
-a good time and get safely home. A friend has crossed the Atlantic
-nearly seventy times safely.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-CASHMERE SHAWLS.
-
-
-IT is said that sixteen thousand looms are kept in constant employment
-in Cashmere, producing annually about thirty thousand shawls. The
-shawls are woven on rudely-constructed looms, a pair of shawls
-sometimes occupying three or four men a whole year in weaving. The
-Cashmere goat, which furnishes the material, is found in Thibet, the
-hair of it being fine, silky and about eighteen inches long. It takes
-the fleece of ten goats to manufacture a shawl a yard and a half
-square.—_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
-
-VI.
-
-
-WHILE the folks are gone to the fair, and we have nothing to do but
-watch around the place and see that no tramp gets in, we might as
-well have a good time, and I will tell you about my brother Nero. You
-must not forget, though, but keep eyes, ears and nose open while I am
-talking.
-
-To begin with, there was a very large family of us, or would have been
-if we had all been kept together. There were brothers and sisters
-older, and a good many younger than we. We were of the same age, and
-there were three others just our age, too; but they had gone to live
-with other families, and Nero and I were all there were left with
-mother. Poor, dear mother! I remember well how she used to feel when
-her children were taken away from her, though I was too young at that
-time to realize it.
-
-When we were alone she would sigh, and many a tear have I seen fall
-from her eyes, as she would lap us and think of her darlings whose
-faces she knew not that she would ever see again.
-
-She, poor mother, seemed to lavish all her love upon us after the other
-three were gone.
-
-Mr. Bryant, our master, had a daughter—only one—whose name was Fanny.
-Her father and mother seemed to think the world of her; and the thing
-that puzzled mother was, that Mrs. Bryant, being a mother herself,
-should not feel more for her four-footed friend, who was a mother also.
-She fed us enough, and never abused us in the ways in which so many
-abuse their dogs; but when it came to parting mother and children it
-never seemed to occur to her that a mother with four feet, and that
-couldn’t talk, could have any motherly feelings, or care what became of
-her little ones.
-
-I remember little Fanny was not so. She would cry every time one of my
-brothers or sisters was taken away, and after one was gone would come
-out with us and put her arms around mother’s silky neck and cry as
-though her heart would break.
-
-Well, one day while we were quite small a man came to the house. I
-think he was some kind of agent. He saw mother, and could not help
-admiring her glossy coat and beautiful eyes, and so was anxious to
-get one of our family. He wanted mother herself, but soon found that
-money could not buy her. Fanny overheard them talking about us, and
-then slipped quietly out of the room, and came in great haste to where
-we were, and with one of us under each arm fled to a place of safety.
-Down through the orchard she went till she came to an old building
-which was used to store hay in; there, in a hole which she and some
-of her playmates had made to hide in, she put us, and covered us up
-with soft straw, and fixed it so that we could not possibly crawl out,
-then closed the door and went off under a sweet apple-tree to hunt for
-apples as though nothing had happened.
-
-Now I suppose men will think she did not act just as she should, and
-perhaps she was guilty of disobedience for not telling where we were
-when they were hunting for us; but we were very grateful to her, and
-whined with delight when we heard the man drive away, and learned that
-he was not likely to come over that road again.
-
-Fanny felt badly about it, and that night when she was going to bed
-told her mother what she had done, crying almost as hard as though we
-had been sold.
-
-Fanny’s mother explained to her how it was wicked to be disobedient,
-and that it was disobedience to not do what she would be required to
-do, if all the circumstances were known, and that doing wrong that good
-might come of it was never right.
-
-Then after Fanny was asleep her mother told Mr. Bryant why they had
-failed to find us, and after he heard the whole story he said: “Bless
-her dear heart; for her sake we will keep the little fellows, and Bess”
-(that was mother’s name) “will look at us with less sadness in her
-great eyes.”
-
-So Mrs. Bryant told Fanny that they had decided to keep us both until
-we were much bigger, at least, and she need not worry any more about
-our being sold.
-
-When they told mother you should have seen her leap for joy; she sprang
-up upon her hind feet, and put her fore paws upon Mr. Bryant’s breast,
-forgetting in her great joy that her feet were not clean; but he, good
-man, only patted her and let her lick his cheek, and called her “Good
-old Bess,” and then told her to go and look after her children and give
-them their supper.
-
-I heard her say to one of the neighbors some months after, as she was
-telling her experience with us, that that was the first time she had
-lain down with any peace of mind for weeks.
-
-Well, the bigger we grew the more Fanny loved us, and so we did her. We
-never let her go down in the orchard, or out into the woods, or to fish
-in the brook but what we went with her, and we drove everything and
-everybody away, unless she told us not to.
-
-After awhile she decided that she wanted one of us in her room nights.
-To that arrangement her mother at first strongly objected; but her
-father plead for her, and the mother finally consented.
-
-When the cold weather came on Fanny got a rug, and had Nero sleep on
-that rug on the foot of her bed, “to keep her feet warm,” she said.
-
-This had been going on for some time when Mr. and Mrs. Bryant went out
-to visit a neighbor’s at some kind of a gathering, and left mother and
-me outside in our kennel to watch, and Nero to remain in the room with
-our little friend Fanny.
-
-The hired man and the cook, instead of remaining at home as they were
-expected to, went to spend the evening with a neighbor, thinking it
-would be all right with Fanny, as she was asleep. But it had been
-ironing day, and the clothes had been left hanging in the kitchen to
-air, and how it was no one will ever know, but in some way they took
-fire. Mother was the first to discover it, and began to bark with all
-her might to awaken Fanny and Nero. I remember that I barked too, just
-as hard and loud as I could.
-
-Soon Nero heard it, and began to feel that something must be the matter
-somewhere. His first thought was that he ought to awaken his young
-mistress, and he went at the job as best he knew. But she was too sound
-asleep to be awakened by barking, do the best he could; so he sprang
-upon her shoulder and began to pull at her nightdress, and finally took
-her by the ear, and pulled so hard that it almost started the blood.
-Then she awakened in a great fright, for a bright light was shining so
-she could see everything in her room.
-
-Pulling on her shoes and stockings, and wrapping around her some of the
-blankets from her bed, she opened the door, which fortunately was near
-the stairs.
-
-With the help of Nero she made her way through the smoke to the street,
-about the time the neighbors began to arrive. They were too late to
-have been of any help to Fanny, for the flames would have overtaken
-her before they reached there, but for Nero. By the time Mr. and Mrs.
-Bryant reached home the house was far gone. When they saw the flames
-they seemed almost crazy with fright; for they remembered that they had
-left their only child asleep in the second story. It was some minutes
-before they could be made to understand that Fanny was safe.
-
-She and Nero had been hurried to the house of a neighbor, and when they
-found them Fanny had her arms around Nero’s neck.
-
-When Fanny was being tucked into bed for a second time that night she
-said to her mother: “Are you not glad that I kept Nero from being sold?
-Because if he had not been there to wake me up you wouldn’t have had
-any little girl now.”
-
-From that time Nero was a great pet, and I was very proud of him,
-though I could not help being a little bit vexed because nobody gave
-mother and me any credit for awakening him. One day I said something
-about it to her, and she said: “Never mind, Major; we know ourselves
-that we did our duty, and that is the important thing.”
-
-                                                        R.
-
-[Illustration: SOME OF OUR EARLIEST SETTLERS.]
-
-[Illustration: A “MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.”]
-
-
-
-
-HOW TO MAKE A SCREEN BAG.
-
-(_Something for Mamma._)
-
-
-IT is my opinion that the little girl who makes this convenient thing
-which I am about to describe, will need to have an accommodating
-brother who owns a box of tools and knows how to use them. Or she may
-have a good friend among the carpenters who are at work on the next
-corner. Still another way would be to get papa enlisted and agree to
-divide mamma’s birthday present with him; that is, let him share the
-honor of getting it up.
-
-However that part may be managed here is yours, my dear, industrious
-little girl.
-
-The name of the article is Screen Bag. I have no doubt you know how
-fond mamma is of bags, of all shapes and sizes, for keeping her
-unmended stockings, or perhaps, more truthfully speaking, your and your
-brothers’ and sisters’ unmended stockings, for balls of cord, and rolls
-of tape, and papers of hooks and eyes, and I have not room to tell how
-many other things. Well, this Screen Bag is just the thing. First get
-your frames made of common pine wood, three of them, of about the right
-height to furnish a comfortable screen for mamma if she wishes to keep
-the wind from blowing on her, or the firelight from burning her face.
-Indeed, you must decide where she will be likely to want to use the
-screen, and plan its size accordingly. Then you want some bright cloth
-of a pretty color; perhaps red, if that harmonizes best with the colors
-in your mother’s room, or possibly blue or a soft rich brown; what you
-will, so that it is strong. Cretonne is good, so is the striped cotton
-furniture cloth which may be found at any upholsterer’s, and in nearly
-all large city stores. You want two kinds; one for the front and one
-for the back of your screen. The back or lining side need not be made
-of such strong material. English cambric or common calico will do
-nicely. Of course the amount of material needed will depend upon the
-size of your frames; some careful measurements with a tape line will
-be necessary. Now get your “pockets” ready, as many as you have room
-for, and of whatever size you think the most useful. The first or lower
-row should be a little larger than the ones above. The screen I have
-in mind had two good-sized pockets below, three smaller ones above,
-four above them, and five tiny ones at the top. These may be made of
-the same cloth as the screen, or of different colors, according to your
-taste and the variety of material at command. They should be hemmed
-neatly at the top and stitched firmly to the cloth; first basted, then
-sewed in the machine, to insure strength; or, if you do not understand
-a sewing machine, and want to do all the work yourself, you can take
-strong thread, and make a back stitch for every third or fourth one,
-and do the whole by hand.
-
-Now you want some brass-headed nails—round heads, you know. Finally,
-your frames are ready for the brass hinges on which they are to swing.
-You will need four of these, and when they are screwed into their
-places your Bag Screen will be finished. Fifty-two pockets! My word for
-it, if your mamma does not feel richer than she ever did in her life,
-after she has her conveniences packed away in those delightful pockets,
-which besides holding them, are at work screening her from the heat, or
-sun, or wind, I shall be very much astonished.
-
-I shall hope to hear that some of the Pansies have tried this
-experiment.
-
-                                               PANSY.
-
-
-
-
-ABOUT MINNEAPOLIS.
-
-BY THE PANSIES.
-
-
-A GOOD many years ago there used to be a city named St. Anthony. It was
-built on the east side of the Mississippi River; then a city grew up
-on the west side named Minneapolis, and after awhile it swallowed St.
-Anthony and made one big city of itself on both sides of the river.
-I think St. Anthony would have been a prettier name for the city, on
-account of the Falls of St. Anthony being right there. But Minneapolis
-is pretty, too. I have never been there, but my brother has, and some
-day he is going to take me a long journey all over the West; then we
-will visit Minneapolis, and I will write to the Pansies about it.
-
-                                               HELEN M. LEEDS.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THE flouring mills of Minneapolis are the largest in the world. They
-can make thirty-eight thousand barrels of flour in a day if they want
-to; and I guess they want to, for their flour is famous all over the
-country. I order flour for my grandmother, and she won’t have a barrel
-which does not say “Minneapolis” on it. I should think the coopers
-would all get rich out there. I read in a book that in one year they
-sold pretty nearly three million barrels!
-
-                                               JOHN WILLIS LEEDS.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I DON’T know what I can write about Minneapolis. I think it is just
-like any other great big city, with electric lights, and street cars,
-and parks, and all those things, of course. I think cities are all
-alike; I like the country myself. But Minneapolis grows faster than
-many cities do. My grandfather was there in 1860, and there were
-only about six thousand inhabitants; now there are two hundred and
-twenty-five thousand. Some say more, but I think that is enough.
-
-                                               HARVEY CAMPBELL.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I AM so glad it has come time to write about Minneapolis, because I
-went there myself only a year ago. I do think it is the loveliest
-place I was ever in. It seems more like a great big beautiful town
-than a city. The houses are not crowded together in great ugly-looking
-brick rows, all just alike, as they are in Philadelphia, and on some
-streets in New York; but almost all of them have lovely grounds, and
-trees, and flowers, and pretty lawns. Oh! I liked it all so much. We
-had a picnic out at the Falls of Minnehaha, the prettiest place I ever
-saw in my life. There is a magnificent park out there of more than a
-hundred acres, and the drive all the way through the city to the park
-is perfectly beautiful. Then of course the falls themselves are just
-too lovely! We had Mr. Dickson the elocutionist with us, and after
-lunch he recited parts of Longfellow’s poem about “Minnehaha, Laughing
-Water.” I had never read “Hiawatha” then, but I have since, and I know
-several pages of it by heart. But you cannot think how lovely it was
-to have Mr. Dickson recite it right at the falls. We took a great many
-lovely drives while we were in the city. We stopped at West Hotel,
-which is one of the finest in the United States, or for that matter in
-the world. It can accommodate twelve hundred guests, and it seemed as
-though there must be that number in the house while we were there. When
-we met in the great dining-room it seemed queer to think that there
-were more people there than can be found in the village where I live.
-Still I like our little village in the summer, and would not exchange
-it for a city. I would like to describe West Hotel, but I cannot,
-except to say that the furniture was grand, and everything was elegant.
-We rode past Senator Washburn’s house a great many times. It is out on
-Twenty-second Street and Third Avenue, and has ten acres of the most
-charming grounds, so that it is just the same to him as living in the
-country. The house is built of a kind of stone which is called kasota,
-and is very beautiful. I did not mean to make my letter so long, but
-there is a great deal to tell.
-
-                                               ALICE WASHBURNE MILLS.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I HAVE an aunt who is very fond of visiting churches. When she goes to
-a new place, if it is only a village, she wants to see all the churches
-and know about them. When she was in Minneapolis first, years ago, it
-was a little bit of a place, and my aunt is an old lady, and does not
-read the newspapers much, and did not realize that Minneapolis had
-grown a great deal. She went there last spring to visit a nephew. She
-reached there in the night, and was taken in a carriage to her nephew’s
-house, and did not realize the changes at all. The next morning at
-breakfast, when her nephew asked her what she would like to see in the
-city, she said she would like to visit the different churches if she
-could, and that perhaps as the day was pleasant they could go that
-morning.
-
-[Illustration: CITY HALL AND COURT SQUARE.]
-
-“Very well,” said her nephew; “to which ones shall we go?”
-
-“Oh! to all of them,” answered my aunt; “we can take a few minutes for
-each and see them all this forenoon, can we not?”
-
-“Certainly,” said her nephew; “just as well as not. There are only
-about a hundred and sixty, I believe.”
-
-And that was the first time my aunt knew that she was in a big city
-instead of the little town she had left thirty years or so before. But
-I don’t think her nephew was very polite to an old lady. She saw a good
-many of the churches, among them Dr. Wayland Hoyt’s, which she said she
-liked the best of all. It is the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis,
-and cost two hundred thousand dollars. It will seat about fifteen
-hundred people. I thought the Pansies would like to hear about it,
-because Dr. Hoyt wrote one of our “Regret” letters for us.
-
-                                               MINNIE ANDREWS.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-[Illustration: PUBLIC LIBRARY.]
-
-MY uncle is a lawyer and lives in Minneapolis. He says the City Hall
-is just splendid. It cost three million dollars. Its great tower is
-three hundred and forty-five feet high, and there are only two others
-in the United States which can get above that. There isn’t any danger
-that this building will ever burn up, for it is made fire proof. I
-wonder why they don’t make all buildings fire proof? Then we would not
-have to buy engines, and pay firemen, and keep great splendid horses
-doing nothing all day long but wait for fires. This City Hall which I
-began to tell you about is three hundred feet square, and fills up a
-great block on four streets. I should like to see it. My uncle has a
-photograph of it, and it looks magnificent. I am going to be a lawyer,
-and I shall have an office in Minneapolis.
-
-                                               HARRY DENNING.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MY father was acquainted with Governor Washburn, who gave three hundred
-and seventy-five thousand dollars for the Washburn Memorial Orphan
-Asylum in Minneapolis. My father has been there to see the asylum.
-He says it is in a beautiful place, with lovely trees and plants in
-the grounds. There were fifty-seven orphans there when father visited
-it. I am glad they have such a nice place. I would like to be rich,
-like Governor Washburn, and give lots of money to something. I think
-I shall be, and I shall found an orphan asylum somewhere, but not in
-Minneapolis, because they don’t need another.
-
-                                               HORACE WEBSTER.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-MINNEAPOLIS was started about the same time that St. Anthony was. They
-grew about the same for awhile, then Minneapolis got to growing so fast
-that about all which could be heard in that city was the pounding of
-hammers. Afterwards St. Anthony and Minneapolis were united.
-
-Minneapolis was naturally a very pretty place, and until the last few
-years it was called the prettiest city in Minnesota, but now St. Paul
-is prettier.
-
-                                               MILLIE ROWELL.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I ATTENDED the International Christian Endeavor Convention when it met
-in Minneapolis. I was a Junior delegate. We had a splendid time. The
-convention was held in the great Exposition building, which is three
-hundred and fifty feet square. That is, they made a big hall for the
-convention inside the building, and it held more than ten thousand
-people.
-
-[Illustration: THE FALLS OF MINNEHAHA.]
-
-My sister and I visited the Public Library. It is a very handsome
-building. They say it cost a good deal over three hundred thousand
-dollars. We sat in one of the elegant reading-rooms and read books
-while our uncle was looking up something in books of reference. There
-are thousands and thousands of volumes there; I did know how many, but
-have forgotten. The street cars in Minneapolis are all electric. My
-sister did not like to ride on them when there was a thunderstorm, but
-I was not afraid. There are lots of lakes all around that part of the
-country, and of course the Falls of St. Anthony are there. It is queer
-to have a splendid falls in the midst of a city.
-
-I think I like Minneapolis better than any place I was ever in. I may
-go to stay with my uncle and attend the University of Minnesota, which
-is there. That is what I want to do. If I go I shall know more about
-Minneapolis, and will write again.
-
-                                               THOMAS BAILEY ATWOOD.
-
-
-
-
-THE OSBORNE HOME.
-
-(_Character Studies._)
-
-
-ALL day long the Osborne home had been in a state of excitement. It
-had been very difficult for the family to attend to its usual duties.
-The little girls had at first declared that they could not go to
-school at all; and then, being convinced that they must, it had been
-nearly impossible to get them ready in time. Even the baby had caught
-the unrest, and refused to take his long morning nap and give the
-seventeen-year-old sister Mary a chance to attend to the work. The
-explanation was that mother was coming home. She had been away a whole
-month, an unheard-of thing in the history of the family before this
-season.
-
-The fact is, Mrs. Osborne was one of those mothers who would never
-have been persuaded to leave her home and her children had it not
-become a serious duty to do so. She had been in poor health for several
-months, and grandmamma had written and coaxed and urged, and at last
-almost commanded that she should come back to the old home and the old
-physician, and see if he could not help her. One terrible thing about
-it was, that this same physician refused to allow her to bring her baby
-along. “I know just how it will be,” he said, shaking his gray head
-and looking wise. “The baby is a strong, healthy little fellow, and
-a perfect tyrant as they all are, and he will be carried, and put to
-sleep, and fed, and petted by his mother and nobody else; he will be
-more positive about it than usual, being among strangers, and he will
-just keep her worn out. There is no use in talking, Mrs. Fuller, I know
-your daughter Mary of old, and I will not consent to try to help her
-unless she will leave that fellow at home and come away from all care
-for a month.”
-
-Well, the doctor had had his way, as he nearly always did, and Mrs.
-Osborne, having declared that it would be utterly impossible to go away
-from home and leave Baby and the little girls, and only Mary to look
-after them all, had been gotten ready and carried to the cars. And a
-whole month had passed, and she, wonderfully improved, was coming home
-to-day. Father had driven to the depot three miles away to meet her,
-and the house was in commotion.
-
-Mary, the housekeeper, nurse and mother-in-charge, had had a busy day.
-There were still a dozen things which she meant to have done before
-mother came, not the least among them being to get herself in order;
-for her apron was torn, her slippers were down at the heel, her hair
-was what her father called “frowsly,” and, in short, she did not look
-in the least as she meant to when the mother should put her arms around
-her. Then there were last things to be done all over the house, and
-the table to be set for the early tea-dinner which was to do honor to
-the traveler’s newly-found appetite. Yet, notwithstanding all this,
-Mary, feeling sure that the time must now be short, allowed herself
-to drop down into the chair which she had been dusting, draw from her
-pocket the mother’s last letter, whose contents she knew by heart, and
-glancing at it, go to studying for the dozenth time the possibility
-that her mother might have meant the evening train instead of the
-afternoon, in which case she would not be there for several hours.
-
-“Let me see; I almost believe that is the way, after all,” she said,
-biting the feather end of the old quill which she had picked up
-somewhere in her dusting, and looking vexed and disheartened. “I am
-sure I don’t know how I am to keep the children from growing wild, if
-they have to wait three hours longer.”
-
-Meantime, the children, in the other room, were in various stages of
-excitement. Helen, the older of the three, in whose charge Baby Joe was
-especially put, occupied herself in racing to the front gate every few
-minutes to see if she could not get a glimpse of her father’s horse
-and wagon climbing the hill; and Baby Joe, each time she went, either
-reached after and tumbled over something which he ought not to have
-touched, or tumbled down, in his eager haste to follow to the gate. In
-this way the room was being put into more or less disorder.
-
-“How perfectly silly you are!” said Jessie, looking up from the book
-she was reading, as Helen came back panting for the third time. “Just
-as though racing to the gate every few minutes would bring them any
-quicker! and look at Joe; he has tipped the spools all out of mother’s
-box. A nice tangle they will be in.”
-
-“Why didn’t you keep him from them then?” asked Helen irritably; “you
-are doing nothing but pore over a story book. I should think you would
-go and comb your hair and change your dress. Mother will not like to
-see you in such a tangle, I can tell you.”
-
-“There is time enough,” said Jessie, yawning. “I can’t do anything but
-read a story book; it is impossible to settle to anything when mother
-is so near home as she must be by this time. I haven’t done a thing
-this afternoon; I couldn’t. I don’t see how Elsie can bend over that
-stupid History, just as if nothing unusual was going to happen.”
-
-This made Elsie raise her eyes; they were pretty brown ones. She was a
-little girl of about ten, in a neat blue dress, and with her hair in
-perfect order. “I thought it would be a good plan to get my history
-ready for to-morrow while I was waiting,” she said, “then I will not
-have to study this evening, when I want to listen to mother. I should
-think you would like to get your examples done; and anyhow, Jessie, you
-ought to comb your hair; it looks like a fright.”
-
-“I mean to, of course,” said Jessie. “I dare say there is time enough.
-Father can’t drive fast on such a warm afternoon; and besides, Mary
-said she wouldn’t be at all surprised if he should have to wait for
-the evening train. Wouldn’t that be just horrid! If it were not for
-the lovely story I am reading I couldn’t endure this waiting another
-minute.”
-
-“It’s easier to wait when you are at work doing what ought to be
-done,” said Elsie, with the air of a philosopher.
-
-“Oh! you are a regular Miss Prim,” said Helen, laughing, as she stooped
-to pick little Joe out of another piece of carefully planned mischief;
-“for my part, I think it is horrid to have anything that ought to be
-done at such a time. Joe, you little nuisance, I do wish you would go
-to sleep, and give me a chance to watch for mother. I hope I shall get
-all the things picked up and put to rights that you have upset before
-mother comes; she will not be charmed with the looks of the room if I
-don’t. However, there really must be oceans of time yet.”
-
-“Then why did you race down to the gate every few minutes to see if
-they were coming?” Jessie asked.
-
-“Oh! because I did not know what else to do,” said Helen; “I knew
-better, of course. Take care, Joe! There, I declare! he has done it
-now.”
-
-Sure enough he had! Jerked at the table spread where Helen herself had
-set the inkstand, intending to put it away in a few minutes, and sent
-a black stream not only over his own white dress, but on the carpet
-as well. Mary, who still sat studying the letter, and thinking of the
-things which she meant to accomplish before her mother came, having by
-this time decided that it was entirely probable that they must wait
-for the evening train, heard the exclamations of dismay from the other
-room, and rose up to see what was the trouble; but at that instant an
-eager cry from Elsie: “There they come!” sounded on the ears of all.
-Helen gathered up the screaming Joe under one arm, and calling to Mary
-to look out for the ink on the carpet, ran out of one door, just as
-Jessie scurried out of another, eager to dash upstairs and brush her
-hair before her father saw her; for his last charge had been to her to
-see to it that she did not appear before her mother in that plight.
-Mary, burning with shame and disappointment over the little last things
-which she meant to have ready, waited to mop up the ink, while Elsie,
-closing the door on the disordered room, went forward to meet the
-beloved mother.
-
-                                               MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-[Illustration: “LET ME SEE!”]
-
-
-
-
-IN THE CABIN OF THE MAYFLOWER.
-
-
-THIS is a company of Pilgrims in the cabin of the blessed ship
-_Mayflower_, on their way over a stormy sea from Plymouth, England, to
-find a place in America where they may worship God “according to the
-dictates of their own consciences.”
-
-[Illustration: A COMPANY OF PILGRIMS.]
-
-This was two hundred and seventy years ago. Of course the people did
-not dress then just as they do now, as you can well see by noticing
-their broad collars and queer trousers. How queer our dress will look
-to our great-grandchildren.
-
-The dear _Mayflower_ was not such a grand ship as the Cunarder. It
-had to depend—not upon steam—but upon a favoring wind, and the wind
-does not always seem to favor, so it took her weeks to cross the
-stormy Atlantic, and the passengers (Puritans they were called) were
-very sick; but because they had suffered so much from cruel people in
-England they did not complain, as they believed God held the waves
-in his hand, and he was guiding the _Mayflower_ as much as he did the
-Israelites to Palestine—“a land flowing with milk and honey.” So they
-patiently and cheerfully waited in the _Mayflower’s_ small cabin, often
-singing hymns and praying and encouraging each other.
-
-At last on Monday, December 21, 1620, they landed on Plymouth Rock,
-Mass., happy as birds escaped from a cage.
-
-They had much trouble with the Indians; but after a time they began to
-build, with other Pilgrims, at other points, our great nation.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THERE is a woman living in Manchester, England, who is said to have a
-Bible two feet long and nearly two feet wide. At the top of each page
-is printed in red ink: “This is a history.” The Bible is two hundred
-years old, and is the largest one in the world, it is supposed.
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-BABY’S CLOCK.
-
-
-NOBODY finks I can tell the time of day, but I can.
-
-The first hour is five o’clock in the morning.
-
-That’s the time the birds begin to peep. I lie still and hear them sing:
-
-    “Tweet, tweet, tweet!
-    Chee, chee, chee!”
-
-But mamma is fast asleep. Nobody awake in all the world but just me and
-the birds.
-
-Bimeby the sun gets up and it’s six o’clock in the morning.
-
-[Illustration: BABY TELLS THE TIME OF DAY.]
-
-Then mamma opens one eye and I can hear her say:
-
-“Where’s my baby?”
-
-N’en I keep still—jus’ as still as a mouse, an’ she keeps saying:
-
-“Where’s my baby?”
-
-N’en all at once I go “Boo!” and she laughs and hugs me, and says “I’m
-a precious.”
-
-Mamma’s nice, and I love her ’cept when she washes my face too hard and
-pulls my hair with the comb.
-
-Seven o’clock!
-
-That’s when the bell goes jingle, jingle, and we have breakfast.
-
-All the eight an’ nine an’ ten an’ ’leven hours I play.
-
-I run after butterflies and squirrels, and swing, and read my picture
-book, and sometimes I cry—jus’ a little bit.
-
-Twelve o’clock!
-
-That’s a bu’ful hour. The clock strikes a lot of times, and the big
-whistle goes, and the bell rings, and papa comes home, and dinner’s
-ready!
-
-The one and two hours are lost. Mamma always carries me off to take a
-nap. I don’t like naps. They waste time.
-
-When we wake up the clock strikes three. N’en I have on my pink dress,
-and we go walking or riding.
-
-And so the three and four and five hours are gone.
-
-At six o’clock Bossy comes home, and I have my drink of warm milk.
-
-N’en I put on my white gown, and kiss everybody “good-night,” and say
-“Now I lay me,” and get into my bed.
-
-Mamma says:
-
-“Now the sun and the birdies and my little baby are all gone to bed,
-and to sleep, sleep, sleep.”
-
-So I shut my eyes tight, and next you know ’tis morning!
-
-An’ ’nat’s all the time there is.
-
-                                            MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-
-
-
-OCTOBER’S PARTY.
-
-
-    OCTOBER gave a party—
-      The leaves by hundreds came—
-    The Chestnuts, Oaks and Maples,
-      And leaves of every name;
-
-    The sunshine spread a carpet,
-      And everything was grand;
-    Miss Weather led the dancing,
-      Professor Wind the band.
-
-    The Chestnuts came in yellow,
-      The Oaks in crimson dressed;
-    The lovely Misses Maple
-      In scarlet looked their best.
-
-    All balanced to their partners,
-      And gaily fluttered by;
-    The sight was like a rainbow
-      New-fallen from the sky.
-
-    Then in the rustic hollows
-      At hide-and-seek they played.
-    The party closed at sundown,
-      And everybody staid.
-
-    Professor Wind played louder,
-      They flew along the ground,
-    And then the party ended
-      In “hands across, all round.”
-          _From “Song Stories for Little People.”_
-
-[Illustration: OCT.]
-
-
-
-
-FIVE-MINUTE ACQUAINTANCES.
-
-(_Character Studies._)
-
-
-IT was a bright cool morning that we were riding down Delaware Avenue
-in a street car which had very few passengers. It gave me a chance to
-study human nature. I began the study with a very handsomely dressed
-boy. Jacket and collar and necktie and hair all showed that very
-careful people had planned for him, and that they had plenty of money
-to spend on him. They came into the car just after I was seated, the
-boy and his mother. She was tall and pale, and in deep mourning; I
-wondered if her husband were dead, and if this boy were the only one
-she had to think about or care for her. If so she was to be pitied,
-poor woman! for it soon became evident that the young man thought about
-and cared for himself. His first exhibition was to fling his heavy
-overcoat on his mother’s lap as he said: “Here, mamma, hold that, and
-give me the tickets for the conductor.”
-
-“I haven’t tickets, dear,” she said; “I shall have to buy some.”
-
-“O, well! all right, give me your pocket-book and let me buy them.”
-
-“No, dear, there is a good deal of money in my pocket-book, and some
-valuable papers.”
-
-“What of that?” he said, in a tone loud enough for all the passengers
-to hear; “I ain’t going to lose them; don’t I know how to take care of
-things? Give me the purse.” It was passed over without more words.
-
-“Take a quarter from the silver money,” the mother advised a moment
-later.
-
-“O, no, mamma! I want to give him a bill, to see if he makes the right
-change. Here’s a five; that will do; no, let me see.” He jerked his
-arm suddenly away from the mother’s hand, which reached after the
-pocket-book, and several pieces of silver flew out and rolled around on
-the floor.
-
-“There!” he said, in a reproachful tone, “see what you have made me do;
-now you have lost some of your money.”
-
-“Pick it up, Harold, that’s a good boy.”
-
-He stooped and picked up a twenty-five cent piece, then said:
-
-“Never mind the rest. It has rolled round under the seat somewhere, and
-it is all dust; I can’t get down on my knees and hunt; never mind, let
-it go. Say, mamma, give me that box of candy.”
-
-“Not now; I would rather you did not eat any more candy, Harold, until
-we get home.”
-
-“Why not? I don’t want to wait; I haven’t eaten much. Come, it’s my
-candy, and I want it. You bought it for me, and I think you are mean
-not to let me have it.”
-
-“Hush, Harold! do not talk so loud. Hold your overcoat, dear; it is too
-heavy for mamma.”
-
-“Oh! I can’t, it is too hot. I did not need that great big overcoat
-anyhow, and I told you so. I’m not going to hold it. Drop it on the
-floor if you don’t want to keep it. But give me that box of candy.
-O, mamma! there’s a procession coming down the street—soldiers, and
-everything. I’m going out on the platform to see them.”
-
-He made a dash forward, and the pale, anxious mother reached after
-him, trying to arrest his steps, dropping as she did so not only the
-overcoat, but the pocket-book again. The pennies and the ten-cent
-pieces rolled around freely, while Harold, looking behind him, gave a
-mocking laugh, and was out on the platform.
-
-They had not been in the car over five minutes. And yet I was quite as
-well acquainted with Harold as I had any desire to be.
-
-At the North Street corner the pale little mother left the car with
-the heavy overcoat over one arm, and the pocket-book, with what change
-she had been able to find, in her hand, while Harold, tugging at her
-sleeve, was heard to say, “Mamma, I want that candy this minute!”
-
-At Reed Street came three passengers, a boy about the size of the one
-who had left us, and two little girls, one perhaps seven, and the other
-not over four. The boy was freckled-faced, and by no means so handsome
-as Harold. His clothes were very neat, but of the coarse, common
-sort worn by children of the moderately poor. The little girls beside
-him were as neat as wax—faces and hands and hair in perfect order; but
-their sacks and hats were of last year’s fashion—perhaps older still
-than that—and I fancy Harold would have laughed outright at the little
-old overcoat which hung over the boy’s arm.
-
-[Illustration: A SHOCKING EXPERIENCE.]
-
-They took their seats quietly, and made no disturbance of any sort. But
-there were so few in the car, and we were passing at that time through
-such a quiet street, that I could hear distinctly the words they spoke
-to one another.
-
-“Better put on your sack, Janie,” said the boy, with a thoughtful air,
-looking at the older sister, “the wind blows in pretty strong here.”
-Janie immediately arose and began tugging at her sack. The boy, with
-the manners of a gentleman accustomed to the work, took hold of it
-at the shoulders and skillfully steered the little arms into place,
-pulling it down behind, and bestowing meanwhile side glances upon the
-little sister.
-
-“Sit still, Bessie, that’s a good girl. No, don’t stand, dear; mamma
-wouldn’t like you to stand, the cars shake so.”
-
-Down sat Bessie again, trying to put herself squarely on the seat.
-Failing in this her protector turned next to her, lifted her plump
-little form into place, then straightened her hat and returned a
-confiding smile which she gave him. Meantime the car was filling
-up, and in a few minutes every seat was taken. There came next a
-middle-aged woman, black of face, and very shabby as to toilet, with a
-market basket on her arm. Quick as thought the little gentleman arose,
-and touching her arm motioned her to his seat. Then Janie reached
-forward for his overcoat. “Let me hold your overcoat, Charlie,” she
-said, “because you haven’t any seat.”
-
-“O, no!” said Charlie, smiling back at her, “I can carry it as well as
-not. Bessie dear, don’t climb up that way, you will fall.”
-
-Down sat Bessie, who had mounted on her fat little knees to look out of
-the window.
-
-“Now, Janie,” said the little man at last, when they were near the
-Dean Street crossing, “we are to get out at this corner. I will take
-Bessie’s hand and go ahead, and you keep close to me. We will stand
-still on the sidewalk until the car passes, then I will take you both
-across.”
-
-Away they went, and I watched them making their way carefully across
-the crowded street, the brother’s arm thrown protectingly around
-Bessie, and his eyes on the watch for any possible danger to either of
-his charges. I had made his acquaintance in five minutes, too, and knew
-more about him than he would have imagined possible.
-
-                                             MYRA SPAFFORD.
-
-
-
-
-THINGS WHICH SOME PEOPLE REGRET.
-
-
-THE “Regret” which we give you this month comes from a very high
-source. Almost every scholar of ancient languages will recognize the
-name. It is a very pleasant thought that these great men out of their
-busy lives have stopped to give us a glimpse of their past, in order
-to help the young people of to-day, who will be the men and women
-of to-morrow, to avoid the mistakes which they did not. We hope and
-believe that the Pansies will receive great benefit from these glimpses
-from the youth of great people.
-
-    “I regret that I have not better acquired the art of
-    pleasantly acknowledging the kindnesses shown me, and
-    of showing my appreciation of people whom I really do
-    appreciate. My influence with many would be greatly
-    increased if I could but make them understand how
-    warmly my heart goes out to them.”
-
-                                             WILLIS J. BEECHER.
-
-    DR. W. J. BEECHER, _Professor of Hebrew in Auburn
-    Theological Seminary_.
-
-
-
-
-(_Luke_ ix. 23; xiv. 27.)
-
-
-    AND didst thou hear the Master say
-      He that would my disciple be,
-    Let him deny himself each day,
-      Take up his cross, and follow me?
-    Oh! wondrous love, that did devise
-      For us this “straight and narrow way,”
-    Beyond which, in the distance, lies
-      The realms of pure and perfect day.
-
-[Illustration: THE UPS AND DOWNS OF LIFE.]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-A HAPPY BOY.
-
-
-HIS name is Willie Addis, and he lives in Plainfield, N. J. A few
-weeks ago his mother turned down the wicks of her kerosene stove, and
-leaned over it to blow out the flame, when the stove exploded, and in
-an instant she was in flames. With one bound Willie was in the kitchen,
-seizing the large woolen mat from the floor as he ran, and in less time
-than it takes me to tell it, he had wrapped the mat about his mother
-and extinguished the flames! The kitchen furniture was burned, but
-that was about all, and the dear mother was saved by her quick-witted
-ten-year-old son, who had heard somewhere that woolen wrapped closely
-about a burning object so as to exclude the air, will put out the fire.
-It is not every boy of his age who knows that fact; and there are many
-who, knowing it, would not have had presence of mind enough to have
-applied their knowledge promptly. Willie did, and he has his mother.
-Certainly I think he must be a happy boy, and I am sure she is a glad,
-proud mother.
-
-How is one to help hoping and praying that he may never be other than a
-joy to her in the years to come?
-
-
-
-
-MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
-
-
-I AM very fond of the little ones, and like to have them around me,
-and as the puppies are in the majority it will be their turn to have a
-short story this time.
-
-If you do not have to go home too soon perhaps I will have time to tell
-you more than one; we will see. Oh! the children are to stay to tea,
-are they? All right. Now, attention!
-
-All those who would like to hear a story about a chicken—“a real truly
-story,” as the children say—wag your tails.
-
-Those opposed, bark. Carried. The vote for the chicken story is about
-unanimous.
-
-I suppose some of you have very poor opinions of chickens and hens; you
-think because they have but two legs, and are so easily frightened,
-they don’t amount to much; but the master and mistress think quite
-differently when they eat the nice fresh eggs which the hens furnish.
-Why, some of those proud young crowers have hearts as well as we. I
-remember so well a little old white blind hen which my master once had,
-and how kindly she was treated. (She could see just a little with one
-eye, but we called her blind.)
-
-The young man who worked upon the place took a fancy to “Old Whitey,”
-as they called her, and when master wanted to send her to market this
-fellow pretended he couldn’t find her, so she was kept till very old.
-
-The gallant young crowers which roosted in the same shed with her would
-never fight this old “grandmother,” but were just as kind to her as
-they knew how to be. Sometimes when one of them had found a nice lot of
-worms under something he had scratched over, “Whitey” would come along
-hungry, and he would leave the nice mess for her, and look further for
-himself.
-
-Was not that gallant and kind? Would all of you do as well as that? Be
-as unselfish?
-
-But this is not the chicken I was to tell you about. He was a poor
-orphan, his mother having died when he was but a little yellow ball
-upon two little pins of legs.
-
-[Illustration: AN ORIENTAL SHEPHERD.]
-
-I had not much to do with this pet, only as I visited his home
-occasionally, and saw and played with him a little.
-
-It was my cousin Tip who had most to do with this bright feathered
-fellow, and to whom he was indebted for most of his education.
-
-Tip was a great favorite; in fact, his mistress was fond of all sorts
-of pets; had a name for each of her cows, and for every one of her
-hens, so she had a name for this chicken.
-
-Tip used to go about wherever he pleased, and so did the chicken. My
-cousin was in the habit of taking almost anything he could find, and
-dragging it to the spot where he wished to lie, then make a bed of it
-and go to sleep.
-
-His little friend the chicken for awhile watched him with envious
-eyes—for I regret to say Cousin Tip was too selfish to provide a bed
-for any one besides himself.
-
-But this chicken evidently thought “what had been done could be done,”
-so he asserted his independence, and gathered up what he could carry or
-drag; put the articles—stockings, handkerchiefs or rags—in a heap near
-Tip’s bed, and would then tread them down as he had seen Tip do, and
-squat upon them for a make-believe nap. Now wasn’t that a pretty bright
-chicken, and was not Tip a pretty successful teacher for one so young?
-
-No, that lesson wouldn’t be much for a bright little dog to learn; but
-we do not expect much intelligence in a hen or rooster.
-
-I suppose they cannot understand what people say to them as we do. And
-some people do not seem to think we understand what they tell us to do
-or not to do, even when they tell us we have done well.
-
-I remember so well when I was young, though almost as large as I am
-now, how I astonished a lady by acting as though I understood what she
-said to me.
-
-It was in the country, where the houses were quite a distance apart. I
-had been caring for this woman’s little girl for more than a week, and
-had kept her out of lots of mischief, and prevented her from getting
-many an ugly fall, though I had never been asked to do it.
-
-One day little Cynthia (that was her name) wanted to go over to see her
-grandmother, who lived in the next house, nearly a quarter of a mile
-away. The mother told her there was no one to go with her. She said she
-could go alone, and coaxed so hard that the mother said she might go.
-So Cynthia put her little hat on, and her mother kissed her good-by,
-and she started. Then her mother turned to me and said: “Major, you go
-with her and take good care of my darling; don’t you let anything hurt
-her.”
-
-How proud I was! I went right by her side all the way, and never left
-her for one moment until she was safe at home.
-
-Then the lady called me a “good, faithful fellow,” and I was very
-happy. But when the men came in at night and she told them what I had
-done, I felt ashamed to hear her say, “He acted just as though he knew
-what I told him.”
-
-The idea! Why shouldn’t I understand, I would like to know? They talk
-about things which I do not understand, but when they give me such a
-plain direction as that I guess I can hear it, and know what they mean,
-too.
-
-There goes the whistle, and you must scamper. Good-by!
-
-                                             G. R. A.
-
-
-
-
-A CAREFUL MOTHER.
-
-
-A TRUSTWORTHY writer in one of our exchanges says that last summer near
-his room a humming-bird built her tiny nest and reared her family. One
-day when there was a heavy shower coming up, just as the first drops
-fell the mother came fluttering home, seized a large leaf which grew on
-the tree near her nest, drew it over the nest in a way to completely
-cover it, then went back to whatever work she had been about when
-the coming storm disturbed her. The amused watchers from the window
-wondered why the leaf did not blow away, and finally reached out and
-examined it; they found it hooked to a tiny stick which was just inside
-the nest, as if it had been built in for that purpose! The storm lasted
-but a few minutes, and after it was over home came the mother, unhooked
-the green curtain she had so carefully put up, and found her babies
-perfectly dry.
-
-[Illustration: WHICH WILL GET IT?]
-
-
-
-
-CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR SAINTS.
-
-(_Something for Mamma._)
-
-
-NOT something to make, this time, but to buy. It is a lovely new book
-bound in blue and silver, and the title is “Christian Endeavor Saints.”
-
-It is written by Dr. F. E. Clark, the father of all the Christian
-Endeavor societies. If your mamma is not a member of that society it
-will make no difference, she will like the book very much; it has a
-great many short bright articles in it, not too long for a busy mother
-to read when she sits down for a minute or two of rest. The first part
-of the book has short letters addressed to different saints.
-
-One, for instance, to “St. Neighborly,” another to “St. Hopeful,”
-another to “St. Speakwell,” and so on.
-
-Then there are many “Golden Rule Recipes” for the cure of all sorts of
-troubles, as well as what is perhaps better, for the prevention of many.
-
-Let me give you one which is called:
-
-
-A RECIPE FOR A HAPPY DAY.
-
-    “At the very beginning of the day take a large
-    amount of good nature, and double the quantity of
-    determination to make the best of things, a heaping
-    measure of bodily vigor, and mix well in the mortar
-    of gratitude with the pestle of the remembrance of
-    past mercies. A season of prayer and praise is always
-    necessary to the proper mixture of these ingredients.
-    Then add to this a considerable, but not too large,
-    portion of well-regulated tongue, a slice of charity
-    that thinketh no evil and is not easily provoked, a
-    portion of hopefulness for the future, and a large
-    measure of faith in God and fellowmen. Season this with
-    the salt of shrewdness and thrift, and sweeten with
-    plenty of the sugar of love for all God’s creatures.
-    Put in a large handful of plums of parental or filial
-    affection, and a number of pieces of neighborly
-    friendliness; and somewhere in the day conceal one
-    special service for the Lord’s poor. Slide this
-    good deed into the mixture quietly, without saying
-    anything about it. Do not use any of the sour milk of
-    disappointed hopes, or brooding cares, for this will
-    spoil the whole; and while there should be a pinch
-    of the pepper of fun, and considerable sweet oil of
-    joviality, do not use any of the mustard of backbiting,
-    or the table sauce of slander.
-
-    “Let the mixture boil gently, but do not let it boil
-    over, for the delicate flavor of the ingredients is
-    injured by too much heat.
-
-    “This recipe has been tried in a hundred thousand
-    households, and has never been known to fail.”
-
-There are many more recipes quite as unique and as helpful as this.
-
-Then follows a series of “Golden Rule Sermons” on all sorts of
-important topics, such as “Getting Muddled with the Unimportant,” on
-“Living as we Sing,” on “Poor Excuses,” and the like. Finally there
-are letters addressed to “Grandmother Lois,” “Mrs. Neataswax,” “Miss
-Youngheart,” “Mrs. Vitriol,” and a host of other people whom we have
-met.
-
-From one, addressed to “The Birds that can Sing, and won’t Sing,” I
-want to quote a little:
-
-    MY DEAR BIRDS:
-
-    “I watched you last Wednesday evening in the mid-week
-    prayer meeting, and none of you moved your lips, even
-    when we sang ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘Jesus, Lover of my
-    Soul.’ The singing was weak and languid and thin, when
-    your voices might have put body and life and strength
-    into it. I know that you can sing if you have a mind
-    to, for do I not hear you every Sunday in the church
-    choir? . . . Did I not hear you sing, too, at Miss Flora
-    McFlimsey’s birthday party the other evening? Yes,
-    indeed; you gathered around the piano, and the way
-    you warbled forth the glees and college songs did my
-    heart good. But there you were at the church prayer
-    meeting, members of the church, members of the Society
-    of Christian Endeavor; you had promised more than once
-    to do your duty faithfully, and yet you kept still,
-    simply because the singing wasn’t very artistic, or
-    because somebody behind you ‘screeched so,’ as you
-    inelegantly expressed it, or because the old deacon on
-    the front seat dragged, and ‘put you all out.’ Now, my
-    dear birds, pardon the plain words of an old man, and
-    your pastor at that. The prayer meeting singing is just
-    as important a part of worship, and just as acceptable
-    in God’s sight, as your choir or solo singing with all
-    its frills and furbelows. The ‘screecher’ and the old
-    deacon are both doing the best they can; and if you
-    did the best you could their voices would not be so
-    prominent, and the music would be far better. Then,
-    too, do you not think it indicates a little touch of
-    conceit to sing only when your voices will show off to
-    advantage, and let the poor prayer meeting suffer for
-    lack of them? I am sure, my dear birds, that you never
-    thought of the matter in that light, for after all you
-    mean to be conscientious as well as tuneful birds; and
-    I am quite confident that when, next Wednesday evening,
-    I give out ‘Rock of Ages,’ you will ‘raise it’ on your
-    clear strong voices, and give the prayer meeting such a
-    start and uplift as it has not had for many a day.”
-
-I did not mean to quote it all, but it was so good I could not find a
-place to stop. I think you will enjoy it, and so will mamma, or your
-older sister, or indeed any one who loves to read bright, pure, helpful
-thoughts.
-
-The book has about two hundred and fifty pages. I really do not know
-how much it costs, but your bookseller can easily find out for you.
-
-                                             PANSY.
-
-
-
-
-THE HARD TEXT.
-
-(_Matt._ xviii. 2.)
-
-
-NOW does this mean that all children are good Christians, and are
-surely in the Kingdom of Heaven? But you know many who are not good.
-They are profane; they break the Sabbath, and all the other holy
-commands of God. Some are so very bad that their parents send them to
-reformatories, which are a sort of prison.
-
-Some years ago a boy by the name of Jesse Pomeroy, when he was quite
-young, began to torture children when he could get them into his power.
-As he grew a little older and stronger he would get children away from
-home and lead them out into some desolate place, and bind them to a
-tree and do dreadful things to them.
-
-It is thought that this wicked boy caused the death of several children.
-
-There are more Jesse Pomeroys. Jesus did not mean that all children are
-perfectly good. Indeed every one—children, too—must be born again—that
-is, converted—to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.
-
-What, then, did Jesus mean in this verse? Why, simply that all must
-“humble” themselves; must repent and trust in him to be saved. Every
-true child is ready to do this, much more so than grown-up folks.
-
-Grown-up people do not like to confess that they are sinners. They—most
-of them—refuse to humble themselves, as most very young folks do.
-
-Now have you really humbled yourself?
-
-                                                        L.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    ’TIS easy to be gentle when
-      Death’s silence shames our clamor,
-    And easy to discern the best
-      Through memory’s mystic glamour;
-    But wise it were for thee and me,
-      Ere love is past forgiving,
-    To take the tender lesson home—
-      Be patient with the living.
-                                —_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-ABOUT ST. LOUIS.
-
-BY THE PANSIES.
-
-
-THE biggest thing in St. Louis is the bridge by which you get to it. It
-has three arches, each over five hundred feet long, and it makes a road
-over fifty feet wide. My uncle says it is a big thing, and he knows,
-for he is a bridge builder. There is a tunnel under it, and a railroad
-track. I rode into St. Louis once through this tunnel; it is a mile
-long. It is lighted with electricity, and they say it has ventilating
-shafts; but they don’t give you much air to breathe, that I know.
-Father had to fan mother every minute, and we were afraid she would
-faint. I think I should have found it hard work to breathe myself, if I
-hadn’t been so dreadfully worried about mother that I forgot all about
-it. But for all that it is a splendid thing—the tunnel is, I mean. The
-piers of the bridge are built on a rock, and they go down more than a
-hundred feet below the surface. This bridge cost over six millions of
-dollars. I could tell you more things, for I staid in St. Louis a whole
-week, but mother says my letter is long enough.
-
-                                             WILLARD J. MOONEY.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-ALL the Pansies tell how the city they are writing about got its name.
-I cannot find out about St. Louis, but I know the first settlement
-there was made by Pierre Laclede Liguest. I was wondering if they did
-not put pieces of his queer name together, and make a word which in
-time came to be St. Louis? Anyhow, I am glad they did not name the
-place for him, it would have been so hard to pronounce. That is only
-about a hundred and thirty years ago. St. Louis did not grow very fast;
-for a long time nobody thought it was going to be a city, and fifty
-years ago there were only about sixteen thousand inhabitants; but it
-has grown fast enough since. There are more than five hundred thousand
-people there now, and large, beautiful buildings, and everything which
-helps to make a city handsome. It is hot there, though; at least my
-auntie thinks so. She used to have to wait three hours in a St. Louis
-depot for a train every time she came home for her summer vacation, and
-went back in September, and she says the warmest she has ever been in
-her life was during those hours; and she never in five years struck a
-cool day! So she says she cannot help thinking that St. Louis is always
-warm. But probably if she had been there in January, instead of June or
-September, she would have thought differently. Women are apt to think
-that things stay always just as they happened to find them.
-
-                                             ROBERT CAMPBELL.
-
-[Illustration: THE COURT HOUSE.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THE prettiest place to go to in St. Louis is “Shaw’s Garden.” It
-has other names, “The Missouri Botanical Gardens,” and “Tower Grove
-Park,” which is a piece of the gardens, but when I was there everybody
-said “Shaw’s Garden.” The land was presented by Mr. Henry Shaw, an
-Englishman, and he used to keep the lovely great park in order at his
-own expense; I don’t know whether he does now or not. There are more
-than two hundred and fifty acres just in Tower Grove Park. I have never
-been to Central Park, that some of the Pansies told about, but I do not
-see how it could be prettier than Tower Grove Park. There is a statue
-of Shakespeare, and another of Humboldt in the park, and they cost
-over a million of dollars. I don’t see why; I didn’t admire them very
-much; but that is what the gentleman said who went with us. There are
-a great many other parks in St. Louis—about twenty, I think—but none
-are so beautiful as this; and the Botanical Gardens are said to have
-the finest collection of plants of any city in the United States. My
-brother Roger says that cities always say such things about themselves,
-and that he doesn’t suppose it is finer than can be found in New York
-and Chicago, but that is what they told us.
-
-                                             NELLIE SHERMANN.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I READ a description of the St. Louis Court House which was very
-interesting. It is built in the form of a Greek cross, and has a
-splendid dome whose lantern can be seen as much as twenty miles away.
-It cost a good deal over a million dollars—the building did, not the
-lantern. Aunt Kate told me to put that sentence in: I don’t see why;
-of course you would know that a lantern did not cost all that! I like
-handsome buildings; I am going to be an architect.
-
-I study all the different forms of buildings; I like the Greek cross
-style very well, but I don’t know how it would look for a private
-house. Aunt Kate says all that has nothing to do with St. Louis, but I
-don’t care. You don’t mind my telling what interests me, do you?
-
-                                             ARTHUR BLAKEMAN.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THERE is a building in St. Louis called “Four Courts,” named after
-the “Four Courts” of Dublin. But I think it was queer to name it Four
-Courts, and then have only three courts held in it. It is a stone
-building, and cost a good deal of money. Stone buildings always do; I
-suppose that is because they last so long; things that last always cost
-a great deal. I have hunted and hunted to find something interesting
-about St. Louis that everybody else would not be likely to tell, and
-the only thing I could find was this about the Four Courts. I don’t
-know as that is interesting, but it is the best I could do.
-
-                                             MARY BLAKEMAN.
-
-[Illustration: THE DENISON HOUSE.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THEY have a splendid Public-school Library in St. Louis. My father said
-when he was there ten years ago there were over fifty thousand volumes
-in it—books to help teachers and scholars. My father says he thinks
-other cities might copy after them in this. Colleges have libraries on
-purpose for their students, why should not public schools?
-
-                                             WILL VANDENBERG.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-[Illustration: THE CUSTOM HOUSE.]
-
-THEY have a splendid Custom House and Post-Office in St. Louis. Father
-says the building cost half a million. He was there when it was being
-built, and he says there is something grand-looking about it. And
-father says they have splendid schools there; not only public schools,
-but lots of private ones. The Washington University is there, and
-so, of course, is the St. Louis University; and they have the finest
-kindergartens there, I think, to be found outside of Germany. My uncle
-says I might as well leave that sentence out, for the kindergartens in
-the United States are better than those in Germany. But I am not going
-to leave it out; I don’t like crossed-out lines in a letter, and I
-haven’t time to copy this. Besides, lots of people think that things in
-other countries are nicer than our own, of course.
-
-                                          CHARLES J. PRESCOTT, JR.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    RITA was riding on a road that went winding up hill and
-    down dale, when she remarked, “Well, I never did saw
-    such a curly road.”
-
-
-
-
-A SEED THAT BLOSSOMED.
-
-
-ELISE was spending the afternoon with Miss Dora Turner. Miss Turner
-was several years older than Elise, but she had come to the country to
-live among strangers, and Elise had known her in her city home, and was
-lonely like herself, so they became intimate friends. Elise told all
-her sorrows and perplexities, as well as her joys, to this young lady.
-She was in Miss Turner’s room now, waiting for her to rearrange her
-hair and make some additions to her toilet, then they were going for a
-walk.
-
-“I don’t know where we can go, I am sure,” said Elise; “we have used
-up all the pretty walks near by. I wish it was early enough to go for
-a long tramp; I would like to do something different this afternoon. I
-feel tired of all the things I ever did.”
-
-“Poor little old lady!” said Miss Turner, laughing, “there will have to
-be a new world made for you, Elise.” Then, as she turned, she caught
-the flash of the diamond at Elise’s throat, and said: “How lovely your
-pin is! It seems too lovely and too costly for a young girl.”
-
-“It was mamma’s,” said Elise gravely, “and papa promised mamma he would
-give it to me on my fourteenth birthday. Didn’t I tell you?”
-
-“Why, no, indeed. That explains it. I wondered that your father should
-send you a diamond pin at your age; but it is beautiful for you to have
-your mother’s pin to wear. Why didn’t you tell me, Elise?”
-
-“Because,” said Elise, “there was a part to it that I did not
-understand, and I suppose I did not want to speak of it. Mamma sent me
-a message with it; at least papa said that the words inside were her
-message; she had them engraved on it before she died, so it seems like
-mamma’s last words to me, and indeed it is; but I do not understand it,
-nor know how to do it, nor anything. I don’t suppose you could show me?”
-
-The question was asked with a half-laugh, and not at all as though
-Elise supposed that she could get any help from this quarter.
-
-Miss Turner’s fair face flushed. “I don’t suppose I could,” she
-answered gravely; “I don’t know much about such things, Elise.”
-
-What she meant by “such things” perhaps would have been difficult for
-her to explain. But the thought in her mind was, that “last messages”
-from dying mothers would not be such as she could explain. Elise’s
-mother had been dead for many years; at least they seemed many to
-Elise, though she could remember her beautiful mother distinctly;
-and when she thought it all over, as she often did in the twilight,
-could seem to feel her mother’s kiss upon her lips, and the pressure
-of her mother’s hand on the yellow curls which used to be hers in
-those days. She was not yet six years old when her mother went away,
-but there were times when it seemed to her that she had seen her only
-yesterday. And at other times the years which stretched between seemed
-very, very long. Her father was in India in the Government employ; had
-been there for five years. And Elise, who received long letters from
-him, and elegant presents, and talked a great deal about him, yet felt
-sometimes that she really knew him less than she did her beautiful pale
-mother, who used to love her so, and kiss her so tenderly. Elise lived
-with an aunt who was very fond of her, and did everything to supply
-her mother’s place, and her uncle called her his adopted daughter;
-yet sometimes she cried when she was tucked up in bed for the night,
-because she longed so to have a mamma and papa and a home of her own,
-like other girls. It was perhaps because Miss Turner had no mother that
-she had felt drawn toward her in the first place.
-
-“What is the message?” her friend asked. “May I see it, Elise? I am
-half-surprised that you do not understand it; you are such a thoughtful
-young person, and seem older than you are; I have a feeling that you
-can understand what most others do.”
-
-Elise made no reply save to unclasp the pin and pass it to her friend.
-Miss Turner moved toward the window, where the light would fall upon
-it. It was a lovely arch of gold, a tiny diamond flashing in its
-center, and on the reverse side was engraved, in small but distinct
-letters, the words: “Keep His covenant.” “Why, Elise!” she said, “how
-beautiful this is. I should think you would like it very much.”
-
-“I do,” said Elise, “of course; only it gives me a strange feeling, as
-though mamma had sent me word to do something that I could not do; and
-I have always thought that I would like to do things to please mamma,
-if I only knew just what she wanted done.”
-
-“Well, but, dear,” said Miss Turner hesitatingly, “surely you can find
-out what this means, in a general way.”
-
-Elise smiled sadly. “I remember mamma very well,” she said, “and she
-always wanted me to do exactly as she said.”
-
-“Well,” said Miss Turner again, after an embarrassed pause, “this is
-exact enough; she means you to live a good life, you know.”
-
-“I don’t know what it means,” said Elise, moving restlessly. “As for
-being good, I am not, and I don’t know how to be; I cannot keep my
-temper a single day. You know I never get through a day without having
-a tiff of some sort with Cousin Annie; and there are ever so many
-people who vex me and worry me so that I cannot feel right toward them.
-That is not being good. Besides, the words seem to me to mean something
-more than that—something different. I would like to know exactly what
-they mean, but there is nobody that I can ask. Papa does not understand
-such things, and uncle and auntie do not. I don’t seem to have any
-friends who could help in that way.”
-
-Miss Turner gave back the pin, looking very thoughtful indeed. She
-ought to know more about those things than Elise did, she told herself;
-her father was not a Christian, and her mother had died when her
-little girl was six years old, whereas Miss Turner had lived always in
-a home where the father and mother were earnest Christians, and she
-knew at this very moment that the greatest desire of their hearts was
-to see her doing this very thing—“keeping His covenant.” Yet she knew
-as little about it practically as Elise Burton did; so little, that
-although she was at least six years older than Elise, she did not know
-in the least how to help her this afternoon. It was very humiliating.
-She could help her with her music, and with her French lessons, and
-her drawing, and to have this most important of all lessons beyond her,
-seemed strange and wrong. She was still for several minutes, then she
-said, speaking very gently:
-
-“Elise dear, I can imagine how you feel with this message from your
-mother; I wish I knew how to help you. But there is a way to learn what
-it means. There is a verse in the Bible somewhere that explains its
-meaning.”
-
-Elise looked up quickly. “Where?” she asked. “The Bible is such a big
-book, and I do not know much about it. I did try last Sunday to find
-something about covenants that would help me. I went away back to Noah
-and the rainbow, but I did not get any good out of it for me.”
-
-Miss Dora went to her table and took up an elegantly bound reference
-Bible, full of help which she did not understand, and turning in a
-half-bewildered, half-embarrassed manner to the Concordance, ran
-her eye down the list of words marked “covenant.” Elise watched her
-curiously. She had no Concordance in her Bible, and did not know how to
-use one. At last Miss Dora turned to a verse.
-
-“This explains a little of it,” she said, and read aloud: “This shall
-be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel in those
-days, saith the Lord; I will put my law in their inward parts, and
-write it in their hearts, and will be their God and they shall be my
-people.” As she read a curious light came into her eyes.
-
-“It is very strange,” she said; “that is the verse that they are going
-to talk about this afternoon at the covenant meeting.”
-
-“What is a covenant meeting?” asked Elise eagerly.
-
-“It is the young people’s quarterly meeting at the church where I am
-attending. Every three months their Christian Endeavor Society have a
-gathering which they call a covenant meeting. I don’t know much about
-it; I have not been; but they talk together about such things; the
-pastor comes and talks to them. They say the meetings are interesting.
-What if we should walk in that direction, Elise, and go in a little
-while? Mr. Westfield invited me to come, but I did not have an idea
-that I should do so. I do not attend such meetings much, you know. But
-if you would like to go, Elise, and find out about your pin, I will go
-with you.”
-
-“Well,” said Elise, starting up with more energy than she had shown
-before for several days, “I will. I want to know about ‘His covenant.’
-I do, truly. Mamma asked me to, you know; and perhaps if I understood
-it it would tell me just exactly what she wanted me to do all the time,
-and I should be so glad to do it.”
-
-“We will go and find out,” said Miss Turner gravely.
-
-Thus the little seed dropped by the loving mother’s hand took root and
-blossomed in two lives, though the hand which sowed the seed had been
-dust for many years.
-
-                                             PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: WHEN GRANDFATHER WAS YOUNG.]
-
-[Illustration: THE OLD QUESTION.]
-
-
-
-
-A SCARECROW.
-
-
-ALEX HAINES and Eva were promised a piece of ground as their very own
-if they would cultivate (what is that?) it.
-
-Each took a hoe and began. By night Alex and Eva had planted a rod
-square to corn.
-
-Then they watched the corn; that is, they watched for the corn. After
-a few days, sure enough, the spots where the corn was planted—that is,
-the hills—began to swell as though something wanted to get out. Then up
-came a bit of a green leaf. Higher it grew, and they came often to see
-it.
-
-One day they came and found some of the hills pulled up, and while they
-wondered what thief had been about, they heard from the top of a tree,
-“Caw, caw, caw!”
-
-The thief was a crow.
-
-So they must scare the crows away, or the corn will be all pulled up,
-and their labor will be in vain.
-
-Crows are afraid of men; but men cannot stay all the time in the field
-to scare the crows off. So something that looks like a man must be set
-up in the corn patch to scare the crows away.
-
-With a pair of pants, a coat, a hat, and three old brooms, they are
-making a man! When it is all done it will not look much like a man.
-It has neither eyes, nose nor mouth. It can not walk nor talk. The
-scarecrow has no heart or soul, but it can scare crows away from the
-corn.
-
-The gods of the heathen have eyes, but they can’t see. They can’t see
-or hear or feel or think.
-
-They are made gods, and those who make such gods worship them. They
-think such things can scare away evil and do them good!
-
-But such gods just scare the heathen, and of course cannot save them.
-
-Ah! if the poor, deceived people knew of Him “who so loved the world
-that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
-should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
-
-What Pansy among you will go and tell them, or help send a preacher to
-them?
-
-                                                        L.
-
-[Illustration: BUILDING THE SCARECROW.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-THERE is a grand temperance organization in Sweden, which is trying
-to get rid of the saloon. Last year their Government appropriated
-twenty-five thousand crowns, a portion of which was set apart to be
-used as awards for the best essays on the different phases of the
-temperance question, with suggestions as to how soonest to rid the
-country of the curse of alcohol.
-
-[Illustration: GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S SAMPLER.]
-
-
-
-
-A DOUBLE LESSON.
-
-
-“THERE!” said Davie Campbell, flinging as he spoke a large,
-sharp-pointed stick right where his brother stood, “take that; I don’t
-care if it does hurt you. I hate you, George Campbell!”
-
-The stick was aimed even more surely than Davie in his blind rage
-imagined. It struck his brother’s side face, making an ugly wound, from
-which the blood flowed freely.
-
-[Illustration: SHE HELD UP A WARNING HAND.]
-
-“Ah, ha!” said George, as he turned to the pump and began to bathe the
-wound, “look what you have done now. What will mother say to you, young
-man? And as for me, that will make a scar, and I will wear it all my
-life to remember you by. You will like that, won’t you? You will just
-enjoy having people ask me where I got that scar, and me having to tell
-that my beloved brother did it on purpose, because he hated me. Oh, ho!
-you are a jewel, you are,” and George Campbell laughed, and dodged
-just in time to escape a stone from his angry brother’s hand; then went
-off down the street, leaving Davie in a perfect rage.
-
-He was three years younger than his brother, and was said by the
-neighbors to have a great deal worse disposition than George, but
-I never felt sure of that. However, it is quite true that instead
-of being master of his temper he let it master him. He had, also, a
-wretched habit of throwing anything he might happen to have in his hand
-when the angry fit seized him, letting it strike wherever it might. In
-this way he had narrowly escaped doing serious mischief, and he had
-promised himself hundreds of times that he would never, never throw
-things again, and yet, as soon as he grew angry, so settled was that
-habit upon him, that the stick or stone was apt to fly through the air.
-As for George, I think he was quite as easily angered as his brother,
-but his habit was to laugh, or sneer, or say the most taunting words
-imaginable, with a sort of superior smile on his face the while. On the
-whole, I am not sure that George appeared any better in the sight of
-Him who can read hearts than did his brother Davie.
-
-They were not the worst boys in the world, by any means; they did not
-quarrel all the time. For days together they would succeed in being
-very friendly, and in having good times, but it must be confessed that
-George had discovered certain directions in which his young brother
-could be easily teased, and that he delighted to tease him.
-
-“Davie is such a little spitfire,” he used to say to his Aunt Mary,
-when she argued with him about the sin of such a habit. “Why does he
-want to go off like a pop gun the first word that is said to him? I
-never do.”
-
-“No,” said Aunt Mary; “you laugh—a laugh which makes him feel more
-angry than he did before, and you say something to increase his rage.
-Is that really being any better than he?” But these questions George
-did not like to answer.
-
-On this particular morning, after having stopped the blood from his
-wound, he had sauntered away to see two of his friends who worked in
-the paper factory near at hand. There he mounted their work table and
-answered the questions which they eagerly put to him as to how he
-happened to get hurt.
-
-“Oh! it is Davie’s work; he’s a great boy. If he had had an open
-jack-knife in his hand it would have been all the same; it would have
-been flung at me when he got mad. I hope when he grows up he will never
-take a notion to carry a pistol, for if he does he will shoot the first
-fellow who laughs at him, or who laughs when he is within hearing.”
-
-“Why, George,” said one of the boys, “that will make an ugly scar.”
-
-“I dare say it will. I will carry it all my life to remember him by.”
-
-“It is a pity that he is such a little tiger; I wouldn’t stand it if I
-were you,” said the other boy. “You are a good deal older than he; why
-don’t you make him behave himself?”
-
-In this way poor Davie was discussed by the three, George telling story
-after story about his brother, led on by the sympathy which the two
-professed, into making Davie the one always to blame, and himself the
-injured, long-suffering elder brother. The boys did not know Davie very
-well, and George had always been good-natured with them, so of course
-they were on his side, and ready to sympathize with him for having such
-a wicked little brother. The longer George talked the more of a martyr
-he grew to considering himself; he racked his brain for illustrations
-of Davie’s ill temper, and was in the midst of a very harrowing story
-when Joe Winters appeared, breathless with running, and panted out:
-“Is George Campbell here? I say, George Campbell, your folks want
-you to come home just as fast as you can. Davie has tumbled from the
-scaffolding of the big barn and killed himself! or—well, he ain’t dead;
-but he lies there still; can’t stir nor speak, and they have sent for
-two doctors, and everybody thinks he is going to die.”
-
-Poor George Campbell! To have seen the look on his face when he heard
-this dreadful piece of news you would not have imagined that he could
-have had so hard an opinion of his little brother as he had been
-trying to show for the last hour. He jumped from the table, and made a
-dash for the door before Joe had finished his panting sentences, but
-paused with the door in his hand to say: “O, boys! it isn’t half of it
-true—what I have been telling you; I have been worse than Davie every
-time. If I hadn’t laughed at him, and teased him, and made fun of him,
-he never would have got angry at me. O, boys! if he dies it will kill
-me.” Then he ran.
-
-What hours those were which followed, while the little brother lay on
-his bed, moaning steadily, but unconscious, so the doctors declared,
-and they shook their heads gravely in answer to questions, and would
-not give one ray of hope that he might by and by open his eyes and know
-them. Truth to tell, they thought he was going to die, and that very
-soon. But doctors are sometimes mistaken, and these were. Davie did not
-die; he lay day after day moaning with pain, not knowing any of the
-dear friends who bent over him; staring at George with wild, unnatural
-eyes, as if he were some comical object, instead of the brother who
-hovered about him, longing, oh! so eagerly for just one glance of
-recognition.
-
-There came a day when the doctors said it was possible—just barely
-possible—that Davie might awaken from the long sleep into which he
-had fallen, and know his friends. How still they kept the house, and
-how silently the mother sat hour after hour by his bedside, relieved
-only by the little sister, who came on tiptoe to take her place, that
-she might go out and drink a cup of tea to help her bear the nervous
-strain. Even then she only went into the next room, separated from
-Davie’s by a curtain, and came back when she had got half-way across
-the room because she thought she heard a sound behind those curtains.
-There was no sound; Jennie was sitting quietly at her post, a wise
-little nurse; she held up a warning hand, ready to motion anybody back
-into silence who might be tiptoeing toward them. She had imagined it
-was George, for he, poor fellow, hovered near, looking almost as pale
-and worn as the boy with his head on the pillow.
-
-Terrible days these had been to George. He was not sure that he ever
-prayed in his life before, but during those days he prayed with
-terrible earnestness, that Davie might not go away with those last
-words of his ringing in his ears. “If he could only know me long enough
-for me to ask him to forgive me!” said poor George to himself, while
-the tears rolled down his cheeks. “Then I think I would be almost
-willing to have him die. O, God! let me just tell him that I am sorry,
-and that I will not remember him in any such way, but I will think of
-the thousands of good and loving things he has done for me.”
-
-[Illustration: AT PONT NEUF.]
-
-I am sure you will be glad to know that his prayer was answered. Davie
-awoke from his long sleep with a look of quiet astonishment in his
-eyes, to think that he was lying in bed, and mother and Jennie were
-sitting beside him, and that George was standing over by the window. He
-did not remember any of the days that had passed between. He did not
-remember at first the fall from the scaffolding. He was by no means out
-of danger, the doctor said, yet there was a thread, just a thread of
-hope that he might rally. And so the days which followed were quite as
-full of anxiety and care as those in which he had been unconscious.
-
-But Davie steadily gained, and there came a bright morning in midsummer
-when George was permitted to take care of him alone, while his mother
-attended to some household duties, and Jennie swept the dining-room
-and set the table. It was George’s opportunity. He had longed for
-it, but he did not know how to use it. How should he begin? While he
-considered, Davie began for him.
-
-“It did leave a scar, didn’t it?” he said mournfully. “O, George! I
-remember all about it; it came to me just a few days ago. Wasn’t it
-awful? George, the hardest part has been to think that maybe I should
-die and leave that scar for you to remember me by.”
-
-“Don’t,” said George, who had not the least idea that he should cry any
-more about this thing, yet who felt the tears starting in his eyes. “O,
-don’t, Davie! forget those horrid hateful things I said to you. You
-can’t think how many nice things I had to remember of you—hundreds and
-hundreds of them.”
-
-“No,” said Davie mournfully; “I have always been throwing sticks and
-stones and hurting things. Don’t you remember how I lamed the cat, and
-killed a bird once, and then made that scar on your face? That is the
-worst of all. O, George! if I had died what a way to be remembered.
-Think of the lots of things that people could have told of me like
-that.”
-
-George winced visibly, for these were some of the things he had told
-the boys in the paper factory that day.
-
-“I tell you what it is,” he said, swallowing hard to try and speak
-without a tremble in his voice, “you and I have both had a lesson,
-Davie. If you had died I could never have forgiven myself for having
-teased you for getting angry, and then having said that I would
-remember you by this little scar, which doesn’t amount to anything,
-anyhow. It wasn’t true, Davie; I wouldn’t have remembered you that way.”
-
-“I don’t see how you could have helped it,” said Davie mournfully; “but
-I am truly and surely going to be different after this. If you see me
-getting angry and acting as if I was going to throw things, I wish you
-would tie up my hands, or hold them, or something.”
-
-“We will both be different,” said George. “It won’t do to plan such
-things as we had to remember. We will begin now and plan to have nice
-pleasant things, so that when—that when”—But his voice trembled and
-broke; he had been too near parting with Davie forever to put in words
-the thought that some time the parting would surely come.
-
-But I fancy that they must have kept their words and begun over again,
-for this happened several years ago. George and Davie are young men
-now, and yesterday I heard them called “model brothers.” They really
-seem to be planning to have only pleasant things to remember of each
-other when the time comes for one of them to go away.
-
-                                             PANSY.
-
-
-
-
-MUSIC AND WAR.
-
-
-GEORGE NOYES—that is not his real name—is now in Europe sightseeing. He
-spends one week in beautiful Paris, where the people talk French, and
-do not do everything quite as do Americans or Englishmen.
-
-George is learning to speak French. He has got on so far that he can
-tell in French to the waiters just what he will have of the bill of
-fare.
-
-Yesterday he and his Uncle Fred went to Pont Neuf, a bridge more than a
-thousand feet long, and three hundred years old. King Henry the Fourth
-had it built. Visitors of Paris must needs see this wonderful bridge,
-or they have not seen Paris. That’s what they say.
-
-[Illustration: ON DRILL.]
-
-While George was looking this way and that from the bridge, and
-thinking of the war times of kings and princes, he heard sweet music,
-and turning to see whence it came, he saw a company of boys playing on
-drums and bugles, under the leadership of a soldier and one of their
-own companions.
-
-There they drill every pleasant afternoon, and delight the multitudes
-who gather on Pont Neuf.
-
-However, it is not all for fun they are playing charming French music,
-and among the rest the Marseillaise Hymn. They are getting ready for
-war times, for fierce battles and blood and death.
-
-Most nations have had many wars, and millions of their people have been
-slain, and no words can tell the suffering. Some day I fear those nice
-French boys, grown to be men, will be playing the Marseillaise Hymn on
-some awful battle field, while thousands of French and Germans, or some
-other people, will be falling and dying!
-
-All this because one nation wants some of the other nation’s land, or
-for some other wicked cause.
-
-“Blessed are the peace makers, for”—
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-JEAN.
-
-
-COME now, the good ship _City of Paris_ sails in a few days, so let us
-away over the ocean to France.
-
-Here we are in Paris, the most beautiful, though not the best city in
-the world, they say.
-
-But after six days sightseeing we’ll hurry to another place, and here
-we are in Domremy. Here we’ll roam over the hills and think. See that
-cluster of trees? We must sit under them and upon that very stone.
-There on that grassy bank where the flowers are blooming, and at whose
-foot runs a gentle brook, we must spend an hour and think, think who
-sat upon that very spot nearly five hundred years ago and watched her
-father’s flock of sheep or listened to the singing birds or talked with
-God through the sweet roses she holds. Now she looks up at the great
-sun, now at a passing cloud; now a soft wind fans her face; a shepherd
-dog lies at her feet; just yonder some lambs are nestled together.
-
-She is but thirteen years old, but she loves to speak to God as though
-he were by her side—and is he not?
-
-Late one evening she comes leading the sheep home. Sitting alone
-looking out into the moonlight, Jeanne’s mother inquires: “My child,
-what keeps you so long in the field? You must come home earlier, my
-darling, or something will happen to you.”
-
-“But, mamma, I’ve heard voices in the fields, and they seem to come
-from the roses and the rocks and the robins and in every wind, and they
-tell me of my native land and my home and God, that I must love _ma
-belle France_, and save it out of the hands of all its enemies, and
-this is what keeps me so late, my sweet, dear mamma.”
-
-“Voices, child?”
-
-“Aye, mamma, voices from Heaven speaking in my heart. Your Jeanne hears
-them loud, in my heart, at least, and they say I must save my poor sad
-country.”
-
-Jeanne’s mother could say nothing, but wonder if the child was out of
-her mind, or if she had really had a vision of angels, as in olden
-times they came to the shepherds while they watched their flocks.
-
-So the years went by, Jeanne always saying that these heavenly voices
-were calling her to save her unhappy country, her friends and neighbors
-sometimes calling her crazy.
-
-She was now seventeen, a lovely pure girl, sorrowing much over the wars
-and troubles of her own beloved France. Ah! they were dark days indeed;
-this one wanted to be king, and that one said he must rule; armies
-met and fought, and some of the young men who went from Domremy, and
-with whom Jeanne had played, were brought back from the battle fields
-wounded and dying.
-
-Then came a great army over from England, and city after city of France
-fell before its awful march. The frightened King Charles the Seventh
-feared all was lost. He knew not whither to fly with his sad little
-army. But just when he was going to give up word came to him about the
-girl of Domremy, our sweet Jeanne. Quickly a messenger was dispatched
-to her plain little home, and out into the fields he hastened to find
-her feeding her flock. He urged her to come to her king with all speed.
-She knew what it meant; she knew her hour was now come to save her “_la
-belle France_.”
-
-Bidding her mother to pray for her, and covering her neck with kisses,
-she was soon galloping off with the messenger to the camp of the king.
-A smile of hope lit up his anxious face as she came into his presence.
-She told him about the “voices,” and said she was sure she could lead
-his army to victory if he would give her soldiers.
-
-So then and there he put upon her the strong armor of commander, and
-giving her a sword and a war horse she led her little band against the
-English. They had heard of her, and thought she was sent of God, and
-fear fell upon them, and they threw down their arms and fled away in
-dismay.
-
-Meanwhile, though Jeanne waved her flashing sword she never struck a
-blow with it, but she was again and again wounded.
-
-At last came complete victory, and Jeanne saw the enemies of her
-beloved France fleeing from Orleans before her rejoicing army. For this
-she was called “_La Pucelle d’Orleans_,” or the Maid of Orleans. But
-she is usually called Joan of Arc.
-
-After so much triumph she pleaded with her king to let her return to
-her dear Domremy home, but he would not consent. Meanwhile some of the
-great captains envied her all her victories, and managed to let her
-be taken prisoner. Now comes the sad, sad thing to tell. After this
-noble girl had saved her country, her king and the others let her be
-put into prison, tried, condemned, and burned to death as a witch! This
-is not the only case in which the best friend a country ever had was
-cruelly treated by that country. Jesus was crucified, crucified by his
-own people, whom he came to save. But scarcely had twenty years gone
-by before all the bitter persecutors of this dear brave Jeanne came
-to violent deaths, and the people, instead of calling her a witch,
-proclaimed her innocent, and a statue was erected to her memory on the
-very spot where she was burned, and her family was promoted by the king.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-HEATHEN WOMEN.
-
-
-ONE of the two is smoking. She likes it, too. Men say it is nice to
-smoke and chew tobacco; why should not the women have as good a time as
-the men? Or why is it any worse for a woman than a man? And yet if the
-girls and women of America should begin to smoke and race horses, and
-do similar things they would be called heathenish.
-
-[Illustration: TYPES OF HEATHEN WOMEN.]
-
-So it is, women in heathen lands all have bad times and fall into
-bad wars. If they ever dress themselves, and behave themselves as
-they ought, and have good, lovely homes, and care tenderly for their
-children, it will be when they learn about Jesus, who came and died to
-save a lost world. How can they learn without a preacher?
-
-                                                        L.
-
-[Illustration: STATUE AT COPAN, GUATEMALA.]
-
-[Illustration: TYPES OF UNCIVILIZED CHINESE WOMEN.]
-
-
-
-
-“FAX AND FIGGERS.”
-
-
-WE clip from the Union Signal a remarkable “queer story,” joined to an
-arithmetical problem. The story has a moral well worth considering, and
-a “sum” worth doing.
-
-“I hav of lait got at sum stubbun fax and figgers. 2 siggars a day,
-costing oanly a nikkle eech, for 20 yeers at 1st Site appeers to Bee a
-smol matter. Let us figger the cost. 10 sents daly for 365 daze reeches
-the sum ov $36.50. We will not rekkon interrist the first yeer, but
-the interrist on $36.50 for 19 yeers at 6 purr sent is $73.92, and the
-Totle ov prinsipple and interrist at 6 Purr sent, kompoundid yeerly,
-at the end ov 20 yeers maiks the neet little Sum ov $1,338.54. That
-izzn’t a grate eel, but it wood Bi 200 barrils ov good flower, and in
-Sum sekshuns ov the kuntry wood maik wun the oaner ov a good farm,
-with houce, barn, wel, sisstern, froot treeze and wood-lot on it,
-possibly a jurzy cow and sum Uther niknax throne into the bargin. But
-my expeeryunce has tot me that fax and figgers prodoose but a Slite
-impresshun on wun who has fully dessidid to maik bacon ov his Branes
-bi turning his mouth into a smoakhouce. He communly prefurs the hi and
-eggzaltid privvylige ov bloin smoak thru hiz noze to having enny uther
-erthly pozeshun.”
-
-
-
-
-A PUZZLE.
-
-
-    IF an S and an I and an O and a U,
-      With an X at the end spell Su;
-    And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
-      Pray what is a speller to do?
-
-    Then, if also an S and an I and a G
-      And an H, E, D spell cide,
-    There’s nothing much left for a speller to do
-      But to go and commit siouxeyesighed.
-                                —_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-CELIA’S EASTER OFFERING.
-
-
-CELIA’S share of the flowers was lovely. She buried her face in the
-blooms again and again, and seemed unable to get enough of their
-sweetness.
-
-They had spent the entire morning in the woods hunting for treasures,
-she and her particular friend, Helen Beardsley. Helen attended another
-Sunday-school, so they had carefully divided the flowers, for they were
-to be used in decorating the church for the Easter service.
-
-“You will smell all the sweetness out of those things, child,” said
-Miss Agatha Foster, looking up from the bit of satin she was carefully
-embroidering. Miss Agatha was Celia’s oldest sister.
-
-[Illustration: HESTER THOUGHT ABOUT IT.]
-
-“O, no, I won’t!” said Celia, laughing; “they have all the sweetness
-of the woods in them. You can’t think how the woods smelled this
-morning! It seemed just like heaven.”
-
-Agatha and the middle sister, Lorene, looked at each other and laughed.
-
-“What an idea!” said Lorene; “it is the first time I ever heard the
-woods compared to heaven.”
-
-Mrs. Foster came into the room at that moment, and stopped by the
-table near the door to arrange the books; there was a tired, somewhat
-troubled look on her face. “Poor Hester has had to be disappointed
-again about going home,” she said.
-
-[Illustration: CHRIST IS RISEN]
-
-“Why, mother,” said Agatha, “that is really too bad. It is the third
-Saturday she has missed, and their baby is sick, you know.”
-
-“I know it,” said Mrs. Foster, looking more troubled still; “but what
-can I do? There will be company to tea, and cook cannot leave the
-kitchen to answer the bell; she can not even attend to the downstairs
-bell; it rings every few minutes on Saturdays; besides, there is extra
-work for her to do, and somebody must set the table for her. I don’t
-suppose either of you could give her a lift, could you, and let Hester
-go?”
-
-There was inquiry in the mother’s tone, but no expectation. Agatha
-lifted her eyebrows, but there was a difficult spot in her embroidery
-just then, so she made no reply; but Lorene turned quite away from the
-piano to answer:
-
-“Why, mother, how could we? I have my practicing to do; I have to sing
-twice to-morrow, you know. Of course that would not take me long, but
-we couldn’t run to the door every time the bell rang, could we, and
-receive callers at the same time?”
-
-“And as for setting the table,” said Agatha, who had righted her
-embroidery and was taking neat stitches, “I never could get all the
-things on a table. It wouldn’t be possible for me to set it for
-company.”
-
-“I suppose it cannot be arranged,” said Mrs. Foster. “I must finish
-Grandma’s cap so she can wear it this evening; her other is really
-unfit, and I have several stitches to take for Celia, as well. Hester
-must wait another week. I told her so; but she seemed so disappointed
-that I wondered if there were not some way to plan it.”
-
-“Perhaps she can run down there after tea to see how the baby is,”
-Lorene said, but Mrs. Foster shook her head. “Cook will need her to
-look after things in the kitchen while she waits on table, and it will
-be quite dark before we shall be through; she could not go alone after
-dark.”
-
-It was Agatha’s turn to sigh. “We need a second girl,” she said; “it is
-ridiculous for a family of our size to try to get along with only cook,
-and that little bit of a Hester.”
-
-“We shall certainly have to get along,” was her mother’s answer, spoken
-with quiet positiveness; “you know as well as I that we can not afford
-more help this season.”
-
-Meantime Celia, her fingers still busy with the masses of flowers she
-was trying to arrange in a basket for carrying, had listened, her face
-growing more and more gravely thoughtful.
-
-It was Sabbath evening in her thoughts, and she was in the Christian
-Endeavor meeting, listening to Agatha’s voice while she quoted from
-some grand old writer a thought like this: “We plan our Easter
-offerings, and beautify His temple for the glad day, and that is well;
-but we are to remember that as there would have been no Easter had He
-not given Himself, so the highest and best offering we can bring to
-Him is our unselfish consecrated selves.” Celia remembered the thrill
-with which she had listened. Agatha’s voice was like music, and the
-thoughts had seemed to fit her voice and make a poem of them, which had
-thrilled the beauty-loving heart of her young sister.
-
-That was a week ago. Why should the words come back to her this
-afternoon, and ring in her heart like soft bells, calling her?
-
-What had they to do with Hester, and the door-bells to answer, and the
-table to set for company, and a sick baby at home? “The highest and
-best offering we can bring to Him is our unselfish consecrated selves,”
-rang the bells in her heart, and her lips spoke: “Mother, may I take
-Hester’s place this afternoon, and let her go home? I can set the
-table; cook said I did it beautifully the last time.”
-
-“You!” said her mother, in surprise, and both the sisters exclaimed.
-“Why, I thought, dear, your class was to meet at Marion’s to help
-arrange the flowers for the Easter service?”
-
-“And I thought you were all invited to stay to tea at Marion’s?” added
-Agatha.
-
-“So we are,” said Celia, answering them both in one; “but the girls can
-get along well enough without me. There are eight of them, and Marion’s
-Aunt Laura is going to show them how to arrange everything; and as for
-staying to tea, why, I can do that another time; and the baby is sick,
-and Hester is worried about him, I know. I should like to stay, mother,
-truly, if you will let me.”
-
-“Let you, child! I shall be thankful for your help. To tell the truth,
-it seemed really selfish to keep Hester this afternoon, only I did not
-know how to plan; I was sure cook could not get along without help,
-though she was willing to try, because she felt sorry for Hester.”
-
-“May I tell Hester about it, mother?” Celia asked, her eyes shining;
-“and she can carry my flowers and leave them at Marion’s.”
-
-The flowers and their owner went away together, followed by Mrs.
-Foster. As for the young ladies, Agatha took pretty pink silk stitches
-on the lovely white satin and said not a word, while Lorene, turning to
-the piano, played a few bars, and sang softly:
-
-    “Low in the grave he lay,
-    Jesus my Saviour,”
-
-breaking off to say: “Celia is a strange little girl, isn’t she?”
