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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls,
+Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878
+       No 1, Nov 1877
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Mary Mapes Dodge
+
+Release Date: January 14, 2006 [EBook #17513]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. NICHOLAS MAGAZINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Lesley Halamek and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ST. NICHOLAS:
+
+SCRIBNER'S ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE
+
+FOR GIRLS AND BOYS,
+
+CONDUCTED BY
+
+MARY MAPES DODGE.
+
+VOLUME V.
+
+NOVEMBER, 1877, TO NOVEMBER, 1878.
+
+SCRIBNER & CO., NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright by SCRIBNER & CO., 1878.
+
+PRESS OF FRANCIS HART & CO.
+
+NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Child-Queen, A. (Illustrated by Alfred Fredericks) Cecilia Cleveland 1
+
+Chased by Wolves. (Illustrated) George Dudley Lawson                 3
+
+Jingle: There was an Old Person of Crewd. (Illustrated by K. W. P.)  6
+
+Mollie's Boyhood. (Illustrated by George White) Sarah E. Chester     7
+
+*The Largest Volcano in the World. (Illustrated) Sarah Coan         13
+
+Making it Skip. Verse. (Illustrated by Thomas Moran) M. M. D.       15
+
+*Willow Wand, The. Poem. (Illustrated) A. E. W.                     16
+
+*Story that Wouldn't be Told, The. (Illustrated) Louise Stockton    18
+
+Polly: A Before-Christmas Story. (Illustrated) Hope Ledyard         19
+
+Boggs's Photograph. Picture.                                        21
+
+Lord Mayor of London's Show, The. (Illustrated) Jennie A. Owen      22
+
+My Girl. Poem. John S. Adams                                        25
+
+Mars, the Planet of War. (Illustrated by the Author)
+  Richard A. Proctor                                                26
+
+*Domestic Tragedy, A. In Two Parts (Illustration)                   31
+
+Bell-Ringers, The Stickleback. (Illustrated by James C. Beard)
+  C. F. Holder                                                      31
+
+Cricket on the Hearth, The. Poem. (Illustrated )Clara Doty Bates    33
+
+How I Weighed the Thanksgiving Turkey. G. M. Shaw                   34
+
+Nimble Jim and the Magic Melon. (Illustrated by E. B. Bensell)
+  J. A. Judson                                                      34
+
+"Oh, I'm My Mamma's Lady-Girl." Verse. (Illustrated by
+  Addie Ledyard) M. M. D.                                           41
+
+Christmas-Gifts, A Budget of Home-Made. (Illustrated)               42
+
+*Little Tweet. (Illustrated)                                        64
+
+*Jack-in-the-Pulpit. (Illustrated)                                  66
+
+Can a Little Child Like Me? (Thanksgiving Hymn) Mary Mapes Dodge    68
+
+"Baby's Opera" and Walter Crane, The.                               69
+
+*The Letter Box.                                                    69
+
+*The Moons of Mars.                                                 69
+
+*The Riddle Box. (Illustrated)                                      71
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Notes:
+For ease of navigation, this Table of Contents has been taken from the
+full contents listing for the volume.
+Some entries were missing from the index. For completeness they have
+been added and marked with an asterisk.
+
+The full list of contents for Volume V is to be found at the end of this
+text.
+
+p. 27: changed 'rains' to 'trains':
+...--; just like the
+lines by which trains are made to run easily off one
+track on to another.
+
+p. 30: Missing opening quote replaced:
+"The snows that glittered on the disc of Mars..."
+
+p. 31:' replaced with ":
+"Don't you think, papa, that that's enough about
+the sun? Come and play with us on the lawn."
+
+p. 59: Missing ) replaced,
+...(widening the strip,
+however, in proportion as the fabric is thinner).
+
+Music Notation (Our Music Page) has been added.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+[Illustration: KING RICHARD II. AND HIS CHILD-QUEEN.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ST. NICHOLAS.
+
+
+  VOL. V.    NOVEMBER, 1877.    No. 1.
+
+[Copyright, 1877, by Scribner & Co.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+A CHILD QUEEN.
+
+BY CECILIA CLEVELAND.
+
+
+I wonder how many of the little girl readers of ST. NICHOLAS are fond
+of history? If they answer candidly, I do not doubt that a very large
+proportion will declare that they prefer the charming stories they
+find in ST. NICHOLAS to the dull pages of history, with its countless
+battles and murdered sovereigns. But history is not every bit dull,
+by any means, as you will find if your elder sisters and friends will
+select portions for you to read that are suitable to your age and
+interests. Perhaps you are very imaginative, and prefer fairy tales to
+all others. I am sure, then, that you will like the story I am about
+to tell you, of a little French princess, who was married and crowned
+Queen of England when only eight years old, and who became a widow at
+twelve.
+
+This child-sovereign was born many hundred years ago--in 1387--at the
+palace of the Louvre in Paris, of whose noble picture-gallery I am
+sure you all have heard,--if, indeed, many of you have not seen it
+yourselves. She was the daughter of the poor King Charles VI., whose
+misfortunes made him insane, and for whose amusement playing-cards
+were invented, and of his queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, a beautiful but
+very wicked woman. Little Princess Isabella was the eldest of twelve
+children. She inherited her mother's beauty, and was petted by her
+parents and the entire court of France.
+
+King Richard II. of England, who was a widower about thirty years old,
+was urged to marry again; and, instead of selecting a wife near his
+own age, his choice fell upon little Princess Isabella.
+
+"She is much too young," he was told. "Even in five or six years she
+will not be old enough to be married." The king, however, thought
+this objection too trifling to stand in the way of his marriage, and
+saying, "The lady's age is a fault that every day will remedy," he
+sent a magnificent embassy to the court of France, headed by the
+Archbishop of Dublin, and consisting of earls, marshals, knights, and
+squires of honor uncounted, with attendants to the number of five
+hundred.
+
+When the embassy reached Paris, and the offer of marriage had been
+formally accepted, the archbishop and the earls asked to see the
+little princess who was soon to become their queen. At first the
+French Council refused, saying so young a child was not prepared to
+appear on public occasions, and they could not tell how she might
+behave. The English noblemen were so solicitous, however, that at last
+she was brought before them. The earl marshal immediately knelt before
+her, and said, in the old-fashioned language of the time: "Madam, if
+it please God, you shall be our lady and queen."
+
+Queen Isabeau stood at a little distance, curious and anxious, no
+doubt, to know how her little daughter would answer this formal
+address. To her great pleasure, and the great surprise of all present,
+Princess Isabella replied:
+
+"Sir, if it please God and my father that I be Queen of England, I
+shall be well pleased, for I am told I shall then be a great lady."
+
+Then, giving the marshal her tiny hand to kiss, she bade him rise from
+his knees, and leading him to her mother, she presented him to her
+with the grace and ease of a mature woman.
+
+According to the fashion of the time, Princess Isabella was
+immediately married by proxy, and received the title of Queen of
+England. Froissart, a celebrated historian living at that epoch, says:
+"It was very pretty to see her, young as she was, practicing how to
+act the queen."
+
+In a few days, King Richard arrived from England with a gay and
+numerous retinue of titled ladies to attend his little bride. After
+many grand festivities they were married and were taken in state to
+England, where the Baby Queen was crowned in the famous Westminster
+Abbey.
+
+I must not forget to describe the magnificent _trousseau_ that the
+King of France gave his little daughter. Her dowry was 800,000 francs
+($160,000); her coronets, rings, necklaces, and jewelry of all
+sorts, were worth 500,000 crowns; and her dresses were of surpassing
+splendor. One was a robe and mantle of crimson velvet, trimmed with
+gold birds perched on branches of pearls and emeralds, and another was
+trimmed with pearl roses. Do you think any fairy princess could have
+had a finer bridal outfit?
+
+When the ceremonies of the coronation were over, little Isabella's
+life became a quiet routine of study; for, although a reigning
+sovereign, she was in the position of that young Duchess of Burgundy
+of later years, who at the time of her marriage could neither read nor
+write. This duchess, who married a grandson of Louis XIV. of France,
+was older than Queen Isabella--thirteen years old; and as soon as the
+wedding festivities were over, she was sent to school in a convent,
+to learn at least to read, as she knew absolutely nothing save how to
+dance. Queen Isabella, however, was not sent away to school, but was
+placed under the care of a very accomplished lady, a cousin of the
+king, who acted as her governess. In her leisure hours, the king, who
+was a fine musician, would play and sing for her, and, history gravely
+informs us, he would even play dolls with her by the hour!
+
+But King Richard's days of quiet pleasure with his child-wife were at
+last disturbed, and he was obliged to leave her and go to the war in
+Ireland. The parting was very sad and affecting, and they never met
+again.
+
+While King Richard was in Ireland, his cousin, Henry of Lancaster,
+afterward Henry IV., took possession of the royal treasury, and upon
+the return of Richard from his unfortunate campaign, marched at the
+head of an army and made a prisoner of him, lodging him in that grim
+Tower of London from which so few prisoners ever issued alive.
+
+Meantime, the poor little queen was hurried from one town to another,
+her French attendants were taken from her, and the members of her new
+household were forbidden ever to speak to her of the husband she
+loved so dearly. Finally, it was rumored that Richard had escaped.
+Instantly, this extraordinary little girl of eleven issued a
+proclamation saying that she did not recognize Henry IV. (for he was
+now crowned King of England) as sovereign; and she set out with an
+army to meet her husband. The poor child was bitterly disappointed
+upon learning that the rumor was false, and her husband was still a
+prisoner, and before long she also was again a prisoner of Henry IV.,
+this time closely guarded.
+
+In a few months Richard was murdered in prison by order of King Henry,
+and his queen's childish figure was shrouded in the heavy crape of her
+widow's dress. Her superb jewelry was taken from her and divided
+among the children of Henry IV., and she was placed in still closer
+captivity. Her father, the King of France, sent to demand that she
+should return to him, but for a long time King Henry refused
+his consent. Meantime, she received a second offer of marriage
+from--strange to say--the son of the man who had killed her husband
+and made her a prisoner, but a handsome, dashing young prince, Harry
+of Monmouth, often called "Madcap Hal." Perhaps you have read, or your
+parents have read to you, extracts from Shakspeare's "Henry IV.," so
+that you know of the wild exploits of the Prince of Wales with his
+friends, in turning highwayman and stealing purses from travelers,
+often saying,
+
+  "Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack?"
+
+and finding himself in prison sometimes as a result of such
+amusements? Isabella was a child of decided character, and truly
+devoted to the memory of her husband, and much as she had enjoyed
+her rank she refused to continue it by marrying handsome Madcap Hal,
+although he offered himself to her several times, and even as she was
+embarking for France.
+
+Poor little Isabella, who had left France so brilliantly, returned a
+sad child-widow, and all that remained to her of her former splendor
+was a silver drink-cup and a few saucers. As Shakspeare says:
+
+  "My queen to France, from whence set forth in pomp,
+  She came adorned hither like sweet May,
+  Sent back like Hallowmas or shortest day."
+
+She was received throughout France with joy, and tears of sympathy.
+
+When Isabella was eighteen. Madcap Hal again offered his hand to her,
+supposing she had forgotten her former prejudice, but although she
+married again she was so far faithful to the memory of her English
+husband that she would not accept the son of his murderer. Some years
+later, when Prince Hal was king, he married her beautiful sister
+Katherine.
+
+Isabella's second husband was her cousin, the Duke of Orleans, whose
+beautiful poems are considered classic in France. Again she was the
+joy of her family and the pride of France, but all her happiness was
+destined to be fleeting, for she survived her marriage only one year.
+Her husband, who loved her fondly, wrote after her death:
+
+    "Alas!
+  Death, who made thee so bold,
+  To take from me my lovely princess,
+  Who was my comfort, my life,
+  My good, my pleasure, my riches?
+  Alas! I am lonely, bereft of my mate--
+  Adieu! my lady, my lily!
+  Our loves are forever severed."
+
+And in another poem, full of expressions that show how very devoted
+was his affection for her, he says:
+
+  "Above her lieth spread a tomb
+    Of gold and sapphires blue,
+  The gold doth show her blessedness,
+    The sapphires mark her true.
+
+  "And round about, in quaintest guise,
+    Was carved--'Within this tomb there lies
+  The fairest thing to mortal eyes.'"
+
+Farewell, sweet Isabella!--a wife at eight, a widow at twelve, and
+dead at twenty-two,--your life was indeed short, and, though not
+without happy days, sorrow blended largely with its joy!
+
+
+
+
+CHASED BY WOLVES
+
+BY GEORGE DUDLEY LAWSON.
+
+
+Some forty years ago the northern part of the State of New York was
+very sparsely settled. In one of the remote counties, which for a
+name's sake we will call Macy County, a stout-hearted settler, named
+Devins, posted himself beyond the borders of civilization, and hewed
+for his little family a home in the heart of a forest that extended
+all the way from Lake Champlain to Lake Ontario. His nearest neighbor
+was six miles away, and the nearest town nearly twenty; but the
+Devinses were so happy and contented that the absence of company gave
+them no concern.
+
+It was a splendid place to live in. In summer the eye ranged from the
+slope where the sturdy pioneer had built his house over miles and
+miles of waving beech and maple woods, away to the dark line of pines
+on the high ground that formed the horizon. In the valley below,
+Otter Creek, a tributary of the St. Lawrence, wound its sparkling way
+northward. When Autumn painted the scene in brilliant hues, and it
+lay glowing under the crimson light of October sunsets, the dullest
+observer could not restrain bursts of admiration.
+
+Mr. Devins's first attack on the stubborn forest had been over the
+brow of the hill, some four miles nearer Owenton, but his house was
+burned down before he had taken his family there from Albany. He had
+regretted that he had not "pitched his tent" on the slope of Otter
+Creek; so now he began with renewed energy his second home, in which
+the closing in of the winter of 1839 found him. He had sixty acres of
+rich soil under cultivation at the time of which we are to speak, his
+right-hand man being his son Allan,--a rugged, handsome, intelligent
+boy of sixteen.
+
+The winter of '39 was a terrible one; snow set in before the end of
+November, and, even in the open country, lay upon the ground until the
+beginning of April, while in the recesses of the forest it was found
+as late as the middle of June. There was great distress among the
+settlers outside of the bounds of civilization, to whom the deep snow
+was an impassable barrier. The Devinses neither saw nor heard from
+their nearest neighbors from the first of December till near the
+beginning of February, when a crust was formed upon the snow
+sufficiently firm to bear the weight of a man, and a friendly Cayuga
+Indian brought them news of how badly their neighbors fared.
+
+Mr. Devins was especially touched by the bad case of his friend Will
+Inman, who lived on the nearest farm. The poor man lay ill of a fever;
+Mrs. Inman was dead and temporarily buried, until her body could be
+removed to the cemetery in Owenton, and all the care of the family
+devolved upon Esther, his daughter, fourteen years old. After a short
+consultation, the next morning breaking bright and clear though very
+cold, it was determined to allow Allan to go over the hill to Inman's,
+bearing medicine, tea, and other little necessaries for the family. He
+was impressively warned to begin his return at so early an hour that
+he might reach home before the short day's end, especially because of
+the danger from wild animals. The severity of the winter had made the
+wolves more venturesome and dangerous than they had been for many
+years. Mr. Devins had lost several sheep and hogs, and deemed it
+unsafe for any of his family to be caught far from the house at night.
+
+Allan armed himself with his light rifle, put some biscuits and cold
+meat in a pouch strapped to his waist, mounted one of the strong
+farm-horses, and set out on his journey. The road through the forest
+was better than he expected to find it, as the snow had been drifted
+off, but at the turns, and in the thickest part of the wood, his horse
+floundered through drifts more than breast high; and more than once
+Allan had to dismount and beat a path ahead. Therefore, he did not
+reach Inman's till two o'clock, and, by the time he had helped Esther
+about her work, assisted her young brother to get in a good supply of
+wood, and made things more comfortable for the invalid, it was almost
+sundown. He stoutly refused to wait for supper, declaring that the
+luncheon still in his pouch would serve, and started just as the short
+twilight came on. He was a brave lad, and, with no thought of peril,
+went off, kissing his hand gayly to Esther.
+
+It took him an hour to traverse the first three miles, and then he
+came to a stretch of comparatively bare ground leading through his
+father's old clearing, and almost to the top of the hill back of Mr.
+Devins's house. He was just urging old Bob into a trot, when a long,
+clear howl broke upon his ear; then another and another answered
+from east and south. He knew what that meant. It was the cry of the
+advance-guard of a pack of wolves.
+
+The howling sounded near, and came swiftly nearer, as though the
+wolves had found his tracks and scented their prey. Old Bob trembled
+in every limb, and seemed powerless to move. Allan realized that he
+could not, before dark, reach home through the drifts ahead, and the
+increasing cold of the advancing night would render a refuge in a
+tree-top probably as deadly as an encounter with the pack.
+
+Presently there came a cry, shriller and sharper than before, and
+Allan, looking back, saw a great, lean, hungry gray wolf burst from
+the underbrush into the road, followed by dozens more; and in a moment
+the road behind him was full of wolves, open-mouthed and in keen
+chase. Their yells now seemed notes of exultation, for the leader
+of the pack--the strongest, fleetest, hungriest one among them--was
+within a dozen yards of Allan, who was now riding faster than ever old
+Bob had gone before or ever would go again. Excitement made the lad's
+blood boil in his veins, and he determined to show fight. The moon had
+risen, and the scene was almost as light as day. Now he could count
+the crowding host of his enemies, and just as he broke from the forest
+road into the old clearing, he turned in his saddle and fired. The
+foremost of the pack rolled over and over; the rest gathered around
+and tore their leader in pieces.
+
+By the time they resumed the chase, Allan was a hundred yards ahead
+with his rifle loaded. He determined to make a running fight of it to
+the hill, where he was sure of meeting his father, or could take to a
+tree and shoot until help came. This had hardly flashed through his
+brain when, right ahead of him, a detachment of the pack sprang into
+the road and answered with double yells the cries of the rest coming
+up behind. The horse wheeled suddenly, almost unseating Allan, and
+dashed across the clearing toward the wood; but he had not taken a
+dozen bounds when a wolf sprang upon him. Old Bob reared and fell,
+pitching Allan nearly twenty feet ahead, and was covered with wolves
+before he could regain his footing. That was the last of poor old Bob.
+
+[Illustration: "OLD BOB FELL, PITCHING ALLAN AHEAD."]
+
+But Allan! What of him? When he recovered from the effects of the
+shock, he found himself over head and ears in snow. He had no idea
+where he was, but struggled and plunged in vain endeavors to extricate
+himself, until at last he broke into a space that was clear of snow,
+but dark as Erebus, damp and close. Feeling about him he discovered
+over his head logs resting slantingly against the upper edge of a pit,
+and then he knew that he was in the cellar of the old house his father
+had built, and which had been burned down nine years before! The
+cellar was full of snow, except at the corner roofed over by the
+fallen logs, and Allan, bursting through the snow into the empty
+corner, was as secure from the wolves as though seated by his father's
+fireside. It was not nearly as cold in there as outside, and he found
+a dry spot upon which he lay down to think.
+
+He was in no danger of freezing to death, his food would keep him from
+starvation a week at least, and Allan concluded that, with the first
+glimpse of dawn, his father would be in search of him, and, following
+the tracks, find old Bob's bones, and quickly rescue him from his
+predicament. He reasoned wisely enough, but the elements were against
+him. Before sunrise a furious storm of wind and snow had completely
+obliterated every trace of horse, rider and wolves.
+
+At home, as the night wore on, the anxiety of the family had
+increased. While they were watching the gathering storm, they heard
+the long, dismal howl of the wolves coming over the hill. The chill of
+fear that they should never see the boy again settled down upon all
+their hearts, until the house was as dreary within as the winter waste
+and gloomy forest were without.
+
+Meanwhile the brave youth was sound asleep, dreaming as peacefully as
+though snugly resting with his brother in his warm bed at home. He
+slumbered on unconscious of the raging storm without, and did not
+awake until late the next forenoon. It took him several seconds
+to realize where he was and how he came there, but gradually he
+remembered his ride for life, the falling of his horse, his struggle
+in the snow, and his breaking into the protected space where he lay.
+
+The storm lasted all day and far into the succeeding night. Allan ate
+slightly, quenched his thirst with a few drops of water obtained by
+melting snow in the palm of his hand, and began casting about for
+means to get out. He soon found that to dig his way up through the
+mass of snow that filled the cellar was beyond his powers. If he could
+have made a succession of footholds, the task would have been easy;
+but all his efforts only tended to fill his retreat, without bringing
+him nearer the air. As soon as he saw this, he gave himself up to
+calmly waiting for help from without.
+
+The second morning of his imprisonment broke clear and cheerful, and
+Mr. Devins set out to search for traces of his boy. He visited the
+Inmans' and learned the particulars of Allan's stay and departure,
+then mournfully turned his face homeward, his heart filled with
+despair. When he emerged from the forest into the clearing, he met the
+Indian who had visited him a few days before, and he told the red man
+of Allan's loss. The Indian stood a moment in deep thought, and then
+asked:
+
+"No horse, no boy back there?" pointing to the road just traversed by
+Mr. Devins.
+
+"No. I have looked carefully, and if there had been a trace left by
+the recent storm I should have detected it."
+
+"Ugh! well, me come over the hill; nothing that way either; then they
+here."
+
+"Why do you think so?"
+
+"Ah! me know wolves. When Allan come to this place they ahead;
+horse turn; wolves caught 'em this side woods; we look there," and
+Tayenathonto pointed to the very course taken by the horse and rider.
+
+It so happened when Allan was thrown from the horse's back that his
+rifle flew from his hand and struck, muzzle down, in a hollow stump,
+where, imbedded in the snow, it stood like a sign to mark the scene
+of the last struggle of the lost boy. The snow had whitened all its
+hither side. When the Indian came abreast of it, he cried:
+
+"Told you so! See! Allan's gun! And here rest of 'em," pointing to the
+little heap over the ruins of the old cabin.
+
+Kicking the snow hastily aside, the Indian examined the ground
+carefully a moment and then said: "No, only horse; Allan further on."
+
+The Indian, with head bent down, walked quickly forward, threw up
+his arms, and disappeared. He had stepped over the clean edge of the
+cellar and sunk exactly as Allan had. A few desperate plunges sufficed
+to take the strong Indian through the intervening snow and into the
+protected corner where Allan, just rousing from his second sleep, sat
+bolt upright. The Indian's coming disturbed the snow so that a glimmer
+of light penetrated into the dark space. Allan supposed a wolf had
+found its way down there, and hastily drew his large knife, bracing
+himself for an encounter.
+
+The Indian sputtered, thrashed about to clear himself from the snow,
+and in so doing rapped his head smartly against the low ceiling of
+logs.
+
+"Waugh! waugh!" exclaimed he. "Too much low; Indian break 'em head;
+look out."
+
+Allan instantly recognized the voice of the Indian, his comrade on
+many a fishing and hunting tour.
+
+"Tayenathonto!" he cried, "dear old fellow, who would have thought of
+you finding me!"
+
+The Indian quietly replied:
+
+"Tayenathonto no find; come like water-fall; couldn't help his self."
+
+A very few minutes sufficed to put both on the surface again, where
+Allan was received "like one come from the dead," and closely folded
+in his father's arms. Oh, the joy of that embrace! The past grief and
+suffering were forgotten in the bliss of that moment.
+
+The Indian had to return with the happy father and son to their home,
+where he was hailed as Allan's rescuer, and enjoyed to the full a
+share of the festivities.
+
+In after years Allan married Esther Inman, and now, by the fireside in
+winter, he tells his grandchildren of his escape from the wolves, and
+the little ones never tire of petting their faithful old Tayenathonto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  There was an old person of Crewd,
+  Who said, "We use saw-dust for food;
+    It's cheap by the ton,
+  And it nourishes one,
+  And that's the main object of food."
+
+
+
+
+MOLLIE'S BOYHOOD.
+
+BY SARAH E. CHESTER.
+
+
+A little girl sat squeezed in between an old fat man and his old bony
+wife in a crowded hall on a sultry evening in October. On one side it
+was as if feather pillows loomed above her with intent to smother; on
+the other, sharp elbows came into distressing contact with her ribs.
+The windows were open; but the hall had not been built with reference
+to transmitting draughts on suffocating nights for the benefit of
+packed audiences; and everybody gasped for breath, though everybody
+fanned--that is, everybody who had a fan, a newspaper, a hat, or a
+starched handkerchief. Mollie had neither fan, newspaper, hat, nor
+handkerchief, and yet she of all the audience gasped unawares. She was
+stifled, but happy. Elbows and bad air might do their worst; her body
+suffered, but her spirit soared. She was lifted above her neighbors,
+into an atmosphere where she was conscious of nothing but the
+eloquence that fell in such soft tones from the lips of the beautiful
+woman on the stage.
+
+Mollie was fatherless and brotherless. She had no male cousins within
+a thousand miles. Her only uncle, two blocks off, was a man whose
+dinners rebelled against digestion, and who might have been beyond
+the seas for all the good he did her. They were a feminine
+family,--Mollie, her mother, the old cat and her kittens
+three,--bereft of masculine rule and care, and in need of money earned
+by masculine hands.
+
+The mother bore losses and lacks with the philosophy of her age; but
+Mollie's age was only twelve, and knew not philosophy. She realized
+that she was a mistake. She was miserably aware that she was a mistake
+which could never be corrected. Friends repeatedly assured her that it
+was a great pity she had not been born a boy, and tantalized her with
+boyhood's possibilities. Frequent mention was made of ways in which
+she might minister to her mother's comfort if she were a son; and all
+Mollie's day-dreams were visions of that gallant son's achievements.
+She used to close her eyes and see wings and bay-windows growing
+around their little cottage and making it a mansion; their old clothes
+gliding away, and fine new robes stepping into their places; strong
+servants working in the kitchen; pictures stealing up the walls, and
+luxuries scattering themselves hither and thither, till she felt the
+spirit of the boy within her, and seemed equal to the deeds he would
+have done. Then she used to open her eyes wide to the fact of her
+girlhood and have little seasons of despair.
+
+This had been going on a long time, the visions, their destruction
+by facts, and the consequent despair; for, of course, she had always
+believed there was nothing to be done. And now here was one telling
+her that something could be done--that she, even she, the little girl
+Mollie, had equal rights with boys, and that it was not only her
+privilege but her duty to claim them. Here was one exhorting her to
+throw off the yoke of her girlhood, talking of a glorious career that
+might be hers, of emancipation and liberty, of a womanhood grand as
+manhood itself. And how the tremendous sentiments, so beautifully
+uttered, thrilled through Mollie from the crown of her hat to the toes
+of her boots! She would have given worlds for one glance from that
+bravest of her sex who had thrown off the yoke, and for a chance to
+ask her just how she did it. For while Mollie had fully made up her
+mind to wear her yoke no longer, she did not know exactly by what
+means to become an emancipated creature. As she walked home with her
+hand in that of the fat gentleman who had treated her to the lecture,
+she reached the conclusion that no special instructions had been given
+because it was taken for granted that each woman's nobler instincts
+would guide her. She entered the gate a champion of freedom, a
+believer in the equality of the sexes--a girl bound to be a boy, and
+trusting to her nobler instincts to teach her how.
+
+No trembling and glancing back over her shoulder for goblins and
+burglars to-night as she put the key into the door! No scared
+chattering of teeth in the dark hall! No skipping three steps at a
+time up the stairs pursued by imaginary hands that would grip at her
+ankles! She faced the darkness with wide-open eyes, instead of feeling
+her way with lids squeezed down as had been her custom; and when eyes
+seemed to look back at her from the darkness, her boyhood laughed at
+her girlhood, and she did not quicken her pace. But--Mollie was glad
+to step into the room where the light burned. Her mother had gone to
+bed early with one of her tired-out headaches, and she only half woke
+to see that her little girl was safely in. Mollie kissed her softly
+(for boys may kiss their mothers softly) and took the lamp into the
+little room beyond, where she always slept.
+
+The first thing that she did was to look in the glass. What a girlish
+little face it was! How foolishly its dimples came and went with its
+smiles! In what an effeminate manner the hair crinkled above it, and
+then went rambling off into half a yard of stylish disorder! Mollie
+lifted the hair in her hand and surveyed it thoughtfully. Then she
+took a thoughtful survey of the scissors in her work-basket. Then
+she reached them. She allowed herself a moment of conscientious
+reflection; then the boy's naughty spirit crept down through her
+fingers and set the scissors flying, and the deed was done.
+
+It was not easy to satisfy her mother's amazement and vexation in the
+morning; but Mollie stumbled through it and went to school. There
+opportunities were few. She coaxed her teacher to let her study
+book-keeping, and took one disagreeable lesson in its first
+principles; but she accomplished nothing else that day except the
+putting of a general check upon weak-minded inclinations to be
+frolicsome.
+
+But that evening there was a fair sky, one of the soft, deep skies
+that make imaginative little girls' brains dizzy; and Mollie tramped
+down the gravel path to the gate and leaned over; then she soon
+nestled her head in her arms and looked up and lost herself. Boyhood
+was far from her dreamy fancies, when they were scattered by a tweak
+at one of her cropped locks.
+
+"What does this mean?" asked the voice of the neighbor over the fence.
+"How came it to be done without my leave?"
+
+"Don't I look manly, Mr. John?" said Mollie.
+
+"What does it mean?" said he, severely.
+
+"That would be telling," said Mollie.
+
+"I intend that you shall tell me," said he.
+
+"Oh, it's a secret!" said Mollie.
+
+"All the better; we'll keep it together. Tell it."
+
+He was a grown-up man, nearer thirty than twenty years old, who
+stooped to take an interest in his neighbor's little girl, and
+flattered himself that he was bringing her up in the way she should
+go. It amused him in his leisure moments to try the experiment of
+rearing a girl to be as unlike as possible the girl of the period.
+
+From mere force of habit, Mollie opened her mouth and poured out her
+heart to him. He seemed quite impressed by the solemn confession.
+Mollie studied his face closely while she was speaking, and saw
+nothing but a grave and earnest interest in her project. She could not
+see deep enough to discover the indignation that was fuming over the
+loss of her pretty locks, and the purpose that was brewing to cure her
+of her folly.
+
+"Don't have any half-way work about it, Mollie," said Mr. John. "Do
+the thing thoroughly, if you undertake it." "Oh yes, indeed!" said
+Mollie.
+
+"If you should need an occasional reminder, I will try and help you,"
+said he; "for of course it wont do to be off guard at all. But now get
+your hat, and we'll go for some ice-cream. I know you need cooling off
+this warm evening."
+
+Mollie skipped about to run toward the house.
+
+"Be careful of your steps," he called; and she tramped as boyishly as
+she could.
+
+"No, don't take hold of my hand," as she came back and slipped her
+fingers in his. "Put your hands in your pockets."
+
+"I've only one pocket," she answered meekly, putting her right hand in
+it.
+
+"Difficulties at once, aren't there?" said Mr. John. "Your clothes
+want reforming, you see. You'll have to put on Bloomers."
+
+"Oh!" said Mollie.
+
+"I'm afraid you're not very much in earnest," he said. "You surely are
+not frightened by a trifle like that?" Mollie looked up imploringly.
+
+"Must I?" she asked.
+
+"Well," he answered, her earnestness making him fear that she would
+actually appear publicly in masculine array, "I don't know that it is
+necessary at present. A few days wont matter; and, after a while, it
+will seem to you the natural way to dress."
+
+He was so faithful that evening in reminding her of her short-comings
+that their _tête-à-tête_ over the little table in the ice-cream
+saloon, which usually was so cosey and delightful, was quite spoiled.
+She went to sleep regretting that she had taken Mr. John into her
+confidence and made it necessary for him to treat her as a boy.
+
+She did not see him again for several days: and meanwhile she had
+taken her lessons in book-keeping, practiced the writing hours on
+heavy masculine strokes, learned to walk without dancing little
+whirligigs on her tiptoes every other minute, and made some progress
+in the art of whistling. She felt that she had done much to earn his
+commendation, and was anxious for a meeting.
+
+On the way home from school, one afternoon, she saw his sister's baby
+at the window--the roundest, fattest, whitest and sweetest of all the
+babies that had taken up an abode in Mollie's heart, where babies
+innumerable were enshrined. There it was, being danced in somebody's
+hands before the window, and reaching out its ten dear little fingers
+to beckon her in.
+
+She was quickly in, regardless of her gait. In a moment from the time
+the tempting vision appeared she was cuddling it in her arms, glibly
+talking the nonsense that it loved to hear, and kissing and petting it
+to her heart's content. She was so absorbed that she did not hear Mr.
+John come in; and he was close by her when she looked up and saw his
+face--not the genial, welcoming look she had been in the habit of
+meeting since he became her friend, but one of grave disapproval.
+
+"I am ashamed of you, Mollie," he said. "Boys of your age don't pet
+babies in that way."
+
+Mollie dropped it--she hardly knew whether on the floor or the
+stove--and flew. When she got home, she ran into the little back room
+that used to be her play-room. She was all ready for a good cry, and
+she closed the door. Then she thought, what if Mr. John were to see
+her crying like a girl-baby!--and she marched to the window, and
+through the dimness in her eyes tried to see something cheering. Her
+nature was very social, and her need of companionship great at that
+moment; so she turned to the friend who had been brother, sister and
+child to her through most of her little girlhood--her big doll Helena,
+who sat in a chair in the corner beholding her agitation with fixed,
+compassionless gaze.
