I thought I would write you a letter and tell you of two nice games, one for in and the other for out doors. The one for the house is called "Going to Jerusalem." One person plays the piano, or makes some kind of a noise. Place the chairs in a row across the room, every other chair in an opposite direction, one less than there are players to go round the chairs, and when the music stops, each player must sit down, and of course one will be left out. Then one chair is taken away, and the person who could not get seated can not play any more, and so on until there are but two players going round one chair, and the one who gets seated goes to Jerusalem, and wins the game.
The other is called, "I Spy the Wolf." One is wolf, and the others hide their eyes and count, and the wolf hides, and when done counting they go and hunt the wolf, who when spied runs and tries to tag somebody before they tag base, and if so, both are wolf. When the wolf is spied, the person must say, "I spy the wolf," and run and tag base. The game is finished when all are wolf.
I am ten years old. I found two dandelions to-day, January 9.
Mary E. O.
Palatka, Florida.
I live on the St. John's River, opposite Palatka. We have a fine orange grove. We are having bananas this winter, although most of our neighbors lost theirs by the cold last winter. We will have plenty of guavas next summer if we don't have a "freeze," and I hope we may not. I wish some of the readers of Young People were here; we would have lots of fun. I have a puppy three months old. His name is Toby Tyler. I hope Mr. Otis will come to Palatka with his boat. I am nine years old.
T. Robert P.
We hope the bright eyes that have been watching for the flowers that this mild winter has made, like Ben Buttles, "dretful venturesome," will before many weeks of ice and snow be reporting from the South first, and afterward from colder localities, the earliest out-peeping of the spring darlings. There is a stanza of Mrs. Whitney's which we like very much:
"God does not send us strange flowers every year;
When the spring winds blow o'er the pleasant places,
The same dear things lift up the same sweet faces,
The violet is here."
We must have storm and snow first, dears; but courage! the violets will be here by-and-by.