Cinderella; or, the Little Glass Slipper

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Cin­derel­la; or, The Lit­tle Glass Slip­per and oth­er Sto­ries,

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Jan­uary, 1999 [Etext #1599]

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CIN­DEREL­LA OR, THE LIT­TLE GLASS SLIP­PER AND OTH­ER STO­RIES

Cin­derel­la; or, The Lit­tle Glass Slip­per Fan­ny’s Tele­phone Or­der The Rain­drops’ New Dress­es Sir Gob­ble What is It? John’s Bright Idea A Sad Thanks­giv­ing Par­ty Guy and the Bee Mean Boy Naughty Pump­kin’s Fate Some­thing About Fires The lee-​King’s Reign. Mal­mo, the Wound­ed Rat Ma­ma’s Hap­py Christ­mas Cured of Care­less­ness A Vis­it from a Prince String­ing Cran­ber­ries Christ­mas in Cal­ifor­nia A Trou­ble­some Call Bertie’s Corn-​Pop­per Fire! Fire! Fire! The Dolls and the Oth­er Dolls Why Did Mam­ma Change Her Mind? Clara’s Fu­ner­al. The Chick­adee-​Dee. The Chil­dren’s Par­ty Brave Tomas­so Tom­my Frost Sees a Bear My­self Two Strange Sights A Cat’s In­stincts Dil­iah’s New Year’s Presents Night Flow­ers The First Snow Storm Fred’s Stolen Ride A Valen­tine Par­ty The Ven­ture­some Rat The Bear’s Feast Ba­bie’s Curls. The Red Ap­ples Bub­bles A Horse Who Wore Snow Shoes The An­gry Bobolink How Hi­ram Spent His Shrimp Mon­ey The Ant’s House The Fool­ish Pug The Sil­hou­ette Par­ty The Snow Birds A Kind Heart Tows­er Talks Just as She Pleased

CIN­DEREL­LA; OR THE LIT­TLE GLASS SLIP­PER.

Once there was a gen­tle­man who mar­ried for his sec­ond wife the proud­est and most haughty wom­an that was ev­er seen. She had by a for­mer hus­band two daugh­ters of her own hu­mor, who were, in­deed, ex­act­ly like her in all things. He had like­wise, by an­oth­er wife, a young daugh­ter, but of un­par­al­leled good­ness and sweet­ness of tem­per, which she took from her moth­er, who was the best crea­ture in the world.

No soon­er were the cer­emonies of the wed­ding over but the moth­er-​in-​law be­gan to show her­self in her true col­ors. She could not bear the good qual­ities of this pret­ty girl, and the less be­cause they made her own daugh­ters ap­pear the more odi­ous. She em­ployed her in mean­est work of the house: she scoured the dish­es, ta­bles, etc., and scrubbed madam’s cham­ber and those of miss­es, her daugh­ters; she lay up in a sor­ry gar­ret, up­on a wretched straw bed, while her sis­ters lay in fine rooms, with floors all in­laid, up­on beds of the very newest fash­ion, and where they had look­ing-​glass­es so large that they might see them­selves at their full length from head to foot.

The poor girl bore all pa­tient­ly and dared not tell her fa­ther, who would have rat­tled her off; for his wife gov­erned him en­tire­ly. When she had done her work she used to go in­to the chim­ney-​cor­ner and sit down among cin­ders and ash­es, which made her com­mon­ly be called a cin­der maid; but the youngest, who was not so rude and un­civ­il as the el­dest, called her Cin­derel­la. How­ev­er, Cin­derel­la, notwith­stand­ing her mean ap­par­el, was a hun­dred times hand­somer than her sis­ters, though they were al­ways dressed very rich­ly.

It hap­pened that the King’s son gave a ball and in­vit­ed all per­sons, of fash­ion to it. Our young miss­es were al­so in­vit­ed, for they cut a very grand fig­ure among the qual­ity. They were might­ily de­light­ed at this in­vi­ta­tion, and won­der­ful­ly busy in choos­ing out such gowns, pet­ti­coats, and head-​clothes as might be­come them. This was a new trou­ble to Cin­derel­la, for it was she who ironed her sis­ters’ linen and plait­ed their ruf­fles. They talked all day long of noth­ing but how they should be dressed.

“For my part,” said the el­dest, “I will wear my red vel­vet suit with French trim­ming.”

“And I,” said the youngest, “shall have my usu­al pet­ti­coat; but then, to make amends for that, I will put on my gold-​flow­ered man­teau and my di­amond stom­ach­er, which is far from be­ing the most or­di­nary one in the world.”

They sent for the best tire-​wom­an they could get to make up their head­dress­es and ad­just their dou­ble pin­ners, and they had their red brush­es and patch­es from Made­moi­selle de la Poche.

Cin­derel­la was like­wise called up to them to be con­sult­ed in all these mat­ters, for she had ex­cel­lent no­tions and ad­vised them al­ways for the best, nay, and of­fered her ser­vices to dress their heads, which they were very will­ing she should do. As she was do­ing this they said to her:

“Cin­derel­la, would you not be glad to go to the ball?”

“Alas!” said she, “you on­ly jeer me. It is not for such as I am to go thith­er.”

“Thou art in the right of it,” replied they. “It would make the peo­ple laugh to see a cin­der wench at a ball.”

Any one but Cin­derel­la would have dressed their heads awry, but she was very good and dressed them per­fect­ly well. They were al­most two days with­out eat­ing, so much they were trans­port­ed with joy. They broke above a dozen of laces in try­ing to be laced up close, that they might have a fine, slen­der shape, and they were con­tin­ual­ly at their look­ing-​glass. At last the hap­py day came. They went to Court, and Cin­derel­la fol­lowed them with her eyes as long as she could, and when she had lost sight of them she fell a-​cry­ing.

Her God­moth­er, who saw her all in tears, asked her what was the mat­ter.

“I wish I could–I wish I could–“

She was not able to speak the rest be­ing in­ter­rupt­ed by her tears and sob­bing.

This God­moth­er of hers, who was a fairy, said to her: “Thou wish­est thou could’st go to the ball. Is it not so?”

“Y–es,” cried Cin­derel­la, with a great sigh.

“Well,” said her God­moth­er, “be but a good girl, and I will con­trive that thou shalt go.” Then she took her in­to her cham­ber and said to her: “Run in­to the gar­den and bring me a pump­kin.”

Cin­derel­la went im­me­di­ate­ly to gath­er the finest she could get and brought it to her God­moth­er, not be­ing able to imag­ine how this pump­kin could make her go to the ball. Her God­moth­er scooped out all the in­side of it, hav­ing left noth­ing but the rind; which done, she struck it with her wand, and the pump­kin was in­stant­ly turned in­to a fine coach, gild­ed all over with gold.

She then went to look in­to her mouse­trap, where she found six mice all alive, and or­dered Cin­derel­la to lift up a lit­tle the trap­door, when, giv­ing each mouse as it went out a lit­tle tap with her wand, the mouse was that mo­ment turned in­to a fine horse, which al­to­geth­er made a very fine set of six hors­es of a beau­ti­ful mouse-​col­ored dap­ple-​gray. Be­ing at a loss for a coach­man, Cin­derel­la said:

“I will go and see if there is nev­er a rat in the rat­trap–we may make a coach­man of him.”

“Thou art in the right,” replied her God­moth­er. “Go and look.”

Cin­derel­la brought the trap to her, and in it there were three huge rats. The fairy made choice of one of the three which had the largest beard, and hav­ing touched him with her wand he was turned in­to a fat, jol­ly coach­man, who had the smartest whiskers eyes ev­er be­held. Af­ter that she said to her:

“Go again in­to the gar­den, and you will find six lizards be­hind the wa­ter­ing-​pot. Bring them to me.”

She had no soon­er done so but her God­moth­er turned them in­to six foot­men,who skipped up im­me­di­ate­ly be­hind the coach, with their liv­er­ies all be­daubed with gold and sil­ver, and clung as close be­hind each oth­er as if they had done noth­ing else their whole lives. The fairy then said to Cin­derel­la:

“Well, you see here an equipage fit to go to the ball with. Are you not pleased with it?”

“Oh! yes,” cried she; “but must I go thith­er as I am, in these dirty rags?”

Her God­moth­er on­ly just touched her with her wand, and at the same in­stant her clothes were turned in­to cloth-​of-​gold and sil­ver, all be­set with jew­els. Ah! who can de­scribe a robe made by the fairies? It was white as snow, and as daz­zling; round the hem hung a fringe of di­amonds, sparkling like dew­drops in the sun­shine. The lace about the throat and arms could on­ly have been spun by fairy spi­ders. Sure­ly it was a dream! Cin­derel­la put her dain­ti­ly gloved hand to her throat, and soft­ly touched the pearls that en­cir­cled her neck.

“Come, child,” said the God­moth­er, “or you will be late.”

As Cin­derel­la moved, the fire­light shone up­on her dain­ty shoes.

“They are of di­amonds,” she said.

“No,” an­swered her God­moth­er, smil­ing; “they are bet­ter than that–they are of glass, made by the fairies. And now, child, go, and en­joy your­self to your heart’s con­tent.”

But her God­moth­er, above all things, com­mand­ed her not to stay till af­ter mid­night, telling her at the same time that if she stayed one mo­ment longer the coach would be a pump­kin again, her hors­es mice, her coach­man a rat, her foot­men lizards, and her clothes be­come just as they were be­fore.

She promised her God­moth­er she would not fail of leav­ing the ball be­fore mid­night, and then away she drives, scarce able to con­tain her­self for joy. The King’s son, who was told that a great Princess, whom no­body knew, was come, ran out to re­ceive her. He gave her his hand as she alight­ed out of the coach; and led her in­to the hall among all the com­pa­ny. There was im­me­di­ate­ly a pro­found si­lence, they left off danc­ing, and the vi­olins ceased to play, so at­ten­tive was ev­ery one to con­tem­plate the sin­gu­lar beau­ties of the un­known new­com­er. Noth­ing was then heard but a con­fused noise of “Ha! how hand­some she is! Ha! how hand­some she is!”

The King him­self, old as he was, could not help watch­ing her and telling the Queen soft­ly that it was a long time since he had seen so beau­ti­ful and love­ly a crea­ture.

All the ladies were bus­ied in con­sid­er­ing her clothes and head­dress, that they might have some made next day af­ter the same pat­tern, pro­vid­ed they could meet with such fine ma­te­ri­als and as able hands to make them.

The King’s son con­duct­ed her to the most hon­or­able seat and af­ter­ward took her out to dance with him. She danced so very grace­ful­ly that they all more and more ad­mired her. A fine col­la­tion was served up, where­of the young Prince ate not a morsel, so in­tent­ly was he bus­ied in gaz­ing on her.

She went and sat down by her sis­ters, show­ing them a thou­sand ci­vil­ities, giv­ing them part of the or­anges and cit­rons which the Prince had pre­sent­ed her with, which very much sur­prised them, for they did not know her. While Cin­derel­la was thus amus­ing her sis­ters, she heard the clock strike eleven and three-​quar­ters, where­upon she im­me­di­ate­ly made a cour­tesy to the com­pa­ny and has­tened away as fast as she could.

Be­ing got home, she ran to seek out her God­moth­er, and af­ter hav­ing thanked her she said she could not but hearti­ly wish she might go next day to the ball, be­cause the King’s son had de­sired her.

As she was ea­ger­ly telling her God­moth­er what had passed at the ball her two sis­ters knocked at the door, which Cin­derel­la ran and opened.

“How long you have stayed!” cried she, gap­ing, rub­bing her eyes, and stretch­ing her­self as if she had been just waked out of her sleep. She had not, how­ev­er, had any man­ner of in­cli­na­tion to sleep since they went from home.

“If thou hadst been at the ball,” said one of her sis­ters, “thou would’st not have been tired with it. There came thith­er the finest Princess, the most beau­ti­ful ev­er was seen with mor­tal eyes. She showed us a thou­sand ci­vil­ities and gave us or­anges and cit­rons.”

Cin­derel­la seemed very in­dif­fer­ent in the mat­ter. In­deed, she asked them the name of that Princess, but they told her they did not know it, and that the King’s son was very un­easy on her ac­count, and would give all the world to know who she was. At this Cin­derel­la, smil­ing, replied:

“She must, then, be very beau­ti­ful in­deed. How hap­py you have been! Could not I see her? Ah! dear Miss Char­lotte, do lend me your yel­low suit of clothes which you wear ev­ery day.”

“Ay, to be sure,” cried Miss Char­lotte; “lend my clothes to such it dirty cin­der maid as thou art! I should be a fool.”

Cin­derel­la ex­pect­ed well such an­swer and was very glad of the re­fusal, for she would have been sad­ly put to it if her sis­ter had lent her what she asked for jest­ing­ly.

The next day the two sis­ters were at the ball, and so was Cin­derel­la, but dressed more mag­nif­icent­ly than be­fore. The King’s son was al­ways by her, and nev­er ceased his com­pli­ments and kind speech­es to her, to whom all this was so far from be­ing tire­some that she quite for­got what her God­moth­er had rec­om­mend­ed to her, so that she at last count­ed the clock strik­ing twelve when she took it to be no more than eleven. She then rose up and fled as nim­ble as a deer. The Prince fol­lowed, but could not over­take her. She left be­hind one of her glass slip­pers, which the Prince took up most care­ful­ly. She got home, but quite out of breath, and in her old clothes, hav­ing noth­ing left her of all her fin­ery but one of the lit­tle slip­pers, fel­low to that she dropped. The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a Prinecess go out.