+
+"Come here, you dear," said Mollie, folding her tenderly in her arms
+and finding comfort in the contact of her cold china cheek. She had
+loved her so long that she had given her a soul; and to Mollie's heart
+the doll was as fit for loving as if she had had breath and speech.
+She did not play with her any longer, but Helena was still her dear
+old friend--an almost human confidant and crony.
+
+As she held her closely, suddenly she thought of Mr. John. If he had
+objected to the petting of babies, what would he say to dolls? She
+gave her a frantic kiss, put her away, and turned her back on her
+to reflect; for she did not mean to shirk the most disagreeable
+reflections in the new line of duty she had chosen to follow.
+
+If it had really been a human friend whose destinies Mollie
+considered, she could not have been more serious; and if it had been
+a human friend whom she at last decided must be put far from her, she
+could hardly have suffered severer heart-pangs. But she would have no
+compromising with inclination in this matter. She would be brave and
+strong, as it became her mother's son to be. So to the lowest depths
+of the deepest trunk in the garret she mentally consigned Helena.
+There, beyond the reach of her loving eyes and arms, she should lie in
+banishment until her heart became callous.
+
+But there was something so repulsive in the idea of smothering human
+Helena under layers of old garments, that Mollie finally thought of a
+better way. Helena should no longer be Helena, dear to her heart in
+all her little feminine adornings and her sympathetic, tender traits
+of character. She should undergo a change; a radical reform. She, too,
+should become a boy, and her name should be Thomas. Thenceforth Mollie
+spent her leisure moments in manufacturing garments suitable for the
+change; and at last she saw a boy-doll, in roundabout and pantaloons,
+occupying the chair where Helena had so long sat in dainty dresses.
+The sight was a perpetual offense to her eyes; but she bore it
+bravely, keeping in store for herself a reward of merit in Mr. John's
+approval. She did not fail to mention to him Helena's reform the
+next time they met, which was one morning before breakfast. She was
+sweeping the front steps when he came and leaned over the fence and
+called her.
+
+She shouldered the broom, as she had seen men shoulder implements of
+labor,--hoes, rakes, etc.,--and tramped toward him. Mr. John watched
+her, with an expression of disgust under his mustache.
+
+"Well, Bob," he said, "I'm glad to see you out so early. Form good
+habits before you're grown, and when you come to manhood you'll make
+money by it. Where are your Bloomers to-day? It isn't possible your
+mind's not made up to them yet?"
+
+There was something in Mr. John's tone and manner which did not seem
+quite courteous to Mollie; but she had hardly hung her head when he
+began to talk in his old half-fatherly, half-brotherly fashion; and
+then, in the lively conversation, she found a chance to introduce
+Thomas. Mr. John gave her a long, solemn, searching look.
+
+"Mollie," he said, "I am very much afraid you will never succeed as a
+boy. It seems to me that even an ordinarily masculine girl of your
+age would have been clear-headed enough to see the absurdity of your
+little farce. It is nothing but a farce, mere babyishness. You have
+been playing with yourself and with your doll. No boy could have done
+it."
+
+There was a short pause; then Mollie's voice piped out into a humble
+question as to what course a boy would have pursued in the matter.
+
+"Why, that is clear enough," said Mr. John. "If you want to do what a
+boy would do, dispose of the doll on the shortest notice. Get it out
+of your sight and mind as soon as possible, and then never give it any
+more thought than you'd give the rattle you used to shake when you
+were a baby, or the rubber ring you cut your teeth on."
+
+Could he be made to understand the immense difference between Helena
+and other toys? Could any words explain to him about the soul that had
+grown out of Mollie's love into the cloth and sawdust body? Mollie
+looked up to catch a sympathetic expression that should help her to
+tell him; but she did not find it.
+
+"You don't understand," she said desperately.
+
+"No?" said he.
+
+"Mr. John," said Mollie, not looking him in the eye, "when you have a
+doll as long as I have had Helena, it is only natural that she should
+seem to you like a live person. If I didn't play with her at all,
+she'd seem real to me, and I shouldn't like to have her go away any
+more than I would mother."
+
+"Which tells the secret that you have some sort of human fondness
+for the lifeless bundle of rags," said Mr. John, "and proves what I
+feared, that you are a very weak-minded little girl, Mollie."
+
+"You wont believe in me at all," said Mollie.
+
+"You wont think I am doing my best, and that I ever succeed. You are
+not like you used to be."
+
+"That naturally follows _your_ being different," said Mr. John. "Of
+course, we can't have the same feelings toward each other now as when
+you were contented to be a little girl and to let me treat you as one.
+I'm sorry you don't find me as agreeable as before, Mollie; but you
+must acknowledge that I am acting as a friend in doing all that I can
+to help you in your dear project."
+
+"It isn't dear!" burst forth Mollie, indignantly. "I hate it!--but
+I'll never give it up!"
+
+"Of course not," Mr. John said. "Then I presume you are all ready to
+part with Helena."
+
+"I'll go and get her," said Mollie.
+
+No one saw the parting in the play-room. It was quickly over, and she
+was back by the fence.
+
+"Give her to Bessie," said Mollie, putting Helena and her wardrobe
+into Mr. John's arms. Bessie was one of his many nieces.
+
+"To Bessie!" said he. "Where you can feel that she is away on a visit;
+where you know that she will be petted and cared for; where you can
+see her occasionally. If you are sincere in this matter, Mollie, send
+her off where you can no longer care to think of her. Our ash-man
+would be very glad to carry her home to his little girls."
+
+Mollie's hands made a wild dive toward Helena as a vision of the
+little grimy man who crept into their areas for ashes rose before her.
+
+"Decide now," said Mr. John. "Take your doll and be Mollie Kelly
+again, or be a boy and give her to the ash-man's children without a
+pang."
+
+Mollie hung her head. There was color coming and going in her cheeks,
+her fingers trembled,--how they longed to snatch Helena!--and her mind
+was full of indecision. Mr. John watched her closely, and he thought
+he saw the tide turning in favor of her girlhood. He held the doll
+nearer that it might tempt her fingers; but, on the instant, she
+turned and ran away. He tucked Helena under his coat and carried her
+upstairs and locked her in a drawer, there to abide until Mollie
+should want her again.
+
+That was a gloomy day to Mollie. She was out of humor with her
+boyhood. She was ashamed of herself one moment for bewailing Helena,
+and furious the next with Mr. John and the ash-man. She felt cross and
+discouraged, and was glad when the darkness came, and she could go to
+bed and sleep. But the next morning she was in no cheerier, braver
+frame of mind; and she walked home at noon, considering plain sewing
+_versus_ book-keeping as a means of subsistence. Mr. John would have
+rejoiced if he could have seen his "little leaven" working.
+
+"The gutters on the roof are full of leaves, Mollie," said her mother
+as she came in. "Stop on your way back to school and send Michael to
+clean them out. I think we are going to have rain, and we don't want
+them washed into the pipes."
+
+"How much will he charge, mother?"
+
+"About fifty cents."
+
+"That fifty cents shall buy something for you," said Mollie to
+herself. "The boy of the family shall clean the roof."
+
+There was just enough recklessness in her mood to make her rather
+enjoy than fear the prospect. She left her mother getting dinner, and
+took a broom and escaped up the garret stairs and through the scuttle.
+The roof did not slope steeply, and she let herself down with an easy
+slide to the rear eaves. She rested her feet on the edge of the house
+and swept as far as her arms would reach east and west. Then she
+shifted her position and swept again until the whole length was clean.
+
+She heard her mother calling her to dinner, but she had the front
+gutter yet to sweep, and, climbing up, went down on the other side.
+There was a thought which gave zest to her work on that side,--Mr.
+John would be coming home that way to dinner and would see her.
+Besides, other people would see her, and no passer-by should say that
+she did not do her work as thoroughly and fearlessly as any boy. She
+had taken for granted that Mr. John's eyes would be drawn upward; but
+when he had walked almost by, looking straight ahead, she sent him a
+shrill call. He looked at the windows, around the yard, and even as
+far up as the trees.
+
+"On the roof," screamed Mollie, and in her excitement she forgot her
+situation and lost her balance and slipped,--not far, but one foot
+went out beyond the eaves into the air. The other one rallied to the
+rescue, supported her whole weight, and helped her to regain her
+position. Danger was over in a moment, but it had been danger of
+death, and Mollie's heart beat wildly, and a faintness came over her.
+Still through it all she was able to see Mr. John's approving smile as
+he lifted his hat and waved it gayly in applause.
+
+"He wouldn't care if I had fallen and been killed," thought Mollie, as
+she recovered herself. "All he wants is to have me succeed in being a
+horrid boy. I've a mind to give it up just to spite him."
+
+She could not know--so successfully had he concealed his agitation
+under that bland smile--how faint he, too, had been in the moment of
+her danger, nor how fast his heart was still beating as he walked on,
+nor what resolves he was forming to put a speedy end to her boyhood.
+
+He stopped on his way back from dinner to tell her that he had engaged
+to take a party of his nephews and nieces nutting that afternoon, and
+that he wanted her to come.
+
+"It will be so nice to have a big boy on hand, Mollie," said Mr. John,
+"especially one that isn't afraid of heights. We may have some to
+climb."
+
+Not a word about her danger and his gladness for her safety, and she
+knew he had seen her narrow escape. But she felt so gay over memories
+of Mr. John's nutting parties, and the prospect of another, that she
+forgave him all, and prepared to be thoroughly happy that afternoon.
+
+School closed at three o'clock, and Mollie flew to Mr. John's yard,
+where they were all waiting. She came dancing by the gate, her cheeks
+rosy, her eyes shining,--just her old self, as she had been in the
+days when no boyhood loomed like an ugly shadow between her and Mr.
+John. He saw it all, and charged himself to be stony. So he gave no
+better response to her impulsive greeting than he would have given an
+ordinary boy. Her spirits fell a degree; but with those happy children
+bobbing around her, expecting her to be the happiest of all, they
+could do nothing but rise again.
+
+Mr. John did not offer to lift her over fences as he lifted the other
+girls; he even called on her to help the little ones over. He held
+back branches that came across other girls' paths; he let her clear
+her own way. He carried Kittie and Bessie, and Esther and Dora, over
+the brook; he let her splash across on the stones with the boys. He
+gallantly made cups and gave the other girls to drink; he suggested to
+Mollie that she should scoop the water up in her hand, as he was doing
+for his own use.
+
+She wished many a time before they came to the walnut-trees that she
+had staid at home. She wished her boyhood's days were over, or had
+never been. She couldn't bear Mr. John, and all the children noticed
+that she moped, and asked her why.
+
+Well, there were no nuts when they got there, Mr. John had known there
+wouldn't be. They should have come much earlier in the day to find
+these trees full, and the next trees were too far away. So they
+concluded to turn their nutting party into a picnic. They had a basket
+of provisions, and Mr. John sent the big boys into the next lot to get
+wood for a fire. Then came his grand opportunity for crushing Mollie.
+He called her, and she ran to him gladly, ready to take him back to
+her favor on his own terms.
+
+"Please, go and help the boys bring wood for our fire," he said. "They
+have all gone but you."
+
+She went, but not without giving him a look that actually made him
+blush for his rudeness. She went with the aspect of a tragedy queen,
+and by the time she overtook the boys she had calmly made up her mind
+to two things: never, never again to be friends with Mr. John, and to
+give up her boyhood just to spite him. But one more temptation still
+held her. There was a little cliff over in that next lot, stony and
+steep, and high enough to make a leap which it was some credit to a
+boy to achieve. The boys stood on the edge, measuring the distance
+with experienced eyes and preparing to go over.
+
+Now Mollie as a girl had always been a very good jumper, so she
+resolved at once to try the leap, and have the report of her valiant
+deed carried back to Mr. John. She joined the boys, and seeing that
+one after another went down safely, she soon asked for a turn. She was
+gravely remonstrated with. She was overwhelmed with sage masculine
+advice, but she swept her way clear and jumped--with all the
+recklessness of her reckless mood. She knew well enough the backward
+inclination proper for her head, what the relative positions of her
+knees and chin should be, and if she had taken the least forethought
+might have redeemed the declining reputation of her boyhood. The
+knowledge flashed across her in her swift descent that her spine had
+not preserved the proper perpendicular, and that she was coming down
+wrong. Chin and knees knocked together as she fell in a heap on the
+grass below.
+
+[Illustration: MOLLIE IS CARED FOR BY THE BOYS.]
+
+It was a caving in of skull, she thought, that made that horrible
+crashing pain and that sent lightning dancing on a black background
+before her eyes, then blinded her quite. Nothing but a general chaos
+of skull and brain could make such terrible pain. She wondered if her
+friends would be able to recognize one dear lineament in the jumble
+of her features. She thought what a sad fate it was to die young. She
+wondered how Mr. John would feel now! and then she found that light
+dawned upon her and that she had an eye open. In a moment she
+discovered that the sense of hearing, too, had not abandoned her;
+for the boys had reached her by this time, and she heard Mr. John's
+nephew, John, saying:
+
+"She's knocked her teeth through her lip, that's all. I did it once
+when I jumped wrong and hit my chin on my knee. She'll soon be all
+right."
+
+Two eyes open now, and she saw a bloody frock, and what seemed an army
+of boys; for there was something still the matter with her vision
+which caused it to multiply.
+
+"Boys, boys, nothing but boys!" thought Mollie, dropping her lids.
+"Where did they all come from, I wonder? There must be a thousand. I
+never want to see another. I wouldn't be one for the world. I wish
+they'd go away."
+
+Then she felt some one bathing her face gently, and when the water had
+refreshed her, she ventured another peep at the world. Boys around her
+still; but she could see now that their number was only four, and the
+faces those of friends.
+
+"Cheer up, Mollie," said John, jr. "You got a hard knock, but you're
+coming on. Bob's gone for the phaeton, and we'll have you home in no
+time."
+
+They propped her up against a tree, and continued to bathe her head
+with water from Jerry's felt hat, filled at the little brook close by.
+
+All this while Mr. John had been accounting for their absence by
+supposing that Mollie was taking some sort of revenge on him, and he
+would permit none of the girls to go in search of the wanderers. Not
+until Bob and the phaeton appeared did news of Mollie's valiant deed
+reach him. Then he went to her at once, and saw her pale and bloody.
+
+But to display weakness now might be to lose all, reflected Mr. John;
+so he kept back the words of sympathy that were on his lips as he
+leaned down and offered to carry her to the phaeton.
+
+"I prefer to walk, thank you," said Mollie, her pride giving her
+strength to rise and take the arm which John, jr., stood ready to
+offer. However, Mr. John forcibly made an exchange, and, in spite of
+Mollie, half led and half carried her to the road.
+
+"Don't be discouraged, Mollie," he said as he put her in, while Bob
+was busy at the halter. "The next time you'll jump like a man."
+
+"That nonsense is all over, thank you," said Mollie, very loftily,
+though not very clearly, because of her swollen lips. "Think what you
+please of me," she mumbled. "It is all ended; and it might have ended
+sooner, too, if I'd taken better advice."
+
+"With better advice it never would have ended, you contrary little
+minx," said Mr. John to himself as she drove away.
+
+The doctor came and Mollie was ordered to bed; but even his opiate
+did not make her sleep. It was soothing, indeed, to lie there in the
+twilight with her hand in her mother's, and feel that she was her
+little girl entirely, no more to be her boy while life should last.
+And pleasant visions of a Gothic school-house, where she should some
+day be mistress of sweet, rosy-cheeked children, rose gracefully on
+the ruins of her manly aspirations.
+
+By and by the bell rang, and her mother brought a lamp, and a package
+which Mollie sat up and opened. There, with a note pinned on the left
+leg of her trousers and a box of Mollie's best-beloved candies clasped
+on her jacket, lay Helena.
+
+"I have never been to the ash-man's house, Mother Mollie," said the
+note. "I have been visiting Mr. John's cuffs and collars in the
+bureau-drawer. I want my girls' clothes on to-morrow. I claim it as my
+right. We all have our rights. Put me in dresses and take me home to
+the play-room. You have your rights too, and I wouldn't let any one
+tell me that I hadn't a right to be a girl. It is my opinion that
+if you had been meant for a boy you would have been made one. Come,
+mother, cuddle me up, and let's go to sleep and have sweet dreams, and
+a blithe waking to girlhood in the morning, when we will make up with
+Mr. John; for he sends these chocolate-creams to let you know that he
+is sorry."
+
+"So we will, dear," said Mollie, tucking Helena's head under her chin.
+"You were always wiser than your mother, child."
+
+
+
+
+THE LARGEST VOLCANO IN THE WORLD
+
+BY SARAH COAN.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE LAKE OF FIRE.]
+
+    "Why, it isn't on the top of a mountain at all! What a humbug my
+    geography must have been!"
+
+So wrote a little fellow to a young friend in America.
+
+He was right. It isn't on the top of a mountain, though the
+geographies do say, "A volcano is a mountain sending forth fire, smoke
+and lava," and give the picture of a mountain smoking at the top.
+
+This volcano is nothing of the kind; but is a hideous, yawning black
+pit at the bottom of a mountain, and big enough to stow away a large
+city.
+
+Of course you want to know, first, where this wonder is. Get out the
+map of the Western Hemisphere, put your finger on any of the lines
+running north and south, through North America, and called meridians;
+follow it south until you come to the Tropic of Cancer, running east
+and west; then "left-about-face!" and, following the tropic, sail out
+into the calm Pacific. After a voyage of about two thousand miles,
+you'll run ashore on one of a group of islands marked Sandwich. We
+will call them Hawaiian, for that is their true name. Not one of the
+brown, native inhabitants would call them "Sandwich." An English
+sailor gave them that name, out of compliment to a certain Lord
+Sandwich.
+
+On the largest of these islands, Hawaii--pronounced "Ha-y-e"--is the
+volcano, Kilauea, the largest volcano in the world.
+
+We have seen it a great many times, and that you may see it as clearly
+as possible, you shall have a letter from the very spot. The letter
+reads:
+
+    "Here we are, a large party of us, looking into Kilauea, which is
+    nine miles in circumference, and a thousand feet below us--a pit
+    about seven times as deep as Niagara Falls are high. We came
+    to-day, on horseback, from Hilo, a ride of thirty miles. Hilo is a
+    beautiful sea-shore village, the largest on the island of Hawaii,
+    and from it all visitors to Kilauea make their start.
+
+
+    "The road over which we came is nothing but a bridle-path, and a
+    very rough one at that, traversing miles and miles of old lava
+    flows. We had almost ridden to the crater's brink before we
+    discovered, in the dim twilight, the awful abyss.
+
+    "Before us is the immense pit which, in the day-time, shows only a
+    floor of black lava, looking as smooth as satin; and, miles away,
+    rising out of this floor, are a few slender columns of smoke.
+
+    "At night, everything is changed; and you can't conceive of the
+    lurid, demoniacal effect. Each slender column of smoke becomes
+    a pillar of fire that rolls upward, throbbing as it moves, and
+    spreads itself out above the crater like an immense canopy, all
+    ablaze.
+
+    "Ships a hundred miles from land see the glow, and we here, on the
+    precipice above, can read ordinary print by its lurid light.
+
+    "No wonder the natives worshiped the volcano. They thought it the
+    home of a goddess, whom they named Pélé, and in times of unusual
+    activity believed her to be very angry with them. Then they came
+    in long processions, from the seashore villages, bringing pigs,
+    dogs, fowls, and sometimes human beings, for sacrifice. These they
+    threw into the crater, to appease her wrath.
+
+    "A small berry, called the ohélo, grows on the banks of the pit,
+    and of these the natives never dared to eat until Pélé had first
+    had her share. Very polite, were they not? And if ever they
+    forgot their manners, I dare say she gave them a shaking up by an
+    earthquake, as a reminder.
+
+    "Sandal-wood and strawberries grow all about here--and fleas, too!
+    wicked fleas, that bite voraciously, to keep themselves warm, I
+    think, for here, so far from Pélé's hearth, it is cold, and we sit
+    by a log fire of our own.
+
+    "The day after our arrival we went into the crater, starting
+    immediately after an early breakfast. There is but one entrance,
+    a narrow ledge, formed by the gradual crumbling and falling in of
+    the precipice. Along this ledge we slipped and scrambled, making
+    the descent on foot--for no ridden animal has ever been able to
+    descend the trail. Holding on to bushes and snags when the path
+    was dangerously steep, we finally landed below on the black satin
+    floor of lava.
+
+    "Satin! What had looked so smooth and tempting from a thousand
+    feet above, turned out to be a surface more troubled and uneven
+    than the ocean in the most violent storm. And that tiny thread
+    of smoke, toward which our faces were set, lay three miles
+    distant--three miles that were worse than nine on an ordinary
+    road.
+
+    "How we worked that passage! up hill and down hill, over hard
+    pointed lava that cut through our shoes like knife blades; over
+    light, crumbled lava into which we sank up to our knees; over
+    hills of lava that were, themselves, covered with smaller hills;
+    into ravines and over steam-cracks, some of which we could jump
+    with the aid of our long poles, and some of which we had to find
+    our way around; steam-cracks whose depths we could not see, and
+    into which we thrust our walking-sticks, drawing them out charred
+    black or aflame; over lava so hot that we ran as rapidly and
+    lightly as possible, to prevent our shoes being scorched.
+    Three hours of this kind of work for the three miles, and
+    _Hale-mau-mau_, or 'House of Everlasting Fire,' lay spitting and
+    moaning at our feet!
+
+    "A lake of boiling lava is what the column of smoke marked out to
+    us,--a pit within a pit,--a lake of raging lava fifty feet below
+    us, of which you have here the picture taken 'from life.'
+
+    "It was so hot and suffocating on the brink of this lake that we
+    cut eye-holes in our pocket-handkerchiefs and wore them as masks.
+    Even then we had to run back every few moments for a breath of
+    fresher air, though we were on the windward side of the lake. The
+    gases on the leeward side would suffocate one instantly. Oh, the
+    glory! This Hale-mau-mau, whose fire never goes out, is a huge
+    lake of liquid lava, heaving with groans and thunderings that
+    cannot be described. Around its edge, as you see in the picture,
+    the red lava was spouting furiously. Now and then the center of
+    the lake cooled over, forming a thin crust of black lava, which,
+    suddenly cracking in a hundred directions, let the blood-red fluid
+    ooze up through the seams, looking like fiery snakes.
+
+    "Look at the picture, and imagine these enormous slabs of cooled
+    lava slowly rising themselves on end, as if alive, and with
+    a stately motion plunging beneath the sea of fire, with an
+    indescribable roar.
+
+    "For three hours we gazed, spell-bound, though it seemed but a few
+    moments: we were chained to the spot, as is every one else who
+    visits Kilauea.
+
+    "The wind, as the jets rose in air, spun the molten drops of lava
+    into fine threads, which the natives call Pélé's hair, and very
+    like hair it is.
+
+    "All this time, under our feet were rumblings and explosions that
+    made us start and run now and then, for fear of being blown up;
+    coming back again after each fright, unwilling to leave the spot.
+
+    "Occasionally, the embankment of the lake cracked off and fell
+    in, being immediately devoured by the hungry flood. These ledges
+    around Hale-mau-mau are very dangerous to stand upon. A whole
+    family came near losing their lives on one. A loud report beneath
+    their feet and a sudden trembling of the crust made them run for
+    life; and hardly had they jumped the fissure that separated
+    the ledge on which they were standing from more solid
+    footing--separated life from death--than crash went the ledge into
+    the boiling lake!
+
+    "Sometimes the lake boils over, like a pot of molasses, and then
+    you can dip up the liquid lava with a long pole. You get quite
+    a lump of it, and by quickly rolling it on the ground mold a
+    cylinder the size of the end of the pole, and about six inches
+    long. Or you can drop a coin into the lava to be imprisoned as it
+    cools.
+
+    "A foreigner once imbedded a silver dollar in the hot lava, and
+    gave the specimen to a native; but he immediately threw it on the
+    ground, breaking the lava, of course, and liberating the dollar,
+    which he pocketed, exclaiming: 'Volcano plenty enough, but me not
+    get dollar every day.'
+
+    "One of our party collected lava specimens from around
+    Hale-mau-mau, and tied them up in her pocket-handkerchief. Imagine
+    her astonishment on finding, later, they had burned through the
+    linen, and one by one dropped out.
+
+    "Terrible as old Pélé is, she makes herself useful, and is an
+    excellent cook. She keeps a great many ovens heated for the use of
+    her guests, and no two at the same temperature, so that you may
+    select one of any heat you wish. In these ovens (steam-cracks) she
+    boils tea, coffee and eggs; or cooks omelets and meats. You wrap
+    the beef or chicken, or whatever meat you may wish to cook, in
+    leaves, and lay it in the steam-crack. Soon it is thoroughly
+    cooked, and deliciously, too.
+
+    "She also keeps a tub of warm water always ready for bathers.
+
+    "She doesn't mean to be laughed at, though, for doing this kind of
+    work, and doing it in an original kind of way. After she has given
+    you one or two sound shakings, which she generally does, you'll
+    have great respect for the old lady, and feel quite like taking
+    off your hat to her. With the shakings and the thunderings
+    under-foot, and now and then the opening of a long steam-crack,
+    she keeps her visitors quite in awe of her powers, though she is
+    probably several hundred years old.
+
+    "Not far from the little hut where we sleep, close to the
+    precipice, is Pélé's great laboratory, where she makes sulphur. We
+    wear our straw hats to the sulphur banks, and she bleaches them
+    for us.
+
+    "Well, this is a strange, strange land, old Pélé being only one of
+    its many curiosities.
+
+    "I only hope you may all see the active old goddess before she
+    dies. She hasn't finished her work yet. Once in a while she runs
+    down to the shore, to bathe and look at the Pacific Ocean, and
+    when there she generally gives a new cape to Hawaii by running out
+    into the sea."
+
+Majestic old Pélé! Long may she live!
+
+
+
+
+MAKING IT SKIP
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+        "I'll make it skip!"
+  Cried Charley, seizing a bit of stone.
+    And, in a trice, from our Charley's hand,
+          With scarce a dip,
+  Over the water it danced alone,
+    While we were watching it from the land--
+          Skip! skip! skip!
+
+          "I'll make it skip!"
+  Now, somehow, that is our Charley's way:
+    He takes little troubles that vex one so,
+          Not worth a flip,
+  And makes them seem to frolic and play
+    Just by his way of making them go
+          Skip! skip! skip!
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WILLOW WAND. BY A.E.W.
+
+
+  I have a little brother,
+    And his name is Little Lewy;
+  His starry eyes are bright as flowers
+    And they are twice as dewy.
+  Sometimes the dew o'erflows them,
+    And trickles down his cheeks;
+  And then he cries so hard, you'd think
+    He wouldn't stop for weeks.
+  Then my other little brother,
+    A bough of willow bringing,
+  Drives all the dew-drops far away,
+    By waving it and singing:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  "One, two, free, fo', five, six, _seven_ tears!
+  You'll be as old as farver in forty sousand years.
+  Drate big men don't have tears, so let me wipe 'em dry;
+  In forty sousand years from now you'll never, never cry."
+
+  This other little brother,
+    Whose name is Little Bert,
+  Frowns in a dreadful manner
+    Whenever he is hurt;
+  The wrinkles right above his nose
+    Look like the letter M,
+  He keeps them there so long, he must
+    Be very fond of them.
+  Then my little brother Lewy,
+    The branch of willow bringing,
+  Sends all the naughty frowns away,
+    By waving it and singing:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  "A, B, C, D, E, F, G;
+  How many wrinkles are there? One, two, three!
+  We'll send them all off quickly, or they'll climb up to your hair,
+  And then to-morrow morning you'll have lots of tangles there."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  Sometimes our little Lewy
+    Loses all his pretty smiles;
+  He says they're very far away;
+    At least a hundred miles.
+  He looks as sober as a judge,
+    As stately as a king,
+  As solemn as a parson and
+    As still as anything.
+  And then our little Bertie,
+    The witching willow bringing,
+  Sends all the smiles safe home again,
+    By waving it and singing:
+
+  "I want to buy a smile, sir, if you have some about;
+  I'll draw this leaf across your lips, and that will bring them out.
+  And if you cannot spare me one, just let me take a half.
+  Oh, here they come and there they come, and now we'll have a laugh."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  On every "morrow morning,"
+    This funny little Bertie
+  Doesn't want to have his face washed
+    Because it don't feel dirty;
+  He runs half-dressed 'way out-of-doors,
+    Safe hidden from our view;
+  We search and call, hunt up and down,
+    And don't know what to do,
+  Until we see our little Lu
+    The wand of willow bringing,
+  And leading Bertie back to us,
+    While all the time he's singing:
+
+  "Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si.
+  You look like a very small heathen Chinee.
+  Get the sleep all washed off and hang it up to dry,
+  And then you'll look as fresh as if you'd just come from the sky."
+
+  When all the stars are shining,
+    Each little sleepy-head
+  Is lying in a funny bunch
+    Within the little bed.
+  Their eyes are so wide open,
+    They stay awake so long,
+  They're calling me to tell to them
+    A story or a song.
+  So up the stairs again I come,
+    The magic willow bringing,
+  And wave it here and wave it there,
+    While o'er and o'er I'm singing:
+
+      "Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep;
+  Sailing away on the dreamy deep;
+  Sister to watch you and angels to keep;
+  Sailing away and away and away,
+      Away on the d-r-e-a-m-y deep;
+      Sleep, sleep, s-l-e-e-p, sleep."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY THAT WOULDN'T BE TOLD.
+
+BY LOUISE STOCKTON.
+
+
+"Do tell me one more story; just _one_ more!" said the little boy.
+
+It certainly was getting late. The fire lighted the room, the shadows
+danced in the corners. Down in the kitchen they were hurrying with the
+dinner, and in a moment nurse would come in to take the boy to bed.
+But all this made him want to stay. He was very comfortable in his
+mamma's lap, and he was in no haste to go upstairs to Maggie and the
+nursery.
+
+Then his mamma kissed him right on the tip of his little nose, and she
+said:
+
+"But you must go to bed sometime."
+
+"Please, mamma dear," he said, pushing his curly head almost under her
+arm, "just one little story."
+
+[Illustration: A SCENE IN THE STORY THAT WOULDN'T BE TOLD.]
+
+"Just one! You can choose it, but mind, a little one!"
+
+"You know what one I want. Of course about the giant Tancankeroareous,
+and how he stole the slipper of the princess for a snuff-box, and how
+the Prince Limberlocks climbed up a cherry-tree into the giant's room.
+That is the story _I_ like!"
+
+"And it must be the 'amen story' to-night. Well: Once upon a time the
+Princess Thistleblossom stood on one foot, while--"
+
+"No, no," interrupted The Story, "you need not tell _me_! Tell some
+other story. I am tired of being said over and over. Every night, as
+soon as your bed-time comes, and you are so sleepy that you don't want
+to go to bed, you ask for me, and I have to be told. I am sick of it,
+and I want to rest."
+
+"But I want you," said the boy. "I like you best of all my stories.
+I like that part where the giant comes in and calls out 'PORTER!' in
+such a loud voice that the gate shakes all the bolts loose."
+
+"I suppose you do like it," said The Story; "anybody would. I am a
+very good story, and very fit to be told last, although I cannot
+see why that is any reason for calling me the 'amen story.' That is
+foolish, _I_ think! But at any rate, that is no reason for telling
+me _every_ night. Let your mamma tell you Cock Robin, or Jack the
+Giant-Killer. They are plenty good enough."
+
+"I don't want them," said the little boy, beginning to cry; "I want
+_you!_ I wont go to sleep all night if mamma don't tell you."
+
+"_I_ don't care!" replied The Story; "you needn't cry for me. I've
+made up my mind. You wont hear me to-night. That as as sure as your
+name is Paul."
+
+And it was just as The Story said. There was no use in the boy's
+crying, for off went The Story, and it was _not_ told that night; but
+it is my private opinion that the boy did go to sleep after all.
+
+
+
+
+POLLY: A BEFORE-CHRISTMAS STORY.
+
+BY HOPE LEDYARD.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Santa Claus!" exclaimed Ned, half mockingly.
+
+"Yes," insisted Mamie, "what's he going to bring you, Ned?"
+
+"I don't know, and I don't care much," he answered, "for there isn't
+any Santa Claus."
+
+"Why, Ned!" cried Mamie, in astonishment. "Even my big brother Harry
+believes in Santa Claus. He's coming home from school to-night, and
+we're going to hang up our stockings."
+
+"Pshaw!" said Ned, "I must go home. Good-bye."
+
+Merry little Mamie stood in amazement, and then ran in-doors to her
+mother with her perplexity.
+
+"Why, mother!" she cried, "Ned Huntley said there wasn't any Santa
+Claus--and he was real cross about it, too."
+
+"Well, Mamie," said her mother, "I wouldn't take any notice of Ned's
+being cross about Christmas-time. The Huntleys don't keep Christmas."
+
+"Don't keep Christmas!" exclaimed Mamie, astonished beyond measure.
+
+Seeing that her mother was busy, she took her doll, Helena Margaret
+Constance Victorine, in her arms, and talked the matter over with her.
