Ethel T. S.
New York City.
I am a little St. Louis girl, but am now living in New York.
I am ten years of age, and have taken music lessons three years, and like music very much.
I have a pet bird named Jimmie; he will eat out of my hand, and is very tame.
My little brother Edgar is five years old, and mamma has just put his first pants on him, and he looks so cunning marching round with his hands in his pocket, and thinks he is quite a man. I almost envy the little boys and girls who have nice gardens. I have one, but it is a funny one; it is in a window, for we have no yard. We live in a flat, but I am very fond of flowers, and so keep them in a window. Some of your little readers may laugh at this, but it is the best I can have, and it affords me a great deal of pleasure.
Mamma was reading in No. 138 a letter signed "C. Harold C.," from Mount Vernon, New York, of a little boy who could not pronounce F. If his mamma will take him to a physician and have his tongue examined, she may find that he is tongue-tied, although you would hardly believe it. But my little brother was troubled the same way; he would say sishes for fishes, shogs for frogs, etc, etc. The doctor said he was tongue-tied and cut his tongue, and in a few minutes he said fishes as plain as any one. Mamma used to try and make him say words with F in in this way: she would say, "Edgar, say F." He would pronounce F very distinctly. Now mamma would say, "Say fishes." But he could not. So one day he says to mamma, "Mamma, say F; now say mustard."
Robin D.
The little boy who can not pronounce "f" may be tongue-tied, and then again he may not be. I knew a little girl once who spoke so very peculiarly until she was ten years old that people wondered what queer foreign language Minnie used. But all at once she began to talk plainly, as she has done ever since without the help of a physician.
Montreal, Canada.
I wrote you a letter some time ago, and asked you to print it; but you did not, and you don't know how sorry I felt. I do hope you will print this. I am ten years of age. I have two dear little brothers, one named Mello and the other Garibaldi, and a sweet little sister named Minnie; they all like Young People very much, especially little Mello, who delights to sit for hours looking at the pictures. I have two dear little pet squirrels, which we caught on the mountain in little traps. We put a small piece of apple in the trap, and set it on the fence that runs up the side of the mountain, and it is great fun to watch them go in the traps. We have caught more than a dozen that way. I have been to New York two or three times, and to Philadelphia to see the Centennial Exhibition. Did you go to it? and if so, don't you think it was splendid? I go to school, and like it very much. I got the prize for Grecian history this year. Don't you think that was very well for a little girl only ten? I am going away next week to visit a dear little girl named Dagmar, but I am only to stay about two weeks, and when I return I hope to see my letter in Young People. I think "Toby Tyler" is splendid, but I like Jimmy Brown's letters best.
May R.