They said they had seen no­body go out but a young girl, very mean­ly dressed, and who had more of the air of a poor coun­try girl than a gen­tle­wom­an.

When the two sis­ters re­turned from the ball Cin­derel­la asked them if they had been well di­vert­ed and if the beau­ti­ful Princess had been there.

They told her yes, but that she hur­ried away im­me­di­ate­ly when the clock struck twelve, and with so much haste that she dropped one of her lit­tle glass slip­pers, the pret­ti­est in the world, which the King’s son had tak­en up; that he had done noth­ing but look at her all the time at the ball, and that most cer­tain­ly he was very much in love with the beau­ti­ful per­son who owned the glass slip­per.

What they said was very true, for a few days af­ter the King’s son caused it to be pro­claimed, by sound of trum­pet, that he would mar­ry her whose foot this slip­per would just fit. They whom he em­ployed be­gan to try it up­on the Princess­es, then the Duchess­es and all the Court, but in vain. It was brought to the two sis­ters, who did all they pos­si­bly could to thrust their feet in­to the slip­per, but they could not ef­fect it.

On the fol­low­ing morn­ing there was a great noise of trum­pets and drums, and a pro­ces­sion passed through the town, at the head of which rode the King’s son. Be­hind him came a her­ald, bear­ing a vel­vet cush­ion, up­on which rest­ed a lit­tle glass slip­per. The her­ald blew a blast up­on the trum­pet, and then read a procla­ma­tion say­ing that the King’s son would wed any la­dy in the land who could fit the slip­per up­on her foot, if she could pro­duce an­oth­er to match it.

Of course, the sis­ters tried to squeeze their feet in­to the slip­per, but it was of no use–they were much too large. Then Cin­derel­la shy­ly begged that she might try. How the sis­ters laughed with scorn when the Prince knelt to fit the slip­per on the cin­der maid’s foot; but what was their sur­prise when it slipped on with the great­est ease, and the next mo­ment Cin­derel­la pro­duced the oth­er from her pock­et! Once more she stood in the slip­pers, and once more the sis­ters saw be­fore them the love­ly Princess who was to be the Prince’s bride. For at the touch of the mag­ic shoes the lit­tle gray frock dis­ap­peared for­ev­er, and in place of it she wore the beau­ti­ful robe the fairy God­moth­er had giv­en to her.

The sis­ters hung their heads with sor­row and vex­ation; but kind lit­tle Cin­derel­la put her arms round their necks, kissed them, and for­gave them for all their un­kind­ness, so that they could not help but love her.

The Prince could not bear to part from his lit­tle love again, so he car­ried her back to the palace in his grand coach, and they were mar­ried that very day. Cin­derel­la’s step­sis­ters were present at the feast, but in the place of hon­or sat the fairy God­moth­er.

So the poor lit­tle cin­der maid mar­ried the Prince, and in time they came to be King and Queen, and lived hap­pi­ly ev­er af­ter.

FAN­NY’S TELE­PHONE OR­DER.

Lit­tle Fan­ny Desmond was a dear child, and, like a good many oth­er lit­tle chil­dren, she liked to do what­ev­er she saw the grown peo­ple do.

She would lis­ten with great in­ter­est when she saw her moth­er use the tele­phone. She was es­pe­cial­ly sur­prised when her moth­er or­dered things, and lat­er in the day they would be brought to the house.

“I wish I had a tele­phone of my own,” she said to her pa­pa. “Ma­ma just puts her mouth up to that fun­ny thing, and gets what­ev­er she asks for. Yes­ter­day she asked some­body to send us ice-​cream for din­ner, and sure enough, it came.”

Pa­pa laughed. “It does seem a very con­ve­nient thing,” he said. “I will try to ar­range one for you.” So pa­pa took a horn which had been put away in a clos­et and hung it up where Fan­ny could talk in­to it. “There, that shall be your own pri­vate tele­phone,” he said.

“Now, shall I get what­ev­er I ask for?” said Fan­ny.

“Not if you ask for im­pos­si­ble things,” replied her pa­pa.

“But what are im­pos­si­ble things?” asked Fan­ny.

“Well,” laughed pa­pa, “I think if you should ask for the moon you would not get it.”

“But I don’t want the moon,” said Fan­ny.

“Ask for some­thing be­fore I go down-​town,” said pa­pa.

Fan­ny thought a mo­ment, and then spoke up quite dis­tinct­ly:

“Please send me some pep­per­mints, and some new shoes for my doll, and a bunch of pan­sies for my ma­ma, and a new bi­cy­cle for my pa­pa, and–and–that’s all this time. Good-​bye.”

“That’s a very good or­der,” said her pa­pa, “but kiss me good-​bye, for I must be off.”

About half an hour lat­er the front door-​bell rang. Very soon the maid ap­peared with a pack­age di­rect­ed to Miss Fan­ny Desmond. In great ex­cite­ment, Fan­ny opened it. It was a box of pep­per­mints. The child’s de­light was great, but when, in an­oth­er half hour, there came a bun­dle which proved to be a new pair of shoes for her doll, she was too hap­py for words. But that sur­prise was hard­ly over when an­oth­er pack­age was brought her. She opened it in great ex­cite­ment, and be­hold there was a bunch of beau­ti­ful pan­sies.

“They are for you, ma­ma,” she cried, “and now ev­ery­thing has come but pa­pa’s new bi­cy­cle.”

Just then she looked out of the win­dow, and there was her pa­pa com­ing up the drive on a fine new wheel. She rushed down to meet him, ex­claim­ing, as she threw her­self in­to his arms:

“Oh, pa­pa, pa­pa, I did get ev­ery­thing; my tele­phone is beau­ti­ful, and the man at the oth­er end is just love­ly!”

“Ah,” said pa­pa, “I am de­light­ed he is so sat­is­fac­to­ry.”

THE RAIN­DROPS’ NEW DRESS­ES.

“We’re so tired of these gray dress­es!” Cried the lit­tle drops of rain, As they came down hel­ter-​skel­ter From the Nim­bus cloud fast train.

And they bobbed against each oth­er In a spite­ful sort of way, Just like chil­dren when bad tem­per Gets the up­per hand some day.

Then the Sun peeped out a minute. “Dears, be good and do not fight, I have or­dered you new dress­es, Dain­ty robes of purest white.”

Ah! then all the tiny rain­drops Hummed a mer­ry glad re­frain, And the old folks cried: “How pleas­ant Is the mu­sic of the rain!”

Just at even, when the chil­dren Had been safe­ly tucked in bed, There was such a rush and bus­tle In the dark clouds over­head!

Then those rain­drops hur­ried earth­ward, At the North Wind’s call, you know, And the wee folks, in the morn­ing, Laughed to see the flakes of snow.

SIR GOB­BLE.

Bessie Cur­tis was in a great deal of trou­ble. She was spend­ing a year in the coun­try while her fa­ther and moth­er were in Eu­rope. It was not that which was trou­bling her. She liked the coun­try, she loved her un­cle and aunt with whom she lived, and she heard ev­ery week from her fa­ther and moth­er. But some­thing dis­turbed her. As the sum­mer passed, and the au­tumn came, she had mo­ments when she looked very sober. What was the rea­son?

I will tell you.

Ear­ly in the spring her un­cle had giv­en her a young turkey.

“There, Bessie,” he had said, “that is one of the pret­ti­est turkeys I have ev­er seen. I will give him in­to your care, and on Thanks­giv­ing Day we will have him on the din­ner-​ta­ble.”

For some time Bessie fed the turkey ev­ery day with­out feel­ing par­tic­ular­ly fond of him. Very soon, how­ev­er, he be­gan to know her; he not on­ly ran to meet her when she brought him his corn and meal, but he would fol­low her about just the way Mary’s lit­tle lamb fol­lowed HER about.

Her un­cle of­ten called af­ter her: “And ev­ery­where that Bessie goes, the turkey’s sure to go.”

Yes, round the gar­den, up and down the av­enue, and even in­to the house it­self the turkey fol­lowed Bessie.

Then why was she so sad?

Alas! she re­mem­bered her un­cle’s words when he gave her the turkey, “On Thanks­giv­ing Day we will have him on the ta­ble.”

Thanks­giv­ing Day would be here in a week.

Now, if Bessie had been like some lit­tle girls, she would have told her trou­ble to her un­cle. But she nev­er men­tioned it to any one, al­though she cried her­self to sleep sev­er­al nights be­fore Thanks­giv­ing Day.

At last the day came, and Bessie, in­stead of go­ing out to the fowl­yard as usu­al, kept in the house all the morn­ing. She was afraid that, if she went, she would not find her beloved friend. Din­ner-​time came, and, with a heavy heart, she seat­ed her­self at the ta­ble. Her un­cle and aunt no­ticed her sober face, and thought that she missed her fa­ther and moth­er.

“Come, come, said her un­cle, “we must cheer up; no sad looks on Thanks­giv­ing Day. Maria, BRING IN THE TURKEY.”

Poor Bessie! she could not look up as the door opened, and some­thing was brought in on a big plat­ter. But, as the plat­ter was placed on the ta­ble, she saw that it did in­deed hold her turkey, but he was alive and well.

She looked so as­ton­ished that sud­den­ly her un­cle un­der­stood all her past trou­bles.

“Why, Bessie,” he said, “did you think I would kill your pet? No, in­deed, but I told you he should be on the ta­ble Thanks­giv­ing Day, so here he is.”

Then Bessie’s un­cle struck the turkey gen­tly with his carv­ing-​knife, the way the queen strikes a man with a sword when she makes him a knight.

“Be­hold!” said Bessie’s un­cle, “I dub you ‘Sir Gob­ble;’ you shall nev­er be killed, but die a nat­ural death, and nev­er be part­ed from Bessie.”

WHAT IS IT?

What is that ug­ly thing I see Which fol­lows, fol­lows, fol­lows me, Which ev­er way I turn or go? What is that thing? I want to know.

If I but turn to left or right It does the same with all its might; It looks so ug­ly and so black When o’er my shoul­der I look back.

Some­times it runs ahead of me, Some­times quite short it seems to be, And then again it’s very tall; I don’t know what it is at all.

I’ll climb in­to my lit­tle bed, And on my pil­low lay my bead, For when I’m there I nev­er see That thing in front or back of me.

JOHN’S BRIGHT IDEA.

Mrs. Mered­ith was a most kind and thought­ful wom­an. She spent a great deal of time vis­it­ing the poor. One morn­ing she told her chil­dren about a fam­ily which she had vis­it­ed the day be­fore. There was a man sick in bed, his wife who took care of him, and could not go out to work, and their lit­tle boy. The lit­tle boy–his name was Bernard–had in­ter­est­ed her very much.

“I wish you could see him,” she said to her own chil­dren, John, Har­ry, and Clara, “he is such a help to his moth­er. He wants very much to earn some mon­ey, but I don’t see what he can do.”

Af­ter their moth­er had left the room, the chil­dren sat think­ing about lit­tle Bernard.

“I wish we could help him to earn mon­ey,” said lit­tle Clara.

“So do I, said Har­ry.

For some mo­ments John said noth­ing, but, sud­den­ly, he sprang to his feet and cried:

“I have an idea!”

The oth­er chil­dren al­so jumped up all at­ten­tion. When John had an idea, it was sure to be a good one.

“I tell you what we can do,” said John. “You know that big box of corn Un­cle Sam sent us for pop­ping? Well, we can pop it, and put it in­to pa­per bags, and Bernard can take it round to the hous­es and sell.”

When Mrs. Mered­ith heard of John’s idea, she, too, thought it a good one.

Very soon the chil­dren were busy pop­ping the corn, while their moth­er went out to buy the pa­per bags. When she came back, she brought Bernard with her.

In a short time, he start­ed out on his new busi­ness, and, much soon­er than could be ex­pect­ed, re­turned with an emp­ty bas­ket.

Tucked in­to one of his mit­tens were ten nick­els. He had nev­er earned so much mon­ey be­fore in his life. When he found that it was all to be his, he was so de­light­ed he could hard­ly speak, but his bright smil­ing face spoke for him. Af­ter he had run home to take the mon­ey to his moth­er, John said:

“We have corn enough left to send Bernard out ev­er so many times. May we do it again?”

“Yes, said Mrs. Mered­ith, “you may send him ev­ery Sat­ur­day morn­ing, if you will pop the corn for him your­selves. John, will you agree to take charge of the work?”

“In­deed I will,” replied John, and he kept his word. For many weeks, ev­ery Sat­ur­day morn­ing, no mat­ter what plan was on foot, no mat­ter how good the coast­ing or skat­ing, he saw that the corn was all popped, the pa­per bags filled, and ar­ranged in the bas­ket when Bernard ar­rived.

Peo­ple be­gan to watch for the “lit­tle pop-​corn boy,” and ev­ery week he had at least fifty cents to take home, and of­ten more. And all this was be­cause of John’s bright idea, and the way he car­ried it out.

A SAD THANKS­GIV­ING PAR­TY.

Four hun­gry-​look­ing an­imals All seat­ed in a row; Why does not some one speak to them? That’s what I want to know.

They all of them were bid­den to A fine Thanks­giv­ing feast, And now, it seems to me, their host Might wel­come them, at least.

‘Twas Mas­ter Pug in­vit­ed them, Why does he not ap­pear? ‘Tis plain they think his ab­sence looks Ex­treme­ly rude and queer.

Alas! poor Pug’s in trou­ble sore, The host he can­not play; No feast for self or friends has he On this Thanks­giv­ing Day.

He saw a turkey, large and fat, Up­on the kitchen shelf. “That’s just the very thing I want,” Said he un­to him­self.

He caught the turkey, but the cook Caught him with firmer grasp, And shook him till he could not bark But on­ly choke and gasp.

