PICKING ORANGES.

ILLY and Ben are two little boys who live in the old city of Saint Augustine. They do not have sleigh-rides and coasts; for Saint Augustine is way down South, in Florida, where snow never falls.

But, while the boys and girls in the North are wearing mittens and tippets and thick coats when they go out to play, Willy and Ben are running about bare-headed in the orange-groves, or plucking roses from the garden.

All around the house are orange-trees, and in among the glossy green leaves hang the great yellow juicy oranges. The fruit is ripe early in December, and ready to be picked.

Miles, the colored man, takes his big clippers and goes up the high step-ladder which he has placed near the tree. He cuts each orange from the branch, taking care not to get hurt by the long, sharp thorns.

Willy stands at the foot of the ladder, ready to catch the oranges as Miles tosses them down. Sometimes they pick five or six baskets in an afternoon. Miles says Willy is a "bery good catch." He sometimes tires of catching them; but he never tires of eating them.

I looked into the packing-room this morning, and there lay seventeen hundred yellow balls. Papa lets both his little boys help wrap the oranges. Each orange is wrapped in a piece of tissue-paper that is cut just the right size. Willy always says as he begins, "Now let's see who'll beat!" Do you know what he means?

Ben cannot wrap oranges as fast as Willy; but, as they are wrapped, he hands them to papa to pack in boxes. He can read the word "Boston" that papa writes in black letters on the outside of the boxes.

Of course papa pays his workers, and they take their money all to mamma to keep for them. They have so much whispering to do about it, that I think they are saving it to buy holiday gifts.

JIMMIE.

THE MAY-QUEEN. "When I was little," said grandma Gray,
"We used to welcome the month of May
With a song and a dance on the village green,
Choosing and crowning our May-day queen.
We used to choose of the prettiest girls,
The one who had the sunniest curls,
The one who had the merriest eyes,
As clear and bright as the May-day skies.
"We made her throne of the daisies white,
And of yellow buttercups, golden bright,
And we twined gay blossoms about the hair
Of our dear little queen so sweet and fair."
So grandma said, and the children heard,
And a loving thought in each heart was stirred;
And they whispered together, and laughed in glee,
"Dear grandmamma shall our May-queen be!"

Then they brought the chair with the cushioned seat,
And the cushioned footstool for grandma's feet,
And led her merrily to the throne,
And crowned her queen of their hearts alone.
They twined the daisies and buttercups bright
In the queen's soft hair so silvery white,
And better than jewels or necklace rare,
Were the clasping arms of those children fair.
And the bees and butterflies hovered around;
And the sunbeams danced all over the ground;
And the birds sang merrily in the trees;
And the breath of summer was in the breeze;
And the delicate hue of the azure skies
Seemed to lend new light to the loving eyes
Of happy, dear old grandmamma Gray,
Crowned by the children their "Queen of May."

MARY D. BRINE.