+
+"What do you think, my dear," said she, "they don't keep Christmas
+at Ned Huntley's house! I don't know just what mother means by not
+keeping it, for you know Santa Claus comes down the chimney, and so he
+can get in during the night and leave Christmas there. Oh, yes, but
+they don't keep it. They turn it out, I suppose, just like mother told
+me they acted about the dear little baby Savior; they hadn't any room
+for him, and I guess Mrs. Huntley hasn't any room to keep Christmas
+in. I wonder what she does with the Christmas things Santa Claus
+brings? I wonder if she throws 'em away? I mean to go and ask her;"
+and putting her child carefully in its cradle, Mamie started.
+
+There was some truth in what Mrs. Gaston had told her little daughter;
+the Huntleys did not keep Christmas in a loving, hearty way. They kept
+it in so far that on this very afternoon Mrs. Huntley was busy making
+the mince pies, dressing the turkey, and doing all she could to be
+beforehand with the extra Christmas dinner. Mr. Huntley had just
+stepped into the kitchen for a moment to say to his wife, "What have
+you settled on for Ned's Christmas?"
+
+"I've bought him a pair of arctics--he needed 'em; and if you want to
+spend more than common, you might get him half a dozen handkerchiefs."
+
+"Well, wife, I was thinking that perhaps"--the farmer tried to be
+particular about his words, for Mrs. Huntley did not seem in a very
+good humor--"I was remembering how you used to enjoy giving the young
+ones candies and toys; so, perhaps--"
+
+"Now, Noah Huntley, I'm surprised at you! Buy candies and toys for a
+great lumbering boy like Ned? Why, you must be crazy, man! The next
+thing will be that you'll want a Christmas-tree yourself!"
+
+"Well, and it wouldn't be a bad idea," thought the father. "There's
+my man, Fritz, he has been to the woods and cut a little tree for his
+children, and he seems to get a heap of pleasure out of it. Ah! if
+only little Polly had lived!" Strangely enough, the wife was thinking
+the same thing, as she sliced and sifted and weighed. "If little Polly
+had lived it would have been different, but we can't throw away money
+on nonsense for Ned."
+
+A little red cloak flashed by the window, a little bright face, just
+about the age of "our little Polly's," peeped in at the door, and
+Mamie asked, "May I come in, Mrs. Huntley?"
+
+"Certainly, child. Here's a fresh cookie. I suppose you're full of
+Christmas over at your house?"
+
+"Oh, yes, ma'am! And I'm so sorry you don't keep it. What's the
+reason?"
+
+"Don't keep it! Why, we have a regular Christmas dinner as sure as
+the 25th of December comes round, and Pa gives me a new dress, or
+something that I need, and we give Ned a suit of clothes, or shoes, or
+something that he needs."
+
+"Well," said Mamie, "but I like our way best. May I tell you how we
+keep Christmas?"
+
+"Talk away. I can listen."
+
+"Well, you see, a good while before Christmas my mother begins to get
+ready, and I often see her hide up something quick when I come in, and
+then she laughs, and I think, 'Oh, yes, something's coming,' and then
+mother takes me in her lap and tells me how Jesus is coming, and how
+He did come. Do you know, Mrs. Huntley?"
+
+"You can tell me, child?"
+
+"You see, He came a long, long time ago as a little baby. Mamma says
+that he began at the beginning, so that no little child could say, 'I
+can't be like Jesus, for Jesus never was so little as me.' That first
+birthday of His, there wasn't any room for Him at the tavern, and when
+the dear little baby Jesus was sleepy, they laid Him right in a stable
+manger, and the shepherds found Him lying there. Christmas is His
+Birthday, and I suppose they give all the children presents because
+Jesus loved little children, and then Santa Claus--Oh, Mrs. Huntley,
+that's what I came about, and I 'most forgot! If you don't keep
+Christmas--I mean as we do," she added, as Mrs. Huntley frowned, "and
+if you don't use the things that Santa Claus leaves here, can't I come
+over and get 'em? Only I'd rather Ned should have 'em."
+
+"Child alive! How your tongue runs! Here, now, take these cookies home
+with you, I guess Ned's too busy to play with you."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am. And you'll remember about Santa Claus?" said little
+Mamie, as she walked away with her cookies.
+
+Mrs. Huntley worked on for a few minutes longer, and then, leaving her
+dishes, she went to her own room and opened a bureau drawer. There
+lay a bright little dress and pretty white apron,--Polly's best
+things,--the little clothes in which she used to look so lovely. There
+were the last Christmas toys the mother had ever bought,--only a
+little tin bank, a paper cornucopia, and a doll; but she remembered
+that Christmas so well! Could it be that it was only three years ago?
+How Polly had laughed and chattered over her stocking! And Ned,--now
+that she thought about it,--she remembered that they bought him a pair
+of skates that year. He had made a great time over those skates, and
+had taken his little sister out to see him try to use them. Ned was
+so loving and gentle in those days. And then the mother's heart
+reproached her. Could she blame her boy because he seemed to care so
+little for his parents and his home, when she had nursed her grief for
+the loss of her baby-girl, and taken no pains to be bright or cheerful
+with him? She thought how clearly Mamie had told the story of the
+Savior's birthday. Could her boy, who was six years older, do as well?
+He went to Sunday-school sometimes, but she had never talked with him
+about Jesus--never since God took her Polly. And her eyes filled as
+she shut the drawer.
+
+Mrs. Huntley went back to the kitchen, but the room seemed different
+to her. Ned brought in the milk, and looked at his mother curiously
+at hearing her say, "Thank you, Ned." Wonders would never end, Ned
+thought, when, after tea, she said, "Father, it's a moonlight night;
+couldn't you and I drive to the village? Ned will excuse our leaving
+him alone."
+
+"Excuse!" When had his mother ever asked him to excuse her? And then,
+as mother waited for the wagon to be got ready, she asked him to read
+about the Savior's birth, and surely there were tears in her eyes as
+father came in, just as Ned read, "And they came with haste and found
+Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger."
+
+Mr. Huntley was bewildered, too. To start off for the village at seven
+o'clock in the evening! When had such a thing happened?
+
+On the road Mrs. Huntley told her husband what Mamie had said to her,
+and she added, "Perhaps, as I tell it, it don't seem much, but it made
+me think of our Polly, and"--the woman's voice broke, and the father,
+saddened too, said, comfortingly, "She's safe, my dear, in heaven."
+
+"Yes, father, but I'm thinking of the one that's left, for all I cried
+a little. I guess you were near right about getting him something
+nice. He's but a boy yet, and he'd think more of Christmas, and
+perhaps of the child that was born on Christmas, if we show him that
+Jesus has made our hearts a little more tender."
+
+What it cost that hard, reserved woman to say that, none knew, but I
+think her husband felt dimly how she must have fought with herself,
+and he was silent for some time. At last he said, with a tone of
+gladness in his voice, "My dear, I'm glad to get him something. He's a
+good boy, Ned is."
+
+What a pleasant time they had, and how they caught the spirit of
+Christmas! They bought a sled and skates, a book or two, and candies,
+and Mrs. Huntley found a jack-knife that was just the thing Ned
+wanted. Then she said to her husband:
+
+"I'd like to buy something for Mamie. It will be nice to buy a girl's
+present."
+
+Their hearts ached a little, as they chose a wonderful little wash-tub
+and board, with a clothes-horse to match. How Polly's eyes would have
+shone at these!
+
+Meantime, Ned mused over his mother's tears and her strangely kind
+tones, and thought: "I wonder if she's going to be as good to me as
+she was to Polly! I hated to hear Mamie talk about Santa Claus. Polly
+used to talk just that way, and we did have such good times. I used to
+get skates and things at Christmas, but now I get some handkerchiefs
+or a lot of shirts! It makes me mad." Then Ned fell asleep, and so
+the mother found him. She woke him gently and he went off to bed,
+bewildered by more kind words.
+
+Morning dawned and Ned hurried down to light the fire in the kitchen,
+but he went no further than the sitting-room. There was a sled,--a
+splendid one,--a pair of skates, and books! He put his hands in his
+pockets to take a long stare, and felt something strange in one of
+them. Why! There was a beautiful knife!
+
+Mother came in and watched his face, but at sight of her the boy
+fairly broke down. Laying his head on her shoulder, "It's like Polly
+coming back," he said.
+
+And so it was, and so it continued to be.
+
+
+[Illustration: BOGGS SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD HIS PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON
+THANKSGIVING DAY, AND EATEN A HEARTY DINNER AFTERWARD.]
+
+
+
+
+THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON'S SHOW.
+
+BY JENNIE A. OWEN.
+
+
+"Aunt Jennie," said my little godson Willie, a few days ago, "wont
+you go with us to see the Lord Mayor's show? There'll be thirteen
+elephants and eight clowns, and an elephant picks a man up with his
+trunk and holds him there. And then mamma's going to take me to
+Sampson's. Do you know Sampson, Aunt Jennie?"
+
+"I know about Samson in the Bible, Willie."
+
+"Oh, not that one; our Sampson is a man in a shop in Oxford street,
+and he makes such nice boys' clothes, and he's the master."
+
+I have just come home from the Sandwich Islands, where I have been
+living; I spent a few years, too, in New Zealand and Tahiti, and so
+have seen many wonderful things on the land and sea; but a Lord Mayor
+going to be sworn in to his duties, attended by thirteen elephants and
+a London crowd, would be a novelty to me. I thought, too, that certain
+little boys and girls in the Sandwich Islands and the United States,
+who also call me Aunt Jennie, would like to hear all about it.
+
+This has been an exciting week for the London children. The fifth of
+November fell on Sunday, and Guy Fawkes had to wait till Monday to
+make his appearance. All that day he was carried about the streets in
+various shapes and forms, and the naughty, ignorant little boys, in
+spite of enlightened school-board teaching, sang at our doors:
+
+  "A ha'penny loaf to feed the Pope,
+  A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,
+  A pint of beer to wash it all down,
+  And a jolly good fire to burn him."
+
+"Oh, papa," said Willie, as he ran into the breakfast-room for
+pennies, "aren't you glad you're a real man and not a pope?"
+
+At last the ninth, the Lord Mayor's day, came. It is also the Prince
+of Wales' birthday, so the city would be very gay-looking with all the
+flags flying.
+
+Alas! it was a dark, dull morning, and a heavy fog hung all over the
+city. Alas for the gilt coaches, the steel armor and other braveries!
+and then the elephants, how could they possibly feel their way all
+round the city in a thick, yellow fog? But, happily, by eleven the
+weather cleared, and the sun shone out brightly. Such a crowd as there
+was at our railway dépôt! So many bonny, happy little children never
+went on the same morning to the busy old town before. It was something
+new for great elephants to be seen walking through the prosy business
+streets. Once before, twenty-seven years ago, when Sir John Musgrave
+was Lord Mayor, not only elephants, but camels, deer, negroes,
+beehives, a ship in full sail, and Britannia seated on a car drawn by
+six horses, had made part of the show; since then, however, no Lord
+Mayor had been thoughtful enough of little and big children's pleasure
+to order out such delightful things, and so this year everybody must
+go. To quote from the _Daily News:_
+
+    "Since the reign of Henry III., when, by that monarch's gracious
+    act the Lord Mayor of London was permitted to present himself
+    before the Barons of Exchequer at Westminster instead of submitting
+    the citizens' choice for the king's personal approval, there has
+    been no Lord Mayor's show at which so great a concourse of
+    spectators assembled."
+
+We crowd into the cars and are soon in Cannon street. At the gates a
+boy meets us with little books for sale, shouting, "Thirteen elephants
+for a penny! the other boys'll only give you twelve, but I'll give you
+thirteen. Sold again! Thirteen elephants for a penny!" This wonderful
+book consists of a series of common gaudily colored pictures, supposed
+to represent the procession, which has done service at the show
+from time immemorial, but it is each year as welcome as ever to the
+children who each have a penny to buy one. Through the streets we have
+passing visions of pink silk stockings, canary-colored breeches, and
+dark green coats and gold lace, also tri-colored rosettes as large as
+saucers; and pass by shop-windows full of sweet, eager little faces,
+in the place of hose, shirts, sewing-machines, etc.
+
+At last we arrive at our destination in Cheapside, where, through the
+kindness of a friend, a window on the first floor of a large building
+is waiting for us. How impatient we are until we hear the band of the
+Grenadier Guards, which heads the procession. After this band and that
+of the Royal London Militia, come the Worshipful Company of Loriners,
+preceded by jolly watermen in blue and white striped jerseys and white
+trousers, bearing banners; more watermen follow to relieve them; the
+beadle of the company with his staff of office; the clerk in his
+chariot; the wardens, wearing silk cloaks trimmed with sables,
+in their carriages, and amongst them Sir John Bennett, the great
+watch-maker in Cheapside, a charming-looking old gentleman with rosy
+cheeks and profuse gray curls; his face lights up with smiles as the
+shouts of "Bravo, Bennett," show how popular he is.
+
+Then comes a grand yellow coach, in which rides the Master of the
+Company, attended by his chaplain. After the Loriners come the
+Farriers, the band of the First Life Guards, banners, beadle and mace
+clerk, wardens and master. After them the Broderers. As these pass
+slowly along, an excitement is caused by the behavior of the horse of
+a hussar, who is mounting guard. It does not like the proceedings at
+all, and still less the greasy asphalt on which it stands, dances
+round, backs into the Worshipful Master of Broderers' carriage, and
+finally rears and falls, unseating its rider. The hussar is quite cool
+and quiet, soon reseats himself, and rejects the offer of a fussy
+little man in red to hold his horse.
+
+And now comes the Worshipful Company of Bakers, preceded by their
+banner, with its good old motto, "Praise God for all." These are
+really very jolly and well-favored looking companions, most of the
+members bearing large bouquets of flowers. After them the Vintners'
+Company, with the band of the Royal Artillery; ten Commissioners,
+each bearing a shield; eight master porters in vintner's dress; the
+Bargemaster in full uniform, and the Swan Uppers. These are men who
+look after the swans belonging to the corporation of London, which
+build their nests along the banks of the Thames, and they mark the
+young swans each spring.
+
+The "Uppers" look very well in their dress, consisting of dark cloth
+jackets slashed with white, blue and white striped jerseys and white
+trousers.
+
+After this company had passed, a grand shout announced the coming of
+the elephants. These, as some small boy has observed, are "curious
+animals, with two tails--one before and one behind." First came a
+number of large ones, with Mr. Sanger, their owner, who was mounted on
+a curiously spotted horse. They were gorgeous with oriental trappings
+and howdahs. On the foremost one rode a man representing a grand
+Indian prince. He had a reddish mustache, wore spectacles, a
+magnificent purple and white turban, and showy oriental costume. He
+produced a great impression on the crowd. In other howdahs sat one,
+two or three splendid Hindoos, whose dress was past description. Then
+came several young elephants ridden by boys; one of these was seized
+with a desire to lie down, and had to be vigorously roused; but,
+on the whole, they behaved in a wonderfully correct and dignified
+manner--now and then gracefully swinging round their trunks amongst
+the sympathizing crowd, in search of refreshment.
+
+The elephants were escorted by equestrians in state costumes, and
+followed by six knights in steel armor, with lances and pennons,
+mounted on chargers. One of these "wouldn't go," and had to be dragged
+on ignominiously by a policeman. Then the Epping Forest rangers came.
+They were picturesquely dressed in green velvet coats, broad-brimmed
+hats and long feathers. After these, trumpeters, under-sheriffs in
+their state carriages, aldermen, the Recorder, more trumpeters, and
+then a most gorgeous coach--with hammer-cloth of red and gold, men in
+liveries too splendid to describe, and four fine horses--brings the
+late lord mayor. The mounted band of household cavalry follows. These
+really look splendid in crimson coats covered with gold embroidery and
+velvet caps, riding handsome white horses.
+
+There is a stoppage just as they come up. They are rapturously greeted
+by the crowd, and requested to "play up." The mayor's servants, in
+state liveries, follow on foot. After them rides a very important
+person, the city marshal, on horseback. The city trumpeters come now,
+preceding the right honorable the lord mayor's most gorgeous gilt
+coach, drawn by six horses. In it sits Sir Thomas White, supported by
+his chaplain, and attended by his sword-bearer and the common crier.
+An escort of the 21st Hussars brings up the rear. Policemen follow,
+and after them a stray mail-cart, a butcher's boy with his tray; after
+that, not just the deluge, but the crowd.
+
+"Oh, mamma!" says Willie, "the beefeaters didn't come! Nine of them
+there are in my book, and a grand one going in front, blowing a
+trumpet. And the man holding his thumb to his nose at the sheriffs;
+and the policeman knocking a thief down with a staff! And the lord
+mayor had no spectacles on. That's not fair! Do beefeaters eat lots of
+beef, mamma?"
+
+"Oh, no," says Charlie, with a superior air, "they are only sideboard
+chaps."
+
+Willie is still more puzzled, until he is told that in the olden time
+servants so costumed used to stand by the sideboard, or buffet, as
+it was called, at feasts, and so got the name of buffetiers, and by
+degrees the name became changed into beefeaters, which was more easily
+remembered by the people.
+
+[Illustration: THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON'S SHOW.]
+
+From our window we could not, of course, follow the procession on its
+winding way, nor had we seen it start. On looking at the paper next
+morning, we read that at first it was feared that the elephants had
+failed to keep their appointment. It was almost time to set out, and
+no elephants were to be seen. What must be done? The people ought not
+to be cheated out of the best part of the show; and yet, on the other
+hand, how undignified for a lord mayor to be kept waiting for thirteen
+elephants! I am sorry to say the police were rather glad. They had
+been very much afraid that the animals might prove troublesome during
+so long and unusual a walk; or else, coming from a circus, might, at
+any sudden pause, imagine themselves in the arena, and take it into
+their grave heads to perform on two legs and terrify the horses, or
+possibly annoy the lord mayor and his chaplain by putting their
+long trunks into his coach. But, happily for us, the police were
+disappointed. Such dignified creatures could not be expected to come
+early and be kept waiting.
+
+Just at the right time they came leisurely up, and gravely taking
+their proper place, marched on with their proverbial sagacity--waiting
+outside Westminster Hall, whilst the lord mayor swore to do his
+duty, as quietly as though they were at home--and afterward left the
+procession at Blackfriars Bridge, to go to their own quarters and
+eat their well-earned dinner. It is to be hoped that the lord mayor
+ordered something specially good for them.
+
+The elephants having left, the **embassadors, her majesty's ministers of
+state, the nobility, judges, and other persons of distinction, joined
+the procession, and proceeded to feast with his lordship and the lady
+mayoress at Guildhall.
+
+[*sic]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MY GIRL
+
+BY JOHN S. ADAMS.
+
+
+  I.
+
+  A little corner with its crib,
+  A little mug, a spoon, a bib,
+  A little tooth so pearly white,
+  A little rubber ring to bite.
+
+
+  II.
+
+  A little plate all lettered round,
+  A little rattle to resound,
+  A little creeping--see! she stands!
+  A little step 'twixt outstretched hands.
+
+
+  III.
+
+  A little doll with flaxen hair,
+  A little willow rocking-chair,
+  A little dress of richest hue,
+  A little pair of gaiters blue.
+
+
+  IV.
+
+  A little school day after day,
+  A "little schoolma'am" to obey,
+  A little study--soon 'tis past,
+  A little graduate at last.
+
+
+  V.
+
+  A little muff for winter weather,
+  A little jockey-hat and feather,
+  A little sack with funny pockets,
+  A little chain, a ring, and lockets.
+
+
+  VI.
+
+  A little while to dance and bow,
+  A little escort homeward now,
+  A little party, somewhat late,
+  A little lingering at the gate.
+
+
+  VII.
+
+  A little walk in leafy June,
+  A little talk while shines the moon,
+  A little reference to papa,
+  A little planning with mamma.
+
+
+  VIII.
+
+  A little ceremony grave,
+  A little struggle to be brave,
+  A little cottage on a lawn,
+  A little kiss--my girl was gone!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MARS, THE PLANET OF WAR.
+
+BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR.
+
+
+Not long ago, the planet Jupiter came among the stars of our southern
+evening skies. Those who noted down his track found that he first
+advanced from west to east, then receded along a track near his
+advancing one, then advanced again, still running on a track side by
+side with his former advancing track, and so passed away from the
+scene, toward the part of the sky where the sun's light prevents our
+tracking him.
+
+That was a useful and rather easy first lesson about the motions of
+the bodies called planets.
+
+We have now to consider a rather less simple case, but one a great
+deal more interesting. Two planets intrude among our evening stars,
+each following a looped track, but the tracks are unlike; the two
+planets are unlike in appearance, and they are also very unlike in
+reality.
+
+I hope many of my young readers have already found out for themselves
+that these intrusive bodies have been wandering among our fixed stars.
+I purposely said nothing about the visitors last August, so that those
+who try to learn the star-groups from my maps may have had a chance of
+discovering the two planets for themselves. If they have done so, they
+have in fact repeated a discovery which was made many, many years ago.
+Ages before astronomy began to be a science, men found out that some
+of the stars move about among the rest, and they also noticed the kind
+of path traveled in the sky by each of those moving bodies. It was
+long, indeed, before they found out the kind of path traveled _really_
+by the planets. In fact, they supposed our earth to be fixed; and if
+our earth were fixed, the paths of the planets about her as a center
+would be twisted and tangled in the most perplexing way. So that folks
+in those old times, seeing the planets making all manner of loops and
+twistings round the sky, and supposing they made corresponding loops
+and twistings in traveling round the earth, thought the planets were
+living creatures, going round the earth to watch it and rule over it,
+each according to his own fashion. So they worshiped the planets as
+gods, counting seven of them, including the sun and moon. Some they
+thought good to men, others evil. The two planets now twisting their
+way along the southern skies were two of the evil sort, viz.: Mars,
+called the Lesser Infortune, and Saturn, called the Greater Infortune.
+In the old system of star-worship, Mars ruled over Tuesday, and Saturn
+over Saturday,--the Sabbath of olden times,--a day which the Chaldean
+and Egyptian astrologers regarded as the most unlucky in the whole
+week.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1. THE PATHS OF MARS AND SATURN.]
+
+The actual paths traveled among the stars by these two planets, this
+fall, are shown in Fig. 1. You will see how wildly the fiery Mars, the
+planet of war, careers round his great loop, while old Saturn, "heavy,
+dull, and slow" (as Armado says that lead is--the metal dedicated to
+Saturn), plods slowly and wearily along. Between August 6 and October
+1, Mars traversed his entire backward track,--Saturn, you notice, only
+a small portion of his much smaller loop. On the sky, too, you will
+see that while Mars shines with a fierce ruddy glow, well suited
+to his warlike character, Saturn shines with a dull yellow light,
+suggestive of the evil qualities which the astrologers of old assigned
+to him. "My loking," says Saturn, in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," "is
+the fader of pestilence:
+
+  "Min ben also the maladies colde,
+  The derke treasons, and the costes olde;
+  Min is the drenching in the see so wan,
+  Min is the prison in the derke cote,[1]
+  Min is the strangel and hanging by the throte,
+  The murmure, and the cherles[2] rebelling,
+  The groyning and the prine empoysoning."
+
+    [Footnote 1: _Dark or gloomy coast_. This line was amusingly
+    rendered, by the printer of my "Saturn and its System," in which I
+    quoted Chaucer's lines, "Mine is the prison, and the dirty coat."]
+
+    [Footnote 2: _Churl's._ Notice this word. It is the same as the
+    word rendered _Charles's_ in the common English name for the
+    Dipper. One should always say Charles's Wain, not Charles' (as is
+    the way Tennyson does in the "May Queen ").]
+
+For the present, however, let us consider the planet Mars, leaving
+slow Saturn to wait for us another month.
+
+It has always seemed to me one of the most useful lessons in astronomy
+to follow the line by which, long ago, great discoveries were made.
+Thus, if the young reader went out on every fine night and noted the
+changing position of Mars, he traced out the track shown in Fig. 1.
+He noted, also, that the planet, which shone at its brightest about
+September 5, gradually grew less and less bright as it traveled off,
+after rounding the station near October 5 (really on Oct. 7), toward
+the east. He observed, then, that the seeming loop followed by the
+planet was a real looped track (so far, at least, as our observer on
+the earth was concerned). Fig. 2 shows the apparent shape of Mars's
+loop, the dates corresponding to those shown in Fig. 1. Only it does
+not lie flat, as shown on the paper, but must be supposed to lie
+somewhat under the surface of the paper, as shown by the little
+upright _a, b,_ which, indeed, gives the distance under the paper at
+which the part of the loop is supposed to lie where lowest at _m_. The
+other similar uprights at M_1, M_2, and M_3 show the depression at
+these places. You perceive that the part M_1, M_2, lies higher than
+the part M_2, M_3. If the loop were flat, and, like E, the earth,
+were in the level of the paper, it would be seen edgewise, and the
+advancing, receding, and advancing parts of the planet's course would
+all lie on the same line upon the sky. But being thus out of the
+level, we see through the loop, so to speak, and it has the seeming
+shape shown in Fig. 1.[3]
+
+    [Footnote 3: I must re-mention that though this explanation is
+    made as simple as I possibly can make it, so far as words are
+    concerned, the figures present the result of an exact geometrical
+    investigation. Every dot, for instance, in Fig. 2, has had its
+    place separately determined by me.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2. ONE OF MARS'S LOOPS.]
+
+This is one loop, you will understand, out of an immense number which
+Mars makes in journeying round the earth, regarded as fixed. He
+retreats to a great distance, swoops inward again toward the earth,
+making a loop as in Fig. 2, and retreating again. Then he comes
+again, makes another swoop, and a loop on another side, and so on.
+He behaves, in fact, like that "little quiver fellow," a right
+martialist, no doubt, who, as Justice Shallow tells us, "would about
+and about, and come you in, and come you in,--and away again would a
+go, and again would a come." The loops are not all of the same size.
+The one shown in Fig. 2 is one of the smallest. I have before me a
+picture which I have made of all this planet's loops from 1875 to
+1892, and it forms the most curiously intertwined set of curves you
+can imagine,--rather pretty, though not regular, the loops on one side
+being much larger than those on the other. I would show the picture
+here, but it is too large. One of these days, it will be given in a
+book I am going to write about Mars, who is quite important enough to
+have a book all to himself. I want you, now, to understand me that
+Mars really does travel in a most complicated path, when you consider
+the earth as at rest. If a perfect picture of all his loopings and
+twistings since astronomy began could be drawn,--even on a sheet of
+paper as large as the floor of a room,--the curves would so interlace
+that you would not be able to track them out, but be always leaving
+the true track and getting upon one crossing it slightly aslant,--just
+like the lines by which trains are made to run easily off one
+track on to another.
+
+The unfortunate astronomers of old times, who had to explain, _if they
+could_, this complicated behavior of Mars (and of other planets, too),
+were quite beaten. The more carefully they made their observations,
+the more peculiar the motions seemed. One astronomer gave up the work
+in despair, just like that unfortunate Greek philosopher who, because
+he could not understand the tides of the Euboean Sea, drowned
+himself in it. So this astronomer, who was a king,--Alphonsus of
+Portugal,--unable to unravel the loops of the planets, said, in his
+wrath, that if he had been called on by the Creator to assign the
+planets their paths, he would have managed the matter a great deal
+better. The plates of the old astronomical books became more and more
+confusing, and cost more and more labor, as astronomers continued to
+
+  ... "Build, unbuild, contrive
+  To save appearances, to gird the sphere
+  With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,
+  Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb."
+
+It was to the study of Mars, the wildest wanderer of all, that we owe
+the removal of all these perplexities. The idea had occurred to the
+great astronomer, Copernicus, that the complexities of the planets'
+paths are not real, but are caused by the constant moving about of the
+place from whence we watch the planets. If a fly at rest at the middle
+of a clock face watched the ends of the two hands, they would seem to
+go round him in circles; but if, instead, he was on the end of one of
+the hands (and was not knocked off as the other passed), the end of
+this other hand would not move round the fly in the same simple way.
+When the two hands were together it would be near, when they were
+opposite it would be far away, and, without entering into any
+particular description of the way in which it would seem to move, you
+can easily see that the motion would seem much more complicated
+than if the fly watched it from the middle of the clock face. Now,
+Copernicus _did_ enter into particulars, and showed by mathematical
+reasoning that nearly all the peculiarities of the planets' motions
+could be explained by supposing that the sun, not the earth, was the
+body round which the planets move, and that they go round him nearly
+in circles.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3. THE PATHS OF MARS, THE EARTH, VENUS, AND
+MERCURY.]
+
+But Copernicus could not explain _all_ the motions. And Tycho Brahe,
+another great astronomer, who did not believe at all in the new ideas
+of Copernicus, made a number of observations on our near neighbor
+Mars, to show that Copernicus was wrong. He gave these to Kepler,
+another great astronomer, enjoining him to explain them in such a way
+as to overthrow the Copernican ideas. But Kepler behaved like Balaam
+the son of Beor; for, called on to curse (or at least to denounce) the
+views of Copernicus, he altogether blessed them three times. First,
+he found from the motions of Mars that the planets do not travel in
+circles, but in ovals, very nearly circular in shape, but not having
+the sun exactly at the center. Secondly, he discovered the law
+according to which they move, now faster now slower, in their oval
+paths; and thirdly, he found a law according to which the nearer
+planets travel more quickly and the farther planets more slowly,
+every distance having its own proper rate. These three laws of Kepler
+constitute the Magna Charta of the solar system.
+
+Afterward, Newton showed _how_ it happens that the planets obey these
+laws, but as his part of the work had no particular reference to Mars,
+I say no more about it in this place.
+
+Here, in Fig. 3, are the real paths of Mars and the Earth, and also of
+Venus and Mercury. No loops, you see, in any of them, simply because
+we have set the sun in the middle. Set the earth in the middle, and
+each planet would have its own set of loops, each set enormously
+complicated, and all three sets mixed together in the most confusing
+way. It is well to remember this when you see, as in many books of
+astronomy, the old theory illustrated with a set of circles looking
+almost as neat and compact as the set truly representing the modern
+theory. For the idea is suggested by this simple picture of the old
+theory that the theory itself was simple, whereas it had become so
+confusing that not merely young learners, but the most profound
+mathematicians, were baffled when they tried to unravel the motions of
+the planets.
+
+I think the figure pretty well explains itself. All I need mention is,
+that while the shape and position of each path is correctly shown, the
+size of the sun at center is immensely exaggerated. A mere pin point,
+but shining with star-like splendor, would properly represent him.
+As for the figures of the earth and Mars, they are still more
+tremendously out of proportion. The cross-breadth of the lines
+representing these planets' tracks is _many times_ greater than the
+breadth of either planet on the scale of the chart.
+
+On September 5 the earth and Mars came to the position shown at E and
+M. You observe that they could not be much nearer. It is indeed very
+seldom that Mars is so well placed for observation. His illuminated
+face was turned toward the dark or night half of the earth, so that he
+shone brightly in the sky at midnight, and can be well studied with
+the telescope.
+
+When Galileo turned toward Mars the telescope with which he had
+discovered the moons of Jupiter, the crescent form of Venus, and many
+other wonders in the heavens, he was altogether disappointed. His
+telescope was indeed too small to show any features of interest in
+Mars, though the planet of war is much nearer to us than Jupiter. Mars
+is but a small world. The diameter of the planet is about 4,400 miles,
+that of our earth being nearly 8,000. Jupiter, though much farther
+away, has an immense diameter of more than 80,000 miles to make
+up, and much more than make up, for the effect of distance. With his
+noble system of moons he appears a remarkable object even with a
+small telescope, while Mars shows no feature of interest even with
+telescopes of considerable size.
+
+It was not, then, till very powerful telescopes had been constructed
+that astronomers learned what we now know about Mars.[4]
+
+    [Footnote 4: See the "Moons of Mars" in "Letter Box" Department]
+
+It is found that his surface is divided into land and water, like the
+surface of our own earth. But his seas and oceans are not nearly so
+large compared with his continents and lands. You know that on our own
+earth the water covers so much larger a surface than the land that
+the great continents are in reality islands. Europe, Asia and Africa
+together form one great island; North and South America another, not
+quite so large; then come Australia, Greenland, Madagascar, and so
+forth; all the lands being islands, larger or smaller. On the other
+hand, except the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral, there are no large
+seas entirely land-bound. In the case of Mars a very different state
+of things prevails, as you will see from the three accompanying
+pictures (hitherto unpublished), drawn by the famous English observer,
+Dawes (called the Eagle-eyed). The third and best was drawn with
+a telescope constructed by your famous optician, Alvan Clark, of
+Cambridge, Massachusetts. The dark parts are the seas, the light parts
+being land, or in some cases cloud or snow. But in these pictures most
+of the lighter portions represent land; for they have been seen often
+so shaped, whereas clouds, of course, would change in shape.
+
+The planet Mars, like our earth, turns on its axis, so that it has day
+and night as we have. The length of its day is not very different from
+that of our own day. Our earth turns once on its axis in ---- but
+before reading on, try to complete this sentence for yourself. Every
+one knows that the earth's turning on its axis produces day and night,
+and nine persons out of ten, if asked how long the earth takes in
+turning round her axis, will answer, 24 hours; and if asked how many
+times she turns on her axis in a year, will say 365 times, or if
+disposed to be very exact, "about 365-1/4 times." But neither answer
+is correct. The earth turns on her axis about 366-1/4 times in each
+year, and each turning occupies 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds and
+1 tenth of a second. We, taking the ordinary day as the time of a
+turning or rotation, lose count of one rotation each year. It is
+necessary to mention this, in order that when I tell you how long the
+day of Mars is, you may be able correctly to compare it with our own
+day. Mars, then, turns on his axis in 24 hours 37 minutes 22 seconds
+and 7 tenth-parts of a second. So that Mars requires 41 minutes 18
+seconds and 6-tenths of a second longer to turn his small body once
+round than our earth requires to turn round her much larger body. The
+common day of Mars is, however, only about 39 minutes longer than our
+common day.