Mean­while, those hun­gry an­imals, Who’d wait­ed there in vain, De­clared they nev­er would be guest Of Mr. Pug again.

GUY AND THE BEE

One day a jol­ly bum­ble-​bee, In coat of black and yel­low, Got caught in­side a win­dow-​pane; The sil­ly lit­tle fel­low.

He buzzed and buzzed against the glass, To Guy’s great en­joy­ment, Who thought to watch this fun­ny thing Was just the best em­ploy­ment.

But soon to touch those gauzy wings, Be­came Guy’s great de­sire, Al­though ma­ma had told him that A bee could sting like fire.

But Guy, sil­ly as the bee, Paid no heed to ma­ma, He touched the bee, then gave a howl Which could be heard afar.

Ma­ma a sooth­ing poul­tice mixed, And on his fin­ger laid. “An­oth­er time you’ll be more wise,” Was ev­ery­thing she said.

A MEAN BOY.

Har­ry Bur­ton woke one night and heard a strange noise in his clos­et. He got out of bed, crossed the floor in his bare feet, and care­ful­ly opened the clos­et door. The noise stopped, in­stant­ly.

“Ah!” said Har­ry, “I knew it was mice made that noise. How I wish I could catch them.”

The next morn­ing he told his moth­er about the nois­es he had heard.

“I will get you a mouse-​trap,” she said.

“I don’t want the kind that kills the mice, I on­ly want to catch them and tame them,” said Har­ry.

His moth­er laughed and told him when he had tamed his mice he must keep them well out of her way.

The trap was set, the mice were caught, and sure enough, in a short time were so tame they would eat from Har­ry’s hand. He made a lit­tle house for them, and kept in it his bed­room. When­ev­er he went out, he al­ways shut the door care­ful­ly.

Now it hap­pened that among Har­ry’s ac­quain­tances, there was one very dis­agree­able boy. His name was Dick Taft. Har­ry did not play with him very of­ten, for he was so ug­ly it was hard to get along with him.

Dick nev­er liked to be beat­en at any game, and some­times made it very un­com­fort­able for the one who got ahead of him.

One day Har­ry hap­pened to beat him at one of their school games. Dick called af­ter him when it was over, “I’ll pay you for this, see if I don’t.”

Har­ry on­ly laughed as he walked away go­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion from his own house.

When he was out of sight, Dick ran to Har­ry’s house, made some ex­cuse to go up in his bed­room, and let in the big cat, who was ea­ger­ly watch­ing out­side.

When Har­ry came home, the mouse house was open, and not one of his pets was to be seen. The poor fel­low was al­most heart-​bro­ken. He asked ev­ery one in the house who had left his door open. The maid told him she thought it must have been that boy he sent up to his room.

She de­scribed the boy, and Har­ry knew in a mo­ment that it was Dick Taft.

“So that is the way he paid me for beat­ing him at a game,” cried Har­ry. “Well, nev­er again, so long as I live, will I play with a boy who is mean enough to do such a trick as that.”

And he kept his word.

A NAUGHTY PUMP­KIN’S FATE.

A queer lit­tle pump­kin, a jol­ly fat fel­low, Stood close to his moth­er so ro­tund and yel­low. “What a stupid old place! how I long to as­pire,” Cried he, “I was des­tined for some­thing much high­er.”

“My son,” said the moth­er, “pray do be con­tent, There’s great sat­is­fac­tion in life that’s well spent!” But he shrugged up his shoul­ders, this pump­kin, ‘t is true, And act­ed just like some bad chil­dren will do.

With a shout and a whoop, in the gar­den they ran, Tom and Ned, for they’d thought of the loveli­est plan To as­ton­ish their friends from the city, you see, With a fine Jack-​o’-lantern–“Ah, this one suits me!”

Ned­die seized the bad pump­kin, and dug out his brains, Till he felt so light-​head­ed and brim­ful of pains; Then two eyes, a long nose, and a mouth big and wide, They cut in a minute, and laid him aside

Un­til night, when they hung him up­on a stout limb, With a can­dle in­side; how his poor head did swim, As they twist­ed him this way, then twirled him round that, Till at last, with a crash, he fell on the ground flat,

A wreck of the once jol­ly, fat lit­tle fel­low, Who stood by his moth­er so ro­tund and yel­low. Just then a lean cow, who was pass­ing that way, Ate him up, just to fin­ish HER “Thanks­giv­ing Day.”

SOME­THING ABOUT FIRES.

It was a cold day. Fred was tired of read­ing, tired of look­ing out of the win­dow, and so he poked the fire for a change.

“I sup­pose there are a good many dif­fer­ent sorts of fires,” he said to his mam­ma, as he laid down the pok­er.

“Yes, in­deed,” she an­swered. “It is very in­ter­est­ing to know how peo­ple keep warm in all parts of the world, es­pe­cial­ly where fu­el is scarce and dear. In Ice­land, for ex­am­ple, fires are of­ten made of fish-​bones! Think of that. In Hol­land and oth­er coun­tries a kind of turf called peat is dug up in great quan­ti­ties and used for fu­el. And in France a coarse yel­low and brown sea-​weed, which is found in Fin­is­tere, is care­ful­ly dried and piled up for win­ter use. A false log, re­sem­bling wood, but made of some com­po­si­tion which does not con­sume, is of­ten used in that coun­try. It ab­sorbs and throws out the heat, and adds to the looks of the hearth and to the com­fort of the room.

“The French have al­so a mov­able stove, which can be wheeled from room to room, or even car­ried up or down stairs while full of burn­ing coke. In Rus­sia the poor­er peo­ple use a large porce­lain stove, flat on top like a great ta­ble, with a small fire in­side which gives out a gen­tle, sum­mer-​like warmth. It of­ten serves as a bed for the whole fam­ily, who sleep on top of it.

“There are, be­sides gas-​stoves, oil-​stoves, var­ious meth­ods of ob­tain­ing warmth by heat­ed air and steam, and, doubt­less, oth­er de­vices that I nev­er heard of.

“In some coun­tries, how­ev­er, no fires are need­ed. In look­ing at pic­tures of trop­ical towns you will at once no­tice the ab­sence of chim­neys.”

Fred looked ad­mir­ing­ly at his mam­ma as she paused.

“There nev­er was such a lit­tle moth­er,” he said; “you can think of some­thing to say about ev­ery­thing.”

His mam­ma was pleased at this pleas­ant com­pli­ment.

“Oh!” she replied, laugh­ing, “I could go on and tell you more about bon­fires, bea­con-​fires, sig­nals, drift-​wood fires, and gyp­sy-​tea fires; but I have told you enough for to-​day.”

THE ICE-​KING’S REIGN.

The sun had gone down with promis­es sweet, When, keen from the north, the wind Came blus­ter­ing along on its cours­ers fleet, And left frozen tracks be­hind.

Maude stood at the win­dow; the moon shim­mered down On whirling leaves, stiff and dead, All piteous­ly driv­en; she turned with a frown, And soft to her­self she said:–

“The old tyrant Win­ter leaves noth­ing to prize, Leaves noth­ing that’s bright or fair; He has stolen the blue from the bend­ing skies, The warmth from the earth and air.

“The sum­mer’s dear blos­soms are with­ered and dead; My gar­den is brown and bare; The chip­per of birds in the nest over­head Is hushed, for no birdlings are here.

“The wood­lands no longer are shady and sweet, Dry leafage en­cum­bers the ground; The path­ways, once ver­dant and soft to my feet, In fet­ters of ice are bound.

“The pride of the barn-​yard sits humped with the cold, One frozen foot un­der his wing; And the sheep hud­dle close­ly, for warmth, in their fold; The ice tyrant reigns as king.”

She turns from this pic­ture of ru­in and death, And seeks the broad case­ment again; And, lo! from the dews of her wast­ed breath Great forests have grown on the pane.

Such beau­ti­ful trees! such ferns! and such flow­ers! Such rivers and moun­tains bold! Such charm­ing cas­cades! she gazes for hours, And wor­ships the ice king cold.

MAL­MO, THE WOUND­ED RAT.

A poor man saw, by the road­side, a large white rat. It seemed to be dead. Mov­ing it gen­tly he found it was alive, but had a bro­ken leg. He took it up and car­ried it to his lone­ly home. He bound up the bruised leg, fed the poor crea­ture, and soon it was quite well.

Sam Tills trained the rat to gen­tle ways, and taught it many lit­tle tricks. Mal­mo was the on­ly com­pa­ny Sam had. He worked in a cot­ton mill, and took Mal­mo with him. He rode in his mas­ter’s coat-​pock­et. It looked droll to see his white head peep­ing out.

Sun­days both went to dine with Sam’s sis­ter. Mal­mo’s fun­ny ways made ev­ery­body laugh. When Sam said, “Mal­mo, go sit in my hat,” he went at once. He curled him­self up in it, and nod­ded off to sleep.

When his mas­ter said, “Mal­mo, we’re go­ing now; slip in,” the droll pet jumped from the hat, ran up to his pock­et-​nest, said good-​by in his own fash­ion, and was ready to start. Evenings, when Sam was read­ing or singing from his moth­er’s hymn-​book, Mal­mo had a nap on his mas­ter’s head. When it was time to go to bed Sam stroked Mal­mo’s soft fur. The rat rubbed him­self against his mas­ter’s hand. It was their good-​night to each oth­er. Then Mal­mo crept in­to his bas­ket, and the can­dle was blown out. Soon both were fast asleep.

MA­MA’S HAP­PY CHRIST­MAS.

It had seemed to the lit­tle Wen­dell chil­dren that they would have a very sad Christ­mas. Ma­ma had been very ill, and pa­pa had been so anx­ious about ma­ma that he could not think of any­thing else.

When Christ­mas Day came, how­ev­er, ma­ma was so much bet­ter that she could lie on the lounge. The chil­dren all brought their stock­ings in­to her room to open them.

“You chil­dren all seem as hap­py as if you had had your usu­al Christ­mas tree,” said ma­ma, as they sat around her.

“Why, I NEV­ER had such a hap­py Christ­mas be­fore,” said sweet lit­tle Agnes. “And it’s just be­cause you are well again.”

“Now I think you must all run out for the rest of the day,” said the nurse, “be­cause your ma­ma wants to see you all again this evening.”

“I wish we could get up some­thing ex­press­ly for ma­ma’s amuse­ment,” said Agnes, when they had gone in­to the nurs­ery.

“How would you like to have some tableaux in here?” asked their French gov­erness, Miss Mar­celle.

“Oh, yes,” they all cried, “it would be fun, ma­ma loves tableaux.”

So all day long they were busy ar­rang­ing five tableaux for the evening. The tableaux were to be in the room which had fold­ing-​doors open­ing in­to Mrs. Wen­dell’s sit­ting-​room.

At the prop­er time Miss Mar­celle stepped out­side the fold­ing-​doors and made a pret­ty lit­tle speech. She said that some young ladies and a young gen­tle­man had asked per­mis­sion to show some tableaux to Mrs. Wen­dell if she would like to see them. Mrs. Wen­dell replied that she would be charmed.

Then made­moi­selle an­nounced the tableaux; open­ing the doors wide for each one. This is a list of the tableaux: First, The Sleep­ing Beau­ty; sec­ond, Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood third, The Fairy Queen; fourth, Old Moth­er Hub­bard; fifth, The Lord High Ad­mi­ral.

Miss Mar­celle had ar­ranged ev­ery­thing so nice­ly, and Ce­leste, the French maid, helped so much with the dress­ing, that the pic­tures all went off with­out a sin­gle mis­take.

Ma­ma was de­light­ed. She said she must kiss those dear young ladies, and that de­light­ful young man who had giv­en her such a charm­ing sur­prise.

So all the chil­dren came in rosy and smil­ing.

“Why, didn’t you know us?” asked the lit­tle Lord Ad­mi­ral.

“I know this,” said ma­ma, “I am like Agnes. I NEV­ER had such a hap­py Christ­mas be­fore.”

CURED OF CARE­LESS­NESS.

Mrs. Bertram sat read­ing a book one morn­ing, or try­ing to. It was not easy to do so, for her lit­tle boy, Roger, was out in the hall play­ing with his drum. Sud­den­ly the drum­ming ceased, and in a mo­ment Roger rushed in­to the room cry­ing as if his heart would break.

“I’ve burst it. I’ve burst it,” he sobbed.

“Your drum asked his moth­er. “How did you do that?”

“I was beat­ing it with the pok­er and the tongs and–“

“With the pok­er and tongs!” ex­claimed his moth­er. “Why, where were your drum-​sticks?”

Then Roger stopped cry­ing, and hung his head with shame.

“Where are your drum-​sticks?” asked his moth­er, again.

“I–I–don’t know,” sobbed Roger.

“Have you lost those, too?” said Mrs. Bertram. She need­ed no words for an­swer. Roger’s man­ner was quite enough. “You know, dear, what I said would hap­pen the next time you lost any­thing.”

“Yes,” said Roger, “I you said I must give away all my toys to some lit­tle boys who would take care of them.”

“Yes,” said his moth­er. “I see you re­mem­ber. I shall send them all to-​night to the Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal.”

“But, ma­ma,” said Roger, “if I don’t have any toys to take care of, how can I learn to take care of them?”

Mrs. Bertram had to turn away so that Roger should not see her smile.

“I shall have to think of some oth­er way to teach you to be care­ful. Now go and bring me all your toys.”

Roger went out of the room to do as his moth­er said. When he had gone, Mrs. Bertram sat think­ing un­til he came back.

“I have de­cid­ed that I want you to dust the li­brary ev­ery morn­ing.”

