LATE.
The minute-hand points to the quarter,
And Jennie is there at the gate;
The clock is too fast, I am certain—
It always is fast when I'm late.
There! Jennie has gone on without me.
Mean thing! pray why couldn't she wait?
Has any one seen my examples?
Please, mother, help look for my slate.
I wonder who last had the shoe-hook;
My pencil has dropped in the grate.
How everything hinders a person
So sure as a person is late!
Glendale, Ohio.
As I have never seen a letter from this place. I thought I would write one to Our Post-office Box.
We are to have our school picnic next month, and we shall have a Queen and King. We have not selected them yet, but intend doing so in about two weeks. We will have a May-pole dance and a band of music. All the scholars are looking forward to the day with great pleasure. I will write again after the picnic, and tell you all about it.
Carrie C.
Are the King and Queen chosen to their positions for their beauty, their scholarship, or their winning ways? I suppose the other pupils vote for them. Do you remember the story of "Susie Kingman's Decision," and has anything like it ever happened in your school? When I was a little girl I used to look forward to our May party just as you do. We elected our Queen and her Maids of Honor, but had no King, as our only boy school-mates were little fellows just tall enough to make the sweetest small pages you ever saw. The Queen's crown was a wreath of roses, and two of the girls carried it between them to the woods on a board.
Indianapolis, Indiana.
I am a little boy eight years old. I have taken your paper almost two years. I like every story in it, and think they are all good. I like to read the letters. I go to school every day, and am in the Third Reader, and like my teacher. Every time it rains very hard here White River overflows. This is the capital of the State, and they are building a new State-house of stone. They have been working on it for the last three years, and it will take them three more at least to finish it. I have but one pet, a bird, which we call Trouble, because he was so hard to raise. He is a very pretty singer. I would like to see this published, as it is the second letter I have written to you. My ma is writing this for me, as I am sick.
H. R. C.
It is a new idea to call a bird Trouble, after the trouble he gave, isn't it? It would be fair to change his name to Pleasure, now that he sings so well. I hope, dear, that you have by this time quite recovered from your illness.
Birdie M.—Please pardon me for not having sooner thanked you for the pretty daffodil which you sent in your letter all the way from Cherokee, Kansas. Now, to pay you for it, let me give you a pretty poem from the poet Wordsworth, to copy into your little book of extracts. In fact, I would be glad to hear that a great many of my little friends had done the same. It is a good plan to copy gems of thought from great authors into little books of our own. Even though you may not quite understand the poet's meaning in these verses, you will like their musical sound, and, believe me, that when you are older the meaning will be plain to you:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company.
I gazed and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
A Little Boy's Composition.—The subject assigned by mamma was "Quadrupeds." Ernest retired to the attic, and wrote very patiently until he had finished this, which is not so bad for a first attempt:
"Quadrupeds are animals. Animals live on grass, hay, oats, bran, and water. A quadruped is anything that has four legs."
That was all Ernest could possibly think of. But mamma, who sends it, wants the children to say whether everything with four legs is, of course, a quadruped.
Here is another little composition, by a wee girlie, who writes about kittens:
"I have a little kitty, jet-black, full of frisking and fun, and I hope she will never get to be a dreadful old cat, and run away. She plays with my apron strings, and likes a red ball best of any. My sister Lucy, when she went to the store, asked the shoe man for a pair of shoes for a baby without any heels on. This is all I can write about kittens.
"Lottie (aged 8)."
Osakis, Minnesota.
My aunt sends me Young People, and I read it as soon as it comes from the Post-office. We live on the bank of the most beautiful lake in the world. The lake is twelve miles long, and is full of fish. Boat-riding and fishing are our chief amusements. I am the only girl in the family, and my papa says that I am the prettiest girl in the Northwest.
Lunetta E. C.
Don't let papa make you vain, dear. That would be a great misfortune, wouldn't it? Do you tell him that he is the best and handsomest papa in the whole United States? I am sure you think so.
Clarkstown, New York.
We thought we would like to tell about our pets. We each have a rabbit. One is black with a white breast, and the other two are white and gray. We give them apple-wood, and they peel the bark off so clean! We have two cats, both gray. One of them is very old; we call her Kitty Gray. The other is a kitten, and is named Christopher. He will run up my dress to fetch a piece of bread which I hold as high as I can. We have eight bantams; one of them is blind. We ourselves write a paper called "The Monthly Budget"; we compose it all. We like Young People very much. I am ten. Robert is eight, and Pauline is five. We can all read.
Marianne W.
Send me a copy of your "Budget," please. I would like to have a peep at it.
Huntington, West Virginia.
The boiler in a flour mill here blew up the other day. It lifted the large chimney away up in the air, and that came down with an awful crash. When the boiler blew up it shook all the houses near it. It blew the large water tank that was on the roof clear up into the air. Pieces of the boiler and engine were blown across the street. Some bricks and large pieces of timber were blown over the street, and burst in the side of a house. There was a real large barrel factory that caught fire here, and the fire-engine worked from seven until eleven o'clock, but could not stop it, it had got under headway so much. It rained almost every day in the next week, but the fire kept on smoking. We have good teachers at our day school. I am ten years old, and study spelling, reading, arithmetic, grammar, and geography.
Charlie A. P.
What an exciting time you have had between the explosion and the fire! I am afraid you boys enjoyed the fun more than you thought about the calamities.
Not long ago I saw an explosion of a different kind. Some boys were playing marbles near my house, and a quarrel had arisen. One little man jumped up, shook his fist at another, and with blazing eyes said, "You just get me mad, now, and see what I'll do!" He looked as though he might turn into a torpedo on the spot. It made me think of a Bible verse which I like very much: "Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." I fear the angry boy had not learned that verse by heart, if, indeed, he had ever heard of it.
Grattan, Michigan.
Although I am thirteen years old, I am not too old to write to a young people's paper. I went to school in the winter, but just a week before school closed the school-house burned. My papa owns a hop yard, and in the fall we have a number of girls to pick hops. I like to pick quite well, but when the sun is hot the hops settle, and you don't get your box full so quickly. I have only two pets. One is a large, playful yellow-dog, and the other is a ferret. Her name is Jennie, and she is very nice. She looks very much like a weasel, only her fur is yellow and black. She likes bread and milk very much, and if we give her a cracker she will run and hide it. We can take a saucer of milk and hold it up a foot and a half from the floor, and she will jump and catch hold of the edge of the saucer and eat. I have taken Young People for about four months, and like it real well. This is the first letter I have ever written to a paper.
Ollie L. W.
So even a ferret appreciates kindness! It must be a pretty sight when the girls go out to pick the hops. I am sure they have a happy time over their work. Are they paid according to the number of boxes they fill in a day?
Josie E. L.—For a little girl still in the Primary Department your letter is very well written indeed. I hope the new Maltese kitten will be as cunning and as great a pet as the one that died.
Margaret S. S.—Your account of your travels almost took away my breath. Twice across the continent; twice from New York, by Panama, and thence by steamer, to San Francisco; and then, last summer in the Yosemite! You are a fortunate girl to have seen so many places. Well, dear, when you grow up you will have many pleasant and some droll things to remember, and you will not be a timid or fussy traveller, making every one around you uncomfortable. Your room must be very beautiful, decorated as you describe it. I presume your sister and you are both fond of natural history.