-
-“Very strange,” answered Agatha, and she finished a pink bud as she
-spoke. She was making an Easter offering.
-
-Nobody, it is safe to say, was more surprised at the turn of affairs
-than was Hester. She thought about it while she hurriedly combed the
-tangle of hair before her bit of broken glass, and made ready for going
-home. She was worried about the baby, but she divided her thoughts
-with this strange offering from Celia. She knew all about the Easter
-flowers, and the plans for the afternoon, and the high tea together at
-Marion’s lovely home. Celia’s talk had been full of it for the past two
-days. “I’d just like to know what made her do it, anyhow,” was Hester’s
-concluding question, offered aloud to the tin basin, in which she
-energetically washed her hands when the hair was done.
-
-Easter morning was beautiful with sunshine and the song of birds, when
-Celia, looking from her window, saw Hester tripping around to the back
-door. She had been allowed to stay at home all night.
-
-“O, Hester!” called Celia, “how is the baby?”
-
-Hester looked up with a glad smile. “He is better,” she said, “ever so
-much better. Mother would have sent me word, only she expected me. He
-laughed and crowed as soon as he saw me, and you can’t think what a
-lovely time I had with him. Say, Celia, I want to know what made you do
-it?”
-
-Celia’s sensitive face flushed, and she hesitated. How was she to tell
-Hester why she did it? From the next room came the notes of Lorene’s
-voice, as clear as any bird’s, rising high and pure:
-
-    “Low in the grave he lay,
-    Jesus my Saviour.”
-
-“It was that,” she said simply.
-
-“What?” asked Hester; “I don’t know what you mean.”
-
-“That that Lorene is singing. He ‘lay in the grave,’ you know, for us.
-That is why it is Easter. I wanted to do something for somebody, and I
-hadn’t any big thing.”
-
-“It was a big thing to me,” Hester said, and went inside the back door.
-Celia’s face was just a trifle shadowed. Despite every effort to put
-it away, the thought would come: “After all, I needn’t have given it
-up. The baby is better, and her mother would have sent her word, and
-another Saturday would have done just as well; and I missed all the
-beauty and the fun. I know how to arrange flowers.”
-
-The shadow staid just a little during the Sunday-school hour. The
-girls were eager over the delights of the day before—eager to know
-how she could possibly have staid away. The lovely cross made largely
-of her own flowers, and bearing on their green background in pure
-white blossoms the words, “He is risen,” was the most beautiful floral
-decoration in the church. “Aunt Laura made it,” Marion said. “You did
-not deserve to have it arranged so beautifully; we thought you ought to
-have had interest enough to have come and seen it, anyhow. Why didn’t
-you?”
-
-“Never mind now,” said Celia; “I cannot explain, only I thought I could
-not go.” Her offering seemed to her small and uncalled-for; she could
-not talk about it. Yet, before the morning prayer in church was over,
-the shadow had lifted. “I did it truly for Him,” said Celia softly, to
-herself; “He knows I did, and whether it was of use or not, it is all
-right.” And when Lorene sang, in a voice like an angel’s:
-
-    “Low in the grave he lay,
-    Jesus my Saviour,”
-
-she could not help being glad that she did it.
-
-That evening, when they were coming out of the Christian Endeavor
-meeting, the minister, who was shaking hands with the young people on
-every side, held in his left hand a single calla lily of rare beauty.
-As he held out his hand to Celia he laid the lily against her cheek and
-said: “That is for you, little girl. A token from the Master, I think,
-since he made it. Let me tell you something which will make it bloom
-for you forever. Hester came to me this evening to say that she wanted
-to belong to Jesus, and learn how to grow like him, just as you had.”
-
-                                             PANSY.
-
-[Illustration: BURSTING INTO LIFE.]
-
-[Illustration: A STORMY MORNING.]
-
-[Illustration: CROSSING THE ATLANTIC. (_See “The Old World Too.”_)]
-
-
-
-
-WHITE AS WOOL.
-
-
-WOOL is not always white. Its owner sometimes is black—was born black.
-It can’t help it, you see. Sometimes, however, it gets into the dirt,
-and the snowy wool becomes dirty.
-
-Sometimes it creeps among the burned stumps and logs, and soon looks as
-black as the stump itself.
-
-Now what happens? The shearer does not want to clip off such stuff, and
-the merchant can’t sell dirty wool, nor can the weaver weave a nice
-shawl from it; and, if he did, no clean Pansy would want to put it on
-week days or Sundays.
-
-What then? It must be washed. The dirty black sheep must be put into
-the water, and washed and washed and washed.
-
-Then let him go up from the water and give himself a good shaking and
-stand in the green grass and let the warm, shining sun dry its hair—I
-mean wool.
-
-Now it is white and soft and beautiful, and if Mr. Sheep could see
-himself in the looking-glass he might be proud of his beauty.
-
-The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. Sin is a dirty
-thing—worse than mud. Heathenism is a dreadfully dirty, filthy thing.
-The Gospel we send them is like water for the dirty wool.
-
-The Bible says to the worst sinner there is in the world:
-
-“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though
-they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.” (Is. i. 18.)
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-EASTER GREETING.
-
-
-    BE thy risen Lord, to-day,
-    All thy help and all thy stay;
-    All thy comfort in the night;
-    All thy gladness in the light;
-    Filling, with his love divine,
-    Every hungering of thine!
-                         ALICE F. DUNLAP.
-
-
-
-
-MISS LOUISE JOHNSON’S LETTER.
-
-
-SHE wrote it from Lien Chow, China. It was published in “Woman’s Work
-for Woman.”
-
-Here it is:
-
-“We expect to be packed into smaller boats this P. M. to go the last
-ten miles up the Sam Kong River. People are looking at the windows.
-Women are expressing astonishment that I can write. . . .
-
-“We have had a charming trip. The beauty of the country grows upon
-me. Many of the clear crystal waterfalls were several hundred feet in
-descent. The river winds around the bases of mountains, and so seems to
-be a succession of beautiful lakes. It reminds one of Delaware Water
-Gap.
-
-[Illustration: “WE TRAVELED IN THE DAYTIME.”]
-
-“We traveled in the daytime, stopping an hour or two. Then came the
-sick to our Dr. Machle. We gave tracts to the people. At one place the
-women came in little boats. I stood at the window and read to them.
-They listened, and thanked me for ‘teaching’ them.
-
-“I want to write more letters, though I now write many. It takes three
-months for a letter and its reply from New York to Canton; four months
-to Sam Kong. I like to write, and am delighted to get letters. Some of
-the best have been from strangers. So all my dear young friends may
-continue to write me; I will answer as soon as I can get time.”
-
-
-
-
-BABY’S CORNER.
-
-A MAY MORNING.
-
-
-IN a green yard stands a gray old house. In the house live six happy
-children. They have many things to make them glad and happy.
-
-All around are green fields and hills and tall trees. Every day they
-see the pretty pictures which the sun makes in the sky when he gets up
-and goes to bed. There are no big houses in the way to hide the red and
-pink clouds.
-
-A little brook goes dancing by at the foot of the hill. You can see the
-little white stones through the water.
-
-They have a great many pets—colts and calves and chickens and rabbits
-and cats.
-
-And there are ever so many nice things for them to do. They fish in the
-brook or take off their shoes and stockings and wade in the water. They
-hunt in the grass for red berries. They swing in the big swing under
-the maple-tree. They go after the cows and hunt butterflies, and tumble
-on the hay in the barn.
-
-Such good times!
-
-This bright May morning mamma and all six of them are out in the
-orchard. The apple-trees are full of pink and white flowers, and the
-cherry-trees are all white, like pop corn.
-
-What a pretty sight!
-
-The air is sweet with the breath of the blossoms. Everything is gay
-and happy. The brook is tinkling, the bees are humming, the birds are
-singing.
-
-Little children must sing, too. Hark! hear them.
-
-It is a little song which begins:
-
-    “Blooming May
-    Makes all gay.”
-
-And this little song ends like this—the children all like to sing it:
-
-    “Tra la la la la la la. Tra la la la.”
-
-                                             MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
-
-
-
-
-KITTY KNEW ABOUT SHEEP.
-
-
-    “SEVEN sheep were standing
-      By the pasture wall.
-    Tell me,” said the teacher,
-      To her scholars small,
-    “One poor sheep was frightened,
-      Jumped and ran away.
-    One from seven—how many
-      Woolly sheep would stay?”
-
-    Up went Kitty’s fingers—
-      A farmer’s daughter she,
-    Not so bright at figures
-      As she ought to be.
-    “Please, ma’am”—“Well, then, Kitty,
-      Tell us, if you know.”
-    “Please, if one jumped over
-      All the rest would go.”
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    SAID Willie: “The Man in the Moon
-    In Mother Goose came down too soon,
-      For I’ve read it over and over;
-    But he’d done a sillier thing to-day,
-    When Flossie and I went out to play
-      And roll in the field of clover.
-    For up in the sky, right overhead,
-    When every star had gone to bed,
-      And the sun was shining bright,
-    We saw his moon, looking pale and thin,
-    Because he’d forgotten to take it in,
-      After hanging there all night!”
-                                  —_Selected._
-
-[Illustration: BURNS’S HIGHLAND MARY.]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-THE BEE’S WISDOM.
-
-
-    SAID a wandering little maiden
-    To a bee with honey laden,
-    “Bee, at all the flowers you work,
-    Yet in some does poison lurk.”
-
-    “That I know, my pretty maiden,”
-    Said the bee with honey laden,
-    “But the poison I forsake,
-    And the honey only take.”
-
-    “Cunning bee, with honey laden,
-    That is right,” replied the maiden;
-    “So will I, from all I meet,
-    Only draw the good and sweet.”
-                              —_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-THE HARD TEXT.
-
-(_Matt._ xii. 34.)
-
-
-“O GENERATION of vipers.”
-
-Thus Jesus called the Jews or their leaders. Put this with other names
-he gave them—“hypocrites,” “fools and blind,” “serpents” (read the
-twenty-third chapter of Matthew)—and maybe you will wonder how he, so
-gentle and forgiving, could do it.
-
-“Yes,” you say, “they did provoke Him; they treated Him most
-outrageously, calling Him all sorts of bad names, and finally putting
-Him to death in the most cruel manner. But it does not seem quite right
-for Him to call them vile names back again. It looks as though He lost
-his temper and became awfully angry with his enemies.”
-
-Indeed it does say He once looked around upon them with anger. So you
-are right with that word, but its real meaning is indignation, the
-righteous feeling every one should have against wrong. Thus you ought
-to feel against swearing, stealing, the liquor business and all such
-things. It would be wicked for you to smile at such things. So much for
-anger—the anger of Jesus. Now about “calling names.”
-
-You must remember Jesus knew the hearts of these Pharisee Jews—how
-black, how vile they were, while they thought themselves quite good and
-beautiful. Gentle talk to them did no good. To have them see themselves
-as they really were, he must be plain; he must speak out. What he did
-was not “calling names” as one boy does to another, when he is “mad”
-with him and hates him. Jesus did not hate them, bad as they were. He
-would save them if they would repent and come to him. So he must warn
-them by telling them the awful truth.
-
-So it was; Jesus could draw some by gentle, loving words and ways;
-others, if saved at all, must be driven. Jesus acted according to the
-kind of people he was speaking to.
-
-May we sometimes deal this terrible way with sinners? May ministers do
-it? Some years ago Rev. C. G. Finney did often speak to many who came
-out to oppose him and make fun of religion—he did speak very plainly
-and severely. It is said Mr. Moody once rebuked a wicked man this very
-way. But not every one can wisely do it. It must be done with great
-sorrow. No doubt it almost broke Jesus’ heart to say such plain things.
-A parent sometimes must punish a naughty child; it hurts him to do it,
-however. He often weeps more than the punished child.
-
-                                                        L.
-
-
-
-
-SOMETHING FOR PAPA.
-
-
-BY this time you are feeling that papa is being neglected, and that
-mamma and sister are having all the gifts; though I believe papa would
-like the nice writing-case with pockets which we planned in November
-quite as well, perhaps, as any member of the family. However, I am sure
-of one thing he will like, and it is something which you, my girl, can
-make, with some industry and very little expense.
-I do hope you know how to knit, the nice old-fashioned knitting which
-our dear grandmothers understood so well? If you do not, my first
-advice to you is to master that fine art which has of late years gone
-so nearly out of fashion; it is coming to the front again, and there
-is no end to the neat little comforts which you can make with the aid
-of a ball of tidy cotton and two large knitting needles. I will not
-attempt to teach you the stitch on paper, though if you sat by my side
-I could show it to you with very little trouble. If there is not a dear
-white-haired grandmother in your home, as I hope there is, borrow one
-of some friend, and beg her to teach you how to knit. Of course it is
-just possible that mamma herself understands the stitch; you might try
-her.
-
-Having learned it—which I am sure you can do in an hour—get two
-large-size needles of steel, or ivory, or wood—I like to use wood—and
-a ball of the very coarsest tidy cotton you can find, and set to work.
-Cast on as many stitches as the needle will conveniently carry, and
-knit back and forth, back and forth industriously, until you have a
-strip a yard long. Oh! it will require patience and industry; I told
-you that in the beginning, you know. Having finished the strip begin
-again, and make another precisely like it; then a third, and perhaps,
-if your needles are not very long, a fourth—you might consult with
-mamma or Auntie as to that. When the four are finished—in order to be
-sure to have the article large enough we will say four—fold the side
-edges of two neatly together, and knit them together with a crochet
-hook, or sew them with a needle and some of the tidy cotton, as you
-will; add the third and fourth in the same manner, and when all is
-complete if you do not have a bath towel which will please papa better
-than any Turkish towel he ever bought, I shall be astonished and
-disappointed. For fear of discouraging you at the outset, I mentioned a
-yard as the length, but let me whisper to you, entirely in confidence,
-that if you should make it a yard and a half long, or even a trifle
-longer, papa would like it better still. You see I have heard the
-gentlemen groan over short bathing towels, and I know all about it.
-
-You see with how very little expense such an article could be made,
-and I really do not know of any one thing which will add more to the
-comfort of the toilet. Some gentlemen like very coarse and rough
-bathing towels, in which case macremé cord is sometimes used instead of
-tidy cotton; probably mamma could advise you wisely in this direction,
-also.
-
-If you undertake such a gift, I hope you will have the kindness
-to write and tell me how you succeeded, when and how the gift was
-presented, what was said, and all about it.
-
-                                               Your friend,
-                                                        PANSY.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    IF anything unkind you hear
-    About some one you know, my dear,
-    Do not, I pray you, it repeat
-    When you that some one chance to meet;
-    For such news has a leaden way
-    Of clouding o’er a sunny day.
-    But if you something pleasant hear
-    About some one you know, my dear,
-    Make haste—to make great haste ’twere well,
-    To her or him the same to tell;
-    For such news has a golden way
-    Of lighting up a cloudy day.—_Selected._
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-A Walking Wonder
-
-
-    Sir Geoffrey had a little son
-    Who liked to strut about
-    And wave a sword or shoot a bow
-    And raise a martial shout.
-
-    One day he saw a sight like this
-    [Helmet walking with four legs and a tail]
-    And did he run? Oh, no!
-    He caught this walking helmet fast
-    And raised the visor so!
-    [Cat under helmet]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Transcriber’s Notes:
-
-The title for “A DELIGHTFUL WRITER” was taken from the page header as
-the story itself began with only the illustration.
-
-HOWARD’S WAY: “attemped” changed to “attempted” (once attempted to
-answer)
-
-WHEN HE WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD: “mysstery” changed to “mystery” (whose
-mystery fills)
-
-
-
-
-
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-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pansy's Sunday Book, by Various
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Pansy's Sunday Book
-
-Author: Various
-
-Editor: Pansy
-        Isabella Alden
-
-Release Date: August 28, 2016 [EBook #52910]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PANSY'S SUNDAY BOOK ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-<h1 class="faux">PANSY’S SUNDAY BOOK</h1>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 570px;">
-<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="570" height="800" alt="cover" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 424px;">
-<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="424" height="600" alt="girl reading to children our of doors" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<div class="maintitle">
-PANSY’S<br />
-<br />
-SUNDAY BOOK<br />
-<br /></div>
-<div class="center"><br /><br /><br />BY<br />
-
-<span class="author">FAMOUS AMERICAN WRITERS</span><br /><br /><br /></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 321px;">
-<img src="images/title.jpg" width="321" height="251" alt="mother surrounded by children" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="center"><br /><br /><br /><i>FULLY ILLUSTRATED</i><br /><br /><br /><br />
-
-
-BOSTON<br />
-LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="copyright">
-<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1886</span>, by <span class="smcap">D. Lothrop &amp; Co.</span><br />
-<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1888, 1893</span>, by <span class="smcap">D. Lothrop Company</span>.<br />
-<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1895</span>, by <span class="smcap">Lothrop Publishing Company</span>.<br />
-—————<br />
-<i>All rights reserved.</i><br />
-<br />
-<br />
-J. J. Arakelyan, Printer, Boston.<br />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
-<img src="images/i-003.jpg" width="600" height="374" alt="man and child sittin gon shore" />
-<div class="caption">N LATE NOVEMBER.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="center">—————————</div>
-
-
-<h2>A STORY TO REMEMBER, IN NOVEMBER.</h2>
-
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">I</span>F you’ll sit on my knee</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">As still as a stone,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And listen to me</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">While we’re all alone—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">While the wind whistles cold,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the snow falls so fast,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">While the young and the old</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Feel the chill of the blast—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">I will tell you about</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A poor little lad</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Who now, without doubt,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is smiling and glad.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="center">(<i>His picture.</i>)</div>
-<div class="verse">Brown and curly his head,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bright blue was his eye,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">His feet bare and red,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">His look rather shy;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">His face, somewhat soiled,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unfamiliar with soap,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Was thin, while there curled</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In his neck, like a rope,</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Certain locks which had grown,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unhindered by shears</span></div>
-<div class="verse">That he never had known,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">You would think, all his years;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">His shirt was a sight,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">You may think, to behold,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Through which shone the light</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unblushingly bold.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">His trousers, in shreds,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">His legs dangled round,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Long needing the threads</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which they never had found;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">While his cap—what was left</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the original pattern—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Of all shape was bereft,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And looked like a slattern.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Such, such was the creature</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who stood in the door;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">In dress, form and feature—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nothing less, nothing more.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">May you love this, my lad</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the slums of the city;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Not think him all bad,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">But regard him with pity.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="center">(<i>The name.</i>)</div>
-<div class="verse">Though nameless he stood</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clad in rags in that door,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Whether evil or good,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">He is nameless no more.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">We’ll call him hereafter,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">If you make no objection,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">In tears—or in laughter,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">On further reflection—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Thomas Tinker, all told,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">But “Tommy” for short,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Until he grows old—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Perhaps then, when in sport.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">But I’ll tell you I think, sir,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Before saying more,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">This is not the “Tom Tinker”</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">You’ve heard of before,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">But another, whose fame</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is as worthy of mention</span></div>
-<div class="verse">As the first of his name</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who claimed your attention.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="center">(<i>The story.</i>)</div>
-<div class="verse">We will trace him as we may, on his way</div>
-<div class="verse">From that doorstep, where at play on that day;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">We will see just how he earned</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">That for which his young heart yearned,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">How from good he firmly turned not astray.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Selling papers he began, little man,</div>
-<div class="verse">Then on errands often ran, like a “van”;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then his matches he would sell,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blacking boots the while, as well;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And with cheerful voice would tell all his plan.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Tried his courage was, I’m told; nor condoled</div>
-<div class="verse">By humanity, which rolled, with its gold,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">On its laughing, rushing way,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like a crowd of boys at play,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Or a flock of sheep astray from the fold.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">But his heart was brave and true, and he knew</div>
-<div class="verse">That to flinch would never do; so say you?</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus he bravely bore his part</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With a true and loyal heart,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Never doubting from the start; “tried and true.”</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The days seemed often long; but his song</div>
-<div class="verse">Rang brave and strong; just the song</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the wares he had to sell;</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the news they had to tell—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Good and bad alike as well, for the throng.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">And he worked, and worked away, every day,</div>
-<div class="verse">With his heart as light and gay, as the May;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And he did his level best, late and early;</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Never grumbling, never sad, and never surly;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">With a smile ’neath his golden head and curly, as at play.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">So he fought the fiends of hunger and of cold, true as gold;</div>
-<div class="verse">Like a veteran tried and bold, I am told,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Was this soldier in life’s battle</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">’Mid the daily hum and rattle;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Driven forth like sheep or cattle, to be sold.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Many brave fall by the way, every day;</div>
-<div class="verse">Some survive, their country’s stay; well they may;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">But of all the rank and file</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grandly marching up the aisle</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Of stern duty, all the while, who can say</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Which the most deserve the name, writ in fame?</div>
-<div class="verse">Those who fell ’mid shot and flame, on land or main,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or those who in obscurer strife</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Have given heart, and soul, and life</span></div>
-<div class="verse">For husband ill, for child, or wife, in duty “tame”?</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Well, Tommy stood, sturdy and grave—no slave—</div>
-<div class="verse">His soul had what we well might crave; no knave</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Was he; but faithful in the daily fight,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cheerful, happy, eager, bright—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">A nineteenth century valiant knight, youthful, brave.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Perhaps you’d like to know his foes, who arose</div>
-<div class="verse">To strike him down with deadly blows. Who knows</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">But such as he? Who else can tell</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The horrid shapes, the cruel spell</span></div>
-<div class="verse">These demons from the pit of hell disclose?</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Hunger,” you say, “sickness and cold; no fold;</div>
-<div class="verse">No home that such as he might hold, to mould</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And make them good, and true, and wise?”</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, yes! and on the streets before his eyes</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Were Satan’s minions in disguise; so bold!</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">These dens of ill, they grow, you know;</div>
-<div class="verse">We find them everywhere as we go, ready to throw</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their snares with fiendish skill.</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Almost ’twould seem, to suit their will,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">They’d gorge earth’s prisons to their fill below.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">God looked on Tommy in the fight for right,</div>
-<div class="verse">Saw darkness struggling with the light, so bright—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">That light which shone on Eastern plain</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where shepherds heard angelic strain</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Such as will surely come again some night.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">God knew about the thrall, the small,</div>
-<div class="verse">Weak hands which yet might fall, the call</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which all too loud might prove to be</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For one so young, so little helped as he,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">So tempted oft, and yet withal so free to fall.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">And so, one cold Thanksgiving Day, so gay</div>
-<div class="verse">With jingling bells, and sleigh and play,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The father sent a messenger in love,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">To take poor Tommy to his home above,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Where, clad in garments whiter than the dove, he’ll stay.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">And now no more he’ll walk that street, where sleet</div>
-<div class="verse">And slush so cruel hurt his feet; repeat</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">No more his song of paper vending,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shiver no more while restless horse attending,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">But join in song triumphant, never ending and sweet.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">But on this day of this November, remember</div>
-<div class="verse">Tommies there are, with feet as cold and tender, remember,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">As his once were, who now on golden strand</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Meet rich and poor, of this and every land.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">These need your store, your love, your helping hand, remember!</div>
-<div class="sig">R.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ROBERT TRUESDALE’S LOGIC.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-capi">THEY were great friends, Robert
-Truesdale and Claire Waterman.
-During the long, bright
-summer at the seashore they
-spent as much time together as
-possible, and discussed all sorts
-of questions. They had opinions concerning
-everything under the sun, and agreed so well,
-generally, that to find a subject upon which
-they totally differed only added interest to the
-summer.</p>
-
-<p>One of these subjects was found one morning
-when they sat together on the beach. It began—that
-is, the discussion did—by Robert’s making
-the astonishing statement that he never went
-to circuses.</p>
-
-<p>Claire stopped playing with the sand which
-she was letting run idly through her fingers, and
-turned so that she could see his face. “How
-very queer!” she said; “I thought all boys
-went to circuses. Did you never go?”</p>
-
-<p>“I went once,” said Robert, low-voiced,
-“when I was quite a little fellow, and that was
-once too often. I never cared to try it again.”</p>
-
-<p>“I cannot imagine why. I think circuses are
-splendid. We never go in the city, of course.
-Why, they don’t have circuses in cities, do they?
-But I go to my Auntie’s every summer for two
-months—I always have until this summer—and
-Uncle West takes us children to the circus
-just as regularly. That is the reason I like the
-country so much better than the city, you can
-go to such queer out-of-door things. And I
-think the little circus ponies are too cunning
-for anything; I have always wanted one for
-my own. Mamma laughs, and says she doesn’t
-know but I will be a circus rider when I grow
-up—and then the clown is so funny. Why
-don’t you want to go, Robert? What happened
-when you went once? Was there an accident?”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said Robert slowly, “I suppose not;
-I am afraid it was an every-day affair. It is a
-long story, Claire, and begins away back of
-that day. I have been brought up differently
-from you, you know. My father was a minister,
-and he and my mother did not approve of
-shows of that kind, and I was never taken to
-them when I was a small boy. I never heard
-nor thought much about them; we lived in a
-large town, but not too large for the traveling
-circus; but I got the idea, somehow, that only
-low people attended such places, and never
-coaxed to go.”</p>
-
-<p>Claire exclaimed over this, “Why, Robert,
-where my Auntie lives everybody goes, only
-the minister and a few old dried-up people.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 607px;">
-<img src="images/i-004.jpg" width="607" height="384" alt="birds and water" />
-<div class="caption">“HOW VERY QUEER!”</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Yes, I know,” said Robert gravely; “some
-people in the country have different views from
-those which my father and mother had; but I
-did not know it when I was a little chap; I
-thought that all respectable people thought
-alike. The first time I changed my ideas any
-was when I had gone to spend the year with
-my Grandmother in the country—that was the
-summer after mother died, and my father had
-died the winter before. I found that a great
-many country people went to circuses. All the
-boys and girls who went to school with me in
-the little old schoolhouse were looking forward
-to going as a matter of course; and I heard
-more talk about the circus that summer than I
-had ever heard in my life before. I began to
-want to go very much. The more I talked with
-the boys, the more I became convinced that it
-was because my father was a minister that I
-had been held away from such places. ‘Of
-course ministers ought not to go,’ I told myself,
-‘because’—and there I would have to
-stop; I knew no reason why they should not go
-where other people did, and could not reason
-about it any better than some grown people can
-nowadays; still I called it a settled point, and
-began to coax my grandmother to let me go to
-the circus. ‘Just this once,’ I said to her; ‘I
-want to see for myself.’</p>
-
-<p>“I have never understood how she came to
-let me have my way, unless it was because she
-was a very indulgent grandmother, and pitied
-the orphan boy, and could not bear to say ‘No.’
-Any way, I received permission, and the necessary
-quarter of a dollar, and started off in great
-glee.</p>
-
-<p>“I ought to tell you,” he continued, after a
-slight hesitation—and the flush on his brown
-cheek deepened a little—“that although I was
-only a little fellow ten years old, I was a member
-of the church, and was trying to live my
-religion. There was a ragged little boy not
-much older than myself, very ignorant and neglected,
-but a leader in all sorts of mischief,
-whom I had had ambitions to help. I had
-been kind to him, instead of making sport of
-his rags, as the other boys did, until I had a
-certain sort of influence over him, and he had
-partly promised me to try to be a better boy.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, I went to the circus, and saw the
-ponies, and heard the jokes, and was delighted;
-but as I stood around outside afterwards, open-mouthed
-and open-eyed, I saw two of the men
-whom I had most admired in the ring, fighting.
-They had been drinking just enough to make
-them quarrelsome, and such horrid oaths as
-they were using I had never even imagined possible
-before. I stood still with fright and horror
-and watched the blows, and listened to the vile
-language, until somebody touched my elbow,
-and there was little Pete, the ragged boy. He
-was grinning wickedly. ‘My eyes!’ he said,
-‘was you in there?’ nodding toward the tent.
-‘I was struck all of a heap when I see you
-come out. I didn’t think this kind was for
-you. I thought you belonged to the “goody-goodies,”
-you know. Miss Wheeler, she said
-when she was talking to us fellows about it,
-“O, no! Robert Truesdale won’t go to the circus,
-I am sure; he is his father’s own boy, and
-is walking the same road he did.” I guess you
-got off the road this time, didn’t you?’</p>
-
-<p>“I do not believe I shall ever forget the
-wicked leer in the little fellow’s face as he said
-those words; and I am sure I shall never forget
-the feeling of shame which I had as I looked at
-those two dreadful men with the blood streaming
-down their faces, and the vile words streaming
-from their mouths, and realized that I had
-spent my afternoon in laughing at their speeches,
-and had been found out of the road in which my
-father had walked—so far out that this street
-boy had noticed it! I turned and ran away as
-fast and as far as I could, and I do not think I
-shall ever attend another circus.”</p>
-
-<p>“How very strange!” said Claire; “but
-then, after all, Robert, bad men will swear and
-drink and fight. You did not make them any
-worse by going to see them ride.”</p>
-
-<p>“I can’t be sure of that, Claire. What if
-my twenty-five cents helped to encourage them
-to live the life which kept them in the midst of
-such temptations? That is what good men who
-have studied and thought about these things say
-of the circus. Besides,” and here the boy’s face
-took on a little touch of lofty scorn, “I want to
-grow up to be such a character that the jokes
-and jumpings of evil men cannot amuse me; I
-want to learn to be above them. Then you see
-what the ragged little street boy thought?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” said Claire gravely; “I never thought
-much about it; I just went, of course, because
-the others did, but I shouldn’t like to be counted
-on that side, exactly. Robert, maybe I won’t
-go any more. I must think about it.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>HOW THE DEER KNEW.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-m.jpg" width="120" height="119" alt="M" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">MY neighbor’s little boy one evening
-saw his teacher coming up
-the lane and called her in to
-take a look at his pet fawn.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, if he didn’t get half
-a foot taller since I saw him
-last,” said the teacher; “if he keeps on like
-that, Tommy, he will be a big deer the first
-thing you know.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, he’s growing,” said Tommy; “but I
-wanted to see you about something else. He
-seems to be sick, and we do not know what to
-do about it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, he looks all right now; what seemed
-to be the matter with him?”</p>
-
-<p>“He doesn’t eat,” said Tommy, “and he upset
-his water dish when I tried to make him
-drink. I went up on the hill to get him the
-best grass I could find, but it’s no use; he must
-be sick.”</p>
-
-<p>“Let me see that grass,” said the teacher.
-“I thought so,” she laughed, when Tommy
-took her to the fawn’s fodder corner; “you got
-a lot of wormwood leaves mixed up with the
-grass, and one of the leaves got in that water
-dish.”</p>
-
-<p>Tommy stared. “Oh! maybe that’s the
-reason he upset his water,” he burst out; “but
-I had no idea that would make any difference.
-What makes him so very particular about a
-few leaves, I wonder?”</p>
-
-<p>“You will know if you taste them,” said the
-teacher; “and maybe your fawn wanted to get
-even with you for teaching him to jump through
-a hoop.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, he seems to like that,” laughed
-Tommy.</p>
-
-<p>“That’s just what I mean,” said the teacher;
-“he felt so much obliged to you and wanted to
-pay you back—by teaching you a good lesson.
-An animal, you see, won’t touch any bad-tasting
-food if it is in good health, and if you give
-it the wrong kind of drink it doesn’t mind its
-thirst, but waits till it gets something better.
-And that’s an answer to the question you asked
-me a few weeks ago, when you wanted to know
-how people could help getting fond of drinks
-that make them drunk and sick. They should
-let such stuff alone altogether, if they find out
-it does not taste right at first. You found out
-something about that yourself, didn’t you?”</p>
-
-<p>“About what—the ugly taste of bad drinks,
-you mean?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes; don’t you remember what you told
-me about that hotel where you got thirsty, and
-tried a glass of something you thought was
-lemonade, and found it was beer?”</p>
-
-<p>“O, yes! I remember,” laughed Tommy; “I
-never tasted anything worse in my life. I don’t
-see how in the world people can get fond of
-such stuff.”</p>
-
-<p>“That’s just it,” said the teacher; “they
-should do as your little deer did this afternoon,
-and never meddle with a drink that tastes very
-bad the first time they try it, unless they
-should be sick and need a bitter medicine for
-particular purposes. If a healthy person should
-try to drink big glasses full of ugly medicine
-just for fun every day he would soon be sick,
-and few medicines taste as bad as some of the
-drinks so many people get drunk on.”</p>
-
-<p>“Cod-liver oil doesn’t, nor herb tea,” said
-Tommy. “I tried them, and know they are
-not half as ugly as beer. And they say beer
-isn’t the worst yet,” he added; “there are
-drinks that taste like burning fire, if you get a
-drop on your tongue. I don’t see how in the
-world anybody can get fond of such stuff.”</p>
-
-<p>“Let me tell you,” said the teacher. “The
-first time they try it they cannot help disliking
-it, and they should take the hint to let it alone
-altogether. But if they keep drinking it in
-spite of their horror, it will lead to a very
-strange result. Their nature gradually gets
-changed, till a time comes when they cannot do
-without a drink that made them shudder when
-they tasted it first. It is that way with beer
-and brandy, and even with a drink made of
-that very wormwood that would have made your
-deer sick if it had eaten it. Just rub one of
-those leaves between your fingers, and then put
-the tip of your finger to your tongue. That is
-just exactly the taste of a stuff called absinthe,
-and brandy and strong beer are almost as bad.”</p>
-
-<p>“You say people get fond of it if they drink
-it again and again,” mused Tommy, “but what
-makes them do that, I wonder? What makes
-them try it at all?”</p>
-
-<p>“They see other people do it,” said the
-teacher, “and so they try it themselves, and
-keep on trying, because they think Mr. So-and-so
-ought to know better than nature. Their
-own nature warns them against it, but they do
-not mind that warning, and keep on till it is too
-late to turn back. Now you might ask me to
-tell you who first took it in his head to make
-himself sick with such a foolish habit. That
-seems a puzzle, indeed, but it has been explained
-in this way. Before people drank wine
-they drank the fresh juice of grapes—‘must,’
-as they call it—and probably tried to keep
-some of it in bottles and jars. Now in warm
-weather sweet juices of that sort are very apt
-to spoil—they ferment, as it is called, and
-their pleasant taste becomes sharp and disagreeable.
-Some stingy housekeeper in old
-times may have forced his servants to drink
-that spoiled stuff rather than throw it away,
-and after a while they got fond of it, and the
-foolish habit spread all over the country. Now
-wine is nothing but fermented or spoiled must.
-Beer is fermented barley water. They let barley
-get soaked in water, and then mix it and
-stir till it gets that sharp taste that made you
-sick when you tried it by mistake in that summer
-hotel last year.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes; and on that same trip I once got in
-the wrong railway car,” said Tommy, “and
-that car was full of tobacco smoke enough to
-make my little brother cry, and I thought it
-would choke me before the train stopped and
-we got back in the right car. I know a boy
-who got so sick he had to go to bed when he
-first tried to smoke; but I am sure I shall never
-try it at all.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 418px;">
-<img src="images/i-007.jpg" width="418" height="600" alt="two little girls and kitty" />
-<div class="caption">SHE’S SUCH A DARLING!</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“That’s right, Tommy; let such things alone
-altogether,” said the teacher. “It’s very easy
-never to begin, but if you should get fond of
-such bad habits you might find it hard to get
-rid of them.”</p>
-
-<p>“I have a book about travels,” said Tommy,
-“and I read that the American Indians first
-taught white men to smoke. One of my cousins
-has been in Mexico, and when I asked him what
-made the Indians so fond of tobacco smoke, he
-said they first used it to drive mosquitoes out
-of their cabins. They burn tobacco leaves on
-a hot pan, and the gnats all fly out of the
-window.”</p>
-
-<p>“I should not wonder,” laughed the teacher;
-“and that would show that mosquitoes have
-more sense than those Indians.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Felix L. Oswald.</span><br />
-</p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>SOMETHING FOR MAMMA.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp;GET the idea and most of the
-details from Harper’s Bazar.
-The article from which they
-are taken says the contrivance
-is for an invalid, but let me
-assure you that mamma will
-like it very much, or, for the matter of that,
-papa also, though they have not thought of being
-invalids.</p>
-
-<p>First, contrive to get a nice pine board about
-twenty-five inches long and twenty-one wide (if
-you are making it for me I should like the board
-a little narrower, but perhaps mamma might
-not); cover it with felt of any color you please—perhaps
-it would be well to have in mind the
-furniture in the room where it is chiefly to live,
-and secure a color which will harmonize, or at
-least not “fight,” with the prevailing color
-there.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps, however, you will be in the condition
-in which I have sometimes found myself;
-namely, with a piece of felt of a certain color
-which obstinately refuses to turn into another,
-no matter how much I might desire it; in that
-case, if I were you I would go right ahead with
-my present; I feel sure mamma will find it useful,
-even though it is not just the shade which
-you and she like best. The same remarks will
-apply to material. I have used cretonne, or
-even calico, where I would have preferred felt
-if I could have got it. Well, we will pretend
-to cover this pine board with felt; we will have
-the felt so long and wide that it will reach say
-for six inches or so below the board at both
-ends, and on the front side. Then make neat
-little pockets for these ends and side, with a
-flap to button down over them when desired.
-These are to hold letters, envelopes, bits of
-poetry, scraps of prose, recipes, in fact anything
-which mamma desires to have convenient
-when she sits down to write. If mamma uses
-a fountain pen I think she will like exceedingly
-a little narrow pocket, just wide enough for her
-pen to slip in easily, and just deep enough for
-it to stand upright and put its head out for her
-to get hold of. If she does not, a “traveler’s
-inkstand,” leather covered, may be glued at the
-right end of the board; it has a “spring” cover,
-you will remember, and takes faithful care of
-the ink when closed. A stamp box of wood or
-paper may be glued at the other end.</p>
-
-<p>What a delightful present that will be when
-you get it done! I am sure “mamma” will
-appreciate and enjoy it. The Bazar says a
-row of brass-headed nails should be driven all
-around the edges of the board, I suppose to
-hold the felt firmly in place; but a little girl
-who had no brass nails could very easily sew
-her felt or cretonne or calico around the under
-side of the board, and make her pockets separately,
-sewing them firmly to their places, if she
-wished.</p>
-
-<p>In fact, there is room in this device for many
-changes and improvements. I can imagine
-an ingenious girl or boy—or perhaps it would
-be better to say girl and boy—putting their
-heads together, and making many variations
-which would be a comfort to the fortunate
-owner. Try it, and let me know the result.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 413px;">
-<img src="images/i-010.jpg" width="413" height="600" alt="girl trying to dress doll" />
-<div class="caption">SHE STRUGGLED WITH THE SLEEVES.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>NANNIE’S THANKSGIVING.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT was very early in the morning;
-earlier, in fact, than Nannie
-was in the habit of being
-up; but on account of Thanksgiving
-Day, and the fact that
-they were all going, to Aunt
-Cornelia’s to dinner, Nannie thought she ought
-to be on hand early. She was waiting for
-mamma to give her her bath, and sat down to
-pet Rosamond Catherine Lorinda in the meantime.
-The middle name, Catherine, was in
-honor of Grandma Patterson, but Nannie did
-not like it very well, and felt obliged to place
-it between two names which she called “delicious,”
-in order to tolerate it. A bright thought
-occurred to her; she might dress the child for
-the Thanksgiving dinner while she waited. It
-was while she struggled with the sleeve which
-did not want to go on that the thought came
-which caused all her trouble.</p>
-
-<p>“This sleeve is too small,” she said; “I
-b’lieve my child’s arm must have grown a great
-deal since she wore this dress before; she ought
-to have had a new dress for Thanksgiving; she
-would look sweet in a white embroidered one
-trimmed with lace.” Just then the baby in the
-willow cradle at her side nestled in his sleep,
-and Nannie turned and looked at him.</p>
-
-<p>“If Rosamond Catherine Lorinda only had
-one dress like what Teddy has so many of, I
-should be too perfectly happy,” she said. “Just
-think, I b’lieve he has as many as ’leven or
-eight! Mamma might borrow me one just for
-to-day; it would be too long, but I could cut it
-off at the bottom; it would be just as easy to
-sew it on again when Teddy needed it; and the
-sleeves I could loop up with pink ribbons, and
-she would look too perfectly sweet!”</p>
-
-<p>The more she thought about it, the more the
-longing grew; at last it began to seem a positive
-injustice that Teddy should have so many
-clothes and not be willing to lend any to Rosamond
-Catherine Lorinda. “I know he would,
-if he understood,” said Nannie, looking approvingly
-upon the sleeping baby; “he loves my
-Rosamond, and kisses her just as cunning!
-And he has such a perfectly lovely lot of
-dresses! I just mean to look in the bruro
-drawer and count them.” Saying which, she
-tiptoed toward the bureau behind the cradle,
-and opened the second drawer. To be sure she
-was barefooted, and could not have made much
-noise; besides, if she was doing right why
-should she care if her footsteps were heard?
-Nevertheless, she instinctively tiptoed along,
-and opened the drawer as softly as she could;
-and it was not for fear of waking Teddy, either.</p>
-
-<p>There lay the dresses in a fluffy white heap;
-on the top was the one which Nannie most
-coveted.</p>
-
-<p>“Teddy hardly ever wears it,” she said reassuringly,
-as she drew it out; “I guess mamma
-doesn’t like it very much or she would put it on
-him oftener; and Rosamond Catherine will look
-too perfectly sweet for anything in it. I am
-most sure mamma would not care. I could cut
-it off right through all those little embroidery
-holes, then Grandma could sew them together
-again just as easy.”</p>
-
-<p>I grieve to tell you that she did exactly that
-dreadful thing. Not immediately; she resolved
-to try the dress on first, and see if it would do;
-and despite the fact that the waist was many
-times too large, and the limp arms were altogether
-lost in the sleeves, the waxen-haired
-beauty looked so enchanting to her mother’s
-eyes, under those billows of white, that in a
-very short space of time the shining shears were
-making a long, crooked line through the costly
-embroidery with which Teddy’s best dress was
-trimmed.</p>
-
-<p>O, me! the troubles which in this way were
-stored up for naughty, foolish Nannie. They
-began almost immediately; for despite the fact
-that Nannie had coaxed herself into the fancy
-that there was no harm in what she did, she
-found she was not willing to have her mother
-know about it, and crumpled the elegant dress
-into a small bundle and thrust it under the great
-rug at her feet when she heard her mother’s
-footsteps. All through the breakfast hour, and
-even at family worship, she was engaged in
-planning how she should get Rosamond Catherine
-Lorinda dressed and wrapped in her traveling
-cloak without any one having seen her;
-for fond as she was of exhibiting the beauty,
-she found that to-day she would rather her
-charms were hidden from all eyes.</p>
-
-<p>She was still planning ways and means when
-the discovery came. She was not prepared for
-it, because when Teddy had so many dresses,
-how could she suppose that when her mother
-opened the drawer to select one she would exclaim,
-“Why, what has become of his dress?
-I laid it on top so as to get it without disturbing
-the others.”</p>
-
-<p>A good deal of talk followed. Papa suggested
-that she had laid it in some other drawer,
-and Aunt Laura said perhaps Grandma had
-taken it to set a stitch in; and Grandma affirmed
-that she had not, and asked what Nannie
-was longing to: “Why don’t you take one of
-the others, daughter, and get the little fellow
-ready while he is good-natured?”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, but where can it be?” asked the puzzled
-mother, closing the drawer. “I am sure I
-laid it here, on the top. I wanted Adelaide to
-see him in that dress, because she sent me the
-embroidery for it, you know, and it is more
-expensive than any I should have bought.”</p>
-
-<p>Nannie caught her breath nervously over this;
-she had not supposed the embroidery was so
-choice; she might just as well have taken one
-of the other dresses if she had only known.</p>
-
-<p>Just at that moment Susan, who was bustling
-about, packing Teddy’s traveling bag, stooped
-down and pulled at something white under the
-rug, as she said, “Shall I put in some playthings,
-Mrs. Walters? Why, what’s this?”</p>
-
-<p>What was it, sure enough, but the lost dress
-cut in two, in a fearful zigzag manner, directly
-through the costly embroidery! Can you imagine
-what followed? I am sure you will not
-be surprised to learn that poor, naughty little
-Nannie had a whipping then and there. Her
-mother did not even wait for Susan to leave the
-room, as she generally did before punishing any
-of her children. It is true the whipping was
-not very severe, for Mrs. Walters was never
-severe; but the disgrace of it was terrible, for
-Nannie was very rarely whipped.</p>
-
-<p>However, this was by no means the worst of
-her troubles; behold, mamma declared that she
-could not go to the Thanksgiving dinner, but
-must stay at home with Susan and the cat.
-Now when you reflect that they were to ride
-four miles in a beautiful sleigh drawn by two
-prancing horses, and meet a baker’s dozen of
-little cousins, some of whom Nannie had never
-seen, to say nothing of the delights of the
-Thanksgiving dinner, and the little pies with
-their names on, done in sugar plums, which
-were to be ready for each cousin, I am sure
-you will feel with Nannie that her punishment
-was greater than she could bear. In truth, the
-others thought so. Papa said, “My dear,
-couldn’t you reconsider, somehow?” Aunt
-Laura said, “Jennie, I think you are horrid!”
-And even Susan ventured to say, “I don’t
-think she knew it was his best dress, ma’am;
-and she says Grandma can sew it together, poor
-little heart.” But Mrs. Walters was very firm.
-She did not deign to answer Laura or Susan,
-but said to her husband, “Richard, I don’t
-know how I can change, now. I said she
-couldn’t, and you know I ought to keep my
-word. Besides, the child needs a serious lesson;
-it is quite as hard for me, I think, as for
-her,” and the mother’s lip quivered a little.
-Then the father said soothingly, that of course
-he knew she was doing it for Nannie’s best
-good, and he could trust her judgment where
-he couldn’t his own. But Aunt Laura remained
-indignant, and the whole household was in
-trouble. “Our Thanksgiving is spoiled,” said
-Aunt Laura; “I’ve a good mind not to go.”</p>
-
-<p>Meantime, Grandma said not a word. It
-was nearly an hour afterwards, and the preparations
-for starting, which had gone on much
-more silently, were almost completed, when
-Grandma opened the door of Mrs. Walters’
-room, dressed in her best black silk, with her
-beautiful white satin hair peeping out from under
-the soft laces of her best cap, and holding
-by the hand a little girl with very red eyes, and
-a red nose, who kept up a suspicious little sniffing,
-as though it was only by great effort she
-refrained from bursting into fresh tears. Grandma
-walked straight toward her daughter, and
-said, “Mamma, we have come to ask you if
-you will not forgive poor little Nannie, who is
-very sorry, and let her go to-day, for Grandma’s
-sake—not for hers at all, but for Grandma’s.”</p>
-
-<p>And the handsome mother, with a sudden
-glad light flashing in her gray eyes, stooped
-and kissed the cheek of her sweet old mother,
-and then of her own little daughter, as she said,
-“Dear mother, you know what you ask for your
-own sake I could certainly never refuse.”</p>
-
-<p>The years have rolled on since then, enough
-of them to make little Nannie twenty-six, and
-the mother of one Rosamond, who has golden
-hair like the dollie, her namesake, but who is
-mischievous, as Rosamond of old never was.
-And I heard the sweet mother say, last Thanksgiving
-morning, after having told this story of
-her past for the benefit of some young mothers,
-“I am thankful for two things: that I had a
-mother who taught me that wrong-doing must
-bring unhappiness, not only to myself, but to
-others; and that I had a dear Grandmother who
-taught me what it was to have a powerful friend
-to come between me and Justice, and say, ‘For
-my sake.’“</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 219px;">
-<img src="images/i-013.jpg" width="219" height="330" alt="small child in nightgown" />
-</div>
-
-<h2>PAPA’S CHOICE.</h2>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">H</span>ERE stands my baby,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">On two little feet;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">With her bushy brown head,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And her dimples so sweet.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Her arms are all ready</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">To give me a hug;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">So give me my baby,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And you keep your pug.</span></div>
-<div class="sig">R.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>NOVEMBER.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">W</span>HAT is thy mission, November,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou link ’twixt the living and dead?</span></div>
-<div class="verse">What message would’st have us remember,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Writ on thy dried leaves, to be read</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">As lessons to youth and to age,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">To the simple, the student, the sage?</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Stern duty, thy scepter of power,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The husbandman readily sees;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And takes up the tasks of the hour</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">As the limbs bear the buds on the trees;</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">For he sows not, ploughs not, nor reaps;</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">He laughs not, he frowns not, nor weeps.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The frosts, without cost, starch the ground;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spread a mirror o’er river and lakes;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">While nuts scattered thickly around,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">More treasured than apples and cakes,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The children may gather with ease,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">With the squirrels which hide in the trees.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The apples are now in the bins,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The pumpkins upon the barn floor,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Save those which, bereft of their skins,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hang to dry on the biggest barn door;</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The banking’s high piled ’gainst the house,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">To keep it as snug as a mouse.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Thou wast wisely ordained for man,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For time was much needed, we see,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">In which for cold winter to plan,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And prepare for the storms which must be;</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">So, while few may sing of thy praise,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">We will welcome and treasure thy days.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Not all the best things of this grand old earth,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not all the hours of the year around,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Are welcomed here with the songs of mirth,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor in fields of pleasure are ever found,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">For cloudy are the days of welcome rain,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">And sharp the sickle for the golden grain.</span></div>
-<div class="sig">G. R. A.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> soul that perpetually overflows with
-kindness and sympathy will always be cheerful.</p></div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
-<img src="images/i-014.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="woman walking in autumn woods" />
-<div class="caption">NOVEMBER.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>WHAT MADE BABY LAUGH?</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-b.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="B" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">BABY DALE’S mamma had a
-great many pictures of her
-little boy, but they were not
-pretty.</p>
-
-<p>The trouble was, he would
-not sit still even for one little minute. He was
-always jumping or clapping his fat hands, or
-saying “Baa, baa!”</p>
-
-<p>One of his pictures had three eyes, and one
-had no nose.</p>
-
-<p>One funny one had his mouth wide open like
-a big O, for he was crying.</p>
-
-<p>And there was one where he had his mouth
-shut, but he looked very cross. He had a
-frown between his eyes. Mamma said she
-would not know it was her sunny boy.</p>
-
-<p>But by and by a man came who could take
-pictures whether babies kept still or not.</p>
-
-<p>One day little Dale was in his high chair by
-the window. Outdoors it was snowing.</p>
-
-<p>Baby thought the snowflakes were pretty
-white feathers coming down from the sky.
-Mamma and he played with a feather once that
-came out of his pillow. It was nice.</p>
-
-<p>Such a lot of feathers! They made pretty
-white caps on the fence posts. And there were
-great heaps of them on the ground!</p>
-
-<p>“Some day,” thought Baby, “I will go out
-that door, and I will creep right down the steps,
-and I will go to that big pile of feathers, and I
-will get my hand full, and I will throw them
-away up, up, back into the sky!”</p>
-
-<p>Then baby laughed, and the man who had
-come to take his picture touched a button on
-a queer little box he had, and there was Baby
-just as you see him.</p>
-
-<p>That is how Baby Dale came to have a picture
-that mamma loved.</p>
-
-
-<p>All the aunties, when they saw it, said, “Oh!
-how sweet.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 364px;">
-<img src="images/i-015.jpg" width="364" height="498" alt="baby" />
-<div class="caption">“I WILL GET MY HAND FULL.”</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Mamma sent a picture to the grandma down
-in Flor-i-da, and one to the grandma up in
-Maine. One went over the ocean to Uncle
-John who loves Baby Dale very dearly. One
-went out West to Auntie Lou, and one went
-to Boston, to be printed for you.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">S</span>OMETIMES in the early springtime,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sunbeams floating ’round</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Are caught out in the showers,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And are washed into the ground.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">But, ere the summer’s over,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">They take root in the sod,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And grow up with fresh brightness</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the form of Golden Rod.</span></div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>LORA’S SERMON.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i2.jpg" width="118" height="118" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT was Sunday morning, and all
-the family except Lora and her
-mother had gone to church.
-As a rule they, or at least
-Lora, were the first to be tucked
-into the sleigh; but on this
-particular morning Mrs. Wheeler had said she
-was not going; that she had a little cold, she believed,
-and was “all tuckered out” with the
-week’s work, and just in condition to get more
-cold very easily; and Lora’s coat did look too
-ridiculous to wear to church, so she had better
-stay at home with her.</p>
-
-<p>“By next Sunday you will have your new
-coat,” she said, to console the child, “and be
-all in order for church for the rest of the winter.”</p>
-
-<p>Lora looked sober for a few minutes; she was
-very fond of riding to church tucked in among
-the great soft robes, and she did not mind the
-service so very much, though the sermon was
-pretty long. However, she was naturally a
-sunny little girl, and her face soon cleared as
-she buttoned her somewhat shabby coat, and
-went out to watch the snowbirds, who were
-gathering in great numbers near the barn doors.</p>
-
-<p>Lora and the snowbirds were friends; indeed
-she made friends with all sorts of dumb animals,
-and had queer little ideas about them.</p>
-
-<p>“You will fall,” she said gravely, addressing
-a fat bird who swung on a tiny branch almost
-at her side; “you have picked out a very slimsy
-branch; it looks as though it was almost broked
-off; maybe it will break while you are swinging
-on it—I most know it will—then you will fall
-down in the snow and hurt yourself. I falled
-off of a limb once, and it hurted.”</p>
-
-<p>The bird paid not the slightest attention to
-this friendly warning, but Lora continued to
-stand still, looking at the swaying bush, her
-face full of earnest thought. She had already
-turned from the bird, and was thinking about
-the verse sister Nannie had taught her that
-morning. It was a long verse for a little girl,
-with some hard words in it; but Lora had mastered
-them, and said them over in her mind,
-revolving, meanwhile, the explanation which
-Nannie had made of them. “If a man abide
-not in me he is cast forth as a branch, and is
-withered.” “Branches do wivver as soon as
-they are broked off,” said Lora. “I’ve seen
-them; and papa and Moses burn them up—that
-is what it said.</p>
-
-<p>“This stick is broked off,” she continued,
-carefully examining the one which she grasped
-with both chubby hands; “it used to grow, but
-it won’t ever any more. All the leaves have
-wivvered off it, and some day it will get burned
-up, I s’pose; it isn’t good for much.”</p>
-
-<p>Words stopped just here, but that little Lora’s
-brain went on with the great thoughts which
-she could not express, was evident from the
-look on her face. The Bible verse and Nannie’s
-careful explanation of it had taken deep root in
-her heart. She went into the house presently;
-the thoughts had grown so large that she felt
-as though she must ask some more questions.</p>
-
-<p>As a usual thing, Sunday quiet reigned in
-Mrs. Wheeler’s kitchen at this hour of the day.
-But this day was an exception. Mrs. Wheeler,
-bustling about doing up the last things connected
-with the morning work, had come across
-a bowl of mince meat and a lump of dough evidently
-left from pie crust. “I declare for it!”
-she exclaimed, “I thought Kate made up all
-the pies yesterday. What a careless thing, to
-leave this bowl of mince meat here over Sunday!
-It would make two good pies, and if all the
-folks come for Thanksgiving we may fall short;
-they set such store by my pies. I wonder what
-Kate was about? It must have got dark before
-she finished. These must be made up the first
-thing to-morrow—but there is pretty near everything
-to do to-morrow, too; it makes a great
-deal of work getting ready for such a house
-full; and pie crust is none the better for standing,
-either; I declare, I’ve a mind to slap this
-on to a couple of tins and set them in the oven;
-there is fire enough to bake them nicely, and it
-won’t take five minutes, hardly, and there are
-so many ways to turn to-morrow.”</p>
-
-<p>There were more thoughts about it not put
-into words, but it ended in the moulding board
-being spread out on the table, and the flour jar
-and rolling-pin and pastry knife being laid beside
-it. I wonder they did not all blush for
-shame, for such a thing had never happened to
-them before on a Sabbath. Mrs. Wheeler’s
-cheeks were rather red, and she felt what she
-would have called “kind of queer”; but she
-flew about very fast, and meant to be soon
-seated in the best room in her Sunday dress.</p>
-
-<p>It was just at that moment that Lora pushed
-open the kitchen door and entered, her eyes
-large with the thoughts about which she wanted
-to question. They grew larger as she took in
-the situation. Her mother rolling out pie crust!
-And it was Sunday! Such a thing had never
-happened in Lora’s experience. Nobody knows
-why the queer little brain put together the
-thoughts which had come to her outside, and the
-pie crust in the kitchen; but it did, and there
-came, presently, this question: “Did you get
-broked off, muvver?”</p>
-
-<p>“Did I what?” said Mrs. Wheeler, her
-cheeks very red. There was something in
-Lora’s look and tone which made them redder.</p>
-
-<p>“Get broked off. That is what Nannie said.
-She said folks that got broked off did things
-that Jesus did not want done; and kept doing
-them. Does he want you to make pies to-day,
-muvver?”</p>
-
-<p>“If I ever saw such a child!” said Mrs.
-Wheeler, making the rolling-pin revolve over
-the board at railroad speed. “What does Nannie
-mean putting such notions into your head?
-Go into the other room, child, and take off your
-coat; I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m not
-going to make pies; I shall wad up this dough
-and keep it until to-morrow.”</p>
-
-<p>And she did.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>THAT RAINY DAY.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THE Stautenbergers were not
-rich, neither were they poor.
-Their house was not large,
-neither was it very little; but
-there was none too much room
-in it.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Stautenberger was dead; had “fallen
-asleep,” as the father called it, that very
-autumn; so when he went to the shop for his
-day’s work, Pauline, the eldest, had to be both
-sister and mother to her three sisters, and one
-little brother.</p>
-
-<p>The teacher of the school in their district was
-very kind, and after her first call at the “home
-without a mother,” she said to Pauline, “Do
-not stay at home to care for baby sister; bring
-her with you, and we will manage in some way.
-I think she will be a good little girl.”</p>
-
-<p>Then Pauline felt sure she should love the
-teacher very much. When her father came
-home she told him what Miss Gilbert had said,
-and as he wiped a tear away, he, too, thought
-she would be a nice teacher, and must have a
-good heart to be so willing to help his motherless
-ones.</p>
-
-<p>There are a great many things I would like
-to tell you about this little family and their
-splendid teacher, but all I will have time for
-now, is the story of one rainy day, and what
-they did about it.</p>
-
-<p>The storm was so hard they could none of
-them venture out; certainly little Gretchen must
-not be taken out, so there seemed a prospect for
-a dull, dreary, lonesome day.</p>
-
-<p>The few dishes were soon put away, and all
-were hungry for school.</p>
-
-<p>“I know what to do,” said Pauline; “let’s
-play school. We can read and spell and make
-numbers, and maybe we can study geography a
-little; then when we go to school to-morrow
-teacher will be so s’prised to see how much we
-have learned; and then she’ll smile, and maybe
-she will kiss us, every one! Won’t that be
-fun?”</p>
-
-<p>She didn’t try to rhyme, but in her eagerness
-it came of itself.</p>
-
-<p>So they had school, and Metza played teacher,
-and Pauline sat by little Gretchen, and Fritz
-and Mary sat with them on the long lounge, and
-they had such a nice time they forgot that it was
-storming outside, and were much astonished
-when at noon papa came home to lunch, and so
-sorry they had forgotten to heat the water for
-his coffee.</p>
-
-<p>But when they told him what a nice time they
-had had, he smiled, and said, “My Pauline has
-been a good mother to-day.” And she thought,
-“I have the best papa in the world.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-G. R. A.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 499px;">
-<img src="images/i-018.jpg" width="499" height="600" alt="girl outside in winter" />
-<div class="caption">“THIS STICK IS BROKED OFF,” SAID LORA.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>PERFUMED GLOVES.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">PERFUMED gloves were brought from Italy
-by Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, after
-his exile, and his present to Queen Elizabeth of
-a pair with embroidered roses is mentioned in
-history. But the refinement of perfumed gloves
-had been known for three centuries in France
-before the days of the Virgin Queen, and in
-Spain the gloves were famous for the scent imparted
-to them long before her day. The luxurious
-court of Charles the Second used perfumed
-gloves, and those “trimmed and laced as fine as
-Nell’s,” you have no doubt read about. Louis
-the Fourteenth also issued letter patents of his
-“<i>marchands maitres gantiers parfeumeurs</i>.” In
-Venice, where the love of dress was conspicuous,
-perfumed gloves were introduced by a
-dogess as early as 1075.—<i>Selected.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
-<img src="images/i-019.jpg" width="600" height="387" alt="young woman being taught by priest or bishop" />
-<div class="caption">QUEEN ELIZABETH WHEN A PUPIL.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="smcap">That</span> day is best wherein we give</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A thought of others’ sorrows;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Forgetting self, we learn to live,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And blessings born of kindly deeds</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Make golden our to-morrows.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A SABBATH IN A BOARDING-SCHOOL
-IN TURKEY.</h2>
-
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i2.jpg" width="118" height="118" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT was the dawn of a winter morning.
-Ding-dong-ding clanged
-the chapel bell. I sprang up
-and began to dress, while
-Marta went to the mission-house
-for a cup of coffee. As
-I fastened the last button, there was a rap at
-the door. “Come,” I called, and in walked
-the dear little maid with a cup of coffee carefully
-covered to keep in the steam, and a roll
-done up in a napkin, which the cook had insisted
-upon her bringing.</p>
-
-<p>Ding-dong began the bell again. “Tell the
-girls not to wait for me,” I said; and soon the
-clatter of many feet on the stairs indicated
-their departure. The coffee must be swallowed,
-and the little roll must not be wholly neglected;
-then putting on bonnet and ulster, I started to
-follow. Fido, our little spaniel, was standing
-disconsolate in the hall below. Her eyes were
-full of entreaty, and wagging her tail persuasively,
-she accompanied me to the door.</p>
-
-<p>“Go back, Fido. Can’t take little dogs to
-church!” I exclaimed. She knew it was no use
-to tease, and stood watching me as I opened
-the heavy door with difficulty, and slammed it
-after me—it would not latch unless slammed.
-As I reached the church door, I heard the organ—that
-meant the service had begun, and I was
-late! something I never meant to be, but this
-was so early to go to church! The Armenians
-are all accustomed in the Gregorian Church to
-a service even earlier, and when they become
-Protestant, or Evangelical, they still cling to the
-old way of making worship the first thing in the
-morning, and giving breakfast the second place.</p>
-
-<p>Instead, then, of going up the men’s aisle,
-and sitting at the further end where we missionaries
-usually do, I went on to the door at
-the left—the women’s—and slipped into a
-back seat. A little girl just in front of me
-passed me her hymn book, so that I could join
-with the congregation in singing “<i>Garode yem,
-voh garode yem</i>”—“I need Thee, O, I need
-Thee.” Just as the hymn closed, the sun’s rays
-struck the eastern window and streamed in;
-then the preacher arose and read the epistle to
-Philemon, and also 1 Cor. vii. 22....</p>
-
-<p>The benediction was pronounced, and the
-congregation slowly streamed out. The walk
-from the chapel to the street is narrow, and as
-it is not proper for women to crowd in among
-the men, we waited till they had mostly passed
-on. While standing outside, Shushan, one of
-our day pupils, came along with her mother;
-both were completely enveloped in the white
-crapy wrap which is worn by the Armenian
-women in this section. Shushan’s bright-colored
-dress showed through, and at the same
-time set off the figure in the wrap.</p>
-
-<p>“<i>Par-ee loo-is</i>, Shushan; are you of the same
-mind as yesterday about going to Kozloo?”</p>
-
-<p>She returned my good-morning, and said she
-was; yes, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>“Why should we change our minds?” said
-her mother. “Are we not also Christ’s servants?”
-referring to the sermon we had just
-heard.</p>
-
-<p>You see, Shushan’s brother was bitterly opposed
-to her going away to teach, and I thought
-it quite possible that he had influenced her to
-give it up. It was years after girls’ schools
-were opened before people were willing to send
-their children to a woman teacher—I mean a
-native—still worse if she was “only a girl.”
-They would far rather send them to a man,
-however ignorant and incapable. That long
-struggle has ended at last in victory, and we
-have no more trouble in finding work for our
-girls; but we have another difficulty now.
-Well-to-do parents and brothers consider it a
-disgrace—at least many of them do—to have
-their daughters and sisters work as though they
-were obliged to earn their support.</p>
-
-<p>“Haven’t you food and clothes?” they ask
-indignantly, when a girl, filled with a desire to
-do something for her people, intimates a purpose
-to teach. Perhaps I may as well complete
-this little tale here and now, although it does
-not belong to the incident of the Sabbath I
-have been describing.</p>
-
-<p>A few days later the (native) pastor came to
-me and asked anxiously, “Can’t you persuade
-Shushan, for the sake of peace, to give up going
-to Kozloo? Her brother is very violent,
-and talks terribly, declaring that even if she
-were mounted, and going through the most
-public street, he would drag her off the horse;
-if she should by any chance succeed in carrying
-out her plan, she should never come home
-again—he would never again acknowledge her
-as his sister.” The pastor went on to say that
-he thought the brother had offered to send her
-away to school if she would give up “this crazy
-scheme,” as he called it.</p>
-
-<p>I sent for Shushan, and finding that her
-brother had made the offer referred to, advised
-her to accept it. The sacrifice of her will for
-the sake of avoiding scandal, would, I was
-sure, be as acceptable to the Master as the
-service she had intended. In less than a week
-thereafter, she was on her way to a distant
-school.</p>
-
-<p>We passed out through the arched gateway,
-and then parted with a mutual “<i>yer-tak par-rov</i>”—“good-by.”
-How the sun sparkled
-on the snowy street, on the mountains which
-seemed to stand across it, so near they looked,
-and reared their dazzling summits into the brilliant
-blue of the winter sky.</p>
-
-<p>The girls with their shawls modestly over
-their heads, crossed the street in a straggling
-little procession. Fido appeared in the window
-which she had pried open with her little black
-nose—windows are hung like doors—gave an
-eager and joyful bark or two, and rushed down
-to welcome them home. Then they sat down
-to their breakfast of tea and bread. The
-former was seasoned with white lump sugar
-(brown sugar is unknown), but there was no
-butter for the bread.</p>
-
-<p>I doubt whether my readers would have recognized
-the thin, whity-brown sheets, or the
-rags placed before one of the girls who had
-elected to take the pieces, as bread, but so it
-was. They have many kinds in Turkey, and
-this thin kind, a little thicker than blotting-paper,
-is very popular here. In the autumn it
-is a very common thing for a girl to come and
-say, “Teacher, mother says will you please
-excuse me from school to-day?” And she explains
-that they are baking bread, and need her
-help.</p>
-
-<p>“But why doesn’t your mother get some
-woman to help her?”</p>
-
-<p>Then I find that it is a regular “bee”—a
-bread bee! The neighbors are already there,
-and they will work all night—it is no small job
-to roll it out so thin. There will be no more
-baking till the worst of the winter is over. It is
-stacked away in a dry place, and when wanted
-the requisite number of sheets (about two feet
-long by one wide) is taken, sprinkled as you
-would clothes for ironing, and after a few moments,
-folded once lengthwise and laid around
-the edge of the table. If, instead of being
-sprinkled, the bread is held over the fire a moment,
-it becomes crisp and really nice; but this
-is seldom done.</p>
-
-<p>After the housework was done we had prayers,
-and then the girls were dismissed with a charge
-not to hang about the halls or stairways, as the
-boys were coming over again to sing, and to
-keep their doors closed. “Not ajar as last
-Sunday, to my mortification and your disgrace;
-most likely the boys thought you left them open
-on purpose so that they could look in.” Somehow
-the boys and girls are wonderfully interesting
-to each other all the world over.</p>
-
-<p>Soon the young fellows filed in, looking half-pleased,
-half-shy—big, six-foot Isaac, and
-clever little Bo-ghos; Sumpad, with his bright,
-frank smile; poor, awkward Deekran, the best
-writer in school, and his brother Arsen. We
-practiced “Hold the Fort”; there were two
-bad mistakes with which we struggled for a
-while. Then we sang “What a Friend we have
-in Jesus,” “Sweet By and by,” “Almost Persuaded,”
-“Go Bury thy Sorrow,” “The Ninety
-and Nine,” and others—all in Armenian, of
-course.</p>
-
-<p>Then I said just a word to Deekran about
-money I entrusted to him—merely a caution to
-be careful to return any money that might be
-left over. It was hardly the thing for the Sabbath,
-but I was not likely to see him for some
-days, and I wanted to prevent any carelessness—it
-is so important for boys that they learn to
-be careful and business-like.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Harriet G. Powers</span>, <i>in the Evangelist</i>.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2>THE HARD TEXT.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">(<i>Matt.</i> xii. 31, 32.)</p>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">MANY have been troubled over this text.
-Some have been in despair of being
-saved because they thought they had committed
-this unpardonable sin.</p>
-
-<p>Probably many are mistaken. Any one that
-truly feels sorrow for his sins, and really longs
-for forgiveness and hungers for holiness, shows
-some of the best signs that he has not committed
-this. God will not cast out such a person,
-if he comes in Jesus’ name.</p>
-
-<p>But there is a sin against the Holy Ghost so
-great that it cannot be forgiven, and probably
-when one has committed it he is so desperately
-wicked, so hard in heart, that he never asks to
-be forgiven.</p>
-
-<p>You will wish to know what this awful sin is,
-so that you may never commit it. The thought
-of being doomed never to see heaven and Christian
-friends after death fills you with horror.</p>
-
-<p>But then, why should you not tremble at
-committing any sin? One little sin leads to
-another, and so on, until the sin of sins is the
-end of it all. Take care!</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 532px;">
-<img src="images/i-022.jpg" width="532" height="600" alt="goats and a little girl" />
-<div class="caption">A SELFISH KID.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But how is it—or was it—worse to sin
-against the Holy Ghost than against the Son of
-Man?</p>
-
-<p>Well, the first might be done in ignorance.
-The Roman soldiers did not know what a dreadful
-thing they were doing when they nailed the
-dear Lord to the tree. They might be forgiven
-that. But the Holy Ghost comes to show one
-the truth; then that one has no excuse, you
-see. His sin is against light. It is most deliberate,
-willful, determined. It is much more.
-But remember it is sinning against light, great
-light.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>AN AMUSING ANECDOTE.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">SOME time ago an amusing little anecdote
-was related about the German Crown
-Prince whilst having a lesson in grammar from
-his tutor. One is now being told about the
-second son of the imperial couple, Prince Eitel
-Fritz. The Emperor is exceedingly strict about
-his son’s behavior at table. Not long since little
-Prince Eitel Fritz, using his fingers instead
-of his knife and fork, was corrected by his
-father several times to no purpose. At last
-the Emperor’s patience was exhausted, and he
-said:</p>
-
-<p>“Children who eat with their fingers are
-like little dogs that hold their food with their
-paws. If you use your fingers again you must
-go under the table, the proper place for little
-dogs.” The little Prince did his utmost not to
-forget this time, and used his knife and fork
-like a man; but all at once he forgot again and
-began using his fingers. “March under the
-table,” said his father. Prince Eitel Fritz crept
-under as bidden. After a little while the Emperor,
-thinking the Prince very quiet, lifted up
-the tablecloth and peeped underneath. There
-sat little Prince Eitel Fritz undressed. His
-father asked him what he meant by undressing
-himself. The child answered, “Little dogs
-don’t wear clothes; they only have skin.”—<i>Selected.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A STRANGE GENERAL.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-y.jpg" width="120" height="119" alt="Y" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">YEARS and years ago there was
-a busy housekeeper thrown into
-a fever of anxiety because she
-heard a certain famous general
-was coming, and that she
-would be expected to entertain
-him. She flew about in the greatest haste,
-pressing all the people around her into service
-to help make ready for the distinguished guest.</p>
-
-<p>Among others was a man who, by his dress
-and general appearance, she took to be a neighbor’s
-servant. “Take hold and help us here a
-minute,” she said, and set him at some work in
-the kitchen. That being done the man volunteered
-to split some wood to a certain size, as it
-was greatly needed. While he was thus employed
-the lady’s husband, who had been absent,
-reached home, and was informed of the honor
-in store for him. He, too, set about helping
-with the preparations, and presently went to
-the kitchen, where the strange servant was just
-laying down an armful of the wood he had split.</p>
-
-<p>Imagine the man’s stare of astonishment,
-mingled with dismay, when he recognized in
-the stranger the famous general in whose honor
-all this bustle of preparation was going forward.</p>
-
-<p>In stammering confusion he approached the
-supposed servant, who, by the way, was slightly
-deformed, and asked for the meaning of such
-an extraordinary state of things.</p>
-
-<p>“Why,” said the helper, with a broad smile
-on his face, “I am paying the fine for my
-deformity.”</p>
-
-<p>I leave the Pansies to learn who this great
-man was, and who was the woman who in her
-haste to honor him mistook him for a house servant,
-and also what happened in consequence
-of this.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Crickets</span> are bought and sold in various parts
-of Africa. People capture them, feed them,
-and sell them. The natives are very fond of
-their music, thinking that it induces sleep.
-Superstitions regarding the cricket’s chirp are
-varied. Some believe it is ominous of sorrow
-and evil, others consider it a harbinger of joy.</p></div>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 435px;">
-<img src="images/i-024.jpg" width="435" height="625" alt="blackbirds and shoe house and children" />
-<div class="caption">CASTLE QUEER.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-c.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="C" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">“CHRISTMAS is coming! Christmas
-is coming!”</p>
-
-<p>That is what little Lucy sang
-as she went through the hall
-with a hop, skip and jump,
-clapping her hands for joy.</p>
-
-<p>“And what is little daughter going to do to
-make somebody happy on Christmas day?”</p>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 355px;">
-<img src="images/i-025.jpg" width="355" height="500" alt="rose ina  vase" />
-<div class="caption">ONE OF THOSE LOVELY ROSES.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Papa asked this as he came out into the hall.
-Then he kissed Lucy good-by, took down his
-hat from the rack, and went out of the front
-door before she had time to tell him.</p>
-
-<p>Lucy stopped running, and looked out of the
-window and thought about it.</p>
-
-<p>Then she went upstairs to mamma and said:</p>
-
-<p>“Mamma, what am I going to do to make
-somebody happy to-morrow? What can little
-girls do?”</p>
-
-<p>“You can be just as sweet as a rose all day,
-and obey mamma as soon as she speaks. That
-will make me very happy,” said mamma.</p>
-
-<p>“But I want to give something
-to somebody to s’prise ’em and
-make ’em glad,” Lucy said.</p>
-
-<p>“Who is there that you would
-like to surprise?” her mamma
-asked.</p>
-
-<p>Lucy thought a minute, then she
-said:</p>
-
-<p>“Mrs. Bly.”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Bly lived in the “Home
-for Aged Women.” She was a nice
-old lady, and Lucy often went with
-her mother to call upon her.</p>
-
-<p>“Very well, dear,” said mamma;
-“there is your gold dollar;
-if you want to give it you may.”</p>
-
-<p>“May I buy ’zactly what I
-please, mamma?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, dear.”</p>
-
-<p>“O, how nice!” said Lucy.
-“Can’t we go now, right off, to
-buy it?”</p>
-
-<p>Mamma said “Yes” again, and
-Lucy ran off to get her hood and
-cloak and mittens. In a few minutes
-she was out on the street
-with mamma, gazing into all the
-shop windows. “What shall I
-buy? What shall I buy?” she kept asking.</p>
-
-<p>Mamma said a little shawl for Mrs. Bly’s
-shoulders would be nice, or a pair of warm
-stockings or some handkerchiefs. But Lucy
-shook her head.</p>
-
-<p>“Wouldn’t she like a bu’ful dollie or a sweet
-little kitty better?” she asked.</p>
-
-<p>Mamma had to laugh at that.</p>
-
-<p>Just then Lucy cried out, “There it is! I
-see it! That is what I want.”</p>
-
-<p>Guess what it was.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-026.jpg" width="500" height="278" alt="children prarying" />
-<div class="caption">WHAT THEY NEED.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>It was a beautiful large rosebush in a pretty
-pot. There were two roses on it and plenty of
-buds.</p>
-
-<p>So they went in and bought it. The man
-said he would send it up right away.</p>
-
-<p>Old Mrs. Bly was sitting in her rocking-chair
-knitting. There came a knock at the door.
-She opened it, and who should be there but
-Lucy and her mamma, and a boy with a rosebush!</p>
-
-<p>How surprised Mrs. Bly was, and how
-pleased, when she knew that little Lucy bought
-the plant with her own money.</p>
-
-<p>“You dear little lamb,” she said; “it will
-make me very happy. It is like the roses in
-my old home.”</p>
-
-<p>When Christmas morning came Mrs. Bly cut
-off one of those lovely roses and put it in a
-vase. She carried it to a poor old lady across
-the hall who was ill in bed, and it made her
-glad.</p>
-
-<p>So you see little Lucy made three people
-happy that Christmas day—the sick old lady,
-Mrs. Bly and herself.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2>FROM THE HEART.</h2>
-
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">O</span>N the eve of Christmas,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ready each for bed,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And with heart most anxious,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bends each little head,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">While the prayer was whispered</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Close to Grandma’s chair.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Were the angels bending</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">O’er a sight so fair?</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Dear Jesus, please to listen,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For Christmas comes to-morrow,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And we so much need some dollies,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">So we needn’t have to borrow!</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Please have them made of wax,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wiv blue eyes, and pretty curls;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And we’ll love you more than ever!</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">We’re your own dear little dirls.”</span></div>
-<div class="sig">R.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A LONG CHRISTMAS.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t2.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THERE had been the usual Christmas-tree,
-which the cousins
-from three homes had gathered
-to enjoy. There had not
-been a Christmas since the oldest
-of them could remember—and
-he was sixteen—that the cousins had not
-been together in one of the homes, and had a
-frolic around the Christmas-tree. It was always
-hung with bright-colored balls, and strings of
-popcorn, and all the bright and pretty and useless
-things which people from year to year have
-contrived for such trees. It always had clustered
-about it the various sorts of fruits which
-refused, because of their weight, to be hung
-upon the branches—dolls, and kites, and wagons,
-and swords, and books and baskets. Every
-year the fruit grew stranger in some respects,
-with a dreary sameness in others, which was
-actually beginning to weary the hearts of the
-cousins.</p>
-
-<p>The first excitement was over. The fathers
-and mothers and maiden aunts, together with
-three grandmothers and two grandfathers, had
-retired to quieter parts of the house, and the
-young people were left to their enjoyment. It
-was not very noisy in the room, nor were most
-of the cousins absorbed in their gifts; in fact
-their faces were already sobering. Little Nell
-was still happy over her new building-blocks,
-and Dell, her other self, was trying to advise
-her concerning them, while Harold tried his
-new paints and brushes on the chair he occupied,
-his guardian sister leaning over the back
-of the chair, so absorbed the while in her own
-grave thoughts that she did not even notice the
-mischief he was doing.</p>
-
-<p>“It is all over once more,” said Holly. He
-was the sixteen-year-old cousin, and he thrust
-his hands in his pockets, and said it with a
-yawn.</p>
-
-<p>“Some of it is a good deal of a bore,” answered
-Tom, the cousin next in age, echoing
-the yawn. “I didn’t get the first thing I expected
-or wanted.”</p>
-
-<p>“Neither did I; but then I don’t know what
-I wanted, I am sure, unless it was a bicycle,
-and you can’t put that on a Christmas-tree very
-well.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why not, as well as the trumpery which is
-put on?” asked Tom contemptuously. “I tell
-you the whole thing is getting to be a bore.
-Even the small fry don’t care for it half so
-much as they think they do; there’s Nannie
-sulking this minute because her dollie, which
-she has deserted, is not so nice according to
-her notion as Lily’s is. And Ted has turned
-his back on the whole of it because he didn’t
-get a drum. This crowd needs something new.”</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t know what it would be; we have
-had everything imaginable, and if the simple
-truth were told need presents less than any
-young folks in the kingdom, I do suppose. My
-father says there is nothing new to get for pampered
-young people like us; and I don’t know
-but he is about right.”</p>
-
-<p>“There’s a whole lot of money spent about
-it every year, though.” This was from Hortense,
-the oldest of the girl cousins, and a sort
-of adviser of the two older boys.</p>
-
-<p>“I know it,” said Holly; “and a good deal
-of it is wasted. Nannie, for instance, did not
-need another doll any more than the cat needs
-two tails, and as for me I have seven jack-knives
-now.”</p>
-
-<p>At that moment Helen turned away from the
-paint brush which she had not noticed, and
-joined in the conversation.</p>
-
-<p>“Isn’t it funny? I have five new balls, and
-I don’t care for any of them. They keep giving
-us the same things over and over.”</p>
-
-<p>“They forget,” said Holly; “and there is
-nothing new for them to get us, anyhow.”</p>
-
-<p>“I know something that would be new.”
-It was Hortense again, speaking with grave
-thoughtfulness. The boys turned and looked
-at her inquiringly. “Don’t you know what
-Mr. Briggs told about the children out in the
-Colorado mountains, who never had a Christmas
-present in their lives, and didn’t know anything
-about such times as we have? I was
-thinking what if we could make up a box and
-put into it all the dollies, and balls, and jack-knives,
-and things that we don’t want, and
-some books, and perhaps a little candy, and
-send it out there, wouldn’t it be nice?”</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 427px;">
-<img src="images/i-028.jpg" width="427" height="625" alt="big tree and children" />
-<div class="caption">THEIR FACES WERE ALREADY SOBERING.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>“Too late for this year,” said Tom promptly.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, no, it isn’t; if we hadn’t had any
-Christmas at all, ever, we would be willing to
-have one come to us in January.”</p>
-
-<p>The boys laughed, and Holly said heartily,
-“That’s so.” And Hortense began to tell a
-story that she had heard Mr. Briggs tell to her
-uncle, and the younger ones gathered about her,
-leaving dolls and paints, and the interest grew.</p>
-
-<p>It was the very next day that Hortense and
-Tom and Holly went to Dr. Parsons’ house to
-see Mr. Briggs.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, yes,” he said, looking perfectly delighted
-with them, when Holly explained; “let
-me tell you about a brave little chap out there,
-only eleven years old; his father was guide to
-the tourists who wanted to climb the dangerous
-and difficult mountains, and lost his life from
-exposure, hunting a party of men who had
-strayed away. Little Teddy is as brave as a
-soldier. He is a guide himself, though so
-young, and getting to be one of the surest and
-safest to be found in that region, only he is so
-young and small yet, that strangers are afraid
-to trust him. A dreary life Teddy leads; he
-and his mother live all alone in a little house at
-the foot of a mountain. The boy has only the
-clothes which his father left, made over for him
-the best way his mother can. He never had
-anything that fitted him; and he never had any
-playthings in his life, only what he picked up;
-as for knives, or balls, or any of the things
-which boys like him enjoy, I don’t know what
-he would think if one should happen to come to
-him. You needn’t suppose that he hasn’t heard
-all about Christmas; his mother used to live in
-a farmhouse in New York State, and the stories
-she has told have almost driven him wild. A
-few rods away from their cottage lives a family
-with five children—three little girls, and a
-four-year-old boy and a baby. I happen to
-know that Teddy set his heart this year on
-having some sort of a Christmas present for
-every one of those children—and failed! I
-did not mean that he should, but I was sick at
-just the wrong time after I reached home, and
-my plans did not work. I heard from there
-only last night, and poor Teddy’s plans did not
-work, either.”</p>
-
-
-<p>Holly had his note book and pencil in hand.
-“Will you give us his full name and address?”
-he said.</p>
-
-<p>Such a time as the cousins had packing that
-box! Every baby of them contributed, not
-only the toys which they did not want, but a
-few that they loved, and parted from with sighs.
-The same may be said of the elder cousins, especially
-when it came to books; Holly was a
-miser where these were concerned, and Hortense
-knew how to sympathize with him. It took
-these two several hours to be willing to pack in
-that box some of their handsomely bound volumes,
-written by favorite authors.</p>
-
-<p>But they had to go; for Mr. Briggs, among
-other things, had said, “I never saw a boy so
-hungry for reading in my life as Teddy; and
-he has only scraps of old newspapers, which he
-has picked up from time to time among the
-tourists.”</p>
-
-<p>And more than books and toys went into
-that box.</p>
-
-<p>“It is a shame for a fellow to have no clothes
-that fit him!” declared Tom. “I’ve been there
-myself, and I know how it feels. I had to
-wear my brother Dick’s overcoat once, and it
-was too large for me. Mr. Briggs says he is
-about the size of Roger”—he meant Teddy,
-and not Mr. Briggs. “We must ask mother
-about that.”</p>
-
-<p>They asked her to such purpose, and Aunt
-Cornelia as well, that two neat suits of Roger’s
-and Cousin Harry’s second best clothes went
-into the box.</p>
-
-<p>The day in which it was finally packed was a
-jubilee. The cousins were all invited to Aunt
-Cornelia’s to supper, and packed the box in the
-large dining-room after supper, with a little of
-Aunt Cornelia’s and Uncle Roger’s help.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t know as I ever had so much fun in
-my life,” said Holly, looking up from the driving
-of the last nail to make the remark. “It
-is better than Christmas a dozen times; in fact
-it is a Christmas extension.”</p>
-
-<p>“And won’t it be fun to hear from Teddy?”
-said Hortense.</p>
-
-<p>But as for us, we cannot expect to hear from
-Teddy until January.</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<h2>VOICES OF THE BELLS.</h2>
-
-<div>
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-030a.jpg" alt="bells and flowers" width="326" height="185" />
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-030a2.jpg" alt="bells and flowers" width="385" height="39" />
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-030a3.jpg" alt="bells and flowers" width="593" height="39" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">I</span>N yonder tower high hangs the brazen bell,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Tolling, tolling;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Upon the frosty air its echoes heave and swell,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Tolling, tolling:</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The bell has a tongue that is easily heard;</div>
-<div class="verse">When it is swung many hearts may be stirred,</div>
-<div class="verse">Though its tale it tells with never a word—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Tolling, tolling.</span></div>
-    </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
-<img src="images/i-030b.jpg" width="600" height="193" alt="THE BELLS SWING AND RING." />
-</div>
-<div>
-<img class="split" src="images/i-030c.jpg" alt="bells and flowers" width="345" height="221" />
-</div>
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">It swings and dings in the morning air,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Ringing, ringing!</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Tells of the birth of a baby fair,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Ringing, ringing!</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Tells the glad news so that all may know;</div>
-<div class="verse">Those in the village asleep below,</div>
-<div class="verse">Those on the streets moving to and fro—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Ringing, ringing!</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Aloft it swings in the schoolhouse tower,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Dinging, dinging;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">With brazen tongue it proclaims the hour,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Dinging, dinging:</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Calls to the work of storing the mind</div>
-<div class="verse">With useful knowledge of every kind,</div>
-<div class="verse">Urging the laggards left far behind,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Dinging, dinging.</span></div>
-    </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Gently it swings in the steeple high,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Pealing, pealing;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The steeple that points to the upper sky,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Pealing, pealing:</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Calling to worship on hallowed day,</div>
-<div class="verse">Calling the faithful to come and pray,</div>
-<div class="verse">Even to those who are far away—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Pealing, pealing.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Again it calls in a joyful tone,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Ringing, ringing!</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Hinting that man should not walk alone,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Ringing, ringing!</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And so they throng with the bridal pair,</div>
-<div class="verse">And the glad bells sound on the clear sweet air,</div>
-<div class="verse">For the bells all ring for the belle so fair—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Ringing, ringing!</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Ah, me! but that tongue will swing again,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Tolling, tolling;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Swing again with a solemn strain,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Tolling, tolling:</span></div>
-<div class="verse">It will tell how some one beloved has died,</div>
-<div class="verse">How the cold dark earth has claimed his bride;</div>
-<div class="verse">And ’twill seem in its strains as though it sighed—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Tolling, tolling.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">But the bells above may swing and ring,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Swinging, ringing,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">In the temple towers of the Lord the King,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Swinging, ringing;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And the bells below, with the bells up there,</div>
-<div class="verse">May sound their joys for this Child and Heir,</div>
-<div class="verse">Who is called to heaven its joys to share—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Swinging, ringing.</span></div>
-<div class="sig">G. R. A.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
-<img src="images/i-031.jpg" width="600" height="391" alt="Girl walking on roof ledge to man wating on ladder" />
-<div class="caption">THE BELL HAS A TONGUE THAT IS EASILY HEARD.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>EASTER LILIES.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">A</span> STALK of tall white lilies</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bloomed out in a garden fair;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Their breath, so sweet and fragrant,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scented the ambient air.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">As Easter day came on apace,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">It seemed as if they tried</span></div>
-<div class="verse">To grow still sweeter, for the morn</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">When rose the Crucified.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">When dawned the holy Easter tide,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And they were full in bloom,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">A sad-eyed woman gathered them</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And laid them on a tomb.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">And as she knelt in deepest woe</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beside the flower-decked mound,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And felt that all her hope was dead,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The lilies’ fragrance stole around.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">It stole into her wounded breast;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sacred odors seemed to be</span></div>
-<div class="verse">A message for her bleeding heart—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">“The Crucified pities thee.”</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">Caroline Stratton Valentine.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/i-032.jpg" width="550" height="620" alt="bell in tower surrounded by swallos" />
-<div class="caption">THE BELL HANGS IN THE TOWER.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>CHARACTER STUDIES.</h2>
-
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-e.jpg" width="120" height="119" alt="E" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">EDWARD STEADMAN was at
-home for the Christmas holidays.