Roger looked as­ton­ished. “Boys don’t dust,” he said.

“Some­times,” said his moth­er, smil­ing­ly. “Your Un­cle Fred had to dust his own room when he was at West Point. Now if you dust the li­brary ev­ery morn­ing for two months faith­ful­ly, and do not break a sin­gle or­na­ment, I shall know you have grown care­ful in one way, and that may help you to be care­ful in an­oth­er.”

The next morn­ing Roger be­gan his work. At first he dis­liked it very much, but af­ter a while he grew very par­tic­ular. It was not pleas­ant to be with­out any toys, and he de­ter­mined to earn them.

The day when his tri­al of two months would be up, would be Christ­mas Day. He did not know if his presents this year would be toys or use­ful things. All his moth­er had said about his work was, “My dear, you are im­prov­ing.”

Christ­mas night came, and with it a beau­ti­ful tree. Imag­ine Roger’s de­light when he saw on and about it new skates, a new sled, a new vi­olin and a new drum.

And up in the high­est branch­es, in let­ters of gold, these words: “For the boy who has proved he can be care­ful when he tries.”

A VIS­IT FROM A PRINCE.

Har­ry was play­ing with his let­ter blocks one af­ter­noon, when a prince came to vis­it him.

Har­ry knew the prince very well, in­deed. As soon as the prince came in­to the room Har­ry said:

“Hul­lo, old fel­low, is that you?”

Was not that a very strange way to greet a prince?

And wasn’t it stranger yet for Har­ry to say next:

@”Come, sit up, old boy, and give us your–“

Was it hand Har­ry was go­ing to say? No, in­deed, it was paw. “Sit up, old boy, and give us your paw.”

Prince was a beau­ti­ful dog, as black as a coal. In­deed, his re­al name, his whole name, was Ed­ward, the Black Prince. Now you must ask some­body to tell you about the man who was called the “Black Prince,” the man for whom Har­ry’s dog was named.

When Har­ry asked Prince to give his paw, the dog did not do it as quick­ly as he ought to have done.

Did Har­ry beat him for that? No, in­deed. Did he say, “Nev­er mind, Prince, you need not obey me if you do not want to?” No, in­deed, again.

He sat up him­self, and then he made Prince sit up on his hind legs. Then he or­dered Prince to give his paw. Prince did so. Then Har­ry made him do it again, then again and again and again, un­til the dog seemed to un­der­stand that he must learn to obey when he was spo­ken to.

Af­ter Prince ap­peared to have learned that les­son quite per­fect­ly, Har­ry taught him some­thing new.

He taught him to stand on his hind legs and hold a pipe in his mouth.

This he soon did so well that Har­ry clapped his hands and cried, “Good, good, you smoke as well as his roy­al high­ness, the Black Prince, him­self.”

Which re­mark showed that Har­ry had not yet be­gun to study his­to­ry. If he had, he would have known that in the coun­try where the Black Prince lived, to­bac­co was nev­er heard of un­til many, many, MANY years af­ter his death.

STRING­ING CRAN­BER­RIES.

Arthur Ban­croft was feel­ing very cross one morn­ing in De­cem­ber. He had a bad cold, and his moth­er did not think it would be wise for him to go out-​of-​doors. That was why he was cross. The skat­ing was fin­er than it had been that sea­son; ev­ery oth­er boy he knew was en­joy­ing it.

He walked about the house with a very sulky face; would take no no­tice of books or games, and seemed de­ter­mined to be mis­er­able.

He was stand­ing look­ing out of the win­dow when his sis­ter Lau­ra came in­to the room. Lau­ra car­ried in her hand a bas­ket filled with cran­ber­ries.

She put the bas­ket on the ta­ble, took a nee­dle from her moth­er’s nee­dle book, thread­ed it with a long, stout thread, and be­gan string­ing the berries.

Lau­ra was a dear lit­tle thing! She was al­ways busy. No one ev­er heard her say, “I wish I had some­thing to do.” And she was gen­er­al­ly do­ing some­thing for some one else.

She made a sweet lit­tle pic­ture as she sat bend­ing over the bas­ket of crim­son cran­ber­ries. Some such idea may have come in­to Arthur’s mind as he turned and looked at her. As he watched her silent­ly for some mo­ments, the cross ex­pres­sion on his face be­came a lit­tle less cross.

“What are you do­ing?” he asked.

“String­ing cran­ber­ries for the Mullins’ Christ­mas tree,” an­swered Lau­ra. “Don’t you want to help me?”

“It’s girls’ work,” replied Arthur.

“Isn’t a boy smart enouhg to do a girl’s work?” asked Lau­ra.

“Of course, he’s SMART enough. I don’t mean that! Per­haps he doesn’t want to.”

“Oh,” said Lau­ra, “I wish you did want to.”

“Why?” asked Arthur.

“I promised to string all these for the Mullins’ Christ­mas tree” replied Lau­ra. “The mar­ket-​man brought them so late, I have not much time now.”

“Thread an­oth­er nee­dle,” said Arthur.

In a few mo­ments he was work­ing as busi­ly as Lau­ra, her­self. As Arthur fin­ished his last long string, he tied the ends to­geth­er and threw it around Lau­ra’s neck. When she bent her head a lit­tle, it reached the floor.

“There,” said he, “that proves that a boy can do a girl’s work.”

“Yes,” said Lau­ra, “when”–then she stopped and smiled.

“When what?” asked Arthur.

“When he has a girl to show him how,” laughed Lau­ra, as she danced out of the room with the cran­ber­ry strings.

CHRIST­MAS IN CAL­IFOR­NIA.

“To think that this is Christ­mas Day!” Said Harold to his aunt, “I know it re­al­ly is, and yet, Be­lieve it–well, I can’t! I’ve had a tree, my stock­ing, too, This morn­ing full I found, But how can I be­lieve it With no snow up­on the ground?

Look at the sea so bright and blue, And feel the soft, warm air, And there are ros­es all in bloom, And lilies, I de­clare! I think that Cal­ifor­nia Is love­ly, but it’s queer, How dif­fer­ent Christ­mas is at home From what it is out here.”

“Ah, Harold!” gen­tly said his aunt, “No mat­ter where you go, In coun­try strewn with flow­ers like this, Or clad in ice and snow, The birth­day of the Christ-​child is The same in ev­ery place, And hap­py greet­ings in His name, Bring smiles to ev­ery face.”

A TROU­BLE­SOME CALL.

We were go­ing, on Sat­ur­day, ev­er so far,– My mam­ma and I,–to the Dol­lies’ Bazaar, Where fifty wax dol­lies,–the loveli­est show, Went walk­ing about when they wound ‘em, you know.

You wouldn’t be­lieve half the things they could do: Why, one said “Good morn­ing,” as plain­ly as you. One played the pi­ano, and one, dressed in lace, Walked up to a mir­ror and pow­dered her face.

Well, when we were ready we stepped in the hall, And there was a la­dy a-​com­ing to call. She said she just chanced to be pass­ing that way, And she re­al­ly had on­ly a minute to stay.

We wait­ed and wait­ed, and hoped she would go, Till I saw it was al­most the time for the show, For I heard the clocks strik­ing all over the town, And I knew that the dol­lies would all be run down.

And so I just said, “I should s’pose, Mrs. Black, Your lit­tle girl won­ders why don’t you come back.” That’s all that I spoke, ev­ery ‘den­ti­cal word; But she said, “Lit­tle girls should be seen and not heard.”

I guess that’s a proverb, so maybe ’tis true; But, if peo­ple won’t see, what can lit­tle girls do? My mam­ma looked queer, but that end­ed the call, And we went to the Dol­lies’ Bazaar, af­ter all.

BERTIE’S CORN-​POP­PER

Bertie had the de­sire of his heart,–a corn-​pop­per! He had want­ed it for a long time,–three weeks, at least. Mam­ma brought it when she came home from the city, and gave it to him for his very own. A bushel of corn, ready popped, would not have been half so good. There was all the de­light of pop­ping in store for the long win­ter evenings.

Bertie could hard­ly wait to eat his sup­per be­fore he tried his corn-​pop­per. It proved to be a very good one. He popped corn that evening, and the next, and the next. He fed all the fam­ily, gave some to all his play­mates, and car­ried a bag of pop-​corn to school for his teach­er.

Trip, the shag­gy, lit­tle, yel­low dog, came in for a share, and Mintie too. Who or what was Mintie?

Mintie was a ban­tam bid­dy, very small, white as snow, and very pret­ty. She had been left an or­phan chick, and for a while kept in the house, near the kitchen fire. She had been Bertie’s es­pe­cial charge, and he fed and tend­ed her faith­ful­ly.

As she grew old­er she would rove about with the larg­er hens, but was very tame, and al­ways liked the house. She would come in very of­ten. When Bertie hap­pened to pop corn in the day­time she was pret­ty apt to be around, and pick up the ker­nels he threw to her.

One night he left his corn-​pop­per on the kitchen ta­ble. It was open, and two or three small ker­nels were still in it.

Ear­ly next morn­ing, long be­fore Bertie was dressed, Mintie came in­to the kitchen. She flew up on the ta­ble, and helped her­self to the corn in the pop­per. The girl was busy get­ting break­fast, and did not mind much about her. Present­ly she went down cel­lar, and Mintie had the room to her­self.

When Bertie came down to break­fast there was a white egg in the corn-​pop­per! It was so small that it looked al­most like a bird’s; but it was Mintie’s first egg.

Bertie clapped his hands; he was very much pleased.

“Mam­ma! mam­ma!” he shout­ed. “See this pret­ty egg! Mintie put it in­to my pop­per, and must have meant to give it to me.”

And mam­ma said, “Very like­ly she did.”

FIRE! FIRE!! FIRE!!!

Where is it? Where is it? Why, it is in the wa­ter! Isn’t tbat fun­ny? But you see it isn’t a re­al fire, but on­ly a fire-​fish.* Sweet crea­ture, isn’t he? Sup­pose you were a lit­tle, in­no­cent mer­maid, swim­ming alone for the first time; how would you feel if you were to meet this fel­low dart­ing to­wards you with his great red mouth open? Why, you would scream with fright, and swim to your moth­er as fast as you could, and catch hold of her tail for pro­tec­tion. At least, that is what I should do if I were a mer­maid. But Mrs. Mer­maid won’t tell you that the fire-​fish will not hurt you un­less you hurt him first, in which case he will prick you dread­ful­ly with his long, sharp spines.

*Project Guten­berg ed. note: The pic­ture is of a fish al­so known as a scor­pi­onfish.

I nev­er see his pic­ture with­out think­ing of a red In­di­an in his warpaint and feath­ers. Per­haps–who knows?-per­haps when In­di­ans are greedy, and eat too much fish, they may turn in­to fire-​fish, and have to swim about for­ev­er un­der wa­ter, and nev­er see a green for­est again. If you are an In­di­an I ad­vise you to be care­ful, my dear.

No­body knows why this fish has such enor­mous, wing-​like fins. Wise men used to think that he could raise him­self out of the wa­ter with them, like the fly­ing-​fish; but it is now proved that he can­not, and there seems to be no rea­son why a set of plain, small fins would not serve him just as well for swim­ming. He prefers warm wa­ter to cold; so he lives in the trop­ical seas, swim­ming about the coasts of In­dia, Africa, and Aus­tralia. The na­tives of Cey­lon call him Gi­ni-​ma­ha, and they think he is very good to eat. They take great care in catch­ing him, for they are very much afraid of him, think­ing that his sharp spines are poi­soned, and can in­flict a dead­ly wound. But in this they are too hard up­on the fel­low. He can prick them deeply and painful­ly, and he will if they med­dle with him; but he is a per­fect­ly re­spectable fish, and would not think of such a cow­ard­ly thing as poi­son­ing any­body.

THE DOLLS AND THE OTH­ER DOLLS.

“Mam­ma,” lit­tle Nel­lie asked, “is it right to give away things that have been giv­en to you?”

Her mam­ma replied that it might be quite right some­times; and she said, “But I should feel sor­ry if I had made a lit­tle friend a present she did not val­ue, and so was glad to part with it.”

“O mam­ma!” said Nel­lie, “you know how I val­ue my dol­lies, ev­ery one, that my dear aunts and cousins sent me be­cause I was sick. Now I am well again. To-​mor­row is New-​Year’s. Some sick lit­tle girls in the hos­pi­tal want dol­lies. Could I, if I knew which one to choose, keep on­ly one for my­self, and send the whole five of them for those poor chil­dren who haven’t any?”

Her mam­ma liked the plan. She gave Nel­lie a box, and Nel­lie be­gan kiss­ing her ba­bies, and lay­ing them, one af­ter an­oth­er, in the box.

There were two of near­ly the same size, that were very dear to this lit­tle moth­er. She called them twins. They wore white frocks and blue kid boots. They had re­al blonde hair and their eyes would open and shut.

These love­ly twins Nel­lie held in her arms a long time be­fore she could de­cide which to part with. When she did place one in the box, to be her own no more, a tear was on the doll’s cheek. I do not think the drop came from dol­ly’s eye.

A few days af­ter the dolls were giv­en Nel­lie’s mam­ma let her in­vite three lit­tle girls to play with her. Each girl brought her Christ­mas or her New-​Year’s doll; and the three dolls, with Nel­lie’s, looked sweet­ly sit­ting to­geth­er in a row.

By and by Nel­lie’s mam­ma came to her room, which she had giv­en to the par­ty for its use that af­ter­noon. She told the chil­dren she would give them a lit­tle sup­per of cakes and pears and grapes, and it would be ready as soon as Bid­dy could bring the ice-​cream from down street.