+
+Mars has a long year, taking no less than 687 of our days to complete
+his circuit round the sun, so that his year lasts only about one month
+and a half less than two of ours.
+
+[Illustration: APPEARANCE OF MARS, 1852, MARCH 23, 5 H. 45 M.,
+Greenwich Mean Time. Power of Telescope, 358; 6-1/3 inch object-glass]
+
+[Illustration: APPEARANCE OF MARS, 1852, FEBRUARY 3, 6 H. 50 M.,
+Greenwich Mean Time. Power of Telescope, 242 and 358 on 6-1/3 inch
+object-glass.]
+
+[Illustration: APPEARANCE OF MARS, 1860, JULY 6, 11 H. 33 M.,
+Greenwich Mean Time. Power of Telescope, 201; 8-1/4 inch object-glass.
+Planet very low, yet pretty distinct.]
+
+Like the earth, Mars has seasons, for his polar axis, like that of
+the earth, is aslant, and at one part of his year brings his northern
+regions more fully into sunlight, at which time summer prevails there
+and winter in his southern regions; while at the opposite part of his
+year his southern regions are turned more fully sunward and have their
+summer, while winter prevails over his northern regions.
+
+Around his poles, as around the earth's, there are great masses of
+ice, insomuch that it is very doubtful whether any inhabitants of Mars
+have been able to penetrate to his poles, any more than Kane or Hayes
+or Nares or Parry, despite their courage and endurance, have been
+able to reach our northern pole, or Cook or Wilkes or James Ross our
+antarctic pole.
+
+In the summer of either hemisphere of Mars, the north polar snows
+become greatly reduced in extent, as is natural, while in winter
+they reach to low latitudes, showing that in parts of the planet
+corresponding to the United States, or mid-Europe, as to latitude,
+bitter cold must prevail for several weeks in succession.
+
+The land regions of Mars can be distinguished from the seas by their
+ruddy color, the seas being greenish. But here, perhaps, you will be
+disposed to ask how astronomers can be sure that the greenish regions
+are seas, the ruddy regions land, the white spots either snow or
+cloud. Might not materials altogether unlike any we are acquainted
+with exist upon that remote planet?
+
+The spectroscope answers this question in the clearest way. You
+may remember what I told you in October, 1876, about Venus, how
+astronomers have learned that the vapor of water exists in
+her atmosphere. The same method has been applied, even more
+satisfactorily, to the planet of war, and it has been found that he
+also has his atmosphere at times laden with moisture. This being so,
+it is clear we have not to do with a planet made of materials utterly
+unlike those forming our earth. To suppose so, when we find that the
+air of Mars, formed like our own (for if it contained other gases the
+spectroscope would tell us), contains often large quantities of the
+vapor of water, would be as absurd as to believe in the green cheese
+theory of the moon, or in another equally preposterous, advanced
+lately by an English artist--Mr. J.T. Brett--to the effect that the
+atmosphere of Venus is formed of glass.
+
+There is another theory about Mars, certainly not so absurd as
+either of those just named, but scarcely supported by evidence at
+present--the idea, namely, advanced by a French astronomer, that the
+ruddy color of the lands and seas of Mars is due to red trees and a
+generally scarlet vegetation. Your poet Holmes refers to this in those
+lines of his, "Star-clouds and Wind-clouds" (to my mind among the most
+charming of his many charming poems):
+
+  "The snows that glittered on the disc of Mars
+  Have melted, and the planet's fiery orb
+  Rolls in the crimson summer of its year."
+
+It is quite possible, of course, that such colors as are often seen
+in American woods in the autumn-time may prevail in the forests and
+vegetation of Mars during the fullness of the Martian summer. The fact
+that during this season the planet looks ruddier than usual, in some
+degree corresponds with this theory. But it is much better explained,
+to my mind, by the greater clearness of the Martian air in the
+summer-time. That would enable us to see the color of the soil better.
+If our earth were looked at from Venus during the winter-time, the
+snows covering large parts of her surface, and the clouds and mists
+common in the winter months, would hide the tints of the surface,
+whereas these would be very distinct in clear summer weather.
+
+I fear my own conclusion about Mars is that his present condition
+is very desolate. I look on the ruddiness of tint to which I have
+referred as one of the signs that the planet of war has long since
+passed its prime. There are lands and seas in Mars, the vapor of water
+is present in his air, clouds form, rains and snows fall upon his
+surface, and doubtless brooks and rivers irrigate his soil, and carry
+down the moisture collected on his wide continents to the seas whence
+the clouds had originally been formed. But I do not think there is
+much vegetation on Mars, or that many living creatures of the higher
+types of Martian life as it once existed still remain. All that is
+known about the planet tends to show that the time when it attained
+that stage of planetary existence through which our earth is now
+passing must be set millions of years, perhaps hundreds of millions of
+years, ago. He has not yet, indeed, reached that airless and waterless
+condition, that extremity of internal cold, or in fact that utter
+unfitness to support any kind of life, which would seem to prevail
+in the moon. The planet of war in some respects resembles a desolate
+battle-field, and I fancy that there is not a single region of the
+earth now inhabited by man which is not infinitely more comfortable as
+an abode of life than the most favored regions of Mars at the present
+time would be for creatures like ourselves.
+
+But there are other subjects besides astronomy that the readers of the
+ST. NICHOLAS want to learn about. I do not wish you to have to say to
+me what a little daughter of mine said the other day. She had asked me
+several questions about the sun, and after I had answered them I went
+on to tell her several things which she had not asked. She listened
+patiently for quite a long time,--fully five minutes, I really
+believe,--and then she said: "Don't you think, papa, that that's
+enough about the sun? Come and play with us on the lawn." So, as it
+was holiday time, we went and played in the sun, instead of talking
+about him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY--IN TWO PARTS.
+
+[Illustration: PART I.]
+
+  "MOTHER! from this moment, behold me, my own master!
+  Yes, madam, I am old enough.  I mean just what I say."
+
+[Illustration: PART II.]
+
+  AND, but for a sudden and unforeseen disaster,
+  The puppy might have kept his resolution to this day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE STICKLEBACK BELL-RINGERS
+
+BY C. F. HOLDER.
+
+
+A certain pond in the country was once peopled with a number of
+turtles, frogs, and fishes which I came to consider my pets, and
+which at last grew so tame that I fed them from my hands. Among them,
+however, were four or five little sticklebacks that lived under the
+shade of a big willow, and these were so quarrelsome that I generally
+fed them apart from the rest. But sometimes all met, and then the
+feast usually was ended by the death of a minnow. For, shocking to
+say, whenever there was a dispute for the food, some one of the little
+fishes was almost sure to be devoured by the hungry sticklebacks.
+
+These stickleback-and-minnow combats, after a while, came to be of
+daily occurrence, and the reason for this was a singular one, which I
+must explain.
+
+Under the willow shade, and from one of the branches, I had hung a
+miniature "belfry," containing a tiny brass bell, and had led the
+string into the water, letting it go down to a considerable depth. At
+first, I tied bait at intervals upon the line, and the sticklebacks,
+of course, seized upon it, and thus rang the bell. Generally the
+ringing was done in a very grave and proper way, although sometimes,
+when the bait was too tightly tied, the quick peals sounded like a
+call to a fire.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I kept up this system of baiting the string for about a week, until
+I thought they understood it, and then replaced the worms by bits of
+stone. As I expected, the next morning, as I looked through the grass
+and down into the water, tinkle! tinkle! rang the bell, and I knew my
+little friends were saying, "Good-morning!" and expected a breakfast.
+You may be sure they got it. I put my hand down, and up they came, and
+got one worm apiece; and as I raised my hand, down they rushed, and
+away went the bell, in an uproarious peal, that must have startled the
+whole neighborhood. I was quick to respond, and they soon learned to
+ring the bell before coming to the surface; in fact, if they saw me
+pass, I always heard their welcome greeting. But to return to the
+minnows.
+
+I generally fed them first, about twenty feet up the bank; but one
+morning I found one or two had followed me down to the residence of
+the stickleback family. They met with a rude reception, however, and,
+to avoid making trouble, the next day I went to the willow first. But
+no sooner had the bell begun to ring, than I saw a lot of ripples
+coming down, and in a second the two factions were in mortal combat.
+The sticklebacks were fighting not only for breakfast, but for their
+nests, which were near by; and they made sad work of the poor minnows,
+who, though smart in some things, did not know when they were whipped,
+and so kept up the fight, though losing one of their number nearly
+every morning. The bell now and then rang violently, but I fear it was
+only sounding an appeal from a voracious stickleback whose appetite
+had got the better of his rage.
+
+So it went on every morning. The minnows had learned what the bell
+meant, and though usually defeated in the fight, they in reality had
+their betters as servants to ring the bell and call them to meals.
+Finally, they succeeded, by force of great numbers, in driving away
+their pugnacious little rivals, and the bell hung silent; for, strange
+to say, they knew what the sound meant, but I could never teach them
+to ring it, when they could rise and steal the worm from my hand
+without. But I am inclined to think it was more laziness than
+inability to learn, as they afterward picked up readily some much more
+difficult tricks. I taught them to leap from the water into my hand,
+and lie as if dead; and having arranged a slide of polished wood upon
+the bank, by placing worms upon it I soon had them leaping out and
+sliding down like so many boys coasting in the winter. That they
+afterward did it for amusement I know, as I often watched them
+unobserved when there was nothing to attract but the fun of sliding.
+This kind of amusement is not uncommon with many other animals,
+particularly seals, which delight in making "slides" on the icy
+shores.
+
+
+
+
+
+[ILLUSTATION]
+
+THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
+
+BY MRS. CLARA DOTY BATES.
+
+
+  Old Granny Cricket's rocking-chair,
+    Creakety-creak, creakety-creak!--
+  Back and forth, and here and there,
+    Squeakety-squeak, squeakety-squeak!--
+  On the hearth-stone, every night,
+    Rocks and rocks in the cheery light.
+  Little old woman, dressed in black,
+    With spindling arms and a crooked back,
+  She sits with a cap on her wise old head,
+    And her eyes are fixed on the embers red;
+  She does not sing, she does not speak,
+    But the rocking-chair goes creakety-creak!
+
+  Cheerily sounds the rocking-chair,
+    Creakety-creak, creakety-creak!--
+  While it swings in the firelight there,
+    Squeakety-squeak, squeakety-squeak!
+  Old Granny Cricket, rocking, rocking,
+    Knits and knits on a long black stocking.
+  No matter how swiftly her fingers fly,
+    She never can keep her family,
+  With their legs so long from foot to knee,
+    Stockinged as well as they ought to be;
+  That's why, at night, week after week,
+    Her rocking-chair goes squeakety-squeak!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+HOW I WEIGHED THE THANKSGIVING TURKEY.
+
+BY G. M. SHAW.
+
+
+"Here, sir! Please take this bird around to Albro's, and see how much
+it weighs."
+
+The idea! What would the folks over the way say, to see the
+"professor" walking out with a big turkey under his arm? That was the
+way the thing presented itself to the good-natured college-student
+acting as private tutor in the family. But Mrs. Simpson, the portly
+and practical housewife, had no such idea of the fitness of things.
+
+It was the day before Thanksgiving, and the farmer who had agreed to
+supply her with a turkey had brought it, but had not weighed it, and,
+of course, they could not agree on its weight, all of which ended in
+the startling proposition with which we began.
+
+"Well, if you aint the laziest man--! Just as though it was going to
+hurt you any to take this bird to the corner and back!" she went on,
+as she saw me looking, apparently, for a hole to crawl into, but, in
+reality, for the broom, which, when I found, I made use of in putting
+into execution a plan I had formed for weighing the turkey at home.
+
+I hung the broom-handle to the gas-jet by a wire loop, and slid it
+along in the loop until it balanced. By this time all were curious to
+see what I was about.
+
+I then fixed a wire to the turkey's feet and hooked it so that it
+would slide on the broom-handle. Next I got a flat-iron and fixed it
+in the same way. When the broom was nicely balanced, I hung the turkey
+on the broom end of the stick, two inches from the balancing loop.
+Then I hung the flat-iron on the other side, and shoved it along until
+it balanced the turkey. Next I measured the distances of the turkey
+and flat-iron from the balancing loop, and found that the turkey hung
+two inches and the flat-iron eight inches from the balancing loop.
+That was all. I had found the weight of the turkey, and told them:
+Twenty-four pounds.
+
+"Do you s'pose I'm going to believe all that tomfoolery? It doesn't
+weigh more'n twenty, I know. Here, Maggie! Take this out and ask Albro
+to weigh it for you."
+
+"I'm blamed if he hasn't hit it about right," said the farmer who had
+brought the turkey. "How did you find out?"
+
+"Well, you see," said I, "the flat-iron has a figure 6 on it; that
+shows that it weighs six pounds. Now, if the turkey had not weighed
+more than the flat-iron they would have balanced each other at the
+same distance from the balancing loop; but the turkey was the heavier,
+so I had to move the flat-iron out further. At the same distance from
+the loop as the turkey (two inches), the flat-iron pulled six pounds'
+weight, and at every addition of that distance it would pull six
+pounds more. Thus: at four inches it pulled twelve pounds; at six
+inches, eighteen pounds; and at eight inches, twenty-four pounds.
+At that distance it just balanced the turkey, thus proving that it
+weighed----"
+
+"Well, Maggie, what does Albro say?"
+
+"Twenty-four poun', mum," replied Maggie, coming in.
+
+"Well, I give up," said Mrs. Simpson; and she did, and so do I--till
+next time.
+
+
+
+
+
+NIMBLE JIM AND THE MAGIC MELON
+
+BY J. A. JUDSON.
+
+
+Once upon a time, in a snug little cottage by a brook under a hill,
+lived an old widow and her only child. She was a tidy, pleasant-faced
+dame, was "Old Mother Growser;" and as to her boy, there wasn't a
+brighter lad of his age in all the village. His real name was James,
+but he had always been so spry and handy that when he was a little
+bit of a chap the neighbors called him "Nimble Jim." At work in the
+cottage garden, or at play on the village green, even at his books
+and slate, he was ever the same industrious, active "Nimble Jim," and
+always a comfort to his mother.
+
+His father had been the village cobbler, and when he died the folks
+said: "Who'll mend our shoes now, and auld Jamie gone?"
+
+Then up sprang the boy, saying: "I'll mend them, now father's dead."
+
+The simple folks laughed at him. "Hoot! toot! lad," said they; "ye
+canna mend shoes!"
+
+But he answered bravely: "Am I not fifteen years old, and e'en a'most
+a mon? Haven't I all father's tools? Haven't I seen him do it day
+after day ever since I was a wee boy? It's time I was doing something
+besides jobbin' and runnin' and pretendin' to work! I may take to th'
+auld bench, and e'en get my father's place among ye in time, so I be
+good enough. Mother canna allus be a-spinnin', spinnin', spinnin'. The
+poor old eyes are growing dim a'ready,"--and Jim gently stroked her
+thin gray hair.
+
+"Ye're a brave darlin', and my own handy Nimble Jim," said the fond
+mother, smilingly.
+
+"Ah, well, boy," the neighbors said, "be about it if ye will, for
+there's no cobbler hereabout now, and the shoes must be mended. But
+ye'll do the work fairly, mind, or we'll no' pay ye a penny!"
+
+"I'll try my best, and bide your good favor, neighbors," was Jim's
+cheery answer.
+
+And so he succeeded to his father's old bench by the window, the
+lap-stone and hammer and awl; and as he waxed his thread and stitched
+away, singing the old songs, the country folks passing by would
+listen, look at each other, smile and nod approvingly, or say:
+
+"Hark to that, friend! One might think auld Jamie back again, with the
+whack o' the hammer and the blithe song, though the voice ben't so
+crackit like as th' auld one."
+
+"Aye, it's a bit clearer, but no happier. Auld cobbler Jamie was a
+merry soul," says one.
+
+"And the lad'll prove worthy his father, I warrant. Listen to the
+turn of that song, now; I've heard Jamie singin' it many a day," says
+another.
+
+  "Whack! whack! thump-pet-ty crack!
+  In go the shoe-nails with many a smack.
+  Zu! zu! pull the thread through;
+  Soon will the shoe be, done, master, for you!
+
+  "Nay! nay! there's nothin' to pay,
+  If it is not mended as good as I say.
+  I do my work honestly--that is the thing;
+  Then Jamie the cobbler's as good as the king!"
+
+And the folks passed on, or stopped to leave shoes to mend.
+
+Jim prospered in the old stall, and they called him "Nimble Jim, the
+Cobbler," for soon he was fairly installed as cobbler to the whole
+country-side. He was happy, and his old mother was happy, and proud,
+too, of the success of her boy, who was the light of her home and the
+joy of her heart.
+
+All day Jim worked away at his bench. Winter evenings he read his few
+books by the firelight; in the cool of the summer days, or in the
+early mornings, he busied himself in the little garden. His
+vegetables were his pride, and for miles around no one had so trim a
+garden-patch, or so many good things in it, as Nimble Jim.
+
+Only one kind of all his plants failed to come to anything,--his
+melon-vines,--and these always failed. This began to grieve him
+sorely, for he was fond of melons; and, besides, he thought if he
+could only raise fine ones, he might sell them for a deal of money,
+like gruff, rich old Farmer Hummidge.
+
+"Oh dear! my melons don't grow like other folkses. They don't come up
+at all, or if they do they wither or spindle away," he said, losing
+his temper, and tearing up some of the vines by the roots. Then he
+went into the cottage, angrily, and began to pound away, driving in
+big hob-nails. With the twilight, his mother called him to the simple
+meal, but he was sullen and silent.
+
+"What be the matter with ye, my Nimble Jim?" asked the good dame,
+cheerily.
+
+"Matter enough, mother! My melons wont grow; there's somethin' the
+matter with them. Faith, I believe some imp has cast a spell over 'em.
+I do, mother," quoth he, thumping the table with his fist until the
+dishes rattled.
+
+"Softly, softly, boy! Where's thy good nature gone?" said Mother
+Growser, staring at him in wonder.
+
+"It be well enough to say 'Softly, softly,'" said he, "and I don't
+want to grieve ye, mother; but it's naught with me but hammer, stitch,
+dig,--hammer, stitch, dig,--the day in, the day out, when I might be
+raisin' fine melons and sellin' 'em for mints of gold in the great
+city. Yea, mother, sellin' 'em e'en to the king and queen and all the
+grand lords and ladies at the court, like old Farmer Hummidge."
+
+For almost the first time in his life Jim was unhappy.
+
+"I would you had your wish, Nimble Jim; but then we've a neat bit
+garden besides the melons; and the home is snug, and you're a good boy
+and the best o' cobblers. Can't you be happy with that, my lad?"
+
+But Nimble Jim shook his head, for the spirit of discontent had taken
+possession of him.
+
+Now, for many days, Nimble Jim neglected his cobbling and let the
+weeds grow in his garden, while he moodily watched his melons as they
+withered away. Soon he came to idle about them in the evening, too,
+until, one bright moonlight night, as he was grieving over the
+wretched, scraggy vines, he heard a tiny, silvery voice quite near him
+cry, tauntingly:
+
+"Hello, Nimble Jim! How are your melons?"
+
+Jim would have been very angry at such a question could he have seen
+anybody to be angry with; but, though he looked and looked with all
+his eyes, not a soul could he see.
+
+"Hello, Nimble Jim! How are your melons? Ha, ha, ha! Melons! melons!
+Ha, ha, ha!" And the sweet little voice sang, in a merry, mocking
+strain:
+
+     "Nice sweet melons!
+      Round ripe melons!
+  Nimble Jim likes them, I know.
+      Mean sour melons,
+      Crooked green melons,
+  Nimble Jim only can grow!
+
+Ha, ha, ha! How are your melons, Nimble Jim?"
+
+[Illustration: The Elfin Queen]
+
+"Who are you? What are you? Where are you?" cried Jim, hardly knowing
+whether to be angry, amused, or frightened.
+
+"You ask a good many questions at once, don't you?" said the silvery
+voice. "_Who_ am I? _What_ am I? _Where_ am I? Eh! I'm the Queen of
+the Elfs," said her tiny majesty, "and if you look sharply you'll see
+where I am."
+
+Just then a moonbeam streaming through the trees overhead fell across
+his path, and, dancing up and down on it, he saw the tiny elfin
+queen,--a lovely little creature with long, bright, wavy hair, and
+glittering garments fluttering in the breeze, wings like a butterfly,
+a mischievous smile on her face, and in her hand a wee wand tipped
+with a star. But the brightest thing about her was the twinkle that
+played hide-and-seek in her eye.
+
+Nimble Jim took off his hat and made a low bow.
+
+"Now, what is all this about?--and why are you neglecting your work,
+sir?" demanded she, sternly.
+
+Jim trembled beneath her royal gaze, little as she was, and replied
+humbly:
+
+"May it please your majesty, I wish I'd some melon-seeds that'd grow
+like magic. I am dead tired of being nothin' but a cobbler. I want
+to be a melon-merchant, and raise the finest, largest melons ever
+seen,--supply the whole kingdom with them, and grow to be as rich as
+the king himself."
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" she answered, laughing her merry little laugh,
+and capering up and down the moonbeam. "Oh! quite a modest youth!
+Well, I'll make a bargain with you; and if you will do something for
+me, you shall have your wish," said the queen.
+
+Nimble Jim was about to pour out his gratitude, when she interrupted
+him, saying: "Now, Nimble Jim, listen to me. Your wish is a foolish
+one, and I warn you that if you gain it you will be sorry. Why will
+you not be content as you are?"
+
+"Your majesty," replied the obstinate youth. "I _cannot_ be content as
+I am."
+
+"Well, since you insist on having your own way, we'll make our
+bargain. Here,"--and, sitting down on the moonbeam, she pulled off a
+shoe,--"here, sir, I want you to mend my shoe. I tripped just now on
+a rough place in this moonbeam. Mend the rip; show me you are a good
+cobbler, and I promise that you shall have your wish."
+
+"But, your majesty," began Nimble Jim, taking the shoe, which was no
+bigger than a bean, "I can't sew such a little shoe; my fingers are
+----"
+
+"There, there! Stop! I'm a queen, and people don't say 'can't' or
+'wont' to me, sir," interrupted her majesty, with much dignity. "Take
+the shoe, and find a way to mend it. I will come for it to-morrow
+night at this same place and hour," and off she went up the moonbeam,
+half skipping, half flying, while Jim stood stupidly staring until
+she had entirely disappeared. Then he began, slowly: "Well,--I--never
+--in--all--my--life--saw--such--a----"
+
+He said no more, but went in, and sat up all night, thinking how and
+where he could find needle and thread fine enough to do such a piece
+of cobbling as this. About dawn a thought struck him. His mother
+thought he had gone crazy when she saw him chasing bees and pulling
+down spider-webs. Hours and hours he worked, and though his fingers
+were big, they were nimble, like his name; so, by and by, with a
+needle made of a bee's sting and thread drawn from a spider-web, he
+sewed up the rip in her fairy majesty's dainty shoe.
+
+He hardly could wait for the hour of meeting, but went into the
+garden, with the shoe in his hand, long before the time. At length,
+the queen came sliding down the moonbeam, laughing and singing:
+
+"Hello, Nimble Jim! How are your melons?"
+
+But he was not angry now; he only laughed respectfully, made a
+profound bow, and said:
+
+"May it please your majesty, I have mended your majesty's shoe."
+
+The merry little queen took it from him, looked at it closely, saying
+to herself: "Humph! I didn't think he could, but he did,"--and,
+turning to Jim, said, much more graciously than before: "I suppose you
+think yourself quite a cobbler; and so you are--for a mortal. Since
+you have done your work so well, I will do as I said. Now," she
+continued, handing him a little package about as big as a baby's
+thumb, "plant these melon-seeds, and----"
+
+"Are these little things melon seeds? They look too small,"
+interrupted Jim,--for he had made no ceremony, even in the queen's
+presence, about peeping into the package,--and it must be confessed
+that they were very small indeed.
+
+"Certainly they are, or I would not tell you so. They are the
+magic melons of fairy-land. As I was about to say when you rudely
+interrupted, plant----"
+
+"I beg your pardon, your majes----"
+
+[Illustration: "BEFORE NIMBLE JIM COULD GET BACK TO THE HOUSE, THE
+YARD WAS FULL OF MELON-VINE."]
+
+"_Will_ you keep still? Was there _ever_ such a chatterbox!" said
+she. "I say, plant these melon-seeds to-morrow at sunrise, and you
+will have your wish, foolish boy." And, while Jim was thinking of
+melons and wealth, she skipped away up the moonbeam, singing:
+
+  "Nimble Jim is quite demented,--
+    Wants to be a melon-king!
+  Silly mortal! not contented
+    With the riches home-joys bring!
+       Oh! ho!
+       Oh! ho!
+  He will be sorry to-morrow;
+  To-morrow will bring only sorrow."
+
+But Nimble Jim heeded her not. This night also he could not close his
+eyes, and in the early morning he hastened to tell his mother their
+good fortune. She looked grave, and said:
+
+"Ah, my lad! I'd rather you minded the cobbler's bench, nor trafficked
+with fairies. I fear me they're uncanny folks to deal with."
+
+"Never fear, mother; we'll be rich yet, and I'll make you a queen
+yourself, and then you need spin no more," said Jim, wild with hope
+and excitement.
+
+"I don't mind the spinnin', my boy. I'd rather be----".
+
+Jim heard no more, for he dashed off at once to the garden to plant
+his precious seeds just at sunrise. With furious energy, he tore up
+all his old vines, flung them over the fence, and, after that, spaded
+up the melon-bed with the greatest care. Then he opened the paper and
+poured the magical seeds into his hand.
+
+There were only _four_--four wee seeds, each no bigger than a pin's
+head! His first impulse was to fling them away in wrath, for he
+thought such little things couldn't possibly make as big a fortune as
+he wanted. But then he reflected, "Fairies are little, so I suppose
+their seeds are little, too. I'll try them, anyhow." And with that he
+put them in the ground and carefully covered them.
+
+In an instant, the ground burst open in four places, and up shot four
+sturdy melon-vines, that grew east, west, north, south!
+
+Grew? No! they raced, they tore, they dashed through the country far
+and wide! In no time, before Nimble Jim could get back to the house
+door, the whole yard was full of melon-vine, and one great big melon,
+bigger than the cottage itself, blocked the door-way.
+
+[Illustration: THE MAGIC MELON OVERRUNS THE COUNTRY.]
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!" roared Jim. "What _have_ I done? What _shall_ I do?" And
+with his spade he cut a hole through the melon. It took him a whole
+hour, and when he got into the house he found that his poor mother had
+fainted from fright.
+
+And all the time the vine and melons kept growing--east, west, north,
+south.
+
+Nimble Jim was frantic!
+
+But the vines didn't mind Jim. On they went, growing like mad, a mile
+a minute, faster than any railroad train. The big arms filled up the
+main roads; the smaller ones crammed themselves into the lanes and
+by-paths, while the tendrils embraced the tall trees, the houses, and
+the church steeples, and snarled up everything. The leaves grew
+so large, thick and green that they covered the whole face of the
+country, shutting out the sun from the fields so the crops couldn't
+grow; and the whole kingdom became so dark from the awful shade of
+Nimble Jim's magic melon-vine, that the people had to burn candles day
+and night.
+
+It grew like mad. On! on! Stem, branch, leaf, tendril, fruit--on, on
+it went! The melons grew--great, round, smooth, rich, ripe, juicy
+melons, as big as houses--at the cross-roads, on the roads, in the
+fields, filling barn-yards and door-yards so people and cattle
+couldn't pass, or go in or out, till they had eaten their way through
+the melons, or got ladders and climbed over, or dug trenches and
+crawled under! On, on it went, surrounding the king's palaces and
+choking up his forts! Down, down it grew into the brooks and rivers,
+and out into the king's harbors, where the tendrils seized and wound
+about his ships of war riding at anchor, and climbed up the masts,
+while melons grew on the decks till the vessels sank to the bottom!
+It choked up and drank up all the rivers and lakes in the kingdom, or
+dammed them up so the waters overflowed the land, drowning people and
+cattle, and sweeping away houses and barns!
+
+On, on it grew--melons, melons everywhere! Ruin and starvation stared
+the nation in the face; while poor, poor Nimble Jim, hid within the
+rind of the melon he had dug out, shivered, cried and bewailed his
+folly.
+
+"I'll be killed! I'll be killed! The people will murder me!" he
+shrieked. But no one of them all save his mother knew he had had
+anything to do with bringing on the dire calamity that had befallen
+the kingdom.
+
+Then some of the people proposed: "Let us go immediately to our king,
+and ask him to make a law that the vine shall stop growing ere it ruin
+us forever."
+
+But when they had eaten and hewed their way to the palace, they found
+the king had gone to count his soldiers; and while he was gone the
+vine came galloping along, and an enormous melon grew and blocked up
+the palace gate. So they had to help the king and his guards force
+their way through to the hall of audience.
+
+When they all were in, and the king had wiped the melon-juice off his
+robes and crown, and was fairly seated on his throne, surrounded by
+his guards and courtiers, the trumpets sounded, drums beat, banners
+waved, and the people fell on their knees and said:
+
+"O mighty king! We, thy liege subjects, have come to tell thee of the
+ruin and desolation this fearful vine maketh in all thy great kingdom,
+and to entreat thy majesty to enact a law forbidding it to grow any
+more, and commanding it to wither away."
+
+"Alas!" answered the troubled king, "what can I do? No law of mine can
+stop this awful thing. It is an enchanted vine sent to torment us.
+Hear me, my people! Proclaim it, ye my heralds! I pledge my kingly
+word to give up my crown and kingdom, and change places with any one
+of my subjects who will wither and instantly sweep away this direful
+vine. I, your king, am as helpless as a child to stop it."
+
+And the king, who was a good old man, shed tears for the misery of his
+people, and commanded the queen and all the court to dress themselves
+in mourning and fast night and day.
+
+The people got home as best they could, and each fell to thinking how
+he could stop the vine and so be king. Even Nimble Jim heard of this.
+So, every night, he watched, hoping to see the elfin queen. At last
+she came, as before, on her moonbeam footpath, saying: "Hello, Nimble
+Jim! How are your melons by this time?"
+
+But he was in no mood to be facetious now. He only said, humbly:
+
+"May it please your majesty, what can I do to stop the growth of this
+horrible vine, and instantly sweep it from the face of the earth? Help
+me, I beg your gracious majesty!"--and Jim knelt before her.
+
+"Ha, ha! Nimble Jim don't seem to like melons! I told you you'd be
+sorry," laughed the little elfin queen. "I suppose you still want
+to be as rich as the king? Or perhaps you would like to be the king
+himself?" said she, tauntingly.
+
+"Of course I would, your majesty," said Jim, "if the vine can only be
+stopped."
+
+"You are a very good cobbler, Nimble Jim," she answered, "and since
+you mended my shoe so nicely, and as the king has promised to exchange
+with any one who will wither and destroy the vine, and as you might as
+well be king as another (and as you need a good lesson," said she to
+herself), "I give you the means to do it all!"
+
+And the tiny queen pulled off the mended shoe, and cried: "Here, you
+silly boy! Take this and run to the palace. Once there, you need touch
+but a tendril with this magic shoe, and the vine will wither and
+disappear, and the crown and kingdom will be yours. I wish you joy of
+both. Good-bye! You will learn contentment yet, poor Jim, I hope," she
+added, as he ran out of hearing, with the precious little shoe in his
+hand.
+
+Leaving his poor mother behind, for he had forgotten all about her
+during these days, Jim set off for the palace. It was a long, hard
+journey, on account of the melon-vines, that not only blocked the
+road, but even chased him. Many a narrow escape had he from being
+crushed to death in the embrace of some young tendril that would shoot
+out, wriggling and writhing toward him like a great green serpent.
+
+At length, he arrived at the palace gate, which in old times was
+marble, but now was only a hole that had been cut through a melon.
+
+"Halt! Who goes there!" shouted a sentinel, thrusting his spear in
+front of Jim's panting breast.
+
+"It's only Nimble Jim, the Cobbler. I want to see the king," said the
+boy.
+
+"Be off, you fellow!" shouted the sentry. "Our noble king don't
+hob-nob with cobblers! Be off, I say, or----" And he shook his spear
+at our hero ominously.
+
+"Hold, there!" shouted the king himself, straining out of a window to
+look between the melon-leaves. "Hold, I say! What do you want, young
+cobbler?"
+
+"I want your crown and kingdom, sire," boldly answered Jim. "I've
+heard of the new law, and I'll stop the melon-vine."
+
+"Let him pass, guards," shouted the king; "and send him hither."
+
+A little page dressed in black led Jim to the throne-room. The king
+and his court no longer blazed in gold and jewels. Black covered
+everybody and everything, even the golden throne itself, and grief and
+dismay were on all faces.
+
+Then said the king, in a hollow tone: "What know you of this vine?
+Speak!"
+
+And Jim, tremblingly, told the whole story.
