Percy P.
Michigan City, Indiana.
I am a little girl eleven years old. I have a pet dog which is part blood-hound, and was named after a famous fox-hound in Pennsylvania. I have ten dolls. Some are pretty old, and have retired from active life. My aunt Mate made most of their clothes. One is quite plain, and I call her the old maid. The beauty of my family I call Daisy. My mamma has been sick four years. I have a brother Charley, four years old last June. We have a bird whose name is Major. We call it that after papa; his friends always called him the Major. Then there is John, the cat, who is four years and a half old; he belonged to my sister, who died four years ago.
This is a great locality for sand. We have a number of high hills; one called Hoosier Slide, covered with white sand, is over a hundred feet high. We have a nice harbor, which has been improved every year since we came here. We don't like it here as well as we did in Michigan. We sent a box of clothing to a little girl there who needed it very much.
Maud S.
College Grove, Tennessee.
I am a little girl who has owned a great many cats. I lost the oldest one last November. His name was Mark Gray. He was fourteen years and eight months old. The first word I ever said was to call him "Tit-tat." Many persons said to me, "Anna, why don't you let that poor old cat be shot?" But I could not let him meet that fate. He had lost all his teeth, and I fed him on milk and biscuit till he died. I have had a great many dolls, but my favorite is a large one that Santa Claus brought me when I was three years old. I could not then lift her. She has a china head, a cloth body, and red kid gloves. I named her Lizzie M., for one of my young lady cousins, and when she married I changed the doll's name to Mrs. B. I raised twenty-four turkeys last year, and I take Harper's Young People with part of my turkey money. I have twenty-three this year, nearly all white. I like white turkeys best, because I can see them better than those of any other color when they wander off to make a nest. I have no brothers and sisters, but we have a little black girl who plays with me and helps me to drive up my turkeys. They got wet twice, and I thought they were dead, but we put them under the stove, and they revived. I have a garden and a little pit. I have five rose-bushes; one has blossoms no larger than my finger-nail. I have a bed of sweet violets; they begin to bloom in February. I have a lovely species of white asclepias that grows wild here; it looks like wax. Mamma says if it had come from the Cape of Good Hope, people would go wild about it. My pit is three feet square and one and a half feet deep. I plant in it verbenas, feverfews, Japan pinks, and rose cuttings. I cover it with boards, and when it is very cold I put a rug on top. I kept my flowers safely last winter, although it was so cold. This is November 7, and we have not yet had any frost. The roses are as pretty as in spring-time, and the garden is gay with zinnias and chrysanthemums.
Anna Miner R.