The smil­ing child-​vis­itors gath­ered around the kind la­dy, say­ing, “We thank you, and we love you ev­er so much.”

Nel­lie said soft­ly, “Mam­ma dear, I wouldn’t take my dol­lies back if I could. I love to think they amuse the sick chil­dren. But I do wish that for just a minute we had as many at this par­ty.”

Her mam­ma turned to her dress­ing-​case. It stood low enough for the small­est child to look in­to the mir­ror at the back eas­ily. Mov­ing off the toi­let cush­ions and cologne-​bot­tles, the la­dy put the four dolls in front of the look­ing-​glass. Their re­flec­tion in the glass showed four more.

“Six, sev­en, eight,” cried the girls, de­light­ed. “And all are twins–four pairs of twins!”

Af­ter sup­per they made, the twins sit, and stand, and dance, bow and shake hands, be­fore the look­ing-​glass. So they played till dusk, when the oth­er lit­tle girls’ mam­mas sent to take them home, af­ter kiss­ing Nel­lie good-​night.

WHY DID MAM­MA CHANGE HER MIND?

Mam­ma Miller told Fay and Lon­nie that they might have a par­ty, so they tried to get ready for it. But the par­ty was very dif­fer­ent to what they ex­pect­ed. It al­ways hap­pens so about ev­ery­thing, if we pay no re­gard to one an­oth­er’s wish­es.

Mrs. Miller said they might in­vite ten chil­dren.

“You write to five lit­tle girls, Fay,” said she, “and Lon­nie will write to the five lit­tle boys.”

So they went in­to the li­brary. Lon­nie sat down in pa­pa’s big chair, while Fay climbed up on one arm, close be­side him, and they tried to think whom they would like to come to their par­ty.

“Make out your list first,” said Lon­nie. Fay did, and her broth­er agreed to all the girls. But as soon as Lon­nie com­menced writ­ing his names, Fay be­gan to find fault.

“I don’t like boys, any­way,” said Fay, “on­ly you, Lon­nie. Let’s have all girls at our par­ty.”

“But it won’t be my par­ty,” said Lon­nie, “if you have all girls.”

“I don’t care, all those are hor­rid,” point­ing to his pa­per.

“You say that be­cause you don’t like boys.” And then he told his sis­ter that ev­ery lit­tle fel­low whose name he had writ­ten was just as good as gold. And so they were just as good as Lon­nie Miller, and he was one of the best boys that ev­er lived, so ev­ery­body said.

“I sha’n't play with him if he comes,” Fay kept say­ing to ev­ery name Lon­nie wrote.

“You can have your par­ty,” said Lon­nie, get­ting up out of the easy-​chair and sit­ting down in a small­er one, “you and your girls. I’m go­ing to learn some new pieces,” tak­ing up his lit­tle sil­ver blow­er.

“I don’t like boys,” Fay kept say­ing, jump­ing down off the arm of the chair, and aim­ing a blow at the spot where her broth­er had sat with the rus­tic stick their sis­ter Lu­cia had brought home May Day.

Lu­cia was pass­ing the door just then, so she thought she would see what all the noise was about.

“I’d bet­ter call you to lunch,” said she, and there they were just through break­fast.

Mam­ma her­self came hur­ry­ing in at sound of the bell. When they told her about the in­vi­ta­tions, she said, “I shall not let you have any par­ty at all, now.”

“What makes you change your mind?” said Fay.

“Mam­ma will give her lit­tle girl just one week to find out why she has changed her mind,” said Mrs. Miller.

And for all Fay’s coax­ing, she could not be per­suad­ed to stay a minute longer.

CLARA’S “FU­NER­AL.”

Clara was the most un­for­tu­nate of dol­lies. She had had the mumps and whoop­ing cough; and no soon­er did she re­cov­er from the scar­let fever than she con­tract­ed pneu­mo­nia and near­ly died. One morn­ing Blanche was ap­ply­ing hot ban­dages to re­lieve bron­chi­tis, and be­fore night Clara had the small-​pox.

The next day mam­ma stopped at the nurs­ery door.

“Good morn­ing, lit­tle nurse,” she said; “how is poor Clara this morn­ing?”

“She’s DEAD­ED,” said Blanche, with a long face.

“Dread­ful! What did she die of, small-​pox? It seems to me that that was what she was suf­fer­ing from last evening.”

“No’m'” said Blanche, “’twasn’t small-​pox. She DID have that bad; but I think she DIED of measles. The SUNER­AL (Blanche could not say ‘fu­ner­al’) is to be at twelve sharp. Will you come, mam­ma?”

“I’m so sor­ry, dar­ling, but I must go to lunch with Mrs. Math­ews at one. But Jack will go.”

The “suner­al” took place at noon, and Blanche and Daisy, Jack and old Hec­tor fol­lowed poor Clara in Ben­ny’s wag­on to the grave yard at the bot­tom of the or­chard. It was rather a jol­ly “suner­al,” for they had “re­fresh­ments” un­der the trees af­ter­ward.

In the af­ter­noon, as mam­ma, came up the or­chard path, she was sur­prised to see a doll’s foot and leg stick­ing straight up out of the ground.

“Why did you leave her foot out in this way?” asked mam­ma.

“Well,” said Blanche, “I thought per­haps she could get to Heav­en eas­ier.”

THE CHICK­ADEE-​DEE.

Lit­tle dar­ling of the snow, Care­less how the winds may blow, Hap­py as a bird can be, Singing, oh, so cheer­ily, Chick­adee-​dee! Chick­adee-​dee!

When the skies are cold and gray, When he trills his hap­pi­est lay, Through the clouds he seems to see Hid­den things to you and me. Chick­adee-​dee! chick­adee-​dee!

Very like­ly lit­tle birds Have their thoughts too deep for word, But we know, and all agree, That the world would drea­ry be With­out birds, dear chick­adee!

THE CHIL­DREN’S PAR­TY.

What a mer­ry, mer­ry rout! See the wee ones dance about! Dick­ie’s lead­ing off the ball; There,–he al­most had a fall.

Who’s his part­ner in the whirls, –Rosiest of all the girls? But a doll–a DOLL you say; Danc­ing in that spright­ly way?

Well I nev­er! Oh, see there, See–just see those hors­es tear! Meg and Madge will sure be thrown. What a vi­cious look­ing roan!

Not a re­al live horse you say, Pranc­ing in that fright­ful way? Well, I nev­er! Toys to-​day Sure­ly seem more “re­al” than “play.”

BRAVE TOMAS­SO.

There were once two very beau­ti­ful cats named Tomas­so and Lil­ia. It would be very hard in­deed to say which was more beau­ti­ful than the oth­er, Tomas­so the hus­band, or Lil­ia his wife.

They were about the same size, al­though, per­haps, Tomas­so was a lit­tle the stouter of the two. There could be no ques­tion that at times the ex­pres­sion of his face was de­cid­ed­ly more fierce than that of his gen­tle wife.

The fur of each of them was as white as the driv­en snow, and as soft, and fine, and glossy as the most per­fect silk gloss.

Add to these nat­ural charms the fact that they al­ways kept them­selves beau­ti­ful­ly clean, and al­ways wore round their necks cra­vats made of the rich­est satin rib­bon, and I am sure you will agree with me in think­ing that they were cats of very high de­gree.

Their neigh­bors con­sid­ered them ex­treme­ly proud and haughty. They nev­er were known to play with any of the cats in their street. To be with each oth­er was all they asked. Some­times these neigh­bors took a great deal of pains to get a glimpse of Tomas­so and Lil­ia as, paw in paw, they danced a min­uet to­geth­er.

Even the most grumpy gri­malkin de­clared it was a beau­ti­ful sight. There was no doubt the young cou­ple was very grace­ful and their man­ners were per­fect. Then he said that cats brought up as Tomas­so and his wife had al­ways lived, OUGHT to be ami­able and beau­ti­ful. He un­der­stood that a jar of Or­ange Coun­ty cream was or­dered for them ev­ery day. Then he mut­tered some­thing which sound­ed very much as if he thought Tomas­so would be not over coura­geous in a mo­ment of dan­ger. “Alone, white tail is all very fine,” said he, “but mark my word, at a sud­den fright it would turn in­to a white feath­er. I should pity his wife if she had no one but him to pro­tect her.”

Now it hap­pened that that very af­ter­noon Tomas­so’s courage was put to the test. As he and Lil­ia were tak­ing a qui­et walk, sud­den­ly a huge dog rushed out at them. In an in­stant Tomas­so placed him­self across Lil­ia’s trem­bling body. She had fall­en to the ground in ter­ror. The great dog made a jump at Tomas­so, but was met with such a snarl, and then such a blow from a set of sharp claws that he ran away howl­ing.

That night the news of Tomas­so’s brav­ery spread through the whole neigh­bor­hood. But he was very qui­et and mod­est. His proud wife was much dis­turbed at a bad scratch Tomas­so had re­ceived in the strug­gle. They both ex­am­ined it care­ful­ly with the aid of a hand-​glass.

“I hope it will not leave a scar,” said Lil­ia, “but if it does it will on­ly be a proof of the no­ble courage of my brave Tomas­so.”

TOM­MY FROST SEES A BEAR.

Tom­my Frost was mak­ing his first vis­it in the coun­try. He was en­joy­ing it very much. He liked to ram­ble about in the woods close by the house of his aunt, Mrs. Drew. Tom­my had nev­er even seen any birds be­fore this, but pi­geons and spar­rows. That is, any birds out of cages. He had lived all his short life in the cen­tre of a great city. He want­ed very much to see a wild an­imal. He had heard Mr. Drew and some of his friends talk­ing about “bear tracks” in the woods. Mr. Drew said they must go off some day and hunt for that bear.

Now Tom­my had no idea what a bear was like. He wished very much that he might see one. Ev­ery day he said to him­self, “If I could on­ly find the one the big men were talk­ing about I’d feel proud.” One day as he was strolling about, he sud­den­ly saw some­thing mov­ing in one of the trees. He stopped, and looked up ex­cit­ed­ly, then he rushed for the house scream­ing at the top of his voice, “Aunt Maria! Aunt Maria! come quick, I’ve seen it, it’s in the woods.”

“What is in the woods?” asked Mrs. Drew.

“The bear!” cried Tom­my.

“The bear?” re­peat­ed Mrs. Drew, hard­ly un­der­stand­ing.

Then she drew a long breath and turned very white as she stood a mo­ment shield­ing her eyes from the sun, look­ing in the di­rec­tion in which Tom­my point­ed. Then she ran back in­to the house, and came out in a mo­ment, bring­ing with her a huge horn. It was a mega­phone. She was trem­bling so she could scarce­ly lift it, but she man­aged to raise it to her mouth and call through it. “John! Mur­ray! come! come this in­stant! The bear is in the woods back of the house.”

In a few mo­ments her hus­band and broth­er came run­ning from the field where they were at work.

They stopped for no ques­tions, but rushed in­to the house for their guns. But as they came out Mr. Drew asked, “Who saw it? When, where?”

“I did, said Tom­my, not a bit fright­ened, but feel­ing very ex­cit­ed and proud. “I did, back there in a tree.”

“In a tree?” cried Mrs. Drew’s broth­er, stop­ping in his quick run for the woods.

“Yes,” said Tom­my, “it was a bear, but it looked,–it LOOKED just like my pic­ture of a wig­gle-​tail.”

“Oh,” cried Mrs. Drew, as she sank on the door-​step, “the child has seen a gray squir­rel!”

MY­SELF.

One lit­tle head so smooth and round, With soft hair cov­ered, gold­en or brown, One lit­tle fore­head smooth and white, Two lit­tle eye-​brows dark or light. Two lit­tle eyes that we see through. See us look­ing, now, at you? Two lit­tle cheeks so plump and round, Where the red rose of health is found. Two lit­tle ears where sound comes in; One lit­tle nose and mouth and chin. Rows of lit­tle teeth all in white; Ready for use when lunch is in sight. One lit­tle tongue kind words to say– Bright lit­tle smiles which round them play. One lit­tle head where all are seen. One lit­tle neck which stands be­tween Head and shoul­ders to hold them fast. Now are we ready to find, at last, One lit­tle body with arms and hands Two legs and two feet on which it stands.

TWO STRANGE SIGHTS.

“Oh come in­to the din­ing-​room!” Cries Fred, “come, grand­ma, dear. For some­thing very strange in­deed Is go­ing on in here!” And sure enough, when grand­ma comes, Per­haps at first with fright, She stands quite still, as­ton­ished at An un­ex­pect­ed sight.

For there up­on the woollen rug, A jug be­tween her feet, Sits Fred­dy’s lit­tle sis­ter Bess Ab­sorbed in plea­sures sweet. Her fin­ger in the syrup now Be­hold she sly­ly dips, And car­ries it with great de­light To her own rosy lips.

“You lit­tle witch!” cries grand­ma­ma, “You’re like the naughty rat I found with­in the cel­lar once, Who on a bar­rel sat, Filled with mo­lasses, which he reached By dip­ping in the hole His great long tail from which he licked The sweets he thus had stole.

“The rat was shot, but grand­ma’s babe, Well, till she’s learned to know Such tricks are wrong, why we of course Must naught but pa­tience show.” Then grand­ma took her lit­tle pet, And washed her sticky face, Then put that tempt­ing syrup-​jug Up in a safer place.

A CAT’S IN­STINCTS.

“Take that! and that! and that!” These words came from an an­gry lit­tle girl. She was lean­ing over a big gray puss which she was hold­ing down with one hand, while with the oth­er she struck him a sharp blow ev­ery time she said “THAT.”

