Milford, Connecticut.
I wrote a letter once before, but it wasn't published. I know you can not publish all the letters that are sent you. I thought I would try again. My brother has two pet owls. He feeds them on raw meat. They are very pretty. At some times they look very small, and at other times they stick their feathers out and look like a ball of feathers. Their eyes are very large; they have two eyelids. The under one is so thin that they can see through it. The upper one is covered with little feathers. Besides raw meat, they eat mice. We catch them alive, and when we put one in the cage, one of the owls will jump on it, and catch it in his claws, and bite it in the back of its neck, and kill it. He then tears pieces off, and eats them. We have some bantams. The old bantam hen lays her eggs in the corner of the kitchen in a basket. Last spring she sat on six eggs in the basket in the kitchen, and hatched five chickens, but one of them died, so we have only four now.
Julia B. S.
St. John's, Michigan.
I want to tell you about an adventure that happened in Florida last winter. A gentleman and a boy went up Dunn's Lake on a fishing expedition. When they got as far as Haw Creek they found that alligators were plenty there, having come out to sun themselves, as is their custom in the early spring. Mr. Lee succeeded in shooting a good-sized one, about twelve feet long, and after much trouble he was got into the boat; but as he took up so much room, one of the men had to sit upon the alligator, supposing him to be dead, of course. They rowed as fast as possible toward town, but had not gone far when his 'gatorship gave a mighty jump, throwing the man up into the air, and nearly overturning the boat. However, they reached the town in safety, and hauled him up on the dock, where he lay for some time on exhibition to an admiring crowd. My friend John, being of an inquiring turn of mind, leaned over the animal to take a close inspection of him, when he gave a flop with his tail which knocked John quite over.
This is a true story, and I hope it will be printed.
Robert E. C.
Sometimes letters reach Our Post-office Box in rather a roundabout way. For instance, the other day we opened an envelope bearing the post-mark Orange, Los Angeles County, California. We found in it a letter from a gentleman living there, who sends Harper's Young People to a little cousin in Dublin, and she and several of her school-mates had sent a budget of letters to him for their favorite paper. We can make room for only one, though all were pleasant little letters for a Post-office Box to receive:
Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland.