There is not a bit of use in being discouraged about it, children; but we are not ashamed to tell you that sometimes we feel just a very little blue when we have to lay aside so many of your dear letters simply because we have not room enough to print them. And then we think of the sweet faces that will be clouded with disappointment, and the provoked faces that will frown, when the Post-office Box comes week after week without the letters John and Jenny are watching for so patiently. But, as we said, it isn't worth while to fret and cry, and so we, for ourselves, make up our minds to enjoy hearing about the goats that draw the little wagons, and the kittens that have such fearful fits, and the birds which are so cunning, and the babies who are so cute. We like to be told, even though we can not print the letters which so inform us, that Molly's little sister Bess is learning to walk, and that Arthur's brother Freddie claps his hands when he looks at the pictures in Harper's Young People. And if you'll keep the secret, and never whisper it to anybody, we'll tell you that we love just as dearly, and perhaps a wee, tiny morsel more dearly, the boys and girls whose words we do not print, than those whose letters are published in Our Post-office Box.
Cedar Hill, Pulaski County, Kentucky.
We have been taking Young People since last June; I like it very much. I am ten years old. We live in the country, and our home is called Cedar Hill because it has a great many cedar-trees in the yard, and is on a hill. We have six canaries; they sing very sweetly, and are very nice pets. We have a little black shepherd dog; we call him Jipsy; he is very playful.
Sophie M.
This dear little fellow who feeds the sparrows forgot to print his address at the top of his letter. It is a very nice letter notwithstanding:
I can not write good, so I will have to print my letter. I like Harper's Young People better than any of my story-books. I have about two hundred pets. You could never guess what they are, so I will tell you; they are sparrows, and they are so tame that they will come and perch on the window-sill and look for me to feed them. I give them bread every day. Sometimes, if I do not see them, they go around to the dining-room windows, and peep for me to come. They have a nest inside our garret window.
I wish Jimmy Brown would write and tell what he got for his Christmas. I hope his stocking was full. I got lots of nice things from Santa Claus. Good-by.
Theodore G. H.