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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by Ticknor and Fields, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

OMEWHERE in a garden of this earth, which the dear Lord has planted with many flowers of gladness, grew a fresh, bright little daisy.

The first this little daisy knew, she found herself growing in green pastures and beside the still waters where the Heavenly Shepherd was leading his sheep. And very beautiful did life look to her, as her bright little eyes, with their crimson lashes, opened and looked down into the deep crystal waters of the brook below, where the sunshine made every hour more sparkles, more rings of light, and more brilliant glances and changes of color, than all the jewellers in the world could imitate. She knew intimately all the yellow-birds, and meadow-larks, and bobolinks, and black-birds, that sang, piped, whistled, or chattered among the bushes and trees in the pasture, and she was a prime favorite with them all. The fish that darted to and fro in the waters seemed like so many living gems, and their silent motions, as they glided hither and thither, were full of beauty, and told as plainly of happiness as if they could speak. Multitudes of beautiful flowers grew up in the water, or on the moist edges of the brook. There were green fresh arrow-heads, which in their time gave forth their white blossoms with a little gold ball in the centre of each, and there were the pickerel-weed, with its thick, sharp green leaf, and its sturdy spike of blue blossoms, and the tall meadow-grass, with its graceful green tassels hanging down and making wavy reflections in the water; and there was the silver-weed, whose leaves as they dipped in the brook seemed to be of molten silver, and whose tall heads of fringy white blossoms sent forth a grateful perfume in the air; and there, too, were the pink and white azalias, full of sweetness and beauty, and close along in the green mosses of the banks grew blue and white violets, and blood-root, with its silvery stars of blossom, and the purple hepatica, with its quaint hairy leaves, and the slender wind-flower on its thread-like stem, and the crowfoot, with its dark bronze leaf and its half-shut flower, looking like the outside of a pink sea-shell. In fact, there is scarcely any saying how many beautiful blooming things grew and flourished in that green pasture where dear little Daisy was so happy as first to open her bright eyes. They did not all blossom at once, but had their graceful changes; but there was always a pleasant flutter of expectation among them,—either a sending forth of leaves, or a making of buds, or a bursting out into blossoms; and when the blossoms passed away, there was a thoughtful, careful maturing of seeds, all packed away so snugly in their little coffers and caskets of seed-pods, which were of every quaint and dainty shape that ever could be fancied for a lady’s jewel-box. Overhead there grew a wide-spreading apple-tree, which in the month of June became a gigantic bouquet, holding up to the sun a million silvery opening flowers, and a million pink-tipped buds; and the little winds would come to play in its branches, and take the pink shells of the blossoms for their tiny air-boats, in which they would go floating round among the flowers, or sail on voyages of discovery down the stream; and when the time of its blossom was gone, the bountiful tree from year to year had matured fruits of golden ripeness which cheered the hearts of men.

Little Daisy’s life was only one varied delight from day to day. She had a hundred playmates among the light-winged winds, that came to her every hour to tell her what was going on all over the green pasture, and to bring her sweet perfumed messages from the violets and anemones of even the more distant regions.

There was not a ring of sunlight that danced in the golden network at the bottom of the brook that did not bring a thrill of gladness to her heart; not a tiny fish glided in his crystal paths, or played and frolicked under the water-lily shadows, that was not a well-known friend of hers, and whose pleasures she did not share. At night she held conferences with the dew-drops that stepped about among the flowers in their bright pearl slippers, and washed their leaves and faces before they went to rest. Nice little nurses and dressing-maids these dews! and they kept tender guard all night over the flowers, watching and blinking wakefully to see that all was safe; but when the sun arose, each of them spread a pair of little rainbow wings, and was gone.

To be sure, there were some reverses in her lot. Sometimes a great surly, ill-looking cloud would appear in the sky, like a cross schoolmaster, and sweep up all the sunbeams, and call in a gruff voice to the little winds, her playfellows, to come away from their nonsense; and then he would send a great strong wind down on them, all with a frightful noise, and roar, and sweep all the little flowers flat to the earth; and there would be a great rush and pattering of rain-drops, and bellowing of thunders, and sharp forked lightnings would quiver through the air as if the green pastures certainly were to be torn to pieces; but in about half an hour it would be all over,—the sunbeams would all dance out from their hiding-places, just as good as if nothing had happened, and the little winds would come laughing back, and each little flower would lift itself up, and the winds would help them to shake off the wet and plume themselves as jauntily as if nothing had gone amiss. Daisy had the greatest pride and joy in her own pink blossoms, of which there seemed to be an inexhaustible store; for, as fast as one dropped its leaves, another was ready to open its eyes, and there were buds of every size, waiting still to come on, even down to little green cushions of buds that lay hidden away in the middle of the leaves down close to the root. “How favored I am!” said Daisy; “I never stop blossoming. The anemones and the liverwort and the blood-root have their time, but then they stop and have only leaves, while I go on blooming perpetually; how nice it is to be made as I am!”

“But you must remember,” said a great rough Burdock to her,—“you must remember that your winter must come at last, when all this fine blossoming will have to be done with.”

“What do you mean?” said Daisy, in a tone of pride, eying her rough neighbor with a glance of disgust. “You are a rough, ugly old thing, and that’s why you are cross. Pretty people like me can afford to be good-natured.”

“Ah, well,” said Dame Burdock, “you’ll see. It’s a pretty thing if a young chit just out from seed this year should be impertinent to me, who have seen twenty winters,—yes, and been through them well, too!”

“Tell me, Bobolink,” said Daisy, “is there any truth in what this horrid Burdock has been saying? What does she mean by winter?”

“I don’t know,—not I,” said Bobolink, as he turned a dozen somersets in the air, and then perched himself airily on a thistle-head, singing,—

“Say, Humming-bird, do you know anything about winter?”

“Winter? I never saw one,” said Humming-bird; “we have wings, and follow Summer round the world, and where she is, there go we.”

“Meadow-Lark, Meadow-Lark, have you ever heard of winter?” said Daisy.

Meadow-Lark was sure he never remembered one. “What is winter?” he said, looking confused.

“Butterfly, Butterfly,” said Daisy, “come, tell me, will there be winter, and what is winter?”

But the Butterfly laughed, and danced up and down, and said, “What is Daisy talking about? I never heard of winter? Winter? ha! ha! What is it?”

“Then it’s only one of Burdock’s spiteful sayings,” said Daisy. “Just because she isn’t pretty, she wants to spoil my pleasure, too. Say, dear lovely tree that shades me so sweetly, is there such a thing as winter?”

And the tree said, with a sigh through its leaves, “Yes, daughter, there will be winter; but fear not, for the Good Shepherd makes both summer and winter, and each is good in its time. Enjoy thy summer and fear not.”

The months rolled by. The violets had long ago stopped blooming, their leaves were turning yellow, but they had beautiful green seed-caskets, full of rows of little pearls, which next year should come up in blue violets. The dog-toothed violet and the eye-bright had gone under ground, so that no more was seen of them, and Daisy wondered whither they could be gone. But she had new acquaintances far more brilliant, and she forgot the others. The brook-side seemed all on fire with golden-rod, and the bright yellow was relieved by the rich purple tints of the asters, while the blue fringed gentian held up its cups, that seemed as if they might have been cut out of the sky,—and still Daisy had abundance of leaves and blossoms, and felt strong and well at the root. Then the apple-tree cast down to the ground its fragrant burden of golden apples, and men came and carried them away.

By and by there came keen, cutting winds, and driving storms of sleet and hail; and then at night it would be so cold, so cold! and one after another the leaves and flowers fell stiff and frozen, and grew black, and turned to decay. The leaves loosened and fell from the apple-tree, and sailed away by thousands down the brook; the butterflies lay dead with the flowers, but all the birds had gone singing away to the sunny south, following the summer into other lands.

“Tell me, dear tree,” said Daisy, “is this winter that is coming?”

“It is winter, darling,” said the tree; “but fear not. The Good Shepherd makes winter as well as summer.”

“I still hold my blossoms,” said Daisy,—for Daisy was a hardy little thing.

But the frosts came harder and harder every night, and first they froze her blossoms, and then they froze her leaves, and finally all, all were gone,—there was nothing left but the poor little root, with the folded leaves of the future held in its bosom.

“Ah, dear tree!” said Daisy, “is not this dreadful?”

“Be patient, darling,” said the tree. “I have seen many, many winters; but the Good Shepherd loses never a seed, never a root, never a flower: they will all come again.”

By and by came colder days and colder, and the brook froze to its little heart and stopped; and then there came bitter, driving storms, and the snow lay wreathed over Daisy’s head; but still from the bare branches of the apple-tree came a voice of cheer. “Courage, darling, and patience! Not a flower shall be lost: winter is only for a season.”

“It is so dreary!” murmured Daisy, deep in her bosom.

“It will be short: the spring will come again,” said the tree.

And at last the spring did come; and the snow melted and ran away down the brook, and the sun shone out warm, and fresh green leaves jumped and sprang out of every dry twig of the apple-tree. And one bright, rejoicing day, little Daisy opened her eyes, and lo! there were all her friends once more;—there were the eye-brights and the violets and the anemones and the liverwort,—only ever so many more of them than there were last year, because each little pearl of a seed had been nursed and moistened by the snows of winter, and had come up as a little plant to have its own flowers. The birds all came back, and began building their nests, and everything was brighter and fairer than before; and Daisy felt strong at heart, because she had been through a winter, and learned not to fear it. She looked up into the apple-tree. “Will there be more winters, dear tree?” she said.

“Darling, there will; but fear not. Enjoy the present hour, and leave future winters to Him who makes them. Thou hast come through these sad hours, because the Shepherd remembered thee. He loseth never a flower out of his pasture, but calleth them all by name: and the snow will never drive so cold, or the wind beat so hard, as to hurt one of his flowers. And look! of all the flowers of last year, what one is melted away in the snow, or forgotten in the number of green things? Every blade of grass is counted, and puts up its little head in the right time; so never fear, Daisy, for thou shalt blossom stronger and brighter for the winter.”

“But why must there be winter?” said Daisy.

“I never ask why,” said the tree. “My business is to blossom and bear apples. Summer comes, and I am joyful; winter comes, and I am patient. But, darling, there is another garden where thou and I shall be transplanted one day, where there shall be winter no more. There is coming a new earth; and not one flower or leaf of these green pastures shall be wanting there, but come as surely as last year’s flowers come back this spring!”

Harriet Beecher Stowe.

DEAR little Youngest Folks:—

I want to tell you about Jamie, because I like to talk about him; and so I hope you will like to hear about him. He is a little round-cheeked darling,—as brown as a berry, as sweet as a peach, and as bright as a buttercup, just like you; and he is three years old. He was not always so old as that; but when he once began to grow he kept at it, and he gets older and older every day, and his dear little frocks begin to fall off his shoulders, and his dear little trousers begin to button round his legs, and his dear little brain is getting full of kinks, and we are beginning not to have any little boy at all; and what we shall do without him when he is grown up, I am sure I do not know. It puzzles him quite as much as it puzzles us. He cannot think where little Jamie has gone to, now that he has grown so big a boy. “Is that little boy in me?” he asks, feeling of his arms and legs. But he never can find that little boy; and we never can find him again, until we can fly off to some far-away star, and look for him.

One day he was talking with his mother about the time when she was a little girl, and he asked, “Was I made then?”

“No, Jamie,” she said, “I was made first.”

“Well, mamma, when you were made, did you look and see any little skin and bones and hair to make me of?”

One day a friend sent him two cards with little birds painted on them, and they were his special delight. His mamma put them in her album, and Jamie would look at them, and clasp his hands, and exclaim earnestly, “Ain’t they beautiful?” Presently he went to the desk, and wrote all over a piece of paper, in his way,—which is quite your way, though not mine,—and then he sat down in his chair and read it to his mamma. She took him in her lap and let him print a part of it in real letters, and here it is. His mamma told him how to spell the words; but he did all the rest himself.

When he wrote his own way, and read it to us, he wrote much more than that. One sentence I remember was, “I want you to prepare to send me another pair of birds.” But when he had to print it, so that we could read it, he soon got tired, and so wrote, as you see, a very short letter. In spelling, he is sure as far as he goes, which is not a great way. He can spell ox and boy and cow. He could spell Abby till he stumbled on baby, and now he mixes them together, and cannot tell which is which. He likes pictures very much, and makes a good many on his slate. His papa takes Harper’s Weekly newspaper for his especial use, and we think we shall soon have to subscribe for Our Young Folks. Some of the stories he has had read to him so often that he knows them by heart, and goes about his play saying them to himself.

He has taken a new turn lately. He begged his mamma to give him a piece of red cloth to make a bag for Baddy to put pretty stones in. He sewed on it two or three times, and then his mamma laid it aside in hopes he would forget it; but he found it, and came to her to thread his needle “to sew a nice string on Baddy’s bag.” She was busy, and could not stop then; so he tried, and tried, and at length threaded it himself! Just think of it! Three years old, and a boy at that! Then he sewed on a button,—I wish you could see it,—and made a button-hole,—I wish you could see that too; and there it was, all finished,—just the nicest little bag I ever saw in my life; for every time I look at it I see the dearest little dimpled fingers—just like yours—fumbling all over it.

Christmas was a very great wonder to him. Santa Claus puzzled him. He had been wanting a little tin tea-set a long while, and some one told him to hang up his stocking, and perhaps Santa Claus would put one in. Then he asked very earnestly if the things wouldn’t scratch his legs! Why, you see, the little gosling thought he should have to wear the tea-set in his stockings. Finally, some one gave him the tin tea-set before Christmas; but he was so sure it must go in his stocking, that one day his mamma found the stocking taken off and hung on the what-not, as high as he could reach, with the tea-set in it. When Christmas came at last, he found his little stocking really full. There was a ball, and a wagon, and there were ever so many sugar-plums; and he loaded the sugar-plums into his wagon, and was very happy, but full of curiosity to know where Santa Claus was. Finally, there was a book that told all about Santa Claus, and had pictures of him going down the chimneys, and driving about in his little sleigh loaded with toys; and Jamie took the picture to his mamma at once, to know where the claws were. She read the story to him many times before he was satisfied; and in about a week he could say the whole of it himself. This is one of the lines:—

It is a pretty hard line isn’t it? Jamie found it so; but, hard as it was, he got hold of it, and would not let it go. Now you ought to hear him read this book of his. He kneels down before a chair, and opens the book, and begins,—

And when his tiny tongue has clattered down to what he thinks ought to be the bottom of the page, he asks, “Time to turn over, mamma?” and over goes the leaf, and down he clatters through another page.

I have ever so much more to tell you about Jamie, but I am afraid you will be tired. If it were a monkey or a squirrel, I should know you would like it; but I don’t suppose monkeys care much about monkeys. In fact, I don’t suppose a monkey knows he is a monkey. So I suppose you dear little snips do not know what dear little snips you are. But I know, little snips, and sugar-plums, and peach-blossoms, and honey-dew,—that is what you are, and you cannot help yourselves!

Gail Hamilton.

Lucy Larcom.

LITTLE Ruth sat sewing beside her mother. It was an autumn afternoon, and the woodbine climbing round the window at which they sat had turned from its summer green to a deep crimson. The scarlet creeper flung its gay tassels down from among the orange-colored maple-leaves. Apples, peaches, golden-rods, and asters,—purple hills, blue sky and river,—all added brightness to the landscape.

Little Ruth, therefore, looked out of the window more than she sewed; and not paying much attention to the apron she was making, she knotted her thread and lost her needles, until at last her mother said,—“Now Ruth, you mustn’t waste any more needles and thread; those you have lost might have helped some poor woman to make dresses for her little children, or have been used for the brave soldiers who, fighting for their country, need warm shirts and drawers this winter. Look at the birds,—they use up all the sticks and straws for their nests; the ants build their houses out of grains of sand; fruits grow to be eaten, flowers to be enjoyed; there is no waste in that beautiful Nature at which you look so much from the window.”

“Well, I wouldn’t waste either, mamma, if it wasn’t for all those bright colors out of doors. I was just wondering if the angels hadn’t been using their paint-boxes this fall. But I guess you’ve made a mistake about Nature’s not wasting anything, mamma. What becomes of the shooting-stars that look as if some one threw them into the air like fireworks? What becomes of the flowers that die,—the leaves that blow down? Ah, mamma, see how much Nature throws away after all.” And Ruth’s puzzled look was changed to one of merry confidence, as she looked up in her mother’s face.

