Cold Spring, New York.
I was nine years old on April 15. We have two cats named Jack and Tabby, and a dog named Franklin. He can beg, walk, fetch things, jump over a stick, die, and will put things down when you tell him to. I take music lessons, and go to school. I have all the numbers of Harper's Young People from No. 1 to No. 144. I have a croquet set. The wickets are made of wire and corks. The stakes are corks, and for mallets and balls I have sticks and marbles. You can use it in the house, on the table or on the floor. We did not buy the set, but it was made at home. I have more than eleven dolls. I will mention some: Bertha King, Mary King, Eddie King, Susan Stuart, Nellie Stuart, Emma Stuart, Daisy Stuart, Lily King, Maud Stuart, Cherubina Stuart, and others. I have a brother and a sister. My brother is eleven years old, and my sister is sixteen.
Helen B. W.
Perhaps some ingenious boys who read Helen's letter will try to make a croquet set like hers for their sisters.
Texana, Texas.
As brother Tom takes Young People, and we like it so much on account of the good stories it contains, I thought I would write a letter to Our Post-office Box. I am eleven years old, and have been going to school up at Navidad to Mr. S. It is ten miles from here, and my older brother Tom and I come home every Friday evening, and go back Sunday evening. We board with our sister Irene. It is now vacation, and we are at home helping our papa and mamma work. I see so many writing about their pet cats, dogs, birds, etc. I have two cats, one a yellow one, and the other a white and gray; but papa does not like them much, especially when they come about the table. My business is to hunt up the hens and guineas' nests. Sometimes I find several dozen eggs in the same nest. I also look after the turkeys. We have sixty-two young turkeys, some nearly half grown. They go off every morning, after I feed them with clabber, to the millet patch and prairie after grasshoppers, and at night come home to roost. There are nineteen small ones that we keep in the yard—too small to let out yet. We also have twenty-five young guineas; they are small, and have to be kept in the yard. They have a box to roost in to keep from getting drowned when it rains.
We have not had much rain until yesterday for a long time. Our garden had been parched up, but now I reckon it will revive. There are a great many cracks in the ground here when it gets very dry, large enough to put your foot in, and it is very dangerous then to run a horse on the prairie. I send you two Spanish butterflies (that is what we call them). They are the most voracious things you ever saw. Our railroad is completed to Victoria.
Lucius I. S.
The butterflies are very handsome, and quite formidable-looking.