Rub-a-dub-dub on kettle and pan,
Rub-a-dub-dub, make music who can.
Our gay little party all sing out of tune;
Tom of Puss in the Corner, and Ned of sweet June.
While on the pail drumming Joe strikes with a will,
Loud chanting the story of Jack and of Jill.
Music you call it! I hear but a noise;
But noise is sweet music to small girls and boys.
Patience, grown people, remember the day
When you were but children and rattled away,
With a rub-a-dub-dub on kettle and pan,
Rub-a-dub-dub, making music who can.
In this number of Harper's Young People we have given our readers a good foretaste of Christmas, just by way of preparation for all the delightful things coming in the next. On December 20 we shall publish our regular Christmas number, which will be entirely given up to matter suitable to the joyous Christmas-tide. The C. Y. P. R. U. will not have its attention drawn, as usual, to articles with sound facts for a basis; the Postmistress will not have a word to say; there will be no Exchanges; even the serial story will be dropped for a week. Our Christmas number will thus be complete in itself, for Young People, like its little patrons, has no room for other thoughts during one week in the year than those which are connected with the day which celebrates the birth of the Saviour of the world. The leading features will be a charming fairy story, entitled "Shamruck; or, the Christmas Panniers," by Mr. Frank R. Stockton, illustrated by Mr. Alfred Fredericks; another admirable story, entitled "A Perfect Christmas," by W. O. Stoddard, with illustrations by Mr. Howard Pyle; and a most amusing pantomime, entitled "The Magic Clock," by Mr. G. B. Bartlett, with an illustration by Mr. F. S. Church. There will be a number of minor attractions, which we will leave our readers to discover for themselves, and the whole will be inclosed in an entirely novel and unique cover, ornamented by one of Mr. Nast's most capital drawings.
Calumet, Michigan.
We have had snow three times this winter, and it has gone off twice, but the weather is very stormy now, and I guess it will stay this time.
I go to school. We have quite a large school-house, it being 190 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 100 feet in height, from the ground to the top of the belfry. The foundation is sandstone, which extends for about eight feet above the ground. There are eighteen rooms in use as school-rooms. I am in the next room below the High School. I am ten years old, and study reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, drawing, higher geography, and grammar.
There are many curious things about the mines here. One shaft is 2400 feet deep. I have not been through the mines since the new machinery was put in, but I have been told that it is a great deal stronger and larger than the old. They have built two new engine-houses, and rebuilt two old ones, and put new machinery in all. One of the boilers at the Hecla is thirty feet long, and there are two of that size at the Calumet.