FOOTNOTES:
[1] Indecipherable footnote in original text.
[2] The highest Russian decoration.
SKATING
By Theodore Winthrop.
[Never before printed.]
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A BOUNDING gallop is good Over wide plains; A wild free sail is good 'Mid gales and rains; A dashing dance is good Broad halls along, Clasping and whirling on Through the gay throng. But better than these, When the great lakes freeze, By the clear sharp light Of a starry night, O'er the ice spinning With a long free sweep, Cutting and ringing Forward we keep! On 'round and around, With a sharp clear sound, To fly like a fish in the sea!— Ah, this is the sport for me! |
THREE SMART LITTLE FOXES.
There were once three little foxes who lived in a hole in a bank. It was a large, comfortable hole, and these three little foxes (two of them were brothers and one was a sister) could lie down and put their heads out of the hole, and see what was going on in the neighborhood.
One afternoon one of the brother foxes slipped out by himself for a little walk, and when he came back he called the other two, and said: "Oh, come here! I will show you something, and tell you all about it."
So they all lay down close together, and looked out of the hole.
"Now then," said the brother fox who had been out, "you see that fence down there?"
"Oh yes," said his brother and sister.
"Well, on the other side of that fence is a splendid chicken-yard. I went down there and saw it myself. I peeped through the fence. And in that yard there is a row of chicken-coops, all with chickens in."
"Oh!" said the others. They began to feel hungry already.
"Yes, all with chickens in, and I heard a little girl say that the row of coops was called Pullet Row, Chicken Avenue, and that all the houses were taken. The first coop had an old hen and eleven little puffy chickens in it, and the second one held a whole lot of small chickens who were big enough to take care of themselves; and the next coop had in it an old rooster who had hurt his foot, and who had to be shut up. I think it's funny that neither mother nor father ever found out this splendid chicken-yard, so near us too! As soon as it gets to be a little dark we must go down there and get some of those chickens."
"All right," said the sister fox; "we'll go, and I'll take the first coop with the little chickens."
"And I'll take the coop with the young chickens who are big enough to take-care of themselves," said one of the brother foxes.
"I'll take the big old rooster," said the other brother fox. "I like lots of chickens when I eat any."
At the back of the hole the old Mother Fox was lying down. Her children thought she was asleep, but she was not, and she heard all that they had been talking about.
She now came forward and said: "That is certainly a very nice place that you see down there, and you, my son, were very smart, no doubt, to discover it. But when you go down there, this evening, take a look at a small house near the chicken-yard. A dog lives there—a big black and white fellow—named Bruce. He is let into the chicken-yard every night at dark. If you think that he wont see you, when you go inside, or that he can't run fast enough to catch you, it might be a very good idea for you to go down there this evening and get some chickens."
THE THREE SMART LITTLE FOXES.
The three little foxes looked at each other, and concluded that they would not go. It was a long time after that before they were heard to boast of being smarter than their father and mother.
JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.
Happy 1878! Happy New Year to all Jack's little friends! And now let us begin our year's talk with something about