S.
Terra Ceia Island.
I am a little girl from New York who came to this beautiful island a year ago in October with mamma for her health. The climate is lovely, and has benefited mamma very much, for which I feel repaid, and am willing to be away from other children for her sake. There are only two little children besides myself on the island, and sometimes weeks pass and I do not see a child's face. We live in the midst of a beautiful orange grove, and have one of the largest and handsomest-looking orange-trees in the State. Last year it bore 4200 oranges; this year not as many. Others of our trees are bearing from 800 to 2000 each. We have fine bananas, figs in their season, guavas, plums, lemons, and other fruits of which we are very fond. The ivory-billed woodpecker steals our figs, and the pretty, naughty redbirds pick all the fruits and vegetables. Meat is scarce here sometimes, and my uncle has to shoot the quails or the pink curlews, with their beautiful spoon-bills, and the blue herons, with their lovely large human-looking eyes. We must sometimes have them to take the place of fresh meat, but not often, as uncle dislikes killing the beautiful birds, which never do any one any harm. The redbirds sing sweetly. The little phœbe-birds call "Phœbe" all day long. The mocking-birds are the first to sing in the morning, and the last at night. In the summer the quails say, "Bob White," "Bob White." The beautiful gray mourning doves come around a little later, and at night a bird that takes the place of the Northern whip-poor-will calls out, "Whip the widow," in the same strain as the whip-poor-will. I am very fond of my island home. There is a beautiful bay that our grove and house front on, called Terra Ceia Bay, about five miles long, and in some places nearly two miles wide. I have a small row-boat that I go out in with mamma, and sometimes I stand in the stern of the boat, with a long pole, and pole the boat in shallow water. The beautiful sunsets we see on the water sometimes make me wish other children could enjoy natural scenery and the wonders of the sky as I see them here. We have very fine fish called mullet that are caught with a cast net, besides other kinds, clams, and oysters.
I have four cats, named Punch and Judy (because I thought those names different to others in general) and Beauty and Topsy, and a dog named Jip. One day Jip was barking furiously, and we went to see what was the matter, and for the first time he saw himself in the looking-glass. We had a hearty laugh.
Another day he made a great deal of noise when a praying mantis, shaped similar to our large Southern grasshoppers, but with a waist similar to a wasp, instead of its being on all four legs, was standing up straight, with its fore-legs raised in an attitude of devotion, looking right at the dog. When we came, it turned around with its head, just like a Shaker woman, and looked first at one of us and then at the other, without moving its body.
I was so interested in "Toby Tyler," and knowing that Mr. Otis must like children, and as you say he is now through our State travelling in his little steam-yacht, please give him an invitation to call on us and eat some of our fine oranges, as we will have them until April. Aunt and uncle and mamma join in the invitation. He—that is, Mr. Otis—can sail from Key West or Cedar Keys into the Gulf of Mexico, then into Tampa Bay, into the mouth of Manatee River, through the cut-off into our Terra Ceia Bay. Or he could keep in the Manatee River to Palma Sola, at the Warner Mill, and they could show him through the small cut-off into our bay. We are very hospitable, and have wanted to see him ever since he wrote "Toby Tyler," and about his pet bird.
I was afraid Jimmy Brown was on a long vacation. So long as he has to be in so much trouble, please ask him to tell his tales of woe oftener, and relieve his mind.
Sometimes I go over to Manatee after my paper with my uncle. We go in a sail-boat, and I enjoy sailing so much! I wanted to have a little vegetable garden of my own, so uncle let me have a patch, and I set out fifty tomato plants, just to see what a little girl could do; they are growing finely, and putting on blossoms now—not all, but part of them.
Mamma teaches me, as there is no school near us short of six miles, and I would have to go in a sail-boat to attend school. I have most of my time taken up, as mamma teaches me to be industrious, and wishes me to try to grow up a smart girl, as it would have pleased papa so much, had God permitted him to live and know his little girl was trying to do right.
Florence M. Brewster,
P. O. Braidentown, Manatee Co., Fla.
The verses which follow were sent by a little reader:
THE CHRYSANTHEMUM'S SONG TO THE MOON.
I stand in a little box
At a lowly cottage door;
I grow and grow and grow and grow
Till I can grow no more.
My leaves are the brightest green,
My flowers the purest white,
Of any flowers you've ever seen,
O Moon, so large and bright.
O Moon up there so high,
As you nightly roll along,
Please don't forget me in my box
As I sing my little song.
Annie L. C.