+
+"Wicked boy!" groaned the king. "You well deserve punishment for the
+ruin you have brought on the land. But I have passed my royal word,
+and you shall try to destroy the vine. If you succeed, bad as you are,
+you then will be the king and I the cobbler. But if you fail, you
+shall be put where you shall have nothing but melons to eat for the
+rest of your days. Guards, take him away!"
+
+That night, before the king and queen and all the assembled court,
+when the moon was fairly risen, Nimble Jim touched with the toe of the
+magic shoe the end of a tendril that was running rapidly up a tower.
+
+In an instant, every vestige of the vine vanished throughout all the
+palace grounds; and in the morning the people all over the country
+shouted for joy and cried with one voice: "Let us all go up to the
+coronation, for to-day we have a new king who has delivered us from
+the horrible vine."
+
+And on they came, in hordes, till the capital was full and the country
+about the palace was one vast camp, while throughout the kingdom not a
+trace of the vine was to be seen.
+
+Then the nobles and prelates prepared for the coronation. It was
+magnificent. They girt Jim with the sword of state, clothed him in the
+imperial robes, placed the scepter in his hand, and, as the golden
+crown descended upon his head, all the people shouted:
+
+"Hail, King Nimblejimble, our deliverer! Long live the king!"
+
+[Illustration: MAKING AN ENTRANCE FOR THE KING THROUGH THE MELON IN
+FRONT OF THE PALACE GATE.]
+
+And the silly boy was happy.
+
+Meanwhile, the poor, faithful old king, who cheerfully had given up
+all for his people, was hammering and stitching and digging away on
+Jim's cobbler-bench off in the village; and Jim's mother, whom the
+naughty boy, in his strange elevation, had forgotten all about,
+tenderly cared for the humbled old monarch.
+
+Before long, the elfin queen saw how patient the old king and Jim's
+mother were, and how badly Nimble Jim was behaving now he was king,
+for he was given up to all sorts of wickedness and tyranny, was fast
+becoming hated by every one, and himself was beginning to see that he
+was not nearly so happy as he had been while he was a cobbler.
+
+Jim was really good at heart, only his unreasonable discontent with
+his lot had got him into all this misery. At last, he began to repent,
+and, one moonlight night when he was walking alone on the palace
+terrace, he said:
+
+"I wish I could see that little elfin queen, and I would ask her to
+let me go back home again."
+
+"Well, here I am!" said the silvery voice; and, sitting on a moonbeam
+beside him, there she was. "Tired of being king, Jim?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, your majesty, indeed I am," he replied.
+
+"Want any more melons, Jim?" said she, laughing.
+
+"No, no, no!" groaned Jim. "No more!"
+
+"How is your mother, Jim?" asked her majesty.
+
+"Alas! I don't know,"--and he hung his head in shame.
+
+"Are you ready to go and see her, Jim?" she asked, gently. "And will
+you be contented now?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" was his eager reply.
+
+Now, the old king had been mending shoes all day, and was at this
+moment resting in the cottage porch, when, suddenly, he was whisked
+away on a cloud and landed in his palace again. His crown was popped
+on his head, and the scepter thrust in his hand, while his old
+chamberlain tenderly tucked him up in bed.
+
+At the same instant, another cloud brought back Nimble Jim to his
+bench and his faithful mother, who at once made him some oat-meal
+porridge without a murmur or word of reproach.
+
+"There!" said the elfin queen to herself. "That boy is cured of his
+silly notions."
+
+"Mother, I think I don't care much for melons. I wont plant any more,"
+said Jim next morning.
+
+"I don't like 'em myself, lad," said the mother. "I'd a deal rather
+you'd stick to the bench, like your auld father."
+
+"I will, mother dear," answered Nimble Jim. And he is mending shoes
+there to this day, as happy as happy can be.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  "Oh! I'm my mamma's lady-girl
+  And I must sit quite still;
+  It would not do to jump and whirl,
+  And get my hair all out of curl,
+  And rumple up my frill.
+  No, I'm my mamma's lady-girl,
+  So I must sit quite still."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A BUDGET OF HOME-MADE CHRISTMAS GIFTS.
+
+
+
+HINTS FOR GIRLS AND BOYS, LITTLE AND BIG.[1]
+
+    [Footnote 1: The present paper will enable our young friends to
+    make over seventy different articles for Christmas gifts. While a
+    few familiar things may be found among them, a great majority of
+    the objects are entirely novel, and are here described for the
+    first time. All who may wish for still further hints in regard
+    to home-made Christmas presents will find very many useful
+    suggestions in the paper "One Hundred Christmas Presents, and How
+    to Make Them," published in ST. NICHOLAS for December, 1875--Vol.
+    III.]
+
+
+[Illustration: W]
+
+Who is it that every year invents the thousand-and-one new and pretty
+things which hang on Christmas-trees, and stuff the toes of Christmas
+stockings? Who is it that has so wise and watchful an eye for the
+capacities of little people, and the tastes of bigger ones, providing
+for each, planning for tiny purses with almost nothing in them, as
+well as for fat wallets stuffed with bank-bills, and suggesting
+something which can be made, accepted and enjoyed by everybody, large
+and small, all the wide world over? Who can it be that possesses
+this inexhaustible fertility of invention and kindness of heart? No
+ordinary human being, you may be sure. Not Father Santa Claus! He
+has enough to do with distributing the presents after they are made;
+besides, fancy-work is not in a man's line,--not even a saint's! But
+what so likely as that he should have a mate, and that it is to her we
+are indebted for all this? What an immense work-basket Mother Santa
+Claus's must be! What a glancing thimble and swift needle and thread!
+Can't you imagine her throwing aside her scissors and spool-bag to
+help the dear saint "tackle up" and load the sledge? And who knows but
+she sits behind as he drives over the roofs of the universe on the
+blessed eve, and holds the reins while Santa Claus dispenses to
+favored chimneys the innumerable pretty things which he and she have
+chuckled over together months and months before the rest of us knew
+anything about them?
+
+This is not a fact. It can't be proved in any way, for none of us
+knows anything about the Santa Clauses or their abode. There is no
+telegraphing, or writing to the selectmen of their town to inquire
+about them; they haven't even a post-office address. But admitting it
+to be a fiction, it is surely a pleasant one; so, as the children say,
+"Let's play that it is true," and proceed to see what Mother Santa
+Claus has in her basket for us this year. We will first pull out some
+easy things for the benefit of little beginners who are not yet up to
+all the tricks of the needle; then some a little harder for the more
+advanced class; and, at bottom of all, big girls not afraid to dive
+will find plenty of elaborate designs suited to their taste and
+powers.
+
+Here, to begin with, is something nice for papa's pocket:
+
+
+A POSTAGE-STAMP HOLDER.
+
+Cut two pieces of perforated board, or of stiff morocco, two inches
+long by one and a half wide, and stitch them together, leaving one
+end open. If you choose the board, a little border in cat-stitch or
+feather-stitch should be worked before putting the pieces together,
+and, if you like, an initial in the middle of one side. If the morocco
+is chosen, an initial in colored silk will be pretty, and the edges
+should be bound with narrow ribbon, and over-handed together.
+
+Cut two other pieces of the material a quarter of an inch smaller than
+the first. Bind the morocco with ribbon. Make a fastening at one end
+with a ribbon loop; place the stamps between the two, and slip the
+little envelope thus filled into the outer case, the open end down. It
+fits so snugly that it will not fall out in the pocket, and is easily
+drawn forth by means of the loop when papa wants to get at his stamps.
+
+[Illustration: A POSTAGE-STAMP HOLDER.]
+
+A letter-case for papa's other pocket: This can be made either of
+morocco, oiled silk, or rubber cloth. Cut an envelope-shaped piece,
+about an inch larger all round than an ordinary letter envelope. Bind
+the edges, work an initial on one side, and for a fastening use a loop
+of elastic braid.
+
+
+SAND-BAGS FOR WINDOWS.
+
+These are capital presents for grandmammas whose windows rattle in
+winter weather and let cold air in between the sashes. You must
+measure the window, and cut in stout cotton cloth a bag just as long
+as the sash is wide, and about four inches across. Stitch this all
+round, leaving one end open, and stuff it firmly with fine, dry sand.
+Sew up the open end, and slip the bag into an outer case of bright
+scarlet flannel, made just a trifle larger than the inner one, so that
+it may go in easily. Lay the sand-bag over the crack between the two
+sashes, and on cold nights, when you are asleep, grandmamma will
+rejoice in the little giver of such a comfortable bulwark against the
+wind.
+
+
+RACK FOR TOOTH-BRUSHES, IN RUSTIC-WORK.
+
+This is very simple, but it is pretty as well. Cut two straight spruce
+twigs, each having two or three little branches projecting upward at
+an angle of forty-five degrees. These twigs must be as much alike in
+shape as possible. Place them six inches apart; lay two cross-twigs
+across, as you see them in the picture, and tie the corners with fine
+wire, or fasten them with tiny pins. Two diagonal braces will add to
+the strength of the rack. Hang it to the wall above the wash-stand by
+a wire or ribbon. The tooth-brushes rest on the parallel branches.
+
+[Illustration: A RACK FOR TOOTH-BRUSHES.]
+
+For further particulars concerning spruce-wood work, see ST. NICHOLAS,
+Vol. III., pp. 114 and 115.
+
+
+MINIATURE HANGING-SHELVES.
+
+[Illustration: MINIATURE HANGING-SHELVES.]
+
+Boys who have learned to use their pocket-knives skillfully may make a
+very pretty set of hanging-shelves by taking three bits of thin wood
+(the sides of a cigar-box, for instance), well smoothed and oiled,
+boring a hole in each corner, and suspending them with cords, run in,
+and knotted underneath each shelf as in the picture. The wood should
+be about eight inches long by three wide, and the shelves, small as
+they are, will be found convenient for holding many little articles.
+
+
+PAPER-CUTTERS.
+
+Another idea for these graduates of the knife is this falchion-shaped
+paper-cutter. It can be made of any sort of hard-wood, neatly cut out,
+rubbed smooth with sand-paper, and oiled or varnished. It has the
+advantage that the materials cost almost nothing. Suggestions for more
+elaborate articles in wood will be given further on.
+
+[Illustration: A FALCHION-SHAPED PAPER-CUTTER.]
+
+
+A WALL LETTER-HOLDER.
+
+This is something which quite a little boy could make. Cut out three
+pieces of thin wood, a foot long by six inches wide; smooth and
+sand-paper two of them, bore a hole in each corner and in the middle
+of one side, and fasten them together with fine wire, cord, ribbon,
+or the small brass pins which are used for holding manuscripts. The
+pieces should be held a little apart. Cut one end of the third piece
+into some ornamental shape, glue it firmly to the back of one of the
+others, and suspend it from the wall by a hole bored in the top. It
+will be found a useful thing to hold letters or pamphlets. A clever
+boy could make this much handsomer by cutting a pattern over the
+front, or an initial, or monogram, or name in the middle. The wood
+should be oiled or shellacked.
+
+[Illustration: A WALL LETTER-HOLDER FOR PAPA.]
+
+
+SHOE-CASES.
+
+These cases are meant to take the place of paper when shoes are to be
+wrapped up to go in a trunk. They are made of brown crash, bound with
+red worsted braid. One end is pointed so as to turn over and button
+down, or the top has strings over the braid to tie the mouth up. There
+should be three or four made at a time, as each holds but one pair of
+shoes; and you will find that mamma or your unmarried aunts will like
+them very much.
+
+[Illustration: A SHOE-CASE FOR TRAVELING.]
+
+
+SKATE-BAGS.
+
+A nice present for a skating boy--and what boy does not skate?--is a
+bag made much after the pattern of the shoe-case just described,
+only larger and wider, and of stouter material. Water-proof cloth or
+cassimere is best. Sew it very strongly, and attach a string of wide
+braid, or a strong elastic strap, that the bag may be swung over
+the shoulders. A big initial letter cut out in red flannel and
+button-holed on will make a pretty effect.
+
+
+A SCALLOP-SHELL ALBUM.
+
+Young folks who are fortunate enough to have a pair of good-sized
+scallop-shells (picked up, perhaps, at the sea-side during the last
+summer vacation), can make a very pretty little autograph album in
+this way:
+
+[Illustration: A SCALLOP-SHELL ALBUM.]
+
+Take a pair of well-mated scallop-shells. Clean them with brush and
+soap. When dry, paint them with the white of egg to bring out the
+colors, and let them dry again. Now insert between the shells a dozen
+or more pages of writing-paper, cut of the same shape and size as the
+shells, and very neatly scalloped around the edges. Then secure the
+whole loosely, as shown in the picture, by means of a narrow ribbon
+passed through two holes previously bored in the shells. Of course,
+holes also must be pierced in the sheets of paper to correspond with
+those in the shells.
+
+
+A LITTLE NUN.
+
+This droll figure is cut out in black and white paper. Fastened at the
+end of a wide ribbon, it would make an odd and pretty book-mark. The
+black paper should be dull black, though the glossy will answer if
+no other can be procured. Fig. 1 of the diagrams is cut in white, a
+rosary and cross being put in with pen and ink, and is folded in the
+middle by the dotted lines, the head and arms being afterward folded
+over, as indicated. Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are cut in black and pasted
+into place, leaving a narrow white border to the bonnet, a mite
+of white band at the end of the sleeve, and a suggestion of snowy
+stocking above the shoe. Fig. 6, cut double, forms a book, which can
+be pasted to look as if held in the hand.
+
+[Illustration: A LITTLE NUN.]
+
+
+BEAN-BAG CASES.
+
+Are there any of you who do not know the game of bean-bags? It is
+capital exercise for rainy days, besides being very good fun, and we
+would advise all of you who are not familiar with it to make a set at
+once. Usually, there are four bags to a set, but any number of persons
+from two to eight can play at bean-bags. Each player holds two,
+flinging to his opponent the one in his right hand, and rapidly
+shifting the one in his left to the right, so as to leave the left
+hand free to catch the bag which is thrown at him. A set of these bags
+would be a nice present for some of you little girls to make for your
+small brothers; and there are various ways of ornamenting the bags
+gayly and prettily. The real bags must first be made of stout ticking,
+over-handed strongly all round, and filled (not too full) with white
+baking-beans. Over these are drawn covers of flannel, blue or scarlet,
+and you can work an initial in white letters or braid on each, or make
+each of the four bags of a different color--yellow, blue, red, green;
+anything but black, which is hard to follow with the eye, or white,
+which soils too soon to be desirable.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAMS FOR MAKING THE LITTLE NUN.]
+
+
+BABY'S SHOES IN CASHMERE.
+
+Babies who can't walk are particularly hard on their shoes! We once
+heard of one who "wore out" nine pairs in two months! In these
+circumstances, it seems very desirable to have a home shoe-maker, and
+not have to frequent the shops too often; so we will tell you of an
+easy kind, which almost any little sister can make. You must take an
+old morocco shoe which fits, and cut out the shape in paper, first
+the sole, and then the upper. Then cut the same shape in merino or
+cashmere, line the little sole with Canton flannel or silk, and bind
+it with very narrow ribbon. Line and bind the upper in the same way,
+and feather-stitch round the top and down both sides of the opening in
+front; sew on two ends of ribbon to tie round the ankle, and the shoe
+is done. It will look very pretty on baby's pink foot, and he will
+thank you for your gift in his own way, by kicking his toes joyfully,
+and getting the shoes into his mouth as soon as possible.
+
+
+A HEMLOCK PILLOW.
+
+It is rather late in the year to make these pillows, but you can try
+them for next Christmas. They must be prepared for beforehand by
+gathering and drying a quantity of the needles of the hemlock, the
+fine ones from the ends of the young shrubs being the best. Make a
+large square bag of cotton, stuff it full of the needles, and inclose
+it in an outer case of soft thick silk or woolen stuff. The one from
+which we take our description had "Rêve du forêt" embroidered on it in
+dull yellow floss, and we don't believe any one could help dreaming
+of the forest who laid a cheek on the pillow and smelled the mingled
+spice and sweetness of its aromatic contents.
+
+
+SACHETS FOR LINEN-CLOSETS.
+
+If you have any old-fashioned lavender growing in your garden, you can
+easily make a delightful sachet for mamma to lay among her sheets and
+pillow-cases in the linen-closet, by cutting a square bag of tarletane
+or Swiss muslin, made as tastefully as you please, and stuffing it
+full of the flowers. Another delightful scent is the _mellilotte_, or
+sweet clover, which grows wild in many parts of the country, and has,
+when dried, a fragrance like that of the tonquin-bean, only more
+delicate.
+
+
+TISSUE-PAPER MATS.
+
+[Illustration: A TISSUE-PAPER MAT.]
+
+We like to be able to tell you about these mats, for they cost almost
+nothing at all, and are so simple that any little boy or girl can
+make them. All the material needed for them is three sheets of
+tissue-paper,--a light shade, a medium shade, and a dark shade, or, if
+you like, they can also be made of one solid color, but are not quite
+so pretty then. Cut a piece of each color nine inches square, fold it
+across, and then across again, so as to form a small square, and then
+fold from point to point. Lay on it a pattern, like the first diagram
+on next page, and cut the tissue paper according to the lines of the
+pattern. Opening the paper, you will find it a circle, with the edge
+pointed in scallops. Now take a common hair-pin, bend its points over
+that they may not tear the paper, slip it in turn over each point, as
+shown in the diagram, and draw it down, _crinkling_ the paper into a
+sort of double scallop. (The second diagram on next page will explain
+this process.) Treat your three rounds in this way, lay them over each
+other like a pile of plates, stick a small pin in the middle to hold
+them, set a goblet upon them, and gently arrange the crinkled edges
+about its base, so as to give a full ruffled effect, like the
+petals of a dahlia, although less stiff and regular. These mats are
+exceedingly pretty.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM FOR PAPER MAT, SHOWING MODE OF FOLDING AND
+SHAPING.]
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING THE MANNER OF CRIMPING EACH SCALLOP OF
+THE PAPER MAT OVER A HAIR-PIN.]
+
+
+A WORK BASKET IN VANILLA GRASS.
+
+If any of you live where the sweet-scented vanilla grass grows
+plentifully, you can make a delicious little basket by drying the long
+wiry blades, braiding them in strands of three, tying the ends firmly
+together to make a long braid, and coiling and sewing as in straw
+plaiting. Two circles the size of a dessert plate should be prepared,
+one for the bottom of the basket, and the other for the top of the lid
+(the latter a trifle the larger). Then draw the braid tighter, and
+form a rim to each about two inches deep. The lid, which is separate,
+fits over the bottom, and the scent of the grass will impart itself to
+everything kept in the basket.
+
+So much for the dear little people. Our next dip into Mother Santa
+Claus's basket brings out a big handful for girls (and boys) who are a
+trifle older,--say from twelve to fifteen.
+
+
+HAIR-PIN HOLDERS.
+
+On the next page is a picture of the hair-pin holder when finished;
+and above it you will find a diagram of it when cut out and not yet
+put in shape. It is cut, as you will observe, in one piece. The
+material is perforated card-board, either white or "silver." The
+dotted lines show where to fold it.
+
+A, A and B, B are lapped outside the end pieces, D, D, and held in
+place by stitches of worsted, long below and very short above, where
+the sides join. A little border is worked in worsted at top and bottom
+before the sides are joined. The inside is stuffed with curled hair,
+and topped with a little cover crocheted or knit in worsted--plain
+ribbing or the tufted crochet, just as you prefer. A cord and a small
+worsted tassel at either end complete it, and it is a convenient
+little thing to hang or stand on mamma's or sister's toilet-table. It
+will be an easy matter to enlarge the pattern, if this hair-pin holder
+would be too small.
+
+[Illustration: PATTERN OF HAIR-PIN HOLDER.]
+
+[Illustration: A HAIR-PIN HOLDER.]
+
+[Illustration: END OF HAIR-PIN HOLDER WHEN FOLDED.]
+
+
+A CRIB-BLANKET FOR BABY.
+
+The prettiest and simplest crib-blanket which we have seen of late,
+was made of thick white flannel, a yard wide, and a yard and a quarter
+long. Across each end were basted two rows of scarlet worsted braid,
+four inches apart, and between the two a row of bright yellow braid.
+These were cat-stitched down on both edges with black worsted, and
+between them were rows of feather-stitching in blue. Above, in each
+corner, was a small wheel made of rows of feather-stitch--black, red,
+yellow and blue. Nothing could be easier to make, but the effect was
+extremely gay and bright, and we advise some of you who are lucky
+enough to "belong to a baby" to try it.
+
+
+ANOTHER BABY'S BLANKET.
+
+For this you must buy a real blanket--one of the small ones which come
+for use in a baby's crib. Those with blue stripes and a narrow binding
+of blue silk are prettiest for the purpose. Baste a narrow strip of
+canvas between the stripes and the binding, and with blue saddler's
+silk doubled, work in cross-stitch a motto, so arranged that it can be
+read when the top of the blanket is folded back. If the stripe is red
+instead of blue, the motto must be in red silk, and it should, of
+course, have reference to the baby. Here are some pretty ones in
+various languages: "_Nun guten ruh, die augen zu_" (Now go to sleep,
+and shut your eyes). "_Cap-à-pie_" (From head to foot). "_Ad ogni
+ucello, suo nido è bello_" (To every bird its own nest is beautiful).
+And here is one in English:
+
+  "Shut little eyes, and shut in the blue;
+  Sleep, little baby, God loves you."
+
+The same idea can be beautifully applied to a pair of large blankets,
+but this is rather a considerable gift for young people to undertake.
+
+
+SUMMER BLANKETS.
+
+A pair of thin summer blankets, of the kind which are scarcely heavier
+than flannel, can be made very pretty by button-holing them all round
+loosely with double zephyr wool in large scallops, and working three
+large initials in the middle of the top end.
+
+
+A WORK-BASKET FOR "SISTER."
+
+For this, you must buy a straw basket, flat in shape, and without a
+handle. It can be round, square, oval, or eight-sided, just as you
+prefer. You must also buy a yard of silk or cashmere in some pretty
+color. Line the whole basket, first of all cutting the shape of the
+bottom exactly, and fastening the lining down with deft stitches,
+which shall show neither inside nor out. Make four little pockets
+of the stuff (six if the basket is large), draw their tops up with
+elastic cord, and fasten them round the sides at equal distances.
+These are to hold spools of silk, tapes, hooks-and-eyes, and such
+small wares, which are always getting into disorder in a pocketless
+basket. Between two of the pockets on one side, suspend a small square
+pincushion, and on the other a flat needle-book hung by a loop of
+ribbon. At the opposite ends, between the pockets, fasten an emery bag
+and a sheath of morocco bound with ribbon to hold a pair of scissors.
+Finish the top last of all with a quilling of ribbon, and you have as
+dainty and complete a gift as any younger sister can wish to make, or
+any older one receive. It will cost time and pains, but is pretty and
+useful enough to repay both.
+
+
+A FANCY WHEELBARROW.
+
+This cannot be made easily by any boy or girl who is not already
+acquainted with fancy wood-sawing, and to such the illustration gives
+all the hint that will be needed. We would simply suggest that the
+body of this barrow is about six inches long, that it is lined with
+crimson silk, and that standing upon a dressing-bureau, writing-table,
+or mantel-shelf, it makes a very pretty receiver of cards or
+knick-knacks. Many beautiful Christmas gifts can be made by boys or
+girls owning one of the little bracket-saws, which, with books of
+directions, can now be bought in almost any hardware shop.
+
+[Illustration: A FANCY WHEELBARROW.]
+
+For further particulars on wood-carving, see illustrated articles in
+ST. NICHOLAS, Vol. I., pp. 84, 215, 346, 592.
+
+
+A SET OF TEA-NAPKINS.
+
+There hardly could be a nicer gift for a girl to make for her mother
+or married sister than a set of tea-napkins, with a large initial
+letter in white, or white and red, embroidered on each. The doily
+should be folded in four, and the letter out-lined in lead pencil in
+the corner of one of the quarters. If inked very black on paper, and
+held dry to the window behind the linen, the initial is easily traced.
+The pattern is then run and "stuffed" with heavy working-cotton, and
+the letter embroidered in finer cotton. Another nice gift is a long
+fringed towel, with three very large letters in white, or blue, or
+crimson, worked half-way between the middle and the side edge. Folded
+over lengthwise, it is a convenient thing to lay on a bureau-top
+or the front of a sideboard, and the large colored letters make it
+ornamental as well. Patterns of initials can be bought in any fancy
+shop. If desired, they can be bought already worked, requiring only to
+be transferred to the napkin.
+
+
+NAPKIN-BANDS.
+
+Any of you who have mastered cross-stitch, and learned to follow a
+pattern, will find these bands easy enough to make. Their use is to
+fasten a napkin round a child's neck at dinner, and take the place of
+that disobliging "pin," which is never at hand when wanted. You must
+cut a strip of Java canvas, two inches wide by a foot long; overcast
+the edges, and work on it some easy little vine in worsted, or a
+Grecian pattern, or, if you like, a short motto, such as "More haste,
+worse speed." Line the strip with silk, turn in the edges, overhand
+them, and finish the ends with two of those gilt clasps which are used
+to loop up ladies' dresses.
+
+
+A RUSTIC VASE.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is very easy to get the material out of which this vase is made.
+You need only go to your wood-pile, or, if you have none, to the
+wood-pile of a neighbor. Choose a round stick four inches in diameter
+and eight or ten inches long, with a smooth bark. If you find the
+stick, and it is too long, you can easily saw off an end. Now comes
+the difficult part of the work: The inside of the stick must be
+scooped out to within four inches of the bottom. The easiest way of
+accomplishing this will be to send it to a turning-mill if there
+is one at hand; if not, patience and a jack-knife will in the end
+prevail. Next, with a little oil-color, paint a pretty design on
+the bark, if you can,--trailing-arbutus, partridge berry, sprays of
+linnea,--any wood thing which can be supposed to cluster naturally
+round a stump. Set the stump in a flower-pot saucer, filled with
+earth, and planted with mosses and tiny ferns; fit a footless wine
+or champagne glass, or a plain cup, into the hollow end, and, with a
+bunch of grasses and wild flowers, or autumn leaves, you have a really
+exquisite vase, prettier than any formal article bought in a shop, and
+costing little more than time and patience, with a touch of that rare
+thing--taste! which, after all, is not so very rare as some people
+imagine. Any friend will prize such a vase of your own making.
+
+
+A TABLE-COVER.
+
+A really charming cover for a small table can be made in this way: Cut
+a square--or oblong, as the case may be--of that loosely woven linen
+which is used for glass-towels, making it about four inches larger all
+round than the table it is meant to fit. Pale yellow or brown is the
+best color to select. Ravel the edges into a fringe two inches deep;
+then, beginning two inches within the edge, draw the linen threads all
+round in a band an inch and three-quarters wide. Lace the plain space
+thus left with dark-red ribbon of the same width, woven in and out in
+regular spaces, and at each corner tie the ribbon in a graceful knot
+with drooping ends.
+
+
+ANOTHER TABLE-COVER.
+
+This cover is made of pale-brown Turkish toweling. Cut a piece of
+the size to suit your table, and baste all round it, first a row of
+scarlet worsted braid, then of olive, then of yellow, leaving spaces
+each an inch and a half wide between the rows. Cat-stitch the braids
+down on both edges with saddlers' silk, and feather-stitch between
+them in silks, choosing colors which harmonize, and turning the whole
+into a wide stripe brilliant and soft at the same time. The choice and
+placing of the colors will be excellent practice for your eye, and
+after a little while you will be able to tell, as soon as a couple
+of inches are done, if you are putting the right tint into the right
+place. It is infinitely more interesting to feel your way thus through
+a piece of work than to follow any set pattern, however pretty, and it
+is far more cultivating to the taste.
+
+
+A PAPER TRANSPARENCY.
+
+Take a piece of white, or tinted, or silver paper, exactly ten and a
+half inches square. Fold it double diagonally. Fold it double again.
+Fold it double once more.
+
+You will now have a triangular-shaped form of eight thicknesses. Now
+lay this folded piece on a pine table, or on a smooth piece of pine
+board. Next, lay evenly over it, so that it will fit exactly, the
+"pattern of transparency," or an exact tracing from it. When so
+placed, secure them firmly to the board by pins driven in at each
+corner. Now, with a very sharp pen-knife follow and cut _through to
+the board_ the lines of the pattern, so as to cut out all the portions
+that show black in the design. When this is all done, pull out
+the pins, open your folded paper, and you will have a square form
+beautifully figured in open-work. It should be laid between two sheets
+of white paper and carefully pressed with a hot iron, and then it can
+be lined with black or fancy tissue paper, and hung against a pane in
+the window as a "transparency;" or you may use it as a picture-frame,
+inserting an engraving or photograph in the center.
+
+The original, from which our pattern is taken, was cut during the late
+war by a young Union soldier while in Libby prison.
+
+[Illustration: PATTERN OF PAPER TRANSPARENCY.]
+
+
+SHAWL-BAGS.
+
+These bags are capital things to save a shawl from the dust of a
+journey, and, if of good size, can be made to serve a useful purpose
+by packing into them dressing materials, etc., for which there is
+not room in your hand-bag. The best material for them is stout brown
+Holland. Cut two round end-pieces eight inches in diameter and a piece
+half a yard wide by twenty-four inches long. Stitch these together,
+leaving the straight seam open nearly all the way across, and bind its
+edges and the edges of the end-pieces with worsted braid (maroon
+or dark brown), put on with a machine. Close the opening with five
+buttons and button-holes. Bind with braid a band of the Holland two
+inches wide, and fasten it over the button-holed side, leaving a large
+loop in the middle to carry the bag by.
+
+By way of ornament you may embroider three large letters in
+single-stitch on the side, using worsted of the color of the braid, or
+may put a pattern down either side of the opening and round the ends
+in braiding, or a braided medallion with initials in the center.
+
+
+A JAPANESE BASKET FOR GRANDMOTHER.
+
+You will never guess what the top of this droll little basket is made
+of, unless we tell you. It is one of those Japanese cuffs of brown
+straw which can be bought nowadays for a small price at any of
+the Japanese shops. You may embroider a little pattern over
+it--diagonally, if you wish to make it look very Japanese-y; line it
+with silk or satin, and fasten a small bag of the same material to the
+bottom, drawn up with a ribbon bow or a tassel. A band of wide ribbon
+is sewed to the top. Grandmamma will find this just the thing to hang
+on her arm for holding her knitting-ball, or the knitting itself if
+she wishes to lay it aside. This sort of basket also is useful as a
+"catch-all" when hung at the side of a dressing-bureau.
+
+[Illustration: JAPANESE HANGING-BASKET OF STRAW AND SILK]
+
+
+A CATCH-ALL, MADE FROM A SINGLE SQUARE.
+
+This is very pretty, and very easily made. Take a piece of silver (or
+gold) perforated paper, eight inches square, and ornament it with
+worsted or silk, as in the diagram, all in one direction. To make the
+cornucopia, it is only necessary to join any two edges (as A and B)
+by first binding each with ribbon and then sewing them together. Line
+with silk, and put box-plaiting at the top. A worsted tassel might be
+put at the top (in front) as well as at the bottom, and a loop at C.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF PATTERN TO BE WORKED ON PERFORATED PAPER FOR
+A CATCH-ALL.]
+
+If silver paper is used, the trimmings would better be all red. All
+blue would look well with gold paper. But the colors may be varied
+according to taste. If your friend is a brunette, you will find that
+he or she will be most pleased with the red, while a blonde will
+prefer blue.
+
+[Illustration: A CATCH-ALL MADE OF PERFORATED PAPER.]
+
+
+A WALL-POCKET OF SPLITS.
+
+Splits, or cigar-lighters as they are sometimes called, are to be
+had at any of the fancy shops. They are an inch wide and about seven
+inches long, and come in various shades of brown and straw color,
+and their flexibility makes it easy to weave them in and out like
+basket-work. For the wall-pocket you must weave two squares, each
+containing six splits each way, but one made larger than the other, as
+seen in the picture. A few stitches in cotton of the same color will
+hold the strips in place. Line the smaller of the squares with silk,
+and lay it across the face of the other in such a way that the four
+points shall make a diamond, touching the middle of each side of the
+square. Fasten it to the wall by two of the splits crossed and united
+by a bow of ribbons, and fill the pocket with dried autumn leaves and
+ferns gracefully arranged.
+
+[Illustration: WALL-POCKET OF SPLITS.]
+
+
+SILHOUETTE LIKENESSES.
+
+This is rather a Christmas game than a present, but will answer well
+for either; and young folks can get much fun out of an evening spent
+in "taking" each other. Each in turn must stand so as to cast a sharp
+profile shadow on the wall, to which is previously pinned, white side
+out, a large sheet of paper, known as silhouette paper, black on one
+side and white on the other. Somebody draws the outline of this shadow
+_exactly_ with a pencil; it is then cut out and pasted neatly, black
+side up, on a sheet of white paper. Good and expressive likenesses are
+often secured, and droll ones _very_ often. Try it, some of you, in
+the long evenings which are coming.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF WALL-POCKET.]
+
+
+A LEAF PEN-WIPER.
+
+Your pattern for this must be a beech-leaf again,--a _long_ one this
+time,--or you may trace the shape from the illustration. Outline the
+shape as before, and from the model thus secured cut six leaves in
+flannel--two green, two brown, and two red, or red, white and blue, or
+any combination you like. Snip the edge of each leaf into very tiny
+points, and chain-stitch veins upon it with gold-colored floss. Attach
+these leaves together by the upper ends, arranging under them three
+triply pointed leaves of black broadcloth or silk to receive the ink,
+and finish the top with a small bow of ribbon.
