A RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS.
Take six little girls about ten years old; add three or four nice little boys, and mix them with the girls, taking care not to stir them up too much. Then take—
But perhaps you will understand it better if I tell you just how we did it.
This is how it began: I have a little friend named Annie, who comes to see me every Saturday. She tells me "all about everything," and we have very good times together. One day she told me a story she had read in Harper's Young People about a poor little girl who finds a doll in an ash barrel.
"I think it is a very nice story," said Annie, "and that lady says that we could all make pretty things for sick children if we wanted to. Oh dear! I wish I had lots and lots of money!"
"It does not always take much money to make pretty things," I said. "You can make six elephants for thirty cents."
"True elephants?" asked Annie, opening her blue eyes so wide that I was afraid of an accident.
"No," I said, "but very tame elephants, made of gray flannel, and with red saddle-cloths."
"Oh, I don't think they are pretty," she said.
Then I told her how I had once bought two elephants, a big one and a small one, and sent them to a sick little girl. And how, when I had gone to see her, she had said to me: "Them ollifans is too nice for anything, and they don't never bite me at all. The big ollifan is the mother, and she keeps me company; and the little one comes and puts his big nose under my chin to get warm. Oh, I just love them!"
After that I bought one more elephant, and killed him, and used his skin for a pattern, and made several other elephants, to be loved by little children.
"I know what I will do," said Annie; "I will make some kittens. Won't that be nice?"
I thought it might be very nice, if we could get a good pattern. And as she wanted to begin immediately, we looked in a box where I keep all sorts of remnants, and found a piece of red plush, which Annie declared "would be just the loveliest thing for a kitten."
As I had never seen a red kitten, I was a little doubtful; but since that time I have seen kittens red and pink and blue, and the children to whom they are given always fall in love with them at first sight.
But our kittens were not made in one day. We found it so difficult to cut a pattern that would "look like anything" that we had to send to a special artist in the city; and during the winter we spent a whole dollar for patterns of animals.
How we became a club happened in this way:
Annie was so delighted with the idea of making pretty things for other children that she spoke of it to several little girls, who said that they would like to make pretty things too. Then they came to see me, and after talking it over we decided to go to work at once, and to call ourselves "a club." We were to meet every Saturday, in my sitting-room, and I was to be president, secretary, treasurer, cutter, and general manager.
At first it was to be strictly a "ladies' club"; but Louis, Annie's little brother, said he "wanted to be a club too," and as he is a very nice boy, we took him in, and also two other boys who applied for admission. There are ten of us—six girls, three boys, and myself.
Now I will tell you what we do, and how we do it.
The club meets a little before eleven o'clock every Saturday morning. The members bring their lunches, and all the pennies, toys, pieces, picture-books, and new "good ideas" they have been able to collect during the week. We sit around a table in a bright sunny room, with a large bay-window filled with green plants. On each side of the window are book-cases, and behind the glass doors of one of these you can see beautiful dolls, kittens, dogs, elephants, and a variety of other works of art. These are our "pretty things," which were, most truly, "born to be admired." A deep locked drawer under the shelves contains the raw material from which our wonders are made, and in the southeast corner of it is safely hidden the bank in which our precious pennies are kept.
During the first half hour we work, make plans, and exchange ideas. Then comes the request, "Please tell us a story; tell us about when you were a little girl." And as I am a very obedient "manager," I do as I am told.
At half past twelve we go into the dining-room, where we have "a picnic in the woods." The big table represents a shady grove, the sideboard is a hill, a large ivy at one end of the room is a summer-house, and we sit on rocks and fallen trees. This gives us a little change of air, and, as everybody knows, change of air gives people a good appetite.
When our picnic is over, we go to work again, and as we are all in pretty high spirits, we are very funny and witty, if not very wise. We relate anecdotes, recite short "pieces," sing, guess riddles and conundrums, we play "our minister's cat," and other games, and, as Louis says, "we have jolly old times.".
Speaking of picnics reminds me of something that happened at our last meeting. The Saturday before, I had told my little friends about the French apple-tarts my grandmother used to make for me—"little pies," she called them. And as every member of the club wanted to know how they were made, I wrote nine short recipes, so that they would be sure to remember.
This gave me a good idea for "a secret."
When we went to the dining-room last Saturday, the children were surprised to find the table covered with a red cloth which was evidently hiding something.
Then I made a little speech: "We will not have a picnic to-day, but we will eat our lunch quietly on the top of our shady grove. Guess what I have for you."
"And guess what we have for you," answered nine little voices.
Instead of guessing, I lifted the cloth, while they opened their lunch-baskets. Then we all stared, and said, "Oh!"—a great big Oh!—for in a moment the table was all covered with apple-tarts, and in the middle of the tarts there was a large round apple-pie. You see, I had made the big pie for the children to eat, and several tarts to be taken home to their mothers; and they had all tried my recipe, and made tarts for the children, and some for me. So we had fifty-six tarts and the pie!
It would take too long to tell you everything about our little club; but so far it has been a success; and we have learned by experience how much pleasure can be given to others with a little trouble, and a great deal of goodwill.
As we shall not be able to do much sewing when the warm weather comes, we intend to do garden-work, and send plants and flowers to our little friends who have no gardens of their own. We are already making delightful plans for flower beds, hanging baskets, and window boxes, filled with nasturtiums, sweet-peas, and mignonette. And our plans look so beautiful on paper that I can almost smell the flowers.
