THE REASON.
Willie. "I know why the Chinese send all their fire-crackers over here?"
Mamma. "Why, Willie?"
Willie. "Why, because they don't have any Fourth of July over there."
THE PIN-WHEEL.
I love to watch the pin-wheel go
A-spinning round so free,
To make its goldfish dive into
The starry night's black sea.
A ticket-seller in a theatre once owned a parrot that was quick at learning to repeat the phrases he heard. Thus, among other things, he was soon able to exclaim, "One at a time, gentlemen! one at a time, please!" for this sentence was constantly in the mouth of his master. The ticket man went to the country for a summer vacation and took the educated parrot along with him. One day the bird got out of his cage and disappeared. His owner searched all about for him, and finally toward evening found him despoiled of half his feathers sitting far out on the limb of a tree, while a dozen crows were pecking at him whenever they could get a chance. And all this time the poor parrot, with his back humped up, was edging away and constantly exclaiming, "One at a time, gentlemen! one at a time, please!"