+
+[Illustration: A LEAF PEN-WIPER.]
+
+
+A BIRDS'-NEST PEN-WIPER.
+
+Girls are always trying to find something which they can make to
+delight their papas, and a gay little pen-wiper with fresh uninked
+leaves rarely comes amiss to a man who likes an orderly writing-table.
+Here is a pretty one which is easily made. For the pattern you may
+borrow a moderately large beech-leaf from the nearest tree (or
+botanical work); lay it down on paper, pencil the outline and cut it
+out neatly. Repeat this six or eight times in black cloth or velvet,
+and sew the leaves round a small oval or circle of black cloth. Knit
+and ravel out a quantity of yellow worsted or floss silk, and with it
+construct a nest in the center of the oval, putting a hen into the
+nest. This hen may be made of canton flannel, stuffed with cotton-wool
+and painted in water color, with a comb of red flannel, two black
+beads for eyes, and a tuft of feathers by way of tail. But better
+still and much easier, buy one of the droll little Japanese chicks
+which can be had at the shops now for twenty or twenty-five cents, and
+fasten it in the middle of the nest. Three plain circles of cloth are
+fastened underneath for wiping the pens.
+
+
+JAPANESE PEN-WIPER.
+
+[Illustration: A JAPANESE PEN-WIPER.]
+
+A nice little pen-wiper can be made by cutting three circles of black
+cloth, snipping the edges or button-holing them with colored silk, and
+standing in the middle one of the droll little Japanese birds just
+mentioned. Of course it should be secured firmly at the feet. There
+are long-legged birds and short-legged ones. A tiny stork is very
+pretty.
+
+
+BLEACHED GRASSES.
+
+Some of you who have been pressing autumn leaves for winter use may
+like to hear of a new way of bleaching grasses to mix with them. The
+process is exceedingly simple. Take a few of the grasses in your hand
+at a time, dip them into a pan of water, shake gently, dip into a pan
+of sifted flour, and again shake gently. All the superfluous flour
+will fall off, but enough will remain to make the grasses snowy-white.
+When dry it is perfectly firm, and you would never guess what process
+produced the effect. A bunch of these white grasses in a coral-red
+basket is a vivid object.
+
+Colored grasses, to our thinking, are not half so pretty as the same
+grasses when left in their own soft natural browns and yellows. Still,
+as some people like them, we will just mention that the same process
+can be used for them as for the white grass, by mixing with small
+portions of flour, a little dry paint powder, vermilion, green, etc.
+A bunch of the deep red mixed with the bleached grass has a gay and
+uncommon effect.
+
+
+A NUBÉ IN TWO COLORS.
+
+A novelty in knitting is a nubé in Shetland wool of two colors--pink
+or crimson or blue with white. The skeins are opened, and the two
+strands, laid side by side, are wound double in a large ball. The
+nubé is then knit in the usual way with large needles and common
+garter-stitch, and is very fine.
+
+
+LAMP SHADES.
+
+Plain white porcelain lamp-shades, such as are used on the German
+student-lamps, look well when decorated with wreaths of autumn leaves
+put on with mucilage. We read lately in the _Tribune_ that leaves
+treated with extract of chlorophyl became transparent. This would be
+a fine experiment for some of you to try, and a garland of the
+transparent leaves would be much more beautiful around a shade than
+the ordinary dried ones.
+
+There are other styles of lamp-shades that can be made with little
+difficulty, for instance: A very pretty shade is easily formed by
+cutting in thin drawing-board fine scalloped sections, which, tied
+together with narrow ribbon, take the form of a shade. Leaves are
+glued to the under side of these, and a lining of thin tissue-paper
+is pasted on to hold them in place. Still another is made in the same
+way, with doubled sections of card-board, between each pair of which
+is laid a steel engraving or wood-cut, or an unmounted photograph. The
+pictures are invisible till the lamp is lighted: then they gleam forth
+with something of the soft glow of a porcelain transparency.
+
+
+A GLOVE-BOX.
+
+In any of the fancy shops you can now buy the slender frames of
+silvered tin on which these boxes are made. Cut out double pieces of
+pale-tinted silk to fit the top, bottom, sides and ends, and quilt
+each separately with an interlining of cotton batting, on which
+sachet-powder has been lightly sprinkled. Slip the pieces between the
+double rods of the frame, sew over and over, and finish with a plaited
+satin ribbon all round, adding a neat little loop and bow to lift the
+lid.
+
+The small tin boxes in which fancy biscuits are sold can be utilized
+for glove-boxes, covered as you choose on the outside, and lined with
+wadded silk.
+
+
+ANOTHER GLOVE-BOX.
+
+This box can be made in very stiff card-board, but tin is better
+if you have the pieces which form its shape cut by the tinman, and
+punched with holes in rows an inch and a half apart. If you use
+card-board, you must punch your own holes, measuring the places for
+them with rule and pencil. In either case, you will need the same
+number of pieces and of the same size, namely: two strips one foot
+long and five inches wide, two strips one foot long and three inches
+wide, and two strips five inches long and three inches wide. Cover
+each piece with a layer of cotton wadding, sprinkled with sachet
+powder, and a layer of silk or satin of any color you prefer. Then
+catch the silk firmly down through the holes in the tin, making long
+stitches on the wrong side, and small cross-stitches on the right,
+so as to form neat regular tufts. A very tiny button sewed in each
+depression has a neat effect. When the inside of the box is thus
+tufted, baste the pieces together, cover the outside with black or
+dark silk or satin, embroidered or ornamented in any way your fancy
+may dictate, overhand the edges daintily, and neatly finish with
+a small cord. Square boxes made in the same way are pretty for
+pocket-handkerchiefs.
+
+[Illustration: SILK GLOVE-BOX.]
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING THE MANNER OF TUFTING THE LINING OF
+SILK GLOVE-BOX.]
+
+
+A COAL-SCUTTLE PIN-CUSHION.
+
+This droll little scuttle is made of black enamel cloth, cut according
+to the diagrams on next page. Fig. 1 is cut double and folded over
+at G. The two sides marked B and E in Fig. 1 are bound with black
+galloon; also the two sides marked with the same letters in Fig. 2.
+
+[Illustration: COAL-SCUTTLE PINCUSHION AND NEEDLE BOOK.]
+
+Before binding over, cast a bit of wire around the top and one around
+the bottom of the scuttle, and bend each into its proper shape. Figs.
+3 and 4 are bound all round, and sewed over and over to the places
+indicated. Wrap two bits of wire, one four inches long and the other
+an inch and a quarter, with black worsted, and insert them through
+little holes made for the purpose to serve as the handles of the
+scuttle; stuff the inside firmly with hair or cotton-wool, cover the
+top with flannel, cut after Fig. 4, and button-hole the edges down all
+round with worsted of the color of the flannel. If you like to add
+a needle-book you can do so by cutting three leaves of differently
+colored flannels, after the shape of Fig. 4, snipping the edges into
+points, or button-holing them, and fastening the leaves to the back of
+the scuttle above the pincushion.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAMS OF COAL-SCUTTLE PINCUSHION AND NEEDLE-BOOK.
+Fig. 1.--Pattern of Coal-Scuttle Pinchusion. Fig. 2.--Part of Pattern
+of Coal-Scuttle Pinchusion. Fig. 3.--Bottom of Coal-Scuttle. Fig.
+4.--Top of Coal-Scuttle.]
+
+
+A BIT OF PLAIN WORK.
+
+There are notable little sempstresses even in these days of machines
+("and I am thankful to know that there are," says Mother Santa Claus)
+who set their stitches as swiftly and as precisely as ever their
+grandmothers did before them, and have the same liking for what used
+to be called "white seam." To such we would suggest, what a nice and
+useful Christmas present would be a beautifully made under-garment.
+It need not of necessity be a shirt, though in old days no girl was
+considered educated who could not finish one all by herself, from
+cutting out to the last button-hole; but an apron or petticoat or
+dressing-jacket or night-gown, over which little fingers had labored
+deftly and lovingly, would, it seems to us, be a most wonderful
+and delightful novelty for mamma or grandmamma to find on the
+Christmas-tree this year. A set of handkerchiefs nicely hemmed and
+marked (girls used to cross-stitch the marks in their own hair!), or
+a soft flannel petticoat, cat-stitched at the seams, scalloped with
+coarse working cotton,--which grows whiter with washing, instead of
+yellowing like silk,--with three pretty initials on the waistband,
+would be other capital ideas. Try them.
+
+
+WORK APRONS.
+
+The great convenience of these aprons is that the work can be rolled
+up in them and laid aside for use. They are made of brown Holland
+trimmed with black or blue or crimson worsted braid. Little loops of
+doubled braid ornament the edge, and are held in place by a plain row
+of the braid stitched on above them. The lower and largest pocket
+should be made full and drawn up with a cord at top, so as to hold
+rolls of pieces, worsteds and patterns. The little pockets are for
+spools of silk and thread, tapes, buttons, and so on.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF WORK APRON.]
+
+
+A LEAF NEEDLE-BOOK.
+
+For this needle-book you will need the following materials: One-eighth
+of a yard of crimson or green velvet, one-eighth of a yard of lining
+silk to match, one-eighth of a yard of fine white flannel, two skeins
+of white silk floss, a bit of Bristol-board, and a half yard of narrow
+ribbon.
+
+Cut in the Bristol-board a couple of leaf-shaped pieces like the
+illustration. Cover each with the velvet, turning in the edges neatly,
+line with the silk, and button-hole both together all round with white
+floss. Stitch the veins in the leaves with the floss, held tightly, so
+as to depress the lines a little. Cut three leaves of flannel in the
+same shape, button-hole the edges, lay them between the leaves, and
+fasten all together at top with a bow of ribbon. A tiny loop and
+button should be attached to the point to hold the needle-book
+together.
+
+[Illustration: PATTERN OF LEAF NEEDLE-BOOK.]
+
+[Illustration: PAD OF LEAF NEEDLE-BOOK.]
+
+
+BOOK-MARK.
+
+A large lace-like cross hanging from the end of a wide ribbon makes
+a handsome and appropriate mark for a big bible or prayer-book. The
+materials cost almost nothing, all that is required being a bit of
+perforated card-board, a sharp penknife, and--patience. Trace the form
+of the cross on the card-board, and outline the pattern on one side in
+pencil. You will observe that the one given as illustration is made
+up of small forms many times repeated, and this is the case with
+all patterns used for this purpose. The easiest way to outline it
+regularly is to do a square of eight holes at a time, marking the
+places to be cut, and leaving the uncut places white. When all is
+marked, place on a smooth board and cut, following the markings
+exactly with your knife. The work cannot be hurried: it must be done
+slowly and very carefully if you hope to succeed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now we will turn out the more difficult things from the bottom of
+the basket, and you big, clever boys and girls who can do what you
+like with your fingers and knives and needles and paint-brushes, can
+take your pick from them.
+
+
+AUTUMN-LEAF WORK.
+
+If you have an old work-box, or desk, or table-top, or screen, which
+has grown shabby, and which you would like to renew, we can tell you
+how to do so. First, you must take those generous friends, the woods,
+into your counsel. Gather and press every bright, perfect leaf and
+spray which comes in your way this autumn, and every graceful bit of
+vine, and a quantity of small brown and gold-colored ferns, and those
+white feathery ones which have blanched in the deep shadows. These
+ready, paint your box, or whatever it is, with solid black, let it
+dry, rub it smooth with fine sand-paper, and repeat the process three
+times. Then glue the leaves and ferns on, irregularly scattered, or
+in regular bouquets and wreaths, as suits your fancy. Apply a coat of
+isinglass, dissolved in water, to the whole surface, and when that is
+dry, three coats of copal varnish, allowing each to dry before the
+next is put on. The effect is very handsome. And, even without
+painting the objects black, this same style of leaf and fern-work can
+be applied to earthen vases, wooden boxes, trays and saucers, for
+card-receivers. For these, you may get some good hints from the
+illustrations on subsequent pages. The same illustrations will apply
+to the "novelties in fern-work" given further on.
+
+
+A WINDOW TRANSPARENCY.
+
+Another pretty use for autumn leaves is a transparency for a window.
+Arrange a group of the leaves upon a pane of glass, lay another pane
+of same size over these, and glue the edges together, first with a
+strip of stout muslin, and then with narrow red ribbon, leaving a
+loop at each upper corner to hang it up by. The deep leaf colors seen
+against the light are delightful.
+
+
+SIDE-LIGHT TRANSPARENCIES.
+
+Any of you who happen to live in a house which has, like many old
+houses, a narrow side-light on either side of its front-door, and a
+row of panes across the top, can make a pretty effect by preparing a
+series of these transparencies to fit the door-glasses, and fastening
+them on by driving a stout tack into the sashes so as to support
+the four corners of each pane. The transparencies could be prepared
+secretly and put into place overnight, or on Christmas morning, before
+any one is up, so as to give mother a pleasant surprise as she comes
+downstairs.
+
+
+A FRAME OF AUTUMN LEAVES.
+
+Procure an oblong bit of tin, eight inches by ten, or ten inches by
+twelve, and have a large oval cut out in the middle. Paint the tin
+with two coats of black, glue a small group of leaves in each corner,
+with a wire spray or tendril to connect them, varnish with two coats
+of copal, and put a small picture behind the oval.
+
+
+A FRAME OF MAIDEN-HAIR.
+
+Cut a pasteboard frame three inches wide of the size you need, and sew
+thickly all over it little sprays of maiden-hair ferns, pressed and
+dried. It is fastened to the wall with a pin at each corner, and of
+course does not support a glass. The effect of the light fern shapes
+against the wall is very delicate and graceful, and unsubstantial as
+it may seem, the frame lasts a long time, especially if, when the
+maiden-hair first begins to curl, the whole is taken down and
+re-pressed for two or three days under a heavy book.
+
+[Illustration: VASE (AUTUMN-LEAF WORK).]
+
+
+NOVELTIES IN FERN-WORK.
+
+We hope some of you have collected a good supply of ferns of the
+different colors,--deep brown, yellow, green and white,--for by means
+of a new process you can make something really beautiful with them. It
+requires deft fingers and good eyes, but with practice and patience
+any of you could manage it. Supposing it to be a table-top which you
+wish to ornament, you proceed as follows: Paint the wood all over with
+black or very dark brown; let it dry, and rub it smooth with pumice.
+Next varnish. And here comes the point of the process. _While the
+varnish is wet_, lay your ferns down upon it, following a design which
+you have arranged clearly in your head, or marked beforehand on a
+sheet of paper. A pin's point will aid you to move and place the
+fragile stems, which must not be much handled, and must lie perfectly
+flat, with no little projecting points to mar the effect, which when
+done should be like mosaic-work. As soon as the pattern is in place,
+varnish again immediately. The ferns, thus inclosed in a double wall
+of varnish, will keep their places perfectly. Next day, when all is
+dry, varnish once more. Small articles of white holly-wood decorated
+in this way are very pretty, and a thin china plate with an overlaying
+of these varnished ferns becomes a beautiful and ornamental
+card-receiver.
+
+[Illustration: CARD-RECEIVER (AUTUMN-LEAF WORK).]
+
+
+A SHOE-CHAIR.
+
+An old cane-seated chair will answer perfectly to make this, provided
+the frame-work is strong and good. Cut away the cane and insert in its
+place a stout bag of twilled linen, the size of the seat and about ten
+inches deep. Around this bag sew eight pockets, each large enough for
+a pair of shoes. The round pocket left in the middle will serve to
+hold stockings. Have a bit of thin wood cut to fit the seat of the
+chair; fasten on this a cushion covered with cretonne, with a deep
+frill all around (or a narrow frill, provided you prefer to fasten the
+deep ruffle around the chair itself, as shown in the picture), and a
+little loop in front by which the seat can be raised like the lid of a
+box, when the shoes are wanted. This chair is really a most convenient
+piece of furniture for a bedroom.
+
+[Illustration: A SHOE-CHAIR, WITH COVER (OR SEAT) REMOVED.]
+
+
+SCRAP-BAGS IN TURKISH TOWELING.
+
+These are convenient little affairs. Hung on the gas-fixture beside a
+looking-glass, or on a hook above the work-table, they will be found
+just the things to catch odds and ends, such as hair, burnt matches,
+ravelings and shreds of cloth, which are always accumulating, and for
+which many city bedrooms afford no receptacle. The materials needed
+are three-quarters of a yard of pale-brown Turkish toweling, six
+yards of red worsted braid, four steel rings (to hold the strings),
+one-eighth of a yard each of blue, white, and scarlet cashmere, a
+skein each of blue, red, green, yellow, and black worsted, and a small
+red tassel in chenille or silk.
+
+Cut four pieces of the toweling, twelve inches long and six and a half
+wide, and shape them according to diagram.
+
+Bind each around with braid. Cut out a shape in cashmere of the three
+colors laid one over the other, and button-hole it on with worsted,
+contrasting the shades in as gay and marked a manner as possible.
+In the design given, A is white cashmere, B red, and C blue. A is
+button-holed with green, B with black, and C with yellow. B is
+chain-stitched in blue and white lines, C feather-stitched in white
+and yellow. The daisy-like flower above is white, with a yellow center
+and a green stem, and the long lines of stitching on either side are
+in red and black. Some of these bags are very pretty.
+
+This bag could be simplified by using no cashmere, and
+feather-stitching each quarter diagonally across with alternate black,
+red, and yellow lines.
+
+[Illustration: PATTERN OF EACH OF THE FOUR SIDES OF SCRAP-BAG.]
+
+[Illustration: SCRAP-BAG IN TURKISH TOWELING.]
+
+
+ANOTHER SCRAP-BAG.
+
+The upper part of this bag is made of silver perforated paper. Buy a
+strip a foot long and six inches wide, and embroider it all over in
+alternate lines of cross and single stitching, using single zephyr
+worsted, blue or rose-colored. Cut a piece of stiff card-board of
+exactly the same size, and line it with pink or blue silk to match the
+worsted. Sew the two ends together to form a circle, lay the silver
+paper smoothly over it, stitch down, and trim both edges with plaited
+satin ribbon three-quarters of an inch wide.
+
+This is the top of your bag. The bottom is crocheted in worsted by the
+ordinary long stitch, and sewed to the silver-paper top piece under
+the satin ribbon. A worsted tassel finishes the lower end.
+
+
+ARTISTIC EMBROIDERY.
+
+Just here a word to the girls about embroidery. In old days, when
+embroidery was the chief occupation of noble dames and demoiselles,
+the needle was used as a paint-brush might be, to make a picture of
+some real thing or some ideal occurrence. For instance: the Bayeux
+tapestry, worked in the eleventh century by Matilda, wife of William
+the Conqueror, and her ladies, is a continuous series of pictures, two
+hundred and fourteen feet long by about two feet wide, which represent
+scenes in the invasion and conquest of England. Old as it is, the
+colors are still undimmed and brilliant. Even so lately as the last
+century, ladies designed their own patterns, and embroidered court
+dresses and trimmings with flowers and birds copied from nature. But
+for many years back fancy-work has degenerated into the following of
+set models, without exercising any "fancy" of one's own at all. Now
+the old method is come into fashion again, and it means so much more,
+and is so vastly more interesting than copying a cut-and-dried pattern
+from a shop, that we long to set you all to trying your hands at it.
+For example, if you want a cushion with a group of daisies, gather a
+handful of fresh ones,--take a bit of linen or china crape, or fine
+crash or pongee, and, with green and white and gray and gold-colored
+silks, make a picture of the daisies as they look to you, not using
+any particular kind of stitch, but employing long ones or short ones,
+or loose or tight ones, just as comes most easily in giving the effect
+you want to get. This is much nicer than counting the stitches on a
+paper pattern and a bit of canvas, and when done, produces a much
+better effect. Even in winter, a real flower or a fern-spray, by way
+of model, can always be found in the flower-shops or greenhouses.
+Practice will stimulate invention and suggest all sorts of devices and
+ideas. Bits of pretty stuffs will catch your eye as adaptable for use,
+and oddly tinted silks (the old, faded colors often work in better
+than fresh ones), patterns on fans, on rice paper, on Japanese
+pictures--all sorts of things--will serve as material for your fancy.
+And when your work is done it will be _original_, and, as such, more
+valuable and interesting than any shop model, however beautiful in
+itself, can possibly be.
+
+[Illustration: ANOTHER SCRAP-BAG (SILVER PERFORATED PAPER AND
+CROCHET-WORK).]
+
+[Illustration: PAPER-CUTTER (NOVELTIES IN FERN-WORK).]
+
+
+ORIENTAL WORK.
+
+Very gay and quaint effects are produced with this work, which is an
+adaptation of the well-known Eastern embroideries. Its ground-work
+is plain cashmere or flannel, red, black or blue, on which small
+fantastically shaped figures in variously colored velvets or cashmeres
+are laid and button-holed down with floss silks. All sorts of forms
+are employed for these figures--stars, crescents, circles, trefoils,
+shields, palm-leaves, griffins, imps; and little wheels and comets
+in feather-stitch and cat-stitch are inserted between, to add to the
+oddity of the whole. These forms can be bought at a low price in
+almost any fancy shop. A good deal of ingenuity and taste can be shown
+in arranging and blending the figures richly and brilliantly, without
+making them too bright and glaring. Table-covers in this work should
+have falls of deep points, pinked on the edges. Smaller points of
+white cashmere are sometimes inserted between the deep ones, and
+similarly decorated. Bright little tassels are swung between the
+points by twisted silk cords. The tassels are made of strips of
+scarlet and white flannel, cut _almost_ across, in narrow fringes,
+rolled into shape, and confined by a tiny heading of flannel
+embroidered with silk. Sofa-pillows in this Oriental work are bright
+and effective, also wall-pockets and brackets--in fact, it can be
+applied in many ways. The bracket shapes must be cut in wood, and
+topped with flannel, the embroidered piece hanging across the front
+like a miniature drapery.
+
+
+BEDSIDE RUGS.
+
+The prettiest bedside rug which we ever saw was made in part of a
+snow-white lamb's-wool mat. This was laid in the center of a stout
+burlap, which projected six inches beyond the fleece all around, and
+was bordered with a band of embroidery on canvas six inches wide, the
+whole being lined with flannel and finished with a cord and a heavy
+tassel at each corner. A simpler rug is made of brown burlap, with
+a pattern in cross-stitch, worked in double zephyr worsteds of gay
+colors. Initials, or a motto, can be embroidered in the middle. The
+burlap can be fringed out around the edges for a finish.
+
+[Illustration: VASE, PAINTED BLACK AND ORNAMENTED WITH FERNS
+(AUTUMN-LEAF WORK).]
+
+
+A RAG RUG.
+
+An effective rug can be made in this way: Cut long inch-wide strips of
+cloths, flannels, and various kinds of material (widening the strip,
+however, in proportion as the fabric is thinner). Sew the ends together
+so as to make one very long strip, which, for convenience' sake,
+can be loosely wound up in a ball. Then, with a very large wooden
+crochet-needle, you crochet a circle, a square, or oblong mat of this
+rag-strip, just as with cotton or worsted. It makes a strong, durable,
+and, with bright and tasteful colors, a very pretty rug.
+
+
+A SCREEN.
+
+A folding clothes-horse with two leaves, such as is used in laundries,
+makes the foundation for this screen. The wood is painted solid
+black, and covered inside and out with very yellow unbleached cotton,
+stretched tightly over the frame, and held down by black upholstery
+braid fastened on with gilt nails. A design in flowers, leaves, birds,
+double circles, crescents, and parallel bars, to imitate the Japanese
+style of decoration, is painted in oil colors on the cotton, and a
+motto on the wood along the top. If the motto is arranged to read
+backward, the foreign effect of the whole will be enhanced. We have
+seen a striking screen of this sort made by a little girl who, as she
+could not paint in oil colors, decorated the surface with figures of
+various kinds cut from Japanese picture-papers, such as are now sold
+for from ten to twenty cents in the Japanese goods shops. Her figures
+were so well pasted and arranged, that the screen was one of the
+prettiest things in the bedroom.
+
+Screens covered with pictures cut from magazines and illustrated
+newspapers are very much liked by boys and girls, and by some of their
+elders.
+
+
+A COUVRE-PIED.
+
+This is a large oblong in loosely knitted double zephyr wools, and is
+made double, dark brown on one side, for instance, and pale blue on
+the other. The two are united with a border in open crochet of the
+brown, laced through with light blue ribbon, which is finished at each
+corner with a loosely tied bow and ends. The _couvre-pied_, as the
+name indicates, is meant to cover the feet of a person who lies on a
+sofa, and is an excellent present to make to an elderly or invalid
+friend.
+
+
+TILE OR CHINA PAINTING.
+
+Don't be frightened at the word, dears. China-painting is high art
+sometimes, and intricate and difficult work often, but it is quite
+possible to produce pretty effects without knowing a great deal about
+either china or painting. Neither are the materials of necessity
+expensive. All that you need, to begin with, are a few half tubes of
+china or mineral paints, which cost about as much as oil colors,
+four or five camel's-hair brushes, a palette-knife, a small phial of
+oil-of-lavender, and another of oil-of-turpentine, a plain glazed
+china cup or plate or tile to work on, and either a china palette or
+another plate on which to rub the paints. For colors, black, capuchine
+red, rose-pink, yellow, blue, green and brown are an ample assortment
+for a novice and for purposes of practice. We would advise only two
+tubes, one of black and one of rose pink, which are colors that do
+not betray your confidence when it comes to baking. For the chief
+difficulty in china-painting is that to be permanent the work must
+be "fired,"--that is, fused by a great heat in a furnace,--and it
+requires a great deal of experience to learn what the different
+tints are likely to do under this test. Some colors--yellow, for
+instance--eat up, so to speak, the colors laid over them. Others
+change tint. Pinks and some of the greens grow more intense; white
+cannot be trusted, and mixing one paint with another, as in oils, can
+only be done safely by experts. It is well, therefore, to begin with
+two simple colors, and you will be surprised to see how much may be
+done with them. (See "Hollenberry Cup," in ST. NICHOLAS for May, 1877,
+page 458.) A cup of transparent white china, the handle painted black,
+a Japanese-looking bough with black foliage and pink blossoms thrown
+over it, and a little motto, has a really charming effect. But be sure
+to put on the pink very pale, and the black, not in a hard, solid
+streak, but delicately, to suggest shading from dark to light, or the
+result of the baking will be disappointment.
+
+[Illustration: WOODEN BOX, ORNAMENTED WITH FERNS (AUTUMN-LEAF WORK).]
+
+The method of preparing the colors is to squeeze a very little paint
+from each tube upon your palette or plate; take a tiny drop of
+oil-of-lavender on the palette-knife, and with it rub the paint
+smooth. It should be thinned just enough to work smoothly; every drop
+of oil added after that is a disadvantage. Use a separate brush for
+each color, and wash them thoroughly with soap and hot water before
+putting them aside. The painting should be set away where no dust can
+come to it, and it will dry rapidly in forty-eight hours or less.
+Elaborate work often requires repainting after baking, the process
+being repeated several times; but for simpler designs one baking is
+usually enough. There are bakeries in Boston, New York, and others
+of our large cities, to which china can be sent, the price of baking
+being about ten cents for each article.
+
+[Illustration: TABLE-TOP (NOVELTIES IN FERN-WORK)]
+
+
+OTHER MODES OF DECORATING CHINA.
+
+The picture-books which are to be found at the Japanese stores
+nowadays suggest numberless excellent designs for china decorating. So
+do the "Walter Crane Fairy-tales." A plain olive or cream-colored tile
+with a pattern in bamboo-boughs and little birds, a milk-jug in gray
+with leaves and a motto in black, a set of tiny butter-plates with
+initials and a flower-spray on each, are easy things to attempt and
+very effective when done. Pie-dishes can be ornamented with a long,
+sketchy branch of blossoms or a flight of swallows across the bottom,
+and we have seen those small dishes of Nancy ware, in which eggs are
+first poached and then served on table, made very pretty by a painting
+on each of a chicken, done in soft browns and reds, with a little line
+to frame it in and run down along the handle. What we have mentioned
+here are only suggestions; a little patience and practice will soon
+help you to other patterns of your own, and we can't help hoping that
+some of you will be tempted to try your hands at this delightful art.
+
+
+DRAWING AND PAINTING ON WOOD.
+
+Articles in plain white wood can be bought almost anywhere nowadays.
+Pen-trays, letter-racks, easels, paper-knives, photograph-frames,
+watch-cases, needle-books, portfolios, glove-boxes, fans,
+silk-winders--there is no end to the variety which can be had, and
+had at a very moderate price. Now, any girl or boy among you with a
+paint-box and a little taste for drawing, can make a really pretty
+gift by decorating some one of these wooden things, either in color or
+with pen drawings in brown or black. The pattern need by no means be
+elaborate. A wreath of ivy simply out-lined in sepia or india-ink, or
+a group of figures sketched with the same, produces a very pleasing
+and harmonious effect. "Prout's Brown," a sort of fluent ink of a
+burnt-umber tint, will be found excellent for drawing purposes.
+For designs, our own ST. NICHOLAS will furnish excellent examples.
+Scarcely a number but holds something which a clever artist can
+adapt to his purpose. The "Miss Muffett" series, for example, or the
+silhouettes, or the sea-side sketches, or the ornamental borders and
+leaf-and-flower headings. Look over your back numbers, and you will
+see how rich they are in subjects for copies.
+
+Here is a suggestion for such of you as live by the sea, and who know
+something about drawing. Search for clam-shells on the beach, and
+select the whitest and most perfectly formed. Separate the two shells,
+cleanse them thoroughly, and make on the smooth pearly lining of each
+a little drawing in sepia. It will serve as a receiver to stand on a
+lady's toilet and hold rings and trinkets, or it can be used as
+an ash-holder by a smoking gentleman, or to contain pens on a
+writing-table.
+
+
+A SHOE-CHAIR MADE OF A BARREL.
+
+Another shoe-chair as nice as that pictured on page 56 can be made out
+of a barrel by any girl who has a father or big brother to help her a
+little with the carpentering. The barrel is cut as in Fig. 1 below, so
+as to form a back and a low front. The back is stuffed a little, and
+covered with chintz nearly down to the floor. The front has a deep
+frill tacked on all around the chair. Four blocks are nailed inside
+the barrel to support a round of wood, stuffed and cushioned with the
+same chintz, to serve as a seat.
+
+A straight shoe-bag, with eight pockets, is made in the same chintz,
+and tacked firmly all around the inside. A loop of the chintz serves
+to raise the seat. Four castors screwed to the bottom of the barrel
+will be an improvement, as the chair without them cannot easily be
+moved about. About five yards of chintz will be required for the
+covering; or you might use the merino of an old dress.
+
+[Illustration: 1. SHOWS MANNER OF CUTTING BARREL. 2. BARREL SHOE-CHAIR
+COMPLETED. 3. INTERIOR OF BARREL SHOE-CHAIR. 4. DIAGRAM SHOWING MODE
+OF MAKING POCKETS FOR BARREL SHOE-CHAIR.]
+
+
+
+A MUSLIN TIDY.
+
+Three-quarters of a yard of clear French muslin will be needed for
+this. Lay a large dinner-plate down on the muslin, draw the circle
+made by its edge with a pencil, cut out, and lightly whip it round,
+pulling the thread a little to keep the circle perfect. Measure the
+circle, and cut a straight muslin ruffle, five inches wide and a
+little less than twice as long as the measure. Roll one edge finely,
+and overhand on a plain lace footing an inch and a half wide. Whip
+the other edge, and sew it round the circle, graduating the fullness
+equally.
+
+[Illustration: A MUSLIN TIDY TRIMMED WITH LACE FOOTING.]
+
+Baste a bit of lace footing three-quarters of an inch wide in the
+middle of the circle, giving it the form of a bow-knot with two ends.
+The lace must be bent and folded into the form, but not cut. Run the
+edges with embroidery cotton, and button-hole all round. Then, with
+sharp scissors, cut away the muslin underneath, leaving the bow-knot
+transparent on a thicker ground. Dry-flute the ruffle. This little
+affair is very dainty and odd, one of the prettiest things which we
+have seen lately.
+
+
+AN ILLUMINATED BORDER FOR A PHOTOGRAPH.
+
+St. Nicholas has given us of late such precise directions for the
+process of illuminating in color,[2] that it is not needful to repeat
+them; but we should like to suggest an idea to those of you who have
+begun to practice the art. This is to illuminate a border or "mount"
+around a favorite photograph. The picture must first be pasted on a
+large sheet of tinted card-board, pale cream or gray being the best
+tints to select. You then measure the spaces for your frame, which
+should be square if the picture is oval or round, and outline
+them lightly in lead-pencil. Next you sketch and paint your
+pattern,--flowers, leaves, birds, butterflies, or a set pattern, as
+you prefer,--putting the designs thickly together; and, lastly, you
+fill all the blank spaces in with gold paint, leaving the pattern
+in colors on a gilded ground. The outer edge of the frame should be
+broken into little scallops or trefoils in gold, and the card-board
+should be large enough to leave a space of at least three inches
+between the illuminated border and the frame, which should be a wide
+band of dull gilding or pale-colored wood, with a tiny line of black
+to relieve it. The ornament should, if possible, chord in some way
+with the picture. Thus a photograph of a Madonna might have the
+annunciation-lilies and passion-flowers on the gold ground.
+
+    [Footnote 2: SEE ST. NICHOLAS, Vol. IV., page 379.]
+
+
+A BOOK OF TEXTS.
+
+Another choice thing which can be done by a skillful illuminator is a
+small book, containing a few favorite texts, chosen by some friend.
+Half-a-dozen will be enough. Each text occupies a separate page, and
+is carefully lettered in red or black, with decorated initials, and
+a border in colors. A great deal of taste can be shown in the
+arrangement of these borders, which should be appropriate to the text
+they surround. A title-page is added, and the book is bound in some
+quaint way. A cover of parchment or white vellum, illuminated also,
+can be made very beautiful.
+
+
+A CARTE-DE-VISITE RECEIVER.
+
+For this you must procure from the tin-man a strip of tin three times
+as long as it is wide--say six inches by eighteen--with each end
+shaped to a point, as indicated in the picture. Measure off two bits
+of card-board of exactly the same size and shape; cover one with
+silk or muslin for a back, and the other with Java canvas, cloth, or
+velvet, embroidered with a monogram in the upper point, and a little
+pattern or motto in the lower. Lay the double coverings one on each
+side of the tin, and cross the outside one with narrow ribbons,
+arranged as in the picture. Overhand firmly all around; finish the top
+with a plaited ribbon and a little bow and loop to hang it by, and the
+bottom with a bullion fringe of the color of the ribbon.
+
+[Illustration: CARTE-DE-VISITE RECEIVER.]
+
+
+A PAIR OF BELLOWS.
+
+There seems no end to the pretty devices which proficients in painting
+can accomplish. We saw not long since a pair of wooden bellows which
+had been decorated with a painting of a tiny owl sitting on a bough,
+and the motto "Blow, blow, thou bitter wind." Why should not some of
+you try your hands at something similar? Wood fires, thank heaven, are
+much more common than they used to be, and most of you must know a
+cozy chimney corner where a pretty pair of bellows would be valued.
+
+
+A DOOR-PANEL.
+
+A great bunch of field-flowers, or fruit-boughs, or Virginia-creeper,
+painted in water-paints on the panel of an ordinary door, is another
+nice thing for you young artists to attempt. Perhaps you will object
+that a picture on a door can hardly be called a Christmas present; but
+we don't know.
+
+Anything which loving fingers can make, and loving hearts enjoy, is a
+gift worthy of Christmas or any other time.
+
+
+A SACHET IN WATER-COLORS.
+
+Another dainty idea for you who can paint is a small perfume-case of
+white or pale-colored silk or satin, on which is painted a bunch of
+flowers or a little motto. The flowers must be small ones, such as
+forget-me-nots or purple and white violets. A great deal of white
+paint--body color, as it is called--should be mixed with the color, to
+make it thick enough not to soak and stain the silk along the edges of
+the pattern. Some people paint the whole design in solid white, let
+it dry, and then put on the color over the white. Others mix a little
+ox-gall with the paint.
+
+
+DECORATED CANDLES.
+
+The large wax or composition candles, of a firm texture, are best
+for purposes of decoration. Water-color paints can be used, or those
+powders which come for coloring wax flowers. In either case it will
+be necessary to use a little ox-gall to give the paint consistency.
+A band of solid tint--crimson, black, blue or gold--is usually put
+around the middle of the candle, with a pattern in flowers or small
+bright points above and below. Spirals of blue forget-me-nots all
+over the candle are pretty, or sprays of leaves and berries set in a
+regular pattern. These gay candles are considered ornamental for a
+writing-table, and look well in the brass candlesticks which are
+so much used just now, though _we_ confess to a preference for
+unornamented candles of one solid tint.
+
+
+A RUSTIC JARDINIÈRE.
+
+Boys and girls who live in the country hardly know how lucky they are,
+or what mines of materials for clever handiwork lie close by them in
+the fruitful, generous woods. What with cones and leaves and moss and
+lichens and bark and fungi and twigs and ferns, these great green
+store-houses beat all the fancy shops for variety and beauty, and
+their "stock" is given away without money or price to all who choose
+to take. Most of you know something of the infinite variety of things
+which can be made out of these wood treasures, though nobody knows, or
+can know, _all_. Now, we want to tell you of a new thing, not at all
+difficult to make, and which would be a lovely surprise for some one
+this coming Christmas.
+
+It is a rustic jardinière, or flower-pot. The first step toward making
+it is to find a small stump about ten inches high, and as odd and
+twisted in shape as possible. It should have a base broader than its
+top, and three or four little branches projecting from its sides.
+Carry this treasure home, brush off any dirt which may cling to it,
+and ornament it with mosses and lichens, glued on to look as natural
+as possible. Make three small cornucopias of pasteboard; cover them
+also with mosses and lichens, and fasten them to the stump between the
+forks of the branches, using small brads or tacks to keep them firm.
+Stuff the cornucopias with dry moss, and arrange in each a bouquet of
+grasses, autumn leaves, and dried ferns, dipping the end of each
+stem in flour paste, to make it secure in its place. Sprays of
+blackberry-vine or michella, and the satin-white pods of the
+old-fashioned "honesty," make an effective addition. When done, we
+have a delightful winter-garden, which will keep its beauty through
+the months of snow and sleet, and brighten any room it stands in. Nor
+is its use over when winter ends, for, inserting small glass phials in
+the cornucopias, fresh flowers can be kept in them as in a vase, and
+the grays and browns of the lichened wood set off their hues far
+better than any gay vase could.
+
+
+ANOTHER JARDINIÈRE.
+
+Another rustic flower-holder can be made by selecting three knotty
+twigs, two and a half feet long and about an inch in diameter, and
+nailing them together in the form of a tripod, one half serving as a
+base, the other to hold a small flower-pot or a goblet whose foot has
+been broken off. The lower half should be strengthened with cross
+pieces nailed on, and both halves with twists of wild grape-vine or
+green briar, wired at their crossings to hold them firmly in place.
+When the frame is ready, melt together half a pound of bees'-wax, a
+quarter of a pound of rosin, and enough powdered burnt-umber to give
+a dark brown color; and pour the mixture on boiling hot. It will give
+the wood a rich tint. Fill the pot with sand, place over the sand a
+layer of green moss well pulled apart, and in that arrange a bouquet
+of dried leaves, ferns and grasses, or, if it is summer-time, wild
+flowers and vines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, dear fancy-workers, little and big, surely Mother Santa Claus has
+furnished you with ideas enough to keep you busy for more Christmases
+than one. Just one thing more, and that is the manner in which the
+presents shall be given. Nothing can be droller than to hang up
+one's stockings, and nothing prettier or more full of meaning than a
+Christmas-tree. But for some of you who may like to make a novelty in
+these time-honored ways, we will just mention that it is good fun
+to make a "Christmas-pie" in an enormous tin dish-pan, with a
+make-believe crust of yellow cartridge paper, ornamented with twirls
+and flourishes of the same, held down with pins, and have it served on
+Christmas Eve, full of pretty things and sugar-plums, jokes and jolly
+little rhymes fastened to the parcels. The cutting should be done
+beforehand, and hidden by the twirls of paper; but the carver can
+pretend to use his knife and fork, and spooning out the packages will
+insure a merry time for all at table. And one more suggestion. Little
+articles, wrapped in white paper, can be put inside cakes, baked and
+iced, and thus furnish another amusing surprise for the "pie" or the
+Christmas-tree.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We are indebted to Mrs. L. B. Goodall, Mrs. M. E. Stockton, Mrs.
+Tolles, Miss Annie M. Phoebus, Miss M. Meeker, and Miss M. H. D.,
+for designs and suggestions in aid of this article; and to the
+"Ladies' Floral Cabinet" for some valuable hints on "Leaf-work."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE TWEET.
+
+
+There were once some nice little birds who lived together in a great
+big cage. This cage was not at all like the bird-cages we generally
+see. It was called an aviary, and it was as large as a room. It had
+small trees and bushes growing in it, so that the birds could fly
+about among the green leaves and settle on the branches. There were
+little houses where the birds might make their nests and bring up
+their young ones, and there was everything else that the people who
+owned this big cage thought their little birds would want. It had
+wires all around it to keep the birds from flying away.
+
+One of the tamest and prettiest of the birds who lived in this place
+was called little Tweet, because, whenever she saw any of the family
+coming near the cage she would fly up close to the wires and say,
+"Tweet! Tweet!" which meant "Good-morning! how do you do?" But they
+thought it was only her pretty way of asking for something to eat; and
+as she said "Tweet" so much, they gave her that for a name.
+
+One day there was a boy who came to visit the family who owned the
+birds, and very soon he went to see the big cage. He had never seen
+anything like it before. He had never been so close to birds that were
+sitting on trees or hopping about among the branches. If the birds
+at home were as tame as these, he could knock over lots of them, he
+thought.
+
+There was one that seemed tamer than any of the rest. It came up close
+to him and said: "Tweet! Tweet!"
+
+The boy got a little stick and pushed it through the wires at little
+Tweet, and struck her. Poor little Tweet was frightened and hurt. She
+flew up to a branch of the tree and sat there, feeling very badly.
+When the boy found he could not reach her any more with his stick, he
+went away.
+
+Tweet sat on the branch a long time. The other birds saw she was sick,
+and came and asked how she felt. Some of them carried nice seeds to
+her in their bills. But little Tweet could not eat anything. She ached
+all over, and sat very quietly with her head down on her breast.
+
+[Illustration: "THE OTHER BIRDS BRING SEEDS TO POOR TWEET."]
+
+She sat on that branch nearly all day. She had a little baby-bird, who
+was in a nest in one of the small houses, but the other birds said she
+need not go and feed it if she did not wish to move about. They would
+take it something to eat.
+
+But, toward night, she heard her baby cry, and then she thought she
+must go to it. So she slowly flew over to her house; and her baby, who
+was in a little nest against the wall, was very glad to see her.
+
+In the morning, two of the birds came to the house to see how little
+Tweet was, and found her lying on the floor, dead. The little
+baby-bird was looking out of its nest, wondering what it all meant.
+How sorry those two birds were when they found that their good little
+friend Tweet was really dead!
+
+"Poor Tweet!" said one of them, "She was the gentlest and best of us
+all. And that poor little dear in the nest there, what will become of
+it?"
+
+"Become of it!" replied the other bird, who was sitting by poor Tweet,
+"Become of it! Why, it shall never want for anything. I shall take it
+for my own, and I will be a kind mother to it, for the sake of poor
+little Tweet."
+
+Now, do you not think that there were good, kind birds in that big
+cage? But what do you think of the boy?
+
+[Illustration: "I WILL BE A KIND MOTHER TO IT, FOR THE SAKE OF POOR
+LITTLE TWEET."]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.
+
+
+Hurrah for the new volume!--Volume V., I believe it is to be called.
+That reminds me of the names of Japanese children, hundreds of years
+ago. Instead of being known by the Japanese for Tom, Henry, or John,
+it was No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and so on, through a whole family of
+little folks.
+
+Once you had an article[1] on Japanese Games by a native of Japan,
+Ichy Zo Hattori. Well, this name, as you will all admit, is a
+fine-sounding appellative enough, but in English it means simply No. 1
+Hattori.
+
+    [Footnote 1: See ST. NICHOLAS for January, 1874.]
+
+So, welcome to the lovely new child, No. 5 St. Nicholas!--and that he
+may grow to be a brave, bright volume, beautiful to look at and useful
+to this and many a generation of little folks, is your Jack's earnest
+wish.
+
+Of one thing the little fellow may be sure,--Jack and the Deacon, and
+the dear, blessed Little School-ma'am, will stand by him to the end.
+And so will you, my chicks, Jack verily believes. He'll be a good
+friend to you, bringing you any amount of fun, and telling you more
+good things every month than you'll remember in a thousand years.
+
+Now we'll take up our next subject.
+
+
+AN ARTIFICIAL HORSE THAT CAN GO.
+
+Well, well! The birds must be joking, for who ever heard of a bird
+telling a deliberate lie? And yet it _may_ be true. There have been
+artificial men,--manikins, automata, or whatever they are called,--so
+why shouldn't there be artificial horses?
+
+Come to think of it, it was not the birds who told me about them. It
+was a letter; and "artificial horses" the letter said, as plainly as
+could be. It told how a fine specimen had just been exhibited in the
+capital of Prussia. The thing must look like a horse, too, for it is a
+hobby between two high wheels (the rider sits on the saddle), and it
+travels about as rapidly as a trotting horse. As I understand it,
+the rider moves his legs to make the machine go, and yet it isn't a
+bicycle. It goes over stony roads, turns corners, and, for aught Jack
+knows, rears and kicks like any ordinary charger--that is, when it's
+out of order.
+
+I should like to see one among the boys of the red school-house. How
+they would make it go!
+
+
+    A LETTER FROM DEACON GREEN.
+
+    DEAR JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT: I wish some of the boys and girls who
+    think they never have any chance to read could know a little
+    fellow of my acquaintance, named George. He is fourteen years old
+    and employed as errand boy in a business house in New York. All
+    day long he runs, runs,--up-town, down-town, across town,--until
+    you would suppose that his little legs would be worn out. But,
+    always on the alert as he is, and ready to do his duty whether
+    tired or not, he still keeps constantly before his mind the idea
+    of self-improvement, in business and out. Through a friend he has
+    of late been able to procure books from the Mercantile Library.
+    Although his time during the day, as I have said, is wholly taken
+    up with his duties, yet he managed, during the evenings of last
+    fall and winter (in five months), to read twelve books, some of
+    them quite long ones and some of them in two volumes, all selected
+    with his friend's assistance. From the list, I fancy the little
+    fellow had an eye to enjoyment as well as profit, for they are not
+    all what are called instructive books, although every one of them
+    is a good book for a boy to read, and George tells me he enjoyed
+    them all heartily.
+
+    As many of your youngsters, friend Jack, may like to know just
+    what books the little fellow has read, I will give you the list
+    that he wrote out at my request. It does not seem a very long
+    list, perhaps, but I think very few hard-working boys in New York
+    have read more than George in the same space of time. Here is the
+    list:
+
+    "Robinson Crusoe;" "Benjamin Franklin," 2 vols.; "Life of
+    Napoleon," 2 vols.; "Schoolmaster Stories;" "Hans Brinker;"
+    "Swiss Family Robinson;" "Dickens's Child's History of England;"
+    "Kenilworth;" "The Scottish Chiefs;" "The Boy Emigrants;" "Sparks'
+    Life of Washington;" "Glaisher's Aerial Navigation."
+
+    This letter, dear Jack, is sent, not by way of puffing George, but
+    as a sort of spur to studious boys and girls who may follow his
+    example, if somebody puts them up to it.--Yours truly,
+
+    SILAS GREEN.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"SEE HOW I HELP!"
+
+One of Jack's good friends, L.W.J. sends you this new fable:
+
+  "See how I help!" said a little mouse
+    To the reapers that reaped the grain,
+  As he nibbled away, by the door of his house,
+    With all of his might and main.
+
+  "See how I help!" he went on with his talk;
+    But they laid all the wide field low
+  Before he had finished a single stalk
+    Of the golden, glittering row.
+
+  As the mouse ran into his hole, he said:
+    "Indeed, I cannot deny,
+  Although an idea I had in my head,
+    Those fellows work better than I."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AMONG THE CRANBERRY BOGS.
+
+    New Jersey, 1877.
+
+    DEAR JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT: You would not think, from their names,
+    that cranberry bogs are pleasant places, but I enjoyed very much a
+    visit to one last year in the fall. Seen merely from the road,
+    a bog doesn't show very well, for the leaves are small, and the
+    vines are crowded in heavy masses; but, when you get near, the
+    white and red berries look pretty among the dark-green leaves.
+
+    The meadow is checquered with little canals by means of which the
+    whole surface is flooded in winter-time, so as to protect the
+    vines from the ill effects of frosts and thaws. In the spring, the
+    water is drawn off at low tide through the flood-gates.
+
+    When the cranberry-pickers are at work, they make a curious sight,
+    for there are people of all ages, odd dresses, and both sexes
+    among them, and often a tottering old man may be seen working
+    beside a small child. The little ones can be trusted to gather
+    cranberries, for the fruit is not easily crushed in handling.
+    Where cranberries grow thickly, one can almost fill one's hand at
+    a grasp.
+
+    The overseer's one-roomed shanty, where he cooks, eats and sleeps,
+    is on a knoll, and near it are the barrels in which the berries
+    are packed, after they have been sorted according to size and
+    quality.
+
+    Picking cranberries may be pleasant enough in fine weather, but it
+    must be miserable work on a cold, drizzly day.
+
+    I hope this short account will be news to some of your chicks, of
+    whom I am one, dear Jack; and I remain yours truly,
+
+    H. S.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+    MORE CRYSTALLIZED HORSES.
+
+    Piermont, N. H.
+
+    DEAR JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT: You ask in the March number of the St.
+    Nicholas if any of us have seen crystallized horses "with our
+    own eyes." We (Willie and I) have seen them many times; so has
+    everybody else who lives here; that is, we have seen something
+    very much like it, though we do not call it the same. When the
+    thermometer is from thirty to thirty-six degrees below zero,
+    horses and oxen are all covered with a white frost, so you cannot
+    tell a black horse or ox from a white one; nor can you tell young
+    men from old ones. Their whiskers, eyebrows and eyelashes, are all
+    perfectly white. I've often had my ears frost-bitten in going to
+    the school-house, which is only about as far as two blocks in a
+    city.
+
+    When we see these sights, Jack Frost cannot paint his delicate
+    pictures on the windows, for a thick white frost covers them all
+    over, or rubs them out.
+
+    We like the St. Nicholas very much, and even our little sister,
+    Mary, likes to look at the pictures, and she said that she wished
+    she could see Jack-in-the-Pulpit. We intend to introduce her next
+    summer to some of your relations that live by the big brook.
+    We live about one hundred miles north-west of Concord, in the
+    Connecticut valley, about half a mile from the Connecticut River.
+    I am thirteen years old.--Good-bye,
+
+    E. A. M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+A TURTLE CART.
+
+    DEAR JACK: Looking over the fence into my neighbor's yard last
+    summer, I saw what seemed to be a Liliputian load of hay in a tiny
+    cart, going along the path. Whatever power drew it, was hidden
+    from my sight; but the motion of the cart made me half expect to
+    see a yoke of tiny oxen turn the corner. In a few moments, a small
+    turtle appeared in sight, plodding leisurely along and drawing
+    behind him the cart I had seen, which was very small and light.
+
+    I was assured by my little neighbor that the turtle liked the
+    business very much; but, belonging to the S. P. C. A., I felt
+    obliged to know the facts. I found that the turtle had his liberty
+    nearly all the time, and a pond of water specially for his use;
+    and that, when the haying season should end, he would be turned
+    out to pasture in his native bog for the rest of the year.
+
+    It was a very comical sight, and, knowing my little friend's
+    tenderness of heart, I was sure the turtle would receive nothing
+    but kindness at his hands. The shell was not pierced, but the
+    queer trotter was attached to the cart by means of a harness made
+    of tape, allowing him free movement of the head, legs, and tail.
+    If any of your boys should decide to follow my little friend's
+    example, I trust that they will be as gentle as he in the
+    treatment of their turtles.--Yours truly,
+
+    E. F. L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ANOTHER TURTLE STORY.
+
+    DEAR JACK: One day, Rob and I (he's my brother) heard sister
+    Welthy screaming awfully. We were playing in the barn, but of
+    course we rushed out as hard as we could to save her life, if
+    possible. We did not know where she was, but the screams grew
+    louder as we neared the house.
+
+    At last we found her near the side-door--and what do you think was
+    the matter?
+
+    Why, she was screaming at a turtle!
+
+    [Illustration:] A CORNER IN TURTLES.
+
+    You don't know how funny it did seem. But we captured the dreadful
+    monster (?) and comforted her as well as we could.
+
+    Now, Jack, as you and the Little Schoolma'am can do everything,
+    wont you please get ST. NICHOLAS to show us a picture of this
+    scene? I do believe Sis would laugh as hard as any of us if she
+    could see it.--Yours affectionately,
+
+    NED G. P.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+HALF SWEET, HALF SOUR.
+
+
+The birds tell me that in a certain country grows an apple one half of
+which is sweet and the other half sour. I don't think I should like
+that sort of apple. The sweet side might do very well, as far as it
+went; but if you happened to bite on the other side,--ugh!
+
+I like things that are good all through, so that I can be sure how to
+take them. Don't you?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUR MUSIC PAGE
+
+
+CAN A LITTLE CHILD, LIKE ME?
+
+  A THANKSGIVING HYMN.
+
+    Words by MARY MAPES DODGE.
+    Music by WM. K. BASSFORD.
+
+[Music:
+
+Key: Bb Major (Bb, Eb); Time: 2/4; Range: F - D (F, G, A, Bb, C, D)
+
+    ['F', 'Bb', etc. indicate notes having a quarter-note value;
+     '.' extends a note; '__' includes the notes in a quarter-note
+     value; '0' indicates a rest.]
+
+                                     __
+{F Bb Bb Bb |Bb A A . |A  G  A G  |G .FF . |
+                               __
+{F Bb Bb Bb |Bb A A . |C  A  F CBb|A G F . |
+                __                    __
+{G G  C  Bb |Bb .AA . |Bb Bb D C  |Bb .AA . |
+        __
+{Bb . F .F|A . G . |
+        __
+{C  . G .G|Bb . A . |
+
+{Bb . D D |D . G C |Bb . A . |Bb . 0 . || ]
+
+
+
+1. Can a little child like me,
+   Thank the Father fittingly?
+   Yes, oh yes! be good and true.
+   Patient, kind in all you do;
+   Love the Lord and do your part,
+   Learn to say with all your heart:
+     Father, we thank Thee!
+     Father, we thank Thee!
+   Father in Heaven, we thank Thee!
+
+
+2. For the fruit upon the tree,
+   For the birds that sing of Thee,
+   For the earth in beauty drest,
+   Father, mother and the rest,
+   For thy precious, loving care,
+   For Thy bounty ev'rywhere,
+     Father, we thank Thee!
+     Father, we thank Thee!
+   Father in Heaven, we thank Thee!
+
+
+
+
+Music and words copyrighted, 1877, by Wm. K. Bassford
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+"THE BABY'S OPERA" AND WALTER CRANE.
+
+
+Of the many great artists of England, Walter Crane is accounted among
+the ablest and most gifted. As a painter on the canvas he stands high
+with critics; and in this country he is most widely known by his
+designs of colored picture-books for children. This is what one critic
+says of him in this regard: "Walter Crane has every charm. His design
+is rich, original, and full of discovery. His drawing is at once manly
+and sweet, and his color is as delightful as a garden of roses in
+June. And with these accomplishments he comes full-handed to the
+children,--and to their parents and lovers too!--and makes us all rich
+with a pleasure none of us ever knew as children, and never could have
+looked to know."
+
+After this, it is very discouraging to learn, from a letter of Mr.
+Crane's to the Editor of SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, that one may be deceived
+in buying Mr. Crane's books. This is particularly the case with "The
+Baby's Opera." So now we tell the readers of ST. NICHOLAS that every
+true copy of "The Baby's Opera" bears on its title-page the name
+of Messrs. George Routledge & Sons, the publishers, as well as Mr.
+Crane's, and that of the engraver and printer, Mr. Edmund Evans. To a
+purchaser, it would matter little that there were two editions of a
+work as long as the unauthorized one was exactly like the original;
+but Mr. Crane says that "the pirated edition grossly misrepresents
+his drawings, both in style and coloring; that the arrangement of the
+pages is different; and that the full-page colored plates are complete
+travesties, and very coarse ones, of the originals." And it does not
+at all improve the false copy that it is to be bought for less than
+the true one costs. It would be bad enough merely to deprive Mr. Crane
+of the profits of selling an exact imitation of his book, but it is
+far worse to put a _bad_ sham before the people as the work of a true
+artist. This not only lessens his gains, but also takes away from his
+good name, besides spoiling the taste of the youngsters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTER-BOX.
+
+    GIRLS AND BOYS: You will all be very sorry, we know, to learn that
+    the beginning of Miss Alcott's serial story, "Under the Lilacs,"
+    has been postponed to the December number; but in place of it, we
+    print this month the capital short story of "Mollie's Boyhood,"
+    which, we feel sure, will go far toward repaying you for the
+    disappointment. We must ask you to wait a month longer for the
+    opening chapters of the serial, and we mean to give you then a
+    much longer installment of it than could have been printed in the
+    present issue.
+
+    Meanwhile, you will find that the splendid article on Christmas
+    Gifts, which occupies twenty-two pages of this number, contains
+    novelties, hints, plates, and directions enough to keep your minds
+    so busy planning, and your hands so busily at work, during the
+    next few weeks, that the December ST. NICHOLAS will come before
+    you think of expecting it, and perhaps before you have half
+    finished your pretty gifts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    DEAR LITTLE SCHOOLMA'AM: Please will you tell me if it is warm
+    or cold, and if it is dark or light, in the places between the
+    stars?--Yours affectionately,
+
+    CONSTANCE DURIVAGE.
+
+The Little Schoolma'am respectfully hands over this question to other
+little schoolma'ams.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I make so many of the "Thistle-Puffs" spoken of
+    in the September number that I thought I would let you know how
+    I fix mine. After I get the thistles I cut off all the green
+    excepting a little at the bottom; then I pull out all the purple,
+    and leave them out in the sun till they are perfectly round white
+    balls. They are very pretty in hats. Please put me down as a
+    Bird-defender.--Your constant reader,
+
+    ALICE GERTRUDE BENEDICT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+    Exmouth, England, August 27th.
+
+    DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I have read the story of the "Blue-Coat Boy,"
+    and like it. I am in England, and almost every day see a Blue-Coat
+    boy pass our house. I think he looks like the picture in the ST.
+    NICHOLAS. I should not like to wear the long coat, because I
+    couldn't run in it; and I should think he would get a sunstroke,
+    without a hat, if he ever goes to the beach. Aunt Fanny is like my
+    mamma; she never asks for the right thing at the shops. I like the
+    ST. NICHOLAS, and wish another one would come. My aunty gave it to
+    me for a Christmas present for a whole year.--Your friend,
+
+    BENEDICT CROWELL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We are very glad to see the interest which our readers have taken in
+the subject of "School-luncheons." Many boys and girls have sent in
+letters, thanking us for the article in our September number, and
+filled with sage bits of experience. We should like to acknowledge
+these separately, and print some of them, but can do no more here than
+express our thanks to our young correspondents, one and all, for their
+kind and hearty words.
+
+It will interest them all to know, however, that the article has
+attracted attention, and aroused enthusiasm among the older people
+too,--their fathers and mothers, and teachers, and even their favorite
+writers. For here, among the many letters it has brought us, is one
+that is peculiarly welcome. Our readers will have little difficulty in
+guessing who the writer is:
+
+    August 26th.
+
+    DEAR LITTLE SCHOOLMA'AM: Being much interested, as well as amused,
+    by the luncheon article in ST. NICHOLAS for September, I should
+    like to add one more to the list of odd luncheons.
+
+    A pretty little dish of boiled rice, with a cake of molasses, or
+    preserve of some sort, in the middle. This, fitted into a basket,
+    and covered with a plate, goes safely, and, with the addition of a
+    napkin and two spoons, makes a simple meal for hungry children.
+
+    It may find favor in the eyes, or rather mouths, of the young
+    readers of ST. NICHOLAS, not only because it is good, but because
+    it was the favorite lunch once upon a time of two little girls who
+    are now pretty well known as "Meg and Jo March." It may be well
+    to add that these young persons never had dyspepsia in their
+    lives,--pie and pickles, cake and candy being unknown "goodies" to
+    them.
+
+    With best wishes for the success of this much-needed reform in
+    school-children's diet, I am, yours truly,
+
+    L.M.A.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MOONS OF MARS.
+
+Since Professor Proctor wrote the paper entitled "Mars, the Planet of
+War," published in this number, there has been made, in relation to
+its subject, a discovery that the scientists say will rank among the
+most brilliant achievements of astronomy.
+
+A great difference once thought to exist between Mars and the other
+planets was that he had no moons; but during the night of the 16th of
+August, Professor Hall, of the U.S. Naval Observatory at Washington,
+D.C., actually saw through his telescope that Mars has a moon. On the
+18th of August another was seen, smaller than the first and nearer to
+the planet. The larger satellite is believed to be not more than ten
+miles in diameter: it is less than 12,000 miles distant from its
+primary, and its period of revolution about it is 30 hours 14 minutes.
+The distance of the smaller moon is 3,300 miles, and its period 7
+hours 38 minutes. There is no doubt that these newly found celestial
+bodies are the smallest known.
+
+From measurements made by Professor Hall, it is found, with a near
+approach to certainty, that the mass of Mars is equal to 1-3,090,000th
+part of the mass of the sun. This result was arrived at after only ten
+minutes of calculation, and is believed to be more nearly accurate
+than that obtained by M. Le Verrier, the great French astronomer, from
+observations continued through a century and after several years
+of laborious calculation by a corps of computers. This wonderful
+difference in the expenditure of time and labor is due to the
+vigilance of Professor Hall and to the admirable qualities of his
+instrument, the great twenty-six inch refracting telescope made by
+Alvan Clark & Sons.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Oakland, Cal.
+
+    DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I do not wish to make you any trouble, but I
+    would like it very much if you could find room in some number
+    to give a good explanation of the great war in Europe. I can't
+    understand it in the newspaper, but I am pretty sure you can make
+    it plain and simple enough for all of your young readers.--Yours
+    truly,
+
+    NEB.
+
+The Turco-Russian war is partly a conflict of religions and partly one
+of politics. The Turks came into Europe as the religious emissaries
+of the Mohammedan religion. In all the provinces of Turkey in Europe
+which they conquered, the Christians of the Greek, Armenian and
+Catholic churches were the victims of a bitter persecution. The Czar
+of Russia is the head of the Greek church. He has made repeated wars
+in defense of the children of his faith. There have been many wars and
+long sieges which, like the present, were said to be only in defense
+of the faith of the Greek church--a crusade and a holy war,
+
+But if "Neb" will only look at the map of Russia, he will see, if he
+will study climate a little, that the vast empire of Russia has one
+thing lacking. It has no good outlet to the Atlantic Ocean, no power
+upon the seas. The Baltic Sea is closed half the year by ice. The
+great wheat trade of Russia concentrates at Odessa, on the Black Sea,
+and to get her grain to market she must pass through the Turkish lanes
+of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Russia is a prisoner as to
+access to the Mediterranean, and so to the Atlantic, and so to the
+world at large. If she is at war, she cannot float her fleets. If
+she is at peace, she cannot sell her grain without going roundabout
+through her neighbors' lots. Turkey stands the tollman at the
+turnpike-gate, controlling and usurping the highway of all nations.
+
+Maps are fascinating reading. "Neb" must not think that religious
+faith ever occasioned a war. Russia sincerely desires the protection
+of Greek Christians in Roumania and Bulgaria in Europe, and Armenia in
+Asia, but she wants also to send her ships free to the winds through
+from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Look at the map once more,
+"Neb," and see how much of a great country, fertile, strong, and
+industrious, is closed and shut against the outer world by the
+absolute Turkish control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Indianapolis, 1877.
+
+    DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I have taken every number of your splendid
+    magazine, and I will now try to do my share to entertain the
+    others.
+
+    My papa was a soldier in the great civil war, and I was born in
+    camp just after the close of the war, and am now nearly twelve
+    years old.
+
+    General Sherman, who made the great "march to the sea," wrote me a
+    letter, which is very much too good for one boy alone, so I send
+    it to you to publish, so that other children may have the benefit
+    of it too.--Your reader,
+
+    BERNIE M.
+
+  "Head-quarters Army of the United States,
+  "Washington, D.C., April 21, 1877.
+
+  "MASTER BERNIE M.
+  "Indianapolis:
+
+    "I have received the handsome photograph sent me, and recognize
+    the features of a fine young lad, who has before him every
+    opportunity to grow up a man of fine physique, with a mind
+    cultivated to meet whatever vicissitudes and opportunities the
+    future may present. Many boys in reading history have a feeling
+    of regret that their lives had not fallen in some former period,
+    replete with events of stirring interest, such as our
+    Revolutionary War, or that in Mexico, or even the Civil War,
+    wherein they feel that they might have played a conspicuous part.
+
+    "Don't you make this mistake. The next hundred years will present
+    more opportunities for distinction than the past, for our country
+    now contains only forty millions of people, which will probably
+    double every thirty-three years, so that if you live to three
+    score years and ten you will be a citizen of a republic of two
+    hundred millions of people. Now, all changes are attended by
+    conflict of mind or of arms, and you may rest easy that there will
+    be plenty for you to do, and plenty of honor and fame if you want
+    them. The true rule of life is to prepare in advance, so as to be
+    ready for the opportunity when it presents itself.
+
+    "I surely hope you will grow in strength and knowledge, and do a
+    full man's share in building up the future of this country, which
+    your fathers have prepared for you.