-Everybody was glad to
-see him, of course, particularly
-his mother; because in
-the first place mothers always
-are a little bit more glad over the home-coming
-of their boys than anybody else in the world
-can be, and secondly because she needed some
-help very much, and knew that he could give it.
-She explained matters to him that morning:
-“I want to get Grandma’s room all in order,
-Edward, and her new carpet down, and every
-thing, before Christmas, you know; and we
-shall have to work like bees. I’m so glad you
-came home this week, instead of stopping at
-your uncle’s first. To-day we can hang all her
-pictures, and put up the curtains and the wall-pockets,
-and do things of that kind; they will
-not make a speck of dust in putting down the
-carpet—it is new, you know. I want to get
-all those things done to-day, they are so puttering—take
-a great deal of time and judgment.
-I’m so glad to have you to depend upon; you
-are such a tall boy that you can reach where
-mother can’t; and Dick is so clumsy I hate to
-have him stumping about Grandma’s room.
-Your father was going to help me, though he
-did not know how to spare the time; he was as
-pleased as could be when I told him that you
-could do it all. ‘Sure enough!’ he said; ‘we
-have got a boy to depend upon once more; how
-good it seems!’”</p>
-
-<p>The sentence closed with a fond smile, and
-such a look in the mother’s eyes as ought to
-have made a boy happy. Edward was happy;
-he whistled as he went down the stairs, and
-thought to himself that there were not many
-fellows who had such a mother as his, and that
-he would show her just how tall, and how handy
-and how wise he was.</p>
-
-<p>She called after him as she heard the street
-door open.</p>
-
-<p>“Where are you going, Edward? We ought
-to get right to work; it will be an all-day job,
-do the best we can, and the light is good in
-Grandma’s room now for hanging the pictures.
-Must you go to the post-office first? O, well!
-that is but a short distance; run along, and get
-back as soon as you can.”</p>
-
-<p>“Halloo!” said Mr. Arkwright, the postmaster,
-who had known Edward ever since he
-was a little fellow in kilts and curls, “back
-again, are you? How you do shoot up, to be
-sure! I believe you are about a foot taller
-than you were in the fall. Here’s your mail;
-nothing but papers this time, but enough of
-them to snow you under!” And he pitched
-them through the little window so fast that they
-fell to the right and left.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 338px;">
-<img src="images/i-034.jpg" width="338" height="550" alt="Edward making deliveries" />
-<div class="caption">“CERTAINLY, SIR,” SAID EDWARD.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Catalogues, some of them,” said Edward,
-smiling; “I asked them to send me a number
-of the new ones; and the reports of our commencement
-and society exercises are in these
-papers.”</p>
-
-<p>“Like enough,” said Mr. Arkwright; “had a
-grand time, I suppose? You carried off a first
-prize, I hear? Glad of it. I always knew it
-was in you. Do you happen to be going directly
-home? If you are, would you mind taking this
-letter and handing it in at Westlake’s as you
-pass? I see it is marked ‘Important,’ and it
-may save him some trouble to get it right away.
-He’s all alone in the office to-day; his boy is
-sick.”</p>
-
-<p>“Certainly, sir,” said Edward, reaching for
-the letter, and dropping it into his jacket pocket.
-Then he walked away, looking steadily at one
-of the papers, which he had already opened.</p>
-
-<p>“I do not see what in the world can have
-detained Edward!” said Mrs. Steadman, speaking
-as well as she could with her mouth full of
-tacks. She was mounted on a box which in its
-turn was mounted on a chair, and was trying
-to reach to fasten the curtain in Grandma’s
-room.</p>
-
-<p>“I should think you would wait for him,”
-said her daughter Fannie anxiously. “You
-ought not to climb up like that, mother; father
-would not like it at all, and I’m afraid you will
-fall. You are not high enough yet to get it
-right.”</p>
-
-<p>“I know it; and I can’t drive a nail away
-up here, either. I cannot understand why Edward
-doesn’t come; it seems as though something
-must have happened to him. I explained
-to him particularly what a hurry we were in,
-and how much there was in which he could help
-me.”</p>
-
-<p>“What has happened to him is that he has
-found something to read, I suppose, and has
-seated himself somewhere to enjoy it.” Fannie
-spoke a little irritably; she was worried about
-her mother, and they had been waiting for Edward
-for more than two hours. The short
-December day was hurrying toward its noon,
-and nothing had been done of the many things
-in which he was to have been a central figure.
-Fannie was very fond of her brother, but she
-realized his besetments better than the others
-did, or at least she said more about them.</p>
-
-<p>“O, no!” said the mother decidedly, taking
-a tack out of her mouth to enable her to speak
-plainly; “Edward wouldn’t do that, after all I
-said to him this morning. He knew how anxious
-we were to have everything ready for Grandma
-by Christmas. Something unusual has happened,
-I feel sure. I don’t know but Tommy
-would better run out and see if he can find him,
-only it seems rather absurd to be sending out
-in search of a big boy like Edward.”</p>
-
-<p>“I should think so!” Fannie said, and they
-waited another half-hour. Then a sharp ring
-at the door-bell startled Mrs. Steadman so that
-she nearly lost her balance. Fannie screamed
-a little, and ran toward her.</p>
-
-<p>“I didn’t fall,” she said, leaning against the
-window-casing for support; “but I think I
-shall have to get down. I don’t see what makes
-me so nervous. It seems all the time as though
-something was going to happen; I suppose it is
-because Edward doesn’t come. Did Jane go to
-the door?”</p>
-
-<p>Yes, Jane had; and now they listened and
-heard Mr. Westlake’s, their neighbor’s, voice.</p>
-
-<p>“Is Edward here?”</p>
-
-<p>No, Jane said, somewhat shortly, he was
-not; and as to where he was, that was more
-than they knew. Jane had been called from
-her work three times that morning to help with
-something which Edward could have done, and
-she did not feel sweet-natured.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, I wish you would ask your folks if
-they have any idea where I might find him,”
-Mr. Westlake said anxiously; “I have just
-come from the office—it was the first chance I
-had for going this morning—and Arkwright
-says he sent a letter to me marked ‘Important’—sent
-it by Edward nearly three hours ago, he
-should think. I have some business matters
-that are very important, and I thought this
-might be a summons to me to go away on the
-express, and there is but a half-hour or less
-before it goes.”</p>
-
-<p>Before this long sentence was finished Mrs.
-Steadman was at the door; but she had no information
-to give, and could only tell the annoyed
-man that she was sorry, and that she
-could not imagine what had detained Edward.</p>
-
-<p>“I can,” muttered Jane, as he turned hurriedly
-away; “his own sweet notion is detaining
-him; he’s enjoying himself somewhere,
-readin’ a book or paper, and letting others get
-along the best way they can.” But Jane was
-only talking to herself.</p>
-
-<p>The Steadman dinner bell was sounding
-through the house when Edward, flushed and
-embarrassed, came bounding up the stairs two
-steps at a time, to assure his mother how sorry
-he was.</p>
-
-<p>“I hadn’t the least idea how time was going,”
-he explained; “never was so astonished in my
-life as I was to hear the bell ring for noon!
-Why, you see,” in answer to her anxious questions,
-“I got a lot of papers at the office—all
-about our closing days, you know; of course
-I was anxious to see what they said about the
-examinations, and essays, and things, so I
-stepped into Dr. Mason’s office just to glance
-them over. The doctor was out, and I sat and
-read first one thing and then another, and talked
-a little with folks who kept coming in search of
-the doctor, until, to my utter astonishment, as
-I tell you, I heard the bell.”</p>
-
-<p>“Then nothing detained you, Edward?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, no, ma’am; nothing but the papers,
-as I tell you. I had not the faintest idea”—</p>
-
-<p>She interrupted him. “Have you seen Mr.
-Westlake?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes’m,” and now Edward’s face crimsoned;
-“I met him on the street and gave him his letter.
-I’m dreadfully sorry about that; almost
-as sorry as I am about keeping you waiting,
-mother.”</p>
-
-<p>“He said it might want him to take the train;
-do you know if it did?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes’m, it did.”</p>
-
-<p>“And he missed it?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, of course, mother dear; the train
-goes at eleven, you know. I’m awfully sorry.
-It is perfectly unaccountable what has become
-of this forenoon!”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Steadman made no comment; she did
-not want to trust herself to do so just then.
-She turned away with a sigh so deep that
-it would have cut Edward’s heart, had he
-heard it.</p>
-
-<p>And Jane nodded her gray head and muttered,
-“I told you so!”</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A TEN-DOLLAR CHRISTMAS.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">ADELE CHESTER had never
-spent a Christmas in the country
-before; neither had she
-ever felt quite so desolate.
-Mother and father were in
-Europe, in search of health for
-the father, and Adele, who had been left in
-charge of Aunt Martha, had herself decreed
-that she would go nowhere for Christmas.</p>
-
-<p>“I can’t be happy and frolic when papa is
-sick,” she said; “and as for the country, if
-Aunt Martha can live there all her life, I think
-I can endure one Christmas.” So she had
-staid; but it must be confessed that the world
-looked dreary to her that wintry morning, with
-nothing but snow to be seen from her window.
-She almost thought she would have been wiser
-to have joined the Philadelphia cousins. “At
-least there would have been a chance to spend
-my Christmas money,” she murmured gloomily,
-as she tapped on the frosty window pane with
-restless fingers. “I’m sure I don’t know what
-I can buy in this little tucked-up place.”</p>
-
-<p>The “tucked-up place” was really a nice
-town with about five thousand people living in
-it, but to Adele, whose home was in New York
-City, it seemed absurd to call it a town. Aunt
-Martha’s farmhouse was only half a mile from
-some very good stores, where Adele had found
-a few things to suit her during the three months
-she had spent there, and on the whole she had
-managed to be quite happy. But she did not
-feel like being suited with anything this morning.
-Such a queer Christmas for her! She
-had had her presents, as usual—a new fur cap
-from Aunt Martha, a writing-desk well furnished
-from Uncle Peter, a lovely ring with a
-real diamond in it from mamma, and a new
-chain for her pretty watch from papa. What
-more could a reasonable girl want? Truth to
-tell, she wanted nothing but the dear home, and
-mamma’s kisses, and papa’s arms around her.
-The ring and chain were beautiful, but they did
-not seem like presents from them, when she
-knew they crossed the ocean weeks ago, and
-had been lying in Aunt Martha’s bureau drawer
-waiting for this morning. She valued the letter
-more which had arrived only the night before,
-and she drew it from her pocket and kissed it,
-letting a tear or two fall on the words, “My
-Darling Child,” as she read them once more.
-“Papa and I are so sorry to be away from you
-to-day,” the letter read; “we have tried to find
-something suitable to send on so long a journey,
-and planned to reach you on the very day, but
-have failed; papa has not been well enough to
-look about much for a few weeks, and I could
-not go alone. At last we decided to send you a
-fifty-dollar bank note and bid you go and spend
-it in the way which would make you happiest.”</p>
-
-<p>“The idea!” said Adele, smiling through her
-tears, as she refolded the letter, “just as though
-I could find anything here to buy to make me
-happy! Mamma must have forgotten for the
-moment where I was. Yet I want a few things,
-some Christmas bonbons, at least, if they know
-the meaning of the word in this little place,
-and above all, I want a brisk walk in the snow.
-I shall take ten dollars of my fifty, and go out
-and spend it; I won’t waste another cent on
-this old town. I wonder what I can do with
-ten dollars to make me happy?” She laughed
-half scornfully. Ten dollars seemed so very
-little to this girl, who had always spent money
-as freely as water, and done as little thinking
-about it as the birds do over the spring cherries.</p>
-
-<p>In a very few minutes she was wrapped in
-furs and out upon the snowy road. Aunt
-Martha offered her the sleigh and the driver,
-and her “leggings” and woollen mittens, but
-she would have none of them. She was a good
-walker, and had been used to miles in the city.
-She hid her nose in her muff, because the wind
-over this wide stretch of snow was very keen,
-and sped along “like a snowbird,” Aunt Martha
-said, watching her from the window. And then
-she sighed, this dear old auntie whom the country
-satisfied. She saw the shade on the face of
-her darling this morning, and was sorry for her,
-and wished so much that she could do something
-to brighten her Christmas day.</p>
-
-<p>The little town was reached in due time, and
-the streets were gay with Christmas finery; the
-stores were open quite generally, to catch the
-belated Christmas buyers. In an hour or two
-they would close for the day; but the custom
-in this thriving manufacturing town was to give
-the tardy ones a Christmas morning chance.
-Adele went from one store to another, dissatisfied,
-disconsolate. Nothing suited her. The
-truth is, when a girl does not need an earthly
-thing, and is yet determined to spend some
-money, she is sometimes rather difficult to suit.
-She halted at last before a show window and
-looked at the bright fineries displayed there.
-So did little Janey Hooper, who had come out
-with ten cents to buy a soup bone for the day’s
-dinner. Adele, turning from the window, jostled
-against her, and looked down upon the mite.
-She seemed not more than eight, yet there was
-a wise, grown-up look in her eyes which held
-the homesick girl’s attention.</p>
-
-<p>“Are you trying to make Christmas too?
-What do you see in the window you like?”</p>
-
-<p>“Everything,” said the little girl simply.</p>
-
-<p>“Do you? you are fortunate. Are you going
-to buy them all?”</p>
-
-<p>“O, no! not a single one. I couldn’t.”</p>
-
-<p>Adele, looking closely at her, was seized with
-a sudden impulse. “Suppose you could buy
-one thing, what would it be?” she asked.</p>
-
-<p>The little girl’s eyes flashed. “Oh! I would
-buy that shawl—that soft gray one with pussy
-fringe—it looks just like mother.”</p>
-
-<p>It was a dingy little shoulder shawl, of the
-kind which can be bought for two dollars.
-“Does your mother need a shawl?” asked Adele.</p>
-
-<p>“O, yes’m! she needs it badly enough; but
-we are not going to get one, not this year; we
-can’t.”</p>
-
-<p>There was decision and composure in the
-tone, like a woman who had settled the whole
-question, and put it beyond the range of argument.
-Her manner amused Adele.</p>
-
-<p>“That was for your mother,” she said;
-“what would you choose for yourself?”</p>
-
-<p>“Me?” said the child, surprised. “Oh! I
-don’t know. I might take that brown coat,
-maybe, or some mittens, or—I don’t know
-which I would take. What’s the use?”</p>
-
-<p>She was turning away; but Adele’s gloved
-hand detained her. The little sack she wore
-was much too thin for so cold a morning.</p>
-
-<p>“Wait a minute,” she said gently. “Tell
-me what your name is, won’t you, and where
-you live, and what you came out for this cold
-morning with so thin a sack?”</p>
-
-<p>“I’m Janey Hooper; we live down there on
-Factory Lane. It wasn’t far to go, and my
-sack is worn out, that is why it is so thin; but
-it will do very well for this winter. I came out
-to buy the Christmas dinner.”</p>
-
-<p>“Did you, indeed! Aren’t you very young
-to go to market?”</p>
-
-<p>“O, no, ma’am! I’m turned nine, and the
-oldest of four, and father’s dead. Of course I
-have to do all I can. I know how to choose a
-lovely soup bone.”</p>
-
-<p>“Do you? Are you going to have soup
-to-day?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes’m, a big kettle full; I’ve got ten cents
-to buy a bone with. I generally get a five-cent
-one; but we thought for Christmas we would
-have it fine. My brother is to be home to dinner;
-he is most twelve, and likes soup.”</p>
-
-<p>There was a mist before Adele’s eyes that
-the frosty air did not make. She brushed it
-away and settled her plans.</p>
-
-<p>“Come in here with me a minute,” she said;
-“I want your help about something.” The
-child followed her wonderingly, with eyes that
-grew every moment larger, as the thick brown
-coat which hung on a wire figure was taken
-down and deliberately tried by the smiling shop
-girl on her quaint little self.</p>
-
-<p>“It fits to a T,” said the girl; “Janey has
-a pretty figure, and that just suits her.”</p>
-
-<p>“It is warm, at least,” said Adele. “Did
-you say it was two and a half? What an absurd
-price! Keep it on, child; it is for you.
-This is Christmas, you know, and Santa Claus
-sent it to you. Now that shoulder shawl.”</p>
-
-<p>A moment more, and it was in Janey’s astonished
-arms. Her eyes sparkled, but she made
-an earnest protest: “Oh! if you please, I don’t
-think I can; I am afraid mother would not”—</p>
-
-<p>“Your mother cannot help herself,” interrupted
-Adele. “Don’t you know I told you it
-was Santa Claus? He does what he likes always.
-Come along, I’m going to market with
-you; I want to see you pick out a soup bone.
-Is it to go in that basket?”</p>
-
-<p>She picked it out with grave care and with
-skill, Adele and the market man watching her
-the while. “Isn’t it a nice one, Bobby?” said
-the child, to a stout boy who had also stopped.
-Adele turned as the freckled boy nodded.</p>
-
-<p>“Who is this? Is he a friend of yours?
-Well, Bobby, Santa Claus wants you to do an
-errand for him, will you? He will give you
-four of those red-cheeked apples if you will.”</p>
-
-<p>The boy laughed good-naturedly, and said he
-didn’t know much about Santa Claus, but he
-would do whatever she wanted done.</p>
-
-<p>“Very well,” said Adele merrily; “I want
-that market basket which hangs up there. Can
-you lend it to this boy for a little while?” The
-market man declared his entire willingness to do
-so, and kept Janey Hooper waiting for her bone
-while he filled that basket with everything which
-Adele’s eyes could discover, which might add to
-a Christmas dinner. There was a plump chicken,
-a roast of beef, a string of sausage, some potatoes,
-apples, onions, turnips, a great bunch of
-celery, and, in short, whatever the market man
-suggested, after the girl’s skill was exhausted.</p>
-
-<p>“Is that too heavy for you?” said Adele.</p>
-
-<p>“O, no, ma’am!” Bobby assured her.</p>
-
-<p>“Very well; I want you to take it to this
-little girl’s mother’s house, and tell her Santa
-Claus sent it to go with the soup, and that it
-has given him a happy Christmas to do so.
-Will you remember?”</p>
-
-<p>He nodded brightly, stuffing rosy-cheeked
-apples into his pocket the while, and they
-trudged away, Janey trying to murmur her bewildered
-protests, while Adele paid her bill.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ve spent every cent of my ten dollars,”
-she told Aunt Martha an hour later. “I hadn’t
-even enough to buy you any Christmas bonbons;
-but I have obeyed mamma’s directions; I was
-to buy something to make me happy, and I
-haven’t felt so happy in weeks as I do this
-minute. When I get my things put away I’ll
-come down and tell you all about it.”</p>
-
-<p>Aunt Martha watched her bound up the stairs,
-a glow on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes
-which they had lacked when she went out; and
-whatever the purchase had been, she was
-grateful.</p>
-
-<p>As for Janey Hooper and her mother, to say
-nothing of Bobby, who took dinner with them,
-you must imagine how they felt.</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 498px;">
-<img src="images/i-038.jpg" width="498" height="625" alt="boy dragging very unhappy sheep out of water on its back" />
-<div class="caption">MAKING THE SHEEP CLEAN.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MISS PARKER’S GIRLS.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THERE were thirteen of them,
-all told. An “unlucky number,”
-one of them said, and
-laughed; they were girls who
-did not believe in “luck.”
-They laughed a great deal during
-these days, and were very happy. They
-had as lovely a secret on their minds as thirteen
-girls, all of them between the ages of eleven
-and thirteen, ever had. They were also very
-busy, and held many committee meetings, and
-discussed plans, and went in companies of twos
-and threes to transact business. “We were
-never so busy before at this time of year, were
-we?” they said to one another. “And we never
-had so much fun in our lives!” some one would
-be sure to say. To this sentiment they all
-agreed.</p>
-
-<p>“This time of year” was a few days before
-Christmas. The preparations for Christmas,
-so far as these girls are concerned, began two
-weeks before. It started on Sunday afternoon
-in the Bible class. Miss Parker had been even
-more interesting than usual that day. She succeeded
-in so filling their hearts with the lesson,
-especially with one thought in it, that Cora
-Henderson said, half enviously:</p>
-
-<p>“O, dear! I can’t help wishing that we had
-lived in those times. Of course it was dreadful;
-but then, after all, it gave one such splendid
-opportunities! Think of John having a
-chance to take Jesus’ mother home and do for
-her. And to know that Jesus wanted him to,
-and was pleased with it! I think it would have
-been just lovely; there are no such chances
-nowadays,” and Cora, aged thirteen, sighed.</p>
-
-<p>Miss Parker smiled on her brightly. “Are
-you sure of that, my dear girl? Remember we
-are talking about a history which is different
-from any other in the world, because Jesus is
-‘the same yesterday, to-day and forever.’”</p>
-
-<p>“O, yes’m!” Cora said civilly; “I know it;
-but then, of course, things are different. His
-mother is not here on earth for us to take care
-of; I should love to do it, I know I should,”
-and Cora’s fair face glowed, and her eyes had
-a sweet and tender light in them.</p>
-
-<p>Miss Parker looked at her fondly. “My
-dear child,” she said, “I think you would; but
-do you forget how He said, ‘Whosoever shall
-do the will of my Father which is in heaven,
-the same is my brother and sister and mother’?”</p>
-
-<p>Cora looked a little bewildered, and Miss
-Parker explained.</p>
-
-<p>“I think we all forget that according to that
-verse Jesus has many ‘mothers’ on earth, in
-the persons of his dear old saints, who are poor,
-and weak, and tired, and are only waiting to be
-called home. There are so many things we
-could do for their comfort, if we only remembered
-that they were the same to Jesus as his
-own dear mother.”</p>
-
-<p>The girls looked at one another wonderingly.
-This was a new way of putting it. Cora did
-more than look. “What a lovely thought!”
-she said; “I should never have thought it out
-for myself, but it must be so, because what
-would that verse mean if it were not? O, Miss
-Parker! couldn’t we girls do it? Do you know
-of any old lady whom we could help a little—make
-a pretty Christmas for, perhaps? Girls,
-wouldn’t you all like to do it?”</p>
-
-<p>So that was the beginning. Yes, Miss Parker
-knew an old lady; had had her in mind all the
-week; had wondered how she could set to work
-to interest her dear girls in her. She needed a
-great deal of help, and Miss Parker had very
-little of this world’s goods. She knew that
-some of her girls came from homes where there
-was plenty. “But I do not like to be always
-begging,” she told her mother. Then she had
-asked the Lord Jesus to show her some way of
-interesting the girls in poor Grandmother Blakslee.
-And here they were asking for the name
-of an old lady whom they could help! What a
-lovely answer it was to her prayer.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 539px;">
-<img src="images/i-040.jpg" width="539" height="600" alt="Grandmother praying with child" />
-<div class="caption">“NOW LET US ASK A BLESSING.”</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Grandmother Blakslee’s story was a sad one,
-though only too common. Her two daughters
-and her one son had died long years before,
-leaving a little granddaughter, who had grown
-to girlhood and married a worthless drunkard,
-who deserted her, and at last she died, leaving
-to Grandmother Blakslee the care of her poor
-little baby boy. In many ways life had gone
-hard with Grandmother Blakslee; and now in
-her old age, when she was too feeble to work,
-the thing which she had dreaded most in the
-world, next to sin, had come to her door. She
-could no longer pay the rent for her one little
-bare room, and must send her little boy to the
-orphan asylum, and go herself to the poorhouse.
-It seemed a very pitiful thing to Grandmother
-Blakslee that she should have had to plan to
-leave the bare little room on Christmas morning,
-but that happened to be the day when it was
-convenient for the man who had promised to
-take her and her old arm-chair. Poor little
-Johnnie was to go with her for that one day,
-and the next morning he was to be taken in the
-market wagon to the asylum. Poor Grandmother
-Blakslee! her heart was very sad and
-sore, but she tried to keep her face quiet and
-peaceful for Johnnie’s sake. She had not been
-able to make the little fellow understand that he
-was to be separated from her; the most he realized
-was that they were to take a ride together
-and spend the day in a big house, and he was
-happy. On the little three-cornered table was
-set a dish with baked potatoes and warm rolls,
-and the teapot stood near it; a neighbor only a
-little less poor than themselves had remembered
-them. Grandmother tried to have only thankfulness
-in her heart; but could she forget that
-she had lived in that town more than sixty years,
-and been a member of the church all that time?
-Occasionally she could not help feeling it was
-strange that there could have been no other
-way but to go to the poorhouse. “It won’t be
-long now for me,” she told herself, “and I
-should like to have kept Johnnie while I staid,
-poor little boy! But it was not to be.” Then
-she smothered a sigh and said, “Come, Johnnie,
-let us ask a blessing, then we will have our last
-breakfast alone together.”</p>
-
-<p>It was while Johnnie stood with clasped
-hands, saying after Grandmother the words of
-blessing, that a knock was heard at the little
-door. “Come in,” said Grandmother Blakslee
-the moment the words of prayer were spoken,
-and a strange head was thrust in at the door.</p>
-
-<p>“I can wait, ma’am,” said the owner of it
-respectfully. “I’m to take you in my rig, and
-my orders were to wait until you were ready.”</p>
-
-<p>“Did Mr. Patterson send you?” asked
-Grandma, her voice all in a tremble. “I
-thought he meant to come himself, and I
-thought he said about ten o’clock; but we’ll
-hurry, Johnnie and me; we won’t keep you
-long. Can you take the chair, too?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes’m; them’s my orders; and no hurry in
-life, ma’am, take your time,” and he closed the
-door.</p>
-
-<p>Johnnie stuffed in the buns and potatoes, and
-pronounced them good; but poor Grandmother
-Blakslee only swallowed a few mouthfuls of tea
-which almost choked her. Life was very hard.</p>
-
-<p>She was soon ready; it would not do to keep
-Mr. Patterson’s team waiting. But she stared
-at it when she came out. It was not the market
-wagon; instead it was a handsome two-horse
-sleigh, with gay robes’ on the seats, and
-gay bells on the handsome horses. “You
-needn’t be at all afraid, ma’am,” said the
-strange man, “these horses is gentle as kittens,
-if they do love to go,” and he lifted her
-in as though she had been a kitten, tucked
-Johnnie under the robes beside her, and before
-she could get her breath to speak they were off.
-Just a gay dash around the corner, down one
-familiar street, up another, and they halted before
-a tiny white house set back among tall trees
-which staid green even in winter.</p>
-
-<p>“There is some mistake,” faltered Grandma
-Blakslee, more breathless than ever. “I wasn’t
-to be brought here; I was to go to the asylum
-out on the Corning Road, near two miles; I
-don’t know the folks that live here; I didn’t
-know it was rented.”</p>
-
-<p>The strange man chuckled. “I guess there’s
-no mistake,” he said, “and you’ll like to make
-their acquaintance; anyhow, I must do my duty
-and leave you here; I’m under orders.”</p>
-
-<p>Trembling and bewildered, poor Grandma,
-because she did not know what else to do, let
-herself be set down in front of the door, which
-the man opened hospitably, saying as he did so,
-“Step right in; the folks that live here will be
-glad to see you.” Then he shut the door and
-went away. They were left, Grandmother and
-Johnnie, in a little hall opening into a pretty
-room at the right. The door was wide open,
-and a bright fire burned in a shining stove.
-There was a bright carpet on the floor; there
-was a rose in blossom in one window, and some
-geraniums in the other. There was a large
-easy chair in front of the stove, with a table
-beside it on which was set out a lovely breakfast
-for two. On the stove the tea-kettle sang,
-and some genuine tea in a little brown teapot
-on the right-hand corner back, sent out its
-delicious aroma. In an alcove, behind some
-pretty curtains which were partly drawn, waited
-a plump white bed; and Grandma Blakslee
-stood in the midst of all this luxury and stared.</p>
-
-<p>“Grandma,” said Johnnie, “have we got
-there? Is this the big house? Where are all
-the folks? Where is this, and whose breakfast
-is that? Are we to eat it, Grandma? It is
-nicer than ours. Why don’t you sit down in
-that pretty chair? Here is a little one for me,
-with wed cushions. Can’t we stay here every
-day, Grandma?”</p>
-
-<p>Grandma, feeling unable to stand another
-minute, tottered forward and dropped into the
-softness of the easy chair, and spied, tucked
-under the edge of a plate, a sheet of folded
-paper. Then she fumbled for what Johnnie
-called the “speticles that could wead,” and
-read:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>Welcome home, dear Grandma Blakslee. Merry Christmas
-to you and Johnnie.</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">From Miss Parker’s Girls.</span><br />
-</p></div>
-
-<p>No, they hadn’t “done it every bit themselves.”
-There had been several fathers and
-mothers who were glad to help, as soon as they
-thought about it. Cora Henderson’s father had
-said, “Why, Grandma Blakslee might live in
-the little empty cottage this winter and welcome;”
-he wondered they had not thought of it
-before. Anna Smith’s mother said she would
-be glad to get rid of that carpet rolled up in the
-attic; she had no use for it, and it was a pattern
-she had never liked. Ella Stuart’s mother
-said the old arm-chair and the old lounge would
-do nicely if they were re-covered, and she was
-sure she did not want them. And so the plan
-grew and grew, and the girls were O, so busy
-and happy! It was the best Christmas of their
-lives, they all declared, especially after they
-made their call on Grandma, and found her
-almost too happy.</p>
-
-<p>“It is almost pitiful,” said Anna Smith, “to
-see a poor woman cry for joy over one little
-room and a few old duds!”</p>
-
-<p>And Cora Henderson, with her eyes shining
-like stars, said, “Isn’t it lovely? I’m so glad
-that verse is in the Bible, and Miss Parker
-thought it all out!”</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>A SABBATH IN A BOARDING-SCHOOL
-IN TURKEY.</h2>
-
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp; MUST explain that some time
-before this I had learned that
-the boys in the boarding-school
-who had no pocket money,
-could not go to the bath as
-often as I thought they ought.
-While I was considering this problem, an Armenian
-gentleman gave me something over two
-dollars to use as I saw fit. Thinking “cleanliness
-next to godliness,” though the Bible does
-not say it in just those words, I used to give
-Deekran a quarter or so now and then to use
-for himself and the other poor boys.</p>
-
-<p>When they rose to go, I asked Sumpad if he
-could stop a moment, I wanted to have a little
-talk with him. How glad I was to find that he
-had a hope in Christ, and was trying to live
-for him. It was a great privilege to speak a
-few words of sympathy and encouragement.</p>
-
-<p>How can I believe the terrible news that has
-just come to me here in free America? How
-can I think of him in his young, Christian manhood
-as dead in a horrible Turkish dungeon!
-Why, what had he done? He had written a
-few lines of boyish admiration for the heroes
-of his own race, the Armenians. And so he
-must die alone of typhus fever after a four
-months’ imprisonment, utterly cut off from all
-his friends. Poor young martyr! No one
-could get access to him; yes, there was one
-Friend whose entrance neither bolts nor bars
-could prevent—the King of heaven and earth;
-what need of any other? Death has now unlocked
-the prison door, and opened the gate of
-heaven; no more tears should be shed for him—happy
-young martyr.</p>
-
-<p>But I have wandered far, both as to place
-and time, far from that peaceful, happy Sabbath.</p>
-
-<p>It was now lunch time; then came Sabbath-school.
-The men and boys met in the chapel,
-but as it was not large enough to accommodate
-more, the women’s, girls’ and the infant class
-met elsewhere. Isgoohe, a member of the
-senior class in the high school, took charge of
-the second of these. After going over the lesson,
-she began to ask personal questions:</p>
-
-<p>“Now, girls, what have you done for Jesus
-this week?”</p>
-
-<p>A hand was raised.</p>
-
-<p>“What is it, Marta?”</p>
-
-<p>“I let Funduk have my comb for Jesus’ sake.
-It was such a nice one, I did not like to have
-her use it; but Miss Goulding told me I ought
-to be kind to Funduk.”</p>
-
-<p>Then Armenoohe said that going home from
-school one day, a girl she did not know very
-well called out, “Armenoohe, run and get me
-another clog; mine’s broken.” (The clog is a
-wooden sole with a heel at each end, as it were,
-and a leather strap to slip the foot into. These
-heels are from one to three or four inches in
-height, and raise the foot well out of the mud
-or snow.) “At first,” said she, “I thought
-that it was no affair of mine, and that the girl
-was rather impudent to ask such a thing. Then
-I remembered what you told us, Isgoohe, about
-not pleasing ourselves; so I asked her which
-was her house, and got the clog and brought it
-to her, and she never even thanked me!” (It
-was not so very long since Armenoohe herself
-had learned to say “thank you.”)</p>
-
-<p>Two or three others told their little efforts at
-denying self; then the bell rang for the afternoon
-service.</p>
-
-<p>In the evening I invited any who wished to
-talk with me to come to my room. Soon afterward
-Rakel came. She was rather a pretty
-girl, with bright red hair; she was full of fun,
-and a dreadful tease. She dropped on to the
-hassock at my side in a bashful sort of a way.</p>
-
-<p>“Was there something you wanted to say,
-Rakel?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” came the whispered answer; “I want
-to love my companions.”</p>
-
-<p>I enlarged a little upon the duty and privilege
-of loving others, and then waited for her
-to speak; but she was silent so long, that I
-finally asked if there was anything else she
-wished to say.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes; how can I love those who make me
-angry?”</p>
-
-<p>Well, that was a problem, to be sure! But
-then, the dear Saviour can help us solve every
-problem, so we knelt and prayed, both of us,
-for his help in this particular matter.</p>
-
-<p>She had been gone but a minute, when her
-cousin Sarra came, Bible in hand, to ask the
-meaning of the verse, “Whether therefore ye
-eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the
-glory of God.” There were several other verses
-she wanted explained, and then by a little gentle
-questioning, I learned some more of the trouble
-between her and Rakel, who she said was always
-teasing her, using her books, and leaving them
-about carelessly. Then she hung her head and
-confessed that when she found her Bible on the
-divan, and Fido tearing out a leaf, she had at
-once blamed Rakel, and retaliated by getting
-her Bible and banging it on to the floor.</p>
-
-<p>“Was that right, Sarra? Do you think that
-was one way to glorify God?”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” she replied honestly, but her voice
-was low and husky. Then we talked of the
-way Christ bore with men and their cruelty and
-sins, and we asked him to make us gentle and
-patient, kind to others, even when they were
-unkind to us.</p>
-
-<p>The retiring bell tinkled through the hall, and
-so ended the beautiful, blessed day.</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Harriet G. Powers</span>, <i>in the Evangelist</i>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 209px;">
-<img src="images/deco-line.jpg" width="209" height="16" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
-<img src="images/i-043.jpg" width="400" height="190" alt="girl blowing bubbles in bowl" />
-<div class="caption">GOOD FUN!</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 426px;">
-<img src="images/i-044.jpg" width="426" height="600" alt="boys playing hockey" />
-<div class="caption">THE BATTLE IS ON.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
-<img src="images/i-045.jpg" width="400" height="316" alt="bopy carrying buckets while man watches" />
-<div class="caption">HE WAS COMING FROM THE OLD WELL.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>“WHAT IF I HAD!”</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-n.jpg" width="121" height="123" alt="N" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">NEW YEAR’S morning and the
-snow lying deep over all the
-paths, drifted even to the tops
-of the fences! Plenty of
-work for Stephen Watson; he
-frowned a little as he looked
-out of his attic window in the cold gray of the
-early morning and saw his nicely-made paths
-all carefully covered. But almost before the
-frown had cleared away he laughed, and broke
-at last into a cheery whistle. “No great loss
-without some gain.” He stopped to make this
-wise remark aloud, then went on with his whistling.
-What he longed for just now was a holiday—a
-chance to take a run across lots to Dick
-Wheeler’s home and see the new book which his
-uncle sent him for Christmas. A beautifully
-bound book with “oceans of pictures,” and
-telling all about a journey to Europe. “Not a
-stupid history,” Dick reported, “but a regular
-story, telling all about how some folks went
-and had jolly times, and saw no end of things,
-and described them.” Stephen’s brain was
-fairly whirling with a desire to examine this
-book. It may as well be owned that a book of
-almost any sort had wonderful attractions for
-this boy; and books and papers, and indeed
-reading matter of any kind, were painfully
-scarce in the country farmhouse where Stephen
-was chore boy. Mrs. Griggs, the mistress, did
-not more than half believe in them; she eyed
-even Stephen’s Geography with suspicion, and
-occasionally asked her husband “What sense
-there was in that boy’s learning where all the
-rivers and mountains in creation with outlandish
-names were to be found. What good would
-it do him? He would never find them outside
-of a book.”</p>
-
-<p>Well, Stephen had smiled and whistled, because
-he saw that this heavy fall of snow was
-likely to further his plans for a holiday. If it
-had only drifted enough to make the roads to
-the ledge farm impassable then Mr. and Mrs.
-Griggs would stay at home and take care of
-the house, and when his chores were done, he
-might possibly be allowed to go over to Dick’s.</p>
-
-<p>Everything seemed to be shaping according
-to his plans. Mr. Griggs remarked at the
-breakfast table that there “wouldn’t be no
-sense in trying to get to Mary Ann’s that day;
-the ledge road always drifted if it could get a
-chance, and the wind was still blowing in that
-direction.” Mrs. Griggs had sighed, it is true,
-and said that “Mary Ann would be dreadfully
-disappointed,” but she, too, had said that she
-supposed there was no use in trying to go.</p>
-
-<p>Stephen went about his chores with a will, a
-trifle sorry for Mrs. Griggs, and a little curious
-over the idea that anybody in the world could
-be much disappointed over not receiving a visit
-from her and Mr. Griggs. “But then I suppose
-it is because they are her father and
-mother, and that makes a difference,” said this
-orphan boy, with a sigh. But he could not
-help being glad that they were not to go.
-What if he got the chores all done so early
-that there were several hours before dinner, and
-Mr. Griggs would let him go in the forenoon?
-Wouldn’t that be a lark worthy of the day!
-Dick Wheeler’s mother was always good-natured,
-and twice she had asked him to stay to
-supper with Dick; there was everything to be
-hoped for in that direction. He was coming
-from the old well with two brimming pails of
-water, when Mr. Griggs, out by the ash barrel,
-with his hands in his pockets to keep them
-warm, dashed the boy’s hopes to the ground.
-“Got about through, Stephen? Then I guess
-you may hitch up, after all. The wind has
-gone down, and Mis’ Griggs is disappointed,
-and she thinks we better try it. You may get
-things ready as fast as you can; we ought to
-be off if we are going; then you’ll have a long
-warm day in the kitchen. Don’t on no account
-leave the place; that wouldn’t do, of course.”</p>
-
-
-
-<p>Not a word said Stephen, though he would
-like to have thrown the pails of water over Mr.
-Griggs, and kicked the empty pails into a snowdrift.
-He had never been so disappointed in
-his life! “A long warm day in the kitchen!”
-If there was any day which he utterly hated it
-was such an one; not even a new almanac to
-read—Farmer Griggs had been waiting for one
-to be sent to him from somewhere, and it had
-not come. Of course there was nothing to do
-but obey; but Stephen felt that he hated New
-Year’s dinners, and wished that “Mary Ann”
-lived fifty miles away, and hoped that Farmer
-Griggs would encounter a drift so deep that
-Mother Griggs would be rolled over in the
-snow! Oh! he was fierce enough to wish
-almost anything.</p>
-
-<p>It was because of all this that a very glum-faced
-boy looked out of the small-paned kitchen
-window about two hours afterwards, and watched
-a single horse and cutter skim gaily along. Only
-one person in the sleigh, and he muffled in furs,
-and looking as though life was one long holiday.
-Stephen believed that everybody but himself
-was having a holiday. Suddenly the sleigh
-drew up in front of their gate. “Halloo!”
-said the man in furs, and Stephen ran out and
-down the snowy path. “Good-morning! Happy
-New Year,” said a pleasant voice. “Can you
-tell me whether this is the right road to Mr.
-Bennett’s farm?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir, it is.”</p>
-
-<p>“How far from here to Mr. Bennett’s?”</p>
-
-<p>“Five miles, sir; but there are none of them
-at home.”</p>
-
-<p>“They are not? How do you know that?”</p>
-
-<p>“I know the boy who drives their horses, and
-he went by awhile ago; he was on his way back
-from Dr. Freeman’s, where he had been to take
-Miss Carrie—Mr. Bennett’s daughter—and the
-boy said his folks were all away for the day, and
-he was going to his grandmother’s to dinner.”</p>
-
-<p>Stephen could not help adding that last, because
-it had been a very bitter drop in his cup
-of trouble. Mr. Bennett’s house could stay
-alone, it seemed, while the boy went to his
-grandmother’s to dinner, whereas this old farmhouse
-had to be watched as though there was
-danger of its running away.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>“That is the state of things, is it?” said the
-stranger. “Thank you; I do not care to take
-a five-mile drive through these drifts to find a
-shut-up house. Can you tell me where Dr.
-Freeman lives?”</p>
-
-<p>“He lives about a mile from here; but Miss
-Carrie Bennett isn’t there now, sir; she has
-gone with Miss Freeman to bring a Miss Banks,
-who lives two miles west, to eat dinner with them
-at the doctor’s.” Stephen told this story with
-an amused twinkle in his eye; it struck him as
-a queer thing that he should be so well posted
-concerning matters which evidently interested
-this handsome stranger. The stranger turned
-on him a keen, questioning glance. “You seem
-to understand your neighbors’ affairs very well
-indeed, my boy. How does it happen?”</p>
-
-<p>Stephen laughed. “Why, Pete just happened
-to tell me about it, sir; he said he was
-in luck, and did not have to drive them there
-himself, because the doctor’s team drove up in
-just the nick of time and took them. Everybody
-is in luck except me.”</p>
-
-<p>“Is that so?” asked the stranger, his face
-breaking into a genial smile. “I am certainly,
-since I have found a quick-witted boy who has
-saved me ten miles of useless driving. Can
-you do me another favor now, and let me come
-in and visit with you for awhile, until in your
-judgment the doctor’s team has had time to find
-Miss Banks and bring her back? I do not
-happen to be acquainted with any of the party
-save Miss Bennett, and would prefer waiting
-until she is there before I make my call.”</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Griggs never refused travelers a chance
-to warm, and of course Stephen invited this
-one into the house and did the honors of the
-kitchen as well as he could. Somehow—he
-never quite understood how it was—he found
-himself telling the story of his bitter disappointment
-to this stranger—all about the wonderful
-book full of pictures and stories of travel. He
-was astonished afterwards to think how much
-he talked; but then, the stranger listened so
-kindly, and his eyes were so bright, and his
-smile so pleasant, and he asked so many questions,
-it seemed impossible not to confide in him.</p>
-
-<p>“So you like books,” he said, as at last he
-arose; “and books of travel? Well, I do myself;
-and it happens curiously enough that I
-have a package of books in my sleigh at this
-moment, two of which I think you would enjoy.
-I was taking them to a nephew of mine, and
-missed seeing him; probably because it was intended
-that you should have them instead. I
-owe you a debt of gratitude; and I’ll exchange
-the information you gave me for whatever information
-you can find in the books, which are
-yours to keep, you understand. And now don’t
-you think Miss Banks may have arrived at the
-doctor’s by this time?”</p>
-
-<p>Stephen helped him off in good style, but in
-such a flutter of excitement that he could hardly
-respond to the cheery “good-by,” for in his
-hands were two very large, very handsomely
-bound books, sparkling with pictures, and with
-the most inviting-looking reading. They must
-certainly be larger than Dick Wheeler’s one,
-for that had been minutely described to him.
-Besides, there were two of these; and besides,
-oh! besides, they were his very own, to keep!</p>
-
-<p>As he turned the leaves, like one in fairyland,
-he said aloud, “What if I had got a chance to
-go to Dick Wheeler’s this morning and missed
-this? O, my! what if I had!”</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 271px;">
-<img src="images/i-047.jpg" width="271" height="270" alt="Little girl with large hat on ground next to her" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 397px;">
-<img src="images/i-048.jpg" width="397" height="548" alt="Children and dog sledding" />
-<div class="caption">LOOK OUT! WE’RE COMING.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>WHAT HAPPENED TO BUNNY.</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-b.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="B" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">BUNNY is the name of a squirrel
-with a very long tail.</p>
-
-<p>When nuts were ripe Bunny
-worked hard to pick them and
-store them up for his family to
-live on through the cold winter.</p>
-
-<p>His house was in a big hollow tree. The
-door to it was a little round hole. He had a
-nice large pantry.</p>
-
-<p>All day long, in the pleasant Oc-to-ber
-weather, when children were playing, Bunny
-was picking nuts and
-scampering down the trees
-to put them safe in his
-pantry.</p>
-
-<p>He had a good many
-kinds of nuts. There
-were butternuts and walnuts
-and chestnuts, and
-tiny beechnuts for the
-teeny weeny squirrels.
-At last Bunny’s pantry
-was full, and he was all
-ready for December with
-its cold winds and snowflakes.</p>
-
-<p>One morning something
-happened! Just as Bunny
-started out he found a
-wire cage in front of his door. He thought it
-was a pretty little house, so he walked in.</p>
-
-<p>Snap! went the door of this pretty little
-house, and shut itself tight.</p>
-<div class="figright" style="width: 405px;">
-<img src="images/i-049.jpg" width="405" height="305" alt="girl lookinginto basket" />
-<div class="caption">“THEN HE SHALL GO.”</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Bunny tried on every side to get out, but he
-could not. He was in a prison.</p>
-
-<p>While he wondered what he should do a big
-boy came and looked at him.</p>
-
-<p>“Hurrah!” he said.</p>
-
-
-<p>Then big boy took up the cage and carried it
-off home.</p>
-
-<p>He gave Bunny to his little sister Susie.</p>
-
-<p>Susie was kind to Bunny. She put him in a
-basket with a soft bed and gave him cake and
-candy.</p>
-
-<p>But Bunny was not happy. He was too
-warm in the house with his fur coat on, and he
-wanted to get back to his dear children. He
-would not play; he sat still and looked sad.</p>
-
-<p>“Poor Bunny!” said Susie’s mamma; “he
-is used to being outdoors, and frisking about.
-He wants to see his little children and eat the
-nuts he laid up.”</p>
-
-<p>“Then he shall go,” Susie said.</p>
-
-<p>So she told him good-by, and carried the cage
-out in the garden and opened its door.</p>
-
-<p>Away went Bunny! He scampered over the
-fence and whisked up a tall tree as quick as
-wink.</p>
-
-<p>How happy he was to get to his hollow tree
-once more.</p>
-
-<p>Was not Susie a nice little girl?</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A LONG CHRISTMAS.</h2>
-
-
-<h3>PART II.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT was a January night, very
-cold. The snow which was always
-on the mountains looked
-down on the snow which sometimes
-melted from the valleys,
-and seemed to smile at it in a
-hard, cold way, for supposing itself to be of
-any importance at all. The white cross made
-by the peculiar shape of the mountains, and
-the action of the sun on the snow, gleamed in
-the moonlight more beautiful than usual to
-Teddy Simpson, as he pushed back the overcoat
-several times too large for him, thrust his
-hands into his pockets, and leaned against the
-snow-covered hill to think. Hundreds of stars
-twinkled down upon him, brighter and more
-filled with jewels than they ever are in any
-other sky, I think; but Teddy’s thoughts were
-not of them.</p>
-
-<p>He was waiting for the teamster whose route
-lay along this mountain side, and who always
-brought the mail from the distant settlement,
-as well as any supplies or packages which the
-miners might need. Not that Teddy expected
-any mail! Bless your heart, he had never received
-a letter in his life, nor even a paper
-through the mails. To have done so even once
-would have almost taken his breath away. Yet
-he was deeply interested in the teamster’s
-wagon; as he stood still in the moonlight to
-think, there was an eager look in his eyes, and
-he listened for the sound of the cracking whip
-with such an air of expectancy as his face did
-not often wear. The fact is, Teddy Simpson
-had planned a wonderful surprise for his mother
-which his friend the teamster was helping him
-to carry out. Very poor they were, he and his
-mother; she cooked for the miners, and washed
-for them, and mended their clothes, but the
-miners, too, were poor, and could pay but little.
-The truth is, the people who lived and
-worked in this beautiful, desolate region were
-all poor together. Teddy had had plans, beautiful
-plans, for the Christmas three weeks behind
-him, and had failed in them. He and his
-mother knew all about Christmas; had not she
-hung up her stocking every year of her life
-until she was a great girl fifteen years old?
-Teddy never had, because Santa Claus seemed
-never to get so far West as where he lived; but
-while the father was alive Teddy always had at
-least one Christmas present, if it was nothing
-but a picture cut from some of the illustrated
-papers of the tourists, and framed by his mother
-with some bits of bright paper laid away for such
-purposes. Teddy had been a man grown now
-for two years—at least he felt like one—with
-no time for such trifles; but he had longed to
-make a bright Christmas for the miner’s family
-with five little children, their nearest neighbors.
-If his mother had not had a sick day when he
-was obliged to do her work as well as he could,
-and in doing it wasted some of the material
-and lost a good deal of time, he thought he
-should have accomplished it. As it was, he
-could not get the Christmas treat ready for
-them, but promised himself that another year
-he would be on hand. Then he had turned his
-thoughts to a surprise for his mother. That,
-too, had been a Christmas plan, but failing
-then, he resolved that he would not wait for
-the next season. The surprise was nothing
-more nor less than a half-pound of the best tea
-which the silver half-dollar he had sent by the
-teamster could supply. The poor little overworked
-mother was very fond of tea; he had
-often heard her say that a good cup of it after
-a hard day’s work seemed to rest her as nothing
-else would; but since the father died, she
-had bravely put it aside as one of the luxuries
-which they could not now afford.</p>
-
-<p>If there were time to tell you how long and
-hard Teddy had worked for that extra half-dollar,
-never taking a cent for it from the regular
-wages of the day which he earned as his
-share of the family support, you would not
-wonder that he had grown almost feverish in
-his anxiety as the weeks went on, lest he should
-fail in having the right amount. He had accomplished
-it, and the day had come for the
-teamster to go on his fortnightly trip, and the
-day and evening had arrived for his return,
-and here at a bend in the road Teddy waited
-for him.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>Away in the distance on the still frosty air
-broke at last the sound of a cheery whistle, and
-Teddy held himself still and listened. Jim
-Coon, the teamster, was a friend of his, and
-Teddy did not believe he would whistle if anything
-so cruel had happened as that the supply
-grocer had been out of tea.</p>
-
-<p>“Halloo!” said Jim, as he came with a flourish
-around the bend in the snowy road, “waitin’,
-be you? I thought it was a ghost froze stiff to
-the rocks. Climb up here, and we’ll be home
-in a jiffy. Beats all what a hurry this team has
-been in this afternoon—all owing to you, I
-s’pose. O, yes! I got it, safe and sound; the
-very best kind of tea ever brought to these
-parts, Joe Derrick says, and he put in a good
-big half-pound of it, I’m witness to that.”</p>
-
-<p>Then Teddy drew a long breath, and immediately
-the longing which he had kept in the
-background came to the front; also the problem
-over which he had been studying for weeks.
-Wouldn’t it on the whole have been better to
-have gotten a quarter of a pound of tea and
-spent the rest of the money in sugar? mother
-did so like a little sugar with her tea. But
-then, a quarter of a pound seemed such a very
-little bit, and the winter was long in this mountain
-region, and there was no telling when he
-would have a chance to get any more. But he
-wished, O, so much! that he knew how to get
-just a little sugar; that would make the present
-complete.</p>
-
-<p>“I got somethin’ else,” said Jim, with a
-curious note of suppressed excitement in his
-tones; “somethin’ for you.”</p>
-
-<p>“For me?” echoed Teddy, amazed.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir, for you; Teddy Simpson is the
-name on the box, as large as life.”</p>
-
-<p>“On the box!” In his astonishment and
-excitement all that Teddy could do was to echo
-Jim’s words.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir, on the box; a good-sized box,
-and as heavy as though it had been stuffed with
-lead. Come by freight; got there yesterday
-just about an hour before I drove into town;
-come all the way from New York State, too.”</p>
-
-<p>After that, the quarter of a mile between
-Teddy Simpson and home seemed endless. A
-box by freight for him! What would mother
-think, and the neighbors! Above all, what
-could be in the box?</p>
-
-<p>Before it was half-unpacked the question became
-what was not in it? Two suits of clothes
-for Teddy, two new dresses for his mother—or
-dresses quite as good as new—a warm, bright
-shawl, and a fur hood. Shoes, and stockings,
-and socks, and mittens, and oh! books, and
-papers, and pictures, and more books. Was
-ever anything so wonderful? Then there were
-toys—dolls, and balls, and tops, and wooden
-dogs, and wax cats, and cloth elephants—and
-some little bits of dresses and sacks which could
-fit only the children further down the mountain.
-Teddy felt this, even before he discovered that
-these were all labeled, “For Teddy to give to
-his friends, the little Perkinses.” Moreover,
-there was a little leather bag in the very bottom
-of the box, drawn together by a bright cord and
-securely tied, which when opened was found to
-contain seventeen bright silver dollars, the gifts
-of the cousins and aunts and uncles for Teddy
-to use as he thought best. Do you want to
-know what he thought of first? A whole pound
-of sugar to go with that half-pound of tea which
-was still lying snugly in his overcoat pocket,
-where Teddy meant to leave it until the next
-morning. Such a box as that, and a half
-pound of tea in the bargain, he considered
-altogether too much for his mother’s nerves in
-one evening.</p>
-
-<p>Such a wonderful morning as it was—such
-a wonderful day, indeed! The Perkinses were
-hopelessly wild all day, and their poor little
-half-discouraged mother was not much better.</p>
-
-<p>The next time teamster Jim went over the
-snow road between the mountains he carried a
-fat little letter written in Teddy’s best round
-hand—and he was by no means a bad writer;
-his mother had taught him. In this letter he
-described to the cousins just how he stood by
-the rocks and waited for Jim Coon’s team, just
-how surprised he was, just how the box was
-opened, just what he and his mother exclaimed
-as long as they had any breath for exclaiming,
-just how the Perkinses acted the next day—at
-least as well as language would do it—and
-altogether wrote so surprising a letter that
-Hortense said, drawing a long sigh of delight:
-“Isn’t it lovely? Hasn’t this been a long
-Christmas? It is better than the Christmas-tree
-a great deal, isn’t it?”</p>
-
-<p>“It is the jolliest Christmas I ever had,” said
-Holly.</p>
-
-<p>“And it has taught us how to have some
-more jolly ones,” said Tom.</p>
-
-<p>As for Tom’s father, he said: “That boy
-Teddy is a smart fellow; he ought to have an
-education. There ought to be a good school
-out there. Why wouldn’t that be a good place
-for us to send Richard Winston? He would be
-a grand fellow to work among just such people.”</p>
-
-<p>So the “long Christmas” is in a fair way to
-grow longer, you see, for every cousin in the
-three homes is interested in Tom’s father’s idea,
-and so is Richard Winston.</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 509px;">
-<img src="images/i-052.jpg" width="509" height="612" alt="barely discernable man in darkness with long path ahead" />
-<div class="caption">“HE STOOD STILL IN THE MOONLIGHT TO THINK.”</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>SOMETHING FOR MAMMA.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-y.jpg" width="120" height="119" alt="Y" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">YOU want it for Christmas, of
-course; and you are a little
-girl who has very few pennies
-of your own to spend; and
-mamma, like other mammas,
-thinks that something which
-her daughter has made with her own hands is
-of far more value than an article, however fine,
-bought at a store. You have been disconsolate
-for several days because there are so few
-“things” which you know how to make, and
-because you have so little money with which
-to buy material. Take heart, my dear, there
-are happy surprises in store for mamma.</p>
-
-<p>How much money have you for this particular
-gift? “Twenty-five cents,” and you blush
-and are troubled, and say in your heart, “Just
-as though anything worth having could be made
-for twenty-five cents!” Why, my dear, that
-is enough and to spare. Did you notice the
-table mats yesterday at dinner? They are
-made of bits of oiled wood ingeniously put
-together, and in their prime were pretty, and
-rather expensive; but they are sadly worn now—so
-much so, indeed, that Hannah declared
-only yesterday that she did not know what to
-do with the things; they were so much worn
-that she could not wash them any more. She
-knew what she would like to do with them; if
-she had her way she would “chuck” them into
-the fire.</p>
-
-<p>What I propose is, that you plan your Christmas
-present so that Hannah can have the pleasure
-of doing just that thing.</p>
-
-<p>What you want is a ball of macremé cord, of
-a delicate creamy tint, price fifteen cents, and
-a ball of candle wicking for three cents, or possibly
-five, though it ought not to be if your
-merchants are up with city prices. Positively
-that is all. O, yes! a crochet needle, large
-size; but that of course you have; or if not, I
-am almost certain that mamma, or better still
-grandma, will make you a present of one, because
-of the many useful things you can make
-with it; still, if you wish to be entirely independent,
-why, buy one, for five cents surely (a
-large price), and you are ready.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>Hold the end of candle wicking over your
-left forefinger and crochet the macremé cord
-over it with what is known as the long stitch;
-it is very rapid work after you have once mastered
-the stitch, and before you realize it, you
-will have a long, long rope of creamy cord.
-Do not pull hard on the crochet cord, but let
-the work lie up loose and fluffy. When you
-think you have enough done to experiment with,
-get your neat little work box, thread a needle
-with strong cotton—number thirty being a very
-good size—curl the beginning of your cord into
-a graceful circle, and take firm stitches on the
-under side to hold it there; then another coil,
-and another, sewed neatly and firmly, and continue
-until you have a table mat large enough
-round to take the vegetable dishes, or the soup
-tureen, or whatever you wish to set on it. Then
-cut off the supply, fasten the end firmly, and
-finish the whole with a pretty crocheted scallop
-all around. Just compare that mat with the
-slippery, stained wood one with frayed edges!
-You admire it now, but what will it be when
-Hannah has washed and starched it until it
-holds its shape as firmly as the wooden one,
-and yet is flexible and graceful? More of
-them? Certainly, an entire set, varying in size
-to match the uses to which they are to be put.</p>
-
-<p>Have I made a mistake? Are your vegetable
-dishes all oval? Well, my dear, your table
-water pitcher is not, I am sure. Just use this
-first one for it, and start your next sewing with
-an oval shape instead of a circle; it must be a
-very small oval for the beginning—not over
-three quarters of an inch in length—else your
-mat will grow too long for its width. Your
-best plan would be to experiment a little. Lay
-the work loosely, confined by a mere basting
-stitch, and see whether, when the mat has grown
-as long as your paper pattern, it will be of the
-proper width. You will not find the planning
-difficult; it merely needs the patience and carefulness
-which I feel sure you will bestow; and
-the result will be an entire nest of pretty and
-useful mats which will be a delightful surprise
-to mamma on Christmas morning, and a comfort
-to her as well as to Hannah throughout the
-year. Try it, and be sure to let me hear how
-you succeeded.</p>
-
-<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;">
-<img src="images/i-054.jpg" width="440" height="650" alt="nine very tired children getting ready for bed" />
-<div class="caption">CHRISTMAS EVENING.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ETHEL CARLISLE’S FACE.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Character Studies.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp; CAN see her now as she looked
-to me that winter morning
-wrapped in furs, ready all but
-her fur cap to brave the frosty
-air, when she held up in triumph
-a spray of brilliant
-bloom, and said: “Look, Aunt Myra, did you
-ever see anything prettier than that from a conservatory?
-And they blossomed in my window-seat!”
-I was not her auntie, but was so old
-and intimate a friend of the family that the
-children had adopted me.</p>
-
-<p>“Hasn’t Ethel a beautiful face?” I said to
-Miss Margaret, another friend of the family,
-who, with myself, was a guest at the Carlisles’.
-“It is so very bright. Did you notice what a
-peculiar brightness there is to her eyes when
-she smiles? And she has a lovely smile.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Margaret looked grave, almost troubled.
-“It is a sweeter face than it will be in a few
-years, I am afraid,” she said, shaking her head,
-which already had threads of silver in it. Miss
-Margaret was a wise sweet woman, not given
-to croaking, so I waited somewhat anxiously to
-hear her words. “Ethel is cultivating habits
-which will spoil her face,” she said; “I have
-not been here before for two years, and I notice
-a very decided change in it since then. She
-was one of the sweetest little children I ever
-knew, but if you watch through only one day
-you will discover what I mean. Unless something
-occurs to change her habits, there will be
-another spoiled face in the world in a few years.”</p>
-
-<p>I had been in the house but a day, and had
-been absent from the country for more than two
-years, so I knew very little of the younger Carlisles.
-Ethel had always been my favorite, and
-it made me sad and a trifle annoyed to hear
-Miss Margaret’s words. I felt sure she must
-have grown over particular.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 503px;">
-<img src="images/i-056.jpg" width="503" height="615" alt="girl holding up small branch of what looks like mistletoe" />
-<div class="caption">ETHEL HELD UP A SPRAY OF BRILLIANT BLOOM.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Of course, with such a warning, it would have
-been impossible not to have watched. Long
-before night I knew what Miss Margaret meant.</p>
-
-<p>“Where in the world is my French Grammar?”
-I heard Ethel’s voice, with a very sharp
-note in it, rasping through the hall. “I left
-it on the dining-room table while I ran out to
-speak to Nellie, and somebody has taken it. I
-declare, I cannot lay down a thing for a second
-and find it again. I do wish Ann could be
-taught to let my books alone!”</p>
-
-<p>“Indeed, Miss Ethel, I have not touched a
-book this morning; I have not dusted in the
-dining-room yet.” This was Ann’s voice; then
-Ethel’s, by no means sweetened: “That is perfect
-nonsense, Ann; I left it here not two minutes
-ago, and now it is gone. What do you
-think could have become of it? It couldn’t
-walk off without hands.”</p>
-
-<p>“Ethel!” from Mrs. Carlisle, in a reproving
-tone, “do not speak so to Ann, daughter; she
-has not been in the dining-room since breakfast.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, but, mother, my French Grammar is
-gone that I just laid there, and the bell is ringing;
-I shall be late, and I think it is just too
-bad!” There was an ugly frown all over the
-fair forehead, and a sharp and at the same time
-whining tone to the voice which had been so
-sweet but a little while before.</p>
-
-<p>“Ethel,” called her older sister Nannie from
-the hall above, “here is your book; you left it
-on the hat rack a few minutes ago.”</p>
-
-<p>Away went Ethel without a word of explanation
-to mother or to Ann, and we heard her
-voice, still sharp, saying to Nannie, “Why
-couldn’t you have told me before, and not kept
-me hunting half the morning?”</p>
-
-<p>I heard the mother sigh, and was sorry for
-her, and glad that the alcove curtains shaded
-me from view, and that I had a book in my
-hand and could appear not to have heard.</p>
-
-<p>Ethel came home at lunch time, and was out
-of sorts with the soup because it tasted of
-onions, and with the squash because it had
-been peppered. She said she wished anybody
-ever consulted her tastes, and she would just
-as soon think of puffing tobacco smoke in the
-face of people as of eating onions for them to
-smell afterwards. She scolded her brother
-Tom for forgetting the music he was to call
-for; and when he said he was very sorry, and
-it was because he had so many important errands
-for his father that he forgot it, she tossed her
-head and said sharply, “Oh! you needn’t
-explain; of course you would forget what I
-wanted; I’m of no consequence.”</p>
-
-<p>In short, with my eyes opened as they had
-been by Miss Margaret I could not help seeing
-that Ethel spoiled the sweetness of almost every
-room she entered that day, and complained of
-unkindness or of discomforts at every turn.
-Yet at family worship, when she played,</p>
-
-<p class="center">
-“Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear,”<br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="unindent">and led the singing with a very sweet voice, she
-looked like an angel. It broke my heart to
-hear her, not ten minutes afterwards, scolding
-Baby Frank for overturning her spool basket.
-“You are just a little nuisance!” she said,
-sharp-voiced again; “I think mamma ought to
-whip you. Well, mamma, I do,” in response
-to a reproving look from her mother; “you
-are just spoiling him, I think.”</p>
-
-<p>“Is it possible that this is a fair specimen
-of that child’s days?” I asked Miss Margaret,
-as we went down the hall together.</p>
-
-<p>“I am afraid it is,” said Miss Margaret.
-“She is learning to frown and fret over the
-veriest trifles, and to answer even her mother
-rudely, as you noticed just now. How many
-years of such living will it take to utterly spoil
-the pretty face? Isn’t it strange that a young
-girl who believes herself such an ardent admirer
-of beauty, should deliberately undertake to
-spoil the lovely work of art which God gave her
-to take care of?”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>ORIGIN OF A NEW ENGLAND
-INDUSTRY.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">IN 1798 Betsey Metcalf, of Dedham, Mass.,
-made a bonnet out of oat straw, fashioning
-it after an English bonnet then very fashionable.
-She flattened the straw with the blade
-of her scissors, split it with her thumb nail,
-braided it into the requisite number of strands
-and bleached it by holding it over the vapor of
-burning sulphur. She afterward taught the
-young ladies of her vicinity how to do it, and
-thus laid the foundation of the extensive business
-now carried on in straw hats in New
-England.—<i>Selected.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MOTHER DUNLAP’S STORY.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IF my father and mother had
-been at home it would never
-have happened, but they started
-in the morning as soon as they
-could see the road for my Aunt
-Margaret’s, taking Emeline
-with them. I remember just how I felt when I
-saw them drive from our gate with Emeline sitting
-between them; it seemed so terrible, somehow,
-to think of her sitting in my place, because
-I was the one who always sat between father
-and mother. But Cousin Emeline was Aunt
-Margaret’s little girl, and word had come that
-Aunt Margaret was very sick, and that Emeline
-must be brought home as fast as possible; so
-of course they started, though there was every
-sign of a storm, Uncle Peter said, and he hardly
-ever made a mistake in the weather. He was
-our “signal service” in those days. Cousin
-Edward was at our house, too; he was Uncle
-Edward’s son, and always spent his short vacation
-with us, because his folks lived too far
-away for him to go home. He was thirteen
-years old, and thought he knew all there was to
-know in life. He was a smart fellow, and
-would have been real nice if he had not felt so
-sure of it himself. Father and mother had not
-been gone an hour when he began to plan to
-drive to town to the New Year festival which
-was to be held in one of the churches, and take
-me along. Kirke said everything in the world
-to hinder us from going; he thought it was going
-to storm.</p>
-
-<p>“Who’s afraid of a few snowflakes?” said
-Edward. “I want Nannie to have a cheery
-time for New Year’s; it is dreadful dull for her
-with Auntie and Uncle both gone.”</p>
-
-<p>Kirke was a boy who did chores at our house
-for his board, and went to school; we lived two
-miles nearer the schoolhouse than his mother
-did, and they were pretty poor, and Kirke earning
-his board away from home helped them a
-good deal. We all loved Kirke; he was a
-good sensible boy, and stood at the head of his
-classes in school. But I did not approve of
-him that day; I wanted to go to town. I was
-a silly little thing in those days, not afraid of
-anything; I laughed at the storm just as Edward
-did.</p>
-
-<p>“It will be more than a few flakes,” Kirke
-said, shaking his head gravely; “I think we
-are going to have the worst storm of the season.”
-Then Edward began to make fun of
-him—call him Uncle Peter, and ask what kind
-of a winter it was forty years ago; because
-Uncle Peter was always going back to old times
-and telling stories about the weather. Kirke
-kept good-natured, and laughed with me over
-Edward’s speeches, but for all that he did not
-stop trying to keep us from going to town.</p>
-
-<p>“Look here,” he said, “I have a tip-top
-plan for this afternoon. Mrs. Baker gave me
-a jug of molasses and some splendid ears of
-pop-corn to take home: suppose you and Nannie
-walk out home with me, and we will pop
-some corn, and make candy with hickory nuts
-in? We’ve got a bushel of nuts stored away
-in the garret, and we’ll have no end of fun.
-Nannie can stay all night—she has done it
-before, you know—and sleep with my sister
-Mary, and you and I will turn in with little
-Billy up in the attic; he likes company.”</p>
-
-<p>The picture looked quite inviting to me; I
-had often been out to Kirke’s house, for my
-father and mother liked their family very much,
-and were always willing to have me play with
-their children.</p>
-
-<p>But Edward was not to be persuaded. “No,
-you don’t, old fellow,” he said; “candy and
-nuts are first-rate things for any night in the
-year but New Year’s; a fellow needs something
-extra then. I’ve set my heart on seeing the
-festival tables, and watching them give out the
-prizes, and I’m going; my uncle said three
-days ago that I could.”</p>
-
-<p>“But he did not know that it was going to
-snow,” Kirke said, more and more anxious.
-“Really, Edward, I do not think Mr. and Mrs.
-Baker would like to have you take Nannie out
-when it looks so much like a storm.” Then
-Edward got angry and told Kirke to mind his
-own business, that we were not left in his
-charge at least, and that he should do as he
-liked; and Kirke was to remember that Mr.
-and Mrs. Baker were his own uncle and aunt,
-and that he might be supposed to know as much
-about what they would like as a stranger could.
-Kirke said no more, but he looked very much
-troubled. I was half-disposed to give up the
-plan, but Edward laughed at me. The good-natured
-housekeeper in whose care we were left
-never paid much attention to the weather, and
-made no objection to my going. I don’t know
-but that it would have come out all right even
-then, if Edward’s pride had not got the upper
-hand. He took a notion to drive to town by
-the old road.</p>
-
-<p>“O, don’t!” I urged; “you do not know
-that way at all, and Uncle Peter said this morning
-that the wind last night must have drifted
-the snow on the old road.”</p>
-
-<p>“Poh!” said Edward, “Uncle Peter is an
-old croaker; he’s an old man, Nannie, and always
-makes mountains out of molehills. The
-wind will be at our backs part of the time on
-the old road, and I’m going that way. What
-if I have not driven it? The horse won’t get
-lost, if you think I will.”</p>
-
-<p>Well, we started, and for the first ten minutes
-everything was right; then we began to
-come to drifts, and I was dreadfully scared.
-We almost turned over two or three times. I
-kept squealing out, and that provoked Edward.
-“Keep still,” he would say; “I did not know
-you were such a little coward.” To make matters
-worse, it began to snow harder than I ever
-saw it before, and grew so dark that we could
-hardly see our way. We had been riding a
-good while, and ought to have reached the
-town, but no sign of a town was to be seen.</p>
-
-<p>After a while Edward made up his mind that
-he must have taken the wrong turn, and said he
-was going back a little way to see if he had.
-He tried to turn around, but the wind blew so
-that the snow blinded his eyes; and it was not
-a good place for turning around, any way.
-The first thing I knew over went the sleigh,
-and I was in a snowdrift! That was not the
-worst of it, either; the runner of the sleigh
-snapped as if it had been a pipe-stem. Good
-old Jim stood still, fortunately. But there we
-were with a driving storm, with a broken sleigh!
-I do not think I was ever so glad of anything
-in my life as I was to hear Kirke’s voice above
-the roar of the wind.</p>
-
-<p>“What in the world are you doing there?”
-he said, bounding along over drifts of snow.
-“Is Nannie hurt? If she is not all right never
-mind anything else. Oh! the sleigh is broken.
-How came you to be on this road? This is not
-the way to town; it is an old wood road that
-was used early in the winter, but it is all snowed
-up; you could not have got much farther; you
-ought to have turned to the right a mile below
-here; I thought you knew the way. Now I’ll
-tell you what will have to be done. Nannie
-must go to our house—it is less than a quarter
-of a mile from here—and I’ll get a rope and
-tie up that sleigh somehow, enough to get it and
-Jim back to the stable; then I’ll tell your folks
-that you are going to stay at our house all
-night—shall I?”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 540px;">
-<img src="images/i-059.jpg" width="540" height="374" alt="horse up to stomach in snow, sleigh tilted" />
-<div class="caption">“THERE WE WERE, WITH A BROKEN SLEIGH!”</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>He seemed to have forgotten how disagreeably
-Edward had spoken to him, and was just
-as nice as could be. But Edward’s cheeks were
-pretty red. “No, sir,” he said firmly; “I
-started out to have my own way and ought to
-have the benefit of it. If you will take Nannie
-to your house I’ll get this rig home myself
-and take care of Jim; it is not fair that you
-should lose your New Year’s fun to help me
-out. I’ll foot it out to your house if it is not
-too late after I have been to see Mr. Ormstead
-about mending this sleigh; but I’m not going
-to let you go for me a single step.”</p>
-
-<p>No amount of coaxing could turn him from
-his purpose. So at last Kirke, after helping
-him to tie up the runner with some twine which
-they found in their pockets, tucked me under his
-arm, and we marched off to their little house.</p>
-
-<p>Their kitchen was the cleanest, brightest,
-cheeriest place you ever saw, and the molasses
-taffy was splendid. I had a lovely time; but
-there was such a dreadful storm that Edward
-could not get back that night, and Jim had
-lamed himself somehow in stumbling through
-deep drifts; and it cost four dollars to mend
-the sleigh, which Edward had to pay, because
-my father said he did not believe in boys having
-their own way and not being willing to take
-the consequences. To be sure he gave the
-money back again, and more too, when Edward’s
-next birthday came. But I don’t think
-Edward ever forgot the lesson. I ought to
-have been punished too, for I pretended to
-agree with Edward, even when I thought he
-was foolish; but some way I slipped through
-the trouble and had all the pleasure, just as
-girls often do, I think.</p>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 358px;">
-<img src="images/i-060.jpg" width="358" height="500" alt="man, woman an child in buggy seat" />
-<div class="caption"><span class="smcap">THEY STARTED FOR AUNT MARGARET’S.</span> (“<i>Mother Dunlap’s Story.</i>”)</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Mother,” said little Cathie Dunlap,
-“father’s middle name is Kirke; did he have
-anything to do with the nice boy who took care
-of you?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, yes,” said Mother Dunlap, laughing,
-“come to think of it, his full name was William
-Kirke Dunlap.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>HUNGER AND THIRST.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t2.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THERE is a story of a little boy
-who was very fond of angling,
-and who one day told his grandfather
-that he had caught a fish
-as large as a horse.</p>
-
-<p>“Look here, Tom,” said the
-old man, “don’t you know it’s wrong for a little
-boy like you to tell such a big untruth? You
-are not six years, are you?”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said Tommy; “I am only five, and
-I’ll not do it again. After this I’m going to
-tell only little bits of fish stories.”</p>
-
-<p>That boy often reminds one of people who
-talk about being “temperate” and “moderate”
-in the use of things which they ought to let alone
-altogether. A little glass of strong drink, a little
-cigar, are just as certainly wrong as a little
-untruth.</p>
-
-<p>But how can we know what is good or bad
-for the body? The answer is, that our body
-itself will tell us. The body has a conscience
-as well as the soul. Put your hand into a potful
-of warm water, and your hand will at once
-let you know if the water is too hot. Go out
-sleigh-riding in a light straw hat on a cold winter
-morning, and your ears will soon ask for a
-warmer cover. After a laborer has been hard
-at work for eight or ten hours, his body will ask
-for rest. Make a child sit down in a chair without
-moving for six hours, and its body will ask
-for exercise. Our body soon lets us know if a
-coat or a shoe is too tight, or if a burden is too
-heavy. And it can just as certainly be relied
-upon to warn us against unwholesome food. It
-is true that we can silence that voice of our
-body’s conscience. After a man has swallowed
-a good many glasses of bad drink or smoked a
-cigar every morning for a couple of weeks, he
-at last gets “used to it,” as we call it; his nature
-gets changed, and at last he is unable to
-let such things alone. But at the first trial our
-sense of taste will plainly warn us against unwholesome
-food and drink. Before an apple is
-ripe it tastes sour. The taste of over-ripe or
-spoiled fruit gets more and more disagreeable.</p>
-
-<p>An Italian naturalist, during his travels in
-Southern Africa, noticed that a little pet monkey
-of his never made a mistake in choosing its
-food, and could tell poisonous herbs and berries
-from good ones the moment he tasted them.
-The traveler made that little creature his kitchen
-master, as he called it, and always let it try a
-bit of every kind of food that was offered to
-him for sale. “If Jocko ate a spoonful of
-honey and stretched out his hand for more,” he
-writes, “I was satisfied that it was worth buying;
-if the little chap grinned and flung the
-sample away, I felt sure that the bees must
-have gathered their honey from poisonous flowers.
-Jocko never made mistakes in such things,
-and that our own people blundered so often
-might be explained by the fact that we have
-blunted our sense of taste with strong drink
-and hot spices.”</p>
-
-<p>A boy who has been brought up on perfectly
-wholesome food can tell injurious things almost
-as quick as that little monkey. He will dislike
-the taste of sharp pepper sauces, of pickles, of
-strong cheese, of spoiled meat, and will not be
-apt to mistake a bitter swamp berry for a
-huckleberry.</p>
-
-<p>Our stomach also lets us know when we
-should stop eating. In that case, too, it is not
-safe to disregard the warnings of our bodily
-conscience. If a boy keeps eating, just to
-while time away, after he feels that he has had
-enough, and after his stomach has asked him
-again and again to stop, his nature at last
-changes, and he wants to be stuffing himself all
-the time. I knew a little chap of ten years who
-seemed to think it a pity to lose a chance for
-gorging himself, and who had to be watched like
-a tricky cat to keep him from slipping into his
-mother’s pantry and helping himself to all the
-good things in sight. On his way to school he
-would stop to buy a package of peanuts or pick
-up a pocketful of apples on the outside of an
-orchard, and when he came home for dinner he
-ate away as if nothing had happened. All his
-schoolmates called him “Glutton Joe.”</p>
-
-<p>Such gluttons are apt to think that they are
-getting more fun out of life than other people.
-The truth is, that they hardly ever know an hour
-of real happiness. They feel dull and weary;
-they become too sluggish to play; they take no
-interest in their studies, and drop a new book
-or new paper after a short look at the pictures;
-they would rather not know the end of a pretty
-story than go to the trouble of reading it through.
-They feel drowsy as soon as the weather gets a
-little warm, but when they go to sleep their rest
-is broken by ugly dreams. Glutton Joe had no
-friends; he was so cross and lazy that nobody
-wanted him for a playmate.</p>
-
-<p>An old fisherman once told me that it was
-worth while going out sailing in bad, chilly
-weather, just for the fun of getting home again
-and taking a rest in a warm chimney-corner,
-and I have often thought that many people
-would find it worth while to fast once in a
-while, when they begin to complain that they
-cannot enjoy their meals. After a day’s exercise
-in the woods and mountains the plainest
-food tastes well. A supper of bread, milk and
-huckleberries tastes better to the poor Tennessee
-mountain boy, who has been out herding cows
-all day, than a banquet of thirty dishes tastes
-to a rich merchant who has not yet digested his
-last meal. There is no danger in an occasional
-fast, though some people seem to think it a
-misfortune to miss one of their three daily
-meals. There was a time when rich and poor
-thought it enough to eat one good meal a day.
-The old Romans and Greeks ate a biscuit and
-perhaps half a handful of dried fruit in the
-morning, and then did not eat again till they
-had finished their day’s work, when they took a
-bath, changed their dress, and then sat down to
-a good supper. An Indian hunter thinks nothing
-of going a day without any food at all. A
-few years ago an American physician thought
-it worth while to try how long a man could fast
-without hurting himself. People thought he was
-crazy, and told him he would kill himself in less
-than a week. He made no reply, and his friends
-changed their opinion when he had fasted forty
-days and nights. Few of those friends would
-have cared to try their own pluck in that manner,
-but they would certainly have been ashamed
-to complain of an accident that might lose them
-a dinner and oblige them to eat their principal
-meal in the evening.</p>
-
-<p>But though there can be no harm in a day’s
-fast, it is never safe to suffer for want of drinking
-water. The same doctor who passed nearly
-six weeks without a mouthful of food, took a
-sip of cold lemonade every few hours, and it is
-a curious fact that in warm weather a glass of
-water served with our dinner is by far the most
-important part of the meal. Hunger, or what
-we call a “good appetite,” often stops after the
-mealtime has passed without a chance of getting
-a mouthful of food, but thirst cannot be put off
-in that way, and becomes at last so intolerable
-that a starved traveler, after a three days’ journey
-in the desert, would give a wagon-load of
-food for a drink of cold water.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Felix L. Oswald, M. D.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2>WOULD AND SHOULD.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">A &nbsp; PUPIL in a quiet boarding-school in
-—— displayed some time since no small
-degree of industry in collecting autographs of
-distinguished persons. The late James Russell
-Lowell was one of the number addressed.
-The address to him was in substance: “I
-would be very much obliged for your autograph.”
-The response contained a lesson that
-many besides the ambitious pupil have not
-learned: “Pray do not say hereafter ‘I would
-be obliged.’ If you would be obliged, be
-obliged and be done with it. Say ‘I should
-be obliged,’ and oblige yours truly, <span class="smcap">James
-Russell Lowell</span>.”—<i>Selected.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>WESTMINSTER ABBEY.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-y.jpg" width="120" height="119" alt="Y" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">YOU see it is most beautiful to
-the eye, though you Pansies of
-the great cities may think some
-of your churches quite as handsome.
-But none of them has
-such a history. This church
-was founded—started, as some would say—more
-than a thousand years ago! Now where’s
-your pretty “meeting-house” which was built
-only last year?</p>
-
-<p>Old King Siebert, a Saxon, built Westminster
-Abbey, and many of the Saxons really
-believed that the Apostle Peter dedicated it,
-though Peter had died nearly one thousand
-years before!</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
-<img src="images/i-063.jpg" width="600" height="404" alt="very blurry photo of the abbey" />
-<div class="caption">A VIEW OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>However, this building is not the very same
-that King Siebert put up. That one stood
-several hundred years, when Edward, “the
-Confessor,” as he was called, rebuilt it.
-Two hundred years later King Henry the
-Third enlarged it, making it look about as it
-now is.</p>
-
-<p>For years and years the English kings and
-queens have been crowned here, and buried,
-too, nearly all. Here the great ones of the
-nation are buried—Shakespeare, Milton, Ben
-Jonson, Wordsworth, and many more, the
-poets in the “Poets’ Corner.”</p>
-
-<p>Under the coronation (crowning) chair is the
-“Stone of Scone,” which some actually say is
-the very one Jacob laid his head upon when he
-dreamed! However that be, many kings have
-sat upon it when they were crowned.</p>
-
-<p>Of course you will search out the “Jerusalem
-Chamber” when you visit Westminster. The
-Presbyterian Church began in this chamber.
-Here, too, the Bible was revised (re-translated
-from the Hebrew and Greek).</p>
-
-<p>“Why do they call it the ‘Jerusalem
-Chamber’?”</p>
-
-<p>Probably because its windows came from that
-old city, and the Cedar of Lebanon forms the
-wainscoting.</p>
-
-<p>So this wonderful building has served many
-purposes besides that of a church. For some
-hundred years the House of Commons (something
-like our House of Representatives) made
-laws here, especially laws to secure the liberties
-of the people.</p>
-
-<p>So you see this building is something like
-Faneuil Hall of Boston and Independence Hall
-of Philadelphia.</p>
-
-<p>What a book Westminster Abbey could make
-if it only could write. But somehow, like Nineveh
-and such places, it will rise up in the Judgment;
-then what will it say of the people who
-have had to do with it?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A NEW YEAR’S TRIP.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t2.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">TO Africa! Yes; here it is ’92,
-January 1, early in the morning,
-and we are in the sleigh, and
-away we glide over the snow
-to Africa, to return to-night.</p>
-
-<p>“Twenty thousand miles in
-twelve hours, pooh! and going to hot Africa in
-a sleigh!”</p>
-
-<p>Suppose, then, we just think we are there,
-and we are there to all intents and purposes.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, here goes; I think I’m in South
-Africa at the mouth of some diamond hole
-(tunnel), January 1, ’92. Of course I’m there
-picking up diamonds to bring back for New
-Year’s presents, eh?”</p>
-
-<p>Indeed you—the best part of you, your
-soul, your thought—are. Just wake up your
-imagination, and it’s about the same. Now
-you step down into the dark hole. Deeper you
-descend, as down a steep hill, to the very bottom—eight
-hundred feet or more—through
-fields full of diamonds.</p>
-
-<p>See, just before you dim forms. They are
-naked natives digging. They fill up the small
-car of dirt, dotted with the precious stones, and
-away it goes up and out. It dumps its load
-and returns. It’s a dirty, dreadful place.
-Every little while there’s a roar; the ground
-shakes. There’s dynamite blasting to loosen
-the earth.</p>
-
-<p>Hurry out now; the tunnel may cave in, and
-you’ll be choked, as were several hundred a few
-years ago.</p>
-
-<p>Here we are outside. See, the ground is two
-feet deep with the earth carted out. They are
-harrowing it, or the rain is falling upon it. It
-is crumbling fine. Ah! see the shining treasures.
-But look out! Don’t put one into your
-pocket without permission; you are watched.</p>
-
-<p>Now back we come—in thought. There!
-have not we had one of the brightest New
-Year’s?</p>
-
-<p>Thus brighten up your imagination and you
-need not be bothering yourself forever with cars
-and steamboats and ships and seasickness and
-such things to see foreign lands. With a good
-book of travels or newspaper you can just trip
-over there—to Europe, Asia and Africa—in
-a moment, and see all you can carry back in a
-few more moments, and be home to tea the
-same day to show (tell) your treasures!</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ON A VISIT TO GERMANY.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-h.jpg" width="118" height="117" alt="H" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">HERE we are. It is midwinter—</p>
-
-<p>“In Maine or New Hampshire
-or Canada, I guess.”</p>
-
-<p>Guess again, you mistaken
-Pansy.</p>
-
-<p>“Norway, then.”</p>
-
-<p>Nor Norway, but just simply in Germany.</p>
-
-<p>“Such snow-storms in Germany?”</p>
-
-<p>Yes, and that miss with umbrella and fat
-face trudging on is—</p>
-
-<p>“Fräulein, I dare say. Isn’t that, or something
-like it, the name of all the German girls?”</p>
-
-<p>Wouldn’t that mix things in a family of six
-girls? Think of a mother calling each one
-Fräulein!</p>
-
-<p>But that girl is no other than Bessie—</p>
-
-<p>“Bessie a German girl? Never heard one
-called that in all my life.”</p>
-
-<p>Who said she was a German girl? Can’t
-one be in Germany and not be a German? Do
-you expect to turn into one as soon as you get
-to—“Sweet Bingen on the Rhine,” or Frankfort?
-Frankfort, once the home of the great
-poet, Goethe, some of whose sayings it may
-make your dear head ache to understand.
-Frankfort, once a free city, as free from any
-king or great ruler as—the United States is
-of Mexico; a queer, bright old city—</p>
-
-
-
-<p>“Bessie! Bessie! what about Bessie? Won’t
-she be lost in Frankfort? Who is she, any
-how?”</p>
-
-<p>A Pansy, quite likely from Boston, by that
-name, on a visit to Germany. She will spend
-a few months in Frankfort, studying German
-and seeing the German sights, among them
-Luther’s house.</p>
-
-<p>“But you do not explain what Bessie is doing
-out in a Frankfort snow-storm.”</p>
-
-<p>Maybe she is after red cheeks; she left Boston
-looking pale enough. Her mamma thought
-a sea voyage and a few months in France and
-as many more in Germany would color her face
-again with rose tints as formerly. You see how
-she has improved. Now the Christmas festival
-of Frankfort begins, lasting three days. There
-will be trees and trees, and so much more that
-paper can hardly hold it or ink write it.</p>
-
-<p>Bessie is on her way to the festival to see
-the German of it with Yankee eyes.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 338px;">
-<img src="images/i-065a.jpg" width="338" height="500" alt="unhappy man and dog" />
-<div class="caption">SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS BULL-TERRIER, “CAMP.”<br />
-
-(<i>From the painting by Raeburn.</i>)</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A DELIGHTFUL WRITER.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 332px;">
-<img src="images/i-065b.jpg" width="332" height="500" alt="statue" />
-<div class="caption">STATUE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, IN EDINBURGH.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-w.jpg" width="119" height="120" alt="W" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">WHEN you go to Edinburgh, Scotland—as
-some day go you
-may—you must not fail to
-visit one of the finest structures
-there, the monument of Sir
-Walter Scott.</p>
-
-<p>Before you go it would be well to read some
-of his charming books: Ivanhoe, Old Mortality,
-Tales of a Grandfather, etc.</p>
-
-<p>The Scottish folks are justly proud of Sir
-Walter. Few nations have produced so delightful
-a writer. So no wonder this grand
-monument was built. It is a Gothic edifice,
-the top of the spire of which is two hundred
-feet from the ground. The lower part is open,
-and here is a fine marble statue of Sir Walter,
-his favorite dog by his side.</p>
-
-<p>Seventy-five thousand dollars have been put
-into this edifice! Many of you would be satisfied
-with a house costing one thousand. Young
-Walter Scott did not expect to become so great
-a man when he first took up his pen.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 460px;">
-<img src="images/i-066.jpg" width="460" height="600" alt="Girl with umblrella in snowstorm" />
-<div class="caption">OUT IN A SNOW-STORM.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A HERO.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">AT Fort Smith, Ark., is Mrs.
