But no burning building could be seen, nor were there any shouts or noises of conflict.
The alarm subsided, but for the rest of the night the little family sat anxious and waited for the dawn. In the morning they learned the cause of the alarm. It seems that at noon, the day before, the Pattison boys were trying their lungs on the conch, calling the hired men to dinner.
Little Joseph stood by, waiting his turn, but it didn’t come. Dinner was ready, and the shell was put away on the shelf over the kitchen door. The little fellow’s disappointment was great, and that night he dreamed of robbers, of English soldiers and burning houses. He dreamed that he must blow the shell.
Up he jumped, ran down stairs, and through two rooms, still asleep, and, standing in a chair, got the conch from the shelf. Going to the back door he blew it lustily, and aroused the whole family. They rushed down-stairs in great alarm, and there stood the little boy, bareheaded and in his nightgown, while great drops of perspiration stood on his face, from the exertions he had made!
WHAT I HEARD ON THE STREET.
BY CLARA F. GUERNSEY.
NOT long ago, while I was waiting for the cars at a street corner, I heard two men talking together. The one was a young fellow of nineteen or so, a big, tall youth, whose appearance would have been pleasing had he not worn, in addition to a general air of discouragement, that look of being on the down-hill road, which, once seen, is unmistakable.
His clothes were sufficiently good in quality, but they seemed never to have known the clothes-brush, his coat lacked four or five buttons, for which three pins were a very inadequate substitute, and he had an aspect generally of having forgotten the use of soap and water.