It is a won­der puss did not bite her, for he was so strong he could have done so. He was a very gen­tle cat. “Gen­tle?” I hear some one ask. Then why did he de­serve such a whip­ping as the lit­tle girl was giv­ing him?

That is a ques­tion we must try to have an­swered. For my part I do not be­lieve he de­served it at all. Let us see what hap­pened next. Just as the lit­tle girl struck the last blow her Aunt Mar­garet came in­to the room. Aunt Mar­garet stopped in the door­way, as­ton­ished.

“Why Flo­ra,” she said, as puss dart­ed out of the room, “what are you beat­ing Grif­fin for?”

“What do you think he was do­ing?” cried Flo­ra, her cheeks still flushed with anger. “He was on the ta­ble just ready to spring at this beau­ti­ful bird in my new hat. If I had not come he would have torn it to pieces.”

“But he knew no bet­ter, said Aunt Mar­garet, “it is per­fect­ly nat­ural for a cat to spring at a bird. Yes, and for him to kill it too, if he has not been trained to do oth­er­wise.”

“But it would have made me feel dread­ful­ly to have this beau­ti­ful bird torn to bits. I re­al­ly love it. Be­sides, it was killed long ago.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Mar­garet, “killed that you might wear it on a hat.”

There was some­thing in Aunt Mar­garet’s voice which made Flo­ra and the lit­tle girls who were vis­it­ing her stand very still and look up.

“You say,” con­tin­ued Aunt Mar­garet very gen­tly, “you say you love your beau­ti­ful bird. That you would feel dread­ful­ly if it were torn to bits. How do you think its bird-​moth­er felt when it was torn from her nest, and she nev­er saw it again?”

“Oh,” said Flo­ra, “I nev­er thought of that be­fore. I’m afraid,– I’m afraid I’m more to blame than the cat.”

DI­NAH’S NEW YEAR’S PRESENT.

Di­nah Mor­ris is a col­ored girl. She lives in the South. By South we mean in the south­ern part of the Unit­ed States.

Di­nah is one of the most good-​na­tured chil­dren that ev­er lived, but she is very, very lazy. There is noth­ing she likes, or used to like, so much as to curl up in some warm cor­ner in the sun and do noth­ing.

Di­nah’s moth­er wished very much that her child should learn to read, but the la­dy who tried to teach her soon gave it up. “It is no use,” she said, “Di­nah will not learn. She is not a stupid child, but she is too lazy for any­thing.”

It hap­pened, soon af­ter this, that a young man from Mas­sachusetts came to the house where Di­nah lived. He brought with him some­thing no one else in the neigh­bor­hood had ev­er seen be­fore–a pair of roller-​skates.

When Di­nah saw the young man go­ing rapid­ly up and down the pi­az­za on his skates she was so as­ton­ished she hard­ly knew what to think. She ran af­ter him like a cat, her black eyes shin­ing as they had nev­er shone be­fore.

One day the young man al­lowed her to try on the skates. The child was too hap­py for words. Of course she fell down, and sprawled about the floor, but did not mind at all.

“Look here, Di­nah,” said the young man, “I un­der­stand that my aunt has been try­ing to teach you to read.”

Di­nah an­swered that she cer­tain­ly had.

“Why didn’t you learn?” asked the young man. “You need not trou­ble to an­swer,” said he, “it was just be­cause you are too lazy. Now, if, on the first of Jan­uary, you can read, I tell you what I will do. I will send you as good a pair of roller-​skates as I can buy in Boston.”

How Di­nah’s eyes snapped. For a mo­ment she said noth­ing, then ex­claimed de­cid­ed­ly, “I’ll have those skates, sure.”

And she did. When she bent her mind on her work she could al­ways do it well, no mat­ter what it was.

The la­dy who had be­fore this found her such a dif­fi­cult child to teach, now had no trou­ble. If Di­nah showed the least sign of her for­mer lazi­ness the word SKATES! was enough to make her bend her mind on her les­son in­stant­ly.

On New Year’s morn­ing she re­ceived a box marked in large print­ed let­ters:

MISS DI­NAH MOR­RIS, Care of Mrs. Lawrence De­laney, NEW OR­LEANS, LA.

If she can read what is on the out­side of this box she can have what is in­side.

And as Di­nah read ev­ery word plain­ly and quick­ly, of course she had for her very own the fine roller-​skates the box held. And now sit­ting curled up in the sun, do­ing noth­ing, is not the thing she likes to do best.

NIGHT FLOW­ERS.

There are some flow­ers that nev­er see the sun. One of the most cu­ri­ous is the “evening prim­rose.” About six o’clock it sud­den­ly bursts open, with a pop­ping sound, and at six next morn­ing clos­es.

If you watch that pret­ty flow­er, and lis­ten, you can hear this strange per­for­mance.

This is why it does so. The lit­tle ca­lyx holds the petals in such a way that the mo­ment it turns back they are let loose. At once it bursts out in­to full flow­er, with this fun­ny noise, like a pop-​gun.

So the “night-​bloom­ing cereus” blos­som in the night, on­ly for an hour, giv­ing out its sweet fra­grance, and then dies. Just think of nev­er see­ing the sun at all!

In a far East­ern coun­try there is a kind of jas­mine called the “sor­row­ful tree.” It droops as if sick in the day­time, and at night grows fresh and bright. It opens its love­ly flow­ers with a very pleas­ant odor till morn­ing, and then wilts and looks wretched again.

THE FIRST SNOW-​STORM.

Away off on a warm sun­ny is­land, lit­tle Har­ry Hall was born. Flow­ers bloomed all the year round. The sun shone most of the time, al­though now and then there were thun­der-​show­ers.

Many won­der­ful plants grew wild, while on the shore shells and sea­weed and queer lit­tle fish­es were of­ten to be found.

When Har­ry was six years old his par­ents took a jour­ney to New York.

It seemed very odd to the lit­tle boy to live in a place where there were so many peo­ple, and such great hous­es. Af­ter a while the weath­er grew cold, and he had to wear thick woollen cloth­ing. The house in which they lived was heat­ed by a fur­nace; but one day they had a fire of logs on the hearth. Har­ry en­joyed it very much, and thought the bright blaze so pret­ty.

The sky was gray and cloudy one af­ter­noon, and Har­ry had been stand­ing by the win­dow watch­ing the street cars. Sud­den­ly the air grew thick, and he could scarce­ly see the hous­es op­po­site. Some­thing white and feath­ery fell slow­ly down and rest­ed on the win­dow ledge. Then it dis­ap­peared. But more and more of the lit­tle flakes came, un­til there was quite a ridge out­side of the win­dow.

Har­ry opened the sash gen­tly, fear­ing it might fly away. He was sur­prised when he touched it to find it so cold. He took some up in his hand, but in a mo­ment it was on­ly a drop of wa­ter.

By that time the street and the men’s hats and coats were quite white. Har­ry was puz­zled to find a name for the beau­ti­ful white sub­stance, so he ran to his mam­ma and asked her about it.

She told him it was snow, and be­cause the air was so warm on the beau­ti­ful is­land where he was born they nev­er had any.

The next morn­ing he saw the lit­tle chil­dren of the neigh­bor­hood play­ing in it; but be­fore noon the sun was so bright and warm the snow had all melt­ed away.

When the sec­ond snow-​storm came Har­ry’s pa­pa brought home a beau­ti­ful sleigh, and gave his lit­tle boy great plea­sure by draw­ing him up and down the street.

Har­ry soon learned to go out by him­self, and made many friends; es­pe­cial­ly of the lit­tle girls, as he was very gen­er­ous with his sleigh.

But he has nev­er for­got­ten his sur­prise when he saw the first snow-​storm.

FRED’S STOLEN RIDE.

One day lit­tle Fred’s mot­ber, who bad been sick a long time, told him she was go­ing out with a friend to take a drive. Fred want­ed to go, too, but his moth­er said there would not be room in the bug­gy. Fred felt very cross and un­hap­py, and sat down on the front steps, ready to cry as soon as he should see his moth­er go away.

A bug­gy came to the gate, and the gen­tle­man who was driv­ing went in­to the house. Fred ran out and climbed in­to the bug­gy to sit there un­til his moth­er came out.

In look­ing around he saw there was a wide space un­der the seat, in which a boy might hide. He crawled in, think­ing he would take a ride, and his moth­er would not know it.

He wait­ed a long time, but no one came, and at last he grew tired and fell asleep.

He was waked by feel­ing a big jolt, as a wheel of the bug­gy struck a stone; but he kept still. Af­ter what seemed to him a long time the bug­gy stopped and he heard some one tak­ing the horse from the shafts. He wait­ed un­til all was qui­et, and then crawled out from his hid­ing-​place.

He found it was al­most dark, and ev­ery­thing about him was strange. He was very much fright­ened, but he jumped down and went to a farm-​house close by. A wom­an he had nev­er seen be­fore came to the door. When he told her where he lived she said he was fif­teen miles from home, and he found that he had tak­en his stolen ride in the bug­gy of a man who had called to see his fa­ther on busi­ness.

It was too late for Fred to go home that night, and he had to stay at the farmer’s house un­til the next day. Then he was tak­en home, and I am very sure he nev­er tried to steal an­oth­er ride.

A VALEN­TINE PAR­TY.

The chil­dren had a valen­tine par­ty, the very nicest par­ty,–they all de­clared, that they had ev­er been to in their lives. All the cousins in the neigh­bor­hood–and there were a lot of them–were there.

What fun they had open­ing their valen­tines, which a “re­al­ly” post­man brought with his gray uni­form and his whis­tle and his great leather pack.

“Dear me,” he said, pre­tend­ing to groan, as he hand­ed the mis­sives, “if you had a par­ty ev­ery day here I think I should be com­pletey worn out!” But his eyes twin­kled mer­ri­ly.

Such shouts and ex­cla­ma­tions as the valen­tines were opened and read! And such fun look­ing at ev­ery­body else’s. Here are two, Bessie’s and Fred’s:–

I’m for the boy Who can stand on his head, And who NEV­ER likes To go to bed. If there’s more than one of them,– I’m for FRED!

I bring a kiss From far away; It’s trav­elled many Miles to-​day.

Take it, my dear, And send one back To your old, lov­ing Un­cle Jack.

Don’t you think that the chil­dren OUGHT to have had a good time if all re­ceived as dear lit­tle valen­tines as these?

THE VEN­TURE­SOME RAT.

He was a fine young rat and lived with his fa­ther and moth­er, and broth­ers and sis­ters in a farm-​cel­lar.

Now this young rat was not of a very qui­et dis­po­si­tion. In fact he was quite gay, and thought the life in the farm-​cel­lar was very dull and stupid and longed to see more of the world.

He sat near his fa­ther and moth­er one day when they were en­ter­tain­ing a caller, a stranger who seemed to have trav­elled all over the world, and told in a very in­ter­est­ing man­ner of the many won­der­ful things he had seen. “Why,” said the caller, “how you can be con­tent­ed to live as you do I can­not imag­ine, and to bring up your chil­dren in such ig­no­rance fills me with sur­prise. They would learn more in one night prowl­ing through the big house to which this farm be­longs than they will learn here for the rest of their lives.”

Af­ter this caller had tak­en his leave, the young rat de­cid­ed that he would ven­ture forth him­self. He would that very night vis­it the big house and see what was to be seen there. He pre­tend­ed to cud­dle down on his own bed, and go sound asleep. He was re­al­ly watch­ing his par­ents out of the cor­ners of his wicked eyes, and as soon as they were sound asleep, off he start­ed. He found his way to the house much more eas­ily than he had ex­pect­ed; in short, al­most be­fore he could be­lieve it, he was in a fine great pantry. A pantry whose shelves were cov­ered with such good things to eat as he had nev­er seen. Rich cake, pies, cook­ies, and cheese such as he had heard the caller de­scribe. The first nib­ble fair­ly melt­ed in his mouth.

Af­ter he had eat­en his fill he be­gan look­ing about the pantry for oth­er means of amuse­ment. Sud­den­ly he saw a cu­ri­ous thing; it seemed to be a lit­tle house or hut made of wire. In­side the hut was a piece of cheese. “I re­al­ly think I have eat­en enough,” said the young rat, “but if that cheese is so fine that it is kept in a house by it­self it must be very fine in­deed.” With these words he- crawled in­to the hole in the side of the hut and ate the cheese, but when, lat­er, he tried to get out he could not to save his life.

Hours and hours he re­mained there un­til the night passed, and the day came. In­deed he had fall­en in­to a lit­tle nap when he was awak­ened by a loud cry. Some one was shout­ing, “we’ve caught the ras­cal at last, now we’ll drown him.”

The poor lit­tle fel­low knew they were wrong; he could not be the ras­cal they meant, for this was the first time he had ev­er been in the house. At that mo­ment a boy’s voice was heard to say. “Let me see him. No, you shall not drown him. I will tame him if I can.”

And so it came about that the young rat did see a good deal of the world, but how? THROUGH THE BARS OF A CAGE.

THE BEARS’ FEAST.

A man had come to town with two tame bears. They were very clever bears, and could climb posts and trees, dance and turn sum­mer­sets and do a great many oth­er tricks be­sides.

One day the man was tak­en ill and had to stay in the house all day. He thought the bears were locked up in the barn. But the bears de­cid­ed they would go for a walk by them­selves. They man­aged to get away with­out be­ing seen and start­ed in the di­rec­tion of the school­house.

The chil­dren were at re­cess when they sud­den­ly saw the bears. They were fright­ened and ran scream­ing in­to the school-​house.

The bears were very tame and kind and want­ed to make friends with the chil­dren, so they fol­lowed them.

The chil­dren jumped on the desks scream­ing and cry­ing and the teach­ers were fright­ened too.

When the bears saw that they could not make friends or play they be­gan qui­et­ly walk­ing about the school-​room.

Fi­nal­ly they came to the dress­ing-​room where all the din­ner-​pails and bas­kets were hang­ing.

Smelling the food, they man­aged to knock some of the bas­kets down and then such a feast as they had!

They sat on their haunch­es and ate sand­wich­es and fruit and drank milk out of the bot­tles just as the chil­dren would do. When they had eat­en enough they qui­et­ly left the school-​house and trot­ted down the road to­ward home.

Af­ter the bears were gone the chil­dren be­came calm again and re­turned to their lessons.

The man and the bears dis­ap­peared the next day and were nev­er seen again.

PAT­TY-​SAY­INGS.

“I’ve been read­ing Bible sto­ries,” Pat­ty said, “and I be­lieve That Adam’s name MEANT “Morn­ing,’ Be­cause his wife was ‘Eve.’”

BA­BIE’S CURLS.

Lit­tle Bessie Booth­by Had a lit­tle sis­ter Sue: And a ba­by broth­er, Whom she thought the world of, too.

On­ly one thing trou­bled These dear lit­tle girls; ‘Though ba­by Tom was pret­ty, He hadn’t any curls.

They found a box of vase­line And rubbed it on his head; But even then no hair would grow: It made his head quite red.

Bessie once was brush­ing Dol­lie’s gold­en hair, When off it fell, alas! and left Poor dol­lie’s head quite bare.

Lit­tle Sue was fright­ened, But to com­fort, Bessie said, “Susie dear, do lis­ten, ‘Tis just like ba­bie’s head.

“Let’s put the wig on ba­by Tom, And then he’ll have some curls; I would not even be sur­prised If he looked just like us girls.”

When Mam­ma saw her ba­by boy With all this growth of hair, She laughed un­til she near­ly cried, At the naughty lit­tle pair.

THE RED AP­PLES.

One windy day in March Kit­ty Miller was on her way to school, when she spied in a store win­dow, a great pile of love­ly red ap­ples.

“Oh”, she said, “how love­ly! if Mam­ma could on­ly have one!”

Kit­tie’s moth­er was very poor. She had been a dress-​mak­er ev­er since Mr. Miller died, and had worked so hard to earn a liv­ing for her­self and Kit­ty that she had be­come sick. She was obliged to lie in bed all day, and when Kit­ty was away at school, the house was very lone­some to the in­valid.

When Kit­ty reached the school that day her thoughts were full of her sick moth­er and the love­ly ap­ples.

She was usu­al­ly a good schol­ar, but to-​day she made so many blun­ders that the teach­er looked at her in sur­prise. The lit­tle girl could on­ly sit at her desk, with her book be­fore her, and dream of those red ap­ples. When school was dis­missed, Kit­ty start­ed slow­ly home­ward. She had gone on­ly a short dis­tance when she saw a gen­tle­man in front of her drop his purse. Run­ning quick­ly for­ward she picked it up. It felt quite heavy in Kit­tie’s lit­tle hand.

“There must be a good deal of mon­ey in it,” thought Kit­ty. “How I wish I could keep it. Then I could buy Mam­ma a red ap­ple and so many oth­er things she needs.”

But she knew this would not be right, so she hur­ried af­ter the gen­tle­man. Touch­ing him on the arm, she said, “Please, Sir, you dropped your purse.”

“Thank you, dear,” said the gen­tle­man tak­ing the purse.

Then notic­ing how poor­ly dressed she was, he said, “Why did you not keep the purse, my child?”

“Be­cause that would be steal­ing,” replied Kit­ty. “But,” she con­tin­ued hon­est­ly, “be­fore I thought I must give it back to you, I did wish I could keep it, for then I could buy Mam­ma a red ap­ple.”

The gen­tle­man smiled kind­ly and said, “You are a good lit­tle girl to re­turn my purse. I would like to give you a lit­tle present and then you can buy a red ap­ple.”

He hand­ed her a sil­ver dol­lar and then bade her good-​by.

Kit­ty was so sur­prised that she start­ed hasti­ly for home, for­get­ting all about the red ap­ples un­til she stood in front of the store.

The store-​keep­er hap­pened to look out and saw the same lit­tle girl who stood look­ing so long­ing­ly in at his win­dow in the morn­ing. He quick­ly picked out the biggest, round­est, red­dest ap­ple he could find and tak­ing it out to Kit­ty said, “Would you like this, my dear?”

She took the ap­ple, look­ing so pleased and thank­ing him so pret­ti­ly, that the good man thought of it for many a day. When Kit­ty reached home with her trea­sures she found her moth­er fast asleep. So she put the ap­ple and sil­ver piece on a plate where her moth­er could see them when she awoke.

When Mrs. Miller was told the won­der­ful sto­ry, she kissed her lit­tle daugh­ter and said, “You see, dear, it al­ways pays to be hon­est and truth­ful.”

BUB­BLES.

“Now, Tom­mie, what will you do while I write let­ters this morn­ing?”

“Blow soap bub­bles, Mam­ma, please,” and Tom­mie jumped up and down, clap­ping his hands for plea­sure.

“Well, run and get me your pipe and bowl and I will mix you some suds.”

The soap-​suds were soon ready, and Tom­mie took his fa­vorite po­si­tion on the broad win­dow-​sill with the bowl in his lap.

Mam­ma, writ­ing in the next room, could hear the Oh’s and squeals of de­light, as the bub­bles grew larg­er and rounder.

“Why is Tom­mie in all the bub­bles?” asked the lit­tle boy at last.

“Be­cause, said Mam­ma, “the bub­bles are like a mir­ror, and when my lit­tle boy is near enough to look at them, he will be re­flect­ed in them, just the same as when he looks in Mam­ma’s long mir­ror.”

“But the mir­ror doesn’t break like the bub­bles,” said Tom­mie. “Where do they go when they break, Mam­ma?”

“They evap­orate, dear; that is a big word for my lit­tle boy. Spell it af­ter Mam­ma and then per­haps you will re­mem­ber. E-​v-​a-​p-​o-​r-​a-​t-​e evap­orate.”

“What does evap­orate mean,” asked Tom­mie bring­ing out the long word with a jerk.

“Do you re­mem­ber, dear,” an­swered Mam­ma, “that ear­ly in the morn­ing when the grass is all wet with dew, my lit­tle boy can­not run in it with­out his rub­bers? But be­fore long it is all dry and then my lit­tle boy takes off his rub­bers and does not get his feet wet. The sun and the air ab­sorb or suck up the wa­ter and car­ry it off to their homes. Now, the bub­bles are made of a lit­tle wa­ter and a lit­tle air. The wa­ter is on the end of the pipe, and Tom­mie blows the air in­to the pipe, and the bub­ble grows big and round. When it breaks, the air sucks up the wa­ter, which was the out­side of the bub­ble, and the air which was in­side mix­es with the air in the room.”

“Now do you sup­pose you can tell Pa­pa all about it, when he comes home to din­ner?” asked Mam­ma.

“Of course I can,” said Tom­mie, proud­ly. “Haven’t you just told me all about it?”

A HORSE WHO WORE SNOW SHOES.

Mr. Brown had to go to his camp at Pine Tree Val­ley, which is in the midst of the moun­tains in Cal­ifor­nia.

His men were cut­ting down the gi­ant trees, and pil­ing them in readi­ness for the Spring freshet, or floods of the riv­er, when the snows melt­ed. Then they would slide them down the moun­tain sides to the lit­tle vil­lages be­low.

There was a great deal of snow on the moun­tains, and Mr. Brown knew it would be hard work climb­ing to the camp, but La­dy Gray was strong, and used to it.

La­dy Gray was Mr. Brown’s pet horse, and car­ried him ev­ery­where. She was al­ways hap­py when her mas­ter was in the sad­dle.

But to-​day the snow was very deep and soon Mr. Brown had to get off, throw away the sad­dle, and lead her. They had to stop very of­ten, and lean against the trees and rocks for sup­port, while they rest­ed and re­gained their breath.

In places the snow was so deep and soft, that they sank above their knees. Late in the af­ter­noon they reached the camp near­ly ex­haust­ed, and it was sev­er­al days be­fore they were able to re­turn.

The snow was still deep and Mr. Brown knew he must go back on snow-​shoes, but he was afraid La­dy Gray would have to be left be­hind.

Fi­nal­ly one of the men sug­gest­ed mak­ing her some snow-​shoes. They cut four round pieces of board, twelve inch­es across, and fas­tened them on with rope. La­dy Gray seemed to un­der­stand what they were for and tried very hard to walk in them.

She was very awk­ward at first and could hard­ly stand up, but by prac­tic­ing a lit­tle ev­ery day she was soon able to man­age nice­ly.

So Mr. Brown and La­dy Gray both re­turned on snow-​shoes, and how ev­ery one did laugh when they saw them.

But La­dy Gray nev­er could have done it if she had not tried.

THE AN­GRY BOBOLINK.

Pret­ty lit­tle bobolink In your satin coat, Trimmed with white across the neck Black about the throat, Why so an­gry do you seem? Why so fierce your mien? That you’re scold­ing some­body Plain­ly can be seen.

“Don’t you know,” says bobolink, As he shakes his head, That my nest is hid­den in This soft grassy bed? Some­body has come too near, And I wish to say There is no ad­mit­tance here Pass the oth­er way.

“If my gen­tle lit­tle wife Sits so calm above, It’s be­cause she knows I’ll guard This dear nest we love.” Fear not, pret­ty bobolink, Sing your joy­ous song, Nev­er will I trou­ble you, Sing, the whole day long.

HOW HI­RAM SPENT HIS SHRIMP MON­EY.

“I wish my moth­er had a ring like those the ladies wear at the ho­tel,” said Hi­ram Green to him­self one day. “There isn’t one of those ladies as pret­ty as my moth­er; she ought to wear rings too.”

Hi­ram was the son of a fish­er­man, but the fish­er­man had died when Hi­ram was a lit­tle boy. Hi­ram’s moth­er took in sewing and fan­cy work to earn mon­ey to sup­port her­self and her son. He helped her what he could out of school hours, and in va­ca­tion. He had two un­cles who wad taught him how to catch shrimps. With the mon­ey he earned by sell­ing them he could buy things for his own use or plea­sure. He had a bank al­most full of what he called his “shrimp-​mon­ey.” He did not mean to count his mon­ey un­til the bank was full.

Now Hi­ram loved his moth­er more than any­thing else in the world. When­ev­er he dreamed of be­ing rich some time, as boys of­ten do, it was not for him­self he want­ed the mon­ey, but that his dear lit­tle moth­er might drive in a car­riage, drawn by a pair of hors­es with clank­ing chains.

The sight of the flash­ing gems on the hands of some of the sum­mer vis­itors at the fish­ing vil­lage in which he lived had added a new ar­ti­cle to the list of beau­ti­ful things his moth­er was some day to own. He had heard that just one sin­gle di­amond was some­times worth five hun­dred dol­lars or more. This had dis­cour­aged him very much. But one day hap­pen­ing to pass a shop in the neigh­bor­ing town he saw a num­ber of rings dis­played in the win­dow. Di­amond rings which flashed and sparkled, it seemed to him, just as those worn by the ladies in the ho­tels. He stopped fas­ci­nat­ed, ana pressed his face against the glass ea­ger­ly to see if any prices were marked up­on them. Imag­ine his sur­prise when he saw up­on the largest one a tag marked $4.75. He looked again to see if he had not made a mis­take. Per­haps it was $475.00. But no, he knew enough about fig­ures to see that he was right the first time.

Home he went as fast as he could get there, and ran up in­to his bed­room. Then, for the first time since he had be­gun to save his “shrimp-​mon­ey” he opened his bank and count­ed its con­tents. “Three dol­lars and twen­ty-​two cents!” he cried, “al­most enough. I was go­ing to buy some­thing for my­self this time, but I’ll have that ring be­fore an­oth­er week.”

Hi­ram worked ear­ly and late for the next few days. He caught more shrimps than he had ev­er caught in the same length of time, and sold them read­ily.

“I think there must be some­thing you are want­ing, very much, my boy,” said his moth­er.

“Yes, there is,” replied Hi­ram.

At the end of the week he had the sum he de­sired. Hur­ry­ing to the shop where he had seen the ring, be­fore go­ing in­side he gave one hasty, al­most fright­ened look in­to the win­dow. Could it be gone! No, there it was flash­ing and sparkling as be­fore.

That evening, he placed it on his moth­er’s fin­ger. She looked at it in sur­prise. “It is yours, moth­er,” he cried, proud­ly, “your very own, I bought it with my shrimp mon­ey. I was de­ter­mined my moth­er should have a ring as hand­some as those ladies wear.”

“My dear boy,” said his moth­er, while some­thing as bright as the shin­ing stone flashed in her eyes, “Not one of those ladies can val­ue their rings as I shall val­ue mine.”

Years af­ter­wards Hi­ram learned that what he had bought for a di­amond was on­ly a bit of glass.

“Did you know it then, moth­er?” he asked.

His moth­er nod­ded. “And you nev­er told me.”

“It was brighter to me than any re­al di­amond,” she said, “the bright­ness I saw flash in it was the un­selfish love of my boy.”

THE ANT’S HOUSE.

“What a cu­ri­ous pic­ture that is at the head of this sto­ry.” That is what I think I hear some of the “Lit­tle Ones” say. “What does it mean?” some one asks. It looks like a pro­ces­sion of ants. That is just what it is. A pro­ces­sion of ants all march­ing off to find a new home. Some one has de­stroyed their old one. Let us hope no one did it on pur­pose.

The ants are very busy and very nice lit­tle crea­tures. If their hous­es are stepped up­on, or in­jured so as to be use­less the ants im­me­di­ate­ly go to work to re­pair dam­ages. They do not sit down and fuss about it first, but I have no doubt they let each oth­er know what they think. And how do you sup­pose they do this? By touch­ing each oth­er with their tiny feel­ers.

Af­ter they have talked in this way, and de­cid­ed what is to be done some of them take the eggs from the ru­ins and car­ry them to a safe place. Look care­ful­ly at the pic­tures, and you will see that al­most ev­ery ant is car­ry­ing an egg. They know that if they lose the eggs all the young ants in­side the eggs will be lost too.

While ants do not seem to have a very keen sense of hear­ing, their sense of smell is very strong. And where do you think it lies ? In the same lit­tle feel­ers with which they talk to each oth­er. The first ant’s house seen in the round pic­ture has been cut in two to show you how won­der­ful­ly these lit­tle crea­tures can build.

It was made by the ants that live in trop­ical coun­tries. The house at the back of the pic­ture has not been dis­turbed. Does it not look as if an ar­chi­tect had planned it? Ask some of the old­er peo­ple in your fam­ily to tell you some­thing more about ants. There is much more of in­ter­est in re­gard to them than I have space to write you.

THE FOOL­ISH PUG.

A pompous pug once thought that he A dash­ing swell would try to be, And on his neigh­bors one and all, Sat out to make a stylish call.

He wore a glass up­on one eye, And on his head a silk hat high; A wide, stiff col­lar around his throat, And last an En­glish over­coat.

So fine and splen­did was his air The very birds stood still to stare, As walk­ing on his two hind feet He saun­tered bold­ly down the street.

But oh, alas! it comes to all To learn that pride must have a fall, And e’er the cor­ner he had turned Poor pug that bit­ter les­son learned.

A saucy maid with one great whack, Brought down her broom up­on his back, And as he raised a fright­ened wail An­oth­er soused him from her pail.

Poor pug! that night he sat and thought Of all the trou­ble he had brought Up­on him­self, be­cause that he A fool­ish dude had tried to be.

THE SIL­HOU­ETTE PAR­TY

“Chil­dren,” said Grand­pa, one af­ter­noon, “I am go­ing to build a bon­fire this evening, to burn up this rub­bish, so you may have a sil­hou­ette par­ty.”

“Why, what is a sil­hou­ette par­ty?” asked Lucy, open­ing her eyes very wide.

“I know,” said Ralph, “it is fun­ny black pic­tures on some­thing white.”

“That’s right,” laughed Grand­pa. “Now you fly round and write your friends and Grand­ma and I will get ev­ery­thing ready.”

When the young peo­ple ar­rived at half past sev­en, they found a blaz­ing fire, and in front of it was stretched a sheet be­tween two large ap­ple trees.

Quite a dis­tance in front of the sheet were some seats, where Grand­pa told some of the chil­dren to sit, while the oth­ers took part in the pic­tures.

He then dis­ap­peared with them in a tent close by where Grand­ma was wait­ing to dress them in their dif­fer­ent cos­tumes. Shouts of laugh­ter came from the tent as the chil­dren put on their odd dress­es; in­deed there was so much fun that it took quite some time.

When all was ready Grand­pa came out and ad­dress­ing the chil­dren who were wait­ing said, “These are to be Moth­er Goose pic­tures, which you will all know. You must guess whom they rep­re­sent and the one who guess­es cor­rect­ly the largest num­ber will re­ceive a prize.”

He threw a large pine knot on the fire, which burned up bright­ly, and there the chil­dren saw a shad­ow on the sheet, a lit­tle bent fig­ure with a broom over its shoul­der.

“The old wom­an who swept the cob-​webs out of the sky,” cried some one.

Fol­low­ing this, came a fig­ure with a long cloak and tall peaked hat, lead­ing a dog.

“Old Moth­er Hub­bard,” guessed an­oth­er.

Then came a boy and a girl car­ry­ing a pail.

“Jack and Jill,” cho­rused the chil­dren.

Af­ter this a girl with a shep­herd’s crook.

“Lit­tle Bo-​peep,” again was guessed.

“Now,” said Grand­pa, “it is time the oth­ers had their turn at act­ing.”

So the ex­change be­ing made, the pic­tures con­tin­ued.

“Jack Horner,” “Lit­tle Miss Muf­fet,” “Old King Cole,” and “Mary, who had a lit­tle lamb,” fol­lowed in quick suc­ceis­sion.

Then Grand­pa an­nounced that the pic­tures were over.

“As we can­not de­cide who has guessed the largest num­ber of pic­tures,” said he, “I will give you each a prize. And he passed them each a card.

It proved to be a pic­ture of Ralph and Lucy cut from black pa­per and past­ed on a white card.

“These,” said Grand­pa, “are sil­hou­ette pic­tures too. Will you al­ways know what a sil­hou­ette pic­ture is now?”

“Oh yes,” said the chil­dren.

THE SNOW BIRDS.

It had snowed very hard. Ralph and Ed­ward, who were vis­it­ing Grand­ma in the coun­try, had to stay in the house all day.

When they went to bed it was still snow­ing, and ev­ery time they woke up dur­ing the night, they could hear the wind sigh­ing and whistling around the house, and through he branch­es of the old pine tres.

But the next morn­ing the sun was shin­ing bright­ly. Such a glo­ri­ous day! How the branch­es of the pine trees did sparkle.

“It looks as if they had been sprin­kled with gold dust and di­amonds,” ex­claimed Ralph.

“Oh Grand­ma! Please do hur­ry break­fast. We are go­ing out to build a fort,” cried the boys, burst­ing in­to the din­ing-​room.

Grand­ma smiled and told them to eat a good break­fast, for build­ing a fort was hard work.

They were soon out in the snow, and what a splen­did time they did have.

The fort did not grow very fast, for they had to stop so of­ten to snow-​ball each oth­er.

When Grand­ma called them in to din­ner they won­dered where the time had gone since break­fast.

Af­ter din­ner, Ralph was look­ing out of the win­dow, when he spied two lit­tle birds cud­dled up on a branch of a pine-​tree.

“Oh, Ed­ward! come here,” he called. “See those poor lit­tle birds. They look half frozen and so hun­gry.”

“Poor lit­tle things,” replied Ed­ward. “Doesn’t it make you feel mean to think what a jol­ly time we had this morn­ing out of the snow which has cov­ered up the places where they get their food?”

“Let us get some food from Grand­ma and throw it out to them,” said Ralph. “Per­haps they will find it.”

The lit­tle birds were soon chirp­ping and fly­ing about mer­ri­ly and Ralph said it sound­ed as if they kept say­ing, “thank you.”

Will not oth­er lit­tle chil­dren be as kind as Ralph and Ed­ward?

A KIND HEART.

The day Ethel Brown was sev­en years old she had a tea par­ty.

Mrs. Brown had sent tiny cards of in­vi­ta­tion to all the lit­tle girls on the street to come and bring their dolls. She al­so sent one to Nel­lie Day, her wash­er-​wom­an’s lit­tle girl, at Ethel’s spe­cial re­quest.

“She is a nice lit­tle girl,” said Ethel, “and doesn’t ev­er go any­where like me. May I have her at my par­ty?”

“That is right, lit­tle daugh­ter,” said Mrs. Brown. “Al­ways be kind to those who have less plea­sure than your­self. Of course she may come to your par­ty.”

They all ar­rived at four o’clock and looked very pret­ty in their white dress­es and bright rib­bons, and the dolls looked near­ly as pret­ty as the lit­tle girls them­selves.

Ethel no­ticed that Nel­lie Day did not have a doll with her. “So, thought she, “I will ask her to pour the tea and then she won’t feel bad be­cause she hasn’t one.”

The lit­tle girls talked and played games and Ethel’s grown up sis­ter played on the pi­ano and then they sang.

“Now,” said Mrs. Brown, com­ing in­to the room, “if you will choose part­ners, Flo­rence will play for you and you can march out to tea.”

Dur­ing the con­fu­sion Ethel said to her mam­ma, “I shall ask Nel­lie to pour the tea be­cause she has not any doll.”

“Very well, dear,” an­swered Mrs. Brown.

But when they turned to find her, she was not with the oth­ers.

“Where can she be?” ex­claimed Ethel.

And then be­gan the search. Tea was de­layed and they hunt­ed the house over for her. Fi­nal­ly Mrs. Brown went out on a side porch sel­dom used, and there she found the lit­tle girl.

The child had brought a cush­ion to sit on, and clasped tight­ly in her arms were three of Ethel’s dolls. Mrs. Brown per­suad­ed her to come in with the promise that she might keep the dolls.

So Ethel rang the bell, and they all marched in to tea again, with Nel­lie Day lead­ing the line, hold­ing her three dol­lies.

“Mam­ma,” said Ethel, as the lit­tle girls were go­ing home, “may I give Nel­lie Day the dolls? I have so many and she has not one.”

“Yes in­deed replied Mrs. Brown, as she kissed her lit­tle daugh­ter. “I am sure it will make her very hap­py.”

And Nel­lie Day went home that night, the hap­pi­est lit­tle girl in the town.

TOWS­ER TALKS.

I am not a big dog and I don’t know very much, but I know more than I used to. The rea­son why I know more than I used to is be­cause I asked Car­lo some ques­tions once. I asked him what made him so gaunt and thin and why he had such an en­quir­ing ex­pres­sion on his face and such a hump on the top of his head. He didn’t an­swer right away, and–I no­ticed the en­quir­ing ex­pres­sion van­ished. He looked quite de­cid­ed. Then some­thing hap­pened,–I don’t know ex­act­ly what, but Mary, the cook, told the but­ler that it made her dizzy just to look on. And then Car­lo said:–

“One rea­son why I am gaunt and thin is be­cause I am not a lit­tle up-​start of a pug,–of no earth­ly use un­der Heav­en, and noth­ing to do but wad­dle around and ac­cu­mu­late fat.

“The rea­son I have an en­quir­ing ex­pres­sion on my face is be­cause I am ev­er on the out­look to an­tic­ipate my mas­ter’s will and do his slight­est bid­ding.

“As for the hump on the top of my head, that is a mark giv­en by the Cre­ator on­ly to dogs that have in­tel­lect. Pray that yours may grow!”

That is all he said, but it was enough for one day and has fur­nished me food for thought ev­er since.

JUST AS SHE PLEASED.

“Now, chil­dren, I am tired of you; I am go­ing down stairs for the rest of the morn­ing,” and Pol­ly start­ed to leave the nurs­ery.

“Put your dolls away be­fore you go,” said Nurse, “I don’t want them left in the mid­dle of the floor.”

“I won’t. I did not put them there.” Pol­ly tossed her head and ran quick­ly out of the room.

Nurse had ba­by in her lap and could not run af­ter her.

The lit­tle girl went to the kitchen, but cook was cross and said she would not have Pol­ly both­er­ing her.

Then she went to the li­brary hop­ing to find her Un­cle Ed­ward, but he was not there.

She wan­dered from room to room and could find noth­ing to amuse her.

She want­ed to go back in­to the nurs­ery, but she had told a lie when she said she had not put the dolls on the floor, and she was afraid to.

She felt lone­some and a few tears ran down her face.

At that mo­ment Un­cle Ed­ward en­tered the room, and, see­ing the dole­ful lit­tle face, took her in his arms, toss­ing her in­to the air.

As he did so, he knocked over a vase which fell to the floor, bro­ken.

“Oh! see what you have done,” cried Pol­ly.

“I don’t care. I sball say I didn’t do it,” replied Un­cle Ed­ward.

“Oh! But that would be a lie,” said Pol­ly.

“Well, who put the dolls on the nurs­ery floor?”

“Nurse must have told you. But I am sor­ry,” and Pol­ly be­gan to cry again.

“There, there!” said Un­cle Ed­ward. “We will go up and tell Nurse we are sor­ry.”

They went up to the nurs­ery but Nurse and ba­by had gone and the dolls were still on the floor.

Pol­ly want­ed to play cir­cus and Un­cle Ed­ward made be­lieve he was the ele­phant and gave the dol­lies a ride. He kicked so once that black Di­ana fell off and broke her neck.

Af­ter a while Nurse came in with ba­by and in­ter­rupt­ed the frol­ic.

When Pol­ly told her she was sor­ry be­cause she had told a lie, Nur­sie said she would for­give her and Pol­ly promised not to do so again.

THE WORK­ING TOOLS OF IN­SECTS.

I won­der if you know that the small­est in­sects you see about you have tools giv­en them to do their work with. There is a lit­tle fly called a saw-​fly, be­cause it has a saw to work with. It is re­al­ly a very much nicer saw than you could make, if you were ev­er so old.

The fly us­es it to make places where the eggs will be safe. What is more strange, it has a sort of home­made glue which fas­tens them where they are laid.

Some in­sects have cut­ting in­stru­ments that work just as your scis­sors do. The pop­py-​bee is one of them, whose work is won­der­ful. This bee has a bor­ing tool, too. Its nest is usu­al­ly made in old wood. This bor­er cleans out the nest ready for use. When all is ready the in­sect cuts out pieces of leaves to line the nest and to make the cells. These lin­ings are out in the shape of the cells. You, would be sur­prised to see the care tak­en to have ev­ery piece of just the right size, so that it will fit. When they are. fit­ted, the pieces are nice­ly fas­tened to­geth­er and put in­to the nest.

End of the Project Guten­berg etext of Cin­derel­la.