-Edith M. Degen. She knows
-a great deal about Mr. “In.”
-If you will write her a letter
-saying you want to know something
-more about him, and if
-you will put in your letter a postal card addressed
-to yourself, it will soon get back to you
-with writing on the other side which you will
-like to read. Try it.</p>
-
-<p>Now this man is really Mr. Lewis F. Hadley of
-Massachusetts. He has been many years among
-the Indians, studying their Sign Language.</p>
-
-<p>You see the different tribes of Indians have
-different mouth or spoken languages, as do
-white people. To understand each other’s
-speech they must have an interpreter to give
-its meaning; but they all seem to have about
-the same sign speech; by using this the different
-tribes can understand each other when they
-meet.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 262px;">
-<img src="images/i-067.jpg" width="262" height="383" alt="man iwth wild beard" />
-<div class="caption">MR. LEWIS F. HADLEY.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>You know the deaf and dumb talk with their
-hands. So with the Indians of different tribes
-when they can’t understand each other’s speech.</p>
-
-<p>Here is a specimen of the sign language:</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 544px;">
-<img src="images/i-067b.jpg" width="544" height="800" alt="sign language" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Well, Mr. Hadley has been mastering these
-signs, and now, after many years’ hard study,
-you see he can write it.</p>
-
-<p>“What for?”</p>
-
-<p>To spread knowledge among the Indians.
-To give them the Gospel—the blessed good
-news about the Lord who came and died for
-them.</p>
-
-<p>“But has not the Bible been put into Indian
-for them to read, and don’t the missionaries
-preach to them in their own language?”</p>
-
-<p>Yes, indeed; but don’t you see that for each
-one of the many tribes it may be necessary to
-have just the Bible and missionary that each
-can understand? But if all the tribes now know
-this one Sign Talk, then all can read the Lord’s
-Prayer, and any other part of the Bible, if put
-in this sign talk. And all the more so because
-every one can understand a thing better if he
-can see the language as well as hear it.</p>
-
-<p>Now to do this good work Mr. H—— lived
-among the Indians. He is a missionary unlike
-any other. He has suffered much living as the
-Indians do to learn this language. Read what
-Mrs. Degen says: “Would you like to go out
-to dine where all the family kneel on an earth
-floor around the tin dish-pan in which the dinner
-has been cooked, and grab for ‘a little white
-meat,’ or ‘a little dark meat,’ or a ‘little of both,
-if you please’? Would you like to see your
-fellow diners throw the bones they have picked
-back into the pan? Or would you like to have
-your food brought to you in a wash-basin?”</p>
-
-<p>Now you can see something of what Mr.
-Hadley bears. He is a hero. You can help
-him. So write to Mrs. Degen.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2>HIS GIFT.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">A &nbsp; LITTLE boy in Russia lay dying.
-But a few months before
-he had heard of Jesus and his
-love, and given his heart to
-that wonderful friend. His
-greatest desire in life was to
-have other Russian children get acquainted with
-Jesus. He meant when he grew up to be a
-missionary among his people; but God wanted
-him in heaven. Just before he died he called
-his father, and told him how much he wanted
-to have the Bible sent to people who were not
-acquainted with Jesus. Said he: “I haven’t
-much money, you know, father, but if you
-would take what is in my box and send it to
-the house where they print Bibles, I think there
-might be enough to dot the I’s in the name of
-Christ. I feel sure there must be enough to do
-that in one Bible, and I would like it so much!
-Will you, father?”</p>
-
-<p>You do not need to be told that the father
-carried out his boy’s last directions, and the
-little purse of money is helping to-day to “dot
-the I’s” in that blessed name.</p>
-
-<p>Surely that little fellow ought to have had
-engraved upon his headstone, “He hath done
-what he could.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>WORK ENOUGH.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-s.jpg" width="119" height="119" alt="S" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">SOME years ago—</p>
-
-<p>“Some years ago!” Why,
-it was as long ago as five times
-the age of your grandpapa—he
-was eighty, I think—a brave
-man and a few sailors got into
-a small ship on the coast of Spain, spread its
-sails, and away westward they sped, over the
-ocean wide and rough with waves. They found
-America at last. Others came. Villages grew
-up. Still they came.</p>
-
-<p>About this time, three thousand miles away,
-walked two—</p>
-
-<p>“Lovers, I guess.”</p>
-
-<p>Indeed they did love each other, if that is
-what you mean. See them in the picture of the
-“Two Missionaries;” were there ever sweeter
-faces, purer and more pitiful? It is because
-the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts.
-Dress and feathers don’t make beauty so much
-as a right heart, you must know.</p>
-
-<p>These two hearts were walking near the dear
-old church, and as they walked they thought of
-the sermon the day before about bearing the
-tidings—the Gospel—to the needy. They
-had heard of America, and their hearts bled
-for the people here.</p>
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 286px;">
-<img src="images/i-069.jpg" width="286" height="384" alt="Indian dancing" />
-<div class="caption">ONE OF THE FIERCE SAVAGES.</div>
-</div>
-<p>“And did they go to a seminary, and learn
-how to teach and preach, and get ordained, and
-get married, and come over here and have a
-Sunday-school and church?”</p>
-
-<p>They left all to follow Jesus—fathers,
-mothers, everybody, everything, “for Jesus’
-sake,” for wild America.</p>
-
-<p>“And how did most of the people in America
-look when they got here?”</p>
-
-<p>How does this creature on the following
-page look? or that one?</p>
-
-<p>“Now you don’t mean that the Americans
-then were such objects?”</p>
-
-<p>The very same. And our two sweet, beautiful
-missionaries came to them and learned their
-language and lived among them, and taught
-them of the true God, and Jesus Christ, the
-Saviour.</p>
-
-<p>“Did they stay more than a year that way?”</p>
-
-<p>They lived and died among them. Then their
-children took up the work, and they have been
-carrying it on ever since!</p>
-
-<p>“And what came of it all?”</p>
-
-<p>Why, many of those fierce savages put off
-their war paint and wild ways, and settled down
-in good homes like nice
-Christian people, with
-churches and Sunday-schools
-and ministers of
-their own. Some of them
-now look almost as sweet
-as the two sweet faces
-of the Two Missionaries.
-That’s the way it often
-works when God puts his
-grace into a rough heart.
-It really changes the face
-too into beauty. God can
-make everything beautiful.</p>
-
-<p>“But what about the
-picture on the next page?”</p>
-
-<p>You mean that queer-looking man going
-ahead with a child in his arms and a big boy
-by his side?</p>
-
-<p>“It is a family on a journey somewhere.”</p>
-
-<p>The “somewhere” is America. They are
-peasants (the poor working folks) of—Denmark,
-maybe.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 411px;">
-<img src="images/i-069b.jpg" width="411" height="238" alt="another Indian dancing before wigwams" />
-<div class="caption">ANOTHER TYPE OF SAVAGES.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>They have heard of America—what a goodly
-land it is for the poor and homeless, and where
-they can be free to worship God—so they have
-sold the cow and poultry and a few other things,
-and putting into bundles what they have over,
-and saying a sad good-by to the dear old hut
-where they have always lived, they are on their
-march to the sea. They will soon be aboard
-the ship, Safety; then, after two months—</p>
-
-<p>“Two months! why, the Teutonic of the
-White Star Line has just crossed the Atlantic
-in five days, sixteen hours and a few seconds.”</p>
-
-<p>Yes, but this was long ago.</p>
-
-<p>But the two months are gone; they have
-landed at Castle Garden, New York, and now
-those nine have become ninety thousand. You
-see, no sooner had they got nicely settled upon
-a little spot of land, and in a neat cottage, and
-two or three cows about them, and a patch of
-potatoes growing near by, when away went a
-letter back to Denmark to their cousins to pack
-up and come too.</p>
-
-<p>Well, ever since the ships have grown larger
-and faster, bringing loads and loads of peasants,
-five hundred thousand some years, from almost
-every nation on the other side of the ocean.</p>
-
-
-<p>“And those two sweet-faced missionaries,
-did they teach all these low people the good
-ways of God?”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 447px;">
-<img src="images/i-070.jpg" width="447" height="585" alt="three children walking bareful in road dressed in rags" />
-<div class="caption"><span class="smcap">DO YOU THINK THEY LIVE IN A PALACE?</span> (<i>See “Work Enough.”</i>)</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Yes; they and their children. Don’t you
-see, they stand for all good missionaries whom
-Jesus sends? They are all beautiful in his
-eyes. Where in the Bible does it say something
-like “How beautiful upon the mountains
-are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings;
-that publisheth peace, etc?” If beautiful feet,
-beautiful everything—so beautiful that all
-among whom they go with these tidings become
-beautiful too!</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 587px;">
-<img src="images/i-071.jpg" width="587" height="369" alt="Like of  exctended family going left" />
-<div class="caption">GOING ON A JOURNEY.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>See those children in the opening picture, coming
-down the road with bundles under their arms?
-Look them over, and say if you think they live
-in a palace, and if they wear silks or furs.</p>
-
-<p>No, no, poor things! a sorry dinner they’ve
-had. A bed of straw for them to-night. But
-in a few years some cousins in America will
-send them some money; then they will be here,
-and somehow they must be made beautiful as
-those two sweet-faced ones. Oh! so much
-work in this land for Jesus, to meet these
-heathen at Castle Garden with the good news
-and make them beautiful. Oh! for more home
-missionaries. What say you?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>DOLLIES TO THE FRONT.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp; CAME across an old paper
-which told a pretty story that
-ought not to grow old. It was
-about a “doll’s reception”
-which a certain Mission Band
-gave. The dollies were lent
-by the members and their friends, and the
-friends of their friends, until there was a great
-army of them. Then they were arrayed in
-choice robes and grouped with artistic skill.
-On the piano, under a lovely marriage bell of
-sweet-smelling flowers, were two bridal groups,
-dressed in satin and old lace regardless of expense.
-The friends of the bride and groom
-were numerous. Some of them were old, appearing
-in costumes of sixty years before;
-some were in Mother Hubbard dress, and one
-very large rag doll, with lips made of beet juice
-and eyes of black beads, came to the wedding
-in the little wooden cradle which had belonged
-to her mother’s grandmother.</p>
-
-<p>There was an “old ladies’” group arranged
-on a round table, two of them dressed in Quaker
-attire, the others in the sweet old fashion of
-our great-grandmothers. Then there was a
-babies’ group, and a group of children fresh
-from the schoolroom; there was a German table,
-a French table, and I do not know what all.</p>
-
-<p>One hundred and thirty dolls were lent for
-the occasion. The description of each group
-was printed in rhyme made by the friends of
-the Band, and from time to time, as a crowd
-gathered near any of the tables, one member
-stepped forward and recited the descriptive
-poem. Ten cents admission was charged, and
-the hall was thronged on two afternoons.
-There was not a cent of expense in the entire
-affair, and there was nothing to sell. Over
-forty dollars were taken in at the door, and the
-Mission Band went home happy in the thought
-that they and their dollies had enriched a certain
-school in Japan by that amount.</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<h2>WHAT HAVE I DONE?</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">I</span> LAY my finger on time’s wrist to score</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The forward-surging moments as they roll;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Each pulse seems quicker than the one before;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lo! my days pile up against my soul</span></div>
-<div class="verse">As clouds pile up against the golden sun.</div>
-<div class="verse">Alas! what have I done? What have I done?</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">I never steep the rosy hours in sleep,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or hide my soul, as in a gloomy crypt;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">No idle hands into my bosom creep;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And yet, as water-drops from house-eaves drip,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">So, viewless, melt my days, and from me run;</div>
-<div class="verse">Alas! what have I done? What have I done?</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">I have not missed the fragrance of the flowers,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or scorned the music of the flowing rills,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Whose numerous liquid tongues sing to the hours;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet rise my days behind me, like the hills</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Unstayed by light of mighty triumphs won;</div>
-<div class="verse">Alas! what have I done? What have I done?</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Be still, my soul, restrain thy lips from woe!</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cease thy lament! for life is but the flower,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The fruit comes after death; how can’st thou know</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The roundness of its form, its depth of power?</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Death is life’s morning. When thy work’s begun,</div>
-<div class="verse">Then ask thyself—what yet is to be done?</div>
-<div class="sig"><span style="margin-right: 3em;"><span class="smcap">Lillian Blanche Fearing</span>,</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><i>In Home Mission Monthly.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>WHEN ST. CHRYSOSTOM PRAYED.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">’T</span>WAS not enough to kneel in prayer,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And pur his very soul away</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In fervid wrestlings, night and day,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">For those who owned his shepherd care;</div>
-<div class="verse">But faith and works went hand in hand,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">As test of each petition made,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And saints were helped throughout the land</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">When St. Chrysostom prayed.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Within the closet where he knelt</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A box of Bethlehem’s olive wood—</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">“For Christ” engraved upon it—stood;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And ever as he daily felt</div>
-<div class="verse">The pressure of the church’s need,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therein the daily gift was laid;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">For word had instant proof of deed</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">When St. Chrysostom prayed.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Beneath his folded hands he placed</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whatever gold was his; and when</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">He travailed for the souls of men,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">So long by pagan rites debased,</div>
-<div class="verse">The more he agonized, the more</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The burden on his spirit weighed;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And piece by piece went all his store</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">When St. Chrysostom prayed.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">O, golden mother! let this thine alms</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rouse us to shame who daily bow</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Within our sacred places now,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">With outstretched yet with empty palms!</div>
-<div class="verse">We supplicate indeed; but has</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our faith brought answering works to aid?</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Have words by deeds been proven, as</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">When St. Chrysostom prayed?</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><span style="margin-right: 3em;"><span class="smcap">Margaret J. Preston</span>,</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><i>in Missionary World.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>PUT TO SHAME.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THEY were sitting in the window-seat,
-Magdalene and Mabel,
-busy with their work, and
-talking. “The Mission Band
-meets this week, you know,”
-said Mabel.</p>
-
-<p>“I know it,” Magdalene said, with a scowl
-on her face; “I’ve got to go, I suppose, but I
-don’t want to a bit; I haven’t any money to
-spare to give; I’m not going to give but a cent,
-anyhow, I just can’t afford it. Isn’t this blue
-silk sash lovely, Mabel? It just fits my dollie’s
-eyes. It was horridly expensive; I had to give
-twenty cents just for this little piece.”</p>
-
-<p>“Nell is going to Mission Band,” said that
-small woman from the carpet, where she played
-with her dollie. “Nell knows all about it;
-mamma told her. Nell doesn’t want to be a
-selfish little girl and not give to the heathens;
-Nell is going to give her bestest thing.”</p>
-
-<p>Magdalene nudged her friend’s elbow to call
-attention to what her darling little sister was
-saying, and the two listened.</p>
-
-<p>“What are you going to give, Pet?” asked
-Magdalene at last, as the baby voice ceased its
-talking.</p>
-
-<p>The little girl looked up with surprised eyes;
-she had not supposed anybody was paying attention
-to her.</p>
-
-<p>“What are you going to give to the Mission
-Band for the heathens?”</p>
-
-<p>“I’m going to give my bestest thing,” said
-the baby, with sweet gravity; “I shall give
-my wubber dollie, that I love.”</p>
-
-<p>Mabel laughed, but Magdalene looked sober.
-Nobody understood better than she how the
-“wubber dollie” was loved, and she knew that
-Baby Nell meant what she said.</p>
-
-<p>“I think I will give my twenty-five cents,
-after all,” she said, after a moment’s silence,
-“and let my doll go without a fur cape; there
-is a lovely fur cape for sale at the doll store for
-twenty-five cents, and I meant to have it; but
-I believe I won’t.”</p>
-
-<p>“You want to match Nell’s ‘wubber dollie,’”
-said Mabel, with a good-natured laugh; “but
-I don’t believe you can.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 208px;">
-<img src="images/i-073.jpg" width="208" height="319" alt="Native young woman" />
-<div class="caption">TEWEELEMA.</div>
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap">SOME summer day you may be in Saratoga,
-N. Y. Among other sights you may see
-Indian encampments. Thither they come to
-sell their curious manufactures—bows, arrows,
-bead bags and many other queer things.</p>
-
-<p>The squaws (women) will be among them,
-dressed as Indian women have always dressed,
-but hardly so well as “Teweelema.”</p>
-
-<p>If you wish to see her you can now find her
-on her goodly farm near Lakeville, Mass., or
-traveling among the neighboring villages selling
-her wares—moccasins, necklaces of shells and
-beads, etc. She can chop a tree down or spade
-up the ground, and do almost any man’s work.
-She and her sister manage the farm. Her name
-is Wootonekanuske.</p>
-
-<p>At Oneida, N. Y., you may always see a few
-Indian women on the cars or at the station,
-looking something like Teweelema.</p>
-
-<p>But in a few more years there may not be
-any Indians left east of the Mississippi River.
-The Gospel is now among them, and maybe you
-will never again read of so fierce a warrior as
-Sitting-Bull or King Philip, Teweelema’s great,
-great, greatest grandfather.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="bbox">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 407px;">
-<img src="images/i-074.jpg" width="407" height="602" alt="family in orchard at spring" />
-<div class="caption">EVERYTHING IS GAY AND HAPPY.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>CARL HAMMOND’S LESSON.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-f.jpg" width="117" height="118" alt="F" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">FOR a boy who was usually happy,
-Carl Hammond certainly spent
-a very uncomfortable winter.
-It is true it was his first away
-from home, and some people
-thought he was young to be
-sent from home, but that was not the trouble.
-He was with Aunt Mary, which was almost the
-same as being with mother; and the schools
-where Aunt Mary lived were so much better
-than at Carl’s own home, that his mother had
-made the sacrifice, and sent him away.</p>
-
-<p>His unhappiness had to do with a certain
-September day which was as bright and beautiful
-as a sunny day in early autumn can be.
-Carl remembered every little thing about that
-afternoon—just how his father’s desk looked,
-and what books were piled on the table at its
-left, and above all, just how Bunce looked when
-he bounded in at the window. He was writing
-to Aunt Mary then, he remembered, telling her
-on what train to expect him, and he had held
-the pen in hand and turned to laugh at Bunce
-because he was so ridiculously glad over having
-found him. He had leaned over and patted the
-dog’s eager head, and had asked him how he
-was going to manage to get along without his
-playmate all winter; and Bunce had begun to
-run around his chair in that absurd fashion he
-had when especially pleased, and had bumped
-against the table just as Carl had shouted to
-him to “take care!” The shout came too late.
-Bunce succeeded in jostling the table, so that a
-ponderous book set too near the edge tumbled
-off, taking the great cut-glass inkstand with it,
-and the contents of that dreadful inkstand
-spread itself not only over the costly book, but
-the handsome carpet as well. If it had happened
-but the day before, Carl could not have
-remembered every little particular more vividly.</p>
-
-<p>Especially what followed; there is no denying
-that Carl was very much frightened. It
-seems a strange thing to say, but the truth is,
-he was not very well acquainted with his father.
-Mr. Hammond was connected with a business
-firm which sent him every year, and sometimes
-two or three times a year, to Europe; and between
-times he had to go South and West, and
-Carl hardly knew where else, on business; so
-that he was not often at home for many days
-together, and when there, was so crowded with
-business as to have little leisure for his family.
-Carl had once complained that whenever his
-father was at home for an hour or two it was
-always after he had gone to bed. Perhaps on
-this account he was the more frightened; for
-his father had great respect for books, and was
-particularly careful of the large one that Bunce
-had ruined. Carl could seem to hear his quick
-firm voice giving directions:</p>
-
-<p>“Remember, my son, you are on no account
-to allow Bunce in the study; he is a dangerous
-fellow in such a place; he can hardly move
-without doing injury. Be careful always to
-close the sash window when you go there, lest
-he might follow you.” And Carl had been in
-the study on the day in question for a half
-hour, with the sash window wide open. Not
-that he had forgotten, but he believed Bunce to
-be a mile away taking a walk with his young
-mistress; and he said to himself: “It is very
-much pleasanter with the window open, and of
-course papa does not care when Bunce is away.”
-As if Bunce could not return at any moment!
-which he presently did. Even then Carl might
-have ordered him instantly out and closed the
-sash, but the dear fellow was so absurdly glad
-to see him, and ran around in such a funny
-fashion to show his joy that it seemed too bad
-to dismiss him at once. Therefore the result
-which I have given you.</p>
-
-<p>But this was not the end of the story. Carl
-arose in great alarm, and without even attempting
-to repair damages, which indeed would have
-been beyond his skill, made all haste from the
-room, taking Bunce with him and closing the
-sash window carefully. Then, an hour afterwards,
-when his father’s stern voice questioned:
-“Carl, do you know anything about the accident
-in the study?” What did Carl do but ask:
-“What accident, sir?”</p>
-
-<p>“The overturning and breaking of the large
-inkstand and the spoiling of a very valuable
-book. Did you have anything to do with it?”</p>
-
-<p>“No, sir,” said Carl; “I had not.”</p>
-
-<p>The poor fellow told his conscience that he
-really did not have a thing to do with it, that
-the dog did all the mischief while he sat perfectly
-still, and that his father was the one who
-had left the book open on the table so dangerously
-near the edge. But his conscience had
-been better taught than that, and would have
-nothing to do with such flimsiness. It told him
-plainly before he slept that night, that the name
-of such talk, in plain English, was lying!</p>
-
-<p>Nobody questioned Carl further; his friends
-were in the habit of believing his word, and his
-father had been almost immediately called away
-by a telegram, so that indeed there had been no
-time to investigate. Two days afterwards, Carl
-himself left home. Now you know why his
-winter had been uncomfortable. The simple
-truth was, that he was an honorable, truth-loving
-boy, who had been astonished and dismayed
-at himself for telling what was not true, and
-who could not help despising himself for it.
-Moreover, he knew that if there was one sin
-more than another which his father hated with
-all his earnest nature, it was the sin of lying.</p>
-
-<p>It may be surprising to think that a boy like
-Carl should be half the winter making up his
-mind to tell the exact truth; nevertheless such
-was the case. The longer he put it off, the
-more impossible it seemed to him to write to
-his father and explain his share in the mischief.
-But at last, one snowy winter day, only two
-weeks before the holidays, he did it. He felt
-better as soon as the letter was mailed. He
-told himself that no matter what his father said
-in reply, he knew he had at last done right, and
-should be glad over it. Still he watched for the
-home letter more anxiously than ever before.
-It was from his mother, with a little note enclosed,
-for Carl’s private reading, from his
-father.</p>
-
-<p>“A fellow couldn’t have a better letter,” said
-Carl, wiping his eyes, and feeling a warm glow
-in his heart for the dear father who had been
-so kind and gentle, and yet honest and plain-spoken.
-Less than a week afterwards, Carl
-was on his way home. His mind was in a
-strange confusion as the train neared the home
-station. He could not help feeling just a little
-sorry that his father was at home. “Of course
-he will punish me,” thought the poor fellow.
-“I suppose he must; he always punishes disobedience.
-What if he should not let me see
-mother to-night! Or perhaps he will not let
-me go to Grandma’s with the family to-morrow.
-I’d most rather he would whip me, and perhaps
-he will!”</p>
-
-<p>Over this thought the twelve-year-old boy’s
-heart almost stood still. His father had not
-often punished him in this way, but on the very
-rare occasions when it had to be done, it was
-managed in such a manner that Carl distinctly
-remembered it. By the time the train ran into
-the station he had succeeded in working himself
-up to such a pitch of excitement that he was
-almost tempted to run away, to avoid the disgrace
-of this home-coming. But his father was
-there, waiting.</p>
-
-<p>“Here’s my boy!” Carl heard him say, and
-in a minute more the father’s arms were around
-him, and the father’s kiss was on his cheeks.
-Mother was waiting in the carriage, and not a
-word during the quick ride home, nor at the
-joyous supper table afterwards, was said to him
-about his fault. They went to Grandma’s the
-next day in great happiness, and the next day
-they went to Uncle Will’s. “I am having a
-holiday,” his father explained, “in honor of
-my boy’s home-coming. I am taking a longer
-vacation from business than I have had before
-in two years.” The days passed, and not a
-word was said to Carl about his disobedience
-and falseness. Nobody could be kinder or
-more thoughtful for his comfort and pleasure
-than his father, yet Carl could not help wondering
-when and how his punishment was to
-come. At last, one evening, when they were
-alone together for a few minutes, he resolved
-to discover. “Father,” he said, and his voice
-trembled a little, “when are you going to punish
-me?”</p>
-
-<p>His father turned astonished eyes upon him.
-“Punish you, my dear boy! For what?”</p>
-
-<p>Carl’s cheeks were very red. “Why, father,
-don’t you know—surely you remember? I
-wrote about it.”</p>
-
-<p>“But surely, my boy, I wrote you about it!
-Did I not tell you I forgave you utterly?”</p>
-
-<p>“O, yes, sir! but then I thought—that you
-would think”—Carl stopped in confusion.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>“You thought I must remember the sin, and
-punish the sinner, even though I had forgiven
-him? Is that it?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir,” said Carl, low-voiced and
-troubled.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said Mr. Hammond, and Carl noticed
-how tender his voice was; “I do not remember
-anything about it in the sense which you mean.
-Do you remember my telling you once that God
-meant fathers to be object lessons to their children,
-giving them some faint idea, at least, of
-what kind of a father God would be to those
-who trusted him?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir,” said Carl.</p>
-
-<p>“Very well, then, here on this card, which I
-would like you to keep in your Bible, is my
-answer to your question.”</p>
-
-<p>The card was a lovely blue celluloid, and had
-printed on it in gold letters, the words, “I will
-forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their
-sin no more.”</p>
-
-<p>One evening, when Carl was twenty years
-old, he repeated that verse in a Christian Endeavor
-prayer meeting, and said that his father’s
-commentary on it had made him understand it.
-Then he told, in brief, the story which I have
-given you.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 470px;">
-<img src="images/i-077.jpg" width="470" height="551" alt="dog jumping in through window, boy at desk smiling at him" />
-<div class="caption">HE REMEMBERED JUST HOW BUNCE LOOKED.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 416px;">
-<img src="images/i-078.jpg" width="416" height="398" alt="drawing of state house" />
-<div class="caption">THE STATE HOUSE AT BOSTON.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>HOWARD’S WAY.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Character Studies.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THEY were all in the library after
-dinner, and were all talking at
-once, as the Edwards family
-were inclined to be. “I don’t
-see why we always have so
-much more to say than other
-people seem to,” Lora Edwards had once remarked,
-setting them all into shouts of laughter.
-Howard was not talking; his head was bent low
-over a Latin dictionary. They were waiting for
-some of the family, because they always gathered
-at this hour in the library for evening
-prayers; but Howard, while he waited, saved
-the minutes, remembering the hard lesson of
-the morning, and the liability to be interrupted
-in his study hour.</p>
-
-<p>The back parlor door was pushed open and
-Uncle Edward’s handsome form appeared.
-“Where is Ashman Square?” he inquired.</p>
-
-<p>Several voices at once attempted to answer
-him. “It is just off of Second Street,” said
-Lora. And Emma in the same breath said,
-“It is over by the river somewhere; near Park
-Street, isn’t it?” Then Dickie, “Why, Lora,
-it can’t be near Second Street, because Wyeth
-Avenue runs in there.”</p>
-
-<p>“No, it doesn’t; Wyeth Avenue crosses at
-Third Street.”</p>
-
-<p>Then exclamations from at least four: “Why,
-Lora Edwards! Wyeth Avenue isn’t near Third
-Street. I think Ashman Square is down by the
-Lincoln Statue; isn’t it, papa?”</p>
-
-<p>“I am sure I don’t know,” said papa, who
-just then entered the room. “The city changes
-so rapidly and adds so many fancy names that
-I cannot keep track of it. Who wants to know—Edward?
-There is a map about somewhere.
-I shouldn’t wonder if Ashman Square was down
-near the old Ashman place, towards the river.”</p>
-
-<p>“There!” said Emma, “I was sure it was
-near the river.”</p>
-
-<p>“But the river is quite a stream, my dear
-niece,” Uncle Edward said, smiling.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes; but Ashman Square is not very far
-down; it is near the Westfield car line.”</p>
-
-<p>Then a perfect babel of voices ensued.</p>
-
-<p>“O, Emma, no!”</p>
-
-<p>“Emma Edwards! it is a quarter of a mile
-from the Eastman line, I am certain.”</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t think Ashman Square is on this
-side at all; I think you are all confused.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, it is; I pass it every day, but I don’t
-remember on which side of the avenue it is. I
-go down one way and come up another, and so
-get things mixed.”</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t think any of you know much about
-it,” said Uncle Edward, and this time he laughed.
-Several voices began again in eager disclaimer,
-but Father Edwards silenced them: “See here,
-children, we must have prayers at once; I have
-an important engagement at seven. Afterwards,
-one of you can find a map and settle
-your discussion.”</p>
-
-<p>Lora struck the chord and the entire family
-joined in:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“While Thee I seek, protecting Power,</div>
-<div class="verse">Be my vain wishes stilled.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>In the momentary lull which there was as
-they rose from their knees, Howard spoke, for
-the first time that evening.</p>
-
-<p>“Uncle Edward.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes.”</p>
-
-<p>“About Ashman Square—do you know
-where the Station D post-office is?”</p>
-
-<p>“Perfectly.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, Ashman Square begins two blocks
-east of that.”</p>
-
-<p>“So it does!” declared Lora; “why in the
-world didn’t some of us think of the post-office?
-that would have located it.”</p>
-
-<p>“I never noticed how near it was to the post-office,”
-said Emma. “What I would like to
-know is, why Howard did not speak before,
-and save us all this talk.”</p>
-
-<p>“Sure enough!” said Dickie. “Did you
-find the answer to that conundrum in your
-Latin dictionary? Why didn’t you look up,
-old fellow, and join the colloquy?”</p>
-
-<p>“Couldn’t get a chance,” said Howard, with
-a good-natured smile; “you all had a great
-deal to say, and were bent on saying it, all at
-once; I thought I would keep still until the
-shower was over, and in the meantime a grain
-of fact might be evolved out of it; but there
-wasn’t.”</p>
-
-<p>“Howard always waits until there is clear
-sailing,” said Lora. “I’ve noticed that he is
-the only one in our family who isn’t apparently
-burning to speak at the same moment when
-some one else is.”</p>
-
-<p>“And when he does speak it is to the point,”
-said Uncle Edward. “Much obliged, my boy;
-you have saved me a bewildering tramp in the
-effort to follow the directions of these voluble
-young ladies.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>ABOUT BOSTON.<br />
-
-<small>BY THE PANSIES.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-m2.jpg" width="123" height="121" alt="M" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">MAMMA told me why it was
-named Boston. There was
-once in old England a man so
-good and kind to sailors, and
-to people in distress on the
-water, that he was named St.
-Botolph, because the word “Botolph” is made
-from two words, which mean boat help. After
-a while the word “Boston” grew out of the
-name, and the place where this man had lived
-and died was called so. And Boston in New
-England was named for it.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Lucy Stevenson.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I saw</span> a picture of the first house that was
-ever built in Boston. It is very homely. There
-are only a few windows, and one door, I think;
-and it looks like some of the log cabins of the
-West. A man named William Blackstone lived
-in this house all alone. It was built on a hill,
-and the place where it stood is now part of a
-handsome street in Boston. But the town was
-not called Boston when William Blackstone
-lived there; it was Shawmut.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">William Blake.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">They</span> used to have very strict laws in Boston
-about the Sabbath. From Saturday at midnight
-until six o’clock on Sunday evening no
-hired carriage could leave or enter the city, and
-during the hours of public service no wagon of
-any sort was allowed to move through the streets
-faster than a walk. Soon after the laws against
-using the bath-houses on Sunday were made, a
-person who thought himself witty had printed
-in the paper the following rhyme:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“In superstition’s day, ’tis said,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hens laid two eggs on Monday;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Because a hen would lose her head</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who laid an egg on Sunday.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Now our wise rulers and the law</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Say none shall wash on Sunday,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">So Boston folks must dirty go,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And wash them twice on Monday!”</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">Reuben S. Benton.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I read</span> about a town meeting which was held
-in Boston in 1789, in which they voted that
-there should be “One writing school at the
-south part of the town, one at the center, and
-one at the north part; and that in these schools
-the children of both sexes shall be taught writing,
-and also arithmetic in its various branches,
-including vulgar and decimal fractions.”</p>
-
-<p>Another law passed at the same meeting was,
-that there should be “A reading school in the
-north part of the town and one in the south
-part, and that the children of both sexes should
-be taught to spell, accent and read, both prose
-and verse.” Girls were allowed to attend these
-schools only half the year—from April to October—but
-boys could go in winter. This latter
-rule was changed in 1828, and the girls were
-allowed to attend through the year until they
-were sixteen; boys could attend only until they
-were fourteen. The Bible was the only reader
-then in use.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Helen Westover.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I went</span> to Boston once to visit my grandfather,
-and he took me to lots of places, and
-showed me the picture of Ann Pollard; she
-lived to be a hundred and five years old, and
-she was the first to jump from the boat when
-the colonists came over from Charlestown; she
-was only ten years old then, and she gave a
-spring from the boat just as it was touching
-the shore, and landed. Grandfather showed
-her to me, and told me about her, because my
-name is Annie Pollard, and he said I had a
-little of the spunk of my old ancestor.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Annie Pollard.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have been studying in school about John
-Hancock and his times, and our teacher told us
-about his wife’s breakfast party at the old Hancock
-House. It was in 1778, and a French
-fleet came into Boston harbor. Governor Hancock
-proposed that the officers be invited to
-breakfast; so his wife had her table set for
-thirty officers, and instead all the under officers
-of the fleet came also—a hundred and twenty
-more than were expected! Mrs. Hancock must
-have been in a panic for a few minutes, but she
-got out of her difficulties. First, she ordered all
-the cows on the Common milked, and the milk
-brought to her; then she sent among her friends
-and borrowed cakes and other things to help
-out, and gave them all a very nice breakfast.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 502px;">
-<img src="images/i-081.jpg" width="502" height="354" alt="drawing of house" />
-<div class="caption">THE HANCOCK HOUSE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The French count who commanded the fleet
-was very much pleased, and invited the governor
-and his wife to visit his fleet and bring
-their friends. This was Mrs. Hancock’s chance
-to be politely revenged upon him for bringing
-so many people to breakfast; she invited five
-hundred friends to go with her to the fleet!
-But they were politely received and entertained
-elegantly.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Fannie Brooks.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have a picture in our library of the old
-Hancock House. It isn’t much of a house as
-those things go nowadays, but when Governor
-Hancock lived there I suppose it looked fine.
-I like old John Hancock; it is great fun to read
-about him. Of course it was all nonsense for
-him to think that Washington ought to call on
-him first, that time when Washington went to
-Boston to visit in 1789, but for all that I think
-it was awfully cute, the way in which Hancock
-finally backed down. He had the gout, you
-know, so he did himself up in flannel and had
-his men carry him on their shoulders to call on
-Washington. If he had got to make the first
-call he meant to do it in state, and he did.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">John Stuart Winthrop.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I was just eight years old, my father
-spent a week in Boston with me, and showed
-me the Museum, the Navy Yard, the School for
-the Blind (I remember Laura Bridgman), the
-Idiot School, etc. He took me to the top of
-Bunker Hill Monument; I remember I counted
-the two hundred and ninety-seven steps. Not
-every father thinks that a child of eight could
-appreciate such things. Many and many a
-time since then, have I thanked my father for
-helping me to enjoy the remembrance of things
-which I never expect to see again. During that
-visit to Boston a boy ten years old took from
-my grandfather’s library a copy of one of the
-“Jonas” books which he coveted. The book
-was never missed, but twenty years afterwards
-the boy returned it with compound interest and
-apologies; his heart had never been at rest
-about it.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. Olivia C. Warne.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> father was in Boston when the statue of
-John Winthrop was unveiled; he walked in that
-great procession, and heard the speech made in
-the Old South Church. I have been to Boston
-myself, and walked around that very statue. It
-is in Scollay Square. Governor Winthrop is
-dressed just as they used to dress in his time;
-he has a Bible in one hand, and a copy of the
-king’s charter in the other. There is a carved
-rope wound around a carved tree which stands
-for the ship that brought him over. I went to
-the beautiful State House, too. It is the one
-which was begun in Governor Hancock’s pasture!
-But it does not look much like a pasture
-where it stands now.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Harry Westfield.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 262px;">
-<img src="images/i-082a.jpg" width="262" height="323" alt="statue" />
-<div class="caption">THE STATUE OF WINTHROP.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Once</span> I went to the old North Church in Boston.
-I went up the tower to the steeple, where
-General Gage stood and watched Charlestown
-burn. On the steeple is the date “1723.” The
-chime of bells on this church are just lovely! I
-heard them play. One of them has on it these
-words: “We are the first ring of bells cast for
-the British Empire in North America.” Another
-bell says: “Since generosity has opened our
-mouths, our tongues shall ring aloud its praise.”
-Inside the church are some queer wooden angels.
-The pews are very old-fashioned. The Bible
-in the desk was the one that George the Second
-gave to the church. After making this visit I
-learned “Paul Revere” and recited it at school;
-you know the signal lights which warned him
-shone from the steeple of the Old North.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mary Winthrop Smith.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 266px;">
-<img src="images/i-082b.jpg" width="266" height="328" alt="church in middle of town" />
-<div class="caption">THE OLD NORTH CHURCH.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>[For want of space, we must bring this very interesting bit
-of history about old Boston to a close. It is certainly not for
-want of material that we do so, and our hearty thanks are due
-the Pansies and their friends for the letters full of interesting
-items which have come to us. It is noticeable that the young
-people of to-day are interested in Boston’s past, which is a
-wise thing, for its history is full of suggestion for the future.</p>
-
-<p>We earnestly hope that the city which we take up next,
-viz.: Washington, D. C., may call out as many items of interest
-from the young people.—<span class="smcap">Editors The Pansy.</span>]</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IF Bose and Fido and Sport and
-the rest will keep still long
-enough, I will tell you some
-things about myself which I
-should like you to remember.</p>
-
-<p>I am growing old pretty fast,
-and if I had not the kindest master in the world
-I would stand a slim chance.</p>
-
-<p>My smelling is good yet, and things taste
-nice enough, but my teeth are nearly gone.
-Bones which once would have been a luxury,
-now do me little good. The best I can do is
-to lap off a little of the meat and grease.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, I can bark loud enough yet, but it vexes
-me terribly when I see the cattle in the field
-where they do not belong, or some wicked boys
-in the orchard stealing apples, to know that
-about all I can do is to bark.</p>
-
-<p>I do not pretend that I have been a perfect
-dog, but I have had a great deal of experience
-in my day, and am not without the hope that
-you, my young friends, may profit by what I
-have seen and heard and felt myself, and known
-in the lives of others.</p>
-
-<p>No, I shall not try to tell it all to-day; I
-have no wish to bore you with “long yarns,”
-as the sailors say. Besides, there would not
-be time before Fido might be wanted to go with
-his mistress across the pasture when she takes
-that beef tea to Willie Jones. She never seems
-afraid with her pet along. Bose, too, will be
-wanted to drive home the cows; so I will tell
-you only a little to-day, and more another time.</p>
-
-<p>Where I was born I really do not know, but
-I am inclined to think it was a great way from
-here, perhaps in another country; we will never
-know, I suppose, though it seems to me it must
-be nice to know where one came into the world,
-and what kind of father and mother he had.
-But, dear me, I have seen some dogs, and folks
-too, who would have been happier if they had
-never known their parents!</p>
-
-<p>I can just remember seeing my mother once.
-I think she must have been beautiful. The
-man who took me away from her often said in
-my hearing that I had her hair and eyes.</p>
-
-<p>I can remember how mother cried when they
-carried me away. I had never seen her cry
-before, and though I was awfully frightened,
-yet I felt sorry for her.</p>
-
-<p>I was petted enough, and had plenty to eat,
-but the journey was long, and shut up in that
-little box I was dreadfully lonesome.</p>
-
-<p>But finally we reached home; then I had a
-warm bed, and a nice place; but some nights I
-was terribly scared there in the dark all alone.
-The boys had a pet donkey, and the first night
-I was there that fellow made his horrid bray.
-My! I thought I should die with fright. Well,
-when I had got a little used to the donkey,
-what should I hear in the tree over my head
-but a horrid “To hoo! to who?”</p>
-
-<p>Yes, Sport, you may wag your tail and laugh;
-you know “who,” for you are a full-grown
-dog, and know all about the great staring owl,
-but with me it was a different matter.</p>
-
-<p>As I remarked before, I think, my master
-was kind, and so was mistress, and they had
-no very small children to torment a little pup.
-Their little girl was so sweet and kind, it was
-always a pleasure to kiss her soft cheek; I do
-not believe she ever had any nice thing to eat
-that she did not wish to share with me.</p>
-
-<p>Her brother was a noble fellow, too. Not
-always so thoughtful as his sister, and sometimes
-pretty rough; but so long as he did not
-mean to be ugly and hurt me, I could bear it.</p>
-
-<p>The worst, I remember, was when their
-cousins and some of the neighbors’ children
-would come for the afternoon on a visit.</p>
-
-<p>At first I was glad to see so many little children,
-but I soon found that all children had not
-such sweet dispositions as my master’s, or else
-their parents had not taught them so carefully.</p>
-
-<p>We all ran and romped, and for a time it
-was jolly enough; but when my young master
-and mistress were out of sight, one of those
-rough boys would do something to torment me.
-He pulled my ears and my tail; once he boxed
-my ears so hard that I cried right out.</p>
-
-<p>Then they put me on that donkey’s back, and
-while I was held there, the creature made one
-of those dreadful noises! Then I cried so loud
-my little mistress came and took me away.</p>
-
-<p>Once I was so frightened by those rude children
-that I hid under the barn. I could hear
-them call my name and whistle for me, but I did
-not mean to come out till the children had gone.</p>
-
-<p>It seemed a long time, but they finally went—I
-mean the visitors—and then I was only
-too ready to get out, for it was growing pretty
-dark where I was.</p>
-
-<p>We were all very much frightened, but when
-master came home he took a big iron bar and
-pried a stone out, and made a hole big enough
-for me to crawl through as easy as need be.</p>
-
-<p>I cannot make myself believe that those children
-remembered with pleasure what they had
-done to me that day. They never looked sweet
-and happy like little Lucy and her brother.</p>
-
-<p>I long ago came to the conclusion that if one
-would be happy he must try to make others so;
-and I do not believe it makes much difference
-whether he walks upon two legs or four.</p>
-
-<p>Another thing, I believe one’s usefulness depends
-very much upon whether he keeps his
-eyes open or not. Why, one does not need to
-be a full-grown dog to be able to make himself
-useful, and so thought a great deal of.</p>
-
-<p>Take my case, for example: As I was saying,
-even when I was quite small the hired
-man used to take me when he went after the
-cows at night.</p>
-
-<p>I suppose this was to give me the pleasure of
-a run in the pasture; they took old Sport along
-to do the work of driving. He, poor fellow,
-was getting pretty old, and could not run fast;
-but he was a good dog, and was well educated.</p>
-
-<p>I did not at first understand how he could
-know so much—how he could tell the oxen
-from the cows, and the cows from the steers;
-and when there were other cattle mixed up with
-our master’s, on the road or anywhere, how he
-could know which ones to drive in, and which
-to leave or drive away.</p>
-
-<p>One day as we were waiting for the hired
-man to fix a little place in the fence, Sport said
-something that astonished me greatly.</p>
-
-<p>I think I had been saying how I wished I
-knew as much as he, and could do what he did.
-Then he gave me this hint. Said he, “I think
-our good master is planning to have you take
-my place in a few months. Soon I shall not
-be able to do the work, and if you watch out
-you will be able to do all that I have done.
-Even now,” said he, “you are beginning to
-save me a great many steps by starting up the
-cattle which are lagging behind, or that get out
-of the way.”</p>
-
-<p>I shall never forget how pleased I was. I
-almost felt like another dog, and was so glad
-to think that I could do anything worth any
-one’s notice. I feel sure it was a great help to
-me to have him speak like that, and cannot but
-think that a great many others might be encouraged
-in the same way.</p>
-
-<p>Proud little puppy that I was, I almost split
-my throat barking at the cattle that afternoon,
-and was much pleased to see that I could help.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 267px;">
-<img src="images/i-084.jpg" width="267" height="145" alt="dog lying down" />
-<div class="caption">OLD MAJOR.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Well, it was not many weeks after that,
-when one day the hired man went off fishing,
-and the master was all alone at home. It was
-late in the afternoon, and he was resting upon
-the front steps, looking very tired, for he was
-not well. I remember I had been wishing for
-the time to come when I could do something,
-and would be big enough to watch things.
-You see the fishing party had taken Sport with
-them to watch the wagon. I was thought too
-young to be taken off so far.</p>
-
-<p>I had felt pretty sober all the morning, but
-the master had spoken very kindly to me several
-times, and while sitting there had called me to
-him and patted my head, and called me a nice
-little fellow. Finally he looked up from the
-paper he had been reading and said, “Well,
-Major, it is about time to go for the cows.”</p>
-
-<p>“Now is your chance,” I said to myself, and
-off over the big stone wall I went. About the
-only thing I feared was that he would call me
-back, but he seemed too much surprised for
-that; so I ran away as fast as my four feet
-could carry me.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>I did not know so well then where to look
-for the cows, but scampered around so fast that
-I soon caught sight of them and quickly had the
-whole lot on their way to the yard.</p>
-
-<p>My only mistake was in doing my job too
-well, for I drove up the oxen and steers and
-yearlings as well as the cows.</p>
-
-<p>When I had them all near the gate then I
-barked as hard as I could, and the master came
-and let down the bars, and drove in the cows
-and let the others go back.</p>
-
-<p>Then I remembered how it was generally
-done, and felt much ashamed of my blunder.
-But master called me to him and petted me,
-and told me I had been a good fellow. Then
-late in the evening, when the others came home,
-he told them how I had surprised him by driving
-up the cows, and never said a word about
-my mistake in driving up the other cattle. I
-think that was so kind of him! I know a great
-many who would have been either so thoughtless
-or unkind as to have made fun of a youngster’s
-little blunder when trying to do his best.
-But he was not that kind of a man. You
-may be sure I never made that mistake again.</p>
-
-<p>Then old Sport came over to my kennel, and
-congratulated me heartily on driving up the
-cows. All I could do was to thank him, and
-tell him it was because of the way he had encouraged
-me, helping me to think I might do
-something.</p>
-
-<p>There have been many changes in farming
-since I can remember, but the cows have to be
-got and milked just as ever, only there seem to
-be more of them, and so I must not keep you
-any longer this time.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-R.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 542px;">
-<img src="images/i-085.jpg" width="542" height="403" alt="five children sitting by a large fire in a house a woman on a chair facing htem" />
-<div class="caption">OUR GRANDPARENTS AT SCHOOL.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 556px;">
-<img src="images/i-086.jpg" width="556" height="629" alt="thiree girls cleaning up" />
-<div class="caption">MAKING THE DUST FLY.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>A HAPPY LITTLE GIRL.</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-b.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="B" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">BESSIE has good times. She
-lives in the country where the
-hills are white with snow.</p>
-
-<p>Every morning after breakfast
-she puts on her long cloak
-and her warm hood and mittens, and goes to
-school with her brothers. The schoolhouse is
-half a mile away, but she loves to go.</p>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 283px;">
-<img src="images/i-087.jpg" width="283" height="397" alt="girl sledding with dog" />
-<div class="caption">BESSIE GIVES CARLO A RIDE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sometimes she runs and draws her sled. It
-is a new one, painted red, and is one of her
-Christmas presents.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes she sits on the sled, and her
-brothers give her a nice ride. They play they
-are ponies, and run very fast. Then Bessie
-shouts and laughs, and is happy.</p>
-
-
-<p>Their home is in that little house beyond the
-hill. You can see the roof, and the smoke
-curling up from the chimney.</p>
-
-<p>They are on their way home from school now.</p>
-
-<p>Just as they got to the top of the hill Carlo
-came to meet them. He wagged his tail and
-licked Bessie’s hand, he was so glad to see
-her, for Carlo gets lonely without playmates
-all day.</p>
-
-<p>The boys saw a rabbit run through the fence,
-and they went up to watch for it.</p>
-
-<p>“Carlo shall have a ride,” said Bessie. So
-she took him in her arms and got upon the sled
-at the top of the hill.</p>
-
-<p>She gave it a little push, and away they
-went, whiz! down the long hill so swiftly and
-smoothly. Oh! it was good fun.</p>
-
-<p>Two more rides they took, then Charlie
-picked up the bag and said, “Come, Bess.”</p>
-
-<p>When they get home mamma will have a nice
-warm supper ready for them.</p>
-
-<p>After that they will go out and ride down
-hill until dark.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>THE SAND MAN.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">E</span>ACH night a man goes round our town,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And into eyes of blue and brown,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">He sprinkles, with a careful hand,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The finest, softest grains of sand.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Then as sweet blossoms close at night,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">O’er shining eyes fall curtains white;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">For all these precious grains of sand</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are gathered up in Slumber Land.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">’Tis there the peaceful river gleams</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where children sail in happy dreams;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The Sand Man takes them in his boat,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">So off my little pet must float.</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">Myra Goodwin Plantz.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 534px;">
-<img src="images/i-088.jpg" width="534" height="599" alt="Children in wagon" />
-<div class="caption"><p>TEDDY AND MARGARET CLIMBED INTO THE STRANGE WAGON.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>“IF I ONLY HADN’T!”</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-n.jpg" width="121" height="123" alt="N" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">NOBODY could have started out
-with better intentions than did
-Teddy Brockway that bright
-spring morning. It is true it
-was only March, but Teddy
-lived so far South that the
-month of March meant spring; he was dressed
-in a neat spring suit, had his little sister Margaret
-by the hand, and Sally Amelia, her
-dollie, under his special care, and was started
-for a trip all by themselves to old Auntie
-Blaikslee’s, almost a half-mile away!</p>
-
-<p>“Aren’t you afraid to let those two babies
-go off alone?” Grandmamma asked, looking up
-from her knitting with a somewhat troubled
-face.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Brockway smiled as she answered:
-“O, no! what could harm them? Teddy
-knows every foot of the way as well as I do,
-and every neighbor along the road; and everybody
-knows him. Besides, he is seven years
-old, and I must begin to trust him.” However,
-she went to the door and called after them:
-“Remember, Teddy, I trust Margaret to you.
-It isn’t every little boy of your age who can be
-depended upon to take care of his sister. And,
-Teddy, remember you are not to ride with any
-strange person who may ask you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Course not!” said Teddy, with dignity;
-“not unless he is Uncle Ben or Deacon West.
-I can ride with Deacon West—can’t we,
-muvver?”</p>
-
-<p>“O, yes!” said Mrs. Brockway, smiling.
-“He is not much more likely to meet Deacon
-West on this road than he is to meet the man
-in the moon,” she said laughingly to grandma,
-“but he has to provide for all the possibilities.”</p>
-
-<p>Two hours afterwards Teddy and Margaret,
-with Sally Amelia somewhat the worse for being
-handled by all the grandchildren of old Auntie
-Blaikslee, were trudging back in triumph. The
-errand entrusted to them had been carefully
-done, and Teddy had said over the message he
-was to give his mother until he knew it by heart,
-and had bravely resisted two invitations from
-good-natured teamsters to have a ride. He was
-almost within sight of the corner where they
-turned into their own grounds, and Margaret
-had been good and minded beautifully. Truth
-to tell, Teddy’s heart was swelling with importance;
-he had never before been sent on so
-long a trip with only Margaret for company.
-He felt at least ten years old. At the top of
-the hill he came to a halt. There, just in front
-of them, jogging comfortably along, was Jake
-Winchell, Judge Aker’s hired man. Everybody
-knew Jake and his old horse and cart, but nobody,
-or at least Teddy, had ever happened
-to meet him in that direction before; his road
-always lay the other way.</p>
-
-<p>“Halloo!” he said, getting out to fix something
-about the harness, and spying the children
-as he did so, “here’s luck; an almost
-empty cart and two nice passengers to have a
-ride in it down the hill. Don’t you want to
-jump in?”</p>
-
-<p>Teddy never wanted anything worse. For
-a small minute he hesitated. What was that
-“muvver” had said? “You are not to ride
-with any strange person who may ask you.”
-“Course not!” said Teddy again, indignant
-with himself; “just as though Jake was a
-strange person.” But even while his heart
-said the words, a voice away down deep contradicted
-it: “Teddy Brockway, don’t you
-know she meant anybody you are not used to
-riding with? And you never had a ride with
-Jake.”</p>
-
-<p>“What of that?” said Teddy’s other thought,
-still impatiently; “that’s because he never comes
-the way we live; but I’ve talked with him, and
-muvver said she thought he was kind to boys,
-and patient with them, and everything. Just
-as if she would care for Margaret and me to
-ride down hill to the gate! We’re most there;
-and it is a bad hard hill for Margaret; and she
-has had a long walk.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir, thank you,” he said aloud to Jake,
-smiling and bowing like a gentleman. “I should
-like to ride ever so much, for Margaret’s sake;
-she is tired.”</p>
-
-<p>“All right,” said Jake, with a good-natured
-chuckle; “climb in and I’ll tuck her in after
-you, and take you a few miles on your road as
-well as not.”</p>
-
-<p>Little Margaret, who paid small attention to
-cautions, and who expected that everybody in
-the world was bound to be kind to her and help
-take care of her, took this ride as a matter of
-course, and was soon seated beside Teddy, with
-Sally Amelia tucked safely under her arm. Jake
-decided to walk down the hill. “It’s a pretty
-steep pitch for this part of the world,” he explained,
-“and the harness ain’t none of the
-safest; I guess I better walk.”</p>
-
-<p>Teddy looked at the harness and trembled.
-What would his mother say if she could hear
-that? Even now it was not too late to ask
-Jake to set them back again on the dusty road,
-but how he would laugh and call him a coward!
-Teddy couldn’t, and the down-hill ride began.</p>
-
-<p>What made that poor old half-blind horse
-stumble on a hidden root that particular morning
-and pitch the crazy old cart forward with
-such a sudden lunge as to send Teddy rolling
-down the hill faster than the horse could have
-traveled? Above all, how did it happen that
-Margaret did not fall out, but lay flat in the
-bottom of the cart and screamed? Nobody
-knows how any of it happened. They only
-know that when the almost distracted Jake had
-succeeded in getting the horse on his feet, and
-lifting Margaret in his arms, and trying his best
-to hush her had stumbled with all speed to the
-spot where Teddy had stopped rolling, the poor
-little fellow had fainted, and had to be carried
-by Jake to the very door of his mother’s house,
-Margaret trudging solemnly along by his side,
-occasionally asking pitifully why Teddy went
-to “s’eep,” and why he didn’t wake up.</p>
-
-<p>Poor Teddy “waked up” almost too soon
-for his comfort. It had been a terrible pain,
-when he tried to pick himself up from the road,
-which had made him faint.</p>
-
-<p>Days afterwards, as he lay in his white bed
-with his leg done in “splints,” whatever they
-were, and watched the long, bright spring days
-full of Southern sunshine and sweet smells, and
-thought how long it would be before he could
-run about again, he would sigh out wearily,
-“O, muvver! if I only hadn’t!” Of course his
-mother tried to comfort him. Once she said:
-“But, Teddy dear, you did not mean to do
-wrong. You supposed of course that because
-Jake was considered an honest, clean-souled
-man, mother would be willing to have you ride
-with him. It was what we call an error in
-judgment. If I were you I would be glad that
-you escaped with only a broken leg, and that
-dear little Margaret was not hurt at all, and
-then try to forget about it.”</p>
-
-<p>Teddy considered this for some minutes with
-a grave face, and in his eyes an earnest longing
-to take the comfort to his heart. But at last
-he spoke, in the slow, old-fashioned way he
-sometimes had: “No, muvver, it was an error
-in want-to! I knew ‘not to ride with any
-strange person’ meant with any person that
-you had not let me ride with before; and I
-knew I wasn’t doing real heart right; so if
-Margaret had been hurt it would have been my
-fault. O, muvver! if I only hadn’t!”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>ABOUT WASHINGTON.<br />
-
-<small>BY THE PANSIES.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp; READ a letter written by Mrs.
-President Adams in 1796. In
-it she complains that there are
-not nearly lamps enough to
-light the White House decently,
-and that the making of the daily
-fires in all the rooms, “to keep off the ague,”
-occupies the entire time of one or two servants.
-She says there are no looking-glasses in the
-house but “dwarfs.” I think Mrs. President
-Harrison must have found a very different state
-of things. It is just like women to complain
-about there not being looking-glasses!</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">John West.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> great-grandfather used to be in Washington
-in Congress, when Daniel Webster was
-there. My father has told me all about it;
-they had great speeches. Grandfather heard
-Henry Clay when he made his wonderful speech.
-I’d like to have been with him! Father read to
-us last night about the speech, and in the book
-it said there were at that time two little boys,
-one eight years old and the other ten, whom
-nobody knew anything about until afterwards.
-One of them went to a primary school in Boston
-and studied a primer, and the other didn’t go to
-school at all, but had to work hard. The primer
-boy was named Sumner, and the other boy was
-Abraham Lincoln. I guess if the people in
-Washington had known what those two boys
-were going to do a little later, they would have
-been astonished.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Lincoln Stevenson.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 262px;">
-<img src="images/i-091.jpg" width="262" height="517" alt="drawing" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> father and mother lived in Washington in
-1860. Father says it wasn’t much like a city
-then; there were no street cars, and they did
-not light the streets, only Pennsylvania Avenue,
-and they got their water from pumps or springs.
-There were no sewers, and the streets were not
-paved, and the parks were all full of weeds.
-He told me about it one day last spring when
-we were in Washington, and sat under the trees
-in beautiful Stanton Square. I could hardly
-believe that the lovely city ever looked as he
-described it. And to think that that was only
-a little over thirty years ago! Father says the
-changes seem like a dream to him.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Lilian Prescott.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1808 there were only about five thousand
-people in Washington, and lots of fun was made
-of the city. A great many people wanted the
-Capitol moved farther North, and the papers
-were filled with jokes about the “City in the
-mud,” “City of streets without houses,” “Capitol
-of huts,” and all that sort of thing. I wish
-some of those simpletons who wrote that way
-could ride down Pennsylvania Avenue now!
-But they can’t, because they are all dead.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Arthur Burkhardt.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> mother used to be in Washington when
-the Northwest, where so many elegant houses
-are, was just a great swamp! When we were
-there a year ago she took me to walk on Connecticut
-Avenue, and showed me where she and
-Aunt Nannie used to play hide-and-seek. The
-elegant building belonging to the British Legation
-stands there now, and in every direction
-the houses and lawns are lovely! I asked
-mamma how they came to be allowed to play
-on such an elegant street, and she laughed, and
-said nobody in those days thought of such a
-thing as its ever being elegant around there.
-It seems queer to think what changes there
-must have been in a few years. My Auntie
-lives on Connecticut Avenue now, and I think
-it is one of the prettiest streets in Washington.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Alice Barnes.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> brother Robert liked the great dome best,
-but I was very fond of the bronze door at the
-main entrance of the Capitol. I had just been
-studying all about Columbus when I went to
-Washington, and it was so interesting to see
-his history carved on the door. Then I staid
-in the rotunda a long time. I like round rooms
-when they are very large. The paintings are
-beautiful. There was one of Columbus landing,
-and one which showed the Pilgrims just
-starting, and one of Pocahontas being baptized.
-I like to look at pictures of things that I know
-about. Of course I went up the round-and-round
-iron stairway which leads to the dome.
-I stood under the statue of Freedom and looked
-down at the city. It was beautiful.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Carrie Foster.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 501px;">
-<img src="images/i-092.jpg" width="501" height="347" alt="dark drrawing of capital building" />
-<div class="caption">VIEW OF THE CAPITOL.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> went, last winter, to the Library of Congress.
-My uncle went almost every day, and
-I had to go with him, because I had nowhere
-else to go while he was there; but I had a nice
-book to read, and I liked it. The room is made
-of iron—I mean the shelves and rafters and
-all those things are—and the roof is of copper.
-It is said to be the only library in the world
-that is entirely fire proof. There are more than
-six hundred thousand books, and thousands and
-thousands of pamphlets in this library. Every
-book which has been copyrighted has to send
-two copies to the library. It is about ninety
-years since books were first gathered there. It
-was in 1800 that Congress voted to use five
-thousand dollars toward buying books for a
-library. I suppose they thought that would
-get books enough to last for a century, but
-hundreds of thousands of dollars have been
-spent for them since. I saw the new library
-building going up. It is to cost nearly five
-millions. When it is finished they will have
-room for four million books! It is to have a
-gallery three hundred and fifty feet long, for
-pictures and beautiful things.</p>
-
-<p>My uncle says this letter is too long; but I
-do not know what to leave out, so I will send it.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Margaret Winters.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I went</span> to Congress two or three times last
-winter. They behave better in the Senate than
-they do in the House. In fact, I don’t think
-the people in the House were gentlemanly.
-They smoked, and they quarreled, and three or
-four tried to talk at once!</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Anna Brooks.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>[This by no means exhausts the items of interest about
-Washington, but the article grows so long that we must omit
-the others, sorry as we are to do so. It is certainly a great
-pleasure to find our Pansies so wide awake, and so successful
-in selecting items which cannot fail to interest others. Remember
-the next city, and be in time for us to make careful
-selections.—<span class="smcap">Editors.</span>]</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</h2>
-
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">ALTHOUGH I am a dog myself
-I do wonder how some of my
-race can afford to waste so
-much love upon masters who
-have so little love for them, or,
-it would seem, for any one else.</p>
-
-<p>Now, for instance, there is Mr. Billings who
-lives on the hill; just think how he ill-treats
-and almost starves his dog, cuffing, scolding,
-licking him; and yet that poor fellow is just as
-glad to see him the next time as though he had
-been petted, and is ready to hunt, drive cows
-or sheep, or watch all night.</p>
-
-<p>I have known that dog ever since he came
-into the neighborhood, and I knew old man Billings
-long before.</p>
-
-<p>Being up that way I had a few words with
-friend Dash the day he arrived. I found him
-to be friendly—a dog that any man might love
-and be proud of. I was awfully sorry for him
-then, and have been ever since, for I did not
-think much of his master.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes, when I see the poor fellow coming,
-looking so lean and hungry, I run out into
-the road with the best bone I have on hand, for
-a bit of a lunch, and leave it where I know Dash
-will find it. My! it does me good to see him
-take it down.</p>
-
-<p>I often think of him trotting for fifteen or
-twenty miles after that team, and as likely as
-not without a mouthful of breakfast before
-starting.</p>
-
-<p>This is not mere surmise; he told me so one
-day—said he had been all day with nothing to
-eat but a scrap or two which he happened to
-find on the way; for he had not time to hunt
-for anything while in town, because he had to
-stay and watch the things in the wagon. It’s
-too bad, too bad!</p>
-
-<p>Just think what Dash has done for that man!</p>
-
-<p>You never heard about it?</p>
-
-<p>Well, I will tell you. It was in the spring of
-last year—the time for washing sheep. When
-Mr. Billings went for his sheep, all his children
-who were big enough to help drive went along.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>As he never pets anything that he has, so he
-never petted his sheep, therefore as soon as
-they heard him call they were much more afraid
-of him than they would have been of our master,
-I really believe, so away they went as fast
-as their legs could carry them.</p>
-
-<p>If it had not been for Dash, Mr. Billings and
-all his boys could never have penned those
-creatures. But he seemed to know just what
-to do, and it was not long before they seemed
-to feel as though they had found a friend instead
-of an enemy in this dog; he worked like
-a good fellow, as he is.</p>
-
-<p>After much skillful maneuvering, hard running
-and gentle barking, the sheep were all
-finally gotten into the pen, where Billings and
-his boys could take them one by one and wash
-them with the water which fell over the dam.</p>
-
-<p>After the father and older boys were gone,
-little Bennie Billings, who is only a few months
-more than three years old, crawled through the
-garden fence and started after the others.</p>
-
-<p>His mother did not miss him, thinking he
-had gone with his brothers. As it was, Bennie
-came trotting along while the rest were absorbed
-in the work of washing sheep, and so was not
-noticed by any one of them.</p>
-
-<p>But faithful Dash had his eye upon him all
-the while, and felt that it was more important
-that he should look after the boy than the lambs.</p>
-
-<p>He tried hard to keep between Bennie and
-the water, but this he was not long able to do.</p>
-
-<p>Sliding down the bank the boy crawled out
-upon a slippery rock, and from that fell into
-the water.</p>
-
-<p>It was deep, and Dash had all he could do to
-drag the little fellow to the land. He could not
-pull him out; but holding on as well as he
-could, he growled very loud.</p>
-
-<p>Dash was getting pretty tired, and the case
-was growing desperate, when a neighbor hearing
-the growl, came to the rescue.</p>
-
-<p>Poor Bennie was almost gone; he would not
-have lived much longer; but if help had not
-come, Dash would have died with the little chap
-he was trying to save.</p>
-
-<p>Think of that father kicking Dash after that,
-or ever forgetting to give him all he needed to
-eat! You would think the boy’s mother would
-look after her child’s rescuer; but it is said she
-has little to do with.</p>
-
-<p>It would not seem so strange if the faithful
-fellow were not all the time doing things worthy
-of being remembered.</p>
-
-<p>It was only last fall, when the corn was well
-grown, that this hard master came home one
-rainy night and forgot to fasten the gate after
-him. There were a great many cattle upon the
-road, and Dash told me he could hear the bell
-upon one old cow dingling away as plain as day
-all the time the master was unharnessing the
-horses. He said he ran out by the gate and
-barked as loud as he could when Mr. Billings
-was going into the house; but it did no good.
-So there was nothing for him to do but go and
-stay there all night in the hard rain.</p>
-
-<p>Telling me about it he said: “I wouldn’t have
-minded it, though it was so cold and wet, if
-master had noticed it; if he had just said,
-‘Good faithful fellow, you saved our garden
-and cornfield!’ but he never noticed me except
-to scold me for getting in the way when I came
-into the kitchen to warm myself a little, though
-he knew there were more than twenty head of
-cattle which would have been in that garden
-and cornfield if I had not kept them out.”</p>
-
-<p>But for all that he would do the same things
-over again, or anything else that he can do for
-the comfort and help of his hard master.</p>
-
-<p>I suspect Dash misses these little kindnesses
-more for the reason that he has not always been
-used to such treatment.</p>
-
-<p>You see he once had a good master; but the
-man was taken ill and had to go away, and for
-some reason could not take Dash with him.</p>
-
-<p>One day when we met down town near the
-post-office he told me this story.</p>
-
-<p>By some mishap the house of his former
-master took fire. How it happened he did not
-seem to know. The mistress had gone into a
-neighbor’s house for a few moments, and had
-left her baby asleep in the cradle, in charge of
-a little girl, while Dash watched at the front
-gate to see that no tramp came in.</p>
-
-<p>Said he, “I smelt something, and looked
-around just in time to see that little girl as she
-ran out of the front door crying ‘Fire!’</p>
-
-<p>“In a moment I thought of Baby, and saw
-that the girl had left it in the house; so I
-dashed through the door and into the thick
-smoke, and finding the cradle I caught the child
-by his frock, and pulling with all my might I
-got him out on the floor and dragged him to the
-door. Just as I got him to the first step, where
-we could breathe again, the mother arrived.</p>
-
-<p>“But she came too late to have saved her
-baby if it had been in the cradle then, for that
-was already in full blaze. As it was, the poor
-thing was almost smothered with the smoke.</p>
-
-<p>“How that mother hugged and kissed me!
-She made so much ado about it that I felt almost
-ashamed. Yet I must confess it was gratifying
-to know that the mother appreciated what
-I had done.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, after that there was nothing in the
-house too good for me to eat, no place where I
-was not welcome, no kennel too nice for me to
-sleep in, nor was there any lack of petting.”</p>
-
-<p>Just imagine what a change from a home
-such as that, to the miserable one he now has
-to endure.</p>
-
-<p>I do feel so sorry for him!</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes I feel as though I should not be
-as faithful as Dash is if I were in his place;
-yet I must not forget that duty is duty, and that
-one must not do wrong because he has not been
-treated as he should be.</p>
-
-<p>If this poor fellow’s case were a solitary one,
-it would not seem so bad; but I am sorry to
-say that all over our land there are as faithful
-fellows as Dash treated no better than he.</p>
-
-<p>Think of those dogs with drunken masters!
-Think how much they have to endure of hunger
-and cold and abuse, though they are as faithful
-as life. I can hardly keep from growling when
-I think of it!</p>
-
-<p>But I must not talk in this way any longer
-to-day. I have spent the hour speaking of
-another, so we must wait till some other time
-before I can tell you anything more of my own
-experience.</p>
-
-<p>Indeed I was not intending to talk all the
-time about myself; I would like to set before
-you a little of the lives of the best of our race,
-such as will afford you excellent examples for
-imitation, that your lives may be good and true.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-R.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 518px;">
-<img src="images/i-095.jpg" width="518" height="612" alt="dog in ice water" />
-<div class="caption">BENNIE’S FRIEND.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 495px;">
-<img src="images/i-096.jpg" width="495" height="671" alt="couple standing in midst of sitting people" />
-<div class="caption">SILENT PARTNERS.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>VESUVIUS.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-n.jpg" width="121" height="123" alt="N" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">NEARLY two thousand years ago
-there was a mountain, and its
-name was Vesuvius. From the
-foot of it to the very top it was
-almost like a garden.</p>
-
-<p>At the bottom were two great
-cities, called Herculaneum and Pompeii. The
-mountain is there now, and near it is the city
-of Naples in Italy.</p>
-
-<p>One day, when everything was going on in
-those great cities just as usual, an awful sound
-was heard like the firing of ten thousand of the
-biggest cannon; the earth shook as if it was
-going to pieces, then it grew dark like night.
-The sky was filled with flying cinders, or something
-like ashes; the air had a sulphurous smell.
-All the people wondered. Some ran into the
-street, some took to the boats and rowed away
-as fast as possible, some screamed. Children
-clung to their mothers, hiding their faces in
-their dresses. Animals broke away and ran
-furiously, dashing themselves against the rocks
-or plunging into the sea; the very birds sighed
-as they swept through the sky.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 578px;">
-<img src="images/i-097.jpg" width="578" height="457" alt="badly drawn volcano" />
-<div class="caption">ERUPTION OF VESUVIUS, 1880.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The mountain—this Vesuvius—was on fire;
-the fire was spouting from its top in terrific
-forms. Smoke, such as you have never seen
-it, leaped as the darkest thunder clouds upward,
-while melted earth and rock ran down the sides
-of Vesuvius like a devouring flood. Before it,
-the gardens fled away. On it came, rushing,
-foaming, burning. It leaped upon the houses
-and buried them, whole streets at once. So
-suddenly it came that few of the people escaped.
-What a time was that!</p>
-
-<p>Think of a whole city, like Philadelphia,
-buried ten or twenty feet deep, so that in the
-place of the grand palaces, stores and temples,
-nothing was seen but a smoking furnace—red-hot
-lava!</p>
-
-<p>Not a great while since people began to dig.
-They dug and dug, and after years of digging
-there were the streets again and buildings, the
-merchant selling his goods, babies sleeping in
-their mamma’s arms, a bride and groom standing
-up to be married, a funeral procession coming
-from a house, a miser counting his money,
-a cruel father beating his child, a loving mother
-kissing her son, a marriage feast in this house,
-a dying parent in that. Just as the fierce,
-quick flood of lava found them, so it buried
-them, and so they were found after nearly two
-thousand years!</p>
-
-<p>Since that awful day the volcano, Vesuvius,
-has been on fire again and again.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>AURORA LEIGH.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>English Literature Papers.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-h.jpg" width="118" height="117" alt="H" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">HOW many of my Pansies are
-acquainted with her? She is
-“a woman in a book,” and
-the book was written by a
-woman of whom you have
-surely heard—Elizabeth Barrett
-Browning. I want you to know something
-about this story book and its author. There
-are those who think the story is too “grown-up”
-to interest children; but that is because
-they do not understand certain kinds of children
-very well. When I was a little girl of
-ten, I was very fond of narrative poems, and
-read some which were judged far above my
-understanding.</p>
-
-<p>Would you like a picture of Aurora’s room,
-as she describes it? Listen:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“I had a little chamber in the house</div>
-<div class="verse">As green as any privet hedge a bird</div>
-<div class="verse">Might choose to build in. . . .</div>
-<div class="verse">The walls were green, the carpet was pure green,</div>
-<div class="verse">The straight small bed was curtained greenly,</div>
-<div class="verse">And the folds hung green about the window,</div>
-<div class="verse">Which let in the out-door world with all its greenery.</div>
-<div class="verse">You could not push your head out and escape</div>
-<div class="verse">A dash of dawn-dew from the honeysuckle.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>Poor Aurora lost her mother when she was
-four years old, and her dear, dear father when
-she was just a little girl. Then she sailed across
-the ocean from her home in Italy to her father’s
-old home in England. When she first saw English
-soil, this is the way she felt:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.  “oh, the frosty cliffs looked cold upon me!</div>
-<div class="verse">Could I find a home among those mean red houses,</div>
-<div class="verse">Through the fog?&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Was this my father’s England?</div>
-<div class="spaced">......</div>
-<div class="verse">I think I see my father’s sister stand</div>
-<div class="verse">Upon the hall-step of her country house</div>
-<div class="verse">To give me welcome. She stood straight and calm,</div>
-<div class="verse">Her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight</div>
-<div class="verse">As if for taming accidental thoughts</div>
-<div class="verse">From possible quick pulses. Brown hair</div>
-<div class="verse">Pricked with gray by frigid use of life.</div>
-<div class="verse">A nose drawn sharply, yet in delicate lines;</div>
-<div class="verse">A close mild mouth ... eyes of no color;</div>
-<div class="verse">Once they might have smiled, but never, never</div>
-<div class="verse">Have forgot themselves in smiling.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>You cannot imagine, I think, any life more
-unlike what Aurora had been used to in her
-home in Florence, than the one to which she
-came in England. She describes her aunt’s
-life as—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage,</div>
-<div class="verse">Accounting that to leap from perch to perch</div>
-<div class="verse">Was act and joy enough for any bird.</div>
-<div class="verse">Dear Heaven, how silly are the things</div>
-<div class="verse">That live in thickets, and eat berries!</div>
-<div class="verse">I, alas, a wild bird scarcely fledged,</div>
-<div class="verse">Was brought to her cage, and she was there to meet me.</div>
-<div class="verse">Very kind! ‘Bring the clean water; give out the fresh seed!’”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>You wonder what sort of a little girl she was?
-She tells us:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“I was a good child on the whole,</div>
-<div class="verse">A meek and manageable child. Why not?</div>
-<div class="verse">I did not live to have the faults of life.</div>
-<div class="verse">There seemed more true life in my father’s grave</div>
-<div class="verse">Than in all England. . . . . .</div>
-<div class="verse">At first I felt no life which was not patience;</div>
-<div class="verse">Did the thing she bade me, without heed</div>
-<div class="verse">To a thing beyond it; sat in just the chair she placed</div>
-<div class="verse">With back against the window, to exclude</div>
-<div class="verse">The sight of the great lime-tree on the lawn,</div>
-<div class="verse">Which seemed to have come on purpose from the woods</div>
-<div class="verse">To bring the house a message.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>So quiet was she, and pale, and sad, that her
-aunt’s friends visiting there, whispered about
-her that “the child from Florence looked ill,
-and would not live long.” This made her glad,
-for she was homesick for her father’s grave.
-But her cousin, Romney Leigh, a boy somewhat
-older than herself, took her to task for this.
-He said to her:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“You’re wicked now. You wish to die,</div>
-<div class="verse">And leave the world a-dusk for others,</div>
-<div class="verse">With your naughty light blown out.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Well, she did not die, but lived to be a sweet,
-proud, brave, foolish, sorrowful, glad, happy
-woman! You think my words contradict one
-another? No; they may belong to one life, and
-often do.</p>
-
-<p>I do not mean that you will be interested in
-all her story—hers and “Cousin Romney’s”—not
-yet awhile. Some day you will read it,
-study it, I hope, for the beauty of the language,
-and for the moral power there is in it. Just
-now, my main object is to introduce you, so
-that when you hear the name “Aurora Leigh,”
-you may be able to say: “I know her; she is
-one of Mrs. Browning’s characters—a little
-girl from Florence, who lived with an aunt in
-England.” Or when you hear Mrs. Browning’s
-name, you will say, or think: “She wrote a
-long poem once, named Aurora Leigh.”</p>
-
-<p>Why should you care to know that? Because,
-my dear, it is a little crumb of knowledge about
-English Literature, a study which I am hoping
-you are going to greatly enjoy by and by.</p>
-
-<p>Oh! Mrs. Browning wrote many other poems,
-though the one about which we have been talking
-is perhaps considered her greatest. There
-are some which I think you must know and love.
-For instance:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Little Ellie sits alone</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">’Mid the beeches of a meadow,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">By a stream-side on the grass;</div>
-<div class="verse">And the trees are showering down</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Doubles of their leaves in shadow,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">On her shining hair and face.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“She has thrown her bonnet by,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And her feet she has been dipping</span></div>
-<div class="verse">In the shallow water’s flow;</div>
-<div class="verse">Now she holds them nakedly</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In her hands, all sleek and dripping,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">While she rocketh to and fro.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Little Ellie sits alone,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the smile she softly uses</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Fills the silence like a speech;</div>
-<div class="verse">While she thinks what shall be done—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sweetest pleasure chooses</span></div>
-<div class="verse">For her future within reach.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>There are seventeen verses; of course I have
-not room for them, but you will like to find the
-poem and read for yourselves. It is entitled
-“The Romance of the Swan’s Nest.”</p>
-
-<p>Then there is that wonderful poem of hers
-called “The Cry of the Children.” Surely you
-ought to know of that. It was suggested to
-her by reading the report which told about children
-being employed in the mines and manufactories
-of England. It is said that Mrs.
-Browning’s poem was the means of pushing an
-act of Parliament which forbade the employment
-of young children in this way. The poem
-has thirteen long verses, every one of which
-you should carefully read. Let me give you
-just a taste:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Do you hear the children weeping, O, my brothers!</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ere the sorrow comes with years?</span></div>
-<div class="verse">They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">And that cannot stop their tears!</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The young birds are chirping in the nest;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The young fawns are playing with the shadows;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The young flowers are blowing toward the west;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">But the young, young children, O, my brothers!</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">They are weeping bitterly.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">They are weeping in the playtime of the others,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the country of the free.</span></div>
-<div class="spaced">......</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“‘True,’ say the children, ‘it may happen</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">That we die before our time;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Little Alice died last year; her grave is shapen</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like a snowball in the rime.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">We looked into the pit prepared to take her;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">There’s no room for any work in the coarse clay;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Crying ‘Get up, little Alice! it is day.’</span></div>
-<div class="verse">If you listen by that grave in sun and shower,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With your ear down, little Alice never cries.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the smile has time for growing in her eyes.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the shroud by the kirk-chime.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">‘It is good, when it happens,’ say the children,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">‘That we die before our time.’”</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>It will never do to take more room with this
-paper, and I have told you almost nothing about
-the dear lady who voiced the children’s cry so
-wonderfully, and to such purpose! Suppose
-you let me take her story, little bits of it, for
-the next <span class="smcap">Pansy</span>. Besides, I want to introduce
-you to her dear “Flush.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 407px;">
-<img src="images/i-100.jpg" width="407" height="605" alt="woman walking in garden" />
-<div class="caption">MRS. BROWNING’S AURORA LEIGH.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-
-<h3>A GOOD TIME.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t2.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THIS is Trudy. She is all ready
-to go with papa.</p>
-
-<p>They are going up in the
-woods to the “sugar bush.”</p>
-
-<p>It is April—a bright, sunshiny
-day, but the wind is cold, so she has to
-wear her warm coat and hood.</p>
-
-<p>As Trudy ran along through the woods she
-saw a little bluebird singing on a branch, and
-she found yellow violets and tiny blue flowers
-with a long
-name. They
-had just poked
-up their heads
-through the
-snow. Brave little blossoms they were!</p>
-
-<div>
-<img class="split" src="images/i-101a1.jpg" alt="JOHN BROUGHT THE PAILS OF SAP." width="428" height="477" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-101a2.jpg" alt="JOHN BROUGHT THE PAILS OF SAP." width="241" height="133" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Wooden pails hung on all the maple-trees.
-The sap was running into them. When the
-pails were full of sap John, the hired man,
-brought it into the little sugar house and boiled
-it, and made nice
-cakes of maple sugar.</p>
-
-<p>The house had a
-great fireplace. A
-bright fire was crackling
-there.</p>
-
-<p>Trudy sat down on
-a stool and warmed
-her toes.</p>
-
-<p>There was a big
-black kettle over the
-fire; it was almost full of sap. It bubbled and
-boiled and made a good smell.</p>
-
-<p>John stirred it with a long wooden
-spoon. He stirred and stirred a long
-time, and the fire snapped and the sap
-boiled, and Trudy watched, and by and
-by it was done!</p>
-<div class="figright" style="width: 136px;">
-<img src="images/i-101b.jpg" width="136" height="169" alt="girl in winter coat" />
-<div class="caption">TRUDY.</div>
-</div>
-<p>Then papa got a pan of snow, and
-John dropped little bits from the spoon
-all over the snow.</p>
-
-<p>When it was cool Trudy put in her
-thumb and finger, and plump! went one
-of the little brown balls into her mouth.
-Oh! but it was good. Trudy thought
-maple candy was ever so much better
-than the pink and white stuff she bought
-at the stores.</p>
-
-<p>She ate and ate, till papa said, “No
-more, dearie.” So she carried the rest
-of it to little brother.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>They rode home on the wood sled,
-drawn by two big oxen. Trudy said it was
-just the “beautifulest time” she ever had in
-her life.</p>
-
-<p>She whispered to papa that she thought
-God was very good to make so many big
-trees full of candy just to please little girls
-and boys.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2 class="faux">The Little Queen</h2>
-
-
-
-<div>
-<img class="splittop" src="images/i-102a.jpg" alt="bells and flowers" width="600" height="226" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-102b.jpg" alt="bells and flowers" width="381" height="98" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-102c.jpg" alt="bells and flowers" width="301" height="60" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THERE you have a fine Holland
-house, a palace rather. Come,
-let us go in. Just think, you
-have a royal invitation. Well,
-here we are. In this elegant
-room is a kingly throne. In
-that beautiful chair sits the little Queen of
-Holland.</p>
-
-<p>Doesn’t this Miss look like a wise sovereign,
-able to command armies and navies and
-make laws?</p>
-
-<p>Now you laugh. But come out into her
-big back yard, and you shall see our little
-maid rule her subjects. See how obedient
-they are, running to her or fleeing from her as
-fast as their legs can carry them—and their
-wings too—</p>
-
-<p>“Wings!”</p>
-
-<p>Why, bless you, yes. This little Queen
-has one hundred and fifty cooing doves. She
-is their beloved mistress, feeding and fondling
-them, calling them by name, they laughing,
-singing, talking for her, after the dear
-dove fashion.</p>
-
-<p>But look! there comes the Shetland pony,
-and quick as a cat she is on his back, and away
-they go down the road, gallopty, gallop, she
-tossing back a kiss to her mamma, the Queen
-Regent, who looks from the palace window.
-There she comes back, her face full of roses
-and laughter.</p>
-
-<p>Twenty minutes more, and she is a student
-like any of you, with spelling-book, pen or
-geography, or thumbing the piano or reading
-aloud to her mother. She is her mother’s constant
-companion. She is up at 7 <small>A. M.</small>, and
-kneeling at her mother’s knee, says her morning
-prayers.</p>
-
-<p>She is often dressed completely in white,
-even to gloves and stockings. Watch and see
-what she will be in coming years.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>A WONDERFUL STONE.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">A MR. MENINGER of New Orleans, while
-visiting in the town of Chilpanzingo,
-Mex., saw a rock there which he—and others—says
-foretells rain twenty-four hours in
-advance!</p>
-
-<p>In fair weather it is grayish, very smooth
-and cold, but when it is going to rain it becomes
-a dingy red at the base, pink at the top,
-and it becomes warmer and warmer till the rain
-falls. If there is much lightning, the stone becomes
-charged (filled) like an electrical jar, so
-that you cannot safely approach it.</p>
-
-<p>After the rain it goes back to its first state
-of color and coldness.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE FIRST CHRISTMAS.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">W</span>HY so soon with flocks returning?</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">O, dear father, tell us why:</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Scarce the night lamps ceased their burning,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scarce the stars dimmed in the sky</span></div>
-<div class="verse">When we heard the distant bleating</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the flock come o’er the lea;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">While the stars were still retreating</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou wert coming o’er the lea;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Home so early in the morning!</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sheep and lambs so fast you’re leading</span></div>
-<div class="verse">To the fold at early dawning,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">At the time of sweetest feeding!</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Ill, dear father, art thou? Surely</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Suffering art thou? Tell us true!</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Has some lambie been unruly—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wandered far away from view?</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Must thou go across the mountain,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Starting in the morning gray,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Search by vale, and rock, and fountain</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the lost one, gone astray?</span></div>
-<div class="verse">But thy face is bright and beaming,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thy step is free and glad,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And thy eyes with joy are gleaming</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Surely nothing makes thee sad!</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Thus she chattered to her father,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shepherd of Judean plain;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Eager for some reason given</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which might satisfy her brain;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">But the father, heart o’erflowing</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With the story he could tell,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Felt the spirit in him burning—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Felt his soul within him swell—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And, with tender touch, down bending</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gently drew her to his breast;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">His life-calling sweetly lending</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Skill for what he loved the best.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Then his home flock, like the other,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the home fold where they dwelt—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Father, children, precious mother—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">All before Jehovah knelt;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Knelt to thank the covenant-keeping</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">God of Jacob, who alone</span></div>
-<div class="verse">In their waking and their sleeping,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Safely shelters all his own.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">This—and then began the story</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the night before that morn,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">When the angels came from glory,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Telling that the Christ was born.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<h3>(<i>The story.</i>)</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">On the hillside near our flocks were sleeping,</div>
-<div class="verse">While we, reclining by, our watch were keeping;</div>
-<div class="verse">The sun had set in a glow of splendor,</div>
-<div class="verse">And the stars looked down so pure and tender</div>
-<div class="verse">That we felt a hush pervading</div>
-<div class="verse">Every breast; for the fading</div>
-<div class="verse">Of the day had been so slow,</div>
-<div class="verse">And the twilight’s gentle glow</div>
-<div class="verse">Had left the earth so still</div>
-<div class="verse">That over plain and hill</div>
-<div class="verse">A gentle sleep seemed holding all</div>
-<div class="verse">As quiet as beneath a pall</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Of death. When every heart</div>
-<div class="verse">Was hushed, and sure to start</div>
-<div class="verse">At slightest move or sound,</div>
-<div class="verse">From sky or earth or ground,</div>
-<div class="verse">We would not break with song</div>
-<div class="verse">The silence, which so strong</div>
-<div class="verse">Had reigned supreme the while,</div>
-<div class="verse">But sought we to beguile</div>
-<div class="verse">With word of prophecy the hour,</div>
-<div class="verse">Talking of Him whose conquering power</div>
-<div class="verse">Our fallen Israel should restore,</div>
-<div class="verse">And make her glory as of yore.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The Lord seemed wondrous near us then;</div>
-<div class="verse">As when our father Jacob dreamed, or when</div>
-<div class="verse">The great law-giver stood on hallowed ground</div>
-<div class="verse">And heard Jehovah speak in words profound;</div>
-<div class="verse">When, suddenly, burst on the ravished ear</div>
-<div class="verse">A voice like music, or like trumpet clear,</div>
-<div class="verse">And words most wonderful did there proclaim:</div>
-<div class="verse">Tidings, glad tidings of the glorious Name!</div>
-<div class="verse">He bade us haste to Bethlehem away</div>
-<div class="verse">To find the Babe there born to us this day;</div>
-<div class="verse">And then, when Paradise I see complete,</div>
-<div class="verse">May it such strains to these glad ears repeat!</div>
-<div class="verse">Then as from cloud the pealing thunder breaks</div>
-<div class="verse">Till ’neath its voice the very mountain shakes,</div>
-<div class="verse">So burst in chorus the celestial choir,</div>
-<div class="verse">Each tongue aflame with heaven’s own altar fire,</div>
-<div class="verse">To celebrate, as by Jehovah sent,</div>
-<div class="verse">The long foretold and now fulfilled event—</div>
-<div class="verse">Our own Messiah’s birth in Bethlehem town!</div>
-<div class="verse">The Christ of God from heaven to earth come down!</div>
-<div class="verse">The singing ceased, and all was still again</div>
-<div class="verse">Save the sweet echo of “Good-will to men”;</div>
-<div class="verse">The choir had flown; our flocks were all at rest,</div>
-<div class="verse">And could we, after such a vision blest,</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Await the dawning to behold the Stranger</div>
-<div class="verse">Which cradled lay in Bethlehem’s lowly manger?</div>
-<div class="verse">If we forgot our flocks, in haste to see the sight</div>
-<div class="verse">Revealed to us by angel hosts last night,</div>
-<div class="verse">Was it so strange, when honored thus were we</div>
-<div class="verse">To be the first of all our race to see,</div>
-<div class="verse">Worship and welcome to this world the King</div>
-<div class="verse">Of whom the Prophets old did write and sing?</div>
-<div class="verse">And so we hastened, sped, and tarried not</div>
-<div class="verse">Until we found, O, joy! the very spot</div>
-<div class="verse">Where lay this lily from sweet Paradise,</div>
-<div class="verse">Angelic beauty there, before our eyes!</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">We bent, we worshiped, kissed the Babe so fair,</div>
-<div class="verse">Then hastened back through all the perfumed air</div>
-<div class="verse">To find our flocks by angel guards attended,</div>
-<div class="verse">Better by them than by our skill defended.</div>
-<div class="verse">Then each with gladness homeward sped away</div>
-<div class="verse">To tell the tidings of this wondrous day.</div>
-<div class="verse">The questions asked as round the father’s knee</div>
-<div class="verse">The children pressed in eager ecstasy,</div>
-<div class="verse">I will not try to tell. I cease</div>
-<div class="verse">My story of the “Prince of Peace,”</div>
-<div class="verse">This only adding—though the talk was long—</div>
-<div class="verse">There followed it this burst of sacred song:</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<h3>(<i>The song.</i>)</h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">O, thou Infant holy!</div>
-<div class="verse">In thy cradle lowly,</div>
-<div class="verse">Feeble stranger seeming,</div>
-<div class="verse">Though almighty. Deeming</div>
-<div class="verse">It thy pleasure,</div>
-<div class="verse">Even in this measure,</div>
-<div class="verse">In this casket fair</div>
-<div class="verse">Human woe to share.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">We thy praises sing;</div>
-<div class="verse">To thy cradle bring</div>
-<div class="verse">Love, and thanks and treasure,</div>
-<div class="verse">Offerings without measure;</div>
-<div class="verse">Just now come from glory,</div>
-<div class="verse">We have heard thy story</div>
-<div class="verse">Sung by angel chorus,</div>
-<div class="verse">While God’s light shone o’er us.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">O, thou Baby stranger!</div>
-<div class="verse">Hiding in a manger,</div>
-<div class="verse">By crowded inn rejected,</div>
-<div class="verse">By pilgrims all neglected,</div>
-<div class="verse">For thee our hearts are burning</div>
-<div class="verse">With a holy yearning.</div>
-<div class="verse">Be thou our guest;</div>
-<div class="verse">Our arms would now enfold thee,</div>
-<div class="verse">Our hearts would gladly hold thee;</div>
-<div class="verse">We love thee best.</div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">G. R. Alden.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE SPOOL-COTTON GIRL.</h2>
-
-
-<h3>PART I.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-s.jpg" width="119" height="119" alt="S" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">SHE stood before a little old-fashioned
-twisted-legged toilet
-stand putting the finishing
-touches to her hair, looking,
-the while, into a queer little
-old-fashioned mirror which had
-been in the family ever since she could remember.
-Almost everything had been in their
-family a long while. Especially, Marion sometimes
-thought, her dresses had. “They do
-not wear overskirts like this any more,” she
-had said to her mother that morning, as she
-was looping it.</p>
-
-<p>“They do not wear overskirts at all,” said
-Renie, the younger sister, looking up from her
-book. Renie always knew what “they” did.</p>
-
-<p>“I know it,” answered Marion, from whose
-face the slight cloud had already passed; “but
-we do, because, you see, it hides the pieced
-part of our dress, and the faded part, and various
-other blemishes. Why should not there be
-a what ‘we’ do, as well as to be always quoting
-what ‘they’ are about?”</p>
-
-<p>Her mother laughed somewhat faintly. Marion’s
-quaint bright speeches were always restful
-to her; but the fact was undeniable that
-the dear girl’s clothes were old-fashioned and
-much worn, and the way to secure, or at least
-to afford new ones, was hedged.</p>
-
-<p>You would not have called her pretty had
-you seen her as she stood before that little old-fashioned
-mirror, pushing in the old-fashioned
-comb into her knot of hair, and trying to make
-it hold the hair in the way the pretty new style
-fancy pins which the girls wore held theirs; but
-you would have liked her face, I think; nearly
-every one did. It was quiet and restful looking.
-She gave very little time to the hair, for
-she was late. There was so much to be done
-mornings that she was very apt to be late—I
-mean hurried. They never called her late at
-the store; she was always in her place before
-the great bell ceased ringing, but it required
-much bustling about and some running, to accomplish
-this. She was only thirteen, and most
-of the girls in her class in Sunday-school were
-students at the High School; but Marion had
-been for more than a year earning her own living.
-She had charge of the spool-cotton counter
-in one of the large stores.</p>
-
-<p>It was a matter of some pride to her that she
-was a small saleswoman, instead of a cash girl.
-She had commenced, of course, in that way;
-but one happy day an unexpected vacancy had
-occurred at the spool counter, and she had fitted
-in so well that she had been kept there, although
-younger than most of the other salesgirls. Her
-face was quieter than usual this morning. Perhaps
-because it was such a rainy morning that
-she had felt compelled to wear the quite old
-dress, instead of the somewhat fresher one
-which had lately begun to come to the store on
-pleasant days. Marion had discovered that she
-needed special grace to help her through the
-rainy days and the old-fashioned gown.</p>
-
-<p>Not very many people were abroad shopping;
-but Marion had her share of work, for those
-who came were in need of such commonplace
-useful things as spool cotton, or tape, or needles.
-She bent carefully over a drawer full of various
-colors, holding a tiny brown patch in her hand
-the while, trying to match the shade. “No,”
-she said, shaking her head, “that is not quite
-a match, but I am afraid it is the best I can do.
-If I were you I would take a shade darker rather
-than the lighter; my mother always does.”</p>
-
-<p>The middle-aged woman, in a plain gossamer
-which covered her from head to foot, glanced
-up at the thoughtful young face and smiled.</p>
-
-<p>“Does she?” she said. “I like to hear a
-young girl quote her mother’s judgment; it is
-apt to be wise judgment, I have noticed, as I
-think it is in this case. Show me darker shades,
-please.”</p>
-
-<p>So another drawer was brought, and yet another,
-and the young head bent with the older
-one over them, and tried and tried again, and
-at last a satisfactory shade was found and the
-sale was made. Five cents’ worth of thread
-for fifteen minutes’ work!</p>
-
-<p>“Why in the world did you putter so over
-that old maid and her patch? I should have
-told her I couldn’t match it and sent her about
-her business fifteen minutes ago.”</p>
-
-
-
-<p>It was the girl whose stand was next to
-Marion who offered this bit of advice, while
-the “old maid” in question was but a few
-steps away from them looking at pin balls.</p>
-
-<p>Marion turned a warning glance in her direction,
-and lowered her voice to answer: “Because
-I couldn’t find a match sooner. We went
-over all the thread drawers on that side, but I
-think we secured the exact shade at last.”</p>
-
-<p>“What does it signify? Nothing but brown
-cotton. Wasn’t the patch part cotton? I
-thought so. The idea of making such an ado
-over a match for cheap goods like that! I
-wouldn’t fuss with such customers, I can tell
-you. Five cents’ worth of goods and fifty
-cents’ worth of bother. You couldn’t have done
-more for her if she had been your sister.”</p>
-
-<p>Marion looked after the plain woman thoughtfully,
-then looked down at the tiny pin she wore.
-“I am not sure but she is. Anyhow, I was
-bound to endeavor to please her. I’m an Endeavorer,
-you know.” She gave the pin a significant
-touch as she spoke. It was very small—almost
-too small to attract attention—but
-the letters “C. E.” were, after all, quite distinct.</p>
-
-<p>“O, bother!” said her neighbor, speaking
-contemptuously, “so am I; at least so far as
-wearing the pin is concerned. I wear it because
-it is pretty, and I have so few ornaments that I
-have to make the most of them; but as for putting
-sentiment into spools of cotton and balls
-of tape, I can’t do it; the things don’t match.”</p>
-
-<p>“They ought to,” Marion said gravely. “If
-you and I don’t put our pledges into spools of
-cotton and balls of tape of what use are they?
-Because we spend our days in just such work.”</p>
-
-<p>“I know it,” with a discontented yawn; “I’m
-sick and tired of it. It is a slave life; I’d get
-out of it if I could. If there was any chance
-of getting promoted it would be a little different.
-Belle Mason has been transferred to the
-ribbon counter, and she gets more wages and
-sees other sorts of people, and has lots of fun;
-she hasn’t been in the house as long as I have,
-either; it is just because she was put at a counter
-where she had a chance of pleasing people,
-and here we have just to poke over tape and
-cotton and pins, and such stuff. I think it’s
-mean!”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 465px;">
-<img src="images/i-106.jpg" width="465" height="600" alt="Little girl praying by mother's lap" />
-<div class="caption">SAYING HER EVENING PRAYER.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>HELEN’S “APRIL FOOL.”</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-m2.jpg" width="123" height="121" alt="M" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">“MAMMA, is an April fool different
-from any other kind of a
-fool?” cried Helen Palmer,
-rushing into the sitting-room
-on arriving home from school.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! good-evening, Mrs.
-Glenn,” she added, as she noticed a lady who
-sat sewing with her mother.</p>
-
-<p>“What does the child mean?” exclaimed
-Mrs. Glenn, returning Helen’s nod, then looking
-her astonishment at Mrs. Palmer, who
-said: “What do you mean, Helen?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, the girls are all talking to-day about
-to-morrow being ‘April Fool Day,’ and they
-said a lot of things I don’t understand, about
-calling people ‘April fool.’ They all agreed
-to see who could make the most fools and tell
-about it Monday. They said I must too, and
-I didn’t want to tell them I did not know how
-to do it, or what it means.”</p>
-
-<p>“You don’t mean to tell me, Helen Palmer,
-that you don’t know anything about April
-fool?” cried Mrs. Glenn, in surprise.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said Mrs. Palmer; “she doesn’t.
-This is her first year at school, you know; I
-have taught her at home, and in our country
-home she heard very little but what we told
-her. I never saw any sense or fun in the custom
-of fooling on the first day of April, and
-did not instruct her in it when I taught her of
-Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, St. Valentine’s
-Day, Washington’s Birthday, Decoration
-Day and Fourth of July.”</p>
-
-<p>“But what is it?” insisted Helen.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, my dear, it is a custom which I’ve
-read has come down hundreds of years, to send
-people on ridiculous errands on that day and
-call it an April fool. It is done all over Europe,
-and the Hindoos of India do exactly the same
-thing on the thirty-first of March. As I’ve
-always known it, people not only send others
-on foolish errands, but they often play practical
-jokes, silly and cruel, and actually lie to each
-other to fool them. It is a custom much better
-forgotten than kept.”</p>
-
-<p>“I should think so,” cried Helen.</p>
-
-<p>“But, mamma,” she continued, “what shall
-I do? The girls expect me to tell my share on
-Monday.”</p>
-
-<p>“We’ll see, dear, by and by. Go and put
-away your things now.”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Glenn went away after tea, and Helen
-began at once to coax her mother to tell her
-how to come up to the girls’ plans without doing
-anything silly or wicked.</p>
-
-<p>“I think, if I were you, I would spend the
-day surprising people with something good.
-Do things to help or please, and when they
-show their surprise say ‘April fool!’”</p>
-
-<p>“O, mamma! that will be delightful,” cried
-Helen. “Tell me some things to do.”</p>
-
-<p>“No, my dear, that is your business.”</p>
-
-<p>All that evening Helen was very thoughtful,
-and next day she was unusually busy. At
-night she declared she had never been so
-happy. Monday morning she met the girls,
-and they began to tell their jokes.</p>
-
-<p>“I fooled everybody around the house,” said
-Carrie Andrews. “I filled the sugar-bowl with
-salt, and papa got a big spoonful in his coffee.
-You ought to have seen the face he made. He
-didn’t more than half like it, even when I called
-out ‘April fool!’ I sent George out to pick
-up a package of sand I had dropped near
-the gate. I rang the doorbell and got Ann
-to go to the door, and there I stood and said
-‘April fool.’ I sent a letter to Louise, and
-tied mamma’s apron-strings to her chair.”</p>
-
-<p>Helen listened in amazement, as one girl
-after another told of such silly tricks.</p>
-
-<p>At last they turned to her. “Well, Helen,
-what did you do?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! I fooled every one in the family, but
-I did a lot of new things,” said Helen.</p>
-
-<p>“What were they?” cried the girls, in chorus.</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” said she, in a low voice, “I got up
-real early, and crept softly downstairs and set
-the table in the dining-room, while Jane was
-starting breakfast in the kitchen. She ’most
-always has it set at night, but mamma and the
-sewing woman were using the long table to cut
-out goods when Jane went to bed. She was
-hurrying as fast as she could, and rushed in,
-and when she saw the table set she threw up
-both hands, and said: ‘Well, now, however did
-that table get set? Was it witches’ work?’</p>
-
-
-
-<p>“Then I jumped out from behind the door
-and cried: ‘April fool!’</p>
-
-<p>“‘So it is,’ she said; ‘an’ it’s a fine one
-you’ve given me; I’ll not forget it of you.’</p>
-
-<p>“After breakfast mamma was just going to
-get Baby to sleep, and some one came to see
-her on business. She asked me to keep him
-till she could get back. I took him, and rocked
-and sung to him, and he went to sleep. I laid
-him down in his crib, and then hid to see what
-mamma would do. I heard her hurrying upstairs
-and into the room. Then she stopped
-and stared. I stepped up softly behind her
-and kissed her, and said, ‘April fool!’ She
-thought it was a nice one.</p>
-
-<p>“Uncle Guy came in and asked mamma to
-mend his glove when she had time. As quick
-as I could I got my thimble and needle and silk
-and mended the glove; and when he came in
-again in a hurry and said: ‘Well, I can’t wait
-now for it to be mended,’ he drew it on and
-said, ‘Why, it is mended.’ Then I called out,
-‘April fool, Uncle Guy!’</p>
-
-<p>“‘O, you little rogue!’ he said; ‘I’ll pay
-you up.’</p>
-
-<p>“Well, then I mended Frank’s sails to his
-boat when he started to do it and papa called
-him away, and”—</p>
-
-<p>“What did you do for your father?” asked
-Marjie Day.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! papa said he must hunt up some papers
-in the library at lunch-time, so I looked them
-up and laid them on his plate, and when he
-said: ‘Why, how did these get here?’ I said:
-‘April fool!’ And that’s all,” added Helen,
-with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes.</p>
-
-<p>“Well!” exclaimed Carrie Andrews, “if
-that don’t beat the Dutch.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wasn’t it a good way?” asked Helen,
-almost crying.</p>
-
-<p>“Of course, you little goose! but who else
-would ever have thought of it?”</p>
-
-<p>“Mamma said she didn’t like silly jokes, and
-said I had better try surprising people with
-pleasant things. I like it so well I am going
-to do it every day in the year.”</p>
-
-<p>“There’s the bell,” cried Belle Adams; “but
-hadn’t we all better try it?”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">F. A. Reynolds.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ABOUT PHILADELPHIA.<br />
-
-<small>BY THE PANSIES.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">ITS first name was Coaquenaque.
-I am glad they changed it to
-Philadelphia, because it is
-easier to pronounce; but I
-like Indian names. I went
-to Philadelphia once with my
-uncle. I think Broad Street is one of the nicest
-places in the world. I went to Germantown to
-see where Charlie Ross used to live, but I was
-so small I don’t remember very much about
-anything, only Broad Street. I’m going again
-next year, and I’ll look around and write you
-what I see.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">John T. Robinson.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I went</span> with father to Philadelphia three years
-ago; we staid near Washington Square; it is
-beautiful there. The trees are just splendid.
-Father told me it used to be a great burying-ground.
-I could not make it seem possible. A
-great many unknown soldiers, father said, were
-buried there; it was in Revolutionary times.
-How sad it must have been to live then! I like
-the little parks in Philadelphia that they call
-“squares.” I saw the place where they held
-the Sanitary Fair, when they roofed over the
-entire square, and let the trees stand as pillars.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Laura Creedmore.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">One</span> of the most interesting places I visited
-in Philadelphia was Mr. Wanamaker’s store.
-I did not know a store could be so large. It
-takes a hundred miles of steam pipes to heat it.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 293px;">
-<img src="images/i-109.jpg" width="293" height="529" alt="statue" />
-<div class="caption">FRANKLIN STATUE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>My uncle has a fruit farm of ten acres, and I
-used to think when I walked around it that ten
-acres was pretty big; but there are over fourteen
-acres of floor to walk around in Mr. Wanamaker’s
-store! The different departments are
-fixed up beautifully. They have lovely parlors
-and dining-rooms and bedrooms all rigged up
-with beautiful furniture, to show people how to
-furnish their rooms, and every few days they
-change and give you another style. But the
-most interesting part of the store, to me, was
-the way the money is sent to the cashiers.
-There are eighty-one pay-stations in the store;
-then there is a central cash desk where twenty-five
-cashiers are busy all day long receiving the
-money that is brought to them through the
-tubes. The clerk at a pay-station takes the
-money you give him, and starts it in one of
-the pneumatic tubes, and away it shoots to the
-central desk on the second floor; a cashier there
-looks at it, sees what change is needed, and
-shoots it back. I don’t understand it very well,
-but I mean to. I am going to study the principles
-of pneumatic tubing, and Chris and I are
-going to have one to reach from my window to
-his. We are only about fifty feet apart. In
-Wanamaker’s they have seven miles of tubing
-to carry their money around. We took dinner
-at the Wanamaker Dairy, right in the store; it
-was jam full, and it will seat eight hundred
-people at once. Chris and I are going into
-partnership when we get to be men, and are
-going to have a store just exactly like it.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Henry W. Gilmore.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I went</span> to Philadelphia last winter and attended
-Mr. Conwell’s church on Broad Street.
-It is very big—the biggest in the world, I guess—or
-maybe I mean in this country. It will
-hold thousands of people. Mother says she
-thinks Dr. Talmage’s church is bigger, but I
-don’t see how it could be. The people can’t all
-get in; they have to have tickets and be let in
-by a door-keeper. The singing sounds just
-grand. There is a very large choir, and the
-organ rolls and rolls. I liked Mr. Conwell
-almost better than any minister I ever heard,
-except my own, of course. Then I went to
-Sunday-school; hundreds and hundreds and
-hundreds of children! I never saw so many
-together before. Of course I saw other things
-in Philadelphia, but what I liked the best was
-that church. It seemed so funny to see folks
-crowding into church on Sunday morning, and
-to have a big overflow meeting for those who
-couldn’t get in. Where I live they have to
-coax the people to come to church, and there’s
-lots of room always.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Fanny Pierce.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Once</span> I went to “Old Swede’s” Church in
-Philadelphia. It is very old. There used to
-be a log church on the place where it stands;
-sometimes it was used for a fort. That was
-in 1677, but about three years afterwards the
-brick church was built, and that is the one I
-went to. In the churchyard are many very old
-graves, and some new ones. Some of the
-names on the grave-stones are so old I could
-not make them out. It seemed very strange to
-be in a church which was built almost two hundred
-years ago. Then we went to the queer
-little old house on Letitia Street where William
-Penn used to live. Great big buildings have
-grown up around it, and they make it look very
-odd. Then we went to the old London Coffee
-House; I had studied about that in my history,
-and I was disgusted to find it turned into a cigar
-store. It is a very queer old building. I saw
-the house where the first American flag was
-made; that is on Arch Street.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Helen Stuart Campbell.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 477px;">
-<img src="images/i-110.jpg" width="477" height="605" alt="dark drawing of Hall" />
-<div class="caption">VIEW OF INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA. (<i>See “About Philadelphia.”</i>)</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> sister Helen has written all about old
-places and never mentioned Carpenter’s Hall!
-She says that is because she knew I would. I
-went there with father and Helen. I think it
-is one of the grandest places in Philadelphia.
-It is the “Cradle of American Independence.”
-That was where the first prayer in Congress
-was made the morning after Boston was bombarded.
-Before that some of the people had
-objected to having Congress opened with
-prayer, but after that morning nobody ever
-objected again. The inscription on the wall
-says it was here that “Henry, Hancock and
-Adams inspired the Delegates of the Colonies
-with Nerve and Sinew for the toils of war.”</p>
-
-<p>Then of course we went to Independence
-Hall, where the second Continental Congress
-gathered, and saw the old cracked bell which
-rung on the first Fourth of July. Helen says
-there was a Fourth of July every year before
-that time; but I mean the first one which was
-worth having.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Robert Stuart Campbell.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I think</span> the prettiest place in all Philadelphia
-is Fairmount Park. If I lived there I should
-want to stay in the park all summer. The
-drive out is just as lovely as it can be. We
-crossed the Girard Avenue bridge, which is a
-thousand feet long. You can walk or ride
-across, just as you please. There is a sidewalk
-on each side of the carriage drive sixteen
-feet wide, and beautifully paved. The railing
-around this bridge is trimmed with flowers,
-vines and birds, made in bronze. We saw the
-old house which was built by William Penn’s
-son. And we went to the Zoölogical Gardens
-and saw the bear-pits and everything; then
-there is a part called the “Children’s Playground,”
-which is lovely.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">James Hurst.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 277px;">
-<img src="images/i-111.jpg" width="277" height="291" alt="bell" />
-<div class="caption">THE LIBERTY BELL.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>[The above are some of the gleanings from the many letters
-received. Wish we had room for more. We are greatly
-pleased with your efforts to help on this department of <span class="smcap">The
-Pansy</span>. The main difficulty is, that many letters come too
-late to be of use. Notice the list of cities published in the
-December <span class="smcap">Pansy</span>, and make a start three months ahead, then
-you will be sure to be on time.—<span class="smcap">Editors.</span>]</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE SPOOL-COTTON GIRL.</h2>
-
-
-<h3>PART II.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-w.jpg" width="119" height="120" alt="W" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">“WHAT did you say?” This last
-sentence was addressed to a
-customer who had been standing
-for some seconds. “Green
-braid? No, we haven’t any to
-match that.”</p>
-
-<p>“Are you sure?” questioned the young girl
-anxiously. “Haven’t you a little darker, then?
-that will do.”</p>
-
-
-<p>“No, we haven’t!” sharp-voiced and spiteful.</p>
-
-<p>“Saucy thing!” she added, as the girl turned
-away; “I told her I hadn’t; what business had
-she to ask again?”</p>
-
-<p>“O, Nellie! I don’t think you are sure. I
-think I found some in your upper row of boxes
-yesterday which would answer for the sample.”</p>
-
-<p>“Nonsense! as if you could tell without
-looking. I know I haven’t; I tumbled the
-whole lot over yesterday for a fussy woman,
-and I remember every shade in it. It is of no
-consequence, anyhow; a seven-cent braid!</p>
-
-<p>“O, Jean! look here; let me see your photographs.
-Are they good?”</p>
-
-<p>She had darted away to the counter below.</p>
-
-<p>Marion stood for a moment irresolute, then
-moved toward the girl. “Let me see it, please;
-I think I can match it.”</p>
-
-<p>The woman to whom she had sold a spool of
-thread turned at the sound of her voice and
-smiled on the girl. “Give it to her, Jennie,
-she will match it; she knows how,” she said.
-Marion answered the smile; her heart was warm
-over the simple words of commendation. She
-sought among the upper row of boxes for the
-one which her memory associated with yesterday’s
-shades, and found it. The girl made her
-seven-cent purchase and went away pleased,
-just as Nellie came back from her photographs.</p>
-
-<p>“Such a stupid day!” she yawned toward
-its close. “Not a person of importance has
-even passed our counter. I’ve sold about a
-dollar’s worth of goods to-day. How much
-have you done?”</p>
-
-<p>“Hardly that,” said Marion, smiling. “It
-has all been spools of cotton and darning
-needles. It has rained, you know, all day.”</p>
-
-<p>The next morning’s sun shone brightly, and
-the large store was thronged early in the day
-with shoppers. Both Marion and Nellie were
-busy, the latter not much pleasanter than she
-had been the day before; it all seemed such
-trivial work to her.</p>
-
-<p>“Are you sure you are not mistaken in the
-name?” one of the chiefs was saying, in a perplexed
-tone, to a lady who stood near Marion’s
-counter. “We have but one clerk of that
-name, and she is the youngest in the store.”</p>
-
-<p>“This one is quite young, and she sells spool
-cotton,” said the lady, catching Marion’s eye
-and smiling a recognition. She had laid aside
-the long gossamer, and was carefully dressed.
-“I have a fancy to be waited on by her.”</p>
-
-<p>“Marion,” said the chief, turning to her,
-“this lady wants to look at the light trimming
-silks; do you know anything about them?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir,” said Marion promptly; “I know
-the shades and prices.”</p>
-
-<p>“I thought so,” the lady said, and Marion
-moved down the archway at her side.</p>
-
-<p>“I have a fancy that you can match silks,”
-the lady said; “at least I think you will patiently
-try. A girl who could do her best on a
-rainy day for a spool of cotton, can be depended
-upon for silk, I believe.”</p>
-
-
-
-<p>From the silk department they went to the
-glove counter, and from there to the millinery,
-in each of which departments the young girl
-with wide-open eyes and deft fingers and careful
-taste gave satisfaction. “You ought to be
-in this room,” said the head milliner, smiling
-on her as she saw her select the right shade of
-velvet. “Where do you belong?” She laughed
-when told, and said that the spool-cotton department
-was fortunate.</p>
-
-<p>“That Marion Wilkes,” said the chief on
-Saturday evening, “what about her?” The
-clerk told briefly what he knew about her.</p>
-
-<p>“Promote her,” said the chief briefly. “Keep
-watch of her; if she succeeds in other departments
-as well, keep pushing her. She has been
-worth several hundred dollars to us this week.
-Miss Lamson told me she had expected to buy
-her niece’s outfit over at Breck’s, but was attracted
-here by that little girl selling her a spool
-of cotton on a rainy day. And Jennie Packard
-brought her mother here for the winter supplies
-for their family, because that girl matched a
-dress braid; in fact, I have heard half a dozen
-stories of the kind about her. She is valuable;
-we cannot spare her for spool cotton.”</p>
-
-<p>It was four years ago that this true story
-happened. Last Saturday, as I stood near the
-spool counter in the fashionable store, I heard
-a voice ask: “And what has become of Marion
-Wilkes? She used to be here next to you,
-didn’t she, Nellie?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, yes, she was the spool-cotton girl;
-but she didn’t stay here long; she got to be a
-favorite with the proprietors somehow. I never
-understood it. She was a sly little thing; they
-promoted her all the while; you never saw anything
-like it. She gets the largest salary of
-any saleswoman in the store now, and I heard
-last week that they were going to put her at
-the head of the art department. That’s just
-the way with some people, always in luck.
-Here I have been at this tape and braid counter
-for years, and expect to be until my eyes are
-too dim to pick out the stupid things. I told
-you I had no tape of that width; what is the
-use in asking again?” This last sentence was
-addressed to a little girl who was waiting to be
-served.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE SPOILED FACE.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Character Studies.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">“ISN’T he lovely?” asked Miss
-Henderson, as we three stood
-in front of Charlie’s portrait,
-which had just come from the
-artist’s hand. “He has such
-great expressive eyes, so soft,
-and yet so full of intelligence. The artist has
-caught the very expression. I think I never
-saw a more beautiful boy.”</p>
-
-<p>“I think I never saw a greater nuisance,”
-said Miss Maylie, speaking with a good deal of
-energy and with a slight frown on her face, as
-though some unpleasant memory was stirred by
-the sight of the lovely face in the frame. We
-both turned and looked at her in surprise.</p>
-
-<p>“Nuisance!” repeated Miss Henderson.
-“Why, what can you mean? I have heard
-that his character is as lovely as his face. He
-is one of the most generous little fellows, always
-dividing his goodies with the children.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! I don’t doubt it,” said Miss Maylie;
-“but there are other traits in children to be
-sought after besides that of dividing their
-goodies.” Then she laughed, as if half-ashamed
-of the warmth of her manner, and
-said: “I’ve been a recent victim to one of his
-habits, and feel somewhat deeply, perhaps. I
-had an important engagement with his mother
-yesterday—a business matter for which I had
-asked an interview—and told her I was pressed
-for time, and had but a half-hour. I suppose
-we had been together about two minutes when
-the door opened without the ceremony of a
-knock, and Charlie appeared to ask if he might
-go over to Uncle Harry’s. He was told that he
-could not, it looked too much like rain; and
-he argued the matter, assuring his mother that
-the wind had changed and was blowing from the
-west; that the cook said it was not going to rain
-any more; that he would put on his rubbers and
-bundle up, and I don’t know what else. He was
-listened to patiently by his mother, and impatiently
-by me, for my precious half-hour was
-slipping away. He shut the door at last with
-a frown on his face which, if it had been
-painted, would have made this picture much
-less beautiful, but I am afraid more natural.</p>
-
-<p>“It was certainly not five minutes before he
-was back, and this time it was, ‘Mamma, may
-I call Jerry to bring in the kittens?’</p>
-
-<p>“‘O, no, dear! not this afternoon; you are
-dressed for dinner, you know.’</p>
-
-<p>“‘That won’t make any difference; I won’t
-soil my clothes. The kittens haven’t been out
-in the mud. Do, mamma, let me.’</p>
-
-<p>“‘No, Charlie; I do not want them in the
-parlor, you know.’</p>
-
-<p>“‘Then I’ll go to the kitchen and play with
-them; Jane won’t care.’</p>
-
-<p>“‘Yes, Jane cares very much; the kittens
-annoy her. Charlie will have to get along
-without them this afternoon.’</p>
-
-<p>“Another slam to the door, with the scowl
-deepened. But we were by no means to be left
-in peace. I was just in the midst of the most
-intricate part of my business explanation, when
-Charlie arrived again. Now he was hungry;
-could not wait another minute, and wanted
-some bread and butter and syrup, and a piece
-of cake and a glass of milk. It was carefully
-explained to him that dinner would be served
-within the hour, and that syrup was not good
-for him, the doctor said—to which he replied
-that he did not care what the old doctor said—and
-that cake would be given him at the table
-when it was passed to the others. To each of
-these explanations he returned an answer which
-had to be answered, and when all was settled,
-he began over again to coax for something to
-eat! The fourth time he came he wanted the gas
-lighted in the library, and the fifth he wanted a
-certain great book which he could not lift placed
-conveniently for him to look at the pictures.
-When at last even his mother felt the strain on
-her patience and told him he must run away and
-not interrupt her again, he burst into a loud
-howl, and slammed the door after him so that
-my nerves all shivered at the jar.</p>
-
-<p>“I must say it would be difficult for me to
-admire his face to-day; my annoyances are too
-recent. Seven times during a single half-hour
-to be interrupted by a little boy, when you are
-trying to transact important business with his
-mother, has spoiled his face for me. If he had
-wanted one single thing which it was important
-to have at that moment, it would have made a
-difference.”</p>
-
-<p>“They all seemed important to him, I suppose,”
-said gentle Miss Henderson, who always
-tried to apologize for everybody.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, they did,” said Miss Maylie; “that is
-just the trouble; he evidently considered himself
-a very important person, and thought that
-his mother should leave her business and her
-caller and attend to him. I should call him a
-spoiled child.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 488px;">
-<img src="images/i-114.jpg" width="488" height="606" alt="pale portrait" />
-<div class="caption">CHARLIE’S PORTRAIT.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MY LITTLE MAID.</h2>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 292px;">
-<img src="images/i-115.jpg" width="292" height="399" alt="Little gir" />
-<div class="caption">EVA.</div>
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap">THIS is my little maid, Eva ——, though
-that is not her Chinese name. She will
-be a woman one of these bright days, and who
-knows but she may become a real princess or
-empress of great China?</p>
-
-<p>“What of that?”</p>
-
-
-<p>Much every way, if she now loves the Lord
-Jesus, and grows up a noble Christian woman.
-Can’t you see how she could help the Gospel
-among her people if she had the great power
-of an empress? I hope you remember how the
-good Queen of Madagascar led her nation to
-give up idolatry and choose the Bible. And
-now they are doing things so cruel to their
-neighbors who have become Christians we wish
-our little Eva were the grand good empress to
-stop these wicked Chinese doings.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Think</span> well over your important steps in life;
-having made up your mind never look behind.</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>SACRED ANIMALS.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-s.jpg" width="119" height="119" alt="S" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">SOME nations think certain animals
-sacred; that is, they are
-so much better than other animals
-that they must not be
-harmed; of course they must
-not be killed. If they can they
-treat them almost as if they were human beings,
-dressing them up nicely, even richly. Just
-think of one of our bull-dogs dressed and fed
-and housed almost as well as a king!</p>
-
-<p>“Why do certain tribes of Africa almost
-worship the Lion of Lhiamba?”</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps because he is so strong and wise and
-terrible. He seems like a very god to them,
-they fear him so.</p>
-
-<p>“Now maybe,” they say to themselves, “if
-we respect this great, fierce beast, never lifting
-a hand to harm him, maybe he will not harm
-us.”</p>
-
-<p>“Does he ever harm them?”</p>
-
-<p>Always, if they cross his path when he is
-hungry.</p>
-
-<p>“Are there any other sacred animals?”</p>
-
-<p>Yes; the bull, the white elephant, the monkey,
-even the serpent, and how many more it
-is hard to say.</p>
-
-<p>Maybe you can guess which is sacred to the
-Egyptians, Chinese, etc.</p>
-
-<p>We should not needlessly harm any animal.
-Shooting birds for mere fun is wrong. Animals
-have a hard time in this world. Let us
-not make it harder. But we must worship God
-only.</p>
-
-<p>They are mere creatures, passing away after
-a short stay here; God lives forever. “Thou
-shalt have no other gods before me.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Each</span> one of us is bound to make the little
-circle in which he lives better and happier; each
-of us is bound to see that out of that small circle
-the widest good may flow; each of us may
-have fixed in his mind the thought that out of
-a single household may flow influences that shall
-stimulate the whole commonwealth and the whole
-civilized world.—<i>Selected.</i></p></div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 455px;">
-<img src="images/i-116.jpg" width="455" height="545" alt="Lion's face" />
-<div class="caption">THE LION OF LHIAMBA.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>SADIE’S “HEATHEN.”</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-n.jpg" width="121" height="123" alt="N" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">NOBODY knew or even dreamed
-how large a thought was puzzling
-the brains of little Sadie
-Wilmot. It had begun at
-family worship that morning.
-Or no; perhaps it began back
-of that, at the meeting of “Cheerful Givers,”
-on Thursday. Mr. Wilmot said it was an absurd
-idea for such little dots as Sadie to be
-going to missionary meeting, but grandmamma
-quoted to him: “As the twig is bent, the tree
-is inclined,” and herself dressed Sadie for the
-gathering. Then Miss Harlowe, the leader,
-had told a story about a little heathen boy who
-prayed to an ugly little wooden image, with a
-hideous face; she showed a model of the little
-heathen’s god, and Sadie was shocked and distressed.
-She thought about the heathen a good
-deal that day. Now, this Saturday morning
-grandfather, at family worship, had read a
-Psalm. Sadie had not been listening very
-closely; in fact, it was hard for her to listen to
-Bible reading, some way, unless it had a story
-in it. This was not in the least like a story,
-and Sadie’s thoughts were, if the truth must be
-told, upon her dollie’s new hat and how she
-should make it, when she heard these words:
-“Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen
-for thine inheritance.” It was that word
-“heathen” which caught her ear. Who was
-talking? To whom were the heathen to be
-given? Had some naughty king given them
-away to a bad man, and was that why they
-prayed to ugly wooden dollies? Sadie’s
-thoughts were in a turmoil; she could hardly
-wait until the prayer was over, before she was
-at grandpapa’s knee questioning.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, child,” said grandpapa, with a puzzled
-air, for he was not used to explaining the
-Bible to little people, “it means what it says;
-the heathen are to be given to Jesus.”</p>
-
-<p>“Given to Jesus!” said Sadie, amazed,
-“then why do they pray to ugly wooden
-dollies?”</p>
-
-<p>“Because He hasn’t got them yet; they don’t
-know they belong to him.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why doesn’t somebody tell them?”</p>
-
-
-
-<p>“They do. People are at work telling them.
-Did you never hear about the missionaries,
-child? I thought you belonged to a Mission
-Band?”</p>
-
-<p>Of course she did, and had heard about missionaries,
-and assured her grandfather that she
-gave five cents a month to support them. He
-did not say that that was a larger sum than he
-gave regularly for the same purpose; for some
-reason he did not care to do so; he only said:</p>
-
-<p>“Very well, then, you understand all about
-it. The Bible says the heathen will be given
-to Jesus, and the missionaries have gone over
-there to tell them about it, and show them how
-to serve the Lord.”</p>
-
-<p>“Has every single one of them heard it?”
-questioned Sadie, in great earnestness.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, no,” said grandfather; “I believe
-they haven’t yet.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why don’t they do it faster? Why don’t
-lots more missionaries go, and take Bibles, and
-hurry? Because maybe some of them will die
-before they hear it.”</p>
-
-<p>Sadie was in intense earnest, but her father
-laughed, and said: “That’s the question,
-father. Puts some of you Christians in a
-tight place, doesn’t it?”</p>
-
-<p>Sadie could not imagine what he meant; her
-grandfather sat at ease in his big leather-covered
-chair, and was not in a tight place at all.
-But she was disappointed at his telling her to
-run away and not ask any more questions for
-five minutes. If she only had a mamma, Sadie
-thought, she would ask her all the questions she
-pleased, for her friend Trudie Brown said that
-mammas never got tired of answering. But
-Sadie’s mamma went to heaven when she was
-a wee baby.</p>
-
-<p>She went away to think it over, as she had
-to do with so many of her puzzles, only to
-have it added to presently by words from her
-grandmother.</p>
-
-<p>“I declare!” said that good woman, coming
-in from the back yard, where she had been talking
-to Tony, the errand-boy, “that boy is a
-perfect heathen.”</p>
-
-<p>Sadie nearly dropped her dollie with a china
-head on the floor, in her dismay. “Is he
-truly, Grandma?” she asked.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>“Yes, he is,” said grandmamma, with emphasis;
-“I don’t believe there is a greater
-heathen in the depths of Africa than Tony. I
-have been trying to explain the simplest matter
-to him, and he does not understand me as well
-as a child of three ought to.”</p>
-
-<p>“How should he?” asked grandfather, to
-whom this sentence was chiefly addressed; “he
-has never had any chance to learn. The whole
-settlement over there where he came from live
-like heathen, and know no better.”</p>
-
-<p>Then came one of Sadie’s startling questions:
-“Grandfather, is he one of those who were
-given to Jesus?”</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 263px;">
-<img src="images/i-118.jpg" width="263" height="341" alt="Sadie" />
-<div class="caption">THINKING IT OVER.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“What?” asked grandfather, in astonishment.
-He had already forgotten the morning’s
-questions.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, isn’t he one that you read about, out
-of the Bible, that was given to Jesus?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh!” said grandfather, “I suppose so;
-why, yes, child, certainly. Jesus came to save
-him, as well as other heathen.”</p>
-
-<p>“Does he know it?”</p>
-
-<p>“What a child you are!” said grandmother;
-but as this was no answer Sadie waited, looking
-at her grandfather.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>“I doubt if he does,” he said at last, “or
-would understand if he was told.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, then he ought to be told over and
-over, ever so many times, as you said you had
-to do with Bruce before he understood that he
-was to stand on his hind feet and ask for a
-bone, oughtn’t he?”</p>
-
-<p>Both grandfather and grandmother began to
-laugh, though Sadie had no knowledge of what
-there was to laugh about; she was often treated
-in this way, and did not understand it. She
-turned away with a dignified air, a trifle hurt
-that her logic should produce only laughter;
-but there was decision as well as dignity in
-the tone in which she said: “I mean to tell
-him.”</p>
-
-<p>That was the beginning of effort for Tony
-Black, as he was called for convenience, though
-his full name was Antony Blackwell.</p>
-
-<p>Faithfully did Sadie pour information on him
-and ply him with questions until, from staring
-and being stupidly amused, and then half-vexed
-with her, he at last became interested, and listened
-and asked questions himself, and began
-to think. “Sadie’s heathen,” he was familiarly
-called by certain amused friends, who were told
-the story.</p>
-
-<p>He was called so long after the name had
-ceased to fit him; for this is a true story of
-something which happened years ago. The
-years went by, and Tony Black became so
-utterly changed that people forgot that they
-had ever called him heathen, or even Tony.
-“Young Blackwell” was the name by which
-he began to be known; then, after a time, “Mr.
-Blackwell.” And one evening, when there was
-a great meeting in one of the largest churches
-of a certain city, he was introduced as “The
-Rev. Mr. Blackwell, who is under appointment
-to go to Africa as a missionary.” Who do you
-think went with him? Sadie herself! He told
-on the platform something of his story; of the
-time when he was called “Sadie’s heathen,”
-and of his joy and pride in having the name
-altered, until now, by her friends, he was called
-“Sadie’s minister.” But by mere acquaintances
-they were spoken of as Rev. and Mrs.
-Antony Blackwell.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>QUEER CREATURES.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t2.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THIS is a scene in Africa. Those
-queer creatures scampering up
-the tree, are monkeys, to be
-sure; the other big lizards are
-crocodiles, you see. The way
-of it was that one of the crocodiles
-was sleeping—or pretending to sleep—on
-the bank of the river, when along
-came a careless little monkey, and his
-eyes were not where they should have
-been, or they did not look sharply at this
-thing that seemed to be but a log; when,
-before he knew what he was about, this
-“log” opened his big mouth, and with
-a sudden flap of his tail, in went the
-thoughtless monkey. That was the end
-of that young monkey. That’s about
-the way the saloons swallow folks.
-Don’t go near them!</p>
-
-<p>“But tell the rest. What did the
-mother monkey say?”</p>
-
-<p>She was mad as—“a setting hen.”
-She shouted at the top of her voice, and
-a great army of monkeys came galloping
-to her to know what was the matter.
-Now one monkey knows just how to tell
-the others what’s the matter; so they all
-set up such a hue and cry as you never
-heard. They scolded and insulted the
-crocodile, and twitched their faces and
-shook their fists at him, and jabbered
-such a bedlam that all the crocodiles ran
-together to see what was to pay. Upon
-the bank out of the water they climbed,
-and with open mouths and loud hisses,
-hurried after the scampering monkeys;
-but those spry creatures bounded up that
-big high tree, and from the lofty limbs
-looked down and scolded with all their
-might and main, and again shook their fists
-and snapped their long finger-nails to show how
-they would tear every hair out of the crock’s
-hide if they could get a chance—if there were
-any hair.</p>
-
-<p>It would have been better if they all, monks
-and crocks, had come kindly together and asked
-one another’s pardon and settled their differences,
-and signed a pledge never to eat or
-scold one another any more. Read this:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“We had a grand temperance rally here last night. The
-children marched around the neighborhood, before the meeting,
-with banner and song. The church was beautifully decorated
-with vines, branches of palm-trees, maidenhair ferns,
-calla lilies, white orchid blossoms, etc. The place was filled....
-There were songs, dialogues, temperance catechism,
-temperance stories and speeches. Over twenty came forward
-and took the blue ribbon. One had been a ‘hard case.’
-Among the natives pledging is almost equal to coming to
-Christ. . . . Every day began with a sunrise prayer meeting.
-A chorus of young people, the girls dressed in white,
-occupied the platform. They enjoy music.”</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 314px;">
-<img src="images/i-119.jpg" width="314" height="484" alt="Tree with monkeys climbing up it and group of crocodiles on ground" />
-<div class="caption">SCAMPERING UP THE TREE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>So writes Rev. Mr. Dorward of Umzumbe,
-Africa. You see there is a difference between
-the young folks of Africa and the monks and
-crocks. What is the difference? And which
-of the two meetings do you prefer?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE HARD TEXT.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Matt.</i> xiii. 57.)</small></h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">YOU would think people would be proud of
-a neighbor who does well. They are
-often jealous of him. When he becomes very
-great they often are all the more jealous, and
-say hard things about him, and he must sometimes
-actually get away to get peace and respect.
-When Columbus told his neighbors he
-was sure he could get to the East Indies by
-sailing westward they laughed him to scorn.
-He asked his own nation for ships and men to
-sail away on a voyage of discovery. He got
-nothing but opposition. He was compelled to
-go away to Spain for honor and ships.</p>
-
-<p>Jesus’ neighbors ought to have been proud of
-him; but they drove him away. They tried
-even to kill him, so jealous were they of him.
-But he got honor elsewhere. So it usually is.
-Do you honor him or drive him away?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>WHAT HE COULD DO.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">I &nbsp;READ not long ago of a little fellow who
-was employed in a Boston office as errand
-boy. Four young men had the office together,
-and liked to spend their leisure moments in
-teasing the boy, who was very small for his
-years.</p>
-
-<p>One day, after they had been chatting together,
-and using many oaths, with which they
-were in the habit of mixing their conversation,
-one of them turned to the boy and said: “Dick,
-what do you expect to do for a living, anyhow?
-You can’t be a business man; there is no sort
-of business that you can do; you are too small.
-The fact is you’ll be a dwarf, and I don’t see
-how you are to get your living.”</p>
-
-<p>Said Dick, “I can do something now which
-you four gentlemen can’t do.”</p>
-
-<p>“You can, eh? What in the world is that?”</p>
-
-<p>“I can keep from swearing,” said the boy,
-in a firm, clear voice.</p>
-
-<p>One of the young men laughed, another
-whistled, and all turned and walked away,
-leaving Dick master of the situation.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>EASTER.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">L</span>ONG nights she wept!</div>
-<div class="verse">Sad days and weary weeks went by,</div>
-<div class="verse">And life resumed its routine mournfully;</div>
-<div class="verse">The tasks that once were easy to perform</div>
-<div class="verse">Did seem vast mountains to the strength so worn;</div>
-<div class="verse">And if the sun did shine, or if it not,</div>
-<div class="verse">In shadow’s dwelt her heart; no ray, no spot</div>
-<div class="verse">Of light or hope did penetrate the gloom—</div>
-<div class="verse">This life seemed sadder far than death or tomb.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">And still she wept!</div>
-<div class="verse">’Till to her tear-washed eyes there came,</div>
-<div class="verse">Like “bow of promise” after summer rain,</div>
-<div class="verse">A vision beauteous from that “other land”—</div>
-<div class="verse">Sleep and a “maiden” walking hand in hand.</div>
-<div class="verse">They passed among those homes of “silent dead,”</div>
-<div class="verse">They found “her darling’s grave,” the “name” they read,</div>
-<div class="verse">Then, bending on her soulful, tender eyes,</div>
-<div class="verse">The “maiden” whispered: “Did our dear Lord rise?</div>
-<div class="verse">Then wherefore fall these teardrops from thine eyes?</div>
-<div class="verse">If ‘Christ is risen indeed,’ then shall not we,</div>
-<div class="verse">His ‘friends,’ his ‘heirs,’ live through eternity?</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Why should the Christians fear, who thus believe?</div>
-<div class="verse">Why will they not the ‘Comforter’ receive?</div>
-<div class="verse">I come each year to raise the drooping head,</div>
-<div class="verse">To whisper to the mourner, Is Christ dead,</div>
-<div class="verse">That you so mourn your loved? Look upward, sing!</div>
-<div class="verse">Behold yon butterfly on gorgeous wing!</div>
-<div class="verse">Know that this grave is but the chrysalis—</div>
-<div class="verse">Then light, and glory, where the Saviour is;</div>
-<div class="verse">And ‘where I am, there ye shall also be’;</div>
-<div class="verse">‘Come, weary, heavy laden, come to me!’”</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The vision fled,</div>
-<div class="verse">But to her heart there softly came</div>
-<div class="verse">Abiding faith in Jesus’ precious name;</div>
-<div class="verse">A joy, that all her sorrow she could rest</div>
-<div class="verse">Upon her Saviour’s sympathizing breast,</div>
-<div class="verse">And, in the place of gloom and fear, was born</div>
-<div class="verse">A perfect trust—on that fair Easter morn.</div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Exchange.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 458px;">
-<img src="images/i-121.jpg" width="458" height="582" alt="boy sharing with bird" />
-<div class="caption">HAVE A BITE?</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 526px;">
-<img src="images/i-122.jpg" width="526" height="566" alt="podgy tollder tied inot a chair considering" />
-<div class="caption">SHALL I BITE OFF THIS BUTTON?</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>QUEEN ELIZABETH.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">ABOUT three hundred years ago
-England’s great queen died.
-She was not very beautiful.
-Some said this was a great
-trial to her, and that she took
-marvelous pains to “fix” herself
-up to look as well as any lady in the land.
-Fine feathers often make pretty birds, but all
-Queen Bess’ efforts failed to make her handsome.
-However, as she had royal power she
-had many admirers. They called her “charming,”
-“lovely,” “lily,” “rose,” and such other
-words to flatter her. She liked it, and persuaded
-herself that after all her features and
-complexion were nearly exquisite.</p>
-
-<p>However that be she had not a few offers of
-marriage. But none suited her, or may be she,
-as a queen, did not want to be bothered with a
-husband, who would be continually interfering
-in the government.</p>
-
-<p>It is sad to think of some things this woman
-did. Of course you will read about it. Sometimes
-she would have outbursts of anger so
-great that she would actually box the ears of
-those around her, no matter how distinguished
-they were.</p>
-
-<p>The great stain upon her character was her
-treatment of Mary, Queen of Scots, her own
-relative. Mary was imprisoned eighteen years,
-then put to death on charge of conspiracy.</p>
-
-<p>But England arose to extraordinary prosperity
-under the long reign of “Queen Bess.”
-There were great scholars in her day, and she
-encouraged all sorts of improvements. You
-Pansy girls must some day dress your P. S.
-President up in the Elizabethan style and say
-if you would like it nowadays.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">(<i>Sent with the gift of a Canary Bird in Cage.</i>)</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="smcap">In</span> memory of the birdlings fair</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who from your nest have flown,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">To try in Heaven’s serener air</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wings earth could not own.</span></div>
-<div class="sig">M. S. B.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 242px;">
-<img src="images/i-123.jpg" width="242" height="191" alt="two children in tree swing" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ELSIE’S PLAN.—I.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Something for Mamma.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THE thought grew in Elsie’s
-mind, nourished by three remarks
-made by her mother
-and sisters. They were all at
-work except Irma, who was
-trying to teach Leoline to jump
-gracefully from her shoulder, instead of giving
-such a rude bound. Leoline was the cat. Irma
-was not apt to be at work, if the truth must be
-told; she was the only one of the little household
-who did not seem to understand the need
-for being industrious. She was two years older
-than Elsie, but the grown-up sisters often said
-of her that Elsie was at least three years ahead
-of Irma in judgment. I have sometimes thought
-if they had said in conscientiousness it would
-have been nearer the truth.</p>
-
-<p>At this particular time, while Irma struggled
-with the cat’s education, Elsie took neat stitches
-in the apron she was mending, her face looking
-thoughtful the while. Margaret, the oldest sister,
-was sewing swiftly on a dress of Irma’s,
-setting in new sleeves, and in other ways trying
-to make the half-worn garment look like a new
-one. Nannie came in, dustpan in hand, and
-with a handkerchief bound about her hair to
-protect it from the dust, just as her mother
-opened the door of the kitchen, with her hands
-filled with soiled napkins and towels.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>“Mother, where can I put that roll of matting?”
-Nannie asked, a touch of irritation in
-her voice; “I have reached the end of my resources
-in tucking things away. If I ever do
-build a house I will have all the closets I want;
-good-sized ones, too—and if there is any space
-left for rooms, there may be a few tucked in;
-but the closets I will have.”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Harding sighed. “Closets are certainly
-very scarce in this house,” she said wearily, “as
-well as many other things. I don’t know what
-to do with the soiled clothes; we need a clothes
-hamper very much. There is a corner in the
-upper back hall where one might stand, if we
-had it.” The sentence ended as it had begun,
-with a little sigh.</p>
-
-<p>Irma echoed the sigh in a sort of groan. “I
-saw such a pretty one, mother, last night, at
-Turner’s. It was only two dollars; I thought
-of you when I saw them unpacking it. And to
-think that we cannot afford even two dollars
-for a basket!”</p>
-
-<p>“There are worse trials in life than even that,
-I suspect,” said Nannie, darting an angry glance
-at Irma, as she saw the flush spread and deepen
-over her mother’s face. Margaret made haste
-to change the subject.</p>
-
-<p>“We each have our perplexities, it seems,”
-she said, with a light laugh; “mine has to do
-with dress. I don’t know what to do with that
-light sateen of mine; it is too gay to wear about
-the house at work, even if it were long enough,
-which it isn’t. It is not worth giving away, it
-is too good to throw into the rag bag, and there
-isn’t room for it in my closet. Now what is to
-be done in such a case?”</p>
-
-<p>Then Elsie spoke for the first time, eagerly,
-a bright look flashing over her face, as though
-some perplexity had just then been delightfully
-solved. “O, Margaret! will you give the dress
-to me to do just what I please with?”</p>
-
-<p>“To you, child! what can you do with it?
-It isn’t just the thing for a dollie, I should say.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said Irma scornfully, “I should think
-not. Do let us have our dolls dressed in good
-taste and decent style, even if we cannot afford
-anything for ourselves.”</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t want it for my doll, Margaret. I
-have a plan, a real nice one, if you will let me
-have the dress, and if mother will give me the
-matting Nannie cannot find a place for. Will
-you, mother? There is only a little of it left.”</p>
-
-<p>“Is it the yellow plaid, Nannie? Why, yes,
-dear, if there is any pleasure to be gotten out
-of that yard and a half of cheap matting, by
-all means use it; especially since there is no
-place to store it.”</p>
-
-<p>Then Mrs. Harding left the room, giving
-Nannie a chance to say what she was longing
-to.</p>
-
-<p>“I never saw such a girl as you are, Irma;
-you omit no opportunity to remind mother of
-our poverty. Even so trivial a thing as a
-soiled clothes hamper must draw from you a
-woe-begone sigh. Why can’t you remember
-that it is hard enough for mother, at the best,
-without trying to keep the thought of our
-troubles ever before her?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, dear me!” said Irma, “what did I
-say? Mother knew before I spoke of it that
-we could not afford even two dollars to buy a
-clothes hamper. I don’t think she is very likely
-to forget that we have lost our money.”</p>
-
-<p>“Not if you are around,” answered Nannie
-angrily. “I think you are a selfish girl; you
-do nothing but groan and regret, for your
-share. Well, I can’t help it,” she added, in
-answer to Margaret’s warning look; “that
-child’s selfish frettings do try me so!”</p>
-
-<p>“We must not expect old heads on young
-shoulders, remember,” Margaret said gently,
-as Irma put Leoline down with a decided
-bounce, and slammed the door the least bit
-after her, as she left the room.</p>
-
-<p>“It is the contrast that makes one notice it
-so,” answered Nannie, with a significant nod of
-her head toward Elsie. But Elsie neither heard
-the words, nor saw the nod; her mind was busy
-elsewhere.</p>
-
-<p>“O, Margaret!” she said eagerly, “I have
-the loveliest plan. You know to-morrow will
-be mother’s birthday, and I was all the evening
-wondering what I could give her; now I know.
-Nannie, I will take the matting out of your
-way. I mean to make a clothes hamper for
-mother out of that and Margaret’s dress.”</p>
-
-<p>Nannie laughed outright, and even Margaret
-smiled as she said: “Why, dear child, how can
-you? I am afraid that is a very large
-undertaking.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said Elsie positively; “I see just how
-I can do it. The plan flashed into my mind as
-soon as you and Nannie began to talk about the
-two things in the way. I almost know I can
-do it. If you will help to keep mother away
-from our room this afternoon, and she won’t
-give me anything special to do, I can make it
-and have it ready for to-morrow morning. I
-know just how to go to work.”</p>
-
-<p>“Let her try it,” said Nannie, with a wise
-nod of her head. “The child will make something;
-I never knew her to fail when she had
-undertaken to do a thing, and mother’s birthday
-ought to be noticed in some way, even
-though we cannot do as we used. I’m going
-to fix over her sewing-chair; I believe in useful
-presents myself. We will agree to keep mother
-in order, Elsie, and the sooner the matting disappears
-from the front hall the better.”</p>
-
-<p>So the little room occupied by the two younger
-girls was locked all the afternoon, while Elsie
-worked steadily, and Irma lounged on the bed
-with a book, encouraging her sister occasionally
-with: “You never can do it in the world, Elsie
-Harding! I don’t see any sense in trying. For
-my part I would rather give her no present than
-a bungling thing like that. You can’t sew matting
-decently; it ravels so.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 512px;">
-<img src="images/i-125.jpg" width="512" height="454" alt="little girls outdoors in sun hats and summer dresses" />
-<div class="caption">AN OLD-TIME MAY-DAY.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 427px;">
-<img src="images/i-126.jpg" width="427" height="509" alt="building" />
-<div class="caption">THE CUSTOM HOUSE, NEW YORK.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ABOUT NEW YORK.<br />
-
-<small>BY THE PANSIES.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 424px;">
-<img src="images/i-127.jpg" width="424" height="333" alt="Another building" />
-<div class="caption">COOPER INSTITUTE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I READ about it when it was
-called New Amsterdam. A
-thousand people, and it was
-just a straggling little town.
-Pearl Street they called “De
-Perel Straat.” The folks were
-very proud of this street; there were forty-three
-houses on it! One man thought his fortune
-was made because he had bought a lot two
-years before for fifty dollars, and was offered
-two hundred and fifty for it. And the lot was
-thirty feet wide and over a hundred feet deep!
-Think of a New York man to-day buying a lot
-of that size for two hundred and fifty dollars!
-My father says it would take a fortune to buy
-such a lot.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Henry Stuart.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> cousin and I had great fun reading about
-a family who took a long journey from New
-York to Albany. They went on a river steamer;
-started at daylight and reached Albany at sunset,
-and thought they had done a big thing.
-There were no railroads to ride on; not a single
-train going out of New York City! That
-was in 1827. It seems strange that such wonderful
-things can take place in one century. I
-think this is the grandest century we ever had.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Robert Campbell.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I spent</span> a week in New York, and boarded
-very near Madison Square. I was on Twenty-third
-Street, pretty near to Fifth Avenue, and
-Broadway streaks across the city right there,
-so I had a chance to see almost everything;
-because those who know anything about New
-York City know that if you see what is on those
-streets, why, you have seen a good deal. It is
-Broadway and Fifth Avenue going criss-cross
-that make Madison Square. There are lots of
-hotels around there. The park is just magnificent;
-I like it better than Central Park, because
-it is right there, you know. There is a splendid
-fountain in the middle, and a drinking
-fountain somewhere else, and statues of Seward
-and Farragut. Seward is sitting down, and
-looks as though he didn’t care.</p>
-
-<p>If I had room I could tell you lots of things
-about Madison Square; but since you only let
-us have a few lines, what will a fellow do?
-I’m going to the Christian Endeavor meeting
-in July, and that will give a good chance to
-study up that part of the city, because the
-meeting is to be in Madison Square.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">David G. Dunlap.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> mother used to be a pupil in Cooper Institute,
-and when I went to New York a few
-months ago father took me to see it. It is very
-large; it cost more than six hundred thousand
-dollars. Peter Cooper built it about thirty-five
-years ago; and then he gave three hundred
-thousand dollars to keep the free library going
-which belongs to it. They have all sorts of
-schools in the building. You can learn how to
-telegraph, and to write on the type-writer, and
-how to draw and paint. My mother was in the
-painting school, and she paints beautifully.
-We went up to the reading-room; it is on the
-third floor; there are rows and rows and rows
-of books! It makes me dizzy to think of so
-many. The books are all covered, so they
-don’t look very pretty. There are long tables
-and lots of chairs; you are given a check made
-of brass, or tin, or something, when you go into
-the room; then if you want a book or magazine
-you go to the desk and ask for it, and give
-that check in return; you cannot get out of the
-room without that check, so you are apt to
-carry your book back when you are done with
-it, and get your check again. After all there
-are only about twenty thousand books on the
-shelves. I was disappointed; I thought there
-were millions.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Emmeline Andrews.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Dick Walters</span> is in our “General Information”
-class, and when Trinity Church was
-talked about Dick declared he had been in the
-old building which was put there in 1697. I
-knew better, because my great-grandfather told
-about its being burned in the fire of 1776. But
-we couldn’t make Dick Walters give up the
-notion that he was in the very identical church
-built two hundred years ago. At last Professor
-Townley explained that it was the old site,
-but a new church built in 1846. Since we had
-our fuss about it I have been there myself. It
-is a splendid building, I think, if it isn’t two
-hundred years old. The steeple is two hundred
-and eighty-four feet high, and the chimes are
-lovely. It is an old brown church, and looks
-solemn and still; it is right on Broadway, but
-when you step inside it seems just as still!
-You can hear the birds chirp on the trees in
-the churchyard,
-though there is a
-terrible roar of
-noise outside. Alexander
-Hamilton
-is buried in Trinity
-churchyard.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Robert Paxton.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 162px;">
-<img src="images/i-128.jpg" width="162" height="379" alt="obelisk" />
-<div class="caption">THE OBELISK.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I suppose</span> everybody
-will write
-about Central
-Park; but I can’t
-help it, I want to
-tell some things
-about it myself. I
-was there in June.
-We went up to
-Fifty-ninth Street
-and Fifth Avenue
-and took a carriage.
-We drove
-through the Scholars’
-Gate; this
-took us straight to
-the menagerie, and we saw the bear-pits and
-everything, though they say they don’t have
-the menagerie there any more. We took a
-row on the lake, and we saw the Bethesda
-Fountain with its real angel—well, I mean
-a carved one, of course—bending over the
-water. Then we walked through The Ramble,
-which I think is the loveliest part of the park,
-only they won’t let you break off the least little
-speck of a flower or leaf. There are lots of
-birds, and they seemed busier and happier than
-any birds I ever saw. We saw a sign directing
-us to the “Dairy,” so we went there and got
-some splendid milk and some bread and butter.
-We children wanted to go to “The Carousal”;
-that is a sign which points out the way to the
-children’s playground, where there are swings
-and everything; but father said we hadn’t time,
-and that we could have “carousals” enough at
-home.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Laura J. Westover.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Laura</span> has written a letter about Central
-Park, and hasn’t mentioned the obelisk. Ho,
-ho! if that isn’t just like a girl. I have studied
-up about it since I was there. They had an
-awful time bringing it over here from Egypt.
-They had to cut a hole in the bow of the boat
-that brought it to get it in; and then mend the
-hole, of course, before they could start. And
-when the steamer reached New York it took
-thirty-two horses to draw just the pedestal down
-to Central Park!</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 502px;">
-<img src="images/i-129.jpg" width="502" height="356" alt="drawing of park surrounded by buildings" />
-<div class="caption">VIEW OF MADISON SQUARE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The carvings on the obelisk are called hieroglyphics,
-and used to mean writing; but
-scholars have had a great time trying to find
-out what the writing says. They don’t agree
-about it, but they think it is a lot of stuff about
-some heathen gods. There are carved hawks
-on the top of the column, and these are said to
-be the birds that belonged to one of the gods,
-because they could fly the highest and could
-look at the sun. The obelisk is sixty-nine feet
-high, and it weighs three hundred and twenty
-tons. I don’t exactly see what we wanted of
-it; but it is rather nice to look at it and think
-it came all the way from Egypt and was presented
-to us by Ismail Pasha.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Reuben T. Westover.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> nicest ride I had while in New York was
-along Fifth Avenue. We started at Washington
-Square and went up to Central Park. It is
-almost three miles, and all the way there were
-such beautiful houses and churches to look at,
-and the road was as smooth as the floor. We
-passed the white marble house built by A. T.
-Stewart; it cost three million dollars, and the
-people who now rent it pay thirty-seven thousand
-dollars a year for it. Only think! and
-we get three hundred a year for our house, and
-call it a good rent; but then, it didn’t cost
-three millions. Then we passed the elegant
-Vanderbilt houses, and the magnificent Lenox
-Library building, and O, dear! I can’t think
-what others. I thought I knew a great deal
-about them when I began, but they are all
-mixed up in my mind. But what I wanted to
-say was, that the drive from Washington Square
-away up to Eighty-first Street must certainly be
-the very splendidest in the world. I know I
-never saw so many beautiful buildings before;
-and I do like grand houses and grand churches
-and everything.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Kate W. Glover.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 555px;">
-<img src="images/i-130.jpg" width="555" height="456" alt="photo of street" />
-<div class="caption">FIFTH AVENUE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>[It has been very difficult to select items for this paper, because
-of the wealth of objects to choose from. We could make
-the article twice as long just as well as not, out of the material
-we have, if there were only room for it in the magazine.
-Also, some of the best and brightest items have been omitted,
-and others perhaps not quite so interesting chosen in their
-place, because they spoke of some building which we could
-show you in picture. The Pansies will understand, I hope,
-that we fully appreciate their efforts to help us, and that we
-enjoy the many items which we do not use quite as much as
-those we select. But do please be more prompt with your
-letters.—<span class="smcap">Editors.</span>]</p></div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<h2>THE MORROW.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">O</span>F all the tender guards which Jesus drew</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">About our frail humanity, to stay</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The pressure and the jostle that alway</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Are ready to disturb, whate’er we do,</div>
-<div class="verse">And mar the work our hands would carry through,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">None more than this environs us each day</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With kindly wardenship—“Therefore, I say,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Take no thought for the morrow.” Yet we pay</div>
-<div class="verse">The wisdom scanty heed, and impotent</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">To bear the burden of the imperious Now,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Assume the future’s exigence unsent.</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">God grants no overplus of power; ’tis shed</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Like morning manna. Yet we dare to bow</div>
-<div class="verse">And ask, “Give us to-day our morrow’s bread!”</div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</h2>
-
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT is a nice light night, and if
-you youngsters have stared
-long enough at the moon, since
-neighbor Sport has come to
-call we will try to be a little
-more social.</p>
-
-<p>Pet and Spot and Curley may play on the
-lawn if they choose, and have as good a time
-as they like.</p>
-
-<p>You have come to ask my advice, have you,
-Sport?</p>
-
-<p>Well, it doesn’t cost much to give advice, but
-it isn’t always so easy to take it.</p>
-
-<p>What is the question in mind?</p>
-
-<p>Have been slighted and abused, have you?
-Tell us about it.</p>
-
-<p>Scolded you after you hunted birds all day
-for him, and then forgot to give you any supper.
-That was pretty hard; pretty mean treatment,
-I should say.</p>
-
-<p>Had your master been drinking?</p>
-
-<p>No? How came it about?</p>
-
-<p>“Why, just before time to start for home I
-found a big flock of quail, and showed him just
-where they were; and he crept up, gun in hand,
-and tried to fire, but for some reason the gun
-did not go off.</p>
-
-<p>“That put him out of humor, and he scolded
-the gun, and by that frightened the birds so
-they flew away.</p>
-
-<p>“Then he sent me to find them, and I could
-get no snuff of them, hunt as hard as I could.
-Then he spoke to me as he never did before,
-and throwing the gun upon his shoulder started
-for the house, never noticing me by any word,
-whistle or sign.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, I dropped my tail between my legs,
-and followed at a good distance.</p>
-
-<p>“He didn’t forget the cow, or the pig, or the
-pony, but took no notice of me, and I don’t believe
-I could eat now if I had a chance.”</p>
-
-<p>Poor fellow! come here and lie down by me.
-Never mind, never mind; these men seem
-sometimes to have no heart for us, no matter
-how faithful we have been.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>I am so thankful we have a master of another
-kind.</p>
-
-<p>One of you run and bring some of that supper
-that was left.</p>
-
-<p>We had a very nice supply this evening, and
-there is enough for two hungry fellows yet.</p>
-
-<p>You just say no more till you have had the
-meat from that bone, and see if you don’t feel
-better. Things hurt worse when one is tired
-and hungry.</p>
-
-<p>There, now rest a while, and I will tell you a
-story about a great-uncle of mine, who lived in
-Groton.</p>
-
-<p>He was pretty well educated, and did a great
-many things that some of his four-footed friends
-would not be trusted to do, even if they knew
-enough.</p>
-
-<p>Well, Diamond—that was his name—was
-pretty good-natured, but a little sensitive. Being
-very affectionate, it was easy for those whom
-he loved to hurt his feelings.</p>
-
-<p>His master was a mechanic, and had to go to
-his shop every day. The distance was so great
-that he did not come home to dinner; so his
-wife would prepare his dinner, put it in a pail,
-or in a basket, as it might happen, lay in the
-bottom a nice bone for Diamond, and give it
-all to him to take to his master. That he would
-do as faithfully as any one.</p>
-
-<p>When the master had finished eating what
-had been brought, or as much as he wanted, he
-would take the bone, and any scraps left, and
-give them to his faithful carrier, who had been,
-the while, lying under the bench, patiently
-waiting.</p>
-
-<p>But one day there was a break. The mistress
-said she was going shopping that day, and
-would take the dinner to her husband herself.</p>
-
-<p>That rather hurt Diamond’s feelings, though
-he said nothing, but followed on, and lay down
-in his usual place to wait for his bone. The
-master sat down to his dinner with no word for
-his faithful servant who was not permitted to
-bring the basket, finished his meal, closed the
-basket, and handed it to his wife.</p>
-
-<p>No bone was there, nothing for the one who
-had been waiting, hungry, but patient. The
-only notice taken of him was a call to follow
-the lady and carry the empty basket. With a
-heavy heart and drooping tail he obeyed.
-When the purchases were made and put into
-the basket, Diamond was ordered to go ahead
-of his mistress and take the burden home.</p>
-
-<p>On he trudged until he neared a bridge which
-they must cross, when a thought came suddenly
-into Diamond’s mind, and quickly darting forward
-to the middle of the bridge he went to
-one side of it, and deliberately let the basket
-and its contents fall into the stream; then
-ran for home as fast as his four legs could
-carry him.</p>
-
-<p>I am not telling you this because I think he
-did right, but that you may see that others are
-treated as badly as you have been.</p>
-
-<p>I suppose I am sorry that a relative of mine
-ever resorted to revenge; but it does sometimes
-seem very strange to me that more dogs do not
-revenge themselves in some way for the hard
-treatment they so often receive.</p>
-
-<p>You would not like to be guilty of such an
-act as that?</p>
-
-<p>Well, I am glad of it. Indeed, I think my
-kinsman was soon sorry for what he had done.</p>
-
-<p>Let me tell you how he proved it. His master
-had been out nearly all day with Diamond
-hunting. The next morning he discovered that
-he had somewhere lost a key. So he showed
-Diamond another, and told him his trouble, and
-ordered him to go and hunt for it.</p>
-
-<p>Off he went, and at three o’clock that afternoon
-returned, bringing the lost key.</p>
-
-<p>He was tired and hungry, but a good dinner
-was ready for him, and kind words soon made
-him forget his fatigue.</p>
-
-<p>In fact, I believe both master and dog were
-ashamed and sorry for the past, and inwardly
-determined to do right in the future.</p>
-
-<p>Now after these true stories of my great-uncle,
-I hope you feel better, and will go home,
-not to plan how you can be revenged, but how
-you can be true and faithful, and, if possible,
-win better treatment in future.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-R.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> the four hundred and thirteen species of
-trees in the United States sixteen will sink in
-water. The heaviest is the black-iron wood of
-Southern California.</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BARNYARD ILLUSIONS.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">SOMEBODY in one of our exchanges tells
-an amusing story of his attempt at studying
-human nature in the barnyard. He placed
-a large piece of looking-glass against the trunk
-of a tree, and scattered corn in front of it, then
-took a convenient position and watched. Some
-of the hens came up with cautious tread, to
-meet what they supposed were new acquaintances,
-and were simply astonished and bewildered
-by the result. Others pecked at the
-glass, and were anxious to get up a fight with
-the supposed intruders.</p>
-
-<p>The high-stepping rooster was bent on a victory.
-He advanced with skillful side steps,
-according to rooster fashion, and was amazed
-to lose sight of his enemy. Of course he had
-stepped too far to the left or right, and so
-gotten out of range of the glass, but this he
-did not understand. He gave an astonished
-crow, looked about him fiercely, saw no one,
-finally gave up and went back for a kernel of
-corn; behold, just in front of it was that other
-rooster, looking fierce. He made another attempt
-for a fight, with exactly the same result
-as before; but the second surrender to mystery
-brought him quite near to the mirror and his
-enemy. He ruffled his feathers, so did the
-other rooster. He made a dash forward, so
-did the other, and—the rooster was astonished;
-but you are prepared to hear that the mirror
-was broken into bits. The question which
-seemed to puzzle that rooster for hours afterwards
-was, What became of his enemy, that he
-could not find even a feather of him lying about
-the yard?</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap">A GOOD man in France is said to have
-invented an instrument with a very fine
-tube to be inserted into the ear, by means of
-which sounds can be heard by the deaf.</p>
-
-<p>Professor Dussouchet saw the experiment
-tried upon many deaf mutes, and in every case
-with success. Sounds are sent into a large
-bell-shaped contrivance; thence they pass down
-the fine tube and strike the tympanum (ear
-drum).</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 518px;">
-<img src="images/i-133.jpg" width="518" height="613" alt="bird singing" />
-<div class="caption">A SONG FROM THE HEART.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 464px;">
-<img src="images/i-134.jpg" width="464" height="621" alt="Girl looking out window at bear; in next picture bear is carrying fish to other bears in den" />
-<div class="caption">I NEED A CHRISTMAS DINNER.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE BOYHOOD OF TITIAN (<i>Tish’-yan</i>).</h2>
-
-<div class="center"><i>Pœta nascitur, non fit.</i></div>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">THERE, that is not Greek or German, but
-Latin, and some day your Pansy tongue
-will talk it off as readily, no doubt, as it now
-casts English to your cat. Won’t it be just
-splendid for you to be in the High School—and
-not at the foot of your class, either—reading
-Cæsar or Cicero or Horace?</p>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 316px;">
-<img src="images/i-135.jpg" width="316" height="605" alt=" Boy looking at flowers in hand" />
-<div class="caption">STUDYING ITS CHARACTER.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“But what does that Latin mean?”</p>
-
-<p>It means, “A poet is born, not made.”</p>
-
-<p>“So is every one ‘born.’”</p>
-
-<p>No, not born a poet, neither can be made
-into a poet by study; that is, a real true poet.
-Almost everybody can read poetry, and love it
-and make rhymes; but that is not being a poet.</p>
-
-<p>You might just as well now learn that
-bit of Latin and surprise your mamma
-some day at the dinner-table by saying:
-“<i>Pœta nascitur, non fit.</i>” The next
-time you can say: “<i>Orator nascitur,
-non fit,</i>” for that is true too. It is true
-of an artist, and many, many others.
-We all have different gifts at birth. (See
-Rom. xii. 6.) Johnny Brown can sing
-and play upon almost any instrument.
-He is a born musician. His brother
-can’t play even upon a jew’s-harp, but
-he can make one. He can make a watch.
-His fingers can do all sorts of wonderful
-things such as Johnny’s cannot. Boys
-differ; girls differ. They can’t be made
-alike. One has one gift, one another.</p>
-
-<p>Titian was born an artist.</p>
-
-<p>What do you suppose he is doing
-there, one hand upon the limb of that
-tree?</p>
-
-<p>“Going up for chestnuts.”</p>
-
-<p>No; try again.</p>
-
-<p>“Going to climb for a crow’s nest.”</p>
-
-<p>Not he. See that bit of a branch in
-his right hand. He is looking at it to
-see its shape, the form and color of the
-leaves, and all about it. He will paint
-that whole tree in a little while—no, no;
-paint one on canvas just like it. When
-he is a few years older he will paint
-portraits, then great elegant pictures.</p>
-
-<p>He was an Italian boy, born in 1477.</p>
-
-<p>Columbus was then about thirty-five
-years old. He had just made his great
-voyage to Iceland and got back when
-Titian was a baby. I guess Titian saw
-the born voyager and discoverer, and
-as likely as not painted his portrait or ships.
-But one of his masterpieces, or greatest works,
-is St. Peter, Martyr; another, The Presentation
-of the Virgin.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>HANNIBAL’S VOW.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-m.jpg" width="120" height="119" alt="M" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">MANY hundred years ago there
-were two magnificent cities on
-opposite sides of the Mediterranean
-Sea. One was Carthage
-and the other was Rome.
-But they were jealous of each
-other, and shook their fists at each other and
-went to war, each trying to do the other all the
-harm it was possible.</p>
-
-<p>In Carthage was a man by the name of Hannibal.
-He hated Rome bitterly.</p>
-
-<p>A little before his death he took his son out
-to the altar, where they burned sacrifice to the
-gods, and made him lift up his hands in a vow
-or promise to always hate and harm the Romans.</p>
-
-<p>It was an awful thing for any one to do, but
-how dreadful for a dying man. So young
-Hannibal swore by the gods, Jupiter, Juno,
-Apollo, Hercules, Mars, Triton and Neptune,
-and all the other Dæmons.</p>
-
-<p>The old man died. When young Hannibal
-was now twenty-four he was made commander
-of the troops, and, dressed in a coat of armor,
-he started from Carthage with a mighty army.
-Away he marched toward Spain, conquering
-and slaying his enemies on the way. On and
-on he went, over rivers and highest mountains.
-The Romans, when they heard that he was in
-Spain, laughed at the thought of his coming to
-Rome; they said none but gods could do such
-a thing. But they had not long to laugh. He
-and his conquering host clambered over the
-Pyrenees, then over the high steep Alps, then
-“down upon the soft and smiling plains of
-Italy.” Then all was excitement in great
-Rome. Every one became a soldier of some
-sort. “To arms! to arms!” was the cry.
-The city was turned into a fort. Mighty
-armies went out to meet Hannibal, but one
-after another was slaughtered or put to flight.
-In one of the great battles forty thousand
-Romans were slain!</p>
-
-<p>The Roman general, Fabius, was a great
-man, but he was compelled to retreat before
-Hannibal. But just then, when the people in
-the great city were trembling lest Hannibal
-would be upon them to burn the whole city
-and put the inhabitants to death, word came
-from Carthage that he must hurry home with
-his army and save Carthage from a Roman
-army coming upon it, led by a wonderful general,
-Scipio. Soon these two conquering hosts
-met at Zama, not far from Carthage, and here
-for the first time poor Hannibal was defeated,
-and in the course of time proud Carthage was
-utterly destroyed.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>THE WAR OF THE ROSES.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-f.jpg" width="117" height="118" alt="F" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">FIVE hundred years ago began
-very troublous times in England,
-and it went on many
-bloody years. You see, there
-were two great parties, as in
-this country, each struggling
-to rule. In this country they fight it out at
-the ballot box, with bits of paper upon which
-names are printed. The man or party which
-gets the greater number of ballots rules. In
-England years ago they fought it out with
-blows. The party which could strike the
-harder blows ruled.</p>
-
-<p>The names of these two great parties were
-York and Lancaster. The Yorkers wore the
-white rose, the Lancastrians the red rose, so it
-was called the War of the Roses. Oh! the
-fierce battles, the groans of the dying and the
-banners rolled in blood; neighbors, sometimes
-brothers, killing each other.</p>
-
-<p>And their homes, the mothers and children,
-what happened to them during all those hundred
-years? You must not know. But what
-must the Lord Jesus have thought of it all?</p>
-
-<p>If it had been for some great good—to put
-an end to stealing, cruelty, drunkenness or
-some such dreadful thing—it would not seem
-so bad; but it was just to get upon a throne
-and then to be cruel to the defeated party.
-The great trouble was that this man or that
-wanted to be king just as in America a man
-wants to be president. Richard the Third
-wanted it so much that he caused his two little
-nephews to be smothered to death while asleep,
-lest they would grow up and trouble him! This
-was four hundred years ago.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>COME TO SUPPER.</h3>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">ONE pleasant summer
-day Jamie’s
-mamma said they
-would have tea out
-under the trees, because
-it was papa’s
-birthday.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 136px;">
-<img src="images/i-137a.jpg" width="136" height="167" alt="Looks like ahen but caption says its a rooster" />
-<div class="caption">THE NAUGHTY ROOSTER.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>She spread a pink
-cloth on the table,
-and brought out some
-pretty dishes. Jamie thought it was fine fun.</p>
-
-<p>He helped to carry out the biscuits and strawberries,
-and he put the knives and spoons by
-the side of the plates.</p>
-
-<p>They had to hurry, because pretty soon the
-five o’clock train would come in, and papa
-would be on it.</p>
-
-<p>When mamma went into the house to make
-the tea she gave Jamie a piece of cake and told
-him to sit down on the grass and rest his tired
-little feet.</p>
-
-<p>Jamie liked to sit in that pretty spot. There
-were green grass and daisies and buttercups all
-about him, and oh! how good the cake tasted.</p>
-
-<p>Pretty soon the old rooster saw that Jamie
-was alone, and that he had something good to
-eat.</p>
-
-<p>So he called to his family: “Come quick!
-come to supper.”</p>
-
-<p>Then the gray hen and the yellow hen and
-the speckled hen and the white banties came
-running as fast as they could run to get some
-of Jamie’s cake.</p>
-
-<p>Old Speckle got the first bite, a great big
-one, and carried it off to eat it. Then Old
-Yellow came up one side and the rooster came
-the other side, and one took a bite, and the
-other took a bite.</p>
-
-<p>Jamie began to cry. Mamma heard him.
-She came out, and said: “Shoo! shoo!”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 284px;">
-<img src="images/i-137b.jpg" width="284" height="331" alt="boy crying" />
-<div class="caption">JAMIE BEGAN TO CRY.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And away went the chickabiddies as fast as
-they could fly, and no more supper for them
-that night.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">O</span>UT in the garden, wee Elsie</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Was gathering flowers for me;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">“O, mamma!” she cried, “hurry, hurry,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here’s something I want you to see.”</span></div>
-<div class="verse">I went to the window; before her</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A velvet-winged butterfly flew,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And the pansies themselves were not brighter</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Than the beautiful creature in hue.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">“Oh! isn’t it pretty?” cried Elsie,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With eager and wondering eyes,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">As she watched it soar lazily upward</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Against the soft blue of the skies.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">“I know what it is, don’t you, mamma?”</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh! the wisdom of these little things</span></div>
-<div class="verse">When the soul of a poet is in them.</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">“It’s a pansy—a pansy with wings.”</span></div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE HARD TEXT.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Matt.</i> xiii. 12.)</small></h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">NO, it does not seem fair at all to give to
-him that has something, and to refuse
-it to one that hasn’t anything scarcely, and
-even to take away what little that one has!
-Just think of giving a rich Pansy five hundred
-dollars more, and then snatching away the last
-penny from a poor Pansy!</p>
-
-<p>Surely you don’t suppose the loving, gentle,
-merciful Lord Jesus meant any such thing?
-Of course he didn’t.</p>
-
-<p>“What did He mean?” Why, simply this,
-my dear; that one who makes good use of his
-gifts will have more gifts. He will grow wiser
-and better, and go up higher all the time, just
-like a tree that uses well the good ground and
-good air and good dew around it. And the
-tree, that for some reason won’t send its roots
-down and this way and that and set every one
-of its leaves to breathing, such a lazy tree will
-lose all its life and die, the first wide-awake
-tree sucking up that very life.</p>
-
-<p>It may be just so with two Pansies. One is
-good, true, active, the other one isn’t; how
-one will go up and the other down; how one
-will increase and the other decrease until one
-seems to have all the good, even the little the
-other started out with.</p>
-
-<p>You borrow from a bank one hundred dollars
-and pay it back with interest when your note is
-due, and quite likely the bank will loan you
-two hundred dollars then, if you want it, and
-so on, increasing it just as you are faithful.
-But if you don’t pay as you promised, because
-you were lazy, your one hundred dollars will be
-taken from you and loaned to one who may
-have ten thousand dollars, because he makes
-good use of it. We are all on trial. How
-happy we should be to be trusted by the Lord!
-It’s a fearful thing when he will not loan us
-any more.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Good</span> temper, like a sunny day, sheds brightness
-over everything. It is the sweetener of
-toil and the soother of disquietude.</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>INASMUCH.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">“I</span>F I had dwelt”—so mused a tender woman,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">All fine emotions stirred</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Through pondering o’er that Life, divine yet human,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Told in the sacred Word—</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“If I had dwelt of old, a Jewish maiden,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In some Judean street,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Where Jesus walked, and heard his word so laden</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With comfort strangely sweet,</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“And seen the face where utmost pity blended,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With each rebuke of wrong;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">I would have left my lattice and descended,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And followed with the throng.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“If I had been the daughter, jewel-girdled,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of some rich rabbi there;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Seeing the sick, blind, halt, my blood had curdled</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">At the sight of such despair.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“And I had wrenched the sapphires from my fillet,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor let one spark remain;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Snatched up my gold, amid the crowd to spill it,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pity of their pain.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“I would have let the palsied fingers hold me;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">I would have walked between</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The Marys and Salome, while they told me</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">About the Magdalene.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“‘Foxes have holes’—I think my heart had broken</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">To hear the words so said,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">While Christ had not—were sadder ever spoken?—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">‘A place to lay his head.’</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“I would have flung abroad my doors before Him,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And in my joy have been</span></div>
-<div class="verse">First on the threshold, eager to adore Him,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And crave his entrance in!”</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Ah, would you so? Without a recognition</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">You passed Him yesterday;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Jostled aside, unhelped his mute petition,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And calmly went your way.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">With warmth and comfort garmented and girdled,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Before your window-sill</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Sweep heart-sick crowds; and if your blood is curdled</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">You wear your jewels still.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">You catch aside your robes, lest want should clutch them</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In its imploring wild;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Or else some woful penitent might touch them,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And you be thus defiled.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">O, dreamers! dreaming that your faith is keeping</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">All service free from blot,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Christ daily walks your streets, sick, suffering, weeping,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And ye perceive him not!</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">M. J. Preston</span>, <i>in The Independent</i>.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap">I &nbsp; READ of a boy who had a remarkable
-dream. He thought that the richest man
-in town came to him and said: “I am tired of
-my house and grounds; come and take care of
-them and I will give them to you.” Then came
-an honored judge and said: “I want you to
-take my place; I am weary of being in court
-day after day; I will give you my seat on the
-bench if you will do my work.”</p>
-
-<p>Then the doctor proposed that he take his
-extensive practice and let him rest, and so on.
-At last up shambled old Tommy, and said:
-“I’m wanted to fill a drunkard’s grave; I have
-come to see if you will take my place in these
-saloons and on these streets?”</p>
-
-<p>Harold laughed about his dream, but somebody
-who knew how Harold was being brought
-up, said: “Do you know, I shouldn’t be surprised
-if of all the offers he accepted the last? He
-has talent enough to become a judge, or a physician,
-or to make his fortune, but I am afraid
-he will grow up to take old Tommy’s place.”</p>
-
-<p>Who is willing to help fill “Old Tommy’s”
-place?</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>FROM BIRDLAND.</h2>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 141px;">
-<img src="images/i-139.jpg" width="141" height="269" alt="bird in meadow" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap">IF we only knew how
-to understand bird
-language, I fancy we
-might be made acquainted
-with a great
-many pretty secrets
-which now they keep
-to themselves.</p>
-
-
-<p>I have been reading
-lately about a gentleman
-in New York who
-has a collection of birds,
-and who makes a study
-of those who flit about
-his home in summer.
-At one time he had a
-blind sparrow among his collection, and a little
-bird named Dick seemed to have adopted it.
-He waited at the door of its house for it to
-come out, calling it with tender little chirps,
-and when the blind one finally appeared he
-would lead the way to the seeds and water.</p>
-
-<p>When his friend was ready to return home
-to rest Dick would shove him gently along the
-perch until he was opposite his own door, then
-give a chirp which seemed to say: “There you
-are, jump in,” and in would spring the little
-sparrow, safe at home. Surely Dick ought to
-be elected as at least an honorary member of
-the “Helping Hand Society.” What if he
-hasn’t any hands? He succeeds in being a very
-efficient helper.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Efil Srednow.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">T</span>HERE are a few who make their life “a song,”</div>
-<div class="verse">A silvery call to urge tired souls along,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">A clear bell o’er the cope</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Of the steep mountain they have had to climb</div>
-<div class="verse">With such a patience, they have made sublime</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The soul’s forlornest hope.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And when these dear ones hidden pass adown</div>
-<div class="verse">“The other side,” beyond the mountain’s crown,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The silvery tinkling vein</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Of gladness comes aback to touch us so—</div>
-<div class="verse">New courage in our sinking heart doth grow,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">We urge us on again.</span></div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 466px;">
-<img src="images/i-140.jpg" width="466" height="625" alt="duck and ducklings" />
-<div class="caption">AN OLD QUACK.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ANGIE’S CROSS.—I.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Character Studies.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-e2.jpg" width="119" height="119" alt="E" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">EVERYBODY said Angie Conran
-had a “perfectly lovely voice,”
-extremely well cultivated for
-one so young. Her music
-teacher was in the habit of
-patting her hand in a patronizing
-way, at the close of almost every lesson,
-and saying, in broken French: “Mees Angie,
-you will make what you Americans call a mark
-in the world; remember I tell you.”</p>
-
-<p>Angie was a member of the choir, and a
-very faithful one; a member of the “Choral
-Club,” and practiced early and late to help
-make it a success. On the particular evening
-of which I wish to tell you she was seated at
-the piano, giving a last half-hour of practice to
-the anthem before she went to rehearsal. Her
-mother and I sat in the back parlor, where we
-could have the full benefit of the music. How
-the exquisite melody filled the room, and how
-distinctly was every word spoken.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“Nearer, my God, to thee,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nearer to thee,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">E’en though it be a cross</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">That raiseth me;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Still all my song shall be,</div>
-<div class="verse">Nearer, my God, to thee,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nearer to thee!”</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“That is as good as a recitation,” I said.
-“How very distinctly Angie speaks her words.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” said the proud mother; “she prides
-herself on being heard. She says she would
-never have any pleasure in singing Italian
-songs; that she would want the words as well
-as the music to be uplifting. Angie prefers
-sacred music, I think; her heart seems to echo
-the sentiment of the words. What she is practicing
-now is to be sung to-morrow morning,
-just before the sermon. Our pastor requested
-it. This is a new arrangement, with solo and
-quartette, and Angie takes the solo. If the other
-parts are as beautiful as the soprano, I think it
-will be lovely. Angie dear, isn’t it time you
-were going?”</p>
-
-<p>“In a minute, mamma; I want to try this
-minor strain first.” The sweet, tender sounds
-filled the room:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“Though like a wanderer,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Daylight all gone,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Darkness be over me,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">My rest a stone.”</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Isn’t that exquisite?” whispered the mother,
-when the last notes had died away. Then, in
-almost the same breath, “Angie dear, it is
-beginning to rain; are you prepared for rain?”</p>
-
-<p>“O, dear, how provoking! No, ma’am, I
-can’t say I am in the least prepared for it.”</p>
-
-<p>The mother arose and moved toward the
-music-room. “Why, dear child!” she said, in
-surprise, “you ought not to have that dress on
-to-night. Even if it were not a rainy evening
-it is not suitable to wear to a rehearsal.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why not, pray? ever so many people come
-to the rehearsals. I want to be as well dressed
-as I am on Sunday.”</p>
-
-<p>“My dear, that is a pretty evening dress,
-and the rain will spot it, you know. You
-would have to wear your gossamer, and that
-would crush the trimmings. Besides, it doesn’t
-look at all suitable for this evening. If you
-were going out to a social gathering you could
-not dress more than that. Do go and change
-it, dear; it won’t take you long.”</p>
-
-<p>“I assure you, mamma, it is quite out of
-the question that I should change my dress
-now. It is already late; you just said I ought
-to be going. It was quite a work of art to get
-this dress on, and I haven’t the least desire to
-change it; I am not at all afraid of it.”</p>
-
-<p>“But, my dear child, just consider how unsuitable
-it is. Those laces at the neck and
-wrists are real, you know, and as fine as cobwebs;
-you certainly could not dress more than
-that if you were going to a reception.”</p>
-
-<p>“O, mamma! how absurd. As though anybody
-would take notice of me, or care whether
-my laces were real or not. They fit the dress,
-any way, and as long as I don’t object to them
-I don’t see why anybody else should.”</p>
-
-<p>“My daughter, your mother objects to them.
-Moreover, the dress is lower in the neck than
-you have been wearing all day, and it is quite
-a cool evening; that in itself should be sufficient
-to make you change it. I really must insist
-on your putting on a more proper dress.”</p>
-
-<p>Angie’s pretty fingers came down upon the
-keys with a crash which made me start in my
-chair; then she whirled herself about on the
-music-stool. “Really, mamma,” she said, and
-the voice was so sharp it hardly seemed possible
-that it could be the same which had filled
-the room with melody, “I should think I was
-old enough to decide what dress to wear; I am almost
-fifteen, and I think I might have the privilege
-of choosing my own clothes once in a while.”</p>
-
-<p>“Do not speak in that tone, dear,” said her
-mother gently. “You shall have all the privileges
-I can give you; but we haven’t time to
-discuss it now. Run and slip on your gray
-cashmere, it is in order; I fixed that place in
-the sleeve this morning, and brushed it and got
-it all ready to put on.”</p>
-
-<p>“Mamma Conran! that old gray cashmere.
-As if I would go out in it to-night! Why, the
-Barnards come to rehearsal, and the Needhams,
-and their cousin from New York. The idea of
-rigging up in that old thing and standing out
-there to sing, the most prominent person in the
-choir. I just can’t do it! If I can’t wear the
-dress I have on I’m not going at all.”</p>
-
-<p>“My daughter, don’t be so foolish; the rehearsal
-surely doesn’t depend upon the dress
-you wear. You are wasting time; I cannot
-think of letting you go in that dress. If I had
-noticed it before I should have called your attention
-to it; but I hadn’t the least idea you
-would think of putting it on. The gray cashmere
-is entirely suitable, my dear. Your
-mother has not lost all sense of propriety, even
-though she is older than fifteen. You must
-allow yourself to be guided by her. I would
-not make a scene if I were you, and spoil the
-beauty of the music you have given us. There
-is ample time just to slip on another dress.
-Run along, and I will get out your wraps and
-have them ready for you when you come down.”</p>
-
-<p>“Mamma, I’m not going to do it. I told
-you if I had to wear that old cashmere dress
-I shouldn’t go out of the house to-night, and I
-meant it. Other girls can wear decent dresses.
-Carrie Wheeler wears a white silk to rehearsal
-often, and here I have got to rig up like an
-old woman and sing the leading part. You
-don’t know anything about it, mamma; it is so
-long since you were a girl you don’t realize
-how girls dress now. I wouldn’t hurt this dress
-and you know it. It is just too mean for anything.
-You always spoil my pleasure.”</p>
-
-<p>“Angeline!”—the mother’s gentle voice
-was growing stern at last—“I cannot allow
-you to speak to your mother in that way.
-There are the Wheeler girls coming up the
-walk now, to call for you. If you will go immediately
-and change your dress I will explain
-to them that you will be down in a few minutes.”</p>
-
-<p>A loud, angry cry from Angie, a sound like
-that from a naughty child who had lost all control
-of herself, and between the sobs she managed
-to get out: “I won’t go a single step,
-and you can tell them so; and you can tell them
-the reason, if you choose; then they will understand
-just what hard times I have.” And
-with another jarring crash of the keys the angry
-girl left the room, slamming the door after her.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 209px;">
-<img src="images/deco-line.jpg" width="209" height="16" alt="line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 317px;">
-<img src="images/i-142.jpg" width="317" height="86" alt="flower decoration" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 532px;">
-<img src="images/i-143.jpg" width="532" height="538" alt="Girl in field of long grass" />
-<div class="caption">THE SCHOOL-GIRL OF 1830.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 508px;">
-<img src="images/i-144.jpg" width="508" height="605" alt="group of seven children; some playing mouth harps" />
-<div class="caption">THE BLOSSOMVILLE BAND.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ELSIE’S PLAN.—II.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Something for Mamma.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">“I’M going to stop its raveling,”
-said Elsie serenely. “I’m going
-to overcast it, as mother
-does dress seams, and then
-line it with Margaret’s dress
-skirt; that is real strong, and
-will make it stand up beautifully.”</p>
-
-<p>Sure enough, by dint of patient, painstaking
-effort, a circle of matting measuring nearly a
-yard around was cut off, the raw edges “overcast”
-with a large needle and strong linen
-thread, then the dress skirt was ripped and
-carefully smoothed. A journey to the kitchen,
-where Mrs. Hobbs, the woman who washed and
-ironed on the same day for this fallen family,
-was at work. Elsie hinted that it would save
-her time if Irma would see to the ironing, but
-at that moment Irma was in the depths of her
-book, and seemed to be deaf. Back again with
-her ironed skirt, the yard of matting was laid
-on the floor, the cloth spread over it and neatly
-tacked at sides and ends; then the long side
-seam was sewed, amid statements from Irma
-that it could not be done, because whose arms
-could be expected to reach down such a ridiculous
-cylinder as that to sew! It was hard work.
-Twice Elsie gave up with a sigh, and once was
-on the point of going to Margaret for advice,
-but the strong desire to do the work herself
-held her, and she actually did accomplish it!
-To stand the cylinder on one end, and draw
-with white chalk a “head” for it, and then another
-a trifle larger for a cover, was comparatively
-easy. These two were lined by cutting
-out a circle of cloth three inches larger than
-the matting circle, running a strong gathering
-string around the edge, and drawing it up
-around the matting.</p>
-
-<p>“What is the use of that?” Irma demanded;
-and upon being informed that it was for strength
-and also to give something substantial to sew
-to, she said, with a little sniff, “Such a lot of
-trouble for what will only be an ugly bungle
-when you get it done.”</p>
-
-<p>“It will be a bungle that will hold the clothes
-nicely,” Elsie said merrily.</p>
-
-<p>She was so sure now of succeeding that she
-could afford to be merry.</p>
-
-<p>The small patient fingers sewed away, and
-Irma, watching, grew interested in spite of herself.
-“You are not making a true round for
-the cover,” she presently exclaimed. “The
-thing wiggles in and out so, it is hard to make
-a true circle; you ought to cut a paper pattern
-first, and work at it until you get it true, then
-cut the matting by it. Here, I’ll make a pattern
-for you; and if I were you I would wire
-the creature around the top; that would make
-it stay in place.”</p>
-
-<p>“That is an excellent idea,” Elsie said, “and
-I know just where there is a bit of wire that
-will do; I’ll run and get it.” She smothered a
-wee sigh as she went; it was a good plan to
-cut a pattern, and Irma’s eye for cutting was
-better than her own, but she had wanted to do
-this work entirely herself. The pattern was
-troublesome, but at last a fair circle was made,
-an edge of matting four inches deep sewed
-around it, the whole carefully lined, and the
-thing was done.</p>
-
-<p>“It really looks very well,” Irma said, “and
-will do to stand in the back hall. That wire
-around the top was a good scheme.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” said Elsie heartily, “it was.”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Harding gave no faint praise the next
-morning when the matting “hamper,” duly addressed
-and wrapped, stood close to her seat at
-table. She examined the workmanship most
-minutely, declared that the idea was original,
-and the completed work most useful.</p>
-
-<p>“You have no idea how much more precious
-it is to me than anything bought with money
-could possibly be,” she said, kissing again the
-rosy cheeks of her youngest daughter, while
-the others looked on, smiling. Then truthful
-Elsie bethought herself. “Irma helped me,”
-she said quickly; “she made the circle true,
-and planned the wire for the top; it would not
-have been nearly so nice without her help.”</p>
-
-<p>“I didn’t do the least thing, mother, except
-to cut a paper pattern for her, and to propose
-that some wire be sewed around the top. She
-had it nearly done before I said a word. It is
-all nonsense to say I helped. All I did was to
-give a little advice.”</p>
-
-
-<p>The older daughters laughed merrily, for
-Irma was very fond of giving advice; but Mrs.
-Harding drew Irma to her side and kissed her
-lovingly, while she said: “There spoke my
-truthful girl. She is not going to be commended
-for what she has not done.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! but, mother, she did truly help,” was
-Elsie’s eager explanation.</p>
-
-<p>“Of course she did,” declared Margaret; “I
-have seen the time when I needed a little good
-advice more than any other kind of help.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY</h2>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i2.jpg" width="118" height="118" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp; AM glad you do not get tired
-of my talking so much about
-myself, and what I have seen
-and heard. It shows how you
-have been brought up, so far;
-and if we old dogs live a great
-deal in the past you may pick up a little wisdom
-from us, after all, and be none the worse
-for what we say, if you only learn to profit by
-our experiences and avoid our mistakes.</p>
-
-<p>You want to hear more? Well, let me see,
-what shall I tell you about this time? I am
-reminded by the talk I overheard about the
-family going to the seaside, of the summer
-when I was two years old. I spent it with my
-old master at a place on the New Jersey coast.
-There did not seem to be any one with whom I
-could well stay at home; besides, my young
-master’s little girl was very anxious to have me
-go with them, so they finally agreed to it, and
-were not sorry afterwards.</p>
-
-<p>As I remember, I enjoyed the bathing as well
-as any of the party, or would have done so had
-I not been anxious all the time about little
-Lucy’s drowning. When those big waves would
-roll in, it seemed to me they meant to carry my
-little friend out of my sight forever.</p>
-
-<p>The summer proved to be one which we could
-all remember without trying. For the first few
-weeks there was nothing very unusual happened,
-and some seemed to think it was going to be
-very dull and monotonous. But it “is a long
-road that has no turn,” and a “turn” finally
-came which was exciting enough for all of us.</p>
-
-<p>The old settlers near the beach said we were
-to have a storm which would afford us a chance
-for a vacation in our bathing, and give us a
-sight of some “big seas,” for we would probably
-see the Atlantic in one of his angry moods
-before many hours.</p>
-
-<p>We felt ready for the change, and lay down
-at night thinking what a good time we would
-have the next day looking at the great waves
-roll in.</p>
-
-<p>I knew the wind was blowing pretty fresh,
-but had such a protected place that I did not
-know how the storm had arisen until towards
-morning I heard the sound of a big gun. It
-sounded again and again, and then there was a
-noise in the house, and a general turn out and
-rush for the beach. Of course I followed the
-crowd, and soon learned what was the matter.
-There was a ship in distress, and being driven
-upon the shore.</p>
-
-<p>The men were there with the life-saving apparatus,
-and soon a line was got out to the
-ship, and they were running a kind of boat
-back and forth upon it, bringing the passengers
-from the ship to the shore.</p>
-
-<p>Well, the people were all safety landed, but
-there was a splendid big dog on that ship, and
-no one had seemed to think of or to care for
-him. O, yes! he knew how to swim, but that
-was a terribly angry water, and the distance
-was great, and they said there was an ugly
-undertow. That means that water which has
-come pouring in upon the shore runs back on
-the bottom with such power sometimes as to
-carry anything with it that it can get hold of.</p>
-
-<p>Poor Hercules—that was the dog’s name—had
-seen himself left there alone, the while the
-great waves were breaking all over the ship.
-If the poor fellow had been a fool he might
-have suffered less, for he would have thrown
-himself into the water at once; but as it was
-he knew the danger. Why, we could hear his
-howl above the noise of the breakers! and some
-of the men were almost wild with anxiety to
-try to save him. I suppose none of them
-thought the poor dog would know enough to
-get into that little car which had brought the
-people to the shore; and if he had he could
-not have shut himself in. So there he was.
-His owner, having several children besides his
-wife and the nurse to look after, had entirely
-forgotten the dog.</p>
-
-<p>Hercules ran up and down the deck until
-there finally came a wave much bigger than
-any which had preceded it, and he was washed
-overboard. Of course he did then the best he
-could, and that was saying a great deal, for
-he was a powerful fellow; but those were terrible
-waves, and what could anything but a fish
-do in such a sea? We could see him now and
-then upon the crest of a wave, and then he
-would disappear. Every time we saw him he
-seemed to be nearer the shore, and we had a
-little hope that some big sea would throw him
-near enough for us to help him.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 313px;">
-<img src="images/i-147.jpg" width="313" height="409" alt="Dog resting head on chair sadly" />
-<div class="caption">HERCULES.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But the women and children must be cared
-for, so the people were soon gone, only a few
-of the boarders remaining to watch the sea,
-all believing the four-footed passenger to have
-been drowned. Looking steadily, I thought I
-caught sight of the fellow once, then again,
-and much nearer the shore. Yes, there he
-was, and a big wave landed him so near that
-his body actually rolled over on the sand, as
-the waves ran back to their home again. He
-was too weak to help himself; but I ran down,
-and before the next wave came seized him by
-the back of the neck and stopped his
-rolling; but he was too heavy for me to
-drag alone. My presence, however, seemed
-to give him courage, and he got upon his
-feet again; then came another wave and
-covered us both. This did not prove to
-be so heavy as most of them, and the men
-came to our assistance, so brave Hercules
-was saved.</p>
-
-<p>Those who had remained to see this
-part of the scene sent up a rousing shout,
-and both of us were petted at a great rate.</p>
-
-<p>I have never seen many happier moments
-in my long life than those which
-followed for a little while. I was so glad
-to see this stranger safe, and glad that
-I had been able to help save him!</p>
-
-<p>He understood it all, too, though he did
-not understand English very well. I need
-not tell you that we were together that
-summer all we could be. The man who
-owned the dog had gone off and left him,
-and my master said that Hercules belonged
-to him more than to any one else, because
-I had been the means of saving his life.</p>
-
-<p>But after a while the dog’s master came
-down there from New York to look after
-the wreck, and see if he could not find anything
-of value washed ashore which belonged to him.
-The place proved so pleasant that he sent for
-his family to come and spend a few weeks.
-They had experienced such a fright from the
-ocean the day of the wreck that at first they
-were very shy of the water, but it was not
-long before they were in with the others, enjoying
-the bathing.</p>
-
-<p>This lasted for some time, and the children
-became very careless, venturing out where they
-ought not. My new friend and his master had
-not met since the day of the storm, as they
-were bathing at another part of the beach.
-For some reason my master decided not to go
-into the water one day, and we took a stroll
-along the beach to where those people were
-bathing. We had hardly reached the place,
-and my master seated himself in a comfortable
-position to watch the bathers, when Hercules
-gave a loud bark, as much as to say “Come,”
-and bounded into the breakers. Of course I
-followed fast after him, on, on, out into the
-sea; and he had his master’s little Gretchen by
-the back of her bathing-suit and was starting
-for the shore. It was a hard struggle; it was
-all both of us could do to save her.</p>
-
-<p>The poor child was almost gone when we got
-to her, for no one had noticed her trouble and
-danger except Hercules.</p>
-
-<p>Well, there was a scene on the shore again,
-and for a time one could hardly tell which the
-father was most rejoiced over, the saving of
-his child, or the sight of the dog who had saved
-her life.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, we had a good time the rest of the summer,
-and then we had to part; for of
-course the man had his dog back again.</p>
-
-<p>How I have wished I might see the
-brave fellow once more. I think he will
-never be forsaken again.</p>
-
-<p>They went away from the coast a little
-earlier than we did. The children all bade
-me good-by, and Hercules’ master invited
-me to go with them. We had a long
-visit the night before they went, and both
-of us felt very sorry to part company;
-but some way people do not think that
-we dogs have much heart, or ever mourn
-for absent friends. There, excuse that
-tear, but it always makes me feel badly to talk
-of Hercules, and that delightful summer by
-the sea.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-R.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2><small>FLY-LEAF WISDOM FOUND IN AN
-OLD BOOK.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">R</span>EAD slowly, pause frequently,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Think seriously,</span></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Keep cleanly, return daily,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">With the corners of the leaves</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not turned down.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ABOUT CHICAGO.<br />
-
-<small>BY THE PANSIES.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp; THINK it is great fun to go to
-Chicago on a visit, and then
-come back and hear about it
-as it used to be. My grandfather
-went there in 1833. He
-was just a boy, but he remembers
-lots of queer things. He went to church
-in a kind of a barn; the front part was the
-church, and there was a curtain in the middle,
-and behind it the minister lived—slept, you
-know, and ate, and everything. Think of that
-for Chicago! There was a school kept in a
-little room on Water Street; the woman who
-taught it had twenty scholars. The mail was
-brought once a week by a man on horseback,
-and the postmaster had a row of old boots
-nailed up on the wall for mail boxes. Grandfather
-says the place had begun to grow real
-fast when he went there, and as many as two
-hundred frame houses were built within a short
-time. He was there when they voted to make
-it a regular town, with officers and laws. One
-law was that pigs must not run in the streets,
-and that people must not cut holes in their outside
-walls and poke stove-pipe through them.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Robert Chappell.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 305px;">
-<img src="images/i-148.jpg" width="305" height="183" alt="farm scene" />
-<div class="caption">CHICAGO IN 1820.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> word “Chicago” used to be spelled
-“Chicagoux.” Some people think it was
-named for the “Cheagomeinan River,” which
-is the Indian name for the Chicago River. The
-Indians called the Mississippi River “Chacaqua,”
-which means “divine river,” and I think
-they worked the name Chicago out of all these
-notions. My uncle says the name of the French
-fort in 1688 was Fort Checagou. I like to
-study about names, and find what they mean,
-and how many changes they have had before
-we got hold of them. I have never been to
-Chicago, but I expect to attend the Columbian
-Exposition. If you will wait until after that I
-will tell you something about the city. It is
-larger than it used to be.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Thomas L. Wood, Jr.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> father knows about a man who bought a
-lot in Chicago in the year 1832 for one hundred
-dollars, and sold it again about three years
-afterwards for fifteen thousand dollars! I
-think that tells a boy better than anything else
-could, how fast the town grew for a while. Of
-course it was a nice choice lot, in what suddenly
-became the business part of the town. I know
-I should like to have been its first owner.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Robert Townsend.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I read</span> about how Chicago came to be called
-the “Garden City.” It grew out of hard times.
-They had what is called a business panic, when
-everybody owed everybody else, and could not
-pay them, and business was awfully dull, and
-people thought the town was going to ruin.
-The most people had to do was to take care of
-their grounds. They whitewashed the fences,
-cleaned up the yards, planted fruits and vines,
-and did everything they could think of to make
-their places look pretty. I suppose they hoped
-somebody would come along and buy them.
-And that is the way they got the name of
-“Garden City.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Alice Peterson.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> people who lived in Chicago about the
-year 1843 certainly could not have had so high
-an opinion of the city as people do who live
-there now. A Mr. Miltimore built a schoolhouse
-on Madison Street which was called
-“Miltimore’s Folly,” because people did not
-believe that there would ever be children enough
-in the town to fill so large a building. The
-mayor of the city urged the Council to have it
-turned into an insane asylum, or sold, and the
-money from it used to build and care for a
-smaller building, suited to the present and
-future needs of the city! I don’t think he
-could have been a very bright man, because in
-less than four years from that time the building
-was not only crowded with scholars, but three
-others had to be opened in different parts of
-the city.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Roger Shermann.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Chicago</span> is a great place for manufactories.
-It seems to me as though almost everything was
-made there. I know they make brooms, and
-bricks, and boilers, and hats and caps, and
-saws, and scales, and nails, and paint, and
-gloves, and carpets, and I am sure I don’t
-know what else; I guess they make everything.
-Once I went to the car-wheel factory where
-they make three hundred wheels every day. It
-was great fun to see the men work. I like to
-see things made, and that is what I am going
-to do when I am a man.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Robbie Wilson.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>[We are almost certain Robbie means that when he is a man
-he is going to help make things; not merely stand still and see
-them made. Good for Robbie! What would become of us if
-all the people who are hard at work making things should
-grow tired of their work, and conclude to—write books, for
-instance, instead?—<span class="smcap">Editors.</span>]</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> are reading in school about the Chicago
-fire, which was in 1871. I think it is perfectly
-dreadful to read about it. Just think! it all
-came from a woman milking after dark, when
-she ought to have done it before, I suppose;
-or maybe her little boy ought to have done it
-for her, and did not come home in time—well,
-the cow kicked her lamp over and set the hay
-in the barn on fire, and all that awful ruin
-came!</p>
-
-<p>I think that woman must have felt dreadfully.
-As for the cow, I don’t suppose she
-cared a bit.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Laura Jones.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I know</span> a man who was in Chicago at the
-time of the fire, and he paid fifteen dollars for
-a hack to drive him half a mile! He says a
-hundred thousand people were made homeless
-that night. Folks ran through the streets as
-if they were crazy. Everybody was trying to
-carry something of theirs to a safe place. One
-woman tried to save her sewing-machine; she
-dragged it through the streets a long distance.
-One man walked along quietly, carrying an ice-pitcher.
-He said it was all he had left in the
-world.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
-<img src="images/i-150.jpg" width="600" height="756" alt="PALMER HOUSE; STATE ST. LOOKING So.; COURT-HOUSE &amp; CITY HAL; CUSTOM HOUSE &amp; POST-OFFICE; CHICAGO RIVER; NO. SIDE WATER WORKS" />
-<div class="caption">PICTORIAL CHICAGO.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The poor man had been made crazy by his
-losses, and did not know what he was about.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Thomas Jones.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> lived in Terre Haute, Ind., at the time
-of the great Chicago fire—at least my folks
-did—and my father says that on Monday, the
-ninth, while the fire was still burning, a train
-loaded full of provisions went out of Terre
-Haute for them. I think that was nice. There
-is a boy in school who says that his folks, who
-lived in Pittsburg, raised a hundred thousand
-dollars before Wednesday night, and sent it to
-the Chicago sufferers, and another fellow said
-that was nothing; that his uncle in Louisville
-raised most a hundred thousand within ten
-hours after the fire began! He talked as
-though his uncle did it all, but I suppose some
-others helped.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Willard J. Mooney.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I think</span> the great big splendid temperance
-temple is the grandest building in Chicago, and
-I helped build it. I gave two dollars and seventeen
-cents that I earned myself, for it. In 1893
-I am going to see it, and some other things. I
-think you ought to have waited until after the
-Columbian Exposition for letters about Chicago.
-Then we could have told lots of things.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mary Clarkson.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I went</span> to Chicago with my grown-up sisters
-when the Y. P. S. C. E. had its big meeting
-there. We stopped at the Sherman House.
-That is one of the nicest hotels in the city. At
-seven o’clock Sunday morning we had a prayer
-meeting in the billiard-room; more than a hundred
-young ladies and gentlemen spoke at that
-meeting in less than a half-hour, and the singing
-was lovely. The big meetings were held
-in Battery D. Ever so many thousand people
-were there all the time. Some of the speeches
-were splendid. Chicago is very large. My
-cousin and I took a ride on a street car as far
-as it went, then got out and took another line
-and went as far as its route, just to see the
-city. They have very tall buildings. I went
-to the Herald office; that is the handsomest
-newspaper building in the world, I guess.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Lucy J. Hartmann.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Once</span> I went to the church where Mr. Moody
-used to preach. I heard the Rev. Charles Goss;
-he is young. I liked him. I went to a splendid
-store, but I don’t remember where it was. There
-was a newsboys’ dinner given while we were
-there, and I went to look at the boys eating
-their cake and cream. There were hundreds
-of them, and they ate fast and seemed to
-like it.</p>
-
-<p>A great many benevolent things like that
-are done in Chicago, but I think they need a
-temperance temple; I saw lots of drunken men,
-and one drunken woman.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Alice Peters.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>[We have still more, about incidents which happened in
-Chicago rather than about the city itself, but we have already
-crowded our space. If the Pansies could be induced to get
-their letters in earlier they would stand a better chance of being
-selected from.—<span class="smcap">Editors.</span>]</p></div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<h2>THINGS WHICH SOME PEOPLE
-REGRET.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">HOW many of the Pansies have heard the
-“silver-tongued orator” lecture on his
-special theme, Temperance? All of you who
-have will be sure to hear him again at the first
-opportunity. Those of you who have not, let
-me urge to keep on the watch for a chance.
-Meantime, listen to his hint, which ought to
-help every boy who reads it to be a better
-educated man.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“I regret that the many hours of youth I gave to idle pleasures
-were not used in storing my mind with useful knowledge.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours truly,</span><br />
-<span class="smcap">George W. Bain</span>.<br />
-</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE LAPPS.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-f.jpg" width="117" height="118" alt="F" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">FRANCE is “sunny.” It loves
-shade-trees, fans and fountains.
-Laplanders must need
-have furs and fire and fat
-food. Of course you know
-why. Those Lapp faces would
-look equally well as Mr. William’s, if they were
-to exchange dresses, putting a Lapp where the
-Emperor now sits so loftily. Give the Lapp
-the very same chance, and maybe he would
-make just as wise a ruler of Prussia. People
-are not so unlike, after all. When God would
-raise up the greatest Prophet that ever appeared
-on the earth, he found him in the despised
-Nazareth. Maybe he is nursing a little child
-of one of these Lapps who will one day be as
-great as young Master Wilhelm of Prussia.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 270px;">
-<img src="images/i-152.jpg" width="270" height="362" alt="three people in Lapp dress" />
-<div class="caption">INTERESTING FACES.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Although</span> the printing presses at Beirut are
-working night and day they cannot supply the
-demand for the Arabic Bible.</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>EDMUND SPENSER.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>English Literature Papers.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-j.jpg" width="122" height="119" alt="J" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">JUST three hundred years ago,
-and just one hundred years
-after Columbus discovered
-America and planted his flag
-on San Salvador, there stood
-in the middle of a wide, boggy
-Irish plain a building better than most of those
-anywhere near it, called Kilcolman Castle. It
-was a time when the English Government was
-having a hard time to keep the Irish under their
-control, and we shall see after a while how the
-poor people of the castle suffered on account of
-this fact. But there lived at Kilcolman, in
-those days from 1586 to 1598, one of the most
-celebrated of the poets about whom we shall
-talk in our English Literature Papers. It was
-Edmund Spenser, and the old picture of him
-that has come down to us shows him to be a
-kind, gentle looking man, with a long thin nose
-and a high forehead, dressed in a black robe,
-and with a great lace collar coming up above
-his ears, which must have been very uncomfortable
-in warm weather.</p>
-
-<p>Spenser was born in a part of London called
-East Smithfield, right under the shadow of the
-great Tower; and it is a very disagreeable fact
-to one who is trying to write about him, that
-we know almost nothing about the little events
-of his life, and especially of his boyhood.
-Three hundred years ago, you know, people
-did not take notes of themselves so much as
-we do nowadays, or as they did even in the last
-century; or if they did they have not been kept
-for us. Just a few people have told us anything
-about Edmund Spenser, and the probability
-is that even his picture is not any better
-than many of those which we see nowadays in
-the newspapers.</p>
-
-<p>One of the few things which we find about
-him was that he entered one of the colleges at
-Cambridge when he was seventeen, as what
-was then called a “sizar.” These sizars were
-the poorer students, who had to work for their
-living in a much more disagreeable way than
-any students do now, by waiting on the older
-and richer ones at their meals and elsewhere,
-and were paid by their tuition in the college
-and the fragments of food which their employers
-left for them. I suppose if the student
-on whom Edmund Spenser waited could
-come back to earth for a little while he would
-be considerably surprised and perplexed to find
-that the only reason why
-the world would like to
-know more about him would
-be on account of the little
-sizar whom he used to have
-at Cambridge!</p>
-
-<p>When he had left college,
-in which we find that
-he was a very good scholar,
-Spenser taught for a while
-in the northern part of England,
-and began to write
-the first poetry which made
-him at all famous; it was
-a long poem in twelve parts,
-about the twelve months of
-the year, and he called
-it at first “The Poet’s
-Year,” and afterward the
-name by which we know it,
-“The Shepherd’s Calendar.”
-It was a very pretty
-poem, and described the
-scenery and the country
-life of England in a way
-that made all good Englishmen
-like the author. So
-Spenser fell in with some
-good friends, and was introduced
-to Queen Elizabeth.
-It is a curious thing
-that in those days the best
-writers did not depend for their payment upon
-the number of books which were sold, or what
-their publishers paid them; but it was the custom
-of the king or queen, whenever an especially
-good writer appeared, to support him
-at the royal court or elsewhere, in return for
-which the writer served his sovereign in any
-way he could, especially by paying him any
-number of compliments in his writings. It
-is as though whenever a promising young author
-should appear in New York or Boston, he
-should find a Congressman who would introduce
-him to the President at Washington; and if he
-found that he was likely to be a pleasing writer
-and a convenient friend to have near him, he
-should invite him to stay in the city, and
-should see that he had all the money he needed.</p>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 397px;">
-<img src="images/i-153.jpg" width="397" height="504" alt="portrait of Spenser" />
-<div class="caption">THE AUTHOR OF THE FAERY QUEENE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But we shall be sorry to find that although
-Queen Elizabeth received Spenser very pleasantly,
-and although he paid her any number of
-pretty compliments in his after life, she never
-did very much for him. The first piece of good
-fortune which seemed to come to him was when
-he was appointed secretary to Lord Grey de
-Wilton, who was the Governor of Ireland.
-After that he was also given Kilcolman Castle,
-which we spoke of at the beginning, where he
-spent so many years. We shall see that he did
-a good deal of writing while there, and also
-acted as the agent of the English Government,
-in looking after whatever matters needed his
-attention. It was this that probably made the
-Irishmen dislike him, rather than any one thing
-which he did, for when he had been there twelve
-years there was a rebellion among them, and
-they burned the castle and forced the poet to
-run away to England. The saddest thing about
-it was that his baby was burned at the same
-time, and they tell us that the lonely father
-never recovered from his sorrow over this event.
-At any rate he died the next year in London,
-in a small lodging-house, and probably with
-very little money left. It was with him as
-with so many, many others, both in those days
-and now: the people did not begin to think
-enough of him until he was dead, and then
-they gave him a magnificent funeral, and buried
-him in Westminster Abbey, where the graves of
-all the greatest Englishmen are.</p>
-
-<p>We know nothing but what is good about
-Edmund Spenser; he seems to have been a
-kind man, loving everything true and beautiful,
-and when we have a chance to read his writings
-we shall feel certain that this is so. Besides
-the “Shepherd’s Calendar” he wrote a book in
-prose about Ireland while he was there, and it
-was also at Kilcolman Castle that his great
-poem, “The Faery Queene,” or as we should
-say “The Fairy Queen,” was written. This is
-a long, long poem, and was planned to be
-written in twelve parts, but it is probable that
-only six of them were ever finished. At any
-rate that is all which has come down to us;
-and some one has said that in this work “the
-half is better than the whole,” meaning that
-although Spenser wrote six very nice books, he
-could scarcely have written six more anywhere
-nearly so good.</p>
-
-<p>The “Fairy Queen” is what people call an
-allegory; those of us who have read “The
-Pilgrim’s Progress” have probably found out
-what is meant by that. In allegories the story
-seems to be about real people, but all the time
-the people stand for good or bad qualities, or
-something of that sort—like Christian and Mr.
-Greatheart, or the Fairy Queen and the Red
-Cross Knight. If we look in Webster’s Dictionary
-under “allegory,” we shall find that
-the “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “The Faery
-Queene” are spoken of as the most celebrated
-examples.</p>
-
-<p>I am sorry to say that we shall find the
-“Faery Queene” rather hard reading; not because
-the story is not interesting, but because
-there were so many good English words in those
-days that we have forgotten all about now.
-Then the spelling, as we have already guessed
-from the name of the poem, seems more like
-one of our <span class="smcap">Pansy</span> “Queer Stories” than anything
-else. We will try to read just one very
-pretty verse, at the beginning of the second
-Canto, which describes the sunrise. Spenser
-put quaint little rhymed headings at the top of
-his cantos; the one here is—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“The guilefull great Enchaunter parts</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The Redcrosse Knight from Truth:</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Into whose stead faire Falshood steps,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And workes him woefull ruth.”</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>In reading the description of the sunrise we
-shall want to remember that there was an old
-story that the sun was a golden wagon driven
-up the sky by the god Phœbus, and also that
-“chanticleer,” or “chaunticlere,” was the old-fashioned
-word for rooster. Here is the verse,
-and we will bid Spenser good-by with it:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“By this the northerne wagoner had set</div>
-<div class="verse">His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre</div>
-<div class="verse">That was in ocean waves yet never wet,</div>
-<div class="verse">But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre</div>
-<div class="verse">To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre:</div>
-<div class="verse">And chearefull Chaunticlere with his note shrill</div>
-<div class="verse">Had warned once that Phœbus’ fiery carre</div>
-<div class="verse">In hast was climbing up the easterne hill,</div>
-<div class="verse">Full envious that night so long his roome did fill.”</div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Abbott.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">An</span> Englishman visiting Sweden and noticing
-their care for children, who were gathered up
-from the streets and highways and placed in
-school, inquired if it was not costly. “Yes,”
-was the answer, “it is costly, but not dear.
-We are not rich enough to allow a child to
-grow up in ignorance, misery and crime, to become
-a scourge to society as well as a disgrace
-to himself.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A COMING RULER.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THE little fellow at the left of
-the man on a big dark horse,
-is the one for you to study.
-He looks like a prince already.
-He certainly rides like a soldier.</p>
-
-<p>What is the color of his
-eyes, the shape of his nose, or the kind of
-clothes on his back, and many more such things
-you would like to know. Perhaps you will
-know these and many more things about him
-when you see him in Boston, New York, San
-Francisco or at the Chicago World’s Fair.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 540px;">
-<img src="images/i-155.jpg" width="540" height="394" alt="Riders next to people in carraige" />
-<div class="caption">A STATELY RIDER.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Will he be there?”</p>
-
-<p>As likely as not.</p>
-
-<p>“But who is he?”</p>
-
-<p>Ah! now you ask something. He is Master
-Friedrich Wilhelm, the Crown Prince of Germany.
-If he live long enough, he will do
-something more than hold the reins of that
-pretty, proud white pony; he will hold the reins
-of Prussia, one of the most powerful nations of
-Europe.</p>
-
-<p>His grandfather, Emperor William, died a
-few years ago, at a great age, greatly beloved
-by all Germans, and respected by other nations.</p>
-
-<p>That man, sitting in the carriage, dressed
-like a soldier, with folded arms and a stern look
-on his face, is the present Emperor William.</p>
-
-<p>There is the mother, the Empress, with the
-other children. Their faces are all turned
-toward you, so you can get a good look at
-them. But you need not expect to see so
-many princes and princesses at Chicago.</p>
-
-<p>It is the fashion nowadays for kings, rulers
-and coming rulers to visit other lands. Which
-of our presidents went around the world?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is said that the native Christians in Japan,
-with less than one shilling a day as an average
-for wages, contributed last year twenty-five
-thousand dollars to mission work.</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 443px;">
-<img src="images/i-156.jpg" width="443" height="605" alt="birds around nest" />
-<div class="caption">JUST MOVED IN.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 582px;">
-<img src="images/i-157a.jpg" width="582" height="126" alt="knife clock fruit haystack cup" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>ROSY POSY.</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">AT last July came, and Rose went to grandpapa’s to stay a week.</p>
-<div class="figright" style="width: 125px;">
-<img src="images/i-157b.jpg" width="125" height="100" alt="peas on vine" />
-</div>
-
-<p>She loved to go to the farm, because grandmamma let her work.</p>
-
-<p>Rose could shell peas and sweep the floor with a pretty
-little broom. She took up the dust on a bright new
-dust-pan.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 86px;">
-<img src="images/i-157c.jpg" width="86" height="60" alt="tea kettle" />
-</div>
-
-<p>The first day she went out in the field with grandpapa and raked hay.</p>
-
-<p>Then she took a little watering-pot and wet the flowers.</p>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 104px;">
-<img src="images/i-157d.jpg" width="104" height="84" alt="drop leaf table" />
-</div>
-<p>By and by Grandmamma put the kettle on to boil.</p>
-
-<p>“Now we will get supper,” she said.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 108px;">
-<img src="images/i-157e.jpg" width="108" height="71" alt="candle and match-safe" />
-</div>
-
-<p>She spread a white cloth on the table, and Rose put on
-the cups and plates and spoons and knives and forks.</p>
-
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 108px;">
-<img src="images/i-157f.jpg" width="108" height="107" alt="bed" />
-</div>
-<p>They had apples and cream for supper.</p>
-
-<p>When the clock struck eight Grandmamma lighted a
-candle and went upstairs with Rose
-to put her to bed.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 118px;">
-<img src="images/i-157g.jpg" width="118" height="73" alt="mouse" />
-</div>
-
-
-<p>Grandpapa said, “Good-night, dear Rosy Posy.”</p>
-
-<p>Rose lay still as a mouse, and soon she was fast asleep.</p>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 55px;">
-<img src="images/i-157h.jpg" width="55" height="134" alt="parrot" />
-</div>
-<p>In the morning when Rose opened her eyes the
-sun was shining in at the window. There
-was a big fly buzzing about trying to warm
-himself in the sunlight. Rose liked to watch him.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>And then a funny voice cried out: “Get up, Rosy Posy.”</p>
-
-<p>It was Poll. Grandpapa had taught her to say it.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 577px;">
-<img src="images/i-157i.jpg" width="577" height="123" alt="broom; fly; plant in planter; watering can; dust pan" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE HARD TEXT.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Matt.</i> xiv. 1-10.)</small></h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">HEROD seemed to think one must keep a
-promise, no matter what it is, so he put
-good, honest John the Baptist to death! One
-reason he gave was because of what his guests
-would say. But how did he know but they
-would say it was right for him to break such a
-bad promise? But why did he not think:
-“What will people all the coming years say to
-this wicked deed? What will the angels say?
-What will the holy mighty God say?”</p>
-
-<p>“But shouldn’t one keep his promises?”</p>
-
-<p>You see Herod should not in this case. Suppose
-the girl had said: “Give me your crown,”
-or “Let me cut your head or tongue off,” how
-then about Mr. Herod’s keeping his promise?
-Guess he would have found a way—not to
-keep his oath.</p>
-
-<p>No, it is never right to keep a wrong promise.
-That would be doing two wrong things instead
-of one. Herod had no business to take such
-an oath. How could he know what this artful
-dancer might ask? No one may make a promise
-about which one cannot know.</p>
-
-<p>Don’t ever do such a thing.</p>
-
-<p>“If you have done it?” Break it. Break
-it, and repent over your rashness. Beware of
-the state of your mind when you make a pledge.
-See that you know what you are about.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps Herod would never have taken such
-an awful oath had he not been intoxicated with
-wine and this dancing girl. “When wine is in
-wit is out.” Many a person has lost his reason
-and committed some great crime by being in
-such society. Wine and dancing never helped
-any one heavenward.</p>
-
-<p>Take care!</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Many</span> blessings will occur to him who is in
-search of them. Let us dwell lovingly and
-gratefully upon these; let us weigh and consider
-how to make the most of them, by neglecting
-no opportunity and shutting out nothing
-from our life that can brighten and invigorate
-it.</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ANGIE’S CROSS.—II.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Character Studies.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp; WAS sorry for the mother.
-I heard her gentle, troubled
-voice in the hall, trying to
-make explanations. “Not going!”
-was the startled response
-of the girls; “what is the matter?
-O, dear me! what shall we do without
-her? Celia Lewis might sing the part if she
-had only known; but she thought she wouldn’t
-be needed, and she isn’t feeling very well,
-so she didn’t come out. Dear Mrs. Conran,
-cannot you coax Angie to come? I am
-afraid we shall have to give up the anthem altogether
-if you don’t. Harold says he cannot
-sing it without having one rehearsal.”</p>
-
-<p>“I am very sorry,” said gentle Mrs. Conran,
-“but I am afraid it is quite out of the question,
-Angie is so sure she cannot go to-night. Perhaps
-you can arrange a rehearsal early in the
-morning?”</p>
-
-<p>“No, ma’am, we can’t do that, because
-the Bible classes occupy the room, you know,
-until the last minute. O, dear! how I wish
-we had known it before. I don’t know what
-we shall do. Is Angie feeling very ill, Mrs.
-Conran?”</p>
-
-<p>“N-o,” said the mother hesitatingly, and I
-knew that her face flushed to her temples; “she
-isn’t sick, but she is very much—out of sorts.
-I regret it exceedingly, but you know how
-Angie is. When she once settles in her own
-mind that she can’t do a thing it doesn’t seem
-possible for her to get the consent of her will
-to do it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” they said, turning away, “it seems
-too bad, when Dr. Brand asked for that particular
-anthem, and Angie is the only one who
-has sung it; but I suppose we shall manage
-some way. Good-evening.”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Conran closed the door after them and
-came slowly back to the parlor, I, meantime,
-wishing there had been some excuse for me to
-slip away, so that she need not have the embarrassment
-of meeting me. There was a
-weary attempt at a smile on her face, which
-had grown pale again, and she said apologetically:</p>
-
-<p>“Poor Angie! she is the victim of her own
-strong will. I sometimes feel very sorry that
-she matured in some things so early; she
-has an idea that her mother does not know what
-is suitable for young people to wear, and is
-growing a little too fond of dress, I am afraid.
-She has been put forward so much in her music
-that it has injured her. It seems strange that
-a sweet voice should lead one into temptation,
-doesn’t it?”</p>
-
-<p>I murmured something about girls being
-fond of their own way and about their having
-to learn by experience, the more to give the
-mother a chance to recover herself than because
-I felt that I had anything worth saying.
-I do not think she heard all I said, but
-the words “learn by experience” caught her
-attention.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” she said, after a moment, speaking
-with a long-drawn sigh, “that is it. Poor
-child! she must learn by experience, and experience
-is a bitter teacher sometimes. Often,
-when I hear her sweet voice roll out on those
-solemn words:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“‘Nearer, my God, to thee,</div>
-<div class="spaced">....</div>
-<div class="verse">E’en though it be a cross</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">That leadeth me,’</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="unindent">I wonder what the ‘cross’ will be that will lead
-Angie to think less of her own will and more
-of Christ. She is so strong-willed, so passionate,
-and has such a way of giving vent to the
-thoughts that come into her mind at the moment,
-without stopping to realize how they will
-sound.</p>
-
-<p>“In some way the child must be taught. It
-seems to me I have tried hard to teach her, but
-I have failed. I do not often speak in this
-way of her,” she added, with a sad smile; “I
-do not like to talk about her faults before any
-one, but to-night you heard all the talk, and I
-want you to understand that her words do not
-mean all they seem to. She would be startled
-and frightened at herself if she could have them
-photographed in some way and spread out before
-her.</p>
-
-<p>“But every exhibition of this kind only proves
-to me more clearly that she is in need of a
-solemn lesson, and I do not know how it is
-coming.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“‘Though like a wanderer,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Daylight all gone,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Darkness be over me,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">My rest a stone.’</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“It makes my heart ache sometimes to
-hear her sing those words, because I cannot
-help wondering if she must have the ‘darkness’
-and the ‘stone’ to bring her to the true
-Light.”</p>
-
-<p>I did not know what to say to the pale mother,
-so I said nothing; but as I thought of her unnatural
-pallor, in sharp contrast with the two
-burning spots on her wasted cheeks, and remembered
-how constantly that little cough annoyed
-her, I felt sorry for Angie. I thought I
-could see the way in which the “cross” must
-come.</p>
-
-<p>I could feel how much heavier she was making
-it for herself; because some day, perhaps
-soon, her memory would recall with bitter tears
-the harsh, cruel words she had spoken to her
-mother, absorbed as she was in the eager
-desire to have her own way. If she would only
-consent to be led “nearer” by a pleasanter
-path!</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>THINGS WHICH SOME PEOPLE
-REGRET.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">NOW we have something unique. Read the
-“Regrets” over carefully, and you will
-discover that we have had nothing like this.
-You recognize the writer, I presume, as an
-author who has interested a great many people.
-Let us hope that he will never have occasion to
-regret the regret which he has so kindly given
-us.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“I have regrets for the past, of course; but I have rarely
-expressed regrets without afterward regretting that I had
-expressed them.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours truly,</span><br />
-<span class="smcap">George W. Cable</span>.<br />
-</p></div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 552px;">
-<img src="images/i-160.jpg" width="552" height="660" alt="little gir fallen over with dog beiside her with bar of soap in his mouth" />
-<div class="caption">WHO’S AFRAID?</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE FIRST FLAG.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-w.jpg" width="119" height="120" alt="W" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">WOULD the Pansies like to see
-a picture of the first United
-States flag which ever floated
-from a vessel? Count the
-stars. Why do you suppose
-there are only twelve, when
-everybody knows that thirteen was the original
-number? The explanation is said to be that at
-the time this particular flag was made—that is
-in 1779—the Legislature of Maryland had not
-yet formally joined the Union, so her star was
-omitted.</p>
-
-<p>The flag was made by some Philadelphia
-ladies, and presented to Captain
-Jones. For a time it sailed proudly
-up and down the Schuylkill, fresh
-and beautiful. Then it went to
-war, and was shot and fell into the
-sea. A young lieutenant, Stafford
-by name, jumped overboard to save
-the flag. When it fell the British
-thought the Yankees had “struck
-their colors,” but in a little time it
-waved aloft again, trimmed with
-bullet holes. You must read in our
-United States history about the
-great victory which Captain Jones
-and his brave vessel, the <i>Bonhomme
-Richard</i>, gained at that time.</p>
-
-<p>When the war was over the flag
-was sent to Lieutenant Stafford as
-a memento of his faithfulness and
-bravery. It has been kept in the Stafford family
-ever since, although they have been urged many
-times to sell it, and as many as three thousand
-dollars have been offered for it.</p>
-
-<p>When the lieutenant’s daughter Sarah died
-the old flag was draped about her coffin.
-When President Harrison was inaugurated it
-came to Washington, and was carried by one
-of the Stafford family in the procession.</p>
-
-<p>We show you, also, the picture of Mrs. James
-Bayard Stafford, the wife of the lieutenant.
-She was over eighty years old when this picture
-was taken, but the face shows a sweet brave
-woman, strong for the right and the true, which
-was the character she bore. I do not know
-whether she is still living, but a few years ago
-she was the light of the home in Cottage City,
-Mass., and guarded the old historic flag as a
-sacred relic.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p>AN Indian arrow is quite a work of art.
-The head, or point, is made from a barrel
-hoop about three inches long, tapered to a
-point, and sharpened on both sides. In a bunch
-of arrows these points are absolutely uniform.
-The shaft is made of ash about twenty-three
-inches long. The feathers are glued on and
-lashed at each end with sinew. The head or
-point is inserted in the wood, and also lashed
-with sinew. And running along the arrow are three
-wave-like grooves from the head to the
-feathers. This, the Indians explain, is to make
-the arrow go straight. The bow is also made
-of ash, and with a string of twisted sinew taken
-from along the back of a beef. So that with an
-ordinary butcher knife and a file, if it is to be
-had, an Indian can make his own arms.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 352px;">
-<img src="images/i-161.jpg" width="352" height="274" alt="flag flying left 12 stars; 13 stripes" />
-<div class="caption"><p>PAUL JONES’S “STARRY FLAG.”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The penetrating force of an arrow is wonderful.
-An Indian can shoot an arrow right
-through a buffalo. I have heard it stated that
-bows and arrows would be much more effective
-weapons in the hands of Indians than such
-guns as they surrendered to General Miles.—<i>Selected.</i></p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 479px;">
-<img src="images/i-162.jpg" width="479" height="605" alt="large heron looking down at baby on the ground" />
-<div class="caption">AN UNWELCOME BILL.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ABOUT BUFFALO.<br />
-
-<small>BY THE PANSIES.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp; HAVE been waiting for the
-time to come to write about
-Buffalo, because I knew something
-queer to write. Three
-of the nice streets there are
-named Niagara St., Erie St.,
-and Church St.; but their names used to be
-Schimmelpennick Avenue, Vollenhoven Avenue
-and Stadnitski Avenue! Isn’t it a good thing
-they were changed?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Margaret L. Johnson.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Indian name for Buffalo is Teosahway.
-I think it is much prettier than Buffalo. Some
-people say the city was named for an old Indian
-chief who lived in a hut in the center of where
-the main business part is now located; the Indian’s
-name was Buffaloe. But others think it
-was named after the “creek,” where the buffaloes
-used to come in droves.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Henry Rice.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> city of Buffalo used to be spelled with
-an <i>e</i>, and the citizens had a great time getting
-rid of that final <i>e</i>. Father says that years
-after it had been dropped the city of Binghamton,
-N. Y., which used to be spelled
-“Binghampton,” set to work to get rid of
-that unnecessary <i>p</i>. Buffalo, forgetting the
-trouble it had had, was the last to remember
-the change; long after others were pretty well
-educated, the Buffalo postmaster would send
-the Binghamton mail in a package marked
-“Bingham<i>p</i>ton.” At last the Binghamton
-postmaster made up a package for Buffalo and
-addressed it in very large letters, “Buffalop,”
-then wrote underneath: “If you are so fond
-of the letter <i>p</i> take it.” Father says he believes
-this cured them.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Sarah H. Atchison.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> grandmother used to live in Buffalo when
-the water supply was very different from what
-it is now. There used to be an old man whom
-they called “Water John.” He had a cart and
-an old horse, and he used to fill a hogshead with
-water at the lake, and go through the streets
-peddling it for a shilling a barrel. A shilling
-was twelve and a half cents. Grandmother
-says they always used to have to give Water
-John thirteen cents; and I don’t see why they
-did not call it thirteen cents a barrel, instead
-of a price which nobody could exactly pay.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Laura Holman.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I had</span> a great-uncle who used to live in Buffalo
-when there were only about forty houses there,
-all built of logs; and I have an uncle living in
-Buffalo now who went there in 1825, when there
-were about two thousand inhabitants, and has
-seen it grow to its present size—about two
-hundred and fifty thousand; some say more
-than that. It must be a great thing to be able
-to look back on such changes.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">James Campbell.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> grandmother went to Buffalo when she
-was a little girl and took a ride on the “Black
-Rock Railroad”; that was what they called it,
-but it was just a street car. Grandmother
-thinks it was the first horse railroad used in
-this country. There was a car for pleasant
-weather and one for storms. The pleasant
-weather one was like a great box, with an outside
-seat for the driver. The seats were just
-boards with straight backs. There was no
-cover, and the sun could pelt down on you as
-much as it pleased. For bad weather they had
-one with a top, and canvas curtains that buttoned
-down. The car was drawn by one horse,
-and Grandmother says they did not use any
-time table, but came along just whenever it
-happened. The fare was a shilling.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Lucy Stevenson.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is great fun to read about Buffalo as it
-used to be. I was there last summer and
-stopped at an elegant hotel. I forget its name,
-but I know they said it was the handsomest in
-the city, and it was just splendid, I tell you!
-A little while after I came home I read about
-“The Farmers’ Hotel,” which was the grand
-hotel of Buffalo in 1832. I saw a picture of
-it; the queerest looking little old building you
-ever saw, with a bell on the top like a great
-cow bell; it was rung by a rope, and that is
-the way people used to be called to their meals.
-The book I was reading said it was a very useful
-bell, for it not only told when breakfast or
-dinner was ready at the Farmers’ Hotel, but
-was useful as a time-keeper in every house in
-the neighborhood; for there were very few people
-indeed in those days who carried watches,
-and clocks were very rare and costly.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Reuben S. Benton.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I have</span> a letter which was written to my
-grandmother in 1836, by a lady who lived in
-Buffalo. Grandmother lived in New York, and
-the amount of postage which it took to carry
-the letter from Buffalo to New York was two
-shillings. This was marked in red ink on the
-outside of the letter; not on an envelope, for
-none were used, but one side of the paper was
-left blank, and the letter was folded in a curious
-way, and marked “Paid 2 s.” Grandmother
-said her sister in Albany used to get
-letters from the same lady, and hers were
-marked: “Paid 18¾.” At that time it cost
-less to write from Buffalo to Albany than it
-did from Buffalo to New York; and I must say
-that seems reasonable. Why should letters be
-two cents now, whether they travel ten miles
-or a thousand? But I am glad they are not
-twenty-five cents.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Carrie Foster.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Buffalo</span> is a great city. You can start from
-it and go anywhere you want to, at most any
-hour of the day or night. There are as many
-as thirteen different railroad lines to choose
-from, to say nothing of steamboats and all that
-sort of thing. But it is the queerest laid out
-city in this country. A man Ellicott planned
-it almost a century ago, and meant to build a
-palace for himself right in the center, but he
-never did.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">John Jones.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Mother</span> says I ought to be able to write you
-a letter about Buffalo, because I’ve been there
-lots of times. But I can’t. What is there to
-write about a city, I should like to know?
-They are all alike; great long streets with big
-houses on both sides, or big stores or something,
-and churches every little way, and crowds
-of people in the streets getting in a fellow’s
-way all the time, and carts running over you,
-and carriages that you want to take a ride in
-and can’t; and an awful noise and smoke and
-hurly-burly. I’d rather spend one afternoon in
-the country in an apple orchard or a strawberry
-field, or by a trout stream, than to be a
-whole week in any city I ever saw. Buffalo
-has some splendid-looking houses and parks,
-and there is a lunatic asylum that I was interested
-in, because the people acted so queer. I
-don’t like Buffalo, however, nor any other big
-place.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Tom Hurst.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I think</span> they must make flour enough in
-Buffalo to supply the world with bread. My
-father says that twelve years ago there were
-eleven great flouring mills there, and he doesn’t
-know how many more have been started since.
-At that time they made every year about two
-hundred and fifty thousand barrels of flour;
-but dear me! it would take more flour than
-that to feed the world, wouldn’t it? What a
-lot of things we do have to eat!</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Jimmie Tucker.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I should</span> think Buffalo would be called the
-“City of Churches.” There must be hundreds
-of churches there. I went with my uncle and
-brother to look at different ones, and it took us
-two days just to see those which were on three
-streets of the city. Some of them are lovely,
-and some were great, dark-looking buildings,
-like jails.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Lucy Stone.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>[On the whole we consider these Buffalo letters decidedly
-unique. A little ahead of anything in that line which the
-Pansies have yet given us. Certainly some rather original
-ideas in regard to cities in general have been advanced, and
-we have been given a better chance than usual to mark the
-progress which time has made. We are somewhat surprised
-that no one has described a ride to or from the city on one of
-the canal packets. That is a vivid memory of our childhood
-which we would like to tell you about were there time.</p>
-
-<p>Our material is as usual not exhausted, but our space is. I
-presume Buffalo will fare like the cities which have preceded
-it—that is, some of the best letters will come too late to use.
-If our Pansies could only learn to start three months ahead!—<span class="smcap">Editors.</span>]</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</h2>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THIS is a beautiful moonlight
-evening, but you would rather
-listen to me than bark at the
-moon?</p>
-
-<p>All right; I don’t mind talking
-when I have good listeners,
-but to try to tell a story and be constantly reminded
-that those to whom you talk are thinking
-of something else, is not pleasant.</p>
-
-<p>What shall I talk about to-night?</p>
-
-<p>“Something concerning our relatives away
-back?”</p>
-
-<p>So you want to know what kind of blood
-there is in our veins? That is an interesting
-theme for some, and why not for us?</p>
-
-<p>It is not three days since I heard our master
-boast that he had descended from the Pilgrim
-Fathers. We do not all claim to be related,
-but we are of one family now, and so interested
-in each other.</p>
-
-<p>I like to think that some of my relatives have
-done good and been faithful; so I think I will
-tell you what one of my great-great-great-uncles
-did a long time ago.</p>
-
-<p>His name was Sport, and at the time to which
-I refer he lived with a man by the name of
-Stillman. He was thought much of for hunting,
-and because of his skill in this direction
-he had a chance to earn the reputation which
-so many envied; that is, to earn it in just the
-way he did.</p>
-
-<p>I want my young friends to remember that
-the way is always open for any dog to get a
-good name if he will only try. Why, even a
-little insignificant poodle can be of use. There
-is our neighbor, Mr. Fellows; he had two or
-three dog sentinels all about his place, and the
-other night a man got clear to his front door,
-and none of these big fellows said or knew any
-thing of it; but the moment the man reached
-the door little Tip, the poodle, notified the
-whole house.</p>
-
-<p>Well, this dog Sport was taken by his master,
-one fall, away off into the wood. They
-went miles and miles beyond where anybody
-pretended to live, and there in a little hut they
-staid for days and days, the master hunting
-and fishing and resting.</p>
-
-<p>This was all well enough so long as nothing
-unusual occurred, though it was pretty lonesome
-for the four-footed one. The master
-seemed to take it for granted that his dog knew
-nothing but how to follow game, so said little
-to him, sometimes hardly noticing him from
-morning till night.</p>
-
-<p>As I said, matters moved on very well for a
-time, but there came a change. Mr. Stillman
-awoke one night feeling very ill, and by morning
-was sick enough.</p>
-
-<p>He took such medicine as he had, but grew
-worse and worse. The poor man could not sit
-up to write, and if he could have written, who
-would be mail carrier for him?</p>
-
-<p>He lay there and thought, and tried to plan.
-“If I only had a St. Bernard dog I might send
-him for help; but Sport is nothing but a hunting
-dog, and he cannot understand anything
-but how to follow a track.”</p>
-
-<p>In the meantime Sport was feeling badly,
-and trying to think what he might do, for his
-master was getting worse all the time. Walking
-around the room he saw an envelope with
-something in it, and while his master was seemingly
-asleep, he took the package in his mouth
-and started upon the run in the direction in
-which they came into the woods.</p>
-
-<p>He made pretty fast time for eight or ten
-miles; then he came to a trail, and knew a
-party had passed there not long before. So,
-putting his nose to the ground, he soon learned
-which way they had gone, and followed them
-at good speed.</p>
-
-<p>Fortunately he came upon them where they
-had encamped for the night. It proved to be
-quite a large party with an experienced guide.</p>
-
-<p>Sport dashed in among them and laid down
-his package and barked, to call their attention
-to it. The men examined the writing, and
-while it did not tell them how it was sent—it
-not having been sent—it seemed to be an
-attempt of some one to leave on record the
-condition he was in, his name and address, so
-that if he should die, any one finding this might
-be able to inform his friends.</p>
-
-<p>No one of those who first composed the
-party knew what to think of the paper, for
-there was little of it which could be read, more
-than the name; but the guide was not long in
-interpreting Sport’s meaning, and told them
-that the faithful dog had without doubt come
-from some one in distress, and that they must
-try to find him.</p>
-
-<p>“If I don’t miss my guess by a shot or two
-this four-legged mail-carrier will be dreadful
-glad to pilot us back the way he came; won’t
-you, old fellow?”</p>
-
-<p>Sport showed his readiness by jumping up
-and starting; but Simpkins—that
-was the guide’s name—called
-him back, patted
-him on the head, and
-gave him something to
-eat, promising to go
-with him pretty soon.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 511px;">
-<img src="images/i-166.jpg" width="511" height="383" alt="landscape with dog running out of woods carrying something" />
-<div class="caption">SPORT BEFRIENDS HIS MASTER.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The guide told the
-party to remain there,
-all but one or two,
-till he should return. One of their number
-was a doctor, who was taking his vacation, and
-he volunteered to be one of the company to
-make the search for the supposed sufferer.
-Although all had believed themselves to be
-tired, yet they were soon off, Sport taking the
-lead, and so eager that he let his followers
-only just keep in sight. It was dark some time
-before the little hut was reached.</p>
-
-<p>When the men told the story afterward, they
-said it was a great wonder they kept on following
-a dog in that way, though the guide never
-hesitated; and the men probably preferred following
-him to being left alone.</p>
-
-<p>As they neared the place on the main trail,
-Sport would run ahead and bark, and then
-come back to the guide and whine.</p>
-
-<p>Well, they got to the hut at last, and it appeared
-as though the sick man had not moved
-while his faithful friend was gone; and what
-is more, the doctor said he never would have
-moved if help had not come.</p>
-
-<p>The men rubbed him and gave him medicine,
-and towards morning he opened his eyes. It
-took him a little while to make out what it all
-meant, but when Sport heard his voice he sprang
-to his side, and seemed wild with delight.</p>
-
-<p>There is a great deal more to this story which
-I will not take time to tell. The doctor tried
-hard to buy Sport after that, but his master
-said he would sooner let him have one of his
-hands; he kept him until he died of old age.</p>
-
-<p>Before he died Mr. Stillman had his picture
-painted by a fine artist. Master and dog have
-been dead for years, but I have seen both their
-pictures, made by the same man. Saw them
-often when I was little. Our folks used to tell
-the story to people who visited them, and then
-point to me and say: “This little fellow is
-related to that noble dog, and we hope he will
-be like him.” Then I would be so proud of the
-relationship, and resolve to be just as good if I
-could not be as smart.</p>
-
-<p>Now it is time to look around and see that
-everything is all right. If they have not forgotten
-to shut the hen-house door, we can take
-our places as usual till morning.</p>
-
-<p>No, I never had such a chance as old Uncle
-Sport had for making a name, but I have done
-what I could, and my master is not slow to
-show that he loves me.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-R.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>JACK’S DECISION.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-j.jpg" width="122" height="119" alt="J" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">JACK was in a very doleful
-frame of mind. It was Sabbath
-morning, and as bright a
-day as even July could furnish
-to that part of the world. The
-birds in the trees, the leaves as
-they rustled, and the sweet odors in the air, all
-seemed to whisper that it was a perfect Sunday.
-Jack wanted to go to church. Not that he was
-devoted to church-going, either. The sermon
-often seemed long to him, and he sometimes
-grew very tired of counting the bits of stained
-glass of which the large round window was
-made; but on this particular morning, as he
-sat curled up in the large armchair with a great
-pillow at his back, he made himself believe that
-there was nothing in life he wanted so much as
-to go to church that day. It was not simply
-that the new carriage was to be used for the
-first time, and that Prince and Tony were harnessed
-together before it, and would look splendid,
-but in addition to these excellent reasons
-Jack had not been out of the house for nearly
-a week, and had not had a ride since last Sabbath,
-and it seemed to him he should fly if he
-had to stay in much longer. But then, Jack
-had the mumps, so it couldn’t be helped.</p>
-
-<p>Uncle Jack was to stay with him; or rather
-he was to stay with Uncle Jack, which was
-pleasant, for although this favorite uncle always
-staid at home on Sundays, and could not take
-a single step without somebody on either side
-to help, yet his nephew considered him the
-“jolliest kind of a companion.” This may
-have been partly owing to the fact that Jack
-the uncle was quite young to have that title—only
-a boy of twenty—and he was as sunshiny,
-in fact more so than many boys of ten
-contrive to be.</p>
-
-<p>On this particular day he exerted himself to
-his utmost to entertain his namesake, and succeeded
-so well that when the clock struck twelve
-the boy said, in round-eyed wonder: “Why,
-who would have thought it was so late? They
-will be home in a little while, won’t they?”</p>
-
-<p>“That’s a fact,” said Uncle Jack. “I think
-there will be just time for us to have our Bible
-story together, and a little talk about it before
-they come. You know that was to finish the
-morning’s programme, Jack.”</p>
-
-<p>“All right,” said Jack, settling back on his
-pillow, “go ahead; I like to hear you read the
-Bible better than anybody else, except mother,
-of course.”</p>
-
-<p>This was no wonder, for Uncle Jack had a
-way of reading between the lines, something
-after this fashion: “‘And a certain man, lame
-from his mother’s womb, was carried.’ Just
-think of that, my boy! Forty years old, and
-never had walked a step! That is worse than
-being lame for two years, isn’t it?”</p>
-
-<p>“How do you know he was forty years old?
-It doesn’t say so.”</p>
-
-<p>“It does in another place; I hunted it up
-once, to see how long he had been a burden on
-his friends. And just listen to this as the best
-they could do for him: ‘Whom they laid daily
-at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful,
-to ask alms of them that entered into the
-temple.’”</p>
-
-<p>“They were a mean lot,” said Jack; “they
-might have kept him at home and taken care
-of him.”</p>
-
-<p>“Ah, my boy! that is much the way it is
-to-day in countries where Jesus Christ does not
-reign; still, we must not be too hard on these
-friends of his; they may have been miserably
-poor, and to carry the man to the gate and
-leave him there may have been the utmost that
-was in their power to give.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 501px;">
-<img src="images/i-168.jpg" width="501" height="605" alt="Jack resting head on pillow" />
-<div class="caption">DOLEFUL JACK.—(<i>See “Jack’s Decision.”</i>)</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Then they ought to have taken him to the
-hospital.”</p>
-
-<p>“There was none, Jackie. No provision
-whatever was made in that country for the suffering
-poor; such things belong to Christianity.
-Well, ‘Who, seeing Peter and John about to
-go into the temple, asked an alms.’ He liked
-the appearance of those ministers, I fancy. I
-suppose he said, ‘They look kind, and I shouldn’t
-wonder if they would give me quite a lift.’”</p>
-
-<p>“I should say they did,” chuckled Jack, who
-knew the outcome of the story. Reading in
-this way you can see how long it might take
-them to get through with even a short story;
-but Jack thought it a “tip-top” way to read.</p>
-
-<p>He sat lost in thought for some minutes after
-the lame man had gone leaping into the temple,
-then said, half-doubtfully, as though not sure
-whether it were just the proper thing to say:
-“Uncle Jack, wouldn’t it be a splendid thing
-if Peter were alive now, and should come home
-from church with the folks, and cure you so
-you could run all around?”</p>
-
-<p>Uncle Jack turned bright smiling eyes on his
-nephew. “You forget,” he said briskly; “it
-wasn’t Peter who did it; he was only the instrument.
-You might as well call the cup in
-which you take your beef tea the food, as to
-call Peter the physician in this case.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, then,” said Jack, looking resolute, “I
-don’t understand why he doesn’t cure folks now—Jesus,
-I mean. People say he is here all the
-time, though we can’t see him, and that he is
-just the same as ever he was; why don’t he
-cure you, Uncle Jack, just as he cured the man
-at the temple gate?”</p>
-
-<p>“He has,” said Uncle Jack promptly; “He
-has performed a much greater cure for me than
-He did for the man at the gate.”</p>
-
-<p>And then Jack looked astounded. As though
-he did not know that his Uncle Jack had not
-taken a step in two years, and even the great
-surgeon from the city could not be sure if he
-ever would.</p>
-
-<p>The gay young uncle laughed over his astonishment,
-then said: “I see I shall have to tell
-you something, Jackie. Before I was hurt I
-was in a bad way—lame not only in my feet,
-but in my will power, which is much worse. I
-was making a headlong rush toward ruin, and
-when the accident happened which laid me flat
-on my back, I knew before many weeks that it
-was Jesus Christ trying to cure me.”</p>
-
-<p>Little Jack stared. “Couldn’t He have done
-it without that?” he asked.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said his uncle confidently; “I don’t
-believe He could. I wouldn’t let Him, you see.
-He had called me hundreds of times, and urged
-me to let Him do the best things for me, but I
-wouldn’t. My will power, as I told you, was
-lame, sick—deathly sick; I couldn’t seem to
-want to be cured, nor to do any of my part of
-the work. There is always our part to do in a
-cure, you know.” Jack nodded, and remembered
-the bitter medicine which he had rebelled
-against swallowing. “Well, I wouldn’t do my
-part; refused out and out, and kept on refusing
-until I was placed on my back. I suppose
-the Lord Jesus knew that that only would bring
-me to my senses, and give him a chance to cure
-my heart sickness, so he let it come to me.
-Understand?”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 504px;">
-<img src="images/i-170.jpg" width="504" height="605" alt="Jack now sitting up with pillow behind him; head still tied up" />
-<div class="caption">JACK THOUGHT AND THOUGHT.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Jack was not disposed to answer. He was
-thinking. “Why doesn’t He cure your back
-now?” he asked, speaking part of his thought.</p>
-
-<p>His uncle’s voice was a trifle lower, and
-hinted at strong feeling which was being controlled.
-“I believe he will, Jackie, just as
-soon as it is best for me to be cured. I think
-I am going to get quite well; indeed, I may
-say I am almost sure of it, though the surgeon
-is not. I believe the Lord Jesus has decided
-to let me be well and strong again, so I can be
-a witness for him, as the lame man was, you
-remember. Why, we didn’t finish the story,
-did we? And there is no time now. Here
-come the people from church. You look that
-up, Jackie, in your Bible sometime, and see
-what an unanswerable argument the man was.”</p>
-
-<p>Jack the younger thought over the entire
-story later, while he was eating his beef tea.
-Thought and thought, and by a way which was
-clear to himself, came at last to this point: “I
-wonder if He let me have the mumps so as to
-stop me from doing different from what mother
-says? If I hadn’t thought it wouldn’t do any
-harm to run into Judge Howell’s a few minutes,
-even after she had told me not to stop anywhere,
-why, I suppose I shouldn’t have had
-these horrid old mumps. Maybe He knows it
-was the only way to cure me. Well, I tell you
-what it is; I believe I’ll be cured. I guess,
-after this, I’ll do just exactly as I’m told, and
-be a ‘witness’ myself, so that folks will begin
-to say of me: ‘Jack Campbell won’t do it; his
-folks told him not to, and you can’t move Jack
-after that any more than you could a stone
-wall.’ I declare, that will be tip-top fun. I’ll
-do it!”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 477px;">
-<img src="images/i-171.jpg" width="477" height="625" alt="deer in woods" />
-<div class="caption">MY PRETTY DEER.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 508px;">
-<img src="images/i-172.jpg" width="508" height="577" alt="child holding kitten" />
-<div class="caption">ONLY ONE LEFT.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>CLAUDE’S STORY.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-c.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="C" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">CLAUDE TALMAN was ten
-years old. He lived in a
-marble house. Its floors had
-costly carpets, and all the furniture
-was elegant. His clothes
-were fine and rich; his food
-came from almost all parts of the world. How
-soft was his bed. Tenderly was he watched
-over. He seemed to have more than heart
-could wish—not his heart, however.</p>
-
-<p>One day as he looked from his elegant window
-he saw a poor boy passing drawn in a little
-wagon by a goat; then he set up a loud cry that
-he must have that very wagon and goat. It
-did no good for his mother to promise him just
-as good an one if it could be found in the Central
-Market, where almost everything could be
-bought. No, he must have that. That boy
-must sell it to him or it must be taken from
-him. What right had that poor boy to something
-that he (Claude) didn’t have? His
-mother reasoned with him, but all to no purpose;
-he stormed about, stamping his foot,
-saying he would have it if he had to kill the
-boy to get it. When he got over his rage
-somewhat his mother said: “You remind me
-of another Claude, only his real name was
-Claudius.”</p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 547px;">
-<img src="images/i-173.jpg" width="547" height="400" alt="man in robes before throne" />
-<div class="caption">CARACTACA BEGS TO BE SENT HOME.</div>
-</div>
-<p>Then Master Claude quieted down and listened,
-for he was fond of stories, and now he
-knew his mother had one for him. So she went
-on thus: “Two thousand years ago there lived
-a large family in the country that is now called
-England. Their name was Briton. They were
-not the handsomest or wisest folks in the world,
-nor were they always gentle among themselves.
-Their houses were mere huts and their dress
-was the skins of wild animals. They were a
-brave people, but generally minded their own
-business. The great father of this family—I
-should say one of the big brothers—was Caractacus.
-He was strong and fearless, and very
-wise and good in his way. When they were in
-trouble they went to him, and somehow he
-always knew just what to do. So they
-thought of him just as American people think
-of Washington.</p>
-
-<p>“Miles and miles away across the great
-waters lived another family in an elegant marble
-palace”—</p>
-
-<p>“Now you are going to tell a story about
-me,” interrupted Claude.</p>
-
-<p>—“in an elegant marble palace. Everything
-without as well as within this beautiful
-mansion was costly and wonderful. There was
-nothing just like it on all the face of the earth.</p>
-
-<p>“But they were unhappy. They wanted
-something more. One day while they were
-sitting and feasting, dressed in purple and
-fine linen, and bands of music were playing,
-word came from one of their travelers about
-a fair island far away, and about this Briton
-family who owned it, and were living there so
-contentedly.</p>
-
-<p>“Then uprose the father of the Roman
-family—for that was their name—and the
-music ceased, the feasting was over, and the
-men put off their showy dress and put on their
-soldier clothes, and the father or big brother,
-whose name was Claudius”—</p>
-
-<p>“Now, mother, more about me?”</p>
-
-<p>“His name was Claudius, and he mounted
-his war horse and blew a loud blast that made
-the marble halls ring again, and with waving
-banners and peals of music away marched this
-Roman family to conquer the Briton family and
-make them give up their”—</p>
-
-<p>“Little wagon and goat?”</p>
-
-<p>—“give up their beautiful farm. On they
-went on foot and on horse and by boats till
-they landed one dark night and stole up to the
-back yard of the Britons.</p>
-
-<p>“Then of a sudden the dogs set up an awful
-barking. The Britons—women as well as men
-and children—sprang up in a jiffy, and a fierce
-fight followed. Sometimes the Romans got the
-better, sometimes the Britons; but after a long,
-long time, when many were killed on both sides,
-six of Claudius’ biggest brothers saw Caractacus
-fall, and the blood was streaming from his side
-by an arrow wound, and they leaped upon him
-and bound his hands behind him, and led him
-as best they could to Claudius. But Caractaca,
-his poor wife, followed, begging the soldiers
-not to harm her suffering husband.</p>
-
-<p>“When the brave Britons saw their leader
-fall, and knew he was now a prisoner, their
-hearts failed them, and they fled, many of
-them, far away into the forests.</p>
-
-<p>“But Caractacus and his sad wife were taken
-from their home and carried far away to the
-Roman palace as prisoners.</p>
-
-<p>“Now when they looked around this grand
-home and saw all its richness and glory they
-drew a deep sigh, Caractaca begging Claudius
-to send them back to their home, the brave
-Caractacus only saying he did not see why such
-a rich family cared for the plain hut he lived in.”</p>
-
-<p>Master Claude never again insisted upon
-having the little wagon and goat. Nay, he
-helped him to better ones.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE LONGEST DAY.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">IT is quite important, when speaking of the
-longest day in the year, to say what part
-of the world we are talking about, as will be
-seen by reading the following list, which tells
-the length of the longest day in several different
-places. How unfortunate are the children in
-Tornea, Finland, where Christmas Day is less
-than three hours in length!</p>
-
-<p>At Stockholm, Sweden, it is eighteen and one
-half hours in length. At Spitzbergen the longest
-day is three and one half months. At London,
-England, and Bremen, Prussia, the longest
-day has sixteen and one half hours. At Hamburg
-in Germany, and Dantzig in Prussia, the
-longest day has seventeen hours. At Wardbury,
-Norway, the longest day lasts from May
-21 to July 22, without interruption. At St.
-Petersburg, Russia, and Tobolsk, Siberia, the
-longest day is nineteen hours, and the shortest
-five hours. At Tornea, Finland, June 21
-brings a day nearly twenty-two hours long,
-and Christmas one less than three hours in
-length. At New York the longest day is about
-fifteen hours, and at Montreal, Canada, it is
-sixteen.—<i>Selected.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THREE YOUNG MISSIONARIES.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">“WHO are they?”</p>
-
-<p>The one with his hat off and flag in
-hand—his name is Judson. The neat little
-Miss, her fingers tucked in that warm muff,
-and her satisfied face saying: “See what a
-nice big snowball we’ve made,” she is Miss
-Emily Chubbuck, to be sure. The third—wouldn’t
-you give a penny to see his face?—he
-looks like a young Scotch Highlander in
-plaids. He it is who fixed up the funny mouth,
-nose and eyes, and is now putting something
-sweeter than a nasty cigarette into his snow
-mouth; well, this one is Master Carey. Now
-they look only like children having fun. Not a
-hundred years after they became missionaries.
-Heard you ever of Carey? Of Adoniram
-Judson? Of his wife, Emily Chubbuck?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>FIRST TIME AT CHURCH.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">A</span> GRAVE sweet wonder in thy baby face,</div>
-<div class="verse">And look of mingled dignity and grace,</div>
-<div class="verse">Such as a painter hand might love to trace.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">A pair of trusting innocent blue eyes,</div>
-<div class="verse">That higher than the stained-glass window rise,</div>
-<div class="verse">Into the fair and cloudless summer skies.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The people round her sing, “Above the sky</div>
-<div class="verse">There’s rest for little children when they die.”</div>
-<div class="verse">To her, thus gazing up, that rest seems nigh.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The organ peals; she must not look around,</div>
-<div class="verse">Although with wonderment her pulses bound—</div>
-<div class="verse">The place whereon she stands is holy ground.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The sermon over, and the blessing said,</div>
-<div class="verse">She bows, as “mother” does, her golden head,</div>
-<div class="verse">And thinks of little sister who is dead.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">She knows that now she dwells above the sky,</div>
-<div class="verse">Where holy children enter when they die,</div>
-<div class="verse">And prays God take her there too, by and by.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Pet, may He keep you in the faith alway,</div>
-<div class="verse">And bring you to that home for which you pray,</div>
-<div class="verse">Where all shall have their child hearts back one day!</div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>AN IDEA THAT GREW.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT was Nancy and the book together
-which put the idea into
-Clara’s mind. They were slipping
-along in the shadows of
-the quiet river, she and Wallace.
-It was the Fourth of
-July, and most of the boys and girls of the
-region were busy with what firecrackers they
-could get—those of them who had not taken a
-five-mile tramp to the village to attend the
-celebration.</p>
-
-<p>But Clara was too old to care for firecrackers,
-and Wallace had had enough of them before he
-came; he was only here for a few days, and
-preferred a visit with his sister to all the Fourth
-of July celebrations that could be planned. She
-was reading aloud to him bits from a new
-book which he had brought her as a birthday
-present; for the Fourth of July was not only
-the birthday of freedom, it was also Clara’s
-birthday.</p>
-
-<p>“O, Wallace!” she said, “this is a lovely
-book.” She had said the same thing at least a
-dozen times that day. “Just see what queer
-ideas she had,” Clara continued, meaning the
-girl in the book; “she was very good—better
-than anybody I ever knew. I should think it
-would be lovely to do half the nice things she
-did. One plan was to pick out a friend—another
-girl—and try to help her in every way
-she could. Pray for her, you know, and talk
-with her, and influence her, until at last the
-girl would be converted; then they two would
-choose two others to help in the same way, and
-they were going to see how large a circle they
-could make of that kind. She thought perhaps
-she could reach all around the world; she was
-only a young girl, and she thought if she lived
-to be a woman perhaps she could. Wallace,
-what are you laughing at?”</p>
-
-<p>“At the modesty of the young woman and
-her ideas,” said Wallace, laughing afresh.
-“She hasn’t gotten around the world yet, I
-take it; I’ve never seen anything of her.”</p>
-
-<p>“I am sure the idea is beautiful,” said Clara,
-half-inclined to be vexed with Wallace for making
-sport of it. “And of course one could do
-a great deal of good in that way. I would just
-like to try it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why don’t you?” Wallace asked, his eyes
-twinkling; “I’m sure you have a good field
-for work of the sort here among the natives.
-Look at that specimen on the bank at this moment.
-Her eyes are as large as sunflowers,
-and she looks as though she might take any
-amount of doing good to and not be hurt by it.”</p>
-
-<p>Clara turned around and stared back at
-Nancy on the shore.</p>
-
-<p>A little girl with a sallow, wistful face, and
-great mournful-looking eyes. She had on a
-worn and faded dress, an apron which was
-much too long for her, but seemed to have been
-put on to cover the deficiencies of the dress.
-She wore neither shoes nor stockings, and was
-hanging tightly by the two strings to her pink
-gingham sunbonnet, and gazing at the people
-in the boat with the most unutterable longing
-in her eyes that Clara had ever seen.</p>
-
-<p>“Poor thing!” said Clara; “she envies us
-our row. I wonder if she never has a chance
-to take a row on the river? Only see how hungry
-her eyes look.”</p>
-
-<p>“It is more probable that she envies you
-your hat and dress,” said Wallace; “she keeps
-her eyes on them. She has an eye to the beautiful,
-that is what is the matter with her. I am
-not sure but it is your hair she wants most,
-after all, though hers is arranged elaborately.
-She would make an excellent beginning for your
-scheme, Clara.”</p>
-
-<p>“I am not sure but she would.” Wallace
-was teasing, but his sister was grave and in
-earnest. “Row toward the shore, Wallace,
-and let me speak to her; I never saw a child
-who had such a wistful look.</p>
-
-<p>“Good afternoon, little girl,” she said pleasantly,
-as Wallace obeyed directions and the
-boat drew near, “are you having a pleasant
-Fourth of July?”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said the child, without hesitation or
-ceremony.</p>
-
-<p>“Not? I am very sorry. What has been
-the trouble?”</p>
-
-<p>“Nothing,” said the child, as promptly as
-before. Then, seeming to consider something
-more necessary, added: “Nothing more than
-always is. We don’t never have no pleasant
-times to our house.”</p>
-
-<p>“You see,” said Wallace, in low tones, nodding
-significantly to his sister, “she is in perishing
-need of being chosen.”</p>
-
-<p>“So she is. Wallace, you are simply making
-fun, but I am in earnest. I wonder what I
-could do for the poor little thing? I have been
-here for two months, and haven’t done a thing
-for anybody. I have tried to get acquainted
-with a few of the girls of my age, but they are
-shy of me; this child does not seem to be shy.”</p>
-
-<p>“Not in the least,” said Wallace. “Very
-well, how shall we commence? Shall I invite
-her to sail with us this afternoon as a sort of
-entering wedge?”</p>
-
-<p>“Do you mean it?” Clara asked, well pleased,
-and she turned again to Nancy. “Do you ever
-go rowing on the river?”</p>
-
-<p>“No.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why not? Would not you like to?”</p>
-
-<p>“Never had no chance. We ain’t got no
-boat, and nobody won’t lend us poor folks any;
-and we don’t never go nowheres, me and Billy.”</p>
-
-<p>“Poor little girl! Who is Billy? your little
-brother? Would you like to take a ride with
-us this afternoon? If you would you may come
-down to the landing and get in the boat.”</p>
-
-<p>The child stared for a moment as though she
-felt her ears were not to be trusted, then turned
-and made a dash for the landing below. Wallace
-laughed and steered the boat in the same
-direction. A few moments more and they were
-off, with the barefooted Nancy seated comfortably
-beside Clara.</p>
-
-<p>It is only the very beginning of this story
-that I have space for. I am wondering if you
-Pansies cannot sit down thoughtfully and think
-it out for yourselves, perhaps write it out. The
-story is true, and it happened years ago. Such
-a girl as Clara, who was spending a summer in
-a backwoods region, for reasons which I need not
-stop here to explain, and such a girl as Nancy
-met first in the way I have described; and in
-the course of that afternoon ride Clara heard
-enough about the home where they “never had
-no pleasant times,” to make her heart ache.
-The beautiful idea in the book kept coming to
-her, or rather staid with her and kept asking if
-she could not do something of the kind with
-this Nancy. To be sure Nancy was not like
-the girl chosen in the book; she had been of
-about the same age and station as her friend.
-“But then,” said Clara to herself, “she did
-not need help half so much as this one does;
-and I think with this kind of people I might
-help one younger than myself better than one
-of my own age. At least I can pray for her.”</p>
-
-<div>
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177a.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="311" height="51" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177b.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="380" height="45" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177d.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="418" height="35" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177e.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="464" height="41" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177f.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="531" height="163" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177g.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="434" height="44" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177h.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="430" height="41" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177i.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="399" height="50" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177j.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="408" height="17" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177k.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="373" height="36" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177l.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="350" height="39" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177m.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="324" height="58" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177n.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="293" height="34" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-177o.jpg" alt="ON THE QUIET RIVER." width="209" height="50" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Now the story for you to work out is begun,
-and I will give you just a few more facts, and
-then jump to the end of it—that is so far as I
-know it—leaving you to fill up the blank space.
-It was a stony, hilly, desolate country side,
-where the people were very poor, and were
-cursed with more rum saloons than with any
-other form of business; where the nearest
-church was five miles away; where there was
-no Sunday-school, and no day-school except
-for three months in the winter. And Nancy,
-being questioned, showed that she not only did
-not know what Fourth of July meant, but she
-did not know what Sunday meant in the true
-sense of the word; nor did she know about
-Jesus Christ, save as she had heard “Pap
-swear his name sometimes!” Did ever girl
-need helping more?</p>
-
-<p>Now for the end, so far as it can be said to
-be ended, for the people are still living. Nancy
-is a young woman who wears the neatest of
-dresses and hats, and the nicest fitting
-boots and gloves. She is herself
-a teacher in the day-school in that
-part of the country where
-her home has always been.
