"Now I see why the steamboat did not notice us," exclaimed Tom.
"Why?" asked all the others together.
"Because," he replied, "we have been such everlasting idiots as to sail at night without showing a light."
[to be continued.]
HOW GIL PLAYED VENTRILOQUIST.
BY JAMES B. MARSHALL.
It was before Dora and Gil Norman came back to the city last fall with their mamma from Farmer Jonathan's, where their papa joined them every Saturday afternoon and staid until Monday morning. If you had asked Dora or Gil what the farmer's full name was, the answer would probably have been, "Why, Farmer Jonathan, of course." Every one called him Farmer Jonathan, but his letters were usually directed, "Mr. Jonathan Wainwright."
One morning he came to the house from his great barn, and told Dora and Gil to go down there and see the largest load of hay that he had ever had on his hay-wagon.
Going to the barn, they saw the huge load of hay waiting for the horses to be put to the wagon tongue, and a long ladder reared against the wagon, by which the farm men had descended from the top of the load after completing it.