I have taken Harper's Young People for almost a year. I like it very much. I look every week to see what new trouble has befallen poor Jimmy Brown, and if I were his sister I would make him a jacket and stuff it with feathers. I can hardly wait for the papers to come, so as to hear what has become of Rita and Ni-ha-be. I have lived almost all my life in the valleys of Idaho. There are many beautiful sights here, such pretty flowers grow in valley and mountain. One kind grows right near the edge of the snow, away up the mountain-side. One can step right from the blossoms to the snow.
I wish I could have a good school to go to, like so many little girls of my age. I have attended school but nine months in my life. My mother teaches me at home. I have two horses all my own and a saddle, and can ride splendidly, mamma says. I am twelve years old.
Alma C.
Though deprived of the opportunity of going to school, you have learned to use your eyes, and see the beautiful things which God has made; and if you study and read and profit by your mother's instruction, you will lay a good foundation for the class-room when you are older. It is quite an advantage, too, to ride so well, and the health you gain as you canter over the hills is something to be thankful for.
Prospect, Oneida County, New York.
I live up here near the North Woods, and it is hard work to get books to read, and the winters are long. My father is a guide, and will send any one who will mail me a good book, a map of the Canada lake region, showing the route from Utica, via Trenton Falls, through the wilderness to the lakes.
My father was in the war, and when the powder-magazine blew up at Yorktown, Virginia, in December, 1863, he found between the walls of an old brick house a curious pipe, made of mahogany, bone, and brass, and he says I may offer it in exchange for a printing-press and type, or a very fine scroll-saw and the attachments.
I am eleven years old, and my pa says your paper is full of the best reading for boys.
Alfred B. Worden.
Arivaca, Arizona.
My brother takes Young People, and we both enjoy reading it very much. We wish to tell you of our pony, which we all love dearly. When we have ridden him, he always wants a piece of bread or some sugar, and if we do not give it to him as soon as he is unsaddled, he opens the side door by turning the knob with his lips. Should we drive him away and shut the door, he immediately opens it again, and stands by it until he gets his piece, when he will go off to eat grass. He is very gentle and knowing. Our mamma writes this for us, as we were afraid you would have too much trouble to study it out if we wrote it.