-The school is in session
-nine months of the year.
-She is a teacher in the Sunday-school,
-which has a
-room of its own, opening
-from the pretty church
-where every Sabbath day the people
-gather to hear of Jesus Christ. And
-Nancy’s father is the superintendent
-of the Sunday-school! And there is
-not a saloon left within two miles of
-the neighborhood; and the change
-began that Fourth of July afternoon,
-when Clara, reading from her new book, caught
-an idea which grew.</p>
-
-<p>You will perhaps be glad to hear that Wallace,
-although he professed to be only amused,
-was much more than that, and helped to form
-Clara’s “circle” so effectually that he preaches
-in the little church whenever he comes to this
-part of the world for a few weeks of vacation.
-“You haven’t reached around the world yet,”
-he said to Clara not long ago; “but I am not
-sure but you will. Do you know that boy Billy
-wants to be a missionary and go to China?”</p>
-
-<p>Billy is Nancy’s youngest brother.</p>
-
-<p>Now see if you can plan ways by which Clara
-may have helped to bring about such changes.
-No, better than that; look about you and see
-what you can do to make a circle of good that
-shall reach—as far as it can.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 466px;">
-<img src="images/i-178.jpg" width="466" height="605" alt="three children building large snowball with smiley face" />
-<div class="caption">THREE YOUNG MISSIONARIES.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>TEACHING THE CHINESE.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">AND so you thought the Chinese
-do not know anything?</p>
-
-<p>Look into this school; see
-wise Mr. Ah Lee sitting before
-his thirteen youngsters. See
-how bright they look. And
-surely they know how to get as much fun out
-of a cat’s tail and get rapped over the knuckles
-as hard as any American boy. Yes, they sit
-upon the floor, and they don’t seem to have
-blackboards and maps and many other nice
-school contrivances, but they manage somehow
-to learn one of the most difficult languages
-in the world.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 604px;">
-<img src="images/i-179.jpg" width="604" height="505" alt="children and teacher in chinese school" />
-<div class="caption">A CHINESE SCHOOL.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Our poor missionaries do have such a time in
-mastering Chinese so they can converse with
-the people and preach the Gospel to them.
-The trouble is that a word may mean one of a
-dozen different things, just as you happen to
-give it this tone (sound) or that.</p>
-
-<p>A Mr. Meadows once wished to say “bargain
-money” to a Chinaman. He used the proper
-Chinese word for it, but pronounced it as
-though it meant to the Chinaman “Do you
-hear? do you hear?” And what said John
-Chinaman? Just nothing at all, but came
-nearer and nearer to Mr. Meadows, turning
-one side of his head then the other to listen.</p>
-
-<p>Once Mr. Pohlman asked a Chinese family if
-they drank wine, but he pronounced the word
-wine (<i>tsén</i>) so it sounded to them like their
-word for land (<i>t’sēn</i>).</p>
-
-<p>At another time he asked a mourning family
-if they had buried (<i>tái</i>) the body of their dead
-grandmother. But he sounded it <i>t’ai</i>, which
-means to kill. Imagine their looks.</p>
-
-<p>But the missionaries work away at the queer
-Chinese words and tones until they can tell
-the “old story” plainly—and hundreds have
-heard and understood, and now believe.</p>
-
-<p>You know how hard it is for the Chinaman
-to speak our language. He says “Amelican”
-for American, our <i>r</i> is so difficult for him to get.</p>
-
-<p>But the time is coming when every one of
-God’s family will know the one great language,
-and there will be no hard schoolmaster to scold
-or whip it into them.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>WHEN HE WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">O</span>UR little lad, our bonnie twelve-year-old,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Has journeyed to the city of the King;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Our happy boy—ere heart could grow a-cold,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or soul turn bitter—in youth’s joyous spring,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Went up to keep the feast in that bright place,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">City of Peace, where restful mansions be;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And straightway looking on the dear King’s face,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Remembered naught but joy that face to see!</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Long time ago, when He was twelve years old,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Holy Child climbed fair Judea’s hills,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And his young mother in her heart did hold</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Strange words concerning him, whose mystery fills</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Her soul with wonder.—On their homeward way,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The reverent pilgrims haste; and sorrowing</span></div>
-<div class="verse">She seeks her Son, and lo, in calm delay,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">He lingered in the temple of the King!</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">She, coming to the sacred portal, waits</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With tear-wan face; her fair first-born she seeks;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Weary and grief-worn, at the shining gates,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With faltering lips his sweet home-name she speaks,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And He is in her arms!—With tender word</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of gentlest chiding, each to each revealed</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The love that to the depths of feeling stirred</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hearts that brief absence near and dearer sealed.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">O mother, mourning for thy fair first-born,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">He tarries in his Father’s House of Light,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">With God’s beloved; and thou in some glad morn,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Finding the glorious gates beyond the night,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Shalt breathe his name, and ere it leaves thy lips,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In thy dear arms, aglow with life and joy,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">All strong and beautiful—death’s long eclipse</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forgotten in the first kiss of thy boy!</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">Rosa Evangeline Angel.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap">MISS HALSEY read a letter from Miss
-Patton, of India, who after wittily describing
-some of the daily trials of housekeeping
-there, between her rising hour, five o’clock,
-and that of reaching her first school, says:</p>
-
-<p>“This school, over a mile away, is upstairs in
-a large house in an alley. The children looked
-so nice and bright this morning, I wish you
-could see them. Prayers are over, so I begin
-by taking the wee tots in the first class and
-teach them the Lord’s Prayer. Then I take
-class after class until half-past nine, when with
-pony and queer little two-wheeled tonga I go
-on about half a mile to the other school. There
-I teach until nearly eleven and then drive home
-to breakfast, after which we have English
-prayers. By that time the gun has gone off,
-and that means twelve o’clock. The gun is
-the signal for our servants and native Christians
-living near to come in and have Marathi
-prayers.</p>
-
-<p>“Then I teach my servants to read, and ask
-a few questions in the Catechism, then teach
-the Christian girls and young women whom
-we want to train for Bible women, from two
-until three <small>P. M.</small> At three o’clock we have a
-cup of tea and some bread and butter; then
-I am free to settle ‘cases’ and hear ‘tales of
-woe’ until half-past four, when I go into town to
-teach the women and girls in the zenanas. I get
-home in time to have a good bath and get into
-a fresh dress before dinner at half-past seven.
-After dinner we talk over our experiences and
-plans of work, and sometimes one reads aloud
-while the rest of us sew until it is time to retire,
-generally an early hour.”—<i>Interior.</i></p>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 449px;">
-<img src="images/i-181.jpg" width="449" height="602" alt="Mongol warrior" />
-<div class="caption">AN OLD-TIME WARRIOR.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 479px;">
-<img src="images/i-182.jpg" width="479" height="605" alt="girl who has put clown doll in bowl of milk" />
-<div class="caption">THE MILKY WAY.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>YOUNG FOLKS OF ALASKA.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 292px;">
-<img src="images/i-183.jpg" width="292" height="356" alt="child in furs" />
-<div class="caption">AN ALASKA CHILD.</div>
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap">THIS face is not like yours, but more like
-some of the young folks of Alaska. Of
-course you want to know a bit about the boys
-and girls away off there.</p>
-
-<p>Here it is from Mrs. Cady, who was there not
-long ago:</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Austin, the missionary, and these boys
-dragged all the timber by ropes to build the
-first house.</p>
-
-<p>“The Sabbath evening service was opened
-by a fine anthem, these boys and girls being
-among the singers. Mr. Austin read a Psalm
-in English, which was interpreted by a boy
-fourteen years old.</p>
-
-<p>“He asked a girl twelve years old to offer the
-closing prayer, and she expressed it beautifully
-in English.</p>
-
-<p>“They are very polite. If a boy taps at the
-door his hat is off before the door is opened.
-Their table manners are good. One boy is
-head waiter.</p>
-
-<p>“He can offer thanks or call upon some other
-boy to do so, or sing a blessing.”</p>
-
-
-<p>Of course you ought to know just how the
-grandmothers of these bright Alaska children
-look. Our picture will enable you to judge
-somewhat of their appearance.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 538px;">
-<img src="images/i-183b.jpg" width="538" height="351" alt="women sitting on ground at door of hut" />
-<div class="caption">ALASKAN WOMEN.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>POOR TABBY.</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">TABBY thought she was a very
-smart cat, but there were some
-rats living in the barn who
-knew almost as much as Tabby
-did herself.</p>
-
-
-<p>One morning Tabby went to the barn. She
-had tried for days to catch a rat, but just
-as she got her paw out to strike one off he
-scampered. “To-day I shall get the old gray
-rat, see if I don’t,” said Tabby to herself as
-she walked down the path.</p>
-
-<p>She stepped softly into the door. But
-what was this new shining thing she saw?</p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 578px;">
-<img src="images/i-184.jpg" width="578" height="402" alt="Tabby in a cage and rats outside of cage" />
-<div class="caption">THE GRAY RAT TANTALIZES TABBY.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Why, Farmer Jones had put a big trap there
-to catch the rats.</p>
-
-<p>Now Tabby had never seen a trap, and she
-said to herself:</p>
-
-<p>“Why, here is a pretty little house! It
-must be for me; I will walk right in. How
-nice!”</p>
-
-<p>So she stepped in. Snap! went the door,
-shut! and there poor Puss was in prison.</p>
-
-<p>She tried to get out, but she could not. She
-cried, but nobody came to let her out.</p>
-
-<p>While she sat there feeling sad, two rats
-came and looked at her. The old gray one,
-as he stood on his hind legs, said:</p>
-
-<p>“Aha! I see; I see! Anybody who goes
-into that door does not come out. I shall
-never go in.”</p>
-
-<p>By and by Tommy Jones missed his pussy
-and went to the barn to look for her.</p>
-
-<p>Oh! was not Tabby glad to see him coming?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>DAVIE’S WITNESSES.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT was Fourth of July morning,
-and Davie Carson had been up
-since a good while before the
-sun, not firing crackers and
-torpedoes, nor watching the
-firing of the great cannon, but
-doing the chores. He was in tremendous haste.
-An entire holiday was a thing he did not have
-twice in a year. A hard-working boy was
-Davie, with not only his own bread to earn,
-but with a great longing in his heart to help
-earn the bread of two sisters and a brother
-younger than himself. He lived in a small village
-where there was little chance of a boy of
-his age earning much. The best that he had
-been able to do, so far, was to seize odd jobs
-as they happened along; or rather as he hunted
-them out. Not very pleasant jobs, all of them.
-Davie liked horses, and was glad of a chance
-to lead Dr. Bristol’s to water; but to like to
-clean out their stalls was another thing. But
-he knew how to do this work, and did it well,
-and had put on his great work apron this morning
-for the purpose of taking that job next.</p>
-
-<p>It was his last one for the morning; after
-that breakfast, and then a four-mile brisk run
-to the next village to the Fourth of July celebration.
-His mother had not made the least
-objection to his staying to the celebration. On
-the contrary she had said heartily: “I am glad
-the doctor wants an errand done there; it will
-give you a good excuse for going. Of course
-you may stay, and welcome; and I’ll put you
-up a nice Fourth of July lunch; and if there is
-something to see, or to buy, that doesn’t cost
-more than ten cents, you just have it, or see it,
-whichever it is. You deserve a treat, Davie.”</p>
-
-<p>Davie laughed gleefully. It was pleasant to
-hear his mother speak such words, but he
-had a very different plan. Hurried as he had
-been that morning, he leaned on his spade and
-thought it all out. In the village where the
-celebration was to be was a large book store,
-where he had once or twice been sent on errands
-for Dr. Bristol, and had feasted his eyes upon
-the rows and rows of books and magazines,
-and thought what a thing it would be to have a
-chance to handle them. The day before, while
-holding the horses and waiting for the doctor,
-his eyes had rested on an advertisement in
-the paper—WANTED: <small>A BOY</small>. Then had
-followed a brief statement of the kind of boy,
-and what his duties would be, and the whole
-was signed by the proprietor of the book store.</p>
-
-<p>Davie’s cheeks had glowed so while reading
-it, that the doctor, returning just then, had
-looked hard at him, and asked him if he was
-getting up a fever. The splendid plan which
-the boy had thought out leaning on his shovel
-was, that he would clip around to the book
-store the moment the doctor’s errand was done,
-and try for that place!</p>
-
-<p>To be sure there was hardly a possibility that
-he would succeed, but then he might, and certainly
-he would never accomplish anything if
-he did not try. But he did not mean to let any
-body know of his ambitions, so he had only a
-laugh for his mother’s suggestion.</p>
-
-<p>“If I get a chance to see the procession and
-hear the music and a few such things it will be
-all the lark I want,” he said cheerily, “except
-the lunch; I’ll be sure to want that. You are
-sure you can get along without me for such a
-long time?”</p>
-
-<p>“O, yes, indeed!” the mother said, smiling
-back on him. It was so like her Davie to think
-of mother.</p>
-
-<p>Davie made good speed over the road, though
-it was up hill and dusty, and the day was warm.
-He believed himself to be in ample time to see
-the parade which was to be made in honor of
-the day. At the corner he halted and glanced
-wistfully toward the book store; it was within
-half a block of him, and who knew but that if
-he should appear so early in the day he might
-get ahead of somebody?</p>
-
-<p>“No, it can’t be done,” he said at last,
-speaking aloud and firmly. “Davie Carson,
-I am ashamed of you! A package of medicine
-in your pocket that the doctor said an old lady
-was anxiously waiting for, and you thinking
-about stopping on an errand of your own.
-Just march down to Coleman Street as fast as
-your feet can carry you!”</p>
-
-<p>And the order was meekly obeyed. Here he
-was detained for minutes which seemed like
-hours to him. The sound of martial music was
-heard in the near distance, and people all along
-the streets were dodging to the doors to see if
-anything was to be seen; but the old lady’s
-daughter wanted to write a note to the doctor
-to send back by Davie. She would not be a
-minute, she said; but she was.</p>
-
-<p>“I might call for the note on my way home,”
-Davie timidly suggested. But she said, “O,
-no! that was not worth while; she could just
-as well write it now, and make sure of it; she
-would have it ready very soon.” And the
-sound of music drew nearer and nearer, until
-it passed the corner and faded in the distance;
-and the note was ready at last.</p>
-
-<p>Davie crowded it into his pocket, tried to
-listen respectfully to several messages besides,
-and went down the stairs three steps at a time
-to follow that fading music. The street was
-nearly deserted; all the boys had rushed out of
-sight with the procession. Davie took long
-strides in the same direction, and wondered if
-it would be improper to break into a run.</p>
-
-<p>Appearing at that moment around the corner
-ahead of him was a belated group—a father,
-mother and two children; odd-looking people,
-queerly dressed, and seeming to be entirely out
-of place in a town.</p>
-
-<p>“Halloo! what’s the matter now?” Another
-corner had been reached and turned by the
-people ahead of him, with the exception of the
-youngest of the group, who had tumbled down;
-it was her outcry which roused him. He picked
-her up, brushing the dust and soil from her
-clothes, straightening the much bent sunbonnet,
-and urging her not to cry, that they would find the
-others in a jiffy. She stopped crying the moment
-she discovered herself in kind hands, and
-looked confidingly at Davie out of great blue
-eyes, and slipped her small brown hand into his
-with great satisfaction. Then they two turned
-the corner, and were at once in a crowd. The
-thing which astonished and troubled him was,
-that the father and mother and older sister of his
-little girl seemed to have disappeared. For a
-weary half-hour the two jostled against the
-crowd and stared and hunted. At last there
-darted toward him an angry father, talking
-broken English in loud tones, followed by an
-angrier mother and a crying little girl. “What
-was he doing with Gretchen? How dare he steal
-their Gretchen and make off with her! Bad,
-wicked boy! The police should know all about
-it, that they should!” In vain Davie tried to explain;
-they were too excited and frightened to
-listen to explanations. In the midst of Davie’s
-attempts two well-dressed boys standing near,
-broke into laughter, and so confused him that he
-stopped short, and the enraged family trudged
-away, his little girl in his arms, and the father
-shaking his head at Davie. But the little girl
-looked back and smiled lovingly on him.</p>
-
-<p>Then Davie found that the crowd were trying
-to get near the band stand.</p>
-
-<p>“Come this way,” said one of the boys who
-had laughed, touching his shoulder; “there is a
-chance to slip in behind here and get a first-rate
-position.” Davie thanked them, and was just
-going to slip in, when a little girl who was flying
-past, going in the opposite direction from
-the pushing crowd, jostled against him, and as
-she did so dropped from under her arm a small
-package. Davie picked it up and looked eagerly
-after the girl, shouting, “Hold on, you’ve lost
-something!” But she flew like the wind.</p>
-
-<p>“You can’t catch her,” said a man; “she is
-lost in the jam by this time. You may as well
-pocket the bundle and call it Fourth of July luck.”</p>
-
-<p>“And you will lose your chance in here if
-you don’t come this minute,” said one of the
-boys, trying to keep a way open for him.</p>
-
-<p>“Thank you,” said Davie, “but I think I
-ought to find the little girl,” saying which he
-struck into the crowd, and began his search.</p>
-
-<p>It was several hours afterwards that a boy
-who was very tired, and who, if he had not
-been so disappointed, would have been hungry,
-came out of the handsome book store and with
-slow steps started for his long walk home. He
-had delivered the medicine for which he came
-in the first place; he had the note for the doctor
-safe in his pocket; he had picked up a little
-German girl, and after much trouble given her
-back to a father who was angry at him about
-it; he had followed a little girl, or rather followed
-the road over which she vanished, for
-two weary hours, and at last found her and
-restored the lost parcel, only to hear her laugh
-gleefully and declare that there was nothing in
-it but some dried-up sandwiches, which he was
-welcome to if he wanted them. And not a
-glimpse of procession, or sound of martial
-music or voice of public speaker had he seen
-or heard that day, save the few strains in the
-distance which had lured him in the morning.</p>
-
-<p>Moreover, he had called at the book store only
-to have the proprietor shake his head and say:
-“Of course, my boy, I couldn’t engage you for
-such a place as this without references. For
-whom do you work when you are at home?”</p>
-
-<p>Davie explained that they had been but a
-short time in that part of the country; he had
-no regular place, but did odd jobs for Dr.
-Bristol—cleaned out the stable and such things.
-No, Dr. Bristol did not know much about him—nobody
-did but mother—and he had not known
-that a recommendation would be needed.</p>
-
-<p>“I might just as well have staid at home
-and helped mother,” said Davie, as he walked
-slowly, with head down. “I’ve lost a day,
-and gained nothing at all. I wish I had—no,
-I don’t either. I did what I thought was right.
-I’m glad I did it.” Whereupon Davie whistled.</p>
-
-<p>“Who was that boy, father, and what did he
-want?” A young man asked the question of
-the bookseller as he came back to his parlor;
-he liked the looks of the boy.</p>
-
-<p>“Do you know anything about him?” replied
-the father, and before he could answer a bright-faced
-little girl chimed in: “O, Uncle Edward!
-what is his name? Don’t you know? I’m so
-sorry if you don’t; papa wants to know it.”</p>
-
-<p>“No, sir,” said the young man; “I don’t
-know him; but he is the chap I was telling you
-about who wandered around with that little
-German girl, and took patiently a hard scolding
-from the father afterwards, and a laugh
-from two well-dressed, thoughtless boys.”</p>
-
-<p>“Is he, indeed?” said the father; “I wish
-I had known it.”</p>
-
-<p>Then the little girl: “And O, Uncle Edward!
-don’t you think he is the very same boy who
-hunted after me for two hours to give me those
-sandwiches. Papa said I was a little dunce
-not to ask his name; that he ought to be rewarded
-for honesty and faithfulness.”</p>
-
-<p>“I know his name,” said Uncle Edward,
-“and I believe I will reward him.”</p>
-
-<p>The next morning, when Davie was out in
-the little garden hoeing and whistling, a strange
-thing happened to him; he received a letter—the
-first letter with his name on the envelope
-which he had ever received. It was short and
-to the point:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>After you left me yesterday two witnesses to your honesty
-and faithfulness, as well as to your good temper under provocation,
-called upon me, and made me decide to give you a
-month’s trial in the store if you still wish the situation. Call
-on me to-day if possible; if not, to-morrow will do.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours sincerely,</span><br />
-<span class="smcap">Edward Hammond</span>.<br />
-</p></div>
-
-<p>“Mother,” said Davie, as they went all over
-the plans for the third time, “who could have
-called on him who knows anything about me?
-I can’t imagine.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 209px;">
-<img src="images/deco-line.jpg" width="209" height="16" alt="a line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 560px;">
-<img src="images/i-187.jpg" width="560" height="198" alt="landscape" />
-<div class="caption">A SUMMER DAY IN THE COUNTRY.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 538px;">
-<img src="images/i-188.jpg" width="538" height="605" alt="barefoot girl sewing, chicks at feet, child in bed behind her" />
-<div class="caption">A STITCH AT A TIME.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ABOUT ST. AUGUSTINE.<br />
-
-<small>BY THE PANSIES.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t2.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THE way it came to be called St.
-Augustine was this: it used
-to be named Seloy on the river
-Dolphins. That was when it
-belonged to the Indians. The
-French people named the river,
-and they gave it that name because they saw a
-great many dolphins playing in the mouth of
-the river. After awhile the Spaniards came
-and took the town on the day which was sacred
-to their saint, Augustine, so they named both
-town and river San Augustin.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Rufus Hunter.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the American Revolution Florida was the
-only colony which was loyal to the king. When
-they heard the news of the Declaration of Independence
-they burned John Hancock and
-Samuel Adams in effigy, calling them rebels.
-After that some of the “Liberty Boys,” as our
-soldiers were called, stole powder from the
-British brig <i>Betsey</i>, which lay at anchor at San
-Augustin and slipped away with it, to be used
-at Bunker Hill.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Harvey Dennison.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I read</span> about the services which they used to
-hold in St. Augustine on Palm Sunday. They
-marched from the church to the platform of the
-convent, where was a beautiful altar trimmed
-with flowers and fruits. The congregation
-knelt on the ground while the priest said mass,
-then the nuns took baskets of rose petals which
-were brought by many little children in the
-procession, and strewed them before the altar
-in honor of the Virgin.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Laura Eastman.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I like</span> to read about St. Augustine when it
-was a walled town with earthworks and batteries;
-when you had to enter the town through the
-great gate or by the drawbridge. At sunset a
-gun was fired, which meant that the bridge was
-raised, the gate barred, and both were guarded
-by soldiers. I can imagine them pacing back
-and forth challenging people who passed.
-“<i>Centinela alerta</i>,” they said, and “<i>Alerta
-esta</i>,” answered the outsider if he knew enough.
-I think it must have been great fun. I should
-like to understand the Spanish language, the
-words have such a musical sound. But the
-outsider might say “<i>Alerta esta</i>” as much as
-he liked, after the gates were closed he could
-not get into the town until next morning, no
-matter if his home was just the other side of
-the gate. Once in a long time came a messenger
-with news for the governor so important
-that for him they would open the gate; but
-this was very unusual.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">John L. Parker.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">They</span> had one fashion in St. Augustine in
-the early days when the town was ruled by
-Spaniards which might work pretty well nowadays
-in some places. When a fellow became a
-great nuisance, would not work, and disturbed
-people by making noises in the streets, and
-things of that kind, they used to make him
-dress himself in some ridiculous fashion, put
-him at the head of a procession made up of
-anybody who wanted to join it and help make
-fun of him; then the drum and fife started up
-and he was marched out of the town, and he
-could not come back again.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Helen Dunning.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I went</span> with my father and mother to St.
-Augustine only last winter. We went through
-the Ponce de Leon, which I think must be the
-finest hotel in the world. It is built of some
-kind of stuff that glitters in the sun, and looks
-in the shade as if it were blue, and the trimmings
-are of terra cotta. The floors of the
-halls are inlaid with little bits of marble, and
-the marble columns everywhere make you think
-for a minute that you are stepping into an art
-gallery instead of a hotel. The rotunda is just
-lovely! It has eight oak pillars to support it,
-each beautifully carved. The rotunda is four
-stories high, and has corridors on each story
-with more columns and lovely arches. The
-dome has wonderful paintings and carved figures,
-giving in pictures the history of Spain
-and France. You can look straight up through
-an opening to the great copper columns which
-form the lantern at the top. The large parlor
-is perfectly splendid. It is a hundred and four
-feet long, and fifty-three feet wide; but there
-are arches and portières, so that it can be
-divided into five rooms whenever the people
-wish. It is magnificently furnished. I think,
-however, that the great dining-room is really
-more beautiful than the parlor. More than
-eight hundred people can take dinner there at
-one time, and you can look out of the windows
-at lovely orange groves, and hear the mockingbirds
-singing, and there is a band of music which
-always plays while the dinner is being served.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Anna Wheeler Austin.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">A band</span> of singers used to go about the streets
-of old St. Augustine on Easter eve, playing on
-their violins and guitars, and stopping under
-the windows to sing:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“<i>Disciarem lu doi,</i></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Cantarem anb alagria,</i></span></div>
-<div class="verse"><i>Y n’arem a da</i></div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Las pascuas a Maria.</i>”</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>It seems almost impossible to sing such
-queer-sounding words, but translated they
-mean:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“Ended the days of sadness,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grief gives place to singing;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">We come with joy and gladness,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our gifts to Mary bringing.”</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">Mary Geddis.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the year 1821 Spain gave Florida to the
-United States, the old yellow flag of Spain was
-taken down forever, and in its place our own
-beautiful stars and stripes floated over the old
-town. I wonder if the people living there knew
-enough to shout for joy?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Henry Stuart.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is all very well for my brother to talk
-about the people shouting for joy when the
-stars and stripes floated over their town; but I
-guess he forgets what an awful time they had
-only about fifteen years later, when the Seminole
-War broke out. That was because the
-new people who had come in wanted the lands
-which had always belonged to the Indians, and
-wanted them driven further West. For the next
-seven years I think the people had reason to be
-sorry that they had ever seen the stars and
-stripes. Not but that I love the old flag as
-well as my brother does, but I think the Indians
-were ill-treated. It makes me very sad to read
-how they were at last cheated into a surrender,
-and carried away by force from the land they
-loved so well.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Charles Morton Stuart.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> sister Anna thought the hotel was the
-nicest part of St. Augustine, but I liked the
-old fort the best. It used to be Fort San
-Marco, but when the United States got hold of
-it they named it Fort Marion, after General
-Francis Marion. I would like to describe it,
-but I don’t understand just how. It is in shape
-what is called a polygon, and has a moat all
-around it. The stone or shell of which it is
-built is used a great deal in St. Augustine, or
-used to be; it is called coquina. I think the
-narrow streets and queer-looking old houses are
-much more interesting than the new streets,
-which are just like any other city. At least I
-liked them better; but girls always like elegant
-hotels and splendid furniture and all such things.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">George Wheeler Austin.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> mother used to live in St. Augustine years
-ago. She has told me a good deal about the
-streets, and the sea wall, and the little old
-houses. She has described St. George Street
-and Tolomato Street until it seems to me I
-could find my way up and down them almost as
-well as she could. But mother says things are
-very much changed since she was there; she
-reads in the papers about the beautiful new
-hotels, and says it does not seem possible they
-are in old St. Augustine. The old streets were
-very narrow; I suppose they are still. Next
-winter I am going there to see things for myself.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Sarah Castleton.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>[The Pansies have seemed chiefly interested this month in
-the history of old St. Augustine, rather than in a description
-of the city. But I think our readers will agree with me that
-they have managed to crowd a good deal of information into a
-small space. Sorry we have not room for all they said.—<span class="smcap">Editors.</span>]</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>REUBEN AS AN ERRAND BOY.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Character Studies.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-r.jpg" width="122" height="121" alt="R" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">REUBEN MINOR was in his own
-room in his shirt sleeves, and
-the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
-His paste pot was on the table,
-sheets of paper and scraps of
-pasteboard were on the floor,
-and Reuben, with a queer-shaped box before
-him, was in what Maria called “a brown study.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 332px;">
-<img src="images/i-191.jpg" width="332" height="457" alt="boy holding up head at desk" />
-<div class="caption">“IN A BROWN STUDY.”</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The stair door opened, and his Aunt Mary’s
-voice called, “Reuben!”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes’m.”</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t you forget those errands that you’ve
-got to do in town. Have you got ’em all in
-your mind?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes’m.”</p>
-
-<p>“There’s only the eggs and the kerosene and
-the vinegar, you know, so you won’t need to
-have ’em written down—just three things.”</p>
-
-<p>“All right.”</p>
-
-<p>Silence for a few minutes, during which
-Reuben turned the box endwise and squinted
-at it. “Let’s see,” he said, leaning his elbow
-on the table and his head on his hand, “I wonder
-how that would do?” Then he started for
-his row of shelves, seized upon a good-sized
-book in the corner, and dived into its pages.
-Something was not clear. The stair door
-opened again, and his aunt’s voice
-sounded: “Reuben!”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes’m.”</p>
-
-<p>“You must take that next car, you
-know, because there isn’t another for
-an hour, and I’m in a hurry for the
-eggs; if I don’t have them by noon
-there’ll be no pumpkin pie for Sunday.
-Are you all ready for the car?”</p>
-
-<p>“I will be in a minute, Aunt Mary.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, you better get ready right
-straight off, then there won’t be any
-mistake; it will be along now in a little
-while.”</p>
-
-<p>There was no reply to this, and the
-door closed again, Reuben, meantime,
-deep in his book. Ten minutes, fifteen
-minutes, then a sudden, sharp call from
-below: “Reuben, there’s the car coming.
-Hurry, now! don’t you miss it
-for anything.”</p>
-
-<p>Reuben hurried. He made a frantic
-dash for his coat, ran his fingers
-through his hair by way of combing,
-concluded to go without a necktie, and
-tore down the stairs and out of the
-kitchen door and across the lawn, to
-the tune of his aunt’s words: “I believe
-in my heart you’ll lose that car, after
-all!”</p>
-
-<p>No, he didn’t. He hailed it, panting and
-breathless, some minutes after it had passed
-the corner, and at last was seated in it, mopping
-his wet forehead, for the morning was
-warm. But he had not forgotten the big book.
-Four miles in a street car, with not many passengers
-at that hour, gave him a good chance
-to study up that puzzling portion which he
-could not get through his mind. So he studied
-and puzzled, and the car rumbled on, and
-stopped, and went on again many times, and
-people came in and went out, and Reuben knew
-nothing about them. At last he looked up; he
-believed he could make that box now, partitions
-and all, if he were only at home. Halloo! they
-were in town already, and were passing Porter’s.
-Why! then they must have passed the corner
-grocery where Aunt Mary always traded.
-What a nuisance! Now perhaps he could not
-get this car on its return trip. He must try for
-it. So he pulled the check, and made what
-speed he could back, three, four, five blocks,
-to the corner grocery. As he left the car he
-wondered how they managed the flap that made
-the fastening of the inner box, and still puzzling
-over it, presented himself at the counter of the
-city grocery.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, sir,” said the clerk, after waiting a
-minute for orders, “what can I do for you?”</p>
-
-<p>What indeed? Reuben stared at him, grew
-red in the face, stammered, mopped his face
-with his handkerchief, gazed up and down the
-rows and rows of crowded shelves, gazed about
-him everywhere. What had he come for? That
-was the awful question. What had Aunt Mary
-said? She had said several things, he remembered.
-He tried to recall the all-important one.
-Butter? No, of course not; they made their
-own butter. Flour, perhaps, or starch—women
-were always wanting flour and starch—or it
-might have been tea. He was sure he did not
-know, and the longer he thought the more confused
-he seemed to get. And there was the
-return car! Unless he took that he would
-have to wait a solid hour, and for what? Was
-there any likelihood that he would remember?
-Reuben asked himself that question in a most
-searching manner, then sorrowfully shook his
-head as he owned to himself that he did not
-believe he ever knew; he had not paid any
-attention to that part of the business.</p>
-
-<p>Aunt Mary was watching for the return car.
-“Reuben has come,” she called out to Maria
-in the kitchen, as she caught a glimpse of him.
-“I must say I am relieved; I don’t know how
-we could have managed without those eggs. If
-I ever get hold of any hens that lay again, I’ll
-venture to say I won’t sell all my eggs to my
-neighbors and have to depend on store ones
-for myself. Why, what in the world has the
-boy done with them? He seems to be empty-handed!
-Hurry up, Reuben, we are waiting
-for the eggs. Where are your things?”</p>
-
-<p>Poor red-faced, shamefaced Reuben! It
-was hard work, but there was nothing for it
-but to own that the first he had heard of eggs
-was at that moment; and as for the “things,”
-he had no more idea than the man in the moon
-what they were.</p>
-
-<p>“I believe that boy is half-witted,” the clerk
-at the corner grocery had said, after watching
-him for a few minutes, and seeing him make
-a dash for the return car, not having bought a
-thing. But bless your heart, he wasn’t. He
-had wits enough. “Too many of ’em,” his
-Aunt Mary said. The trouble with Reuben
-was that he had never learned to withdraw his
-thoughts from the thing which wanted to absorb
-them, and fix them for the time being, instead,
-on the thing which ought to claim his attention.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>THE ADOPTED FAMILY.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT was a beautiful summer day
-when the Westwoods arrived
-at their country home, most of
-them very glad indeed to see
-the dear old place. They had
-staid in town very late that
-season, Mr. Westwood’s business being such
-that there was a time when he feared he could
-not get away at all. Now here they were turning
-the corner which brought the house into
-view; the great wagon following close behind,
-piled high with baggage, and every one was
-glad, save Herbert. He was eleven years old,
-and fond of his city home, and of the school
-which he attended, and of the boys in his class,
-and felt very lonely and desolate. He “did
-not know a single boy out here,” he confided to
-his mother, “that he ever cared to see again.”
-“And when a fellow hasn’t any friends,” he
-said dolefully, “it is very lonesome.”</p>
-
-
-
-<p>“Poor boy!” said Mrs. Westwood, when he
-was out of hearing, “I am sorry for him; I
-wish he liked the country as I used to; the
-long bright summer days were just crowded
-with happiness for me; but then I had sister
-Fanny to play with, and brother Will. Perhaps
-it would have been different if I had been
-all alone.”</p>
-
-<p>“Children must learn to make friends of the
-birds, and the squirrels, and all sorts of living
-things,” answered his father. “When I was
-Herbert’s age, I used to know the note of every
-bird in the woods, and I don’t believe he can
-tell even a robin when he sees it.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said his mother; “he has but little
-chance for that sort of education; and moreover
-he has no taste for anything of the kind;
-I wish he had.”</p>
-
-<p>The carriage which had been winding up the
-drive, stopped in front of the old-fashioned,
-wide piazzaed country home. It did seem a pity
-that anybody should feel doleful coming to such
-a pleasant place as that; but Herbert felt doleful;
-as he stood with his hand in his pockets,
-and stared down the country road, he winked
-hard to keep back the tears, when he thought
-of the boys in town having their military drill
-at this hour. Meanwhile his father and mother,
-and Peter and Hannah, bustled about, opening
-doors and windows, and planning where the
-luggage should be set down. Presently Herbert
-heard an exclamation from his mother. “For
-pity’s sake!” she said—and in the next
-breath—</p>
-
-<p>“Herbert, come here and see what I have
-found!”</p>
-
-<p>So Herbert swallowed hard, and brushed
-away a tear or two, and went round to the side
-piazza from where his mother’s voice had
-sounded, and saw a sight which made him go
-on tiptoe and gaze in delight.</p>
-
-<p>Pushed back, well under shelter from the
-summer storms, in the southeast corner of the
-piazza, was an old, somewhat dilapidated willow
-chair, large and very comfortable in its
-time, but which had long since been assigned to
-the piazza, and not considered worth bringing
-in out of the dews or the rain. In the fall
-when the family closed the house, the old chair
-had been forgotten. It had stood there all
-winter, deserted and lonely. But in the spring
-it had evidently been mistaken by a certain
-family as a house which was for rent, and they
-had rented it and moved in and set up housekeeping
-on a splendid scale; the consequences
-were, that fastened ingeniously to the back of
-the chair was a luxurious nest, most carefully
-woven, and within it at this moment were three
-of the prettiest speckled eggs that Herbert had
-ever seen. In fact his knowledge of birds’ eggs
-was limited; he had seen but very few.</p>
-
-<p>“O, mother!” he said softly, “how pretty
-it is. There is one of the birds on the branches
-near by—a splendid fellow. Where is his
-mate, do you suppose?”</p>
-
-<p>“Not far away, you may depend,” said his
-mother. “What a cunning place it is in which
-to build a house. How fortunate that the chair
-is so near that door instead of the other one.
-We can get along for awhile without opening
-that door at all, and they can raise their family
-without having trouble. If I were you, Herbert,
-I would adopt them and look after their
-interests and help to bring up their young ones;
-wouldn’t that be fun?”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” said Herbert, with more glee than
-he had shown since he had left his city home,
-“I believe I will. I will call that fellow up
-there on the bush Denny, and he and I will be
-companions this summer.”</p>
-
-<p>“That will be splendid,” said Mrs. Westwood,
-very much pleased, for Denny was the
-short for “Denison,” her boy’s best friend in
-town. It was certainly a delicate compliment
-to name the bird after him, and showed to the
-mother the degree of friendship which Herbert
-meant to cultivate.</p>
-
-<p>“We shall get along comfortably now,” she
-said to her husband laughingly; “he has
-adopted the birds in the old chair, and named
-the singer ‘Denny,’ so he will not lack for
-companionship.”</p>
-
-<p>Ah! I wish I could tell you about the lovely
-summer. Never was a brighter, more congenial
-companion than Denny. He sang his sweetest
-songs for the lonesome boy, and accepted his
-overtures of friendship in the most genial manner
-possible. Before the season was over not
-only he but his wife would allow Herbert to
-come close enough to the old chair to drop
-special dainties into the nest for the children,
-and were voluble in their thanks. More than
-that, Denny actually learned to come and perch
-himself on Herbert’s finger and eat sugar out
-of his hand. And one of the children grew so
-fond of Herbert that she took many a walk
-perched on his shoulder, chirping occasionally
-to let him know that she was there, and was
-happy.</p>
-
-<p>“I never knew that birds could be so pleasant,”
-Herbert said to his mother; “they are
-better than boys and girls in some respects;
-they never get vexed at a fellow, you know,
-and refuse to speak to him for days together.
-Even Denny got mad at me once, and wouldn’t
-speak for a whole day. Now this Denny never
-forgets to say ‘How do you do?’ even if I
-haven’t been out of his sight longer than five
-minutes.”</p>
-
-<p>On the whole the birds did a good thing for
-Herbert Westwood that summer; they turned
-what they thought would be a weariness into a
-season of great delight, and of daily increasing
-interest. More than that, he did a good thing
-for the birds. Before the season was over he
-had made the acquaintance of dozens of boys
-in the neighborhood and formed a society, the
-pledge of which was protection to the birds.
-No stones were to be thrown, no snares to be
-set by these boys or any whom they recognized
-as friends; neither were any nests to be molested,
-and not a few of the boys became so
-interested in Denny and his family that they
-determined for another season to adopt a family
-of their own, and study birds.</p>
-
-<p>“They are wonderful creatures,” said Herbert
-thoughtfully, as he was reporting to his
-mother some of the bird stories which had been
-told in the society that afternoon, “just wonderful
-creatures! I don’t know how I ever
-came to pass them by without thinking anything
-about them. I tell you what, mother, God
-must have thought about them a great deal.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Efil Srednow.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">God’s</span> promises are fulfilled a hundred cents
-on a dollar.</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A PRETTY GIFT.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Something for Mamma.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t2.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THE materials needed for this
-gift are a smooth thin board
-about two feet long and six
-inches wide, some bright-colored
-plush, some pretty cretonne,
-a dozen or more brass
-hooks of varying sizes, none of them very large,
-a couple of “cock eyes” such as are used for
-hanging small picture frames, and a yard or
-two of ribbon, color to match the plush, or
-contrast nicely with it.</p>
-
-<p>The smooth board is to be covered on one
-side with the plush, on the other with the cretonne,
-the edges neatly sewed; then the hooks
-are to be screwed in at regular intervals on the
-plush side, the ribbon drawn through the rings
-or “cock eyes,” and tied in a bow ready for
-hanging, and your work is done.</p>
-
-<p>When it comes into mamma’s possession she
-will select a convenient spot on her wall, and
-hang it as though it were a picture. Then on
-the little hooks she will hang her glove buttoner,
-her small scissors which are forever slipping out
-of sight, her shoe buttoner, her watch, perhaps,
-when it is not in use, and it may be her favorite
-ring which she removes when she washes her
-hands. I am sure I could not enumerate the
-little bits of useful articles which she will be
-only too glad to hang on such convenient hooks,
-that she will find not a disfigurement but an
-ornament to her room.</p>
-
-<p>Now having told you just what and how, let
-me go carefully over the story again and remind
-you of its possibilities. For I can well
-imagine a little girl who wants to make her
-mother a neat and convenient present, but who
-has no plush nor ribbon, and does not even
-know how to get the right kind of a board.</p>
-
-<p>My dear, you are just the one I want to help.
-About the board; it need not be exactly two
-feet long and six inches wide; it may be of
-the length and width which you find convenient,
-and which you decide will look well in the space
-where it is to hang. There are light boards
-used by wholesale merchants in packing certain
-goods which are just the thing, and they can
-often be had for the asking at the store where
-your mother does most of her shopping.
-Neither is plush a necessity. I have a friend
-who made a pretty “Wall Toilet” such as I
-have described, out of a bit of soft silk a
-friend had given her to dress her dollie. The
-silk was old, but she smoothed it neatly, padded
-it with a sheet of white cotton padding, and it
-looked very nice; but you may not happen to
-have the silk? Never mind, don’t you remember
-those pieces of turkey red calico in your
-auntie’s piece bag? They are just the thing,
-and your little friend who wants to make one,
-and has no turkey red calico, has some bright
-blue cambric which will be very pretty. All
-thin material will look better if the board is
-first padded with the cotton I spoke of. The
-brass hooks are quite cheap, and so useful that
-I think we must have them; but a red cord, or
-a neat band of cretonne, or some tidy cotton
-twisted into a cord, finished with tassels made
-out of it, will take the place of the ribbon very
-nicely indeed. In short, the old motto, “Where
-there is a will there is a way,” will serve you
-well in making this gift, as indeed it will in
-almost any emergency in life.</p>
-
-<p>I know by experience how useful the little
-contrivances are, and I earnestly hope that
-many a mother will have her birthday enriched
-this season by one of them, made by her own
-little daughter’s thoughtful hand.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 514px;">
-<img src="images/i-195.jpg" width="514" height="459" alt="two young ladies in large hats, one with a large peacock fan" />
-<div class="caption">AS WE USED TO DRESS.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 483px;">
-<img src="images/i-196.jpg" width="483" height="650" alt="Deer family" />
-<div class="caption">A DEER CHILD.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>OR MISS MOON’S FACES.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t2.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">TRUTH to tell she does make up
-faces, very different and queer
-ones, and no one Pansy sees
-exactly the same one at the
-same time, and since there are
-ten thousand Pansies, more or
-less, you see Miss Nancy Moon
-is smarter in “making faces” than
-some of you.</p>
-
-<p>Another “truth to tell” is that
-the “moon’s phases” means appearances,
-or looks, and so why
-is it not quite the same as Nancy
-Moon’s faces? We’ll think it is.</p>
-
-<p>Every Pansy knows some astronomy
-or—ought to. Come, then,
-and from this time on till you are
-a hundred years old know that
-astronomy means star-law, or all
-about the bright worlds in the
-sky. Now you know some astronomy.
-The moon is one of these
-worlds, and is very near our world—only
-two hundred and forty
-thousand miles away—and is one
-of the lamps to light it up. You
-must begin to learn about it. That
-you may call moonology. One of
-the first things to learn in moonology
-is how she makes so many
-faces; once a month a long, narrow
-bent face, then a little fatter,
-and so on till it is full as a—beer
-keg. Of course you mustn’t think
-she really drinks that stuff. I
-guess there is no license in Moontown.</p>
-
-<p>If you will study the picture
-with all your might and main a
-half-hour to-day, another to-morrow,
-and so on, and then get
-grandpapa to put on his specs and
-help—you’ll surely answer the riddle, how the
-faces (or phases) are made.</p>
-
-<p>Then some day you may become a great
-astronomer—like Tycho Brahe or John Kepler.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 506px;">
-<img src="images/i-197.jpg" width="506" height="800" alt="moon chart" />
-<div class="caption">THE MOON’S PHASES.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">W</span>HEN you’ve got a thing to say,</div>
-<div class="verse">Say it! Don’t take half a day.</div>
-<div class="verse">When your tale’s got little in it,</div>
-<div class="verse">Crowd the whole thing in a minute!</div>
-<div class="verse">Life is short—a fleeting vapor—</div>
-<div class="verse">Don’t fill up a ream of paper</div>
-<div class="verse">With a tale, which, at a pinch,</div>
-<div class="verse">Could be cornered in an inch!</div>
-<div class="verse">Boil it down until it simmers;</div>
-<div class="verse">Polish it until it glimmers.</div>
-<div class="verse">When you’ve got a thing to say,</div>
-<div class="verse">Say it! Don’t take half a day.</div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 566px;">
-<img src="images/i-198.jpg" width="566" height="800" alt="very large telescope" />
-<div class="caption">AT THE PARIS OBSERVATORY.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>JOHNNY’S PILLOW.</h3>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;">
-<img src="images/i-199a.jpg" width="80" height="680" alt="animals" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 177px;">
-<img src="images/i-199b.jpg" width="177" height="684" alt="animals" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap">ONE day Johnny was taking a walk in the
-orchard with Nurse.</p>
-
-<p>He was hunting for berries, and what do
-you think he found?</p>
-
-<p>He found some big white eggs hidden in the
-tall grass!</p>
-
-<p>Johnny wanted to put the pretty eggs in his
-basket and take them home to mamma.</p>
-
-<p>But Nurse said:</p>
-
-<p>“No, no, come away, dear. That is a nest.
-Hush! there comes the old goose. She will sit
-on the eggs and keep them warm, and by and
-by she will have some pretty goslings.”</p>
-
-<p>After that Johnny went with Nurse every
-day to take a peep at the gray goose sitting on
-her eggs.</p>
-
-<p>She sat and sat a good many days, and then
-one morning when Johnny went to look, sure
-enough, the goslings had come!</p>
-
-<p>They had no feathers on, and they had long,
-ugly necks and big feet.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t like ’em,” said Johnny.</p>
-
-<p>The little goslings grew fast. They had a
-nice farmyard to live in, and a little brook to
-paddle in.</p>
-
-<p>At night the farmer shut them up in the
-barn, so that the cats and dogs could not eat
-them up.</p>
-
-<p>In a few days they were all covered with
-pretty feathers.</p>
-
-<p>Then Johnny liked them.</p>
-
-<p>By and by the little goslings were old enough
-to go with their father and mother and aunts
-and uncles to swim in a big lake. That made
-them very, very happy.</p>
-
-<p>Then they grew to be big geese, and wore a
-lot of feathers, and Johnny had a pillow, which he enjoyed very much, made from the soft
-down that grew on their white breasts.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>WHO WAS TO BLAME?</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-n.jpg" width="121" height="123" alt="N" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">“NOW you see, Emeline Frances,”
-said Celia, pushing herself up
-among the pillows and speaking
-in slow, stern tones to the
-dollie lying on her arm, “it is
-really your fault, and no other
-person’s; if you hadn’t been bound and determined
-to go out this afternoon, why, we shouldn’t
-have gone, that’s all. It had been raining, of
-course it had, and the walks were all damp, and
-you had no rubbers to wear over these shoes.
-Besides all that, you had been told that you
-must not go out this afternoon; but you were
-so vain of your new dress and hat, and so
-anxious to show them to Lulu Parks,
-that you would insist on going, and making
-me get my feet wet. Now here we
-are! A whole hour yet before it will be
-dark, and just a lovely time to play, and
-company downstairs in the parlor, and
-just the kind of cake for tea that I like
-the best, and we have to come upstairs
-and go to bed! I hope you are satisfied,
-Emeline Frances, with your afternoon’s
-work. I shouldn’t have thought of going
-out if you hadn’t have been so crazy to
-show your new hat. It is just a pity that
-you think so much of fine clothes. The
-dampness took the curl all out of your new
-feather, and it will never be so pretty again;
-but you had your own way, and will have to
-take the consequences. The worst of it is that
-you make me suffer with you. If this were the
-first time you had disobeyed perhaps I shouldn’t
-feel so badly, but as it is, I am almost discouraged.
-I do not see how you can be so
-naughty and forgetful.”</p>
-
-<p>The lecture closed with one of Celia’s longest
-sighs. The door which led from her room to
-her brother Stuart’s was ajar, and he, sitting at
-his desk supposed to be studying his Latin for
-the next day, listened with the most unqualified
-amusement to the whole of it. He repeated the
-story downstairs at the tea-table, amid bursts
-of laughter from the entire family, his mother
-excepted.</p>
-
-<p>“Mamma looks as grave as a judge over it,”
-Stuart said at last, when the laugh had subsided.
-“What’s the matter, mamma? Don’t
-you think the poor baby’s version of her troubles
-is funny?”</p>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 302px;">
-<img src="images/i-200.jpg" width="302" height="204" alt="girl in bed talking to dolly" />
-<div class="caption">CELIA TALKS TO EMELINE FRANCES.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“It has its funny side,” said Mrs. Campbell,
-with a grave smile upon her face, “but really,
-it has its sad side too. You are a very good
-mimic, my son, and gave Celia’s voice and
-manner to perfection, in doing which you have
-reminded me of her besetting sin. Have you
-never noticed that the child, in her own estimation,
-is always led into trouble through the
-fault of others? If she cannot blame Nora,
-or Josie, or some of her playmates, why then
-poor Emeline Frances has to bear it. I am
-really very much troubled by this habit of hers.
-To judge from Celia’s statement of the case,
-she is forever led astray by the evil propensities
-of other people. If it were true, it would be
-sad enough, to have a child so easily led in the
-wrong way; but sometimes there is as much
-foundation for her theory as there is in this
-case, when the vanity of poor Emeline Frances
-is supposed to have caused all the trouble. I
-have tried to reason the child out of such excuses,
-but when she reaches the folly of actually
-blaming the doll for leading her astray, I hardly
-know what to think of her.”</p>
-
-<p>“It is a curious development,” said Celia’s
-father, “but I have known older and wiser
-people than she to indulge in it; I knew a
-young man once, who charged a moonlight
-night of unusual beauty with all the folly of
-which he was guilty that evening.”</p>
-
-<p>After this sentence Stuart Campbell finished
-his supper in silence, with his eyes on his plate;
-but perhaps no one but his father knew that his
-cheeks were redder than usual.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>A VERITABLE POEM OF POEMS.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">A LADY of San Francisco is said to have
-occupied a year in hunting up and fitting
-together the following thirty-eight lines
-from thirty-eight English-speaking poets. The
-names of the authors are given below:</p>
-
-
-<ul><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;1. Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?</li>
-<li>&nbsp;&nbsp;2. Life’s a short summer, man a flower;</li>
-<li>&nbsp;&nbsp;3. By turns we catch the vital breath, and die;</li>
-<li>&nbsp;&nbsp;4. The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh.</li>
-<li>&nbsp;&nbsp;5. To be is better far than not to be,</li>
-<li>&nbsp;&nbsp;6. ’Though all man’s life may seem a tragedy;</li>
-<li>&nbsp;&nbsp;7. But light cares speak when mighty cares are dumb,</li>
-<li>&nbsp;&nbsp;8. The bottom is but shallow whence they come.</li>
-<li>&nbsp;&nbsp;9. Your fate is but the common fate of all;</li>
-<li>10. Unmingled joys here to no man befall.</li>
-<li>11. Nature to each allots her proper sphere,</li>
-<li>12. Fortune makes folly her peculiar care;</li>
-<li>13. Custom does often reason overrule,</li>
-<li>14. And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.</li>
-<li>15. Live well, how long, how short, permit to heaven,</li>
-<li>16. They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.</li>
-<li>17. Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face—</li>
-<li>18. Vile intercourse where virtue has not place;</li>
-<li>19. Then keep each passion down, however dear;</li>
-<li>20. Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear;</li>
-<li>21. Her sensual snares, let faithless Pleasure lay</li>
-<li>22. With craft and skill to ruin and betray;</li>
-<li>23. Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise.</li>
-<li>24. We masters grow of all that we despise.</li>
-<li>25. Oh! then, renounce that impious self-esteem;</li>
-<li>26. Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.</li>
-<li>27. Think not ambition wise because ’tis brave,</li>
-<li>28. The path of glory leads but to the grave.</li>
-<li>29. What is ambition? ’Tis a glorious cheat,</li>
-<li>30. Only destructive to the brave and great.</li>
-<li>31. What’s all the gaudy glitter of a crown?</li>
-<li>32. The way to bliss lies not on beds of down.</li>
-<li>33. How long we live, not years, but actions tell;</li>
-<li>34. That man lives twice who lives the first life well.</li>
-<li>35. Make, then, while yet ye may, your God your friend,</li>
-<li>36. Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend.</li>
-<li>37. The trust that’s given guard, and to yourself be just;</li>
-<li>38. For, live we how we can, yet die we must.</li></ul>
-
-
-
-<p>1, Young; 2, Dr. Johnson; 3, Pope; 4,
-Prior; 5, Sewell; 6, Spenser; 7, Daniel; 8,
-Sir Walter Raleigh; 9, Longfellow; 10, Southwell;
-11, Congreve; 12, Churchill; 13, Rochester;
-14, Armstrong; 15, Milton; 16, Baily;
-17, Trench; 18, Somerville; 19, Thompson;
-20, Byron; 21, Smollett; 22, Crabbe; 23,
-Massinger; 24, Crowley; 25, Beattie; 26,
-Cowper; 27, Sir Walter Davenant; 28, Gray;
-29, Willis; 30, Addison; 31, Dryden; 32,
-Francis Quarles; 33, Watkins; 34, Herrick;
-35, William Mason; 36, Hill; 37, Dana; 38,
-Shakespeare.</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<h2>LITTLE LENA.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">DID the Pansies read in the papers about
-Lena Haupt?</p>
-
-<p>She was only five years old when her mother
-died, and three months afterwards her father,
-who had kept her with him by the kind help of
-a neighbor, fell from a building where he had
-been working, and was so badly injured that in
-a short time he died. He had his little girl
-with him a few hours before his death, and explained
-to her as well as he could that he was
-going where her mamma had gone, but could
-not take her with him yet. She must be a good
-little girl; she had an uncle and aunt and little
-cousins in Chicago, and they would take care
-of her and love her if she was good.</p>
-
-<p>Only a few days after that Lena started alone
-on her long journey. Her uncle had telegraphed
-to “send her on,” and he would meet her at the
-Chicago depot. There was a card tied around
-her neck by a ribbon, and on the card was
-written: “Please take care of me.” There
-was a letter, also, fastened to the same ribbon,
-which told Lena’s sad little story, and asked
-the passengers to be kind to her, but to please
-not give her any candy. She had a wee purse
-fastened to the buckle of her belt which had
-nearly two dollars in it.</p>
-
-<p>As for her ticket, it had been bought and
-paid for, and the conductor had it in charge.
-Before night of that long day almost every
-passenger on the crowded train had called on
-Lena, and her wee purse was filled to its utmost
-capacity with shining quarters and half-dollars.
-She herself made a great many journeys in the
-porter’s arms to the parlor car, to visit with
-some ladies. And at last, as night was coming
-on, and Lena’s eyes were beginning to droop,
-and the conductor was considering how he could
-make her comfortable for the night, came a
-lady and gentleman and begged to have her
-transferred to their sleeper, where they bought
-a berth for her and put her to bed.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 527px;">
-<img src="images/i-202.jpg" width="527" height="582" alt="mice around nest" />
-<div class="caption">N THE MIDST OF HARVEST.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And all along the line little Lena found loving
-friends. I think her father and mother in
-Heaven must have been glad to see how warm
-were the hearts of even strangers toward their
-darling.</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<h2>POSITIVE PEOPLE.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">I &nbsp; WANT to call the attention of all Pansies
-to a statement made by Benjamin Franklin
-in his story of his life. He says he tried to
-form the habit of expressing himself always
-with great modesty. He was careful not to
-use the word “certainly” or “undoubtedly,”
-or any of those words which give an air of
-positiveness, when the subject was one which
-might be disputed. He tried always to say,
-“It appears to me,” or “If I am not mistaken,”
-or “I should think that,” etc. He
-declared this habit to be of great use to him in
-persuading others to think as he did, and that
-moreover it gave him a chance to learn a great
-deal more than he would otherwise have had;
-for he said he had noticed that people did not
-care to give information to those who acted as
-though they already knew all that it was possible
-to learn.</p>
-
-<p>In many respects Benjamin Franklin was a
-wise man, and perhaps in no small way could
-he have shown his knowledge of human nature
-better than by adopting such rules. But I
-really do not think he has many followers.
-Just watch the conversation of even quite
-young people for awhile, with this thought in
-mind, and see how many of them seem to be
-absolutely sure of their position, even in regard
-to subjects where wise men differ. If we could
-have more doubt about things which have not yet
-been decided, and more certainty about things
-which God and the Bible have decided for us, we
-should have a much better, as well as a much
-pleasanter world.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Hannah Hearall.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>OFF FOR BOYLAND.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">H</span>O! All aboard? A traveler</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sets sail from Babyland!</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Before my eyes there comes a blur;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">But still I kiss my hand,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And try to smile as off he goes,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">My bonny, winsome boy!</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Yes, <i>bon voyage</i>! God only knows</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">How much I wish thee joy!</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Oh! tell me; have you heard of him?</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">He wore a sailor’s hat</span></div>
-<div class="verse">All silver-corded round the brim,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And—stranger e’en than that—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">A wondrous suit of navy blue,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With pockets deep and wide;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Oh! tell me, sailors, tell me true,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">How fares he on the tide?</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">We’ve now no baby in the house;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">’Twas but this very morn,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">He doffed his dainty ’broidered blouse,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With skirts of snowy lawn;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And shook a mass of silken curls</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">From off his sunny brow;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">They fretted him—“so like a girl’s,”</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mamma can have them now.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">He owned a brand-new pocket-book,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">But that he could not find;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">A knife and string were all he took.</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">What did he leave behind?</span></div>
-<div class="verse">A heap of blocks, with letters gay,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And here and there a toy;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">I cannot pick them up to-day,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">My heart is with my boy.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Ho! Ship ahoy! At boyhood’s town</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cast anchor strong and deep.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">What! tears upon this little gown,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Left for mamma to keep?</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Weep not, but smile; for through the air</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A merry message rings—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">“Just sell it to the rag man there;</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">I’ve done with baby things!”</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">Emma Huntington Nason.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 551px;">
-<img src="images/i-204.jpg" width="551" height="707" alt="boy up in sails" />
-<div class="caption">ON THE LOOKOUT.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2><a id="THE_OLD_WORLD_TOO"></a>THE OLD WORLD TOO.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">AMERICA is still the “New
-World.” Each day pick up
-something new about it. It is
-your world now. But there is
-an “Old World.” You must
-know about that too. If you
-could go and see it, so much the better. The
-eye is a little contrivance, but large enough to
-take in all England, Ireland, Scotland and any
-other land it gets a chance to see.</p>
-
-<p>If you go abroad you must sail. There is no
-railroad or cable to carry you yet. A hundred
-years hence people may cross the Atlantic in
-balloons. But you can’t wait so long. Why
-should you? Here is the good ship Majestic—not
-exactly the one shown in the picture on
-the first page—which will take you over from
-New York to Liverpool in less than six days.</p>
-
-<p>Once it took weeks. Sometimes a big iceberg
-came sailing along right across the ship’s
-path. Then there was a crash. Perhaps the
-poor little ship went to splinters and the passengers—well,
-you know what happened then.
-Sometimes a dreadful storm came down upon
-the ocean and the waves went up and down,
-looking like mountains and valleys. Not every
-frail ship could stand it. There was a wreck.
-But in spite of all these dreadful things most
-passengers get there and see the sights, and
-have a good time and get safely home. A
-friend has crossed the Atlantic nearly seventy
-times safely.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CASHMERE SHAWLS.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">IT is said that sixteen thousand looms are
-kept in constant employment in Cashmere,
-producing annually about thirty thousand
-shawls. The shawls are woven on rudely-constructed
-looms, a pair of shawls sometimes occupying
-three or four men a whole year in
-weaving. The Cashmere goat, which furnishes
-the material, is found in Thibet, the hair of it
-being fine, silky and about eighteen inches long.
-It takes the fleece of ten goats to manufacture
-a shawl a yard and a half square.—<i>Selected.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</h2>
-
-<h3>VI.</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-w.jpg" width="119" height="120" alt="W" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">WHILE the folks are gone to the
-fair, and we have nothing to
-do but watch around the place
-and see that no tramp gets in,
-we might as well have a good
-time, and I will tell you about
-my brother Nero. You must not forget,
-though, but keep eyes, ears and nose open
-while I am talking.</p>
-
-<p>To begin with, there was a very large family
-of us, or would have been if we had all been
-kept together. There were brothers and sisters
-older, and a good many younger than we.
-We were of the same age, and there were three
-others just our age, too; but they had gone to
-live with other families, and Nero and I were
-all there were left with mother. Poor, dear
-mother! I remember well how she used to
-feel when her children were taken away from
-her, though I was too young at that time to
-realize it.</p>
-
-<p>When we were alone she would sigh, and
-many a tear have I seen fall from her eyes, as
-she would lap us and think of her darlings
-whose faces she knew not that she would ever
-see again.</p>
-
-<p>She, poor mother, seemed to lavish all her
-love upon us after the other three were gone.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Bryant, our master, had a daughter—only
-one—whose name was Fanny. Her
-father and mother seemed to think the world
-of her; and the thing that puzzled mother was,
-that Mrs. Bryant, being a mother herself, should
-not feel more for her four-footed friend, who
-was a mother also. She fed us enough, and
-never abused us in the ways in which so many
-abuse their dogs; but when it came to parting
-mother and children it never seemed to occur
-to her that a mother with four feet, and that
-couldn’t talk, could have any motherly feelings,
-or care what became of her little ones.</p>
-
-<p>I remember little Fanny was not so. She
-would cry every time one of my brothers or
-sisters was taken away, and after one was gone
-would come out with us and put her arms
-around mother’s silky neck and cry as though
-her heart would break.</p>
-
-<p>Well, one day while we were quite small a
-man came to the house. I think he was some
-kind of agent. He saw mother, and could not
-help admiring her glossy coat and beautiful
-eyes, and so was anxious to get one of our
-family. He wanted mother herself, but soon
-found that money could not buy her. Fanny
-overheard them talking about us, and then
-slipped quietly out of the room, and came in
-great haste to where we were, and with one of
-us under each arm fled to a place of safety.
-Down through the orchard she went till she
-came to an old building which was used to
-store hay in; there, in a hole which she and
-some of her playmates had made to hide in,
-she put us, and covered us up with soft straw,
-and fixed it so that we could not possibly crawl
-out, then closed the door and went off under a
-sweet apple-tree to hunt for apples as though
-nothing had happened.</p>
-
-<p>Now I suppose men will think she did not
-act just as she should, and perhaps she was
-guilty of disobedience for not telling where we
-were when they were hunting for us; but we
-were very grateful to her, and whined with
-delight when we heard the man drive away,
-and learned that he was not likely to come over
-that road again.</p>
-
-<p>Fanny felt badly about it, and that night
-when she was going to bed told her mother
-what she had done, crying almost as hard as
-though we had been sold.</p>
-
-<p>Fanny’s mother explained to her how it was
-wicked to be disobedient, and that it was disobedience
-to not do what she would be required
-to do, if all the circumstances were known, and
-that doing wrong that good might come of it
-was never right.</p>
-
-<p>Then after Fanny was asleep her mother told
-Mr. Bryant why they had failed to find us, and
-after he heard the whole story he said: “Bless
-her dear heart; for her sake we will keep the
-little fellows, and Bess” (that was mother’s
-name) “will look at us with less sadness in
-her great eyes.”</p>
-
-<p>So Mrs. Bryant told Fanny that they had
-decided to keep us both until we were much
-bigger, at least, and she need not worry any
-more about our being sold.</p>
-
-<p>When they told mother you should have seen
-her leap for joy; she sprang up upon her hind
-feet, and put her fore paws upon Mr. Bryant’s
-breast, forgetting in her great joy that her feet
-were not clean; but he, good man, only patted
-her and let her lick his cheek, and called her
-“Good old Bess,” and then told her to go and
-look after her children and give them their supper.</p>
-
-<p>I heard her say to one of the neighbors some
-months after, as she was telling her experience
-with us, that that was the first time she had
-lain down with any peace of mind for weeks.</p>
-
-<p>Well, the bigger we grew the more Fanny
-loved us, and so we did her. We never let her
-go down in the orchard, or out into the woods,
-or to fish in the brook but what we went with
-her, and we drove everything and everybody
-away, unless she told us not to.</p>
-
-<p>After awhile she decided that she wanted
-one of us in her room nights. To that arrangement
-her mother at first strongly objected; but
-her father plead for her, and the mother finally
-consented.</p>
-
-<p>When the cold weather came on Fanny got a
-rug, and had Nero sleep on that rug on the
-foot of her bed, “to keep her feet warm,” she
-said.</p>
-
-<p>This had been going on for some time when
-Mr. and Mrs. Bryant went out to visit a neighbor’s
-at some kind of a gathering, and left
-mother and me outside in our kennel to watch,
-and Nero to remain in the room with our little
-friend Fanny.</p>
-
-<p>The hired man and the cook, instead of remaining
-at home as they were expected to,
-went to spend the evening with a neighbor,
-thinking it would be all right with Fanny, as
-she was asleep. But it had been ironing day,
-and the clothes had been left hanging in the
-kitchen to air, and how it was no one will ever
-know, but in some way they took fire. Mother
-was the first to discover it, and began to bark
-with all her might to awaken Fanny and Nero.
-I remember that I barked too, just as hard and
-loud as I could.</p>
-
-<p>Soon Nero heard it, and began to feel that
-something must be the matter somewhere. His
-first thought was that he ought to awaken his
-young mistress, and he went at the job as best
-he knew. But she was too sound asleep to be
-awakened by barking, do the best he could; so
-he sprang upon her shoulder and began to pull
-at her nightdress, and finally took her by the
-ear, and pulled so hard that it almost started
-the blood. Then she awakened in a great
-fright, for a bright light was shining so she
-could see everything in her room.</p>
-
-<p>Pulling on her shoes and stockings, and
-wrapping around her some of the blankets
-from her bed, she opened the door, which fortunately
-was near the stairs.</p>
-
-<p>With the help of Nero she made her way
-through the smoke to the street, about the time
-the neighbors began to arrive. They were too
-late to have been of any help to Fanny, for the
-flames would have overtaken her before they
-reached there, but for Nero. By the time Mr.
-and Mrs. Bryant reached home the house was
-far gone. When they saw the flames they
-seemed almost crazy with fright; for they remembered
-that they had left their only child
-asleep in the second story. It was some minutes
-before they could be made to understand
-that Fanny was safe.</p>
-
-<p>She and Nero had been hurried to the house
-of a neighbor, and when they found them
-Fanny had her arms around Nero’s neck.</p>
-
-<p>When Fanny was being tucked into bed for a
-second time that night she said to her mother:
-“Are you not glad that I kept Nero from being
-sold? Because if he had not been there to
-wake me up you wouldn’t have had any little
-girl now.”</p>
-
-<p>From that time Nero was a great pet, and I
-was very proud of him, though I could not
-help being a little bit vexed because nobody
-gave mother and me any credit for awakening
-him. One day I said something about it to
-her, and she said: “Never mind, Major; we
-know ourselves that we did our duty, and that
-is the important thing.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-R.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 559px;">
-<img src="images/i-207.jpg" width="559" height="347" alt="settlers by campfire" />
-<div class="caption">SOME OF OUR EARLIEST SETTLERS.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 577px;">
-<img src="images/i-208.jpg" width="577" height="764" alt="girl under the sea" />
-<div class="caption">A “MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.”</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>HOW TO MAKE A SCREEN BAG.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Something for Mamma.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT is my opinion that the little
-girl who makes this convenient
-thing which I am about to describe,
-will need to have an
-accommodating brother who
-owns a box of tools and knows
-how to use them. Or she may have a good
-friend among the carpenters who are at work
-on the next corner. Still another way would
-be to get papa enlisted and agree to divide
-mamma’s birthday present with him; that is,
-let him share the honor of getting it up.</p>
-
-<p>However that part may be managed here is
-yours, my dear, industrious little girl.</p>
-
-<p>The name of the article is Screen Bag. I
-have no doubt you know how fond mamma is
-of bags, of all shapes and sizes, for keeping her
-unmended stockings, or perhaps, more truthfully
-speaking, your and your brothers’ and sisters’
-unmended stockings, for balls of cord, and rolls
-of tape, and papers of hooks and eyes, and I
-have not room to tell how many other things.
-Well, this Screen Bag is just the thing. First
-get your frames made of common pine wood,
-three of them, of about the right height to furnish
-a comfortable screen for mamma if she
-wishes to keep the wind from blowing on her,
-or the firelight from burning her face. Indeed,
-you must decide where she will be likely to want
-to use the screen, and plan its size accordingly.
-Then you want some bright cloth of a pretty
-color; perhaps red, if that harmonizes best
-with the colors in your mother’s room, or possibly
-blue or a soft rich brown; what you will,
-so that it is strong. Cretonne is good, so is
-the striped cotton furniture cloth which may be
-found at any upholsterer’s, and in nearly all
-large city stores. You want two kinds; one
-for the front and one for the back of your
-screen. The back or lining side need not be
-made of such strong material. English cambric
-or common calico will do nicely. Of
-course the amount of material needed will depend
-upon the size of your frames; some careful
-measurements with a tape line will be
-necessary. Now get your “pockets” ready,
-as many as you have room for, and of whatever
-size you think the most useful. The first
-or lower row should be a little larger than the
-ones above. The screen I have in mind had
-two good-sized pockets below, three smaller
-ones above, four above them, and five tiny
-ones at the top. These may be made of the
-same cloth as the screen, or of different colors,
-according to your taste and the variety of material
-at command. They should be hemmed
-neatly at the top and stitched firmly to the
-cloth; first basted, then sewed in the machine,
-to insure strength; or, if you do not understand
-a sewing machine, and want to do all the
-work yourself, you can take strong thread, and
-make a back stitch for every third or fourth
-one, and do the whole by hand.</p>
-
-<p>Now you want some brass-headed nails—round
-heads, you know. Finally, your frames
-are ready for the brass hinges on which they are
-to swing. You will need four of these, and
-when they are screwed into their places your Bag
-Screen will be finished. Fifty-two pockets!
-My word for it, if your mamma does not feel
-richer than she ever did in her life, after she
-has her conveniences packed away in those delightful
-pockets, which besides holding them,
-are at work screening her from the heat, or
-sun, or wind, I shall be very much astonished.</p>
-
-<p>I shall hope to hear that some of the Pansies
-have tried this experiment.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>ABOUT MINNEAPOLIS.<br />
-
-<small>BY THE PANSIES.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">A &nbsp; GOOD many years ago there
-used to be a city named St.
-Anthony. It was built on the
-east side of the Mississippi
-River; then a city grew up on
-the west side named Minneapolis,
-and after awhile it swallowed St. Anthony
-and made one big city of itself on both
-sides of the river. I think St. Anthony would
-have been a prettier name for the city, on account
-of the Falls of St. Anthony being right
-there. But Minneapolis is pretty, too. I have
-never been there, but my brother has, and some
-day he is going to take me a long journey all
-over the West; then we will visit Minneapolis,
-and I will write to the Pansies about it.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Helen M. Leeds.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> flouring mills of Minneapolis are the
-largest in the world. They can make thirty-eight
-thousand barrels of flour in a day if they
-want to; and I guess they want to, for their
-flour is famous all over the country. I order
-flour for my grandmother, and she won’t have
-a barrel which does not say “Minneapolis” on
-it. I should think the coopers would all get
-rich out there. I read in a book that in one
-year they sold pretty nearly three million
-barrels!</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">John Willis Leeds.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I don’t</span> know what I can write about Minneapolis.
-I think it is just like any other great
-big city, with electric lights, and street cars,
-and parks, and all those things, of course. I
-think cities are all alike; I like the country
-myself. But Minneapolis grows faster than
-many cities do. My grandfather was there in
-1860, and there were only about six thousand
-inhabitants; now there are two hundred and
-twenty-five thousand. Some say more, but I
-think that is enough.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Harvey Campbell.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I am</span> so glad it has come time to write about
-Minneapolis, because I went there myself only
-a year ago. I do think it is the loveliest place
-I was ever in. It seems more like a great big
-beautiful town than a city. The houses are
-not crowded together in great ugly-looking
-brick rows, all just alike, as they are in Philadelphia,
-and on some streets in New York; but
-almost all of them have lovely grounds, and
-trees, and flowers, and pretty lawns. Oh! I
-liked it all so much. We had a picnic out at
-the Falls of Minnehaha, the prettiest place I
-ever saw in my life. There is a magnificent
-park out there of more than a hundred acres,
-and the drive all the way through the city to
-the park is perfectly beautiful. Then of course
-the falls themselves are just too lovely! We
-had Mr. Dickson the elocutionist with us, and
-after lunch he recited parts of Longfellow’s
-poem about “Minnehaha, Laughing Water.”
-I had never read “Hiawatha” then, but I have
-since, and I know several pages of it by heart.
-But you cannot think how lovely it was to have
-Mr. Dickson recite it right at the falls. We
-took a great many lovely drives while we were
-in the city. We stopped at West Hotel, which
-is one of the finest in the United States, or for
-that matter in the world. It can accommodate
-twelve hundred guests, and it seemed as though
-there must be that number in the house while
-we were there. When we met in the great
-dining-room it seemed queer to think that there
-were more people there than can be found in
-the village where I live. Still I like our little
-village in the summer, and would not exchange
-it for a city. I would like to describe West
-Hotel, but I cannot, except to say that the
-furniture was grand, and everything was elegant.
-We rode past Senator Washburn’s house
-a great many times. It is out on Twenty-second
-Street and Third Avenue, and has ten acres of
-the most charming grounds, so that it is just
-the same to him as living in the country. The
-house is built of a kind of stone which is called
-kasota, and is very beautiful. I did not mean
-to make my letter so long, but there is a great
-deal to tell.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Alice Washburne Mills.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I have</span> an aunt who is very fond of visiting
-churches. When she goes to a new place, if
-it is only a village, she wants to see all the
-churches and know about them. When she
-was in Minneapolis first, years ago, it was a
-little bit of a place, and my aunt is an old lady,
-and does not read the newspapers much, and
-did not realize that Minneapolis had grown a
-great deal. She went there last spring to visit
-a nephew. She reached there in the night, and
-was taken in a carriage to her nephew’s house,
-and did not realize the changes at all. The
-next morning at breakfast, when her nephew
-asked her what she would like to see in the
-city, she said she would like to visit the different
-churches if she could, and that perhaps as the
-day was pleasant they could go that morning.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 376px;">
-<img src="images/i-211a.jpg" width="376" height="356" alt="building" />
-<div class="caption">CITY HALL AND COURT SQUARE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Very well,” said her nephew; “to which
-ones shall we go?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! to all of them,” answered my aunt;
-“we can take a few minutes for each and see
-them all this forenoon,
-can we
-not?”</p>
-
-<p>“Certainly,”
-said her nephew;
-“just as well as
-not. There are
-only about a hundred
-and sixty,
-I believe.”</p>
-
-<p>And that was
-the first time my
-aunt knew that
-she was in a big
-city instead of
-the little town she
-had left thirty
-years or so before.
-But I don’t
-think her nephew
-was very polite
-to an old lady. She saw a good
-many of the churches, among
-them Dr. Wayland Hoyt’s, which
-she said she liked the best of
-all. It is the First Baptist
-Church of Minneapolis, and cost
-two hundred thousand dollars.
-It will seat about fifteen hundred
-people. I thought the Pansies
-would like to hear about it,
-because Dr. Hoyt wrote one
-of our “Regret” letters for us.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Minnie Andrews.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 474px;">
-<img src="images/i-211b.jpg" width="474" height="334" alt="building" />
-<div class="caption">PUBLIC LIBRARY.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> uncle is a lawyer and lives
-in Minneapolis. He says the
-City Hall is just splendid. It
-cost three million dollars. Its
-great tower is three hundred and
-forty-five feet high, and there are
-only two others in the United
-States which can get above that.
-There isn’t any danger that this
-building will ever burn up, for it is made fire
-proof. I wonder why they don’t make all
-buildings fire proof? Then we would not have
-to buy engines, and pay firemen, and keep great
-splendid horses doing nothing all day long but
-wait for fires. This City Hall which I began
-to tell you about is three hundred feet square,
-and fills up a great block on four streets. I
-should like to see it. My uncle has a photograph
-of it, and it looks magnificent. I am
-going to be a lawyer, and I shall have an office
-in Minneapolis.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Harry Denning.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">My</span> father was acquainted with Governor
-Washburn, who gave three hundred and
-seventy-five thousand dollars for
-the Washburn Memorial Orphan
-Asylum in Minneapolis. My father
-has been there to see the asylum.
-He says it is in a beautiful place,
-with lovely trees and plants in the
-grounds. There were fifty-seven
-orphans there when father visited
-it. I am glad they have such a
-nice place. I would like to be
-rich, like Governor Washburn, and
-give lots of money to something.
-I think I shall be, and I shall
-found an orphan asylum somewhere,
-but not in Minneapolis,
-because they don’t need another.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Horace Webster.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Minneapolis</span> was started about
-the same time that St. Anthony
-was. They grew about the same
-for awhile, then Minneapolis got
-to growing so fast that about all
-which could be heard in that city
-was the pounding of hammers.
-Afterwards St. Anthony and Minneapolis
-were united.</p>
-
-<p>Minneapolis was naturally a
-very pretty place, and until the
-last few years it was called the
-prettiest city in Minnesota, but now St. Paul
-is prettier.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Millie Rowell.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 348px;">
-<img src="images/i-212.jpg" width="348" height="448" alt="bad picture of falls" />
-<div class="caption">THE FALLS OF MINNEHAHA.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I attended</span> the International Christian Endeavor
-Convention when it met in Minneapolis.
-I was a Junior delegate. We had a splendid
-time. The convention was held in the great
-Exposition building, which is three hundred
-and fifty feet square. That is, they made a
-big hall for the convention inside the building,
-and it held more than ten thousand people.</p>
-
-<p>My sister and I visited the Public Library.
-It is a very handsome building. They say it
-cost a good deal over three hundred thousand
-dollars. We sat in one of the elegant reading-rooms
-and read books while our uncle was
-looking up something in books of reference.
-There are thousands and thousands of volumes
-there; I did know how many, but have forgotten.
-The street cars in Minneapolis are all
-electric. My sister did not like to ride on them
-when there was a thunderstorm, but I was not
-afraid. There are lots of lakes all around that
-part of the country, and of course the Falls of
-St. Anthony are there. It is queer to have a
-splendid falls in the midst of a city.</p>
-
-<p>I think I like Minneapolis better than any
-place I was ever in. I may go to stay with
-my uncle and attend the University of Minnesota,
-which is there. That is what I want to
-do. If I go I shall know more about Minneapolis,
-and will write again.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Thomas Bailey Atwood.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>THE OSBORNE HOME.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Character Studies.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">ALL day long the Osborne home
-had been in a state of excitement.
-It had been very difficult
-for the family to attend to
-its usual duties. The little
-girls had at first declared that
-they could not go to school at all; and then,
-being convinced that they must, it had been
-nearly impossible to get them ready in time.
-Even the baby had caught the unrest, and refused
-to take his long morning nap and give
-the seventeen-year-old sister Mary a chance to
-attend to the work. The explanation was that
-mother was coming home. She had been away
-a whole month, an unheard-of thing in the history
-of the family before this season.</p>
-
-<p>The fact is, Mrs. Osborne was one of those
-mothers who would never have been persuaded
-to leave her home and her children had it not
-become a serious duty to do so. She had been
-in poor health for several months, and grandmamma
-had written and coaxed and urged, and
-at last almost commanded that she should come
-back to the old home and the old physician, and
-see if he could not help her. One terrible thing
-about it was, that this same physician refused
-to allow her to bring her baby along. “I know
-just how it will be,” he said, shaking his gray
-head and looking wise. “The baby is a strong,
-healthy little fellow, and a perfect tyrant as
-they all are, and he will be carried, and put to
-sleep, and fed, and petted by his mother and
-nobody else; he will be more positive about it
-than usual, being among strangers, and he will
-just keep her worn out. There is no use in
-talking, Mrs. Fuller, I know your daughter
-Mary of old, and I will not consent to try to
-help her unless she will leave that fellow at
-home and come away from all care for a
-month.”</p>
-
-<p>Well, the doctor had had his way, as he
-nearly always did, and Mrs. Osborne, having
-declared that it would be utterly impossible to
-go away from home and leave Baby and the
-little girls, and only Mary to look after them
-all, had been gotten ready and carried to the
-cars. And a whole month had passed, and
-she, wonderfully improved, was coming home
-to-day. Father had driven to the depot three
-miles away to meet her, and the house was in
-commotion.</p>
-
-<p>Mary, the housekeeper, nurse and mother-in-charge,
-had had a busy day. There were still
-a dozen things which she meant to have done
-before mother came, not the least among them
-being to get herself in order; for her apron was
-torn, her slippers were down at the heel, her
-hair was what her father called “frowsly,” and,
-in short, she did not look in the least as she
-meant to when the mother should put her arms
-around her. Then there were last things to be
-done all over the house, and the table to be set
-for the early tea-dinner which was to do honor
-to the traveler’s newly-found appetite. Yet,
-notwithstanding all this, Mary, feeling sure
-that the time must now be short, allowed herself
-to drop down into the chair which she had
-been dusting, draw from her pocket the mother’s
-last letter, whose contents she knew by heart,
-and glancing at it, go to studying for the dozenth
-time the possibility that her mother might
-have meant the evening train instead of the
-afternoon, in which case she would not be there
-for several hours.</p>
-
-<p>“Let me see; I almost believe that is the
-way, after all,” she said, biting the feather end
-of the old quill which she had picked up somewhere
-in her dusting, and looking vexed and
-disheartened. “I am sure I don’t know how
-I am to keep the children from growing wild,
-if they have to wait three hours longer.”</p>
-
-<p>Meantime, the children, in the other room,
-were in various stages of excitement. Helen,
-the older of the three, in whose charge Baby
-Joe was especially put, occupied herself in racing
-to the front gate every few minutes to see
-if she could not get a glimpse of her father’s
-horse and wagon climbing the hill; and Baby
-Joe, each time she went, either reached after
-and tumbled over something which he ought
-not to have touched, or tumbled down, in his
-eager haste to follow to the gate. In this way
-the room was being put into more or less
-disorder.</p>
-
-<p>“How perfectly silly you are!” said Jessie,
-looking up from the book she was reading, as
-Helen came back panting for the third time.
-“Just as though racing to the gate every few
-minutes would bring them any quicker! and
-look at Joe; he has tipped the spools all out
-of mother’s box. A nice tangle they will be in.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why didn’t you keep him from them then?”
-asked Helen irritably; “you are doing nothing
-but pore over a story book. I should think
-you would go and comb your hair and change
-your dress. Mother will not like to see you in
-such a tangle, I can tell you.”</p>
-
-<p>“There is time enough,” said Jessie, yawning.
-“I can’t do anything but read a story
-book; it is impossible to settle to anything
-when mother is so near home as she must be
-by this time. I haven’t done a thing this
-afternoon; I couldn’t. I don’t see how Elsie
-can bend over that stupid History, just as if
-nothing unusual was going to happen.”</p>
-
-<p>This made Elsie raise her eyes; they were
-pretty brown ones. She was a little girl of
-about ten, in a neat blue dress, and with her
-hair in perfect order. “I thought it would be
-a good plan to get my history ready for to-morrow
-while I was waiting,” she said, “then
-I will not have to study this evening, when I
-want to listen to mother. I should think you
-would like to get your examples done; and
-anyhow, Jessie, you ought to comb your hair;
-it looks like a fright.”</p>
-
-<p>“I mean to, of course,” said Jessie. “I
-dare say there is time enough. Father can’t
-drive fast on such a warm afternoon; and besides,
-Mary said she wouldn’t be at all surprised
-if he should have to wait for the evening train.
-Wouldn’t that be just horrid! If it were not
-for the lovely story I am reading I couldn’t
-endure this waiting another minute.”</p>
-
-<p>“It’s easier to wait when you are at work
-doing what ought to be done,” said Elsie, with
-the air of a philosopher.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! you are a regular Miss Prim,” said
-Helen, laughing, as she stooped to pick little
-Joe out of another piece of carefully planned
-mischief; “for my part, I think it is horrid to
-have anything that ought to be done at such a
-time. Joe, you little nuisance, I do wish you
-would go to sleep, and give me a chance to
-watch for mother. I hope I shall get all the
-things picked up and put to rights that you
-have upset before mother comes; she will not
-be charmed with the looks of the room if I
-don’t. However, there really must be oceans
-of time yet.”</p>
-
-<p>“Then why did you race down to the gate
-every few minutes to see if they were coming?”
-Jessie asked.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! because I did not know what else to
-do,” said Helen; “I knew better, of course.
-Take care, Joe! There, I declare! he has
-done it now.”</p>
-
-<p>Sure enough he had! Jerked at the table
-spread where Helen herself had set the inkstand,
-intending to put it away in a few minutes,
-and sent a black stream not only over his
-own white dress, but on the carpet as well.
-Mary, who still sat studying the letter, and
-thinking of the things which she meant to accomplish
-before her mother came, having by
-this time decided that it was entirely probable
-that they must wait for the evening train, heard
-the exclamations of dismay from the other
-room, and rose up to see what was the trouble;
-but at that instant an eager cry from Elsie:
-“There they come!” sounded on the ears of
-all. Helen gathered up the screaming Joe
-under one arm, and calling to Mary to look
-out for the ink on the carpet, ran out of one
-door, just as Jessie scurried out of another,
-eager to dash upstairs and brush her hair before
-her father saw her; for his last charge had been
-to her to see to it that she did not appear before
-her mother in that plight. Mary, burning with
-shame and disappointment over the little last
-things which she meant to have ready, waited
-to mop up the ink, while Elsie, closing the door
-on the disordered room, went forward to meet
-the beloved mother.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 431px;">
-<img src="images/i-215.jpg" width="431" height="602" alt="girl writing letter and thinking of what to say next" />
-<div class="caption">“LET ME SEE!”</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>IN THE CABIN OF THE MAYFLOWER.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t2.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THIS is a company of Pilgrims
-in the cabin of the blessed ship
-<i>Mayflower</i>, on their way over
-a stormy sea from Plymouth,
-England, to find a place in
-America where they may worship
-God “according to the dictates of their
-own consciences.”</p>
-
-<p>This was two hundred and seventy years
-ago. Of course the people did not dress then
-just as they do now, as you can well see by
-noticing their broad collars and queer trousers.
