Hackensack, New Jersey.
Mamma says I may tell you two funny stories, because they are true:
There are two old colored people living at Fort L., near the school-house. Their names are Toby and Isabel. Toby keeps the school-house clean, but Isabel is so old and fat that she can not work much. One day my aunt met her on the road, and asked her where she had been. She said, "Oh, I've been helpin' Tobe in de school." "Why, you can't help him sweep, can you?" said auntie. "No; but Tobe he make so much dust when he sweep, an' it make him cough so, I t'ought I would go an' stand by him, so some of de dust would go down my froat, an' den Tobe wouldn't get so much on his lungs to make him cough so."
My sister teaches a school in the country, and one of her pupils is a little colored boy by the name of Nick. The other day he came into the room, crying bitterly, and said, "Teacher, the boys are all the time calling me names." She said, "What do they call you?" "They call me Nicholas, and that isn't my name; it's Nicky."
Emma S.
Thanks for your stories, dear. Isabel was very kind to Toby; and as for little Nick, we hope the boys were prevailed upon to stop teasing him.
Whitstable, Kent, England.
My uncle, who lives in New York, sends us Harper's Young People and Harper's Weekly, both of which we like very much. I must tell you about my pets. I have a black-and-tan terrier named Tiny, and a jackdaw which talks quite plainly. My sister has a tabby cat and a canary-bird. We have not had any snow this winter. We have had primroses and daisies in bloom all the time.
I went over the Canterbury Cathedral, and saw the tomb of Edward the Black Prince, and the shrine of Thomas à Becket, the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury. The stone in front of the altar is worn into hollows where the pilgrims used to kneel. Last Saturday Colonel Brine and Mr. Simmons went up in a large balloon from Canterbury, to cross the Channel from Dover to Calais. The wind changed, and they came down in the middle of the Channel, and were picked up by the mail-packet, and brought back to Dover. We are very sorry Barnum has bought our elephant Jumbo. I hope he will be stubborn, and won't go, for I'm sure we want him more than the little American boys and girls do. I hope I have not made my letter too long to go in your Post-office Box.
Fred P.
Going up in a balloon would be much better fun if people could only be sure that they would not come plunging down on the top of a high mountain, into the depths of a wood, or, like those unfortunate gentlemen, plump into the middle of a body of water. Why did you feel so badly about letting your little American friends see Jumbo? By the time you read this perhaps we will understand how it was that the English children were so fond of this big elephant that they grieved over sparing him to us. We wish we had some huge American pet to send over the Atlantic to take his place in your affections.