And now do you not think that we were right to call our club the "Happy Club"?
A LETTER FROM A LAND TURTLE.
BY ALLAN FORMAN.
My young master said that he was going to write a letter to Young People about me, but Charley Bates just came in and asked him to go out and play, and I guess that he has forgotten all about it. My master don't know as much about me as I do myself, anyhow, and I have never told him anything, so I don't see how he could write. He has left me on his table, and I just looked over the edge, and it is 'most a mile high, I guess, so I won't try to get down. I'll take his pen and tell you some things about my life and adventures. You need not think that because I am only a turtle I have had no adventures.
I was born of an adventurous family. My great-grandfather was dropped by an eagle on the head of Æschylus, the Grecian poet, the eagle having mistaken the poet's bald head for a stone, and it is from my great-grandfather, who, as you see, was so closely brought into contact with one of the most learned heads of ancient Greece, I inherit my talent for literature. Another relation of mine, an uncle on my mother's side, was the principal in the great walking match which is so graphically described by Æsop. But enough of my family. I promised to tell you something about my life. I am so sleepy that I don't know as I can make it very interesting.
You see, we turtles stay awake all summer, and sleep all winter; we are hibernating animals, my master says. At first I thought that he meant that we were of Irish extraction, and as I am very proud of my Greek descent, the next time I saw the dictionary on the floor I found the word. If you don't know what it means, you had better look it out too: you will remember it better than if I told you.
My master read about a cousin of mine who lived for a time with a Reverend Mr. Wood, and ate bread and milk, and climbed on the footstool, and did all sorts of tricks; so he came and dug me out of the nice hole where I was asleep for the winter, brought me into his room, and before I was fairly awake thrust my head into a saucer of milk. Of course I would not eat. Then he tried to make me climb; but I was so bewildered that I drew in my head and shut up my shell. My master went out, saying, "Mr. Wood is a humbug, anyway." I waited till all was quiet, then I took a survey of the room. I began to feel hungry, as you may imagine, for I had eaten nothing since the first of November; so I crawled over to the saucer of milk, and drank it all. How I did laugh when my master came in and I heard him say, "That cat has been here and drunk all the turtle's milk"!
Since then he has watched me very closely. He gave me a piece of banana the other day, and it was very good. Sometimes he gives me a few earth-worms, of which I am especially fond; and there are four flies in the room—there were five, but I caught one and ate him: he was delicious. I mean to have the others before long. The way in which I catch them is this: I lie perfectly still in the sun, and when one comes along, I snap him. Flies are generally too quick for me, but I am very patient.
The first thing that I can remember is that I lived on a sand-bank with thirteen brothers and sisters. We used to eat flies and little insects then, and as we were very lively, we could catch them easily, and I think that the flies were more plenty. We grew very fast at first, and we soon wandered off, and were separated. For the next two years of my life I travelled, living near strawberry beds in the spring, then among raspberry and blackberry bushes, and finally in pear and apple orchards. I lived mostly upon insects, only taking a bite of strawberry or pear for a relish. I have heard my master say that I always picked out the best-looking pears to bite; but that is only fair, for if I did not eat up the insects, he would not have any best-looking pears at all, so I don't think that he ought to grumble.
It was in a pear orchard that one of the happiest events of my life took place. It was while eating pears that I met my Matilda Jane. Oh, she was the most lovely young turtle that you can imagine! Her beautifully rounded shell, with its delicate markings in black and "old gold," which was just then coming into fashion, her snake-like head and neck, and her beautiful bright yellow eyes, gave her the well-deserved name of "The Belle of the Village." We loved each other at the first, and for some time we were inseparable, until one morning, when my master's father was coming to the city, I was picked up, wrapped in a newspaper, and packed off to Brooklyn, that I might "kill the slugs in the garden," I heard my master say. For two weary years I lived alone in the garden, thinking only of my Matilda Jane. You can imagine my joy when, this fall, four more turtles were brought and placed in the yard, and one of them was my long-lost friend! I knew her immediately, from her having the letters "A. F., 1869," cut on her shell. Ever since that joyful meeting we have lived very happily together.
Of course we have troubles, like every one else, but they mostly arise outside our own household. There was one old turtle who used to put on airs because he had "Adam, year 1," cut on his shell; but my Matilda stopped his boasting by telling how she saw my master cut the name at the same time that he marked her. Old Adam, as we used to call him, sneaked off, and I have not seen him since.
I want to tell you one thing more, and then I will be done. Perhaps you don't know how the little turtles are born. The mamma turtle finds a quiet, secluded place where the soil is sandy; there she digs a hole, and lays from twelve to thirty eggs. The eggs are perfectly round, and about an inch in diameter. They do not have shells like birds' eggs, but they are covered with a coating like parchment. After she has laid her eggs she covers them up, and leaves them to be hatched by the heat of the sun. In about three weeks the young turtles make their appearance; they are not much larger than a silver fifty-cent piece. They are very lively, and are very cunning about hiding when any one comes near their home. They grow very rapidly, however, and in a short time wander away, as I did. I hope that you will all remember that turtles more than pay for the fruit that they eat by keeping your gardens free from worms and insects; and I trust that you will let your pet turtles sleep through the winter, and not keep them awake to study about them as my master has done.