-How queer our dress will look to our great-grandchildren.</p>
-
-<p>The dear <i>Mayflower</i> was not such a grand
-ship as the Cunarder. It had to depend—not
-upon steam—but upon a favoring wind, and
-the wind does not always seem to favor, so it
-took her weeks to cross the stormy Atlantic,
-and the passengers (Puritans they were called)
-were very sick; but because they had suffered
-so much from cruel people in England they did
-not complain, as they believed God held the
-waves in his hand, and he was guiding the
-<i>Mayflower</i> as much as he did the Israelites to
-Palestine—“a land flowing with milk and
-honey.” So they patiently and cheerfully
-waited in the <i>Mayflower’s</i> small cabin, often
-singing hymns and praying and encouraging
-each other.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 518px;">
-<img src="images/i-216.jpg" width="518" height="365" alt="bad picture of group of people" />
-<div class="caption">A COMPANY OF PILGRIMS.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>At last on Monday, December 21, 1620, they
-landed on Plymouth Rock, Mass., happy as
-birds escaped from a cage.</p>
-
-<p>They had much trouble with the Indians;
-but after a time they began to build, with other
-Pilgrims, at other points, our great nation.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is a woman living in Manchester,
-England, who is said to have a Bible two feet
-long and nearly two feet wide. At the top of
-each page is printed in red ink: “This is a
-history.” The Bible is two hundred years
-old, and is the largest one in the world, it is
-supposed.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>BABY’S CLOCK.</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-n.jpg" width="121" height="123" alt="N" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">NOBODY finks I can tell the time
-of day, but I can.</p>
-
-<p>The first hour is five o’clock
-in the morning.</p>
-
-<p>That’s the time the birds
-begin to peep. I lie still and hear them sing:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“Tweet, tweet, tweet!</div>
-<div class="verse">Chee, chee, chee!”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But mamma is fast asleep. Nobody awake
-in all the world but just me and the birds.</p>
-
-<p>Bimeby the sun gets up and it’s six o’clock
-in the morning.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 575px;">
-<img src="images/i-217.jpg" width="575" height="501" alt="Toddler standing on chair to see clock" />
-<div class="caption">BABY TELLS THE TIME OF DAY.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Then mamma opens one eye and I can hear
-her say:</p>
-
-<p>“Where’s my baby?”</p>
-
-<p>N’en I keep still—jus’ as still as a mouse,
-an’ she keeps saying:</p>
-
-<p>“Where’s my baby?”</p>
-
-<p>N’en all at once I go “Boo!” and she laughs
-and hugs me, and says “I’m a precious.”</p>
-
-<p>Mamma’s nice, and I love her ’cept when she
-washes my face too hard and pulls my hair
-with the comb.</p>
-
-<p>Seven o’clock!</p>
-
-<p>That’s when the bell goes jingle, jingle, and
-we have breakfast.</p>
-
-<p>All the eight an’ nine an’ ten an’ ’leven
-hours I play.</p>
-
-<p>I run after butterflies and squirrels, and
-swing, and read my picture book, and sometimes
-I cry—jus’ a little bit.</p>
-
-<p>Twelve o’clock!</p>
-
-<p>That’s a bu’ful hour. The clock strikes a
-lot of times, and the big whistle goes, and the
-bell rings, and papa comes home, and dinner’s
-ready!</p>
-
-<p>The one and two hours are lost. Mamma
-always carries me off to take a nap. I don’t
-like naps. They waste time.</p>
-
-<p>When we wake up the clock strikes three.
-N’en I have on my pink dress, and we go walking
-or riding.</p>
-
-<p>And so the three and four and five hours are
-gone.</p>
-
-<p>At six o’clock Bossy comes home, and I have
-my drink of warm milk.</p>
-
-<p>N’en I put on my white gown, and kiss
-everybody “good-night,” and say “Now I lay
-me,” and get into my bed.</p>
-
-<p>Mamma says:</p>
-
-<p>“Now the sun and the birdies and my little
-baby are all gone to bed, and to sleep, sleep,
-sleep.”</p>
-
-<p>So I shut my eyes tight, and next you know
-’tis morning!</p>
-
-<p>An’ ’nat’s all the time there is.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>OCTOBER’S PARTY.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">O</span>CTOBER gave a party—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The leaves by hundreds came—</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The Chestnuts, Oaks and Maples,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And leaves of every name;</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The sunshine spread a carpet,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And everything was grand;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Miss Weather led the dancing,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor Wind the band.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The Chestnuts came in yellow,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Oaks in crimson dressed;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The lovely Misses Maple</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In scarlet looked their best.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">All balanced to their partners,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And gaily fluttered by;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The sight was like a rainbow</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">New-fallen from the sky.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Then in the rustic hollows</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">At hide-and-seek they played.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">The party closed at sundown,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And everybody staid.</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Professor Wind played louder,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">They flew along the ground,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And then the party ended</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In “hands across, all round.”</span></div>
-<div class="sig"><i>From “Song Stories for Little People.”</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 297px;">
-<img src="images/i-218.jpg" width="297" height="286" alt="Oct." />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>FIVE-MINUTE ACQUAINTANCES.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Character Studies.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IT was a bright cool morning
-that we were riding down
-Delaware Avenue in a street
-car which had very few passengers.
-It gave me a chance
-to study human nature. I began
-the study with a very handsomely dressed
-boy. Jacket and collar and necktie and hair
-all showed that very careful people had planned
-for him, and that they had plenty of money to
-spend on him. They came into the car just
-after I was seated, the boy and his mother.
-She was tall and pale, and in deep mourning;
-I wondered if her husband were dead, and if
-this boy were the only one she had to think
-about or care for her. If so she was to be
-pitied, poor woman! for it soon became evident
-that the young man thought about and cared
-for himself. His first exhibition was to fling
-his heavy overcoat on his mother’s lap as he
-said: “Here, mamma, hold that, and give
-me the tickets for the conductor.”</p>
-
-<p>“I haven’t tickets, dear,” she said; “I shall
-have to buy some.”</p>
-
-<p>“O, well! all right, give me your pocket-book
-and let me buy them.”</p>
-
-<p>“No, dear, there is a good deal of money in
-my pocket-book, and some valuable papers.”</p>
-
-<p>“What of that?” he said, in a tone loud
-enough for all the passengers to hear; “I ain’t
-going to lose them; don’t I know how to take
-care of things? Give me the purse.” It was
-passed over without more words.</p>
-
-<p>“Take a quarter from the silver money,”
-the mother advised a moment later.</p>
-
-<p>“O, no, mamma! I want to give him a bill,
-to see if he makes the right change. Here’s a
-five; that will do; no, let me see.” He jerked
-his arm suddenly away from the mother’s hand,
-which reached after the pocket-book, and several
-pieces of silver flew out and rolled around
-on the floor.</p>
-
-<p>“There!” he said, in a reproachful tone,
-“see what you have made me do; now you
-have lost some of your money.”</p>
-
-<p>“Pick it up, Harold, that’s a good boy.”</p>
-
-<p>He stooped and picked up a twenty-five cent
-piece, then said:</p>
-
-<p>“Never mind the rest. It has rolled round
-under the seat somewhere, and it is all dust; I
-can’t get down on my knees and hunt; never
-mind, let it go. Say, mamma, give me that
-box of candy.”</p>
-
-<p>“Not now; I would rather you did not eat
-any more candy, Harold, until we get home.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why not? I don’t want to wait; I haven’t
-eaten much. Come, it’s my candy, and I want
-it. You bought it for me, and I think you are
-mean not to let me have it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Hush, Harold! do not talk so loud. Hold
-your overcoat, dear; it is too heavy for
-mamma.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! I can’t, it is too hot. I did not need
-that great big overcoat anyhow, and I told you
-so. I’m not going to hold it. Drop it on the
-floor if you don’t want to keep it. But give
-me that box of candy. O, mamma! there’s a
-procession coming down the street—soldiers,
-and everything. I’m going out on the platform
-to see them.”</p>
-
-<p>He made a dash forward, and the pale,
-anxious mother reached after him, trying to
-arrest his steps, dropping as she did so not
-only the overcoat, but the pocket-book again.
-The pennies and the ten-cent pieces rolled
-around freely, while Harold, looking behind
-him, gave a mocking laugh, and was out on
-the platform.</p>
-
-<p>They had not been in the car over five minutes.
-And yet I was quite as well acquainted
-with Harold as I had any desire to be.</p>
-
-<p>At the North Street corner the pale little
-mother left the car with the heavy overcoat
-over one arm, and the pocket-book, with what
-change she had been able to find, in her hand,
-while Harold, tugging at her sleeve, was heard
-to say, “Mamma, I want that candy this
-minute!”</p>
-
-<p>At Reed Street came three passengers, a boy
-about the size of the one who had left us, and
-two little girls, one perhaps seven, and the
-other not over four. The boy was freckled-faced,
-and by no means so handsome as Harold.
-His clothes were very neat, but of the coarse,
-common sort worn by children of the moderately
-poor. The little girls beside him were as neat
-as wax—faces and hands and hair in perfect
-order; but their sacks and hats were of last
-year’s fashion—perhaps older still than that—and
-I fancy Harold would have laughed outright
-at the little old overcoat which hung over
-the boy’s arm.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 557px;">
-<img src="images/i-220.jpg" width="557" height="756" alt="boy shocked" />
-<div class="caption">A SHOCKING EXPERIENCE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>They took their seats quietly, and made no
-disturbance of any sort. But there were so
-few in the car, and we were passing at that
-time through such a quiet street, that I could
-hear distinctly the words they spoke to one
-another.</p>
-
-<p>“Better put on your sack, Janie,” said the
-boy, with a thoughtful air, looking at the older
-sister, “the wind blows in pretty strong here.”
-Janie immediately arose and began tugging at
-her sack. The boy, with the manners of a
-gentleman accustomed to the work, took hold
-of it at the shoulders and skillfully steered the
-little arms into place, pulling it down behind,
-and bestowing meanwhile side glances upon the
-little sister.</p>
-
-<p>“Sit still, Bessie, that’s a good girl. No,
-don’t stand, dear; mamma wouldn’t like you
-to stand, the cars shake so.”</p>
-
-<p>Down sat Bessie again, trying to put herself
-squarely on the seat. Failing in this her protector
-turned next to her, lifted her plump little
-form into place, then straightened her hat and
-returned a confiding smile which she gave him.
-Meantime the car was filling up, and in a few
-minutes every seat was taken. There came
-next a middle-aged woman, black of face, and
-very shabby as to toilet, with a market basket
-on her arm. Quick as thought the little gentleman
-arose, and touching her arm motioned
-her to his seat. Then Janie reached forward
-for his overcoat. “Let me hold your overcoat,
-Charlie,” she said, “because you haven’t
-any seat.”</p>
-
-<p>“O, no!” said Charlie, smiling back at her,
-“I can carry it as well as not. Bessie dear,
-don’t climb up that way, you will fall.”</p>
-
-<p>Down sat Bessie, who had mounted on her
-fat little knees to look out of the window.</p>
-
-<p>“Now, Janie,” said the little man at last,
-when they were near the Dean Street crossing,
-“we are to get out at this corner. I will take
-Bessie’s hand and go ahead, and you keep close
-to me. We will stand still on the sidewalk
-until the car passes, then I will take you both
-across.”</p>
-
-<p>Away they went, and I watched them making
-their way carefully across the crowded street,
-the brother’s arm thrown protectingly around
-Bessie, and his eyes on the watch for any possible
-danger to either of his charges. I had
-made his acquaintance in five minutes, too, and
-knew more about him than he would have
-imagined possible.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Myra Spafford.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>THINGS WHICH SOME PEOPLE
-REGRET.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">THE “Regret” which we give you this
-month comes from a very high source.
-Almost every scholar of ancient languages will
-recognize the name. It is a very pleasant
-thought that these great men out of their busy
-lives have stopped to give us a glimpse of
-their past, in order to help the young people
-of to-day, who will be the men and women of
-to-morrow, to avoid the mistakes which they
-did not. We hope and believe that the Pansies
-will receive great benefit from these glimpses
-from the youth of great people.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“I regret that I have not better acquired the art of pleasantly
-acknowledging the kindnesses shown me, and of showing
-my appreciation of people whom I really do appreciate. My
-influence with many would be greatly increased if I could
-but make them understand how warmly my heart goes out
-to them.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Willis J. Beecher.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p><small><span class="smcap">Dr. W. J. Beecher</span>, <i>Professor of Hebrew in Auburn
-Theological Seminary</i>.</small></p></div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<div class="center">(<i>Luke</i> ix. 23; xiv. 27.)</div>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">A</span>ND didst thou hear the Master say</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">He that would my disciple be,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Let him deny himself each day,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Take up his cross, and follow me?</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Oh! wondrous love, that did devise</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For us this “straight and narrow way,”</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Beyond which, in the distance, lies</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The realms of pure and perfect day.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 535px;">
-<img src="images/i-222.jpg" width="535" height="631" alt="bears lying on ground and climbing a tree" />
-<div class="caption">THE UPS AND DOWNS OF LIFE.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 215px;">
-<img src="images/i-223.jpg" width="215" height="248" alt="girl in horseshoe" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A HAPPY BOY.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">HIS name is Willie Addis, and he lives in
-Plainfield, N. J. A few weeks ago his
-mother turned down the wicks of her kerosene
-stove, and leaned over it to blow out the flame,
-when the stove exploded, and in an instant
-she was in flames. With one bound Willie
-was in the kitchen, seizing the large woolen
-mat from the floor as he ran, and in less time
-than it takes me to tell it, he had wrapped the
-mat about his mother and extinguished the
-flames! The kitchen furniture was burned, but
-that was about all, and the dear mother was
-saved by her quick-witted ten-year-old son,
-who had heard somewhere that woolen wrapped
-closely about a burning object so as to exclude
-the air, will put out the fire. It is not every
-boy of his age who knows that fact; and there
-are many who, knowing it, would not have had
-presence of mind enough to have applied their
-knowledge promptly. Willie did, and he has
-his mother. Certainly I think he must be a
-happy boy, and I am sure she is a glad, proud
-mother.</p>
-
-<p>How is one to help hoping and praying that
-he may never be other than a joy to her in the
-years to come?</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</h2>
-
-<h3>VII.</h3>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">I &nbsp; AM very fond of the little
-ones, and like to have them
-around me, and as the puppies
-are in the majority it will be
-their turn to have a short story
-this time.</p>
-
-<p>If you do not have to go home too soon perhaps
-I will have time to tell you more than one;
-we will see. Oh! the children are to stay to
-tea, are they? All right. Now, attention!</p>
-
-<p>All those who would like to hear a story
-about a chicken—“a real truly story,” as the
-children say—wag your tails.</p>
-
-<p>Those opposed, bark. Carried. The vote
-for the chicken story is about unanimous.</p>
-
-<p>I suppose some of you have very poor opinions
-of chickens and hens; you think because
-they have but two legs, and are so easily frightened,
-they don’t amount to much; but the master
-and mistress think quite differently when
-they eat the nice fresh eggs which the hens
-furnish. Why, some of those proud young
-crowers have hearts as well as we. I remember
-so well a little old white blind hen which
-my master once had, and how kindly she was
-treated. (She could see just a little with one
-eye, but we called her blind.)</p>
-
-<p>The young man who worked upon the place
-took a fancy to “Old Whitey,” as they called
-her, and when master wanted to send her to
-market this fellow pretended he couldn’t find
-her, so she was kept till very old.</p>
-
-<p>The gallant young crowers which roosted in
-the same shed with her would never fight this
-old “grandmother,” but were just as kind to
-her as they knew how to be. Sometimes when
-one of them had found a nice lot of worms
-under something he had scratched over,
-“Whitey” would come along hungry, and he
-would leave the nice mess for her, and look
-further for himself.</p>
-
-<p>Was not that gallant and kind? Would all
-of you do as well as that? Be as unselfish?</p>
-
-<p>But this is not the chicken I was to tell you
-about. He was a poor orphan, his mother
-having died when he was but a little yellow ball
-upon two little pins of legs.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 462px;">
-<img src="images/i-224.jpg" width="462" height="649" alt="two shepherds and some sheep" />
-<div class="caption">AN ORIENTAL SHEPHERD.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>I had not much to do with this pet, only as
-I visited his home occasionally, and saw and
-played with him a little.</p>
-
-<p>It was my cousin Tip who had most to do
-with this bright feathered fellow, and to whom
-he was indebted for most of his education.</p>
-
-<p>Tip was a great favorite; in fact, his mistress
-was fond of all sorts of pets; had a name for
-each of her cows, and for every one of her
-hens, so she had a name for this chicken.</p>
-
-<p>Tip used to go about wherever he pleased,
-and so did the chicken. My cousin was in the
-habit of taking almost anything he could find,
-and dragging it to the spot where he wished
-to lie, then make a bed of it and go to sleep.</p>
-
-<p>His little friend the chicken for awhile
-watched him with envious eyes—for I regret
-to say Cousin Tip was too selfish to provide a
-bed for any one besides himself.</p>
-
-<p>But this chicken evidently thought “what
-had been done could be done,” so he asserted
-his independence, and gathered up what he
-could carry or drag; put the articles—stockings,
-handkerchiefs or rags—in a heap near
-Tip’s bed, and would then tread them down as
-he had seen Tip do, and squat upon them for a
-make-believe nap. Now wasn’t that a pretty
-bright chicken, and was not Tip a pretty
-successful teacher for one so young?</p>
-
-<p>No, that lesson wouldn’t be much for a bright
-little dog to learn; but we do not expect much
-intelligence in a hen or rooster.</p>
-
-<p>I suppose they cannot understand what people
-say to them as we do. And some people
-do not seem to think we understand what they
-tell us to do or not to do, even when they tell
-us we have done well.</p>
-
-<p>I remember so well when I was young, though
-almost as large as I am now, how I astonished
-a lady by acting as though I understood what
-she said to me.</p>
-
-<p>It was in the country, where the houses were
-quite a distance apart. I had been caring for
-this woman’s little girl for more than a week,
-and had kept her out of lots of mischief, and
-prevented her from getting many an ugly fall,
-though I had never been asked to do it.</p>
-
-<p>One day little Cynthia (that was her name)
-wanted to go over to see her grandmother, who
-lived in the next house, nearly a quarter of a
-mile away. The mother told her there was no
-one to go with her. She said she could go
-alone, and coaxed so hard that the mother said
-she might go. So Cynthia put her little hat
-on, and her mother kissed her good-by, and she
-started. Then her mother turned to me and
-said: “Major, you go with her and take good
-care of my darling; don’t you let anything
-hurt her.”</p>
-
-<p>How proud I was! I went right by her
-side all the way, and never left her for one
-moment until she was safe at home.</p>
-
-<p>Then the lady called me a “good, faithful
-fellow,” and I was very happy. But when the
-men came in at night and she told them what I
-had done, I felt ashamed to hear her say, “He
-acted just as though he knew what I told him.”</p>
-
-<p>The idea! Why shouldn’t I understand, I
-would like to know? They talk about things
-which I do not understand, but when they give
-me such a plain direction as that I guess I can
-hear it, and know what they mean, too.</p>
-
-<p>There goes the whistle, and you must scamper.
-Good-by!</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-G. R. A.<br />
-</p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>A CAREFUL MOTHER.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">A TRUSTWORTHY writer in one of our
-exchanges says that last summer near
-his room a humming-bird built her tiny nest
-and reared her family. One day when there
-was a heavy shower coming up, just as the
-first drops fell the mother came fluttering home,
-seized a large leaf which grew on the tree near
-her nest, drew it over the nest in a way to completely
-cover it, then went back to whatever
-work she had been about when the coming storm
-disturbed her. The amused watchers from the
-window wondered why the leaf did not blow
-away, and finally reached out and examined it;
-they found it hooked to a tiny stick which was
-just inside the nest, as if it had been built in
-for that purpose! The storm lasted but a few
-minutes, and after it was over home came the
-mother, unhooked the green curtain she had so
-carefully put up, and found her babies perfectly
-dry.</p>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 437px;">
-<img src="images/i-226.jpg" width="437" height="600" alt="birds" />
-<div class="caption">WHICH WILL GET IT?</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR SAINTS.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Something for Mamma.</i>)</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-n.jpg" width="121" height="123" alt="N" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">NOT something to make, this
-time, but to buy. It is a
-lovely new book bound in blue
-and silver, and the title is
-“Christian Endeavor Saints.”</p>
-
-<p>It is written by Dr. F. E.
-Clark, the father of all the Christian Endeavor
-societies. If your mamma is not a member of
-that society it will make no difference, she will
-like the book very much; it has a great many
-short bright articles in it, not too long for a
-busy mother to read when she sits down for
-a minute or two of rest. The first part of the
-book has short letters addressed to different
-saints.</p>
-
-<p>One, for instance, to “St. Neighborly,”
-another to “St. Hopeful,” another to “St.
-Speakwell,” and so on.</p>
-
-<p>Then there are many “Golden Rule Recipes”
-for the cure of all sorts of troubles, as well as
-what is perhaps better, for the prevention of
-many.</p>
-
-<p>Let me give you one which is called:</p>
-
-
-<h3>A RECIPE FOR A HAPPY DAY.</h3>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“At the very beginning of the day take a large amount of
-good nature, and double the quantity of determination to make
-the best of things, a heaping measure of bodily vigor, and
-mix well in the mortar of gratitude with the pestle of the remembrance
-of past mercies. A season of prayer and praise is
-always necessary to the proper mixture of these ingredients.
-Then add to this a considerable, but not too large, portion of
-well-regulated tongue, a slice of charity that thinketh no evil
-and is not easily provoked, a portion of hopefulness for the
-future, and a large measure of faith in God and fellowmen.
-Season this with the salt of shrewdness and thrift, and sweeten
-with plenty of the sugar of love for all God’s creatures. Put
-in a large handful of plums of parental or filial affection, and
-a number of pieces of neighborly friendliness; and somewhere
-in the day conceal one special service for the Lord’s poor.
-Slide this good deed into the mixture quietly, without saying
-anything about it. Do not use any of the sour milk of disappointed
-hopes, or brooding cares, for this will spoil the
-whole; and while there should be a pinch of the pepper of
-fun, and considerable sweet oil of joviality, do not use any of
-the mustard of backbiting, or the table sauce of slander.</p>
-
-<p>“Let the mixture boil gently, but do not let it boil over, for
-the delicate flavor of the ingredients is injured by too much
-heat.</p>
-
-<p>“This recipe has been tried in a hundred thousand households,
-and has never been known to fail.”</p></div>
-
-
-
-<p>There are many more recipes quite as unique
-and as helpful as this.</p>
-
-<p>Then follows a series of “Golden Rule Sermons”
-on all sorts of important topics, such
-as “Getting Muddled with the Unimportant,”
-on “Living as we Sing,” on “Poor Excuses,”
-and the like. Finally there are letters addressed
-to “Grandmother Lois,” “Mrs. Neataswax,”
-“Miss Youngheart,” “Mrs. Vitriol,” and a
-host of other people whom we have met.</p>
-
-<p>From one, addressed to “The Birds that can
-Sing, and won’t Sing,” I want to quote a little:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Birds</span>:</div>
-
-<p>“I watched you last Wednesday evening in the mid-week
-prayer meeting, and none of you moved your lips, even when
-we sang ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘Jesus, Lover of my Soul.’ The
-singing was weak and languid and thin, when your voices
-might have put body and life and strength into it. I know
-that you can sing if you have a mind to, for do I not hear you
-every Sunday in the church choir?... Did I not hear
-you sing, too, at Miss Flora McFlimsey’s birthday party the
-other evening? Yes, indeed; you gathered around the piano,
-and the way you warbled forth the glees and college songs did
-my heart good. But there you were at the church prayer
-meeting, members of the church, members of the Society of
-Christian Endeavor; you had promised more than once to do
-your duty faithfully, and yet you kept still, simply because
-the singing wasn’t very artistic, or because somebody behind
-you ‘screeched so,’ as you inelegantly expressed it, or because
-the old deacon on the front seat dragged, and ‘put you all
-out.’ Now, my dear birds, pardon the plain words of an old
-man, and your pastor at that. The prayer meeting singing is
-just as important a part of worship, and just as acceptable in
-God’s sight, as your choir or solo singing with all its frills and
-furbelows. The ‘screecher’ and the old deacon are both doing
-the best they can; and if you did the best you could their
-voices would not be so prominent, and the music would be far
-better. Then, too, do you not think it indicates a little touch
-of conceit to sing only when your voices will show off to advantage,
-and let the poor prayer meeting suffer for lack of
-them? I am sure, my dear birds, that you never thought of
-the matter in that light, for after all you mean to be conscientious
-as well as tuneful birds; and I am quite confident
-that when, next Wednesday evening, I give out ‘Rock of
-Ages,’ you will ‘raise it’ on your clear strong voices, and give
-the prayer meeting such a start and uplift as it has not had
-for many a day.”</p></div>
-
-<p>I did not mean to quote it all, but it was so
-good I could not find a place to stop. I think
-you will enjoy it, and so will mamma, or your
-older sister, or indeed any one who loves to
-read bright, pure, helpful thoughts.</p>
-
-<p>The book has about two hundred and fifty
-pages. I really do not know how much it costs,
-but your bookseller can easily find out for you.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE HARD TEXT.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Matt.</i> xviii. 2.)</small></h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">NOW does this mean that all children are
-good Christians, and are surely in the
-Kingdom of Heaven? But you know many
-who are not good. They are profane; they
-break the Sabbath, and all the other holy commands
-of God. Some are so very bad that
-their parents send them to reformatories, which
-are a sort of prison.</p>
-
-<p>Some years ago a boy by the name of Jesse
-Pomeroy, when he was quite young, began to
-torture children when he could get them into
-his power. As he grew a little older and
-stronger he would get children away from home
-and lead them out into some desolate place, and
-bind them to a tree and do dreadful things to
-them.</p>
-
-<p>It is thought that this wicked boy caused
-the death of several children.</p>
-
-<p>There are more Jesse Pomeroys. Jesus did
-not mean that all children are perfectly good.
-Indeed every one—children, too—must be
-born again—that is, converted—to get into
-the Kingdom of Heaven.</p>
-
-<p>What, then, did Jesus mean in this verse?
-Why, simply that all must “humble” themselves;
-must repent and trust in him to be
-saved. Every true child is ready to do this,
-much more so than grown-up folks.</p>
-
-<p>Grown-up people do not like to confess that
-they are sinners. They—most of them—refuse
-to humble themselves, as most very young
-folks do.</p>
-
-<p>Now have you really humbled yourself?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="smcap">’Tis</span> easy to be gentle when</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Death’s silence shames our clamor,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And easy to discern the best</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through memory’s mystic glamour;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">But wise it were for thee and me,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ere love is past forgiving,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">To take the tender lesson home—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Be patient with the living.</span></div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ABOUT ST. LOUIS.<br />
-
-<small>BY THE PANSIES.</small></h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">THE biggest thing in St. Louis
-is the bridge by which you get
-to it. It has three arches, each
-over five hundred feet long,
-and it makes a road over fifty
-feet wide. My uncle says it is
-a big thing, and he knows, for he is a bridge
-builder. There is a tunnel under it, and a railroad
-track. I rode into St. Louis once through
-this tunnel; it is a mile long. It is lighted
-with electricity, and they say it has ventilating
-shafts; but they don’t give you much air to
-breathe, that I know. Father had to fan
-mother every minute, and we were afraid she
-would faint. I think I should have found it
-hard work to breathe myself, if I hadn’t been
-so dreadfully worried about mother that I forgot
-all about it. But for all that it is a splendid
-thing—the tunnel is, I mean. The piers
-of the bridge are built on a rock, and they go
-down more than a hundred feet below the surface.
-This bridge cost over six millions of
-dollars. I could tell you more things, for I
-staid in St. Louis a whole week, but mother
-says my letter is long enough.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Willard J. Mooney.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">All</span> the Pansies tell how the city they are
-writing about got its name. I cannot find out
-about St. Louis, but I know the first settlement
-there was made by Pierre Laclede Liguest. I
-was wondering if they did not put pieces of his
-queer name together, and make a word which
-in time came to be St. Louis? Anyhow, I am
-glad they did not name the place for him, it
-would have been so hard to pronounce. That
-is only about a hundred and thirty years ago.
-St. Louis did not grow very fast; for a long
-time nobody thought it was going to be a city,
-and fifty years ago there were only about sixteen
-thousand inhabitants; but it has grown
-fast enough since. There are more than five
-hundred thousand people there now, and large,
-beautiful buildings, and everything which helps
-to make a city handsome. It is hot there,
-though; at least my auntie thinks so. She
-used to have to wait three hours in a St. Louis
-depot for a train every time she came home for
-her summer vacation, and went back in September,
-and she says the warmest she has ever
-been in her life was during those hours; and
-she never in five years struck a cool day! So
-she says she cannot help thinking that St. Louis
-is always warm. But probably if she had been
-there in January, instead of June or September,
-she would have thought differently. Women
-are apt to think that things stay always just as
-they happened to find them.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Robert Campbell.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 389px;">
-<img src="images/i-229.jpg" width="389" height="376" alt="building" />
-<div class="caption">THE COURT HOUSE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> prettiest place to go to in St. Louis is
-“Shaw’s Garden.” It has other names, “The
-Missouri Botanical Gardens,” and “Tower
-Grove Park,” which is a piece of the gardens,
-but when I was there everybody said “Shaw’s
-Garden.” The land was presented by Mr.
-Henry Shaw, an Englishman, and he used to
-keep the lovely great park in order at his own
-expense; I don’t know whether he does now or
-not. There are more than two hundred and
-fifty acres just in Tower Grove Park. I have
-never been to Central Park, that some of the
-Pansies told about, but I do not see how it
-could be prettier than Tower Grove Park.
-There is a statue of Shakespeare, and another
-of Humboldt in the park, and they cost over a
-million of dollars. I don’t see why; I didn’t
-admire them very much; but that is what the
-gentleman said who went with us. There are
-a great many other parks in St. Louis—about
-twenty, I think—but none
-are so beautiful as this; and
-the Botanical Gardens are
-said to have the finest collection
-of plants of any city in
-the United States. My brother
-Roger says that cities always
-say such things about themselves,
-and that he doesn’t
-suppose it is finer than can
-be found in New York and
-Chicago, but that is what
-they told us.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Nellie Shermann.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">I read</span> a description of the
-St. Louis Court House which
-was very interesting. It is
-built in the form of a Greek
-cross, and has a splendid
-dome whose lantern can be
-seen as much as twenty miles
-away. It cost a good deal
-over a million dollars—the
-building did, not the lantern.
-Aunt Kate told me to put that sentence in:
-I don’t see why; of course you would know
-that a lantern did not cost all that! I like
-handsome buildings; I am going to be an
-architect.</p>
-
-<p>I study all the different forms of buildings;
-I like the Greek cross style very well,
-but I don’t know how it would look for a
-private house. Aunt Kate says all that has
-nothing to do with St. Louis, but I don’t care.
-You don’t mind my telling what interests me,
-do you?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Arthur Blakeman.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is a building in St. Louis called “Four
-Courts,” named after the “Four Courts” of
-Dublin. But I think it was queer to name it
-Four Courts, and then have only three courts
-held in it. It is a stone
-building, and cost a good
-deal of money. Stone
-buildings always do; I
-suppose that is because
-they last so long; things
-that last always cost a
-great deal. I have hunted
-and hunted to find
-something interesting
-about St. Louis that everybody
-else would not be
-likely to tell, and the only
-thing I could find was this
-about the Four Courts. I
-don’t know as that is interesting,
-but it is the best
-I could do.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mary Blakeman.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 342px;">
-<img src="images/i-230a.jpg" width="342" height="212" alt="another building" />
-<div class="caption">THE DENISON HOUSE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">They</span> have a splendid
-Public-school Library in
-St. Louis. My father said when he was there
-ten years ago there were over fifty thousand
-volumes in it—books to help teachers and
-scholars. My father says he thinks other cities
-might copy after them in this. Colleges have
-libraries on purpose for their students, why
-should not public schools?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Will Vandenberg.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 409px;">
-<img src="images/i-230b.jpg" width="409" height="323" alt="another building" />
-<div class="caption">THE CUSTOM HOUSE.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">They</span> have a splendid Custom House and
-Post-Office in St. Louis. Father says the
-building cost half a million. He was there
-when it was being built, and he says there is
-something grand-looking about it. And father
-says they have splendid schools there; not only
-public schools, but lots of private ones. The
-Washington University is there, and so, of
-course, is the St. Louis University;
-and they have the finest kindergartens
-there, I think, to be found outside
-of Germany. My uncle says I might
-as well leave that sentence out, for
-the kindergartens in the United States
-are better than those in Germany.
-But I am not going to leave it out;
-I don’t like crossed-out lines in a letter,
-and I haven’t time to copy this.
-Besides, lots of people think that
-things in other countries are nicer
-than our own, of course.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Charles J. Prescott, Jr.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Rita</span> was riding on a road that went winding
-up hill and down dale, when she remarked,
-“Well, I never did saw such a curly road.”</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A SEED THAT BLOSSOMED.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-e.jpg" width="119" height="119" alt="E" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">ELISE was spending the afternoon
-with Miss Dora Turner.
-Miss Turner was several years
-older than Elise, but she had
-come to the country to live
-among strangers, and Elise
-had known her in her city home, and was lonely
-like herself, so they became intimate friends.
-Elise told all her sorrows and perplexities, as
-well as her joys, to this young lady. She was
-in Miss Turner’s room now, waiting for her to
-rearrange her hair and make some additions to
-her toilet, then they were going for a walk.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t know where we can go, I am sure,”
-said Elise; “we have used up all the pretty
-walks near by. I wish it was early enough to
-go for a long tramp; I would like to do something
-different this afternoon. I feel tired of
-all the things I ever did.”</p>
-
-<p>“Poor little old lady!” said Miss Turner,
-laughing, “there will have to be a new world
-made for you, Elise.” Then, as she turned,
-she caught the flash of the diamond at Elise’s
-throat, and said: “How lovely your pin is!
-It seems too lovely and too costly for a young
-girl.”</p>
-
-<p>“It was mamma’s,” said Elise gravely, “and
-papa promised mamma he would give it to me
-on my fourteenth birthday. Didn’t I tell you?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, no, indeed. That explains it. I
-wondered that your father should send you a
-diamond pin at your age; but it is beautiful
-for you to have your mother’s pin to wear.
-Why didn’t you tell me, Elise?”</p>
-
-<p>“Because,” said Elise, “there was a part to
-it that I did not understand, and I suppose I
-did not want to speak of it. Mamma sent me
-a message with it; at least papa said that the
-words inside were her message; she had them
-engraved on it before she died, so it seems like
-mamma’s last words to me, and indeed it is;
-but I do not understand it, nor know how to do
-it, nor anything. I don’t suppose you could
-show me?”</p>
-
-<p>The question was asked with a half-laugh,
-and not at all as though Elise supposed that
-she could get any help from this quarter.</p>
-
-
-
-<p>Miss Turner’s fair face flushed. “I don’t
-suppose I could,” she answered gravely; “I
-don’t know much about such things, Elise.”</p>
-
-<p>What she meant by “such things” perhaps
-would have been difficult for her to explain.
-But the thought in her mind was, that “last
-messages” from dying mothers would not be
-such as she could explain. Elise’s mother had
-been dead for many years; at least they seemed
-many to Elise, though she could remember her
-beautiful mother distinctly; and when she
-thought it all over, as she often did in the twilight,
-could seem to feel her mother’s kiss upon
-her lips, and the pressure of her mother’s hand
-on the yellow curls which used to be hers in
-those days. She was not yet six years old
-when her mother went away, but there were
-times when it seemed to her that she had seen
-her only yesterday. And at other times the
-years which stretched between seemed very,
-very long. Her father was in India in the
-Government employ; had been there for five
-years. And Elise, who received long letters
-from him, and elegant presents, and talked a
-great deal about him, yet felt sometimes that
-she really knew him less than she did her beautiful
-pale mother, who used to love her so, and
-kiss her so tenderly. Elise lived with an aunt
-who was very fond of her, and did everything
-to supply her mother’s place, and her uncle
-called her his adopted daughter; yet sometimes
-she cried when she was tucked up in bed for
-the night, because she longed so to have a
-mamma and papa and a home of her own,
-like other girls. It was perhaps because Miss
-Turner had no mother that she had felt drawn
-toward her in the first place.</p>
-
-<p>“What is the message?” her friend asked.
-“May I see it, Elise? I am half-surprised
-that you do not understand it; you are such a
-thoughtful young person, and seem older than
-you are; I have a feeling that you can understand
-what most others do.”</p>
-
-<p>Elise made no reply save to unclasp the pin
-and pass it to her friend. Miss Turner moved
-toward the window, where the light would fall
-upon it. It was a lovely arch of gold, a tiny
-diamond flashing in its center, and on the reverse
-side was engraved, in small but distinct
-letters, the words: “Keep His covenant.”
-“Why, Elise!” she said, “how beautiful this
-is. I should think you would like it very much.”</p>
-
-<p>“I do,” said Elise, “of course; only it gives
-me a strange feeling, as though mamma had
-sent me word to do something that I could not
-do; and I have always thought that I would
-like to do things to please mamma, if I only
-knew just what she wanted done.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, but, dear,” said Miss Turner hesitatingly,
-“surely you can find out what this
-means, in a general way.”</p>
-
-<p>Elise smiled sadly. “I remember mamma
-very well,” she said, “and she always wanted
-me to do exactly as she said.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” said Miss Turner again, after an
-embarrassed pause, “this is exact enough; she
-means you to live a good life, you know.”</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t know what it means,” said Elise,
-moving restlessly. “As for being good, I am
-not, and I don’t know how to be; I cannot
-keep my temper a single day. You know I
-never get through a day without having a tiff
-of some sort with Cousin Annie; and there are
-ever so many people who vex me and worry me
-so that I cannot feel right toward them. That
-is not being good. Besides, the words seem to
-me to mean something more than that—something
-different. I would like to know exactly
-what they mean, but there is nobody that I can
-ask. Papa does not understand such things,
-and uncle and auntie do not. I don’t seem to
-have any friends who could help in that way.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Turner gave back the pin, looking very
-thoughtful indeed. She ought to know more
-about those things than Elise did, she told herself;
-her father was not a Christian, and her
-mother had died when her little girl was six
-years old, whereas Miss Turner had lived
-always in a home where the father and mother
-were earnest Christians, and she knew at this
-very moment that the greatest desire of their
-hearts was to see her doing this very thing—“keeping
-His covenant.” Yet she knew as
-little about it practically as Elise Burton did;
-so little, that although she was at least six
-years older than Elise, she did not know in
-the least how to help her this afternoon. It
-was very humiliating. She could help her with
-her music, and with her French lessons, and
-her drawing, and to have this most important
-of all lessons beyond her, seemed strange and
-wrong. She was still for several minutes, then
-she said, speaking very gently:</p>
-
-<p>“Elise dear, I can imagine how you feel
-with this message from your mother; I wish I
-knew how to help you. But there is a way to
-learn what it means. There is a verse in the
-Bible somewhere that explains its meaning.”</p>
-
-<p>Elise looked up quickly. “Where?” she
-asked. “The Bible is such a big book, and I
-do not know much about it. I did try last
-Sunday to find something about covenants that
-would help me. I went away back to Noah
-and the rainbow, but I did not get any good
-out of it for me.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Dora went to her table and took up an
-elegantly bound reference Bible, full of help
-which she did not understand, and turning in a
-half-bewildered, half-embarrassed manner to
-the Concordance, ran her eye down the list of
-words marked “covenant.” Elise watched her
-curiously. She had no Concordance in her
-Bible, and did not know how to use one. At
-last Miss Dora turned to a verse.</p>
-
-<p>“This explains a little of it,” she said, and
-read aloud: “This shall be the covenant that
-I will make with the house of Israel in those
-days, saith the Lord; I will put my law in their
-inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and
-will be their God and they shall be my people.”
-As she read a curious light came into her eyes.</p>
-
-<p>“It is very strange,” she said; “that is the
-verse that they are going to talk about this
-afternoon at the covenant meeting.”</p>
-
-<p>“What is a covenant meeting?” asked Elise
-eagerly.</p>
-
-<p>“It is the young people’s quarterly meeting
-at the church where I am attending. Every
-three months their Christian Endeavor Society
-have a gathering which they call a covenant
-meeting. I don’t know much about it; I have
-not been; but they talk together about such
-things; the pastor comes and talks to them.
-They say the meetings are interesting. What
-if we should walk in that direction, Elise, and
-go in a little while? Mr. Westfield invited me
-to come, but I did not have an idea that I
-should do so. I do not attend such meetings
-much, you know. But if you would like to go,
-Elise, and find out about your pin, I will go
-with you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” said Elise, starting up with more
-energy than she had shown before for several
-days, “I will. I want to know about ‘His
-covenant.’ I do, truly. Mamma asked me to,
-you know; and perhaps if I understood it it
-would tell me just exactly what she wanted me
-to do all the time, and I should be so glad to
-do it.”</p>
-
-<p>“We will go and find out,” said Miss Turner
-gravely.</p>
-
-<p>Thus the little seed dropped by the loving
-mother’s hand took root and blossomed in two
-lives, though the hand which sowed the seed
-had been dust for many years.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 209px;">
-<img src="images/deco-line.jpg" width="209" height="16" alt="line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 567px;">
-<img src="images/i-233.jpg" width="567" height="550" alt="old looking child" />
-<div class="caption">WHEN GRANDFATHER WAS YOUNG.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 482px;">
-<img src="images/i-234.jpg" width="482" height="650" alt="man holdin up egg at table" />
-<div class="caption">THE OLD QUESTION.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A SCARECROW.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-a.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">ALEX HAINES and Eva were
-promised a piece of ground as
-their very own if they would
-cultivate (what is that?) it.</p>
-<div>
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-235a.jpg" alt="Building the Scarecrow" width="205" height="154" />
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-235b.jpg" alt="Building the Scarecrow" width="311" height="46" />
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-235d.jpg" alt="Building the Scarecrow" width="364" height="91" />
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-235e.jpg" alt="Building the Scarecrow" width="401" height="38" />
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-235f.jpg" alt="Building the Scarecrow" width="385" height="36" />
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-235g.jpg" alt="Building the Scarecrow" width="371" height="69" />
-<img class="splitr" src="images/i-235h.jpg" alt="Building the Scarecrow" width="348" height="93" />
-</div>
-<p>Each took a hoe and began.
-By night Alex and Eva had
-planted a rod square to corn.</p>
-
-<p>Then they watched the corn; that is, they
-watched for the corn. After a few days, sure
-enough, the spots where the corn was planted—that
-is, the hills—began to swell as though
-something wanted to get out. Then up came
-a bit of a green leaf. Higher it grew, and they
-came often to see it.</p>
-
-<p>One day they came and found some of the
-hills pulled up, and while they wondered
-what thief had been about, they
-heard from the top of a tree, “Caw,
-caw, caw!”</p>
-
-<p>The thief was a crow.</p>
-
-<p>So they must scare the crows
-away, or the corn will be all
-pulled up, and their labor will
-be in vain.</p>
-
-<p>Crows are afraid of men;
-but men cannot stay all the
-time in the field to scare
-the crows off. So something
-that looks like a man
-must be set up in the corn patch
-to scare the crows away.</p>
-
-<p>With a pair of pants, a coat,
-a hat, and three old brooms,
-they are making a man! When
-it is all done it will not look
-much like a man. It has neither eyes,
-nose nor mouth. It can not walk nor
-talk. The scarecrow has no heart or soul,
-but it can scare crows away from the
-corn.</p>
-
-<p>The gods of the heathen have eyes, but they
-can’t see. They can’t see or hear or feel or
-think.</p>
-
-<p>They are made gods, and those who make
-such gods worship them. They think such
-things can scare away evil and do them
-good!</p>
-
-<p>But such gods just scare the heathen, and of
-course cannot save them.</p>
-
-<p>Ah! if the poor, deceived people knew of
-Him “who so loved the world that He gave his
-only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
-Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”</p>
-
-<p>What Pansy among you will go and tell
-them, or help send a preacher to them?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is a grand temperance organization in
-Sweden, which is trying to get rid of the saloon.
-Last year their Government appropriated twenty-five
-thousand crowns, a portion of which was set
-apart to be used as awards for the best essays on
-the different phases of the temperance question,
-with suggestions as to how soonest to rid the
-country of the curse of alcohol.</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 565px;">
-<img src="images/i-236.jpg" width="565" height="778" alt="Girl in front of sampler on wall" />
-<div class="caption">GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S SAMPLER.</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>A DOUBLE LESSON.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-t.jpg" width="119" height="118" alt="T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">“THERE!” said Davie Campbell,
-flinging as he spoke a large,
-sharp-pointed stick right where
-his brother stood, “take that;
-I don’t care if it does hurt you.
-I hate you, George Campbell!”</p>
-
-<p>The stick was aimed even more surely than
-Davie in his blind rage imagined. It struck
-his brother’s side face, making an ugly wound,
-from which the blood flowed freely.</p>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 301px;">
-<img src="images/i-237.jpg" width="301" height="407" alt="Girl sitting by boy who is in bed; another boy standing by other side of bed" />
-<div class="caption">SHE HELD UP A WARNING HAND.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Ah, ha!” said George, as he turned to the
-pump and began to bathe the wound, “look
-what you have done now. What will mother
-say to you, young man? And as for me, that
-will make a scar, and I will wear it all my life
-to remember you by. You will like that, won’t
-you? You will just enjoy having people ask
-me where I got that scar, and me having to tell
-that my beloved brother did it on purpose, because
-he hated me. Oh, ho! you are a jewel,
-you are,” and George Campbell laughed, and
-dodged just in time to escape a stone from his
-angry brother’s hand; then went off down the
-street, leaving Davie in a perfect rage.</p>
-
-<p>He was three years younger than his brother,
-and was said by the neighbors to have a great
-deal worse disposition than George, but I never
-felt sure of that. However, it is quite true
-that instead of being master of his temper he
-let it master him. He had, also, a wretched
-habit of throwing anything he might happen to
-have in his hand when the angry fit seized him,
-letting it strike wherever it might. In this way
-he had narrowly escaped doing serious mischief,
-and he had promised himself hundreds of
-times that he would never, never throw
-things again, and yet, as soon as he grew
-angry, so settled was that habit upon him,
-that the stick or stone was apt to fly through
-the air. As for George, I think he was
-quite as easily angered as his brother, but
-his habit was to laugh, or sneer, or say
-the most taunting words imaginable, with a
-sort of superior smile on his face the while.
-On the whole, I am not sure that George
-appeared any better in the sight of Him
-who can read hearts than did his brother
-Davie.</p>
-
-<p>They were not the worst boys in the
-world, by any means; they did not quarrel
-all the time. For days together they would
-succeed in being very friendly, and in having
-good times, but it must be confessed
-that George had discovered certain directions
-in which his young brother could be
-easily teased, and that he delighted to tease
-him.</p>
-
-<p>“Davie is such a little spitfire,” he used
-to say to his Aunt Mary, when she argued
-with him about the sin of such a habit.
-“Why does he want to go off like a pop
-gun the first word that is said to him?
-I never do.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said Aunt Mary; “you laugh—a
-laugh which makes him feel more angry than
-he did before, and you say something to increase
-his rage. Is that really being any better
-than he?” But these questions George did not
-like to answer.</p>
-
-<p>On this particular morning, after having
-stopped the blood from his wound, he had
-sauntered away to see two of his friends who
-worked in the paper factory near at hand.
-There he mounted their work table and answered
-the questions which they eagerly put to
-him as to how he happened to get hurt.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! it is Davie’s work; he’s a great boy.
-If he had had an open jack-knife in his hand it
-would have been all the same; it would have
-been flung at me when he got mad. I hope
-when he grows up he will never take a notion
-to carry a pistol, for if he does he will shoot
-the first fellow who laughs at him, or who
-laughs when he is within hearing.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, George,” said one of the boys, “that
-will make an ugly scar.”</p>
-
-<p>“I dare say it will. I will carry it all my
-life to remember him by.”</p>
-
-<p>“It is a pity that he is such a little tiger; I
-wouldn’t stand it if I were you,” said the other
-boy. “You are a good deal older than he;
-why don’t you make him behave himself?”</p>
-
-<p>In this way poor Davie was discussed by the
-three, George telling story after story about
-his brother, led on by the sympathy which the
-two professed, into making Davie the one always
-to blame, and himself the injured, long-suffering
-elder brother. The boys did not know
-Davie very well, and George had always been
-good-natured with them, so of course they were
-on his side, and ready to sympathize with him
-for having such a wicked little brother. The
-longer George talked the more of a martyr he
-grew to considering himself; he racked his
-brain for illustrations of Davie’s ill temper,
-and was in the midst of a very harrowing story
-when Joe Winters appeared, breathless with
-running, and panted out: “Is George Campbell
-here? I say, George Campbell, your folks
-want you to come home just as fast as you can.
-Davie has tumbled from the scaffolding of the
-big barn and killed himself! or—well, he ain’t
-dead; but he lies there still; can’t stir nor
-speak, and they have sent for two doctors, and
-everybody thinks he is going to die.”</p>
-
-<p>Poor George Campbell! To have seen the
-look on his face when he heard this dreadful
-piece of news you would not have imagined
-that he could have had so hard an opinion of
-his little brother as he had been trying to show
-for the last hour. He jumped from the table,
-and made a dash for the door before Joe had
-finished his panting sentences, but paused with
-the door in his hand to say: “O, boys! it isn’t
-half of it true—what I have been telling you;
-I have been worse than Davie every time. If
-I hadn’t laughed at him, and teased him, and
-made fun of him, he never would have got
-angry at me. O, boys! if he dies it will kill
-me.” Then he ran.</p>
-
-<p>What hours those were which followed, while
-the little brother lay on his bed, moaning steadily,
-but unconscious, so the doctors declared, and
-they shook their heads gravely in answer to
-questions, and would not give one ray of hope
-that he might by and by open his eyes and
-know them. Truth to tell, they thought he
-was going to die, and that very soon. But
-doctors are sometimes mistaken, and these
-were. Davie did not die; he lay day after
-day moaning with pain, not knowing any of
-the dear friends who bent over him; staring at
-George with wild, unnatural eyes, as if he were
-some comical object, instead of the brother
-who hovered about him, longing, oh! so eagerly
-for just one glance of recognition.</p>
-
-<p>There came a day when the doctors said it
-was possible—just barely possible—that Davie
-might awaken from the long sleep into which he
-had fallen, and know his friends. How still
-they kept the house, and how silently the
-mother sat hour after hour by his bedside, relieved
-only by the little sister, who came on
-tiptoe to take her place, that she might go out
-and drink a cup of tea to help her bear the nervous
-strain. Even then she only went into the
-next room, separated from Davie’s by a curtain,
-and came back when she had got half-way
-across the room because she thought she heard
-a sound behind those curtains. There was no
-sound; Jennie was sitting quietly at her post,
-a wise little nurse; she held up a warning hand,
-ready to motion anybody back into silence who
-might be tiptoeing toward them. She had imagined
-it was George, for he, poor fellow, hovered
-near, looking almost as pale and worn as
-the boy with his head on the pillow.</p>
-
-<p>Terrible days these had been to George. He
-was not sure that he ever prayed in his life before,
-but during those days he prayed with terrible
-earnestness, that Davie might not go away
-with those last words of his ringing in his ears.
-“If he could only know me long enough for me
-to ask him to forgive me!” said poor George
-to himself, while the tears rolled down his
-cheeks. “Then I think I would be almost
-willing to have him die. O, God! let me just
-tell him that I am sorry, and that I will not
-remember him in any such way, but I will think
-of the thousands of good and loving things he
-has done for me.”</p>
-
-<p>I am sure you will be glad to know that his
-prayer was answered. Davie awoke from his
-long sleep with a look of quiet astonishment in
-his eyes, to think that he was lying in bed, and
-mother and Jennie were sitting beside him, and
-that George was standing over by the window.
-He did not remember any of the days that had
-passed between. He did not remember at first
-the fall from the scaffolding. He was by no
-means out of danger, the doctor said, yet there
-was a thread, just a thread of hope that he
-might rally. And so the days which followed
-were quite as full of anxiety and care as those
-in which he had been unconscious.</p>
-
-<p>But Davie steadily gained, and there came a
-bright morning in midsummer when George was
-permitted to take care of him alone, while his
-mother attended to some household duties, and
-Jennie swept the dining-room and set the table.
-It was George’s opportunity. He had longed
-for it, but he did not know how to use it. How
-should he begin? While he considered, Davie
-began for him.</p>
-
-<p>“It did leave a scar, didn’t it?” he said
-mournfully. “O, George! I remember all
-about it; it came to me just a few days ago.
-Wasn’t it awful? George, the hardest part has
-been to think that maybe I should die and leave
-that scar for you to remember me by.”</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t,” said George, who had not the least
-idea that he should cry any more about this
-thing, yet who felt the tears starting in his
-eyes. “O, don’t, Davie! forget those horrid
-hateful things I said to you. You can’t think
-how many nice things I had to remember of
-you—hundreds and hundreds of them.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” said Davie mournfully; “I have always
-been throwing sticks and stones and hurting
-things. Don’t you remember how I lamed
-the cat, and killed a bird once, and then made
-that scar on your face? That is the worst of
-all. O, George! if I had died what a way to
-be remembered. Think of the lots of things
-that people could have told of me like that.”</p>
-
-<p>George winced visibly, for these were some
-of the things he had told the boys in the paper
-factory that day.</p>
-
-<p>“I tell you what it is,” he said, swallowing
-hard to try and speak without a tremble in his
-voice, “you and I have both had a lesson,
-Davie. If you had died I could never have
-forgiven myself for having teased you for getting
-angry, and then having said that I would
-remember you by this little scar, which doesn’t
-amount to anything, anyhow. It wasn’t true,
-Davie; I wouldn’t have
-remembered you that way.”</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t see how you
-could have helped it,” said
-Davie mournfully; “but I
-am truly and surely going
-to be different after this.
-If you see me getting angry
-and acting as if I was
-going to throw things, I
-wish you would tie up my
-hands, or hold them, or
-something.”</p>
-
-<p>“We will both be different,”
-said George. “It
-won’t do to plan such things
-as we had to remember.
-We will begin now and plan to have nice
-pleasant things, so that when—that when”—But
-his voice trembled and broke; he had been
-too near parting with Davie forever to put in
-words the thought that some time the parting
-would surely come.</p>
-
-<p>But I fancy that they must have kept their
-words and begun over again, for this happened
-several years ago. George and Davie are
-young men now, and yesterday I heard them
-called “model brothers.” They really seem to
-be planning to have only pleasant things to remember
-of each other when the time comes for
-one of them to go away.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MUSIC AND WAR.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-g.jpg" width="119" height="119" alt="G" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">GEORGE NOYES—that is not
-his real name—is now in Europe
-sightseeing. He spends
-one week in beautiful Paris,
-where the people talk French,
-and do not do everything quite
-as do Americans or Englishmen.</p>
-
-<p>George is learning to speak French. He has
-got on so far that he can tell in French to the
-waiters just what he will have of the bill of fare.</p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 546px;">
-<img src="images/i-239.jpg" width="546" height="349" alt="men on horseback leading other horses under bridge" />
-<div class="caption">AT PONT NEUF.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Yesterday he and his Uncle Fred went to
-Pont Neuf, a bridge more than a thousand
-feet long, and three hundred years old. King
-Henry the Fourth had it built. Visitors of
-Paris must needs see this wonderful bridge, or
-they have not seen Paris. That’s what they
-say.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 383px;">
-<img src="images/i-240.jpg" width="383" height="246" alt="band on drill" />
-<div class="caption">ON DRILL.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>While George was looking this way and that
-from the bridge, and thinking of the war times
-of kings and princes, he heard sweet music,
-and turning to see whence it came, he saw a
-company of boys playing on drums and bugles,
-under the leadership of a soldier and one of
-their own companions.</p>
-
-<p>There they drill every pleasant afternoon,
-and delight the multitudes who gather on Pont
-Neuf.</p>
-
-<p>However, it is not all for fun they are playing
-charming French music, and among the
-rest the Marseillaise Hymn. They are getting
-ready for war times, for fierce battles and
-blood and death.</p>
-
-<p>Most nations have had many wars, and millions
-of their people have been slain, and no
-words can tell the suffering. Some day I fear
-those nice French boys, grown to be men, will
-be playing the Marseillaise Hymn on some
-awful battle field, while thousands of French
-and Germans, or some other people, will be
-falling and dying!</p>
-
-<p>All this because one nation wants some of
-the other nation’s land, or for some other
-wicked cause.</p>
-
-<p>“Blessed are the peace makers, for”—</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>JEAN.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-c.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="C" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">COME now, the good ship <i>City
-of Paris</i> sails in a few days,
-so let us away over the ocean
-to France.</p>
-
-<p>Here we are in Paris, the
-most beautiful, though not the
-best city in the world, they say.</p>
-
-<p>But after six days sightseeing we’ll hurry to
-another place, and here we are in Domremy.
-Here we’ll roam over the hills and think. See
-that cluster of trees? We must sit under them
-and upon that very stone. There on that
-grassy bank where the flowers are blooming,
-and at whose foot runs a gentle brook, we must
-spend an hour and think, think who sat upon
-that very spot nearly five hundred years ago
-and watched her father’s flock of sheep or listened
-to the singing birds or talked with God
-through the sweet roses she holds. Now she
-looks up at the great sun, now at a passing
-cloud; now a soft wind fans her face; a shepherd
-dog lies at her feet; just yonder some
-lambs are nestled together.</p>
-
-<p>She is but thirteen years old, but she loves
-to speak to God as though he were by her side—and
-is he not?</p>
-
-<p>Late one evening she comes leading the sheep
-home. Sitting alone looking out into the moonlight,
-Jeanne’s mother inquires: “My child,
-what keeps you so long in the field? You must
-come home earlier, my darling, or something
-will happen to you.”</p>
-
-<p>“But, mamma, I’ve heard voices in the
-fields, and they seem to come from the roses
-and the rocks and the robins and in every
-wind, and they tell me of my native land and
-my home and God, that I must love <i>ma belle
-France</i>, and save it out of the hands of all its
-enemies, and this is what keeps me so late, my
-sweet, dear mamma.”</p>
-
-<p>“Voices, child?”</p>
-
-<p>“Aye, mamma, voices from Heaven speaking
-in my heart. Your Jeanne hears them
-loud, in my heart, at least, and they say I
-must save my poor sad country.”</p>
-
-<p>Jeanne’s mother could say nothing, but wonder
-if the child was out of her mind, or if she
-had really had a vision of angels, as in olden
-times they came to the shepherds while they
-watched their flocks.</p>
-
-<p>So the years went by, Jeanne always saying
-that these heavenly voices were calling her to
-save her unhappy country, her friends and
-neighbors sometimes calling her crazy.</p>
-
-<p>She was now seventeen, a lovely pure girl,
-sorrowing much over the wars and troubles of
-her own beloved France. Ah! they were dark
-days indeed; this one wanted to be king, and
-that one said he must rule; armies met and
-fought, and some of the young men who went
-from Domremy, and with whom Jeanne had
-played, were brought back from the battle fields
-wounded and dying.</p>
-
-<p>Then came a great army over from England,
-and city after city of France fell before its awful
-march. The frightened King Charles the
-Seventh feared all was lost. He knew not
-whither to fly with his sad little army. But
-just when he was going to give up word came
-to him about the girl of Domremy, our sweet
-Jeanne. Quickly a messenger was dispatched
-to her plain little home, and out into the fields
-he hastened to find her feeding her flock. He
-urged her to come to her king with all speed.
-She knew what it meant; she knew her hour
-was now come to save her “<i>la belle France</i>.”</p>
-
-<p>Bidding her mother to pray for her, and covering
-her neck with kisses, she was soon galloping
-off with the messenger to the camp of the
-king. A smile of hope lit up his anxious face
-as she came into his presence. She told him
-about the “voices,” and said she was sure she
-could lead his army to victory if he would give
-her soldiers.</p>
-
-<p>So then and there he put upon her the strong
-armor of commander, and giving her a sword
-and a war horse she led her little band against
-the English. They had heard of her, and
-thought she was sent of God, and fear fell upon
-them, and they threw down their arms and fled
-away in dismay.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile, though Jeanne waved her flashing
-sword she never struck
-a blow with it, but she
-was again and again
-wounded.</p>
-
-<p>At last came complete
-victory, and Jeanne saw
-the enemies of her beloved
-France fleeing from
-Orleans before her rejoicing
-army. For this she
-was called “<i>La Pucelle
-d’Orleans</i>,” or the Maid
-of Orleans. But she is
-usually called Joan of
-Arc.</p>
-
-<p>After so much triumph
-she pleaded with her king
-to let her return to her
-dear Domremy home, but
-he would not consent.
-Meanwhile some of the
-great captains envied her
-all her victories, and managed
-to let her be taken
-prisoner. Now comes the
-sad, sad thing to tell. After this noble girl had
-saved her country, her king and the others let
-her be put into prison, tried, condemned, and
-burned to death as a witch! This is not the
-only case in which the best friend a country
-ever had was cruelly treated by that country.
-Jesus was crucified, crucified by his own people,
-whom he came to save. But scarcely had
-twenty years gone by before all the bitter persecutors
-of this dear brave Jeanne came to
-violent deaths, and the people, instead of calling
-her a witch, proclaimed her innocent, and a
-statue was erected to her memory on the very
-spot where she was burned, and her family was
-promoted by the king.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>HEATHEN WOMEN.</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">ONE of the two is smoking. She likes it,
-too. Men say it is nice to smoke and
-chew tobacco; why should not the women have
-as good a time as the men? Or why is it
-any worse for a woman than a man? And yet
-if the girls and women of America should begin
-to smoke and race horses, and do similar things
-they would be called heathenish.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 408px;">
-<img src="images/i-242.jpg" width="408" height="368" alt="two women" />
-<div class="caption">TYPES OF HEATHEN WOMEN.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>So it is, women in heathen lands all have bad
-times and fall into bad wars. If they ever
-dress themselves, and behave themselves as
-they ought, and have good, lovely homes, and
-care tenderly for their children, it will be when
-they learn about Jesus, who came and died to
-save a lost world. How can they learn without
-a preacher?</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 427px;">
-<img src="images/i-243.jpg" width="427" height="736" alt="Idol" />
-<div class="caption">STATUE AT COPAN, GUATEMALA.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox2">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 355px;">
-<img src="images/i-244.jpg" width="355" height="506" alt="four women" />
-<div class="caption">TYPES OF UNCIVILIZED CHINESE WOMEN.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
-<img src="images/i-245.jpg" width="280" height="69" alt="flowers" />
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>“FAX AND FIGGERS.”</h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">WE clip from the Union Signal a remarkable
-“queer story,” joined to an arithmetical
-problem. The story has a moral well
-worth considering, and a “sum” worth doing.</p>
-
-<p>“I hav of lait got at sum stubbun fax and
-figgers. 2 siggars a day, costing oanly a nikkle
-eech, for 20 yeers at 1st Site appeers to Bee a
-smol matter. Let us figger the cost. 10 sents
-daly for 365 daze reeches the sum ov $36.50.
-We will not rekkon interrist the first yeer, but
-the interrist on $36.50 for 19 yeers at 6 purr
-sent is $73.92, and the Totle ov prinsipple and
-interrist at 6 Purr sent, kompoundid yeerly, at
-the end ov 20 yeers maiks the neet little Sum
-ov $1,338.54. That izzn’t a grate eel, but it
-wood Bi 200 barrils ov good flower, and in Sum
-sekshuns ov the kuntry wood maik wun the
-oaner ov a good farm, with houce, barn, wel,
-sisstern, froot treeze and wood-lot on it, possibly
-a jurzy cow and sum Uther niknax throne
-into the bargin. But my expeeryunce has tot
-me that fax and figgers prodoose but a Slite
-impresshun on wun who has fully dessidid to
-maik bacon ov his Branes bi turning his mouth
-into a smoakhouce. He communly prefurs the
-hi and eggzaltid privvylige ov bloin smoak thru
-hiz noze to having enny uther erthly pozeshun.”</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<h2>A PUZZLE.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">I</span>F an S and an I and an O and a U,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With an X at the end spell Su;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">And an E and a Y and an E spell I,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pray what is a speller to do?</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Then, if also an S and an I and a G</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And an H, E, D spell cide,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">There’s nothing much left for a speller to do</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">But to go and commit siouxeyesighed.</span></div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>CELIA’S EASTER OFFERING.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-c.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="C" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">CELIA’S share of the flowers
-was lovely. She buried her
-face in the blooms again and
-again, and seemed unable to
-get enough of their sweetness.</p>
-
-<p>They had spent the entire
-morning in the woods hunting for treasures,
-she and her particular friend, Helen Beardsley.
-Helen attended another Sunday-school, so they
-had carefully divided the flowers, for they were
-to be used in decorating the church for the
-Easter service.</p>
-
-<p>“You will smell all the sweetness out of those
-things, child,” said Miss Agatha Foster, looking
-up from the bit of satin she was carefully
-embroidering. Miss Agatha was Celia’s oldest
-sister.</p>
-
-<div class="figright" style="width: 294px;">
-<img src="images/i-245b.jpg" width="294" height="454" alt="girl standing by chair" />
-<div class="caption">HESTER THOUGHT ABOUT IT.</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“O, no, I won’t!” said Celia, laughing;
-“they have all the sweetness of the woods in
-them. You can’t think how the woods smelled
-this morning! It seemed just like heaven.”</p>
-
-<p>Agatha and the middle sister, Lorene, looked
-at each other and laughed.</p>
-
-<p>“What an idea!” said Lorene; “it is the
-first time I ever heard the woods compared to
-heaven.”</p>
-<p>Mrs. Foster came into the room at that moment,
-and stopped by the table near the door to
-arrange the books;
-there was a tired,
-somewhat troubled
-look on her face.
-“Poor Hester has
-had to be disappointed
-again about
-going home,” she
-said.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, mother,” said
-Agatha, “that is really too
-bad. It is the third Saturday
-she has missed, and
-their baby is
-sick, you
-know.”</p>
-
-<p>“I know
-it,” said Mrs.
-Foster, looking
-more troubled still; “but what can I do?
-There will be company to tea, and cook cannot
-leave the kitchen to answer the bell; she can
-not even attend to the downstairs bell; it rings
-every few minutes on Saturdays; besides,
-there is extra work for her to do, and somebody
-must set the table for her. I don’t suppose
-either of you could give her a lift, could
-you, and let Hester go?”</p>
-
-
-<p>There was inquiry in the mother’s tone, but
-no expectation. Agatha lifted her eyebrows,
-but there was a difficult spot in her embroidery
-just then, so she made no reply; but Lorene
-turned quite away from the piano to answer:</p>
-
-<p>“Why, mother, how could we? I have my
-practicing to do; I have to sing twice to-morrow,
-you know. Of course that would not take
-me long, but we couldn’t run to the door every
-time the bell rang, could we, and receive callers
-at the same time?”</p>
-<div>
-<img class="split" src="images/i-246a.jpg" alt="CHRIST is RISEN" width="155" height="119" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-246b.jpg" alt="CHRIST is RISEN" width="126" height="36" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-246c.jpg" alt="CHRIST is RISEN" width="106" height="69" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-246d.jpg" alt="CHRIST is RISEN" width="235" height="124" />
-<img class="split" src="images/i-246e.jpg" alt="CHRIST is RISEN" width="188" height="95" />
-</div>
-
-<p>“And as for setting the table,” said Agatha,
-who had righted her embroidery and was taking
-neat stitches, “I never could get all the things
-on a table. It wouldn’t be possible for me to
-set it for company.”</p>
-
-<p>“I suppose it cannot be arranged,” said Mrs.
-Foster. “I must finish Grandma’s cap so she
-can wear it this evening; her other is really
-unfit, and I have several stitches to take for
-Celia, as well. Hester must wait another week.
-I told her so; but she seemed so disappointed
-that I wondered if there were not some way to
-plan it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Perhaps she can run down there after tea
-to see how the baby is,” Lorene said, but Mrs.
-Foster shook her head. “Cook will need her
-to look after things in the kitchen while she
-waits on table, and it will be quite dark before
-we shall be through; she could not go alone
-after dark.”</p>
-
-<p>It was Agatha’s turn to sigh. “We need a
-second girl,” she said; “it is ridiculous for a
-family of our size to try to get along with only
-cook, and that little bit of a Hester.”</p>
-
-<p>“We shall certainly have to get along,” was
-her mother’s answer, spoken with quiet positiveness;
-“you know as well as I that we can
-not afford more help this season.”</p>
-
-<p>Meantime Celia, her fingers still busy with
-the masses of flowers she was trying to arrange
-in a basket for carrying, had listened, her face
-growing more and more gravely thoughtful.</p>
-
-<p>It was Sabbath evening in her thoughts, and
-she was in the Christian Endeavor meeting,
-listening to Agatha’s voice while she quoted
-from some grand old writer a thought like this:
-“We plan our Easter offerings, and beautify
-His temple for the glad day, and that is well;
-but we are to remember that as there would
-have been no Easter had He not given Himself,
-so the highest and best offering we can bring
-to Him is our unselfish consecrated selves.”
-Celia remembered the thrill with which she had
-listened. Agatha’s voice was like music, and
-the thoughts had seemed to fit her voice and
-make a poem of them, which had thrilled the
-beauty-loving heart of her young sister.</p>
-
-<p>That was a week ago. Why should the
-words come back to her this afternoon, and
-ring in her heart like soft bells, calling her?</p>
-
-<p>What had they to do with Hester, and the
-door-bells to answer, and the table to set for
-company, and a sick baby at home? “The
-highest and best offering we can bring to Him
-is our unselfish consecrated selves,” rang the
-bells in her heart, and her lips spoke: “Mother,
-may I take Hester’s place this afternoon, and
-let her go home? I can set the table; cook
-said I did it beautifully the last time.”</p>
-
-<p>“You!” said her mother, in surprise, and
-both the sisters exclaimed. “Why, I thought,
-dear, your class was to meet at Marion’s to help
-arrange the flowers for the Easter service?”</p>
-
-<p>“And I thought you were all invited to stay
-to tea at Marion’s?” added Agatha.</p>
-
-<p>“So we are,” said Celia, answering them
-both in one; “but the girls can get along well
-enough without me. There are eight of them,
-and Marion’s Aunt Laura is going to show
-them how to arrange everything; and as for
-staying to tea, why, I can do that another time;
-and the baby is sick, and Hester is worried
-about him, I know. I should like to stay,
-mother, truly, if you will let me.”</p>
-
-<p>“Let you, child! I shall be thankful for
-your help. To tell the truth, it seemed really
-selfish to keep Hester this afternoon, only I did
-not know how to plan; I was sure cook could
-not get along without help, though she was willing
-to try, because she felt sorry for Hester.”</p>
-
-<p>“May I tell Hester about it, mother?” Celia
-asked, her eyes shining; “and she can carry
-my flowers and leave them at Marion’s.”</p>
-
-<p>The flowers and their owner went away together,
-followed by Mrs. Foster. As for the
-young ladies, Agatha took pretty pink silk
-stitches on the lovely white satin and said not
-a word, while Lorene, turning to the piano,
-played a few bars, and sang softly:</p>
-
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“Low in the grave he lay,</div>
-<div class="verse">Jesus my Saviour,”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="unindent">breaking off to say: “Celia is a strange little
-girl, isn’t she?”</p>
-
-<p>“Very strange,” answered Agatha, and she
-finished a pink bud as she spoke. She was
-making an Easter offering.</p>
-
-<p>Nobody, it is safe to say, was more surprised
-at the turn of affairs than was Hester. She
-thought about it while she hurriedly combed the
-tangle of hair before her bit of broken glass,
-and made ready for going home. She was
-worried about the baby, but she divided her
-thoughts with this strange offering from Celia.
-She knew all about the Easter flowers, and the
-plans for the afternoon, and the high tea together
-at Marion’s lovely home. Celia’s talk
-had been full of it for the past two days. “I’d
-just like to know what made her do it, anyhow,”
-was Hester’s concluding question, offered aloud
-to the tin basin, in which she energetically
-washed her hands when the hair was done.</p>
-
-<p>Easter morning was beautiful with sunshine
-and the song of birds, when Celia, looking from
-her window, saw Hester tripping around to the
-back door. She had been allowed to stay at
-home all night.</p>
-
-<p>“O, Hester!” called Celia, “how is the
-baby?”</p>
-
-<p>Hester looked up with a glad smile. “He
-is better,” she said, “ever so much better.
-Mother would have sent me word, only she
-expected me. He laughed and crowed as soon
-as he saw me, and you can’t think what a lovely
-time I had with him. Say, Celia, I want to
-know what made you do it?”</p>
-
-<p>Celia’s sensitive face flushed, and she hesitated.
-How was she to tell Hester why she
-did it? From the next room came the notes of
-Lorene’s voice, as clear as any bird’s, rising
-high and pure:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“Low in the grave he lay,</div>
-<div class="verse">Jesus my Saviour.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“It was that,” she said simply.</p>
-
-<p>“What?” asked Hester; “I don’t know
-what you mean.”</p>
-
-<p>“That that Lorene is singing. He ‘lay in
-the grave,’ you know, for us. That is why it
-is Easter. I wanted to do something for somebody,
-and I hadn’t any big thing.”</p>
-
-<p>“It was a big thing to me,” Hester said, and
-went inside the back door. Celia’s face was
-just a trifle shadowed. Despite every effort to
-put it away, the thought would come: “After
-all, I needn’t have given it up. The baby is
-better, and her mother would have sent her
-word, and another Saturday would have done
-just as well; and I missed all the beauty and
-the fun. I know how to arrange flowers.”</p>
-
-<p>The shadow staid just a little during the
-Sunday-school hour. The girls were eager
-over the delights of the day before—eager to
-know how she could possibly have staid away.
-The lovely cross made largely of her own flowers,
-and bearing on their green background in
-pure white blossoms the words, “He is risen,”
-was the most beautiful floral decoration in the
-church. “Aunt Laura made it,” Marion said.
-“You did not deserve to have it arranged so
-beautifully; we thought you ought to have had
-interest enough to have come and seen it, anyhow.
-Why didn’t you?”</p>
-
-<p>“Never mind now,” said Celia; “I cannot
-explain, only I thought I could not go.” Her
-offering seemed to her small and uncalled-for;
-she could not talk about it. Yet, before the
-morning prayer in church was over, the shadow
-had lifted. “I did it truly for Him,” said
-Celia softly, to herself; “He knows I did, and
-whether it was of use or not, it is all right.”
-And when Lorene sang, in a voice like an
-angel’s:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“Low in the grave he lay,</div>
-<div class="verse">Jesus my Saviour,”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="unindent">she could not help being glad that she did it.</p>
-
-<p>That evening, when they were coming out of
-the Christian Endeavor meeting, the minister,
-who was shaking hands with the young people
-on every side, held in his left hand a single calla
-lily of rare beauty. As he held out his hand
-to Celia he laid the lily against her cheek and
-said: “That is for you, little girl. A token
-from the Master, I think, since he made it.
-Let me tell you something which will make it
-bloom for you forever. Hester came to me
-this evening to say that she wanted to belong
-to Jesus, and learn how to grow like him, just
-as you had.”</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Pansy.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 209px;">
-<img src="images/deco-line.jpg" width="209" height="16" alt="line" />
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 360px;">
-<img src="images/i-248.jpg" width="360" height="303" alt="waterliilies" />
-<div class="caption">BURSTING INTO LIFE.</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 458px;">
-<img src="images/i-249.jpg" width="458" height="678" alt="birds in snow" />
-<div class="caption">A STORMY MORNING.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="bbox">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 406px;">
-<img src="images/i-250.jpg" width="406" height="620" alt="children sitting in boat" />
-<div class="caption">CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.(<i>See “<a href="#THE_OLD_WORLD_TOO">The Old World Too.</a>”</i>)</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>WHITE AS WOOL.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-w.jpg" width="119" height="120" alt="W" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">WOOL is not always white. Its
-owner sometimes is black—was
-born black. It can’t help
-it, you see. Sometimes, however,
-it gets into the dirt, and
-the snowy wool becomes dirty.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes it creeps among the burned stumps
-and logs, and soon looks as black as the stump
-itself.</p>
-
-<p>Now what happens? The shearer does not
-want to clip off such stuff, and the merchant
-can’t sell dirty wool, nor can the weaver weave
-a nice shawl from it; and, if he did, no clean
-Pansy would want to put it on week days or
-Sundays.</p>
-
-<p>What then? It must be washed. The dirty
-black sheep must be put into the water, and
-washed and washed and washed.</p>
-
-<p>Then let him go up from the water and give
-himself a good shaking and stand in the green
-grass and let the warm, shining sun dry its hair—I
-mean wool.</p>
-
-<p>Now it is white and soft and beautiful, and
-if Mr. Sheep could see himself in the looking-glass
-he might be proud of his beauty.</p>
-
-<p>The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all
-sin. Sin is a dirty thing—worse than mud.
-Heathenism is a dreadfully dirty, filthy thing.
-The Gospel we send them is like water for the
-dirty wool.</p>
-
-<p>The Bible says to the worst sinner there is
-in the world:</p>
-
-<p>“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
-be as white as snow; though they be red like
-crimson they shall be as wool.” (Is. i. 18.)</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>EASTER GREETING.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">B</span>E thy risen Lord, to-day,</div>
-<div class="verse">All thy help and all thy stay;</div>
-<div class="verse">All thy comfort in the night;</div>
-<div class="verse">All thy gladness in the light;</div>
-<div class="verse">Filling, with his love divine,</div>
-<div class="verse">Every hungering of thine!</div>
-<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">Alice F. Dunlap.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>MISS LOUISE JOHNSON’S LETTER.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-s.jpg" width="119" height="119" alt="S" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">SHE wrote it from Lien Chow,
-China. It was published in
-“Woman’s Work for Woman.”</p>
-
-<p>Here it is:</p>
-
-<p>“We expect to be packed
-into smaller boats this <small>P. M.</small> to
-go the last ten miles up the Sam Kong River.
-People are looking at the windows. Women are
-expressing astonishment that I can write....</p>
-
-<p>“We have had a charming trip. The beauty
-of the country grows upon me. Many of the
-clear crystal waterfalls were several hundred
-feet in descent. The river winds around the
-bases of mountains, and so seems to be a succession
-of beautiful lakes. It reminds one of
-Delaware Water Gap.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 282px;">
-<img src="images/i-251.jpg" width="282" height="244" alt="boat in the watter" />
-<div class="caption">“WE TRAVELED IN THE DAYTIME.”</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“We traveled in the daytime, stopping an
-hour or two. Then came the sick to our Dr.
-Machle. We gave tracts to the people. At
-one place the women came in little boats. I
-stood at the window and read to them. They
-listened, and thanked me for ‘teaching’ them.</p>
-
-<p>“I want to write more letters, though I now
-write many. It takes three months for a letter
-and its reply from New York to Canton; four
-months to Sam Kong. I like to write, and am
-delighted to get letters. Some of the best have
-been from strangers. So all my dear young
-friends may continue to write me; I will answer
-as soon as I can get time.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>BABY’S CORNER.</h2>
-
-<h3>A MAY MORNING.</h3>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-i.jpg" width="120" height="121" alt="I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">IN a green yard stands a gray
-old house. In the house live
-six happy children. They have
-many things to make them
-glad and happy.</p>
-
-<p>All around are green fields and hills and tall
-trees. Every day they see the pretty pictures
-which the sun makes in the sky when he gets
-up and goes to bed. There are no big houses
-in the way to hide the red and pink clouds.</p>
-
-<p>A little brook goes dancing by at the foot of
-the hill. You can see the little white stones
-through the water.</p>
-
-<p>They have a great many pets—colts and
-calves and chickens and rabbits and cats.</p>
-
-<p>And there are ever so many nice things for
-them to do. They fish in the brook or take off
-their shoes and stockings and wade in the
-water. They hunt in the grass for red berries.
-They swing in the big swing under the maple-tree.
-They go after the cows and hunt butterflies,
-and tumble on the hay in the barn.</p>
-
-<p>Such good times!</p>
-
-<p>This bright May morning mamma and all six
-of them are out in the orchard. The apple-trees
-are full of pink and white flowers, and
-the cherry-trees are all white, like pop corn.</p>
-
-<p>What a pretty sight!</p>
-
-<p>The air is sweet with the breath of the blossoms.
-Everything is gay and happy. The
-brook is tinkling, the bees are humming, the
-birds are singing.</p>
-
-<p>Little children must sing, too. Hark! hear
-them.</p>
-
-<p>It is a little song which begins:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse">“Blooming May</div>
-<div class="verse">Makes all gay.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<p>And this little song ends like this—the
-children all like to sing it:</p>
-
-<p class="center">
-“Tra la la la la la la. Tra la la la.”<br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Livingston.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>KITTY KNEW ABOUT SHEEP.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">“S</span>EVEN sheep were standing</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">By the pasture wall.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Tell me,” said the teacher,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">To her scholars small,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">“One poor sheep was frightened,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jumped and ran away.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">One from seven—how many</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Woolly sheep would stay?”</span></div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Up went Kitty’s fingers—</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A farmer’s daughter she,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">Not so bright at figures</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">As she ought to be.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">“Please, ma’am”—“Well, then, Kitty,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tell us, if you know.”</span></div>
-<div class="verse">“Please, if one jumped over</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the rest would go.”</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">S</span>AID Willie: “The Man in the Moon</div>
-<div class="verse">In Mother Goose came down too soon,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For I’ve read it over and over;</span></div>
-<div class="verse">But he’d done a sillier thing to-day,</div>
-<div class="verse">When Flossie and I went out to play</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And roll in the field of clover.</span></div>
-<div class="verse">For up in the sky, right overhead,</div>
-<div class="verse">When every star had gone to bed,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sun was shining bright,</span></div>
-<div class="verse">We saw his moon, looking pale and thin,</div>
-<div class="verse">Because he’d forgotten to take it in,</div>
-<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">After hanging there all night!”</span></div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bbox">
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 408px;">
-<img src="images/i-253.jpg" width="408" height="597" alt="woman outdoors" />
-<div class="caption">BURNS’S HIGHLAND MARY.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 267px;">
-<img src="images/i-254.jpg" width="267" height="391" alt="outdoor scene with life of frog" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>THE BEE’S WISDOM.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="big">S</span>AID a wandering little maiden</div>
-<div class="verse">To a bee with honey laden,</div>
-<div class="verse">“Bee, at all the flowers you work,</div>
-<div class="verse">Yet in some does poison lurk.”</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“That I know, my pretty maiden,”</div>
-<div class="verse">Said the bee with honey laden,</div>
-<div class="verse">“But the poison I forsake,</div>
-<div class="verse">And the honey only take.”</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Cunning bee, with honey laden,</div>
-<div class="verse">That is right,” replied the maiden;</div>
-<div class="verse">“So will I, from all I meet,</div>
-<div class="verse">Only draw the good and sweet.”</div>
-<div class="sig">—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<h2>THE HARD TEXT.<br />
-
-<small>(<i>Matt.</i> xii. 34.)</small></h2>
-
-
-<p class="drop-cap">“O GENERATION of vipers.”</p>
-
-<p>Thus Jesus called the Jews or their
-leaders. Put this with other names he gave
-them—“hypocrites,” “fools and blind,” “serpents”
-(read the twenty-third chapter of Matthew)—and
-maybe you will wonder how he, so
-gentle and forgiving, could do it.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” you say, “they did provoke Him;
-they treated Him most outrageously, calling
-Him all sorts of bad names, and finally putting
-Him to death in the most cruel manner. But
-it does not seem quite right for Him to call
-them vile names back again. It looks as
-though He lost his temper and became awfully
-angry with his enemies.”</p>
-
-<p>Indeed it does say He once looked around
-upon them with anger. So you are right with
-that word, but its real meaning is indignation,
-the righteous feeling every one should have
-against wrong. Thus you ought to feel against
-swearing, stealing, the liquor business and all
-such things. It would be wicked for you to
-smile at such things. So much for anger—the
-anger of Jesus. Now about “calling names.”</p>
-
-<p>You must remember Jesus knew the hearts
-of these Pharisee Jews—how black, how vile
-they were, while they thought themselves quite
-good and beautiful. Gentle talk to them did
-no good. To have them see themselves as they
-really were, he must be plain; he must speak
-out. What he did was not “calling names” as
-one boy does to another, when he is “mad”
-with him and hates him. Jesus did not hate
-them, bad as they were. He would save them
-if they would repent and come to him. So he
-must warn them by telling them the awful truth.</p>
-
-<p>So it was; Jesus could draw some by gentle,
-loving words and ways; others, if saved at all,
-must be driven. Jesus acted according to the
-kind of people he was speaking to.</p>
-
-<p>May we sometimes deal this terrible way with
-sinners? May ministers do it? Some years
-ago Rev. C. G. Finney did often speak to many
-who came out to oppose him and make fun of religion—he
-did speak very plainly and severely.
-It is said Mr. Moody once rebuked a wicked
-man this very way. But not every one can
-wisely do it. It must be done with great sorrow.
-No doubt it almost broke Jesus’ heart to
-say such plain things. A parent sometimes
-must punish a naughty child; it hurts him to
-do it, however. He often weeps more than the
-punished child.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-L.<br />
-</p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>SOMETHING FOR PAPA.</h2>
-
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/drop-b.jpg" width="121" height="120" alt="B" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-capi">BY this time you are feeling that
-papa is being neglected, and
-that mamma and sister are
-having all the gifts; though I
-believe papa would like the
-nice writing-case with pockets
-which we planned in November quite as well,
-perhaps, as any member of the family. However,
-I am sure of one thing he will like, and
-it is something which you, my girl, can make,
-with some industry and very little expense.</p>
-
-<p>I do hope you know how to knit, the nice
-old-fashioned knitting which our dear grandmothers
-understood so well? If you do not,
-my first advice to you is to master that fine art
-which has of late years gone so nearly out of
-fashion; it is coming to the front again, and
-there is no end to the neat little comforts which
-you can make with the aid of a ball of tidy
-cotton and two large knitting needles. I will
-not attempt to teach you the stitch on paper,
-though if you sat by my side I could show it
-to you with very little trouble. If there is not
-a dear white-haired grandmother in your home,
-as I hope there is, borrow one of some friend,
-and beg her to teach you how to knit. Of
-course it is just possible that mamma herself
-understands the stitch; you might try her.</p>
-
-<p>Having learned it—which I am sure you can
-do in an hour—get two large-size needles of
-steel, or ivory, or wood—I like to use wood—and
-a ball of the very coarsest tidy cotton you
-can find, and set to work. Cast on as many
-stitches as the needle will conveniently carry,
-and knit back and forth, back and forth industriously,
-until you have a strip a yard long.
-Oh! it will require patience and industry; I
-told you that in the beginning, you know.
-Having finished the strip begin again, and
-make another precisely like it; then a third,
-and perhaps, if your needles are not very long,
-a fourth—you might consult with mamma or
-Auntie as to that. When the four are finished—in
-order to be sure to have the article large
-enough we will say four—fold the side edges
-of two neatly together, and knit them together
-with a crochet hook, or sew them with a needle
-and some of the tidy cotton, as you will; add
-the third and fourth in the same manner, and
-when all is complete if you do not have a bath
-towel which will please papa better than any
-Turkish towel he ever bought, I shall be astonished
-and disappointed. For fear of discouraging
-you at the outset, I mentioned a yard as
-the length, but let me whisper to you, entirely
-in confidence, that if you should make it a yard
-and a half long, or even a trifle longer, papa
-would like it better still. You see I have heard
-the gentlemen groan over short bathing towels,
-and I know all about it.</p>
-
-<p>You see with how very little expense such an
-article could be made, and I really do not know
-of any one thing which will add more to the
-comfort of the toilet. Some gentlemen like
-very coarse and rough bathing towels, in which
-case macremé cord is sometimes used instead
-of tidy cotton; probably mamma could advise
-you wisely in this direction, also.</p>
-
-<p>If you undertake such a gift, I hope you will
-have the kindness to write and tell me how you
-succeeded, when and how the gift was presented,
-what was said, and all about it.</p>
-
-<p class="sig">
-<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Your friend,</span><br />
-<span class="smcap">Pansy</span>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-<div class="verse"><span class="smcap">If</span> anything unkind you hear</div>
-<div class="verse">About some one you know, my dear,</div>
-<div class="verse">Do not, I pray you, it repeat</div>
-<div class="verse">When you that some one chance to meet;</div>
-<div class="verse">For such news has a leaden way</div>
-<div class="verse">Of clouding o’er a sunny day.</div>
-<div class="verse">But if you something pleasant hear</div>
-<div class="verse">About some one you know, my dear,</div>
-<div class="verse">Make haste—to make great haste ’twere well,</div>
-<div class="verse">To her or him the same to tell;</div>
-<div class="verse">For such news has a golden way</div>
-<div class="verse">Of lighting up a cloudy day.—<i>Selected.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 173px;">
-<img src="images/double-line.jpg" width="173" height="10" alt="double line" />
-</div>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 544px;">
-<img src="images/cover_back.jpg" width="544" height="800" alt="back cover" />
-</div>
-
-<h2>A Walking Wonder</h2>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Sir Geoffrey had a little son</div>
-<div class="verse">Who liked to strut about</div>
-<div class="verse">And wave a sword or shoot a bow</div>
-<div class="verse">And raise a martial shout.</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">One day he saw a sight like this</div>
-<div class="verse">[Helmet walking with four legs and a tail]</div>
-<div class="verse">And did he run? Oh, no!</div>
-<div class="verse">He caught this walking helmet fast</div>
-<div class="verse">And raised the visor so!</div>
-<div class="verse">[Cat under helmet]</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<hr class="full" />
-<div class="tnote"><div class="center">
-<b>Transcriber’s Notes:</b></div>
-
-<p>The title for “A DELIGHTFUL WRITER” was taken from the page header as the story itself
-began with only the illustration.</p>
-
-<p>HOWARD’S WAY: “attemped” changed to “attempted” (once attempted to answer)</p>
-
-<p>WHEN HE WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD: “mysstery” changed to “mystery” (whose mystery fills)</p>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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