+
+  "Truly your friend,
+  "W.T. SHERMAN, General."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No doubt many of our readers have read some of the poems of Charles
+and Mary Lamb, and all who have will be interested in the following
+news concerning one of their books. In 1809 they published a little
+volume of "Poetry for Children," but only a few copies were printed,
+and these were soon out of print, so that the book has long been
+considered lost to the world. It was recently discovered, however,
+that the little book had been reprinted in Boston in 1812, and the
+only two copies of this edition known to exist in this country have
+lately come into possession of Messrs. Scribner, Armstrong & Co.,
+who intend to republish the volume this fall. The book contains many
+delightful little poems for boys and girls, prettily rhymed, and full
+of the quaint humor and conceits which mark the other writings of the
+authors. We should like to print several of them, but have only room
+for these:
+
+
+THE YOUNG LETTER-WRITER.
+
+_Dear Sir_, _Dear Madam_, or _Dear Friend_,
+    With ease are written at the top;
+  When these two happy words are penn'd,
+    A youthful writer oft will stop,
+
+  And bite his pen, and lift his eyes,
+    As if he thinks to find in air
+  The wish'd-for following words, or tries
+    To fix his thoughts by fixed stare.
+
+  But haply all in vain--the next
+    Two words may be so long before
+  They'll come, the writer, sore perplext,
+    Gives in despair the matter o'er;
+
+  And when maturer age he sees
+    With ready pen so swift inditing,
+  With envy he beholds the ease
+    Of long-accustom'd letter-writing.
+
+  Courage, young friend, the time may be,
+    When you attain maturer age,
+  Some young as you are now may see
+    You with like ease glide down a page.
+
+  Ev'n then, when you, to years a debtor,
+    In varied phrase your meanings wrap,
+  The welcom'st words in all your letter
+    May be those two kind words at top.
+
+
+CRUMBS TO THE BIRDS.
+
+  A bird appears a thoughtless thing,
+  He's ever living on the wing,
+  And keeps up such a carolling,
+  That little else to do but sing
+        A man would guess had he.
+
+  No doubt he has his little cares,
+  And very hard he often fares;
+  The which so patiently he bears,
+  That, listening to those cheerful airs,
+        Who knows but he may be
+
+  In want of his next meal of seeds?
+  I think for _that_ his sweet song pleads;
+  If so, his pretty art succeeds.
+  I'll scatter there among the weeds
+        All the small crumbs I see.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We very seldom take up a book only to break the tenth commandment;
+but Bayard Taylor's recent volume, "The Boys of Other Countries,"
+published by the Putnams, always has that effect upon us, for we wish
+that every one of the stories in it had been written for ST. NICHOLAS.
+The best thing we can say to our boys and girls, of a book so well
+described by its title, is that it contains "Jon of Iceland," which
+originally appeared in this magazine, and that each of the stories is
+as good in its way as "Jon" itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDDLE-BOX.
+
+
+DOUBLE ACROSTIC.
+
+The initials name a noted philosopher, and the finals an eminent
+astronomer.
+
+1. A narrow arm of the sea. 2. A beautiful flower. 3. A tree, usually
+growing in moist land. 4. A small marine animal. 5. A river in the
+United States. 6. A cone-bearing tree. 7. A tract of land, surrounded
+by water. 8. A metal.
+
+ISOLA.
+
+
+BROKEN WORDS.
+
+Find a word to fill the single blank, and divide it into smaller words
+(without transposing any letters) to fill the other blanks. Thus: Such
+_forages_ have gone on in that forest _for ages_.
+
+1. You must not think the whole were ---- because he ---- ----.
+2. One of this boy's minor ---- is his constant climbing ---- ----.
+3. When I gave him a pledge, the toper said with a ---- look, "You
+---- ---- ---- ----." 6. The alder was pictured against the ----,
+every branch, leaf, and ---- ---- standing out clearly.
+
+B.
+
+
+PICTORIAL NUMERICAL, REBUS.
+
+Find the sum expressed in each horizontal row, and add together the
+four numbers thus found, to form the complete sum expressed by the
+rebus.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+HOUR-GLASS PUZZLE.
+
+1. Unceasing. 2. Of little worth. 3. Habitation. 4. Ancient. 5. A
+vowel. 6. Devoured. 7. To muse. 8. A maker of arms. 9. Small flat
+fish. The centrals read downward name the act of unfolding.
+
+GEORGE CHINN.
+
+
+BEHEADINGS AND CURTAILINGS.
+
+1. Curtail a disgrace, and leave an imposture. Behead, and leave one
+of Noah's sons. Curtail, and leave an exclamation denoting surprise,
+joy, or grief. Behead again, and leave a vowel.
+
+2. Curtail a color, and leave a very small part. Behead, and leave
+a verb signifying "to strike." Behead again, and leave a pronoun.
+Curtail, and leave a simple, personal pronoun.
+
+3. Curtail a beautiful marine production, and leave a girl's name.
+Behead, and leave an ancient coin. Curtail, and leave a conjunction.
+Behead, and leave a consonant.
+
+4. Behead a part of the body, and leave a kind of tree. Curtail, and
+leave an article used in toilets. Behead, and leave a preposition.
+Curtail, and leave a pronoun.
+
+5. Curtail a sweet juice collected by bees, and leave a stone for
+sharpening razors. Behead, and leave a number. Curtail, and leave a
+preposition. Curtail, and leave an invocation.
+
+N.T.M.
+
+
+NUMERICAL ENIGMA.
+
+After handing a mug of 9, 2, 3 to the man who was at the 7, 4, 5 of
+the 1, 6, 8, Frank resumed reading the life of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
+9.
+
+ISOLA.
+
+
+EASY DIAMOND PUZZLE.
+
+1. In dwelling but not in house. 2. A Spanish poem. 3. A girl's name.
+4. A precious stone. 5. A term in English law. 6. An insect. 7. In
+bird but not in beast.
+
+O'B.
+
+
+CHARADE.
+
+  I.
+
+  Out on the hill-side, bleak and bare,
+  In winter's chill and summer's glare,
+  Down by the ocean's rugged shore,
+  Where the restless billows toss and roar,
+  Deep in gloomy caves and mines,
+  Where mists are foul and the sun ne'er shines,
+  Man studies my first and second well,
+  To learn what story they have to tell.
+
+  II.
+
+  Go to the depths of the fathomless sea,
+  Go where the dew-drop shines on the lea,
+  Go where are gathered in lands afar,
+  The treasures of earth for the rich bazaar,
+  Go to the crowded ball-room, where
+  All that is lovely, and young, and fair,
+  Charms the soul with beauty and grace,
+  And my third shall meet you face to face.
+
+  III.
+
+  When war's red hand was raised to slay,
+  And front to front great armies lay,
+  Then, oft in the silent midnight camp,
+  When naught was heard but the sentry's tramp,
+  As he patiently paced his lonely round,
+  My whole was sought, and yet when found,
+  It sent full many a warrior brave
+  To his last long rest, in a soldier's grave.
+
+E.J.A.
+
+
+PUZZLE BOUQUET.
+
+1. A cunning animal and a covering for the hand. 2. A voracious bird
+of prey and a useless plant. 3. A pipe and a flower. 4. A sweetmeat
+and a bunch of hair. 5. A noun meaning a quick breaking and a winged
+serpent. 6. A stone fence and the blossom of a plant. 7. Fragrant and
+a vegetable. 8. An entertainment of dancing and a boy's nickname.
+9. Vapor frozen in flakes, and to let fall. 10. To enter into the
+conjugal state, and a precious metal.
+
+GEORGE CHINN.
+
+
+TRANSPOSITIONS.
+
+Fill the first blank with a certain word, and then, by transposing
+the final letter to the place of the initial, form a word to fill the
+second blank. Example: In the _halls_ of her ancestors she _shall_
+tread without fear.
+
+1. There is not on ---- a person of larger ----. 2. On the banks of
+the ---- the traveler ---- alone. 3. As the thought of her kindness
+---- up in my heart, it causes it to ---- with gratitude. 4. It was
+with no ---- intent that ---- destroyed his first will. 5. I noticed
+on the ---- of the pond quantities of ----.
+
+B.
+
+
+LETTER ANAGRAMS.
+
+Write a line in each case describing the position of the letters
+toward each other, and transpose the letters used in this description
+to make a word which will answer the definition given. Thus:
+
+  R. } A part of the day. _Ans_. R. on M. (transposed) Morn.
+  M. }
+
+  1. { L. }  A kind of bird.
+     { P. }
+  2. S. R.   Parts of a house.
+  3. S. T.   A piece of furniture.
+  4. { L. }  To pillage.
+     { P. }
+  5. { Et. } Not rhythmical.
+     { Ic. }
+
+H.H.D.
+
+
+HIDDEN DRESS GOODS.
+
+1. Seizing the rascal I compelled him to give up the money. 2. Aunt
+Nell is fond of singing Hamburg. 3. Belle Prescott only failed once
+last year. 4. Eveline never learned to control herself. 5. Where is
+Towser, Gertie? 6. I met Homer in Oregon. 7. Where did you find such a
+queer fossil, Kenneth? 8. Tom Thumb is a tiny specimen of humanity. 9.
+Did Erasmus Lincoln lose all his property by the fire?
+
+
+
+
+PICTORIAL, PROVERB-ACROSTIC.
+
+Arrange the words represented by the numbered pictures in their order.
+The initials and finals (reading down the former and continuing
+down the latter) form a familiar proverb, the sentiment of which is
+suggested by the central picture.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN OCTOBER NUMBER.
+
+  DOUBLE DIAMOND PUZZLE.--M
+                        G A S
+                      M A P L E
+                        S L Y
+                          E
+                          S
+                        N U T
+                      S U G A R
+                        T A R
+                          R
+
+SQUARE-WORD.--Midas, Ivory, Donor, Arose, Syten.
+CHARADE.--Dilapidated. NUMERICAL ENIGMA.--Handsome.
+DOUBLE ACROSTIC--Centennial Exposition.--ClovE, EsseX,
+NaP, TallyhO, EpiglottiS, NerolI, NahanT, IttaI, ArnO,
+LemoN.
+
+RIDDLE.--Linest, Inlets, Enlist, Tinsel, Silent, Listen.
+
+DIAGONAL PUZZLE.--Grand, Prate.
+
+                     G L A R E
+                     C R A T E
+                     P L A T E
+                     C R A N E
+                     P L A I D
+
+COMBINATION PUZZLE.--P--rive--T
+                     E--pod--E
+                     A--lid--A
+                     C--ape--S
+                     E--lop--E
+
+EASY DIAMOND PUZZLE.--I, Asa, Isola, Ale, A.
+
+PUZZLE.--Gondola.
+
+ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN SEPTEMBER NUMBER were received previous to
+September 18, from--Emma Elliott, Brainerd P. Emery, Allie Bertram,
+Sarah D. Oakley, "Camille and Leonie," "Tip," "Yankee," J.W. Myers,
+George G. Champlin, Alice M. Mason, Maria Peckham, Florence E. Hyde,
+Minnie Warner, B. O'Hara, "Green Mountain Boy," John Hinkley, Florence
+Wilcox, "Bessie and Sue," Julia Kirene Ladd, Grace Austin Smith,
+Arthur C. Smith, George Herbert White, William A. Crocker, Jr,
+Georgiana Mead, A.G.D., James Iredell, Lizzie and Anna, Agnes E.
+Kennedy, Anna E. Mathewson, C.S. Riche, Edith McKeever, Nessie E.
+Stevens, Carrie Lawson, Charles G. Todd, Ella and Kittie Blanke, W.
+Creighton Spencer, W. Irving Spencer, Edith Heard, M.W.C., Mary
+C. Warren, Lena and Annie, Annie Streckewald, Hattie Peck, Jennie
+Passmore, George J. Fiske.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS VOLUME V.
+
+[Transcriber's note:
+Some entries were missing from this index. For completeness they have
+been added and marked with an asterisk.
+Some parts of the Table of Contents were illegible, and a few missing
+page numbers have been replaced with '?'s.]
+
+  ALCOTT, Miss. (Illustrated from photograph)      _F. B. S._         129
+  ALPHABET FRANÇAIS, Un. (Illustrated)      _Laura Caxton_            816
+  ALWAYS BEHINDHAND. Talk with Girls      _M. D. K._                  434
+  ANNIE AND THE BALLS. (Illustrated by the Author)      _H. E. H._    205
+  APRIL'S SUNBEAM. Verses      _Joy Allison_                          398
+  ARMS OF GREAT BRITAIN, The. (Illustrated by Alfred Kappes)
+          _Susan Archer Weiss_                                        190
+  ATLANTIC CABLE, Secrets of the. (Illustrated by A.C. Warren)
+          _William  H. Rideing_                                       327
+  AX OF RANIER, The. (Illustrated by E.B. Bensell)
+           _Thomas Dunn English_                                      709
+  "BABY'S OPERA" AND WALTER CRANE, The.                                69
+  BARBECUE, The. (Illustrated by Walter Shirlaw)
+          _Sarah Winter Kellogg_                                      602
+  BELINDA BLONDE. Verses.      _Laura E. Richards_                    272
+  BELL-RINGERS, The Stickleback. (Illustrated by James C. Beard)
+          _C.F. Holder_                                                31
+  BIRDS AND THEIR FAMILIES. (Illustrated)      _Professor W. K. Brooks_
+                                                                      606
+  BIRDS FLY, How. (Illustrated)      _Professor W. K. Brooks_         734
+  BOGGS'S PHOTOGRAPH.  Picture.                                        21
+  BORN IN PRISON. (Illustrated by Edwin L. Sheppard)
+          _Julia P. Ballard_                                          730
+  BOY IN THE Box, The. (Illustrated by C. S. Reinhart)
+           _Helen C. Barnard_                                         356
+  BOY'S EXPERIENCE WITH TAR MARBLES, A. (Illustrated by Jessie Curtis)
+          _C.S.N._                                                    617
+  BOY WHO JUMPED ON TRAINS, The. Poem. (Illustrated by L. Hopkins)
+          _Mary Hartwell_                                             132
+  BRUNO'S REVENGE (Illustrated)      _{Author of "Alice in Wonderland"_
+                                                                      18?
+  BUTTERFLY-CHASE, The. Poem.     _Ellis Gray_                        548
+  BUTTS, A Chapter of Five Pictures.                                   77
+  BY THE SAD SEA WAVES.   Picture drawn by      "_Sphinx_"            716
+  CAN A LITTLE CHILD LIKE ME? (Thanksgiving Hymn)    _Mary Mapes Dodge_
+                                                                       68
+  CANARY THAT TALKED TOO MUCH, The.      _Margaret Eytinge_           331
+  CARLYLE, Thomas. (Crumbs from Older Reading, III.)   _Julia E. Sargent_
+                                                                      565
+  CAROL, The Minstrel's. A Christmas Colloquy.      _I. V. Blake_     153
+  CHARADES, Four. Verses.      _C.P. Cranch_                          406
+  CHARCOAL-BURNERS' FIRE, The. (Illustrated by J. L. Dickinson)
+           _David Ker_                                                490
+  CHASED BY WOLVES. _George Dudley Lawson_                              3
+  CHILD-QUEEN, A. (Illustrated by Alfred Fredericks)
+           _Cecilia Cleveland_                                          1
+  CHRISTMAS CARD.                                                      91
+  CHRISTMAS-GIFTS, A Budget of Home-Made. (Illustrated)                42
+  CHURNING. Poem. (Illustrated by J. E. Kelly)     _Sara Keables Hunt_
+                                                                      676
+  COCK AND THE SUN, The. Jingle. (Illustrated by F. S. Church)
+          _J. P. B_                                                   359
+  COMMON-SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD. Verses. (Illustrated by Jessie Curtis)
+           _Margaret Vandegrift_                                      326
+  COOLEST MAN IN RUSSIA, The. (Illustrated by J. E. Kelly)   _David Ker_
+                                                                      229
+  CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, The. Poem. (Illustrated)   _Clara Doty Bates_
+                                                                       33
+  CRIP'S GARRET-DAY.      _Sarah J. Prichard_                         339
+  CROW THAT THE CROW CROWED, The.      _S. Conant Foster_             694
+  CRUMBS FROM OLDER READING    _Julia E. Sargent_
+  I. EMERSON                                                          262
+  II. IRVING                                                          354
+  III. CARLYLE                                                        565
+  DAB KINZER: A Story of a Growing Boy. (Illustrated by H. F. Farney,
+     Geo. Inness, Jr., Sol. Eytinge and H. P. Smith)
+          _William O. Stoddard_                   553, 620, 679, 744, 798
+  DEBBY'S CHRISTMAS. (Illustrated by Jessie Curtis)  _Ella A. Drinkwater_
+                                                                      223
+  DICK HARDIN AWAY AT SCHOOL.    _Lucy J. Rider_                      386
+  DIGGER-WASPS AT HOME, The. (Illustrated by R. Riordan)   _E. A. E._
+                                                                      667
+  DOG-SHOW, A Visit to a London. (Illustrated by J. F. Runge)
+          _Laura Sked Pomeroy_                                        420
+  *DOMESTIC TRAGEDY, A. In Two Parts. Illustration.                    31
+  DRIFTED INTO PORT. (Illustrated by Sol. Eytinge and Thomas Moran).
+          _Edwin Hodder_                                    342, 425, 494
+  EASTER EGGS. Poem.    _Clara W. Raymond_                            419
+  EASTER IN GERMANY. (Illustrated)    _F.E. Corne_                    381
+  EASTER LILIES.  Picture                                             399
+  EMERGENCY MISTRESS, The. (Illustrated)    _Frank R. Stockton_       669
+  EMERSON, RALPH WALDO. (Crumbs from Older Reading, I.)
+          _Julia E. Sargent_                                          262
+  EXCITING RIDE An. Picture drawn by    _Miss S. A. Rankin_           652
+  FAIR EXCHANGE, A. Poem.    _M. F. Butts_                            820
+  FATHER CHIRP.  Verses. (Illustrated by L. Hopkins)   _S. C. Stone_  476
+  FERN-SEED. Poem.    _Celia Thaxter_                                 705
+  FISHING-BIRDS OF FLORIDA, Some. (Illustrated)    _Mrs. Mary Treat_  282
+  FORTY, Less One. Poem. (Illustrated by Sol. Eytinge)
+          _James Richardson_                                          579
+  "FOUR LITTLE HOUSES BLUE AND ROUND." Jingle    _M. F. B._           465
+  FOX, THE MONKEY, AND THE PIG, The.  (Illustrated by the Author)
+           _Howard Pyle_                                              743
+  FOX AND THE TURKEYS, The. (Illustrated from Gustave Doré)
+          _Susan Coolidge_                                            756
+  FULL STOP, A.  Silhouette picture drawn by    _L. Hopkins_          387
+  GERTY. (Illustrated by Frederick Dielman)    _Margaret W. Hamilton_
+                                                                      690
+  GET UP! GOT DOWN! Silhouettes drawn by    _L. Hopkins_              461
+  GIFTS FOR ST. NICHOLAS. Poem.    _Emma E. Brewster_                 294
+  GIRL WHO SAVED THE GENERAL, The. (Illustrated by H. F. Farney)
+          _Charles H. Woodman_                                        577
+  GUEST, An Agreeable    _Susan A. Brown_                             180
+  HANSA, The Little Lapp Maiden. (Illustrated)    _Kate B. Horton_    305
+  HAPPY FIELDS OF SUMMER. Poem. (Illustrated)    _Lucy Larcom_        666
+  "HAPPY LITTLE FROGGY." Poem. (Illustrated by F. S. Church)
+          _E. Müller_                                                 789
+  HORSE AT SEA, A. (Illustrated by J.E. Kelly)    _C. B._             367
+  HORSES OF VENICE, The Famous. (Illustrated)    _Mary Lloyd_          89
+  HOW BIRDS FLY. (Illustrated)    _Professor W.K. Brooks_             734
+  HOW HE CAUGHT HIM. Six Pictures.                                    740
+  HOW I WEIGHED THE THANKSGIVING TURKEY.    _G. M. Shaw_               34
+  HOW KITTY GOT HER NEW HAT. (Illustrated by J. E. Kelly) _E. P. W._  182
+  HOW KITTY WAS LOST IN A TURKISH BAZAAR. (Illustrated by Howard Pyle)
+           _Sara Keables Hunt_                                        377
+  HOW LILY-TOES WAS CAUGHT IN A SHOWER. (Illustrated by Jessie Curtis)
+           _Emily H. Leland_                                          731
+  HOW MANDY WENT ROWING WITH THE CAP'N. (Illustrated by the Author)
+          _Mary Hallock Foote_                                        449
+  HOW MATCHES ARE MADE. (Illustrated by A.C. Warren)    _F. H. C_     315
+  HOW SIR WILLIAM PHIPS FOUND THE TREASURE IN THE SEA. (Illustrated
+  by J. O. Davidson)    _S. G. W. Benjamin_                           278
+  HOW TEDDY CUT THE PIE. Verses. (Illustrated)    _Rossiter Johnson_  821
+  HOW THE PONY WAS TAKEN. (Illustrated)    _C. W._                    174
+  HOW THE STONE-AGE CHILDREN PLAYED. (Illustrated)
+          _Charles C. Abbott_                                         413
+  HOW THE WEATHER IS FORETOLD. (Illustrated by W.H. Gibson)
+          _James H. Flint_                                            581
+  HOW TO KEEP A JOURNAL    _W. S. Jerome_                             789
+  HOW TO MAKE A TELEPHONE. (Illustrated)    _M. F._                   549
+  HOW TO TRAVEL    _Susan Anna Brown_                                 650
+  HOW WILLY WOLLY WENT A-FISHING. Verses. (Illustrated by Howard Pyle)
+          _S.C. Stone_                                                562
+  HUCKLEBERRY.  (Illustrated)    _Frank R. Stockton_                  274
+  ICE-BOAT, How to make an. (Diagrams by the Author)
+         _J. H. Hubbard_                                              220
+  "I'M A LITTLE STORY." Poem. (Illustrated by Sol. Eytinge)
+         _Margaret Eytinge_                                           380
+  IRVING, WASHINGTON. (Crumbs from Older Reading, III.)
+         _Julia E. Sargent_                                           354
+  ITALIAN FLOWER-MERCHANT, The Little. Picture drawn by
+          _Miss E. M. S. Scannell_                                    475
+  JACK'S CHRISTMAS. (Illustrated by Jennie Brownscombe)
+          _Emma K. Parrish_                                           124
+  JAPANESE "HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT," The. Picture drawn by
+          _William McDougal_                                          219
+  JINGLES.                                      6, 41, 359, 404, 412, 465
+  JOHN AND HIS VELOCIPEDE. Sketches drawn by    _B. D._               650
+  JOHNNY. (Illustrated by R. Sayre)    _Sargent Flint_                361
+  JOHNNY'S LOST BALL    _Lloyd Wyman_                                 500
+  JUNO'S WONDERFUL TROUBLES. (Illustrated by F. S. Church) _E. Müller_
+                                                                      312
+  KEPT IN. Picture drawn by    _M. Woolf_                             424
+  KING AND THE HARD BREAD, The. (Illustrated)    _J. L._              503
+  KING AND THE THREE TRAVELERS, The. (Illustrated by John Lafarge)
+          _Arlo Bates_                                                207
+  KING CHEESE. Poem. Versified from story by Maud Christiani.
+     (Illustrated by L. Hopkins)    _J. T. Trowbridge_                641
+  LADY-BIRD, Fly away Home. Picture drawn by    _M. Woolf_            455
+  *LARGEST VOLCANO IN THE WORLD, The. (Illustrated.)  _Sarah Coan_     13
+  LEFT OUT. Verse.    _A. G. W._                                      128
+  LETTER TO AMERICAN BOYS, A.    _George MacDonald_                   202
+  LINNET'S FEE, The. Poem.    _Mrs. Annie A. Preston_                 798
+  LION-KILLER, The. (Illustrated by Alfred Kappes). From the French.
+           _Mary Wager Fisher_                                         78
+  LITTLE BEAR. Poem. (Illustrated by Addie Ledyard)
+          _Samuel W. Duffield_                                        726
+  "LITTLE BO-PEEP, SHE WENT TO SLEEP." Picture drawn by
+          _Miss Jessie McDermot_                                      268
+  LITTLE RED CANAL-BOAT, The. (Illustrated)    _M. A. Edwards_        541
+  *LITTLE TWEET. Illustrated.                                          64
+  LIVING SILVER    _Mary H. Seymour_                                  350
+  LONDON CHAIR-MENDER. (Illustrated)    _Alexander Wainwright_        821
+  LONDON CHICK-WEED MAN, The. (Illustrated)   _Alexander Wainwright_  361
+  LONDON DUST-MAN, The. (Illustrated)    _Alexander Wainwright_       272
+  LONDON MILK-WOMAN, The. (Illustrated)    _Alexander Wainwright_     694
+  LONG JOURNEY, A. Verses.    _Josephine Pollard_                     540
+  LORD MAYOR OF LONDON'S SHOW, The. (Illustrated)   _Jennie A. Owen_   22
+  MACKEREL-FISHING. (Illustrated by H. P. Smith)    _Robert Arnold_   706
+  MAGICIAN AND HIS BEE, The. (Illustrated)    _P. F._                 143
+  MAKING IT SKIP. Verse. (Illustrated by Thomas Moran)    _M. M. D._   15
+  MAKING READY FOR A CRUISE. Picture.                                 561
+  MAN WHO DIDN'T KNOW WHEN TO STOP, The. Verse.    _M. M. D._         415
+  MARBLES, Some In-door Games of. (Illustrated)    _L. D. Snook_      295
+  MARS, THE PLANET OF WAR. (Illustrated by the Author)
+          _Richard A. Proctor_                                         26
+  MARSHAL DE SAXE AND THE DUTCH BLACKSMITH.    _David Ker_            436
+  MASTER MONTEZUMA. (Illustrated)    _C. C. Haskins_                  535
+  MATCHES ARE MADE, How. (Illustrated by A. C. Warren)    _F. H. C._  315
+  MAY-DAY, The Story of. (Illustrated by Howard Pyle)  _Olive Thorne_
+                                                                      486
+  MEADOW TALK. Verse. (Illustrated by Jessie Curtis)
+          _Caroline Leslie_                                           617
+  MERRY MIKE. Poem. (Illustrated by Albert Shults)  _Fleta Forrester_
+                                                                      176
+  MERRY RAIN. Poem.    _Fleta Forrester_                              425
+  MOCKING-BIRD AND THE DONKEY, The. Poem.   _William Cullen Bryant_    88
+  MODERN WILLIAM TELL, A. Picture drawn by   _L. Hopkins_             207
+  MOLLIE'S BOYHOOD. (Illustrated by George White)   _Sarah E. Chester_  7
+  MONEY is MADE, Where. (Illustrated by Fred. B. Schell)    _M. W._   477
+  MONUMENT WITH A STORY, A.    _Fannie Roper Feudge_                  364
+  MOON, FROM A FROG'S POINT OF VIEW, The. (Illustrated by H.L. Stephens)
+          _Fleta Forrester_                                           677
+  *MOONS OF MARS, The.                                                 69
+  MOUSIE'S ADVENTURES FROM GARRET TO CELLAR. Picture drawn by
+          "_Sphinx_"                                                  405
+  MUSIC ON ALL FOURS. Poem. (Illustrated by Sol. Eytinge)
+          _Josephine Pollard_                                         200
+  MUSTANG, The Wild. (Illustrated)    _Charles Barnard_               396
+  MY GIRL. Poem.    _John S. Adams_                                    25
+  MY ST. GEORGE. (Illustrated by Alfred Kappes)  _Alice Maude Eddy_   726
+  NANCY CHIME. Poem. (Illustrated)    _S. Smith_                      739
+  NAN'S PEACE-OFFERING. (Illustrated by C. S. Reinhart)
+          _Kate W. Hamilton_                                          284
+  NEWS-CARRIER, The. Poem. (Illustrated by Jessie Curtis)
+          _Catharine S. Boyd_                                         349
+  NEW-YEAR CARD.                                                      182
+  NIGHT WITH A BEAR, A. (Illustrated by W. L. Sheppard)
+          _Jane G. Austin_                                            332
+  NIMBLE JIM AND THE MAGIC MELON. (Illustrated by E. B. Bensell)
+         _J.A. Judson_                                                 34
+  NO SCHOOL TO-DAY. Picture. Drawn by F. Opper                        146
+  NOW, OR THEN? Talk with Girls.    _Gail Hamilton_                   123
+  "OH, I'M MY MAMMA'S LADY-GIRL." Verse. (Illustrated by Addie Ledyard)
+          _M. M. D._                                                   41
+  OLD MAN AND THE NERVOUS COW, The. (Illustrated by E.B. Bensell)
+           _R. E._                                                    264
+  OLD NICOLAI. (Illustrated)    _Paul Fort_                           399
+  OLD SOUP.  (Illustrated by J. E. Kelly)    _Mrs. E. W. Latimer_     463
+  "ONE DAY AN ANT WENT TO VISIT HIS NEIGHBOR." Jingle.    _M. F. B._  404
+  ONE SATURDAY. (Illustrated by Sol. Eytinge)  _Sarah Winter Kellogg_
+                                                                      514
+  ONLY A DOLL. Poem.    _Sarah O. Jewell_                             552
+  ON THE ICE. Picture drawn by    _L. Hopkins_                        300
+  "OPEN THE SNOWY LITTLE BED." Jingle.    _M. F. B._                  412
+  OUT FISHING. Picture drawn by    _J. Hopkins_                       759
+  PAINTER'S SCARE-CROW, The. (Illustrated by Sol. Eytinge)
+          _C.P. Cranch_                                               714
+  PARISIAN CHILDREN.   (Illustrated by K. Brown)    _Henry Bacon_     456
+  PARLOR BALL. (Illustrated by the author)    _L. Hopkins_            492
+  PARLOR MAGIC. (Illustrated)    _Professor Leo H. Grindon_           811
+  PERSEUS, The Story of.    _Mary A. Robinson_                        630
+  PETERKINS ARE OBLIGED TO MOVE, The.    _Lucretia P. Hale_           458
+  PETERKINS' CHARADES, The.    _Lucretia P. Hale_                      91
+  PETER PIPER'S PICKLES, Mrs. (Illustrated by F. S. Church)
+          _E. Müller_                                                 519
+  POEMS BY TWO LITTLE AMERICAN GIRLS.    _Elaine and Dora Goodale_    109
+  POLLY: A Before-Christmas Story. (Illustrated)    _Hope Ledyard_     19
+  PORPOISES, About the. (Illustrated by J. O. Davidson)    _J. D._    142
+  POTTERY, A Chat about. (Illustrated from photographs)
+           _Edwin C. Taylor_                                          104
+  PRIMKINS' SURPRISE, Mrs.  (Illustrated by Sol. Eytinge)
+          _Olive Thorne_                                              794
+  PRINCE CUCURBITA.  (Illustrated by E. M. Richards)
+          _Edith A. Edwards_                                          792
+  PROFESSOR, The.    _Clarence Cook_                                  402
+  PUCK PARKER.  (Illustrated by J. Wells Champney)
+          _Lizzie W. Champney_                                        416
+  QUICKSILVER.    _Mary H. Seymour_                                   359
+  RAID OF THE CAMANCHES, The.    _The Author of "We Boys"_            267
+  RAIN. Poem.    _Edgar Fawcett_                                      613
+  RAVENS AND THE ANGELS, The. (Illustrated by Sol. Eytinge)
+          _Author of "The Schonberg-Cotta Family"_               169, 242
+  RIDDLE, A Double. Verses.    _J.G. Holland_                          94
+  RODS FOR FIVE. (Illustrated)    _Sarah Winter Kellogg_              645
+  ROWING AGAINST TIDE.    _Theodore Winthrop_                          75
+  SAM'S BIRTHDAY. (Ilustrated by Sol. Eytinge)    _Irwin Russell_     482
+  SATURDAY AFTERNOON.  Picture drawn by    _Miss S. W. Smith_         725
+  SCRUBBY'S BEAUTIFUL TREE. (Illustrated by F. A. Chapman and Sol.
+  Eytinge)          _J. C. Purdy_                                     147
+  SEEING HIMSELF AS OTHERS SEE HIM. Picture drawn by
+          _J. Wells Champney_                                         431
+  SHEPHERD-BOY, The. Poem.    _Emily S. Oakey_                        241
+  SILLY GOOSE, The. Poem. (Illustrated by F. S. Church)
+          _E.A. Smuller_                                              453
+  SIMPLE SIMON. Picture, drawn by    _E.B. Bensell_                   791
+  SING-A-SING. Poem. (Illustrated by Alfred Kappes)  _S. C. Stone_    122
+  SING-AWAY BIRD, The. Poem.    _Lucy Larcom_                         462
+  SINGING PINS. (Illustrated by A. C. Warren)  _Harlan H. Ballard_    14?
+  SKATING. Poem.    _Theodore Winthrop_                               23?
+  SNEEZE DODSON'S FIRST INDEPENDENCE DAY. (Illustrated by Sol. Eytinge)
+          _Mrs. M. H. W. Jaquith_                                     61?
+  SOLIMIN: A Ship of the Desert. (Illustrated)    _Susan Coolidge_    26?
+  SONG OF SPRING, A.    _Caroline A. Mason_                           48?
+  SOMETHING IN THE OLD CLOTHES LINE. (Illustrated)    _Paul Fort_     21?
+  *STORY THAT WOULDN'T BE TOLD, The. (Illustrated.) _Louise Stockton_  18
+  *WILLOW WAND, The. Poem. Illustrated.  _A. E. W._                    16
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and
+Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. NICHOLAS MAGAZINE ***
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