Before her mother could answer her, she was called away to speak to some one, and Ruth, having finished her hem, began to fold up her work that she might go out to play.

“Where shall I play, mamma?” she asked, as she tied on her hat and ran down stairs.

“O, run to the orchard, Ruthie, and fill your basket with the yellow and red apples lying under the trees, that papa may have some to eat this evening. Then you may go where you like.”

So Ruth ran into the pantry, and, climbing a chair which she had pushed along the floor, unfastened her basket from the nail where it hung, and ran through the front-yard, out into the shady lane leading to the orchard.

She saw many of her favorite play-grounds on the way; the rocks covered with bits of china, in the field on one side, were her houses where she sometimes gave dinner-parties to little girls in the neighborhood; and under one of the apple-trees in the orchard was a slender stream of water, on which she often sailed the boats her brother carved for her. Beyond the orchard was a dense wood, where the trees grew close together. Now they were no longer gloomy in their solitude, for the leaves were bright with many colors, and the sunshine poured in, making a golden border round the forest.

Opposite this wood Ruth sat down at last, tired with gathering her apples. She wondered what was farther on in the woods where sunlight could not penetrate; and at length, tempted by her curiosity, crept under the fence, and went to see.

Hundreds of insects were flying about, and large, gay-winged butterflies fluttered over the flowers. As they brushed against her face with heavy, dew-laden wings, she was half afraid to go on, and would I am sure have turned back, had she not seen a bright spot deeper in the wood. Brighter and brighter it drew her on, till she could plainly see it was a star, not in the sky, but shining low down in the many-colored canopy of the foliage. The farther she went, the clearer grew this wonderful light. Others started up around it,—sweet perfumes filled the air. She was no longer lonely, for the butterflies flew gently up to her, and she saw tiny figures sitting on their backs, and others with blades of grass tied round the necks of robins; bluebirds and golden orioles were also flying about in mid-air, while some sailed on the silver backs of fishes, or floated in shells upon the water near her feet.

“Where am I?” she exclaimed, as many fairy palaces met her view. “I must be in Fairy-land.”

“Yes,” replied a low voice; and, looking down, she saw a lady about four inches tall, dressed in white, with wreaths of green moss around her head and waist, and streamers of grass, soft and smooth as satin ribbon. “I am the Queen of Fairy-land. A moss-rose died last summer in your garden. You thought its sweet smell and lovely face were gone forever; but Nature never wastes. Flowers that die on earth are born into fairy-land, and are no longer flowers, but fairies.”

“And that star, is it the one papa pointed out to me shooting through the sky?” asked Ruth eagerly, while recognizing in astonishment her mother’s words.

“The very same,” said Rosa Moss; “it shot out of your world into ours, and became fixed to give us light.”

“What do you have to do here?” asked Ruth, looking around her with delight. “O, I know,—you sail, and fly, and ride, and never, never sew. Let me stay with you.”

“Very well,” answered Rosa, in her sweet voice, “if you will be good and obedient you shall try it for a few days; then, if you still like it, you will be turned from Ruth Jones into a fairy, the likeness of any flower you choose.”

“O let me be a peony, they are so big and red!” cried Ruth.

“Wait and see how you would like to be a sister to Peony Blossom, who is the only one of that family here,” answered Rosa; “and let me tell you, we don’t play all day. We have to collect flower petals from which to make our dresses. Miss Pink Blossom does all our pinking and trimming. Miss Nasturtion makes our pickles; she is a little deaf, and carries a trumpet you see; still I find it difficult sometimes to make her hear. The young maiden called Lily, who lives in the valley, rings the chime of bells for every service; she welcomes the birth of each new fairy, and also tolls the death of every flower. We call her our nun, for she loves the cloister shade of broad green leaves, and her sweet, saintly face is always pale. The Snap-dragon is our policeman. You see each has something to do, to add to the good of all. There go the Pond-Lily sisters who fill their white cups every morning with water for us to bathe in. There,—Mrs. Peony Blossom is coming this way; I’ll introduce you.”

Just then half a horse-chestnut with damask-rose-leaf lining, mounted on four ivy-berry wheels, and with four shining beetles for horses, came driving up. Mrs. Peony leaned back in the carriage and kept fanning her red face with a fly’s wing. She stopped at sight of the Queen, however, and, gathering up her crimson satin dress, jumped from the carriage.

“This little girl, as she would be called in the world where she has always lived, is anxious to become a fairy, and she thinks she would like to be your sister,” said Rosa Moss. “Take her home, if you please, and teach her all you have to do.”

“She is so big,” answered Mrs. Peony, “that I cannot show her the attention I should wish, my dear Queen. I could only carry her little toe home in my carriage, and should she put her foot in my house, all its rich furniture would be spoiled.’ ”

“She will be reduced to a proper size, should she ever really make one of your family,” answered the Queen. “As it is, you cannot take her in your carriage, so I will show her the way to your house on foot.”

To this Mrs. Peony only replied by a respectful bow, as in obedience to the Queen she re-entered her carriage and drove off.

“How do you like your future sister?” asked Rosa of Ruth.

She answered, rather discontentedly, “Why, not quite so well as a fairy as I did as a flower. Can’t I be a Sweet-Pea or a Mignonette fairy, and always have something smelling sweet on my handkerchief?”

“No,” replied the Queen; “I don’t know how it may be with little girls, but fairies are never suffered to change their minds so soon. You wanted to be a peony, and now you want to be something else, because Mrs. Peony’s appearance doesn’t suit you. Until you have tried her kind of life, you cannot decide whether to be like her.”

“Whose house is that?” interrupted Ruth, who was too curious to pay much attention to the fairy’s wise counsels; and I don’t so much wonder, for I know, if you and I had been there, we should have been amazed too, had we seen little sliding-doors open in the trunk of each tree, and the most perfect rooms exhibited within.

“Miss Morning-glory lives there,” answered Rosa, “and I would take you in, but it is already noon, and you see she is lying all worn-out and pale on her sofa. She is very bright directly after breakfast, but never good for much later in the day.”

“O tell me, who is that?” questioned Ruth, as she saw the bright fairy face of one who was cradled in an immense burdock-leaf, lying with her yellow-fringed dress like a spot of sunshine on it.

“O, that is our blessed Dandelion. What we should do without the gay little child I cannot tell. You know the flower for which she is named comes when we are almost unable to bear longer the cold of winter, or the chill of early spring; and so, when matters get the worst in fairy-land, when we are tired or unhappy, then the Dandelion’s sunny face appears, to make us see the bright side of things.”

By this time they had reached Mrs. Peony’s house, and found her with flushed face, resting on a couch of real forest velvet after her rapid drive, and covered with an orange-colored maple-leaf for an afghan. She rose at once, however, to do honor to her Queen, and Miss Pitcher-plant, who was visiting her, left the room for some of the honey which Miss Honeysuckle distilled in her long red jars.

Ruth sat like a giantess, encamped without the walls of her destined home, and could scarcely form an idea of their drink from the tiny drop which was presented to her.

The Queen did not stay long, but Mrs. Peony insisted upon detaining Miss Pitcher-plant; for she had fewer visitors even of bees and butterflies than any of her neighbors, and she did not seem to care to make a companion of Ruth. At last, however, they were left alone, and she said, “The Queen wished you to see how I live, and you will find me more sensible than that gay Miss Pea, with her delicate muslins, and hat trimmed with pink and white ribbons. She lives in the bird’s nest above, and only, I believe, because she can be serenaded, and have a gay time up there. Every day, when she climbs to her house, my room is filled with the fragrance she always carries, and the noise of the beaux who are always following her. They call her Sweet Pea; but I can’t, for the life of me, see why people are so taken with her.”

“What a cross fairy,” thought Ruth; still she said nothing to offend Mrs. Peony, but looked up with curiosity at the nest, half hidden by the green leaves, and at the tiny fairy, who was just leaving her home, and gliding down the spiral staircase of woodbine which twined around the tree.

“Good morning,” rang out from the silvery voice, as with a sweet smile she caught sight of Ruth. “I hear you mean to live with Mrs. Peony. I shall come, when you get fairly settled, to see you. Do, pray, persuade her to have something beside dark red hangings in her house. The nuts near me are almost ripe, and I will send her one by William”;—and the fairy passed on.

“Who is William, I wonder?” said Ruth, aloud.

“I suppose she means her Sweet William, as she has the impudence to call him,” grumbled Mrs. Peony. “He has been brought up with one of our belles who dresses in blue, and I dare say he likes her better. Don’t be worrying about her beaux, though,” continued Mrs. Peony, “but put those great fingers of yours down on the ground, that I may get over this gully without the help of my horses.”

So Ruth did as she was told, and followed Mrs. Peony to the water. Its edge was red with checkerberries. “Roll three of them home for tea as quick as you can,” said she to Ruth. “I suppose we shall be able to dispose of as many with your great appetite; besides, I make a jam out of these; and as everybody has to do something for the Queen, I find it the easiest thing I can do to send it to her, and she uses it herself, and gives it away to the fairies. All the other time, I have for rest or making my satin dresses. You had better be my sister, if you want to enjoy yourself. Miss Pea, for all she dresses so airily and seems so gay, is forever in sick rooms. She and that plain Mignonette fairy are sisters of charity among us; but Miss Pea says sick people like her all the better because she looks pretty, and won’t wear a dull dress or poke bonnet. There she goes now over the bridge on some such errand, I dare say.”

Ruth watched the fairy stepping across the silver net-work which hung above a miniature Niagara, that she could easily have spanned with a single step, and, longing to follow her, caught up a handful of berries, not heeding Mrs. Peony’s remark, that “the bridge was built by the Queen’s gate-keeper,” and flew home, almost treading on some of the fairies who were blowing about in the long grass like the flowers they represented.

She threw the berries in a heap in the middle of the room, and, turning round, ran after the Sweet-Pea fairy, who suited her fancy better than any other. Overtaking her, she found she had been joined by a gay little troop who, jumping on the backs of birds and butterflies, soon vanished from her sight. She attempted to follow, but her limbs refused to move, and she saw the golden gate of the Queen’s palace before her. A spider, whom she knew at once as the builder of the suspension bridge, was drawing ropes across it, to lock it up for the night. He stopped his work to look at her, and the fairy Queen spoke in a moment, making the spider coil up his ropes again and admit Ruth to court, which was illuminated every evening by the glow of the fire-flies.

“I have done what Mrs. Peony desired; now I want to join Miss Pea and some other fairies who have gone off for a ride. I don’t want to be a Peony, beautiful Queen,” exclaimed Ruth.

“You are more unreasonable as a mortal than you will be as a fairy, so I will turn you into a Pea sister at once.”

The Queen’s soft garments floated across Ruth’s face gently as a kiss, as she spoke; and, feeling herself tremble all over, she seemed to shake off the wrappings which enfolded her, and beheld in the golden gate the reflection of another fairy figure beside the Queen’s. At the same moment, the sweet, low chime of bells, and a delicious perfume were brought to them by a breath of wind.

“Lily is ringing the bells, and preparing incense for vespers. We meet every evening to welcome any new fairies who may come to us.”

“Am I dead?” asked Ruth, as we must still call her, in alarm. “You say the flowers die when they become fairies.”

“Yes, but little girls do not,” said the Queen. “You ceased to have any interest in your other life. You forgot father and mother and home in the delights of our land. Your great, clumsy self could hardly hold the fairy which I set free.”

They were floating along with the motion of wind-driven flowers as they were talking; and, by the moonbeams, Ruth saw the fairies collecting from all quarters, and joining them. From the low, damp meadow-lands a troop of slender, blue-eyed fairies started up. They had a sweet, sad expression, and as she was wondering if she could never go home again, and half afraid to ask the Queen who had just yielded to her prayer to be a fairy, they pressed more closely around her, separating her at length from the Queen, about whom maids of honor in gayly-striped dresses, called the Lady Tulips, took their places. Their motion was so rapid that Ruthie, unused to fairy travels, closed her eyes, and leaned faint and breathless upon the shoulders of the blue-eyed train surrounding her. They stopped, and she saw a shady dell enclosed by vines whose broad leaves were silvered by the moonlight. The fairies formed a circle, in the centre of which was their Queen, and directly behind her, touching from time to time the tall stalk of a lily of the valley, which vibrated music at every motion, was the delicately beautiful fairy called Lily. The circle was complete; but it opened to admit Ruth and her attendants, and she saw beside her another group still, gathered about a fairy as enchanting as any she had yet seen. She was dressed in a yellow skirt, with purple velvet bodice, and had an earnest expression in her large, dark eyes. Before Ruth, she was presented to the Queen, and welcomed to fairy-land, while the lily-bells bowed beneath their weight of sound and perfume, and musically liquid rang out an accompaniment to the fairy voices which sang:—

Then the Queen bent her soft, fair face until it touched that of Heart’s-ease, whose long lashes veiled the purple beauty of her eyes; while the Lily again touched the bells, and Ruth found herself before the Queen, and the tiny choir sang:—

Then Ruth recognized the fairies supporting her, and, looking again at their lovely faces, heard the Queen’s clear voice, in response to the choir, singing:—

Then the circle was broken, and the fairies clustered together like little bouquets, and the Queen seemed to be giving her orders, and sending groups of them away on one errand or another. When Ruth saw her Pea sister mounting, she lost no time in following her example, but pulled up a long ribbon of grass, and, throwing it over a robin’s neck, flew after the party. To her surprise she only overtook them at her mother’s door. They did not see her, and disappeared within, before she could make them hear. She dismounted therefore, and, creeping through the crack of the door, stood in despair before the long flight of stairs. “How did they get up?” she cried, for no traces of the other fairies were to be seen. Fortunately, she caught sight of a thread from one of her mother’s spools, dropped in the hall, and swung herself up to the landing. Here was great hurrying to and fro,—nurses with bottles, grave-looking doctors, and her father seeming so stern and sad that even Ruth was afraid of him. Inside the room, her mother lay, very sick, moaning and tossing with pain. The troop of fairies Ruth saw climbing the bed. Nobody noticed them apparently; but the scene changed very soon after they took possession of the pillow.

One, gayly dressed, sat on her mother’s eyelids, and soon she slept sweetly. Another brushed with fresh, healthy odor across her nostrils, dispelling all the stifling smells of the sick-room.

“Can I not help her too?” little Ruth asked herself, and she pressed closely to her mother’s face, feeling so sad that she could not make her heed her presence. Nobody noticed, only one nurse said the poppy was making her mother feel better, and Ruth knew she meant the fairy pressing down her eyes.

“Ah,” added the nurse, “she will wake up soon, and if her little daughter could only be found, I am sure she would get well.”

Through the long night, Ruth sat there, filled with sorrow that she could not be changed into her old self,—her mother’s little girl; yet too anxious to see her mother’s eyes open again, to go and ask the Fairy Queen to do it for her.

Hour after hour passed; the morning light stole into the room. Her mother at last looked up. “Now we must go,” whispered the fairies; but Ruth lingered to see her mother smile sweetly at a vase of flowers by her bedside, exclaiming, “How beautiful! have they been keeping watch by me all night?”

Then, she flew straight to the palace, and, breathless with haste, brushed past the grim spider porter, and entered the cool, marble grotto, where the Rose Queen held her bower.

“Make me a little girl,—make me my mother’s Ruthie again,” she cried, as she knelt before the Queen, “and I will never complain of any work I may have to do. I see that what my mother said was true, ‘Nature never wastes’; she uses up all her odds and ends in fairy-land; but pray don’t, beautiful Rosa Queen, use up all the little girls too.”

“No,” answered the Queen gently, with a laugh musical as the fall of a crystal drop upon the rock beneath their feet. “I think you will be happier in the home in which you were born, and I will gladly return you to it, and to your mother.”

“I, for one, am rejoiced: the great, clumsy creature fairly filled up my house with berries. I don’t want such a sister as she would be,” Ruthie heard Mrs. Peony say gruffly, as she hastened to pick up her basket of apples, and hurry home, to find father and mother happy enough at her return, as you may well believe.

M. L. S.

Mrs. Anna M. Wells.

VIII.

IT was a glorious July morning, and there was nothing particular on foot. In the afternoon, there would be drives and walks, perhaps; for some hours, now, there would be intensifying heat. The sun had burned away every cloud that had hung rosy about his rising, and the great gray flanks of Washington glared in a pale scorch close up under the sky, whose blue fainted in the flooding presence of the full white light of such unblunted day. Here and there, adown his sides, something flashed out in a clear, intense dazzle, like an enormous crystal cropping from the granite, and blazing with reflected splendor. These were the leaps of water from out dark rifts into the sun.

“Everybody will be in the pines to-day,” said Martha Josselyn. “I think it is better when they all go off and leave us.”

“We can go up under our rock,” said Sue, putting stockings and mending cotton into a large, light basket. “Have you got the chess-board? What should we do without our mending-day?”

These two girls had bought new stockings for all the little feet at home, that the weekly darning might be less for the mother while they were away; and had come with their own patiently-cared-for old hose, “which they should have nothing else to do but to embroider.”

They had made a sort of holiday, in their fashion, of mending-day at home, till it had come to seem like a positive treat and rest; and the habit was so strong upon them that they hailed it even here. They always got out their little chess-board, when they sat down to the big basket together. They could darn, and consider, and move, and darn again; and so could keep it up all day long, as else even they would have found it nearly intolerable to do. So, though they seemed slower at it, they really in the end saved time. Thursday night saw the tedious work all done, and the basket piled with neatly folded pairs, like a heap of fine white rolls. This was a great thing, and “enough for one day,” as Mrs. Josselyn said. It was disastrous if they once began to lie over. If they could be disposed of between sun and sun, the girls were welcome to any play they could get out of it.

“There they go, those two together. Always to the pines, and always with a work-basket,” said Leslie Goldthwaite, sitting on the piazza step at the Green Cottage, by Mrs. Linceford’s feet, the latter lady occupying a Shaker rocking-chair behind. “What nice girls they seem to be,—and nobody appears to know them much, beyond a ‘good morning!’ ”

“Henny-penny, Goosie-poosie, Turkey-lurky, Ducky-daddies, and Chicken Little!” said Mrs. Linceford, counting up from thumb to little finger. “Dakie Thayne and Miss Craydocke, Marmaduke Wharne and these two,—they just make it out,” she continued, counting back again. “Whatever you do, Les, don’t make up to Fox Lox at last, for all our sakes!”

Out came Dakie Thayne, at this point, upon them, with his hands full. “Miss Leslie, could you head these needles for me with black wax? I want them for my butterflies, and I’ve made such a daub and scald of it! I’ve blistered three fingers, and put lop-sided heads to two miserable pins, and left no end of wax splutters on my table. I haven’t but two sticks more, and the deacon don’t keep any; I must try to get a dozen pins out of it, at least.” He had his sealing-wax and a lighted “homespun candle,” as Leslie called the dips of Mrs. Green’s manufacture, in one hand, and a pincushion stuck full of needles waiting for tops, in the other.

“I told you so,” said Mrs. Linceford to Leslie. “That’s it, then?” she asked of Dakie Thayne.

“What, ma’am?”

“Butterflies. I knew you’d some hobby or other,—I said so. I’m glad it’s no worse,” she answered, in her pleasant, smiling way. Dakie Thayne had a great liking for Mrs. Linceford, but he adored Leslie Goldthwaite.

“I’d like to show them to you, if you’d care,” he said. “I’ve got some splendid ones. One great Turnus, that I brought with me in the chrysalis, that hatched out while I was at Jefferson. I rolled it up in a paper for the journey, and fastened it in the crown of my hat. I’ve had it ever since last fall. The asterias worms are spinning now,—the early ones. They’re out on the carrot-tops in shoals. I’m feeding up a dozen of ’em in a box. They’re very handsome,—bright green with black and yellow spots,—and it’s the queerest thing to see them stiffen out and change.”

“Can you? Do they do it all at once?” asked Etty Thoresby, slipping into the rocking-chair, as Mrs. Linceford, by whom she had come and placed herself within the last minute, rose and went in to follow her laundress, just then going up the stairs with her basket.

“Pretty much. It seems so. The first thing you know they stick themselves up by their tails, and spin a noose to hang back their heads in, and there they are, like a pappoose in a basket. Then their skin turns a queer, dead, ashy color, and grows somehow straight and tight, and they only squirm a little in a feeble way now and then, and grow stiffer and stiffer, till they can’t squirm at all, and then they’re mummies, and that’s the end of it till the butterflies are born. It’s a strange thing to see a live creature go into its own shroud, and hang itself up to turn into a corpse. Sometimes a live one, crawling round to find a place for itself, will touch a mummy accidentally; and then, when they’re not quite gone, I’ve seen ’em give an odd little quiver, under the shell, as if they were almost at peace, and didn’t want to be intruded on, or called back to earthly things, and the new-comer takes the hint, and respects privacy, and moves himself off to find quarters somewhere else. Miss Leslie, how splendidly you’re doing those! What’s the difference, I wonder, between girls’ fingers and boys’? I couldn’t make those atoms of balls so round and perfect, ‘if I died and suffered,’ as Mrs. Hoskins says.”

“It’s only centrifugal force,” said Leslie, spinning round between her finger and thumb a needle to whose head she had just touched a globule of the bright black wax. “The world and a pin-head,—both made on the same principle.”

The Haddens and Imogen Thoresby strolled along together, and added themselves to the group.

“Let’s go over to the hotel, Leslie. We’ve seen nothing of the girls since just after breakfast. They must be up in the hall, arranging about the tableaux.”

“I’ll come by and by, if you want me; don’t wait. I’m going to finish these—properly”; and she dipped and twirled another needle with dainty precision, in the pause between her words.

“Have you got a lot of brothers at home, Miss Leslie?” asked Dakie Thayne.

“Two,” replied Leslie. “Not at home, though, now. One at Exeter, and the other at Cambridge. Why?”

“I was thinking it would be bad—what do you call it?—political economy or something, if you hadn’t any, that’s all.”

“Mamma wants you,” said Ginevra Thoresby, looking out at the door to call her sisters. “She’s in the Haughtleys’ room. They’re talking about the wagon for Minster Rock to-night. What do you take up your time with that boy for?” she added, not inaudibly, as she and Imogen turned away together.

“O dear!” cried blunt Etty, lingering, “I wonder if she meant me. I want to hear about the caterpillars. Mamma thinks the Haughtleys are such nice people, because they came in their own carriage, and they’ve got such big trunks, and a saddle-horse, and elegant dressing-cases, and ivory-backed brushes! I wish she didn’t care so about such things.”

Mrs. Thoresby would have been shocked to hear her little daughter’s arrangement and version of her ideas. She had simply been kind to these strangers on their arrival—in their own comfortable carriage—a few days since; had stepped forward,—as somehow it seemed to devolve upon her, with her dignified air and handsome gray curls, when she chose, to do,—representing by a kind of tacit consent the household in general, as somebody in every such sojourn usually will; had interested herself about their rooms, which were near her own, and had reported of them, privately, among other things noted in these first glimpses, that “they had everything about them in the most perfect style; ivory-backed brushes, and lovely inlaid dressing-cases, Ginevra; the best all through, and no sham!” Yes indeed, if that could but be said truly, and need not stop at brushes and boxes!

Imogen came back presently, and called to Etty from the stairs, and she was obliged to go. Jeannie Hadden waited till they were fairly off the landing, and then walked away herself, saying nothing, but wearing a slightly displeased air.

Mrs. Thoresby and her elder daughter had taken a sort of dislike to Dakie Thayne. They seemed to think he wanted putting down. Nobody knew anything about him; he was well enough in his place, perhaps; but why should he join himself to their party? The Routh girls had Frank Scherman, and two or three other older attendants; among them he was simply not thought of, often, at all. If it had not been for Leslie and Mrs. Linceford, he would have found himself in Outledge, what boys of his age are apt to find themselves in the world at large,—a sort of odd or stray, not provided for anywhere in the general scheme of society. For this very reason, discerning it quickly, Leslie had been loyal to him; and he, with all his boy-vehemence of admiration and devotion, was loyal to her. She had the feeling, motherly and sisterly in its mingled instinct, by which all true and fine feminine natures are moved, in behalf of the man-nature in its dawn, that so needs sympathy and gentle consideration and provision, and that certain respect which calls forth and fosters self-respect;—to be allowed and acknowledged to be somebody, lest for the want of this it should fail, unhappily, ever to be anybody. She was not aware of it; she only followed her kindly instinct. So she was doing, unconsciously, one of the best early bits of her woman-work in the world.

Once in a while it occurred to Leslie Goldthwaite to wonder why it was that she was able to forget—that she found she had forgotten, in a measure—those little self-absorptions that she had been afraid of, and that had puzzled her in her thoughtful moments. She was glad to be “taken up” with something that could please Dakie Thayne, or to go over to the Cliff and see Prissy Hoskins, and tell her a story, or help Dakie to fence in safely her beds of flower-seedlings, (she had not let her first visit be her last, in these weeks since her introduction there,) or to sit an hour with dear old Miss Craydocke and help her in a bit of charity work, and hear her sweet, simple, genial talk. She had taken up her little opportunities as they came,—was it by instinct only, or through a tender Spirit-leading, that she winnowed them and chose the best, and had been kept so a little out of the drift and hurry that might else have frothed away the hours? “Give us our daily bread,” “Lead us not into temptation,”—they have to do with each other, if we “know the daily bread when we see it.” But that also is of the grace of God.

There was the beginning of fruit under the leaf with Leslie Goldthwaite; and the fine life-current was setting itself that way with its best impulse and its rarest particles.

The pincushion was well filled with the delicate, bristling, tiny-headed needles, when Miss Craydocke appeared, walking across, under her great brown sun-umbrella, from the hotel.

“If you’ve nothing else to do, my dears, suppose we go over to the pines together? Where’s Miss Jeannie? Wouldn’t she like it? All the breeze there is haunts them always.”

“I’m always ready for the pines,” said Leslie. “Here, Dakie, I hope you’ll catch a butterfly for every pin. O, now I think of it, have you found your elephant?”

“Yes, half-way up the garret-stairs. I can’t feed him comfortably, Miss Leslie. He wants to eat incessantly, and the elm-leaves wilt so quickly, if I bring them in, that the first thing I know, he’s out of proper provender and off on a raid. He needs to be on the tree; but then I should lose him.”

Leslie thought a minute. “You might tie up a branch with mosquito-netting,” she said.

“Isn’t that bright? I’ll go right and do it,—only I haven’t any netting,” said he.

“Mrs. Linceford has. I’ll go and beg a piece for you. And then—if you’ll just sit here a minute—I’ll come, Miss Craydocke.”

When she came back, she brought Jeannie with her. To use a vulgar proverb, Jeannie’s nose was rather out of joint since the Haughtleys had arrived. Ginevra Thoresby was quite engrossed with them, and this often involved Imogen. There was only room for six in Captain Green’s wagon, and nothing had been said to Jeannie about the drive to Minster Rock.

Leslie had hanging upon her finger, also, the finest and whitest and most graceful of all possible little splint baskets, only just big enough to carry a bit of such work as was in it now,—a strip of sheer, delicate grass-linen, which needle and thread, with her deft guidance, were turning into a cobweb border, by a weaving of lace-lines, strong, yet light, where the woof of the original material had been drawn out. It was “done for odd-minute work, and was better than anything she could buy.” Prettier it certainly was, when, with a finishing of the merest edge of lace, it came to encircle her round, fair arms and shoulders, or to peep out with its dainty revelation among the gathering treasures of the linen-drawer I told you of. She had accomplished yards of it already for her holiday-work.

She had brought the netting, as she promised, for Dakie Thayne, who received it with thanks, and straightway hastened off to get his “elephant” and a piece of string, and to find a convenient elm-branch which he could convert into a cage-pasture.

“I’ll come round to the pines afterward,” he said.

And, just then, Sin Saxon’s bright face and pretty figure showing themselves on the hotel piazza, with a seeking look and gesture, Jeannie and Elinor were drawn off also to ask about the tableaux, and see if they were wanted, with the like promise that “they would come presently.” So Miss Craydocke and Leslie walked slowly round, under the sun-umbrella, to the head of the ledge, by themselves.

Up this rocky promontory it was very pretty little climbing, over the irregular turf-covered crags that made the ascent; and once up, it was charming. A natural grove of stately old pine-trees, with their glory of tasselled foliage and their breath of perfume, crowned and sheltered it; and here had been placed at cosey angles, under the deepest shade, long, broad, elastic benches of boards, sprung from rock to rock, and made secure to stakes, or held in place by convenient irregularities of the rock itself. Pine-trunks and granite offered rough support to backs that could so fit themselves; and visitors found out their favorite seats, and spent hours there, with books or work, or looking forth in a luxurious listlessness from out the cool upon the warm, bright valley-picture, and the shining water wandering down from far heights and unknown solitudes to see the world.

“It’s better so,” said Miss Craydocke, when the others left them. “I had a word I wanted to say to you. What do you suppose those two came up here to the mountains for?” And Miss Craydocke nodded up, indicatively, toward the two girl-figures just visible by their draperies in a nook of rock beyond and above the benches.

“To get the good of them—as we did—I suppose,” Leslie answered, wondering a little what Miss Craydocke might exactly mean.

“I suppose so, too,” was the reply. “And I suppose—the Lord’s love came with them! I suppose He cares whether they get the full of the good. And yet I think He leaves it, like everything else, a little to us!”

Leslie’s heart beat quicker, hearing these words. It beat quicker always when such thoughts were touched. She was shy of seeking them; she almost tried, in an involuntary way, to escape them at first, when they were openly broached; yet she longed always, at the same time, for a deeper understanding of them. “I should like to know the Miss Josselyns better,” she said, presently, when Miss Craydocke made no haste to speak again. “I have been thinking so this morning. I have thought so very often. But they seem so quiet, always. One doesn’t like to intrude.”

“They ought to be more with young people,” Miss Craydocke went on. “And they ought to do less ripping and sewing and darning, if it could be managed. They brought three trunks with them. And what do you think the third is full of?”

Leslie had no idea, of course.

“Old winter dresses. To be made over. For the children at home. So that their mother may be coaxed to take her turn and go away upon a visit when they get back, seeing that the fall sewing will be half done! That’s a pretty coming to the mountains for two tired-out young things, I think!”

“O dear!” cried Leslie, pitifully; and then a secret compunction seized her, thinking of her own little elegant, odd-minute work, which was all she had to interfere with mountain-pleasure.

“And isn’t it some of our business, if we could get at it?” asked Miss Craydocke, concluding.

“Dear Miss Craydocke!” said Leslie, with a warm brightness in her face, as she looked up, “the world is full of business; but so few people find out any but their own! Nobody but you dreamt of this, or of Prissy Hoskins, till you showed us,—or of all the little Wigleys. How do you come to know, when other people go on in their own way, and see nothing,—like the priests and Levites?” This last she added by a sudden occurrence and application, that half answered, beforehand, her own question.

“When we think of people’s needs as the Master’s!” said Miss Craydocke, evading herself, and never minding her syntax. “When we think what every separate soul is to Him, that He came into the world to care for as God cares for the sparrows! It’s my faith that He’s never gone away from His work, dear; that His love lies alongside every life, and in all its experience; and that His life is in His love; and that if we want to find Him—there we may! ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me.’ ” She grew eloquent—the plain, simple-speaking woman—when something that was great and living to her would find utterance.

“How do you mean that?” said Leslie, with a sort of abruptness, as of one who must have definiteness, but who hurried with her asking, lest after a minute she might not dare. “That He really knows, and thinks, of every special thing and person,—and cares? Or only would?”

“I take it as He said it,” said Miss Craydocke. “ ‘All power is given me in heaven and in earth.’ ‘And lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!’ He put the two together himself, dear!”

A great, warm, instant glow seemed to rush over Leslie inwardly. In the light and quickening of it, other words shone out and declared themselves. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” And this was the abiding! The sympathy, the interest, that found itself side by side with His! The faith that felt His uniting presence with all!

To this child of sixteen came a moment’s glimpse of what might be, truly, that life which is “hid with Christ in God,” and which has its blessed work with the Lord in the world;—came, with the word of a plain, old, unconsidered woman, whom heedless girls made daily sport of;—came, bringing with it “old and new,” like a householder of the kingdom of heaven; showing how the life and the fruit are inextricably one,—how the growth and the withering are inevitably determined!

They reached the benches now; they saw the Josselyns busy up beyond, with their chess-board between them, and their mending-basket at their feet; they would not go now and interrupt their game.

The seat which the sisters had chosen, because it was just a quiet little corner for two, was a nook scooped out, as it were, in a jut of granite; hollowed in behind and perpendicularly to a height above their heads, and embracing a mossy little flat below, so that it seemed like a great solid arm-chair into which two could get together, and a third could not possibly intrude.

Miss Craydocke and Leslie settled themselves, and both were silent. Presently Leslie spoke again, giving out a fragmentary link of the train of thought that had been going on in her. “If it weren’t for just one thing!” she said, and there she stopped.

“What?” asked Miss Craydocke, as not a bit at a loss to make out the unseen connection.

“The old puzzle. We have to think and work a good deal of the time for ourselves. And then we lose sight—”

“Of Him? Why?”

Leslie said no more, but waited. Miss Craydocke’s tone was clear, untroubled. The young girl looked, therefore, for this clear confidence to be spoken out.

“Why? since He is close to our life also, and cares tenderly for that?—since, if we let Him possess Himself of it, it is one of His own channels, by which He still gives Himself unto the world? He didn’t do it all in one single history of three years, my child, or thirty-three, out there in Judæa. He keeps on—so I believe—through every possible way and circumstance of human living now, if only the life is grafted on His. The Vine and the branches, and God tending all. And the fruit is the kingdom of heaven.”

It is never too late, and never impossible, for a human face to look beautiful. In the soft light and shadow of the stirring pines, with the moving from within of that which at once illumined and veiled, with an exultation and an awe, there came a glory over the homely and faded features which they could neither bar nor dim. And the thought took possession of the word and tone, and made them simply grand and heavenly musical.

After that, they sat still again,—it matters not how many minutes. The crisp green spines rustled dreamily over their heads; the wild birds called to each other, far back in the closer lying woods; the water glanced on, millions of new drops every instant making the selfsame circles and gushes and falls, and the wealth of summer sunshine holding and vivifying all. Leslie had word and scene stamped together on her spirit and memory in those moments. There was a Presence in the hush and beauty. Two souls were here met together in the name of the living Christ. And for that there is the promise.

Martha Josselyn and her sister sat and played and mended on.

By and by Dakie Thayne came; said a bright word or two; glanced round, in restless boy-fashion, as if taking in the elements of the situation, and considering what was to be made out of it; perceived the pair at chess; and presently, with his mountain stick, went springing away from point to point, up and around the piles and masses of rock and mound that made up the broadening ascent of the ledge.

“Check to your queen,” said Sue.

Martha put her elbow up on her knee, and held her needle suspended by its thread. Sue darned away, and got a great hole laid lengthwise with smooth lines, before her threatening move had been provided for. Then a red knight came with gallant leap, right down in the midst of the white forces, menacing in his turn right and left; and Martha drew a long sigh, and sat back, and poised her needle-lance again, and went to work; and it was Sue’s turn to lean over the board with knit brows and holden breath.

Something peered over the rock above them at this moment. A boy’s head, from which the cap had been removed.

“If only they’ll play now, and not chatter!” thought Dakie Thayne, lying prone along the cliff above, and putting up his elbows to rest his head between his hands. “This’ll be jolly, if it don’t turn to eavesdropping. Poor old Noll! I haven’t had a game since I played with him!”

Sue would not withdraw her attack. She planted a bishop so that, if the knight should move, it would open a course straight down toward a weak point beside the red king.

“She means to ‘fight it out on that line, if it takes all summer,’ ” Dakie went on within himself, having grasped, during the long pause before Sue’s move, the whole position. “They’re no fools at it, to have got it into a shape like that! I’d just like Noll to see it!”

Martha looked, and drew a thread or two into her stocking, and looked again. Then she stabbed her cotton-ball with her needle, and put up both hands—one with the white stocking-foot still drawn over it—beside her temples. At last she castled.

Sue was as calm as the morning. She always grew calm and strong as the game drew near the end. She had even let her thoughts go off to other things while Martha pondered and she wove in the cross-threads of her darn.

“I wonder, Martha,” she said now, suddenly, before attending to the new aspect of the board, “if I couldn’t do without that muslin skirt I made to wear under my piña, and turn it into a couple of white waists to carry home to mother? If she goes away, you know—”

“Aigh!”

It was a short, sharp, unspellable sound that came from above. Sue started, and a red piece rolled from the board. Then there was a rustling and a crashing and a leaping, and by a much shorter and more hazardous way than he had climbed, Dakie Thayne came down and stood before them. “I had to let you know! I couldn’t listen. I was in hopes you wouldn’t talk. Don’t move, please! I’ll find the man. I do beg your pardon,—I had no business,—but I so like chess,—when it’s any sort of a game!”

While he spoke, he was looking about the base of the rock, and by good fortune spied and pounced upon the bit of bright-colored ivory, which had rolled and rested itself against a hummock of sod.

“May I see it out?” he begged, approaching, and putting the piece upon the board. “You must have played a good deal,” looking at Sue.

“We play often at home, my sister and I; and I had some good practice in—” There she stopped.

“In the hospital,” said Martha, with the sharp little way she took up sometimes. “Why shouldn’t you tell of it?”

“Has Miss Josselyn been in the hospitals?” asked Dakie Thayne, with a certain quick change in his tone.

“For the best of two years,” Martha answered.

At this moment, seeing how Dakie was breaking the ice for them, up came Miss Craydocke and Leslie Goldthwaite.

“Miss Leslie! Miss Craydocke! This lady has been away among our soldiers—in the hospitals—half through the war! Perhaps—did you ever—” But with that he broke off. There was a great flush on his face, and his eyes glowed with boy-enthusiasm lit at the thought of the war, and of brave men, and of noble, ministering women, of whom he suddenly found himself face to face with one.

The game of chess got swept together. “It was as good as over,” Martha Josselyn said. And these five sat down together among the rocks, and in half an hour, after weeks of mere “good-mornings,” they had grown to be old friends. But Dakie Thayne—he best knew why—left his fragment of a question unfinished.

Author of “Faith Gartney’s Girlhood.”

“FOR my part,” said Dick, as he indolently stretched his long limbs under a great chestnut, one splendid summer morning, “I think people expect far too much of me. So far as I can see, nobody but ‘humans’ and horses works. Young animals don’t; and the flowers and fruit and insects are no care to any one, not even themselves. They just keep on growing, and living, and having a good time. The world would slip on easily enough, if the fathers and schoolmasters would only let things alone. They’ll have to do without me to-day, anyhow. The birds and I are going to enjoy ourselves. I only wish I had somebody to talk to, though,” sighed the poor fellow.

“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted a shrill little voice beside him. “Here’s a great hulking fellow with a soul, that don’t want to do anything with it!”

Dick turned in great surprise toward the voice, and there stood a tiny creature, not much taller than one’s finger, dressed in a tight-fitting suit of brown silk, with a neat little green cap on his head.

“And who might you be?” asked Dick, surveying the midget before him.

“O, I am nobody but one of the little men,” replied the morsel. “And I’m very busy, too,—very busy at this season,—but I couldn’t help hearing your remark. Excuse my laughing, but it seemed so odd!”

“What’s going on just now in fairy-land?” asked Dick, who was willing to cultivate the friendship of his tiny acquaintance.

“O, there’s worlds to do,” replied the sprite, removing his cap, and wiping his forehead with a film of spider-web. “I’ve to shear the wool of the young peaches to spin into winter cloaks for delicate fairies. I don’t know what would become of us with another such winter as the last, and a short peach crop. Then I must go and breathe a warm breath over the grapes and plums, and make the delicate bloom come over them so soft and tender as you see it; and then I’ve to polish up the Baldwins and Spitzenbergs. Besides, the Cobweb Company is under my superintendence, upon which all fairyland depends for hosiery, and you haven’t an idea what a bother the spiders are, with being so wilful about working! Sometimes they go on a general ‘strike’ and won’t work, and then the Brownies have to spin up thistle-down and silk-weed to fit the ladies out. It is rather coarse and stiff, however, and the court fairies don’t like it much. Sometimes I have to manage the operatic entertainments of the court, and then my cares are really awful. When a katydid won’t sing, for example, and pretends that she caught cold sleeping on a damp dahlia, and declares that she can’t raise a note unless she is coddled up with red-clover honey, or a great bull-frog of a basso gets sulky and claims extra pay, and makes me catch flies for his supper before he will open his mouth,—I can tell you, mortals haven’t an idea what an amount I have to do. Then there’s Mushroom, Toadstool, & Co., the cabinet-makers, who do not always fulfil their contracts, and the jeweller, Jack Frost, who is entirely unreliable, though an excellent workman when he has a mind to be, and the gnomes, who are so contrary! However, they can do beautiful work. Once, her Majesty Queen Titania took a fancy to wear a full set of garnets, and I had to search over all the pink sand on the shores of Monadnock Lake to find the smallest size, and match them in color. Then I had to get a Moorish fairy to cut and polish them, and then a German gnome set them in solid sunbeams. Common gold wouldn’t suit her Majesty. I succeeded after a while,” said the elf, sighing, “but these lady fairies!”—and the sigh was almost a groan. “The sand-sprites searched a whole moon to perfect the set!”

“Who are the sand-sprites?” asked Dick, now wide enough awake.

“They are the spirits whose work it is to keep the sand-crystals all polished up. Criminals are sometimes put to this work, or unhappy sprites who pine for a change of life. Fairy-land has its trials, as well as the earth. Would you mind strolling along with me? I am afraid I have loitered too long already,” said the elf, rising and resuming his cap.

Dick uncoiled his long limbs and followed his goblin guide. Over rock and through bush and brake he led the truant school-boy, talking as they strolled along.

“Now, there,” said he, pointing to a crevice in the rock, “is where the pixies keep their lamps in the daytime. They are busy now, trimming and filling them.”

Dick peeped in. There stood, as it seemed, hundreds of little folks, each at work with a bronze lamp, the smallest ever seen. They trimmed the cobweb wick daintily enough, using for the purpose the nippers of spiders, which were admirably adapted to the purpose, and filled them with liquid lightning from a conductor in the side of the rock, and then polished them off carefully with a mullein leaf. When these leaves were thrown down after being used, hundreds of small bugs carried them off out of the way. The pixies seemed in the highest state of enjoyment over their work, and were in great glee about the pranks which they were to play, when night should come down over the earth.

And now the very air seemed to shiver, and glimmer, and swim with countless wings of every conceivable color and shape, and each pair supported a tiny creature, who seemed created only to bask and float in the sunshine. Yet each one was bound on some errand,—each had a work to do.

Some were busy about the flowers, raising the velvet nap on the violets and dahlias; some were distributing dew upon those flowers which had been overlooked in the night; some were mellowing the soil, and stretching the roots out, downwards and sideways through the earth, that they might enjoy the rich moisture; some were floating upon the warm summer air, bearing only “the invisible odors of flowers,” and seeing that feeble invalids, who could not stir out of doors, and could only sit languidly at their windows, should have one sweet breath of the blossoms and fields. Others carried the fruitful pollen from plant to plant. Some were guiding the hummingbird to the honey stores, or helped the avaricious bee carry home his load; and myriads bestrode the winged seeds which were sailing on the fresh morning breeze, guiding them to their destinations, either to comfort or annoy.

“It seems,” remarked Dick, “that the little people care very little whether men are pleased or vexed, so long as they do their work well. I see that the Canada thistles are as well cared for as either fruit or flower.”

“An elf would scream with laughter,” replied the goblin, “at the idea of taking more care of one plant than another, when men themselves differ so much about their value. Geraniums are weeds in Africa, and you keep a cactus in your green-houses which in Mexico is the pest of every traveller. The rare and lovely gentian blooms unseen beside the lonely glacier, and that mullein which you just switched down with your stick is known in European conservatories as the ‘American Velvet Plant.’ We fairies only wait orders from the Master of Life to care for every growing thing. And, in fact, men would respect all plants more than they do, if they understood all of their mysterious virtues as we do. But you are yawning, let us go on.”

“Chir-r-r-r-r,” laughed a squirrel from a branch overhead. “Here’s a jolly couple going to see sights! A big fellow with a soul trying to learn things of a fairy. Ho! ho! ho! Well, if I haven’t any soul, I understand my own business, which is more than boys do, generally speaking,”—and he stuffed two great acorns into his cheeks, and scampered off to his nest.

“Caw! caw!” screamed a crow. “These proud mortals do condescend sometimes, don’t they! Well, they are not of so much account, after all, if I told all I knew about the matter. I could tell tales if I would! Such merry ones! Except for their souls, there’s little to choose between them and our four-footed creatures! Caw! caw! caw!”—and the crow flapped away across a ploughed field, and lighted on a dead pine.

“That is too true,” sighed the elf sadly, “but still you have souls.”

“Haven’t you souls, too?” asked Dick, in great surprise.

“No,” said the elf, “but I came very near getting one once. I loved a mortal lady, and had she returned my love, I should have had a soul. Undine had one, you know. It made a great deal of talk among us, but it did her little good after all, poor thing! They found me out in my presumption, and I was punished for desiring more than King Oberon himself possessed; yet he obtained one afterward. When Shakespeare wrote, he gave him one. Did you ever hear of the ‘Culprit Fay?’ ”

Dick nodded.

“I was that poor sprite, and the poet gave me the boon of a long life in his song. Yet still I have no soul, and there is no hereafter for me, even if I live for centuries.”

“Poor Fairy!” cried Dick, who was not bad, only very lazy. “I never thought so very much about my soul as you seem to do, and it seems odd enough to hear you say that you have none.”

“And you have a Saviour, too, who will make your souls happy, if you will let him. We have no Saviour, for we cannot sin; and when we die, that is the end of us. It is hard, and I came so near it once!” and tears stood in the elfin’s eyes.

“Well, well!” said Dick consolingly. “There’s trouble enough in having a soul. Every one blames you so, if everything does not go just as it should, or as folks think they should. Now you do just as you are bid, and get no blame at all.”

The elf looked at him very sorrowfully, but did not speak.

Just then they came to the beach of the lake, where the garnet sand was sparkling with rosy light in the afternoon sun. And the beach was all alive with tiny figures, working in the sand, turning and twisting it about, each handling a single grain, polishing and cutting its facets as carefully as if preparing diamonds for a royal diadem. Some were riding on the backs of sand-flies; some daintily smoothing the plumage of the wild fowls that flashed and swam over the glassy water; some helped the squirrel carry home his load of nuts. Down in a dark nook, half under a mossy stone, Dick could see that they were painting the red spots on the backs of the trout; while up in the pines on the breezy hill-top they were singing psalms, and making solemn organ-music among its slender, pin-like leaves.

“I have passed a very pleasant day with you, Mr. Fairy,” said Dick, as he saw that the sun was sinking behind the western hills, and Monadnock lay in purple distance over the lake. “I have seen and learned much; and, as it grows late and dark, may I trouble you to show me a short cut home? I wish I could think that the cuts I expect to get with the rod were short ones, too.”

“I will guide you home very willingly,” replied the fairy; “but first look into this pool, and tell me if you don’t think the day’s ramble has done wonders for your personal appearance?”

Dick looked down into the little ebony mirror framed with mosses, and started back with astonishment. Could that be his mouth with the dark beard around it,—his own tow head, which now hung thick with glossy, dark curls,—his own roguish eyes, which now peered out so thoughtfully from under the heavy brows?

“Can it be true?” exclaimed Dick. “And I have idled away my youth, and thought it but a summer ramble,—only a truant day with my fairy friend. And now it is near night, and the day is far spent”;—and Dick covered his face with his hands and wept.

“You have indeed spent more time with me than you intended,” said the fairy, “but you have learned much, too. You once thought it was of no use to take pains with little things. Now you see that everything costs toil and earnest labor. And you never knew what a soul and a Saviour were worth, till you saw us poor little creatures with neither; now did you?”

“Cannot I help you somehow, my dear little friend?” asked Dick, tenderly.

“If you wish to do so, you can, if you really love us. You have talent, genius; but without love there is no immortality. Yes, you can help us, if you will!”

And as he spoke, the forest glowed with the innumerable eyes of birds and beasts, and the air was filled with their voices. The birds sang and cried and twittered, the owls hooted, the wolves barked, and the deer threw back their great antlers and gazed at him mutely with tearful eyes, and the world seemed filled with immeasurable life which pleaded for an hereafter. The wood trembled to the voice of inarticulate woe, and the fays peeped out of their coverts, and their wee elfish faces and tiny voices wept and sobbed and begged for immortality.

In after years, as Dick (now an artist of a world-wide renown) sat before his canvas, faithfully doing his appointed work, one could see that the lesson of his fairy friend had not been lost upon him. There was more of the owl than a stiff piece of feathered stupidity: he was a philosopher, a statesman. A grave wisdom looked out of his solemn eyes. You knew that that owl could think. There was the accumulated erudition of generations under his feathery wig. There was a world of legal acumen in the keen glance of that fox. The bears were fat old gentlemen who lived well and knew the world; and the deer were almost human, almost girlish, in their timid earnestness and graceful shyness. And the fays sported, and the pixies frolicked, and the undines bathed in the moonlit waves, with watery jewels flashing over their ivory limbs, and there seemed everywhere so much of mystical life in all of these of God’s dumb and unseen children, that men said in a whisper, “He has given these beings human souls.” And out of a dim corner of the studio gleamed the sad, sweet face of the “Culprit Fay”; and it smiles a calm gratitude, that out of patience and love, through toil and tribulation, cometh immortality.

Chapelle Hobrow.

JUST across the street from the Methodist Church, in the principal street of Benton, is a small one-story house, consisting of three rooms only. This is occupied by Mrs. Cooper, a widow, and her only son Johnny, with whom it is our purpose to become further acquainted. When the great Rebellion broke out, Johnny’s father was one of the first to enlist. It was a great trial to him to leave behind his wife and son, but he felt it his duty to go. For more than a year he wrote cheerful letters home; but one dark day there came over the wires tidings of the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg, and in the list of killed was the name of James Cooper.

It was a sad day for Mrs. Cooper; but she had little time to mourn. The death of her husband threw the burden of maintaining herself and Johnny upon her shoulders. After a while she obtained a pension of eight dollars a month, which helped her considerably. One half of it paid her rent, and the other half paid for her fuel and lights. But it costs a good deal to buy food and clothes for two persons, and she was obliged to toil early and late with her needle to make up the requisite sum. Johnny was now eleven years old, and might have obtained a chance to peg shoes in some of the shoe-shops in the village, as indeed he wanted to do; but Mrs. Cooper felt that he ought to be kept at school. As she would not be able to leave him money, she was resolved at least to give him as good an education as the village schools would allow.

One evening, just after tea, Mrs. Cooper laid down her work, with a little sigh. “Johnny,” said she, “I will get you to run over to Squire Baker’s, and say that I shall not be able to finish his shirts to-night, but I will try to send them over in the morning before he goes.”

“You don’t feel well, mother, do you?”

“No, I have a bad headache. I think I shall go to bed early, and see if I can’t sleep it off.”

“I don’t believe it agrees with you to sew so much,” said Johnny.

“I sometimes wish I had a sewing-machine,” said his mother. “That would enable me to do three times as much work with less fatigue.”

“How much does a sewing-machine cost?”

“I suppose a good one would cost not far from a hundred dollars.”

“A hundred dollars! That is a good deal of money,” said Johnny.

“Yes, quite too much for our means. Of course there is no chance of my being able to purchase one.”

As Johnny went across the field to Squire Baker’s, he could not help thinking of what his mother had said. He had hoped the cost of a machine would not exceed twenty dollars, for in that case there might be some chance of his earning the amount in time. Occasionally the neighbors called upon him to do odd jobs, and paid him small sums. These in time might amount to twenty dollars. But a hundred seemed quite too large for him to think of accumulating.

“Still,” thought Johnny, “I’ve a good mind to try. I won’t wait for jobs to come to me; I’ll look out for them. I have a good deal of time out of school when I might be doing something. If I don’t get enough to buy a sewing-machine, I may get something else that mother will like.”

The next day was Saturday, and school did not keep. It was about the first of October. In the town where Johnny lived there were many swamps planted with cranberries, which were now ripe and ready for gathering. It was necessary to pick them before a frost, since this fruit, if touched with the frost, will decay rapidly. As Johnny was coming home from the store, he met a school companion, who seemed to be in a hurry.

“Where are you going, Frank?” he inquired.

“I’m going to pick cranberries for Squire Baker.”

“How much does he pay?”

“Two cents a quart.”

“Do you think he would hire me?” asked Johnny, with a sudden thought.

“Yes, and be glad to get you. He’s got a good many cranberries on the vines, and he’s afraid there will be a frost to-night.”

“Then I’ll go and ask mother if I can go. Just hold on a minute.”

“All right.”

Having obtained permission, Johnny rejoined his companion, and proceeded at once to the swamp. The fruit was abundant; for the crop this year was unusually good, and Johnny found that he could pick quite rapidly. When noon came, he found that he had picked twenty quarts.

“Can you come again this afternoon?” asked the Squire.

“Yes, sir,” said Johnny, promptly.

“I shall be very glad to have you, for hands are scarce.”

Johnny had already earned forty cents, and hoped to earn as much more in the afternoon. He was so excited by his success that he hurried through his dinner with great rapidity, and was off once more to the swamp. He worked till late, and found at the end of the day that he had gathered fifty quarts. He felt very rich when the Squire handed him a one-dollar greenback in return for his services. He felt pretty tired in consequence of stooping so much, but the thought that he had earned a whole dollar in one day fully repaid him.

“Mother,” said Johnny when he got home, “if you are willing, I will keep this money. There is something very particular I want it for.”

“Certainly,” said his mother. “You shall keep this, and all you earn. I am very sure you will not wish to spend it unwisely.”

“No, mother, you may be sure of that.”

On Monday it so happened that the teacher was sick, and school was suspended. Johnny found no difficulty in obtaining a chance to pick cranberries for another neighbor. He was determined to do a little better than on Saturday. When evening came, he was paid for fifty-three quarts,—one dollar and six cents.

“I wish there were cranberries to be picked all the year round,” thought Johnny. “I should soon get a hundred dollars.”

But this was about the last of his picking. School kept the next day, and though he got a little time after school, he could only pick a few quarts. When the cranberry season was over, Johnny found himself the possessor of four dollars. After that his gains were small. Occasionally he ran on an errand for a neighbor. Once he turned the grindstone for about half an hour, and received the small compensation of one cent from a rather parsimonious farmer. Johnny was about to throw it away, when the thought came to him, that, small as it was, it would help a little.

So the autumn slipped away, and winter came and went. In the spring Johnny found more to do. On the first day of June he counted his money, and found he had fifteen dollars.

“It’ll take a long time to get a hundred dollars,” sighed Johnny. “If mother would only let me go to work in a shoe-shop! But she thinks I had better go to school. But by and by there’ll be a chance to pick cranberries again. I wish there’d be a vacation then.”

One morning Johnny had occasion to cross the fields near a small pond about half a mile from his mother’s house. He was busily thinking about his little fund, and what he could do to increase it, when his attention was all at once attracted by a sharp cry of distress. Looking up, he saw a gentleman in a row-boat on the pond, who appeared to be in the greatest trouble.

“Boy,” he called out, “can you swim?”

“Yes, sir,” said Johnny.

“Then save my little daughter, if you can. She has just fallen out of the boat. There she is.”

The little girl just appeared above the surface of the water. Luckily it was very near the shore, yet too deep for any one to venture who was unable to swim. Our young hero had plenty of courage. Moreover, he was an expert swimmer, having been taught by his father before he went to the war. Without a minute’s hesitation he stripped off his jacket and plunged in. A few vigorous strokes brought him to the little girl. He seized her, just as she was about sinking for the third time. He held her till her father could receive her from his arms into the boat.

“Let me lift you in, too,” he said.

“No, sir; I’ll swim to shore,” said Johnny.

“Come up to the hotel this afternoon. I want to see you.”

The father applied himself to the restoration of his daughter, and Johnny went home and changed his wet clothes. He had recognized the gentleman as a merchant from the city who had been boarding at the hotel for a week or two. He felt a glow of satisfaction in the thought that he had been instrumental in saving a human life; for it was very evident that, her father being unable to swim, the little girl would but for him have been drowned.

In the afternoon he went to the hotel, and inquired for Mr. Barclay, for he had heard the gentleman’s name. He was conducted up stairs into a private parlor.

Mr. Barclay advanced towards him with a smile of welcome. “I am glad to see you, my brave boy,” he said.

“Is your little girl quite recovered?” asked Johnny, modestly.

“Yes, nearly so. I thought it best to let her lie in bed the remainder of the day, as she might have got chilled. And now, my dear boy, how shall I express my gratitude to you for your noble conduct? Under God, you have been the means of saving my dear child’s life. I am quite unable to swim, and I shudder to think what would have happened but for your timely presence and courage.”

“I am very glad I was able to be of service,” said Johnny.

“I cannot allow such a service to go unrewarded,” said Mr. Barclay. “Adequate compensation I cannot offer, for money will not pay for the saving of life; but you will allow me to give you this as a first instalment of my gratitude.” He pressed into the hands of the astonished boy a one-hundred-dollar bill.

“One hundred dollars!” exclaimed Johnny in bewilderment. “Do you really mean to give me so much?”

“It is little enough, I am sure.”

“O, I am so glad!” said Johnny, delighted. “Now I can buy mother a sewing-machine.”

“But don’t you want to buy something for yourself?” asked Mr. Barclay, with interest.

“No, sir; I would rather have a sewing-machine than anything.”

Then Johnny, encouraged by Mr. Barclay’s evident interest, proceeded to tell him how for nearly a year he had been saving up money, without his mother’s knowledge, to buy her a machine, in order that she need not work so hard in future. But thus far he had only succeeded in saving up fifteen dollars. Now, thanks to this unexpected gift, he would be able to buy it at once. “And it’ll come just right, too,” he said, with sparkling eyes; “for it will be mother’s birthday in a week from to-day, and I can give it to her then. Only,” he said doubtfully, “I don’t know whom I can get to buy it.”

“I can help you there,” said Mr. Barclay. “I am going to the city in a day or two. I will select the machine, and arrange to have it sent down by express on your mother’s birthday.”

“That’ll be just the thing,” said Johnny. “Won’t she be astonished? I sha’n’t say anything to her about it beforehand. Here’s the money, sir; I thank you very much for that, and for your kind offer.”

“I ought to be kind to you, my dear boy, when I think how much you have done for me.”

“Good afternoon, sir.”

“Good afternoon. Call again to-morrow, and you shall see the little girl you have saved.”

Johnny did call the next day, and made acquaintance with little Annie Barclay, whom he found a sprightly little girl of four years of age. She took quite a fancy to our young hero, with whom she had a fine game of romps.

Mrs. Cooper knew that Johnny had saved a little girl from drowning, but never inquired what reward he had received, feeling sure that he would tell her some time. As for Johnny, he had his reasons for keeping silent, as we know.

At length Mrs. Cooper’s birthday came. Johnny was full of impatience for evening, for then the express-wagon would arrive from Boston with the present for his mother. As soon as he heard the rumble of the wheels, he ran to the door. To his delight, the wagon stopped at the gate.

“Come here, youngster, and give us a lift,” called the express-man. “I’ve got something heavy for you.”

It was a large article, looking something like a table; but what it was Mrs. Cooper could not tell, on account of its many wrappings. “There must be some mistake,” she said, going to the door. “I am not expecting anything.”

“No, there isn’t,” said Johnny; “it’s all right, directed in large letters to Mrs. Mary Cooper, Benton.”

“I shall want fifty cents,” said the express-man.

“I’ve got it here,” said Johnny, seeing that his mother was searching for her pocket-book.

“O, by the way, here’s something else,—a letter directed to you. That will be fifteen cents more.”

“Indeed!” said Johnny surprised. “Well, here’s the money.” He took the letter, but did not open it at once. He wanted to enjoy his mother’s surprise.

Mrs. Cooper was unwrapping the machine. “What is this?” she exclaimed, in delighted surprise. “A sewing-machine! Who could have sent it? Do you know anything about it, Johnny?”

“Yes, mother. It’s a birthday present for you from me.”

“My dear boy! How could you ever have earned money enough to pay for it?”

Then Johnny told his mother all about it. And her eyes glistened with pride and joy as she heard, for the first time, how he had worked for months with this end in view, and she could not help giving him a grateful kiss, which I am sure paid Johnny for all he had done.

It was really a beautiful machine, and, though Johnny did not know it, cost considerably more than the hundred dollars he had sent. Mrs. Cooper found that it worked admirably, and would lighten her labors more even than she had hoped.

“But you haven’t opened your letter,” she said with a sudden recollection.

“So I haven’t,” said Johnny.

What was his surprise on opening it to discover the same hundred-dollar bill which Mr. Barclay had originally given him, accompanied by the following note.

There was great joy in the little cottage that evening. Johnny felt as rich as a millionnaire, and could not take his eyes from the corner where the handsome new sewing-machine had been placed. And his mother, happy as she was in her present, was happier in the thought that it had come to her through the good conduct of her son.

Horatio Alger, Jr.

AND A LITTLE ABOUT THEIR FLORA.

July and August.—Midsummer.

IDSUMMER comes at last! The warm days and the early wild-flowers are capricious, spring after spring, and cannot be bound to make their appearance on a special day. The anemones sometimes will take a start before the dog’s-tooth violets, and some springs all the wild-flowers insist upon coming out together; and if a cold northeast wind or rain has kept us in for some days, we find that the little, fleeting things have taken upon themselves to blossom all at once, and send their white flowers off on the wind, without waiting for us to look upon them. Then, too, we who are nearer the sea-shore are later with our wild-flowers than those who live a hundred miles away from our east wind; and a little farther south all the flowers can venture out a week or two sooner than with us. But the 15th of June brings us all up even,—everybody and everything. The grass by that time must needs be full and green everywhere, if it ever means to be; and the latest of forest-trees has its leaves out. Even the Catalpa in the grounds shows that it is not quite dead, but has sent out its new leaves, to cover the old pods of last year.

It was quite time to prepare for midsummer. Until now, everything has been growing and growing, preparing for these days of its climax, when everything will have reached its fulness and its greenness, to linger for a time, perhaps for a few days, in this rich culmination of its beauty, before it shall begin to ripen into decay, or show one dead leaf or drooping twig. They say there is such a day of complete beauty in the summer, when the leaves hang still and thoughtful on the large trees. I have often thought that I had found this day. It is before the farmers have cut their first crop of hay, or, if they have mowed some of the meadows, it is where the grass is already renewing itself greener and thicker than before. In some fields, the grass is in blossom, and then tall spikes wave about with the long blades in great billows before a wind. It is a gentle wind. It comes to lift up the branches of the trees, and show, underneath, what a full, soft growth of foliage each tree is bearing. Not one leaf has fallen yet,—not one shows a yellow tinge. The chestnuts have put on their cream-white blossoms, as though the Summer had been holding them back till she could throw over them this scattered foam, as a crown of beauty. It is a day of a blue, cloudless sky, when the sun rests on the broad meadows, still green,—when all the world of nature seems to be waiting, as if loath to begin upon its new form of growth, its time of ripening,—waiting for the full fruit,—waiting in midsummer, for the leaves to begin to call in again the fresh-flowing sap, to prepare for midwinter. Yes, as early as this, the plants and trees must begin to think of preparing for winter! Their life is “always beginning, never ending.” In the midsummer, the buds begin to prepare themselves for the next spring. The leaves dance and play awhile in the happy, soft summer breeze, as if conscious that they had reached the fulness of their beauty.

The office of the leaf has been to spread out to the light and air the green matter upon which the plant feeds. During its rapid summer growth, it has been drawing up, through the roots and fibres, the sap that has fed the whole plant. The water that comes up in the sap evaporates through the pores of the leaves. I hope to find some time to tell you of the forms and structure of these vessels; but, this midsummer day, we will wait with the leaves. In the water that the leaves drew up from the ground, there came too a small portion of earthy matter. A part of this has been left in the stem, increasing its hardness; but a larger portion is carried to the leaves. The water is exhaled, and the earthy matter is left behind in the cells of the leaf. This gradually chokes its tissue, and obstructs its vessels, and unfits it for its duty. So, as autumn approaches, the leaf languishes. The stem on which it rests continues to grow, and the feeble leaf, with all its breathing obstructed, cannot keep pace with this growth. A separation must take place: the petiole breaks away, and the leaf falls, leaving the scar which we have noticed. Here the new buds are to form themselves for the new leaves that the tree or plant will need for its growth another year. In most Endogenous plants, the leaf is not in this way attached to the stem by a joint, and it is not thrown off from the stem, but withers and decays there,—the dead petioles remaining for a long time.

But of this time of decay we need not think yet. When it does come, we shall find that the leaves are the last to wish us to feel mournful or sad about it; they will take this very time to put on their gayest and brightest hues, as if to show that they feel it is their time of ripening, and that they must wear their most brilliant colors, as the fruits do.

Now, especially, is the time for rejoicing; and we have seen how the Chestnut has waited till now with its blossoms to give us a glad surprise. For they always do surprise us. Are not you glad that flowers and plants do not have the methodical way that some people do, of putting away their furs on a particular day, and building their furnace-fires on another? How tiresome it would be if all the flowers came out regularly on the first day of May! Not tiresome exactly;—I do not suppose there would be so much confusion as in New York, where everybody does his moving on the same day. Each tree would have its own furniture-cart, and would spread out its own leaves without interfering with anybody else. But we should be bewildered with so much flowering, and we are sufficiently so now. Botanists are much puzzled to know how to rank the flowers, each one is formed so differently, each wearing its own shape, after its own fashion.

Here are the Chestnut-blossoms. Showy as they are, they cannot come under the type of perfect flowers. Yet they are of the First Series, as they have the principal parts of a flower. They are of the first class, of wooded plants, and of the first sub-class. They fall into the third division, and they are Apetalous; that is, the corolla is wanting. You remember the anemones and hepaticas were in this division. They belong to the Oak Family. The sterile or staminate flowers are clustered in long catkins, with a calyx 5-6 parted; the fertile or pistillate flowers are two or three together in prickly burrs, which, when ripe, bear the nuts. The beautiful cream-colored blossoms are the long staminate catkins that spread out near the end of the branches; the pistillate are at the base of the stalks of the staminate flowers, and are surrounded with crowded leaves and prickles.

Along the hedges, we can still find some of the wild roses, and still, in the beginning of July, some lingering strawberries. The roses and strawberries belong to the same family; so it will not be out of place to sit down under the shade of our Chestnut, and examine before eating. Let us look first at the rose.

Such a large family as is the Rose Family,—did you know it?—and our little single wild rose stands modestly near the end of the list. This family embraces “plants with regular flowers, numerous (rarely few) distinct stamens inserted on the calyx, and one or many pistils, quite distinct, or united and combined with the calyx-tube. Calyx of usually five sepals, united at the base, often appearing double by a row of bractlets outside. Petals as many as the sepals, rarely wanting, mostly imbricated in the bud, and inserted with the stamens on the edge of a disk that lines the calyx-tube. Trees, shrubs, or herbs.”

The Rose genus is described as having its calyx-tube urn-shaped, contracted at the mouth, becoming fleshy in fruit. Petals five, inserted, with the many stamens, into the edge of the hollow thin disk that lines the calyx-tube and bears the numerous pistils over its whole inner surface.

I want to show you how exactly we find this description that I have Italicized carried out when we cut open one of these rose-buds, and see the position of the pistils and stamens with our own eyes. And the examination of this rose-bud will show us its relationship with the strawberry. If we could place by the side of this section of the rose-bud that of a strawberry flower, we should see how this same receptacle, that in the rose held the pistils, has enlarged to form the pulpy, edible fruit, holding the pistils that are to form the real fruit. But we will slice our strawberry, which will show the same thing in a more advanced stage. You see it is the receptacle of the strawberry now enlarged, bearing the small seed-like pistils on its surface. The seeds are borne differently in the rose: the receptacle, instead of being convex or conical, is concave, or urn-shaped, as you can see in a section of the rose-hip. It is like the finger of a glove reversed, like a strawberry turned inside out, the whole covered by the adherent tube of the calyx, which remains beneath in the strawberry.

I spoke just now of real fruit, meaning the term that botanists use for the seed-vessel, and the seeds contained in it. The seed-vessel is called the Pericarp. The principal kinds of fruits are divided into three,—Fleshy Fruits, Stone Fruits, and Dry Fruits. You might hardly think to find the strawberry among these last. But you must remember that its seed-vessels, its real fruits, are on the outside of the pulpy receptacle that you are eating. If you examine each one of these little seed-vessels, you will find the remains of its style on the place from which it has fallen. It is called an Achenium or Akene, which is the name given to such small, one-seeded, dry fruit. In one strawberry, you swallow a great many of these.

After this “dry fruit,” we will rob our luncheon-basket for something more luscious,—a bunch of cherries, the last of the season. For it will give an example of the stone fruit, or drupe. In the drupe the outer part of the thickness of the pericarp, or seed-vessel, becomes fleshy, and softens; while the inner has hardened like a nut. We will look for some more of these drupes in the hedge around us. Here are some unripe blackberries and raspberries that will serve us, though you would not think it! Each one of these grains on the berry is a drupe, as though a bunch of cherries had grown together directly from the receptacle. In the strawberry, we eat the receptacle, or end of the flower-stalk; in the raspberry, a cluster of stone fruits, like cherries on a very small scale; and in the blackberry, both a juicy receptacle and a cluster of stone fruits covering it.

So these are not berries in the strict, botanical sense. A true berry comes under the first division of fleshy fruits. With these, the whole pericarp, or wall of the ovary, thickens and becomes soft (fleshy, juicy, or pulpy) as it grows ripe. They include berries, gourd fruit, and pomes, meaning apples, pears, and quinces. So, while strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries cannot come into this division, in spite of their name, we can go “berry-ing” for whortleberries, blueberries, and cranberries with a clear conscience. The orange answers, too, the description of a berry, with a leathery rind. And the pumpkin, squash, cucumber, and melon are examples of gourds. A gourd is a “sort of berry” with a hard rind and soft interior.

We must not be too busy with these fruits in midsummer, to overlook the flowers or the full summer growth. Not only the trees are crowded with leaves, but every shrub and bush, every vine and weed, has been luxuriating in greenness. The paths along which we passed in spring are now all grown over with briers and brambles. It is hard work to make our way into the woods; and we should no longer find there the little delicate flowers that ventured to appear in the early spring. But July and August have their myriads of flowers. We should never be able to read or write of them all. They are showy ones, too, and each one seems to call for special notice, and make us want to cry out, “Ah, was there ever anything so beautiful?”

Filling in all the undergrowth of the woods is the Kalmia. The glossy green of its leaves has made the woods beautiful all winter long, and through the spring; and now it lights them up into more gorgeous beauty with its brilliant flowers. I have told you how it was related with the Epigæa, or Mayflower, and, with the Rhodora and another relation, the Azalia, has just passed or is passing away from the swamps. What a beautiful family, indeed! All with such exquisite or brilliant colors, and so much variety in their forms! The Kalmia, or American Laurel, has its own salver-shaped flower, “between wheel-shaped and bell-shaped,” difficult to describe, white or pink, “five-lobed, furnished with ten depressions, in which the ten anthers are severally lodged until they begin to shed their pollen; filaments thread-form; calyx five-parted.” Its brilliant clusters light up each side of the road, as we pass through it, for miles and miles. And, away from the road, we find it thick in the woods, or scattered down some hilly slope, every summer exciting us to fresh amazement.

In August, among the brambles and the blackberry-vines at the foot of the hedges, by the side of some very quiet roads or lanes, can be found a pretty wild bean, sometimes called the Ground-Nut. Its flowers are of a purplish chocolate-color, or a “brown purple,” and are fragrant. It twines and climbs around the bushes, bearing clusters of flowers; and their shape leads me to speak of the differing forms of flowers.

It is hard enough to put all their different shapes into classes. Yet the wiser and wiser men grow, the more they try to describe and to classify all the flowers of the earth. The more they find out their differences, the more anxious they are to find out the points that make them alike, that they may know how to recognize them again, and how to make others recognize them. It is only the savage, says a wise man, that gives the name of “flower” to one and all.

Let us, then, take a heap of our summer flowers in our lap, and see how many different shapes of flowers we have, and find out what are their names. Here is the Rosaceous flower, and the Liliaceous, which explain themselves,—so many of the fruit-blossoms and our wild rose have given us the shape of the petals of the first, and the gay field-lily now shows us that of the second. The Caryophyllaceous flower might need more explanation, which we can find in the Wild Pink, late in June, or in the Soapwort, or “Bouncing Bet,” that grows by roadsides. The five petals have long, narrow claws, that are enclosed in the tube of the calyx. The cruciate or cruciform flower gives its name to the order of the Cruciferæ, to which the Mustard and Radish belong. This is a large family, and all its flowers bear much resemblance to each other. They have four petals placed in the form of a cross, and of their six stamens four are equal in length, while two are shorter and exterior. These are all somewhat regular in form; but the Ground-Nut and the Lupines we picked some weeks ago are irregular, and have a papilionaceous, or butterfly-shaped corolla. The petals of such a corolla bear separate names. The upper petal is termed the vexillum (standard or banner); the two lateral ones are called wings (alæ); and the two lower, which are usually somewhat united along their anterior edges, and are more or less boat-shaped, form together the keel (carina). There are other forms of Polypetalous flowers (those with many petals) that you can recall in the Columbine (Aquilegia), and in the Larkspur and Monk’s-hood in the gardens. All children have found in the latter the “Venus’s car drawn by doves,” by pulling back the purple hood.

The monopetalous corolla and calyx have, too, as varied forms. Among the more regular shapes is the campanulate, or bell-shaped flower. Where shall you go to find an example of this? I will tell you. You must think of the very prettiest place in woods, near river-banks, of which you know,—some place so lovely, with all its scenery, its wild growth, its shade of trees, its moss-grown, rocky seats, that you would think not one more thing was needed to make it the loveliest place in the world. You will find that one more thing has come,—the Harebell. On the bank, by the broad river-side, looking across to glowing sunsets; in wet, rocky glens, where the pathway is slippery with moist moss; on islands, hanging over the edge of the water; almost dipping into the foam of hidden waterfalls; on the shore of Niagara;—in the prettiest and the grandest places, all by itself, or in large companies, it grows. Nobody can paint it, for no one could make it tremble, or take into the picture the loveliness of the spot where it chooses to live. So you must find it for yourself, if you want to know it,—and you will see what a campanulate flower is.

We can venture to come back to the funnel-shaped flowers; for among these is the Morning-Glory, beloved of our childhood,—almost the only flower that was willing to come up from the seeds we planted and dug over. The wild Convolvulus, or Bindweed, has an uncommonly pretty leaf.

Then there is the tubular form. For a representative of this look in the wild, uncultivated bits of land by the roadside, where tall plants cluster on the edge of a brook, or marshy place. Among these, lifting themselves above all the rest, are some rough-looking, stout-stemmed herbs, that bear large clusters of handsome, purplish flowers, which have a picturesque effect, and are gorgeous among the thick green of the tangled mass. The flowers are in dense corymbs; that is, they form clusters,—each flower resting on a pedicel, or small stalk, that lifts them up to an even head, each flower being tubular. This is the Eupatorium, or Joe-Pye Weed. Its color varies from pink to purple. It is common in low grounds. It belongs to a sub-order of the large family of Compositæ.

There is a large order among the monopetalous flowers of the Labiates, Labiatæ, which are more frequent, however, in Europe. The various kinds of mint are of this form. The corolla is two-lipped, and sometimes the calyx also. Two of the petals grow together, higher than the rest, and form an upper lip, and the three remaining ones join on the other side of the flower to form the lower lip, and the flower is, therefore, monopetalous. When the two lips are separated, and the throat open, it is said to be ringent. But when it is closed by the bringing together of the two lips, or by an elevated protuberance of the lower, called the palate, the corolla is said to be personate, or masked. This can be seen in the common Snapdragon and Toadflax.

The Whiteweed, Succory, and Dandelion are examples of the Compositæ. Each apparent flower is rather a collection of distinct blossoms, closely crowded together in a head, and surrounded by an involucre. In the Whiteweed, the flowers round the edge have flat and open or strap-shaped corollas, which are pistillate, bearing a pistil only. In the Dandelion and Succory, the flowers are perfect, bear both stamens and pistils, and are all strap-shaped.

The Clematis keeps on a long, continuous beauty. It climbs over and around the shrubs in the wild hedges with its twisting branches. Its flower has no corolla, but four sepals, and gains its showy appearance from its seed-vessels, or achenia. These bear persistent styles, that are long and feathery. So to the flowers succeed, through autumn, the “conspicuous feathery tails” of the fruit.

In the hedges, too, is the Clethra, of the brilliant Heath Family. It does not inherit the rich color of its tribe, but it has none the less of its beauty. Its flowers are white, in “terminal racemes”; that is, the flowers cluster along a common stalk. It has a corolla of five obovate-oblong petals, a calyx of five sepals, and its blossoms have a delightful fragrance. But we must leave the dry hedges, and the woods, and penetrate into moister spots, and find the myriad beauties that are hidden in—a swamp.

Willow-bushes hedge it in, and a thicket of reeds and sedges, through which we must search for a safe footing far in, if we are only wise enough (not to be armed, but) to be footed with India-rubber boots. The tall Cat-tail (or Cat-o’-nine-tails), or Reed-mace, stands among the reeds with its rich red-brown clubs, either as a defender of the pass or to invite us in. As we plunge on, among the black mud, and the green reeds and grasses, we seem to have come into the very centre of all growing things. Dragon-flies hover over the pools of water, clouds of insects swarm among the bushes, frogs croak under our feet,—there is a mass of life, animal and vegetable, around us. Green all about, and glimpses of blue sky above, and blue reflected in the pools that lie at the foot of great moss-grown trunks of trees. We press on, for besides all the wonders of swamp-life that encourage us and stay us, we are aiming for a great prize. We have not time to look at all the microscopic Algæ that form a green growth over the water itself, but we plunge along.

Here is the Iris, or Blue Flag, with its sword-like leaves. Some of its blue flowers still linger,—deep blue, veined with green, yellow, and white dashes at its base. And the leaves of the Side-saddle-flower grow closely together around its roots, pitcher-like in form, holding water still. Here are huge shrubs or trees of Laurel, the Dog-wood growing rankly, delicate Gold-thread, and such Mosses! Happy mud-turtles sitting on projecting roots or flat stones, as if conscious of being in the very heart of their own dominions, by the side of nodding lilies. This is the land of the Arethusas, and of the Calopogon.

In wet places, near Plymouth, grows the Sabbatia, with its handsome, rose-colored flowers.

Great hemlocks rise amongst the luxurious growth. There is a mound of moss-grown rock, and a dry spot, among the roots of one of these great trees, where one can stop to look round. Grape-vines and Clematis are trailing among the shrubs and trees, and fill up all the passages, so that now we cannot tell where we came in, or how we shall get away from the tangle of growth. Here are alders, and elders, and birches, and strange deepening blueberries, that we do not venture to pick. Little rabbit-paths lead in among the bushes; if we were only small enough to follow them, what might we not find? We could penetrate into the mounds of ferns and brake that grow rankly all around. We seem to have reached a strange, unknown, tropical country, and could fancy that from behind the jungle some wild beast might appear, or some imp look out from the bushes, or a snake crawl from the slime. Down among deep bogs such as these lie, and are found, relics of old, old times, of other races; and, in the moist, earthy atmosphere, we feel as if we too might vegetate, then stay and fossilize, to be dug up and wondered over some millions of years hence. But there is a path through it all: over stones, clutching at briers, stopping to admire smooth reeds, strange tall grasses, thick brakes, we come at last to a sunshiny place, where the wonder of our swamp breaks in upon us. We are in one of the favored spots where the Rhododendron grows.

High overhead, all around us, the rich pink blossoms fill us with a new wonder. What a strange place for this brilliant foreign-looking plant to choose! It must miss the flamingoes and parrots and palm-trees of a home in the South. No, it is native born and bred. It is found “sparingly in New England, New York, and Ohio, but very common along shaded water-courses in the mountains of Pennsylvania and southward.” It grows sometimes twenty feet high. Its beautiful corolla is of pale rose-color, or nearly white, greenish on the upper side, and spotted with yellow or reddish, bell-shaped, or partly funnel-form. It is somewhat two-lipped. Its color varies with its position and in its growth. I could wish the swamps where it grows might be even more fiercely guarded by dragon-flies, or snake-root, or frogsbit, spike-rush, grass-blades, or spear-grass, so that these oases of glorious flowers might not be disturbed or cut away, but left to rule in their strange solitude.

We might keep on in our walk to where the water spreads out, away from its reedy margin, into a pond. But we must take an early morning for our search after Water-Lilies,—a morning time, when we can catch them just as the morning sun is waking them up from their night’s sleep. We shall have to leave our sleep still earlier, and have a chance to see the first dawning glow above the hills, to watch the spiders’ webs along the roadside, freshly spread for their day’s work. They must have been up early, too! No, the webs were spread the last thing before going to bed, so that the spider can take a late nap, while the silly insects that are out earlier are caught in his toils. The webs make a lovely tapestry in the grass before the dust has weighed them down, and while the morning dew is sprinkled over them.

But who can describe the sight, when, one after another, the Water-Lily buds open to meet the sun, across the broad pond? It is indeed bewildering with its flashing beauty. How the half-opened flowers float gracefully on the surface of the water, sending their deep green smooth stalks far down into the deep earth below, so that they can sway at their ease, supported by the waves! I shall not describe it to you botanically, as you must find it for yourself in your Gray’s Botany. Only observe its four green sepals and white petals, and how these last pass gradually into yellow stamens in the centre.

In among the lilies is other water-growth,—pink and blue flowers that you must study,—the wonderful Vallisneria, a sort of Eel-grass. The flowers are diœcious; that is, the pistils and stamens are found in separate plants. The staminate flowers grow on so short a scape, or flower-stalk, that they are confined to the bottom of the water. The fertile flowers are borne on an exceedingly long scape. So, when the staminate clusters are ready, they break away from their stalks, and float on the surface, where they open and shed their pollen around the pistillate flowers, which are raised to the surface at the same time. Afterwards, the fertile scapes—from two to four feet long, if the water is as deep—coil up spirally, and draw the seed-vessel under water to ripen.

We shall want to carry away some of our prize of Water-Lilies in the bud. They are in the habit of opening day after day, three times, and then their little life is over. If their pretty long stalks are cut away, we can keep them afloat in a shallow dish, opening for three days, and shutting at night for sleep.

In August, and late in July, we can find the Cardinal-flower, “the superb Lobelia, flashing among the sedges,” as Willis calls it. Its deep red, five-lobed, monopetalous corolla is split down to its base on one side, and its five stamens hang free from the corolla.

The Kalmia, the Rhododendron, the Water-Lily, and the Cardinal-flower are some of the glories of midsummer. It is hard to name them all, when we think of meadows, fields, hillsides, swamps, and deep glens,—glens with all the varieties of Ferns and Maiden-hair. And already over the stone walls stretch the long branches of the Golden-Rod, Hypericon, and Blue Vervain. But these can wait for us till September.

Lucretia P. Hale.

I SAID that on the tenth day of their stay on the desolate island, Carrie was waked early in the morning by the cry of “A sail!” Yet when she sprang up from her hard bed she could see no sail anywhere, nor anything unusual. There they were, as before, down at the end of the island, with the birds. One flock of strange little birds were perched close by Carrie, forty or fifty in number, going through the same performance which she had so often watched in the morning,—nodding a great many times at each other, and putting morsels from one beak into another, till the same bit of food had gone half round the circle,—as if this were their morning salutation, and means of finding out each other’s condition for the day. The birds appeared as usual; but when Carrie looked along the coral island, she saw it covered with groups of people, standing up, half dressed, and eagerly gazing towards the west. When she gazed also in the same direction, she saw a little upright shadow against the sky, on the far-off horizon, and she knew that there was the blessed sail.

Every eye on the island was turned to it, but for a few minutes nobody spoke. Nobody dared feel quite sure that it was a vessel, and even if it were, the crew might not see the coral island, it was so low, and there was not wood enough to raise the flag high. And even if they saw the flag, they might not see that it was placed upside down, or “Union down,” which is the signal of distress at sea. But soon the vessel came more clearly in view, and then there appeared another; and soon the shipwrecked people could distinguish two brave little schooners beating up against the wind, coming straight for the wreck, and bearing the red English flag. It was found, on their arrival, that they had been catching turtles on what is called the Mosquito Coast; and as soon as the little boat from the wreck had reached them, they had unloaded their cargo, which took them a whole day, and then set sail at once. They threw overboard all their turtles, except three large ones, which they brought to the shipwrecked people for food.

But these two small schooners could only take a very small part of the six hundred people, and what would become of the rest? However, the very next day brought two large American gunboats, or naval steamers, named the “Huntsville” and the “State of Georgia.” One of the boats from the wreck had gone all the way to Aspinwall, more than a hundred miles, and had got the commander of these vessels to come to Roncador Reef.

The people were all taken from the island in boats, as soon as possible, and put on board these vessels. Many of them were so weak that they could not stand, and had to be lifted by the sailors; and Carrie wrote home that when she got on board everybody was so kind that she could do nothing but cry. The officers brought them nice broth and wine and ice-water; and told how anxious they themselves had been, while coming as fast as possible on their humane errand. They thought that the shipwrecked passengers might have no water, as the supply was so uncertain; or that there might come a storm, bringing the waves across the low island. They said, too, that the wreck took place so far from the usual track of vessels that no one would ever have gone there to look for the passengers, if the little boat had not succeeded in reaching Aspinwall. And it seemed a wonder that it ever arrived there; for it was out nearly three days and nights, was once nearly upset, so as to lose all the provisions on board; besides that the compass would not work, because of the iron in the boat. So their rescue appeared very wonderful; and several of the ladies said afterwards, that it seemed as if they had really known what it was to die,—as if the mere sweeping of the water over them would not have been much, after their minds were made up to it; and one lively French lady used to say, when there was any alarm, “Since I died, I have had no fear.”

When the rescued passengers arrived at Aspinwall, they immediately took the railway cars which had been waiting to carry them across the Isthmus to Panama. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and it seemed a dream, after their strange island life, to be whirled along through all the new scenery of the tropics,—past great palm-trees, having native huts beneath them, made of the palm-trunks in columns, all open, and thatched with the leaves of the same tree. The natives were not like the poor people in Northern cities in being ragged and dirty, but were so clean and white in their garments, however destitute they might be, that it was a pleasure to see them; and the women wore pretty muslins and laces drooping from their bare shoulders; and some of them had bright flowers, blue and red and yellow, behind their ears.

In describing the shipwreck, I spoke of Julia, the colored girl, who, when the vessel struck, supposed that to be the usual mode of stopping. Julia enjoyed the ride across the Isthmus, and presently a colored man came and sat down by her, and asked if she “got free in de Linkum war.” She said, “Yes.” Then some one asked him where he came from, and he said, “Jamaica.” Carrie asked him if he had been free a long time, and he answered, with great energy, “Before I was born I was free,” and repeated it again and again, “Before I was born.”

When they reached Panama, on the Pacific coast, they all had to begin crying again, Carrie said, because the people were so kind to them. The moment she got out of the car, she was clasped in the arms of a Spanish woman, who said in English, as well as she could, “O, we have thought so much about you. We feared you would die for want of water.” It was a beautiful thought to Carrie, that persons she had never seen could care so much about her, just because she was a human being like themselves. Afterwards these kind women sent trunks of clothing on board the steamer which was to take them to San Francisco, and Carrie had a pair of their pretty little blue kid slippers given to her, just like a pair which had been worn at home by the dearest of her friends.

Now I must tell you about little Roncadora, and then stop. One night, as they were sailing on the Pacific Ocean, there came some very beautiful gray and white gulls, flying over and around the vessel, with pretty orange bills, and fringed wings, and white fan-tails. They seemed very gentle, dove-like, confiding birds; and they only stayed one day. The last thing Carrie saw at night was one of these birds, still flying after the vessel, late into the darkness; and when next morning she heard that a little baby had been born on board the ship, it seemed just as if these birds had brought her, and so she wrote to us about them all together.

The captain of the steamer took a great interest in the little new-comer, because he was returning home to a baby of his own, whom he had never seen. So he put the cabin in festive array; and for the christening basin they prepared a great pink conch-shell, and arranged an American flag to hang over baby’s head. The captain gave her some little garments that he was carrying home for his own baby, and also some little gold clasps for her sleeves. The christening service was performed by a missionary who was on board, and she was named, from the reef where they were wrecked, “Roncadora America.” When the name was pronounced, the great gun of the ship was fired, and then the captain addressed the father, who held her, presenting him with a purse of fifty dollars from the passengers, and ending triumphantly,

At this the father uncovered her, though she had made herself quite apparent before, by wrestling with her little fists under her counterpane, and uttering many wild and incomprehensible sounds. She proved to be a pretty baby, with a great deal of soft dark-brown hair. Of course she was a pet for all the passengers until they reached California.

They arrived in San Francisco on the forty-second day after leaving home,—twice the length of the usual passage. This was not the end of Carrie’s adventures, for she was going on to Puget’s Sound, in Washington Territory, and next time I shall tell how she got there, and about her interviews with the Indians. But now I shall leave her at San Francisco, resting after her weary voyage. She wrote home from that place, “We are very happy here, with Hop Kin and the other Chinese men, who make our bed and wash our clothes; and we think we shall remain here some time.”

T. W. Higginson.

VII.

I HAVE been a little unwell lately, and, being obliged to stay in the house, a friend kindly sent me a lot of books,—“to kill the time with,” he said. Among them was one of which my readers have probably heard; “Ten Acres Enough,” it is called, and a most delightful book it is. Well, I read “Ten Acres,” and have thought of “Ten Acres” ever since, and if it will not weary my young friends, I will, for the subject of this Lesson, introduce an agricultural topic,—which it is,—eggs.

I remember once seeing a sign in New York, many years ago, which read, “Fresh-laid Eggs, every day, by Mary McCabe.”^[1] I don’t know whether Mary is yet alive, but if she is, let her read attentively this Lesson, and, having read it, save herself much trouble by procuring

The Egg Bag.

The performer comes on the stage, holding in his hand a woollen bag, and addresses his audience somewhat as follows:—“Here, ladies and gentlemen, I have a bag, a woollen bag. I use that material so that I may pull it over your eyes if necessary. This is a very eggs-traordinary bag; it is supposed to have formerly belonged to the goddess Ceres, but has been in my possession now for a series of years. It is eggs-tremely useful for the la(y)dies, and would throw a farmer’s wife into egg-stasies. I hope you will excuse these little jokes, as I assure you they are not only quite harmless, but really necessary for my trick, which I will now begin. I first turn the bag inside out so that you may see it is empty.” (Turns the bag.) “Next, I throw it into the air, and, letting it fall, trample it under my feet.” (In each instance suiting the action to the word.) “I think you will all admit that the contents, supposing there were any, would be pretty well crushed by this time; and yet, see! I place my hand inside, and running it down to the corner, I bring out a nice fresh egg. That this is the genuine article, and not a ‘counterfeit presentment,’ I will convince you by breaking it.” (Breaks the egg.) “Again I place my hand inside the bag, and another egg comes forth. Now I will turn the bag once more, and show you that the outside, which is now inside, also contains eggs. See!” (Takes an egg from the bag.) “Now, ladies and gentlemen, some of you may think that these eggs come from my sleeve, but they do not, I assure you. They come from the bag; and if you will look carefully, you will see that something drops inside. In that something is an egg. Now, watch!” (Shakes the bag gently, and something inside falls.) “I will now take out the egg, and place it along with its fellows on this plate.”

And so he goes on, taking egg after egg from this apparently empty bag, until at least a dozen are on the plate.

The trick has always been a popular one; but, in order to make it effective, it is necessary to talk the whole time; and I am doubtful whether it would please as much in the drawing-room as it does on the stage. It is very simple, the whole secret being in the construction of the bag, which is made in this way.

Get some heavy woollen stuff, and have two bags made,—one a trifle smaller than the other in every way, so that if one is placed inside the other, and the two then sewed together at the mouth, they will appear as one. Next have a number of pockets made, and have these placed between the two bags, sewing one side of the pocket to the inner bag, and the other side to the outer. Have a slit cut in each bag, just above where these pockets are sewed, so that, whichever bag is inside, you can always have access from it to the pockets. It is in these pockets, which are closed with a hook and eye, that the eggs are placed. The reader will naturally wonder, however, why the eggs are not broken when the bag is trodden on and beaten against the floor. As that would not be a pleasing feature, we guard against it by having them made of white kid, filled with cotton or hair. The two genuine eggs which were first brought out of the bag were held concealed in the performer’s hand,—palmed, in fact,—and in that way introduced inside.

At the conclusion of this trick you may with very good effect introduce

The Animated Egg.

To perform this trick, two hats are borrowed from the audience, who are requested to assure themselves that there is no preparation about them. An egg is then shown, and, to prove that it is not connected by a thread to the performer, it is laid on a table whilst the conjurer walks off from it. Everything having been proved to be fair and above-board, the egg is placed inside one of the hats. Music now strikes up, and presently the egg appears on the rim of the hat, actually walking out by itself. The audience of course are astonished, and signify their approbation of this proceeding by “deafening applause.” The egg, however, with that modesty which is ever found in the true artist, merely bows its acknowledgments, and, keeping on the “even tenor of his way,” proceeds to march around the rim of the hat, and then, striking out into a new path, begins the circuit of the crown. The performer now places the second hat close to that upon which the egg is travelling, and, leaving the one it is on, it gracefully passes to the other. So it continues dancing round the hat, walking into it, creeping up the performer’s arm, and doing all sorts of strange things, never before heard of in the annals of eggs.

The trick never fails to please, and yet is one of the most simple known. The egg which is used is merely a shell, having been emptied of its contents by making a pin-hole at each end, and sucking or blowing out the white and yolk. The egg, having been thus prepared, is laid in a dish with others, before beginning the trick. So much for the preparation of the egg. To the top button of the performer’s waistcoat is fastened a piece of very fine sewing-silk, to the other end of which is attached a small piece of wax. Everything is now in readiness to begin the trick. The egg is laid on the table, and the performer walks to the other side of the room, permitting any one to pass between him and the egg, so as to assure the audience that it is not attached to his person in any way. Returning to the table, he picks up the egg, and, in doing so, presses on it the end of the silk to which the wax is attached.

He next takes one of the hats and places the egg inside of it. Now comes the only part that requires practice. The egg being inside, the performer moves the hat down, until the egg is even with the rim, and it appears to the audience as if it had walked up, instead of the hat moving down; then, taking off the egg, he holds the hat before him with the crown in a horizontal position, as shown in the accompanying illustration, and begins to turn the hat round, turning it from him; this again gives the audience the impression that the egg is walking up the hat.

With very little practice, this trick may be performed as well by any of Our Young Folks, as by the most skilful magician.

Whilst on the subject I will describe another trick in which eggs play a prominent part. It is known as

The Singular Saucepan,

and is performed as follows:—

Four rings are borrowed from the audience, and placed in a pistol; a saucepan is then shown, and the performer, placing some eggs in it, proceeds to pour some spirits-of-wine on them, which he lights, remarking at the same time (he always makes this remark, as omitting it would evince a want of respect to a most venerable joke), “This, they say, is the way they cook in Japan, but at any rate it is the way I cook in my pan.” When the eggs are nearly cooked, the cover is placed on the saucepan, and the pistol which holds the rings is aimed and fired at it. The cover is now removed, and in the place of the eggs, are found four doves, each with a ribbon round its neck, to which is attached a ring. The birds are handed to the persons who loaned the rings, with the request that they will identify their property.

For this trick, a saucepan of peculiar construction is required. It is made of three parts,—a saucepan proper, a lining, and a cover. The saucepan is made, say eleven inches in diameter and five in depth, and has an iron handle; the lining is about half the depth of the pan, and of such circumference as to just admit of its being placed inside the pan, where it must fit tightly; it must be made of thin tin, the idea being to give the impression that there is nothing in the pan, when it is really inside; the cover, which, like all saucepan covers, goes inside the pan, is made of such size that it will fit inside the lining. Supposing the saucepan to be properly made, we will proceed with the trick.

The performer goes among the audience, holding in his hand a small stick, and requests the loan of four rings. As they are handed to him, he begs that the owners will place them on the stick, so that he may not be accused of changing them. This being done, he takes hold of the ends of the stick, one with each hand, and begins to run the rings up and down it, by turning the stick, first with one end up, and then with the other. Whilst doing this, he manages to pass over the end which is in his right hand four rings of his own, which, he has held concealed there; and when next the genuine rings come down to his left hand, he holds them there, but turns the stick immediately after, and, although no rings run down it, the audience imagine that they do, from the fact of his having made the movement Again he turns the stick, and this lets the false rings run down. Having changed the rings, there is no further necessity of turning the stick, which is now laid down with the request that the audience will keep a watch upon it. The pistol is next produced, and, after being duly loaded, the performer attempts to put the rings in, but the bore being too small, he is unable to do it. He then fits to the barrel a funnel made of brass or tin, and in this he places the rings. This funnel is made in this way; the pipe is carried up into the body of the funnel; and it is between this pipe and the sides of the funnel that all articles are placed. As this article is used whenever the conjurer has occasion to place anything in a gun or pistol, it is important that the student of magic should understand it, and, that he may the more fully comprehend it, I annex a cut showing much more clearly than I can describe it how the thing is made.

The false rings now being in the pistol, the conjurer goes out to get his saucepan, taking the borrowed rings with him. These he attaches to pieces of ribbon which he fastens on the necks of the doves. He then puts the birds in the lining of the pan, and over them again, but inside of the lining, places the cover. Taking the saucepan in one hand, and the lining and cover (the doves between them, of course) in the other, he goes back to the audience, and, laying the lining and cover on a table, hands out the saucepan for examination. This being concluded, he places the eggs in the pan, pours the spirit on them, lights it, and, whilst it is blazing, claps the cover and lining on, or rather in, the pan, fires the pistol at it, and the next moment, pulling out the cover and leaving the lining behind, discovers to the astonished audience the doves with the rings on their necks.

I hope I have made this description clear; for it is a pretty trick, and, when properly done, a pleasing one.

P. H. C.

OR, A VOYAGE AMONG THE TREE-TOPS.

CHAPTER LXXXII.

A SLOW RETREAT: IN THE ARCADE.

THEIR report spread consternation among the crew. Trevannion, incredulous of the existence of such bloodthirsty savages as Munday represented the Muras to be, was disposed to treat it as an exaggeration. The young Paraense, who, when in his father’s house, had met many of the up-river traders, and heard them conversing on this very theme, was able to indorse what the Mundurucú said. It was well known to the traders that there were tribes of wild Indians inhabiting the Gapo lands, who during the season of the inundation made their home among the tree-tops,—that some of these were cannibals, and all of them savages of a most ferocious type, with whom an encounter in their native wilds, by any party not strong enough to resist them, might prove both dangerous and deadly.

There was no time to argue; and without further opposition the ex-miner himself sprang to one of the paddles, the tapuyo taking the other. They had no idea of going back across the lagoa. To have proceeded in that direction would have been to court discovery. With such slow progress as theirs, a mile would be about all they could make before daybreak; and, out on the open water, their craft would be distinguishable at three times that distance. The course counselled by the tapuyo was to keep at first parallel to the line of the trees; and then enter among these as soon as the dawn began.

As the party retreated, not two, but ten fires were seen gleaming among the trees, filling the forest with their bright coruscation. The tapuyo explained that each new light denoted the uprising of a fresh family, until the whole malocca was astir. The fires were kindled to cook the breakfast of the Indians. Notwithstanding this domestic design, our adventurers looked back upon them with feelings of apprehension; for they were not without fears that, roasted over those very fires, they might furnish the savages with the material for a cannibal repast!

To all appearance never did the ceiba go slower,—never lie so dull upon the water. Despite the vigorous straining of strong arms, it scarcely seemed to move. The sail was of no service, as there was not a breath of air, but was rather an obstruction; and, seeing this, Mozey let loose the halyards and gently lowered it.

They had hardly made half a mile from the point of starting, when they saw the dawn just appearing above the tops of the trees. They were upon the equator itself, where between dawn and daylight there is but a short interval of time. Knowing this, the craft was turned half round, and pulled towards a place of concealment. As they moved on to make it, they could see the sunlight stealing over the surface of the water, and the fires becoming paler at its approach. In ten minutes more, daylight would be upon them!

It was now a struggle against time,—a trial of speed between the ceiba and the sun,—both slowly approaching a critical point in their course. Trevannion and the tapuyo plied the paddles as men rowing for their lives and the lives of others dear to them. They almost felt as if the sun favored them; for he not only seemed to suspend his rising, but to sink back in his course. Perhaps it was only the shadow of the trees, under which they had now entered. At all events, they were in the midst of obscurity, propelling the dead-wood into the embouchure of an igarapé, overshadowed with drooping trees, that, like a dark cavern, promised them a hiding-place.

At the moment of entering, it was so dark they could not tell how far the opening extended. In this uncertainty they suspended the stroke of their paddles, and suffered the ceiba to come to a standstill. As yet they had no other light than that afforded by the fire-flies that flitted about under the trees. But these were of the large species, known as Cocuyos (Elater noctilucus), one of which, when held over the page of a printed book, enables a person to read; and as there were many of them wandering about, their united sparkle enabled our adventurers to make out that the creek was of very limited extent.

Gradually, as the sun rose higher, his light fell gently glimmering through the leaves, and showed that the arcade was a cul de sac, extending only about a hundred yards into the labyrinth of branches and parasitical plants. They had entered, so to speak, a court through which there was no thoroughfare; and there they must remain. They could only get out of it by taking to the tree-tops, or else by returning to the open lagoa. But they had had enough of travelling through the tree-tops, while to abandon the craft that had carried them so comfortably, and that might still avail them, was not to be thought of.

As to returning to the open water, that would be like delivering themselves into the very jaws of the danger they were desirous to avoid; for, once seen by the savages, there would not be the slightest chance of escape. They were provided with canoes moored among the tree-trunks that formed the supports of their aerial habitations. Clumsy structures enough; but, no matter how clumsy or slow, they were swifter than the dead-wood; and in the event of a chase the latter would be easily overhauled and captured. Only one course offered any prospect of safety,—to remain all day in the arcade, trusting that none of the savages might have any business near the place. At night they could steal out again, and by an industrious use of their paddles put a safer distance between themselves and the dangerous denizens of the malocca.

Having determined on this, they drew their craft into the darkest corner, and, making it fast to a tree, prepared to pass the time in the pleasantest possible manner.

There was not much pleasure sitting in that silent, sombre shadow; especially as they were in dread that its silence might be disturbed by the wild shout of a savage. They had taken every precaution to escape discovery. The little fire left burning upon the log had been extinguished by Munday, immediately on seeing the two lights first described. They would fain have rekindled it, to cook a breakfast; but fearing that the smoke might be seen, they chose that morning to eat the charqui raw.

After breakfast they could do nothing but keep their seats, and await, with such patience as they might command, the development of events. It was not all darkness around them. As the little creek penetrated the trees in a straight line, they commanded a view of a portion of the lagoa. Their situation was very similar to that of a person inside a grotto or cavern on the sea-shore, which commands a view of the ocean stretching away from its mouth, the bright space gradually widening as it recedes in the distance. Though themselves seated in the midst of obscurity, they could see brightness beyond the opening of the bay,—the sun shining with a golden gleam upon the water.

On this their eyes were kept,—not in the hope of seeing anything there that might give them gratification, but rather desiring that nothing should be seen. Notwithstanding the obscurity that surrounded them, they could not divest themselves of the idea that one passing the entrance of the creek could see them distinctly enough; and this kept them in constant apprehension.

They had no need to keep watch in any other direction. Behind them, and on each side, extended the unbroken wall of tree-tops, shaded with llianas, worked and woven together into a network that appeared impenetrable even to the wild animals of the forest. Who would have looked for an enemy in human shape to come that way?

Up to noon no incident occurred to disturb the tranquillity of the place or in any way add to their apprehensions. Now and then a bird appeared, winging its way over the bright band illumined by the sun, or poising itself for a moment and then plunging downward upon some prey it had detected in the water. All these appearances only increased their confidence; as the presence of the birds, undisturbed at their ordinary avocations, indicated the absence of human beings.

The same conclusion was drawn from the behavior of a brace of large fish-cows, at some distance outside, directly in front of the arcade. When first noticed, they were engaged in some sort of rude gambol, at which they continued for a full half-hour. After that, one of them swam off, while the other, laying itself along the water, appeared to go to sleep.

It was a tantalizing sight to the eyes of the old tapuyo; and it was just as much as he could do to restrain himself from swimming out and attacking the sleeper, either with his knife or the pashuba spear. The danger, however, would have been too great, not from a conflict with the cow, but of being seen by the sharp-eyed savages.

In view of this, the Mundurucú resisted the temptation, and consented, though not without reluctance, to let the peixe-boi continue its slumbers uninterrupted.

Mayne Reid.

A TREASURY OF CHARADES, PUZZLES, PROBLEMS AND FUNNY THINGS.

CHARADES.

No. 15.

Willy Wisp.

No. 16.

R. J. D.

No. 17.

PUZZLE.

No. 13.

Davy White.

ILLUSTRATED REBUS.—No. 25.

ENIGMAS.

No. 18.

I am composed of 13 letters.

Ella E. W.

No. 19.

FRENCH.

Je suis composé de 27 lettres.

Zaidee.

No. 20.

LATIN.

Litterae quatuordecim me componunt.

Frank.

ANSWERS.

Charades.

Puzzle.

Enigmas.

Illustrated Rebuses.

Ella J. Thank the little sister Lilian for us, and tell her, “Almost.”

J. E. S. We are glad to hear from you, although we have not been able to print any of your rebuses. Thank you for the club; next year we hope you will do better yet.

Berta. Yes; some publisher must approve the plan and undertake to carry it out. The cost depends upon the size, style, and number of copies made; nothing but a careful calculation will determine this.

Mab. Because it has only mediocrity. Ten thousand similar things are equally good.

J. H. E. Thank you; no.

H. A. F. G. No.

M. M. F. says: “I send you the enclosed simple lines to gratify my two little girls,—two of your happy readers from the first number. They did bury a little sparrow one day with sincere grief, and begged these lines, which were read to a stricken company of small people and dolls.”

Elegy.

J. F. W. The subject is good, but it is not so well treated as it should be for our use.

H. L. W. We are sorry to say, that the rebuses are a little too far-fetched in some of their principal symbols.

Alice G. Too late.

Bumble Bee. There’s time enough yet. You are now too young for such ventures.

A Beginner. “The Ohio Farmer” (Cleveland, O.), “Moore’s Rural New-Yorker” (Rochester, N. Y.), and “The Agriculturalist” (New York City), are all good. You would do best to purchase samples and make your own choice.

W. C. P. says: “Being ‘one of the industrious.’ I tried my hand at ‘Manufactory.’ I send you 298 words, which can be found in Webster’s and Worcester’s dictionaries.” Good boy!

Country. Our subscribers are so much more numerous and widely scattered than those of any foreign magazine, that it would be almost impossible to devise any plan whereby all would have a fair chance for obtaining such recognition as you speak of. We have often thought of the idea, and, if it can be properly carried into effect, shall adopt it by and by.

L. D. Send two dollars for each name,—that is all.

W. S. T. “Theological Seminary” is hardly a sufficient address, and, as that is all you give us, you cannot wonder that your letters are unanswered. Many of the puzzles you sent us are older than you are.

Wendell P. F. Your rebus is too plain.

Anti-veto. Thanks for the attempt, but you have only rearranged words that have already been given as examples.

Helen Campbell. We wish we could say yes, but it is not best.

Willy Wisp. Don’t think that we have forgotten you. Some of your rebus sketches are in hand now. These inversions of yours are good, although short:—

Violet. Lear and Duncan do not properly belong among historical characters.

Emily. We are afraid that your puzzle is too easy.

Willy Wisp says, that a conundrum ought always to be accompanied by its answer, because nobody ever guessed one unless by some rare inspiration, or accident. We don’t know but he is right, and so we include here a couple of his:—

“Why can’t a lady rest after attending sewing-bees?—Because after sowing B’s she is unable to reap O’s (repose).

“What is the difference between a newspaper reporter and a crow in planting-time?—One is seeking for general, and the other for colonel (kernel) information.

“Why is a child sent to you from her Grecian step-mother like the word pneumatics?—Because it comes from the Greek pneuma (new ma).”

Our Friend “Phi,” who is a capital fellow and has seen sights in his time, has given us a nice account of one of his army experiences when he was serving as surgeon, which we copy here. The picture which ends the article is of his own drawing, and he calls his little narrative

“The Pet of the Camp.

“The first time I saw ‘Billy’ the pig, he was eating his breakfast out of a trough made of a sardine-box, and, though a month old, he was only seven inches high. He was covered with a thick coat of reddish-colored bristles, so long about the neck and shoulders as to resemble a mane; this, with a very chubby look, and a little grunt, like the base note of a small accordion, made up the drollest pig I ever saw. It appeared that a Zouave, returning to his regiment, stopped at our camp to chat and rest himself, and was so well pleased with his entertainment that he gave to his soldier-host one of two little grunters he had brought along with him.

“Billy became quite a pet, going about where he pleased, but sleeping in a candle-box, which had a swing-door that allowed him to go in or out, and also served to keep out the cold. The officer of the day (one who has care of the sentries and camp) would call on him and inquire, ‘Billy, have you had your rations this morning?’ to which came the invariable response, ‘O-o-o-we!’ which is pretty good French for ‘Yes.’

“When the regiment marched, some one would carry him in a haversack (or satchel), otherwise he would have had to gallop his short legs to keep up with the men. It did not matter whether we only halted for the night, or went into camp for days, it was all the same to Billy, who was equally at home. He was courageous too, and seemed to be fearless of anything; screaming mules, neighing horses, and guns he was used to. Three dogs (elephants to him) one day barked furiously about his ears, unnoticed for some time, till, suddenly losing patience, Billy made a grand charge, nipping right and left, actually driving off his canine hectors, that ever after tacitly respected him.

“He was rather serious, rarely making any noise, and when he did squeal, it proved to be a remonstrance against being tossed in the air; upside-down not being his favorite position. The Officer of the Day, on going his ‘grand rounds’ after midnight, would pause at Billy’s box (near the sentry line) and tap on it, upon which a little melodious baritone grunt could be heard, as if replying, ‘O-o-well,’ and the officer would say to his sergeant, ‘Billy is snug in his quarters,—I wish I was in mine.’

“Billy grew to be twelve inches high, and so remained; and one day I made a careful sketch of him, in exact proportion to a good-sized shoe, as seen in the engraving.

“About Christmas-time the idea of roast pig as a festive dish was discussed freely, and approved of; but absolute starvation would alone have induced us to turn our pet into pork. Finally he made acquaintance with some stray pigs, and would be gone nearly all day in the woods with them, grubbing under the snow for roots, but came back regularly every evening to occupy his residence. It was while he was absent on one of these excursions that we suddenly broke up camp, and bag and baggage marched off into Virginia, and saw no more of poor Billy, who must have been much astonished to find the camp deserted. Some have a theory that he followed our route,—perhaps he did.”

THE WANDERERS
W. J. Hennessy, Artist.
A. V. S. Anthony, Engraver.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected. Otherwise, most inconsistencies, variations and possible errors in spelling and punctuation have been preserved.

[The end of Our Young Folks. An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls. Volume 2, Issue 8 edited by J. T. Trowbridge, Gail Hamilton and Lucy Larcom]