YOUNG PEOPLE'S COT.
Contributions received for Young People's Cot, in Holy Innocent's Ward, St. Mary's Free Hospital for Children, 407 West Thirty-fourth Street:
Chicago, Ill., 50c.; May F. Brinckerhoff, N. Y., $1; Grace Hamilton, Fort Hamilton, N. Y., $1; Proceeds of a fair held by Allyn and her little neighbor, New London, $5; Annie Waldron, Nyack, N. Y., $1; Effie Rhind, 50c.; Grace M. B., Poughkeepsie, 25c.; Proceeds of a fair held at Irvington-on-Hudson, October 3, by Florence, Elise, and Ethel Hurst, Isabelle Benjamin, and Helen Matthiewson, $288; total, $297.25. Amount previously acknowledged, $1258.15; grand total, October 15, $1,555.40.
New York City.
Mr dear Young People,—Your friend Miss Fanshawe has asked me to write you a letter, and tell you something more about your Cot in St. Mary's Free Hospital for children. You remember you thought last year that you would like to endow (that, means pay for, and have for your very own) one of the little white beds in the Holy Innocent's Ward of the hospital. You sent Miss Fanshawe ever so much money, and she wrote ever so many letters to Johnnie and Mary, and Willie and Kitty, and all the rest of the children who inclosed their contributions for Young People's Cot to her, as treasurer of the Holy Innocent's Guild. Some of you sent her ten cents, and some twenty-five cents, and some had even as much as several dollars that they had earned or saved, for of course it must be your very own money that pays for the support of your very own little sick poor child in the Cot called by your name.
This was all very nice and good of you, but, you remember, I told you that it required $3000 to endow your Cot, and all the ten-cent pieces, and twenty-five-cent pieces, and all the dollar bills even that you sent to Miss Fanshawe amounted to but $1258. That, you see (those of you who know anything about arithmetic), is less than half the sum necessary! Can you not send some more this year? If you would save some of your candy-money, or toy money, or do some work for which your parents would pay you, I am very sure you would feel well repaid for your self-denial when you went to the hospital and saw your child—some sick boy, or sick girl, who had no nice comfortable home, such as you have, to be sick in—lying there, and saying "Thank you" to Johnnie and Mary and all the rest of you.
There will be a bright brass plate over the head of the Cot, and on it will be engraved "Young People's Cot," and the date of its endowment. This will keep before everybody's mind who sees it the fact that this particular Cot belongs to you, and that the sick child in it is your child.
Now I must tell you what some little girls did for the Cot last summer. I will tell you all their names, and perhaps some of you who are now reading this letter, or listening while some one reads it to you, may have the same name. There were five little girls—Florence Hurst and her sisters Ethel and Elise, and their two little friends Isabelle Benjamin and Helen Matthiewson. These little girls had read about, and had heard older people talking about, Young People's Cot, until they became so much interested in the idea that they determined to try and be five of the owners of the wonderful Cot. One of them—I don't know which one it was—suggested that they might make some pretty fancy articles, and sell them to their grown-up friends. They all went to work, and how much money do you think they earned? Listen, please, for you will be very much surprised. $288. Were they not well repaid for the time they used and the trouble they had in working for their Cot?
Now, somebody who can do sums in addition please add $288 to $1258, and see how much it makes. You say $1546. Quite correct. And that, you see, is a little more than half the $3000 you need. Don't you think when one has got half of any difficult lesson or difficult piece of work done that the other half seems quite easy in comparison? I am sure you have all noticed this, and I am sure, too, that you will find the present case no exception to the rule.
Courage, then, every little boy and little girl who reads this letter, and go to work manfully and womanfully until the Cot is paid for and really belongs to you. Send all the money you can save or can earn to Miss Fanshawe, 43 New Street, and you will see it acknowledged every month in Harper's Young People, your own paper. She will also write to any child who writes to her, and asks for an answer to his or her letter.
I wish I had time now, and that the editors had space in this week's paper to tell you of the pleasant Sea-side Home at Rockaway, where the children of St. Mary's Hospital were sent last summer, and where your child will go next summer if you have your Cot by that time. The house was given to the Sisters of St. Mary by a kind lady who loves little children, and can not bear to think of them sick in hot, noisy, crowded tenement houses when the thermometer stands at 90° in the shadiest city streets, and all the country, with its grass and trees and flowers, seems longing for the little children to come and enjoy it.
You should have seen the little pale-faced children on the beach or bathing in the salt-water. A very few days made a difference in their looks. And such appetites as the salt air gave them! Why, a barrel of flour lasted no time, they were all so hungry.
Perhaps you would like to know who I am and what my name is. Well, when I was one of you I was always taught that it was proper to sign one's name to one's letters, so I sign myself to this letter, my dear young people (and it is really my true name), your very affectionate friend,
One Who Loves You.
PUZZLES FROM YOUNG CONTRIBUTORS.
No. 1.
ENIGMA.
My first is in gain, but not in loss.
My second is in shell, but not in rock.
My third is in throw, but not in toss.
My fourth is in tap, but not in knock.
My fifth is in man, but not in boy.
My sixth is in right, but not in wrong.
My seventh is in drum, but not in toy.
My eighth is in many, but not in throng.
My whole is a flower well worth a song.
Nina T.