Fan and Jane went first on the board, then Dora and Snip, and last Moppet and me.
Now listen, my Clytie, though, without having seen it, you never can quite know how perfectly terrible it was. Just as Dora and Snip were in the very middle of the board, and all of us were on it, Randolph, who was standing in the water, gave a most unearthly screech, and at that very minute— But, mercy me! there's the tea-bell, and you must excuse me, my lamb, for leaving you right here, for how can I help it when I smell waffles?—waffles, and muffins too, I think.
In greatest haste,
Your own mamma,
Bessie.
P.S.—It was waffles I smelled, and I thought of you, dear Clytie, as I ate them. Now I shall have to leave my story of Randolph at its very smilax (or climax, which is it?), and finish it in my next letter, for I have written so much my fingers are all cramped up; so good-night.
THE PITIFUL HARE.
FROM THE JAPANESE, BY W. E. GRIFFIS.
Hares are always treated kindly by the Chinese and Japanese people, who make household pets of them. The Chinese believe that the hare lives to be a thousand years old, and that at the end of five centuries its hair becomes white. Instead of seeing a man in the moon, they imagine they see a hare standing on its hind-legs, and pounding drugs in a mortar. There are great creatures like gigantic men, called genii, who live in the moon, and make "the elixir of life," a draught of which confers very long life. The hare is their steward, and spends his time in pounding the precious roots and bark of the "tree of the king of drugs," from which the elixir is made. In the Japanese fairy tales, whoever smells, touches, or tastes of this tree is immediately healed of all disease.
The country folks in Japan believe a great deal more in the influence of the moon on crops, and good luck, and the weather, than our farmers do, and some of the Japanese almanacs are very funny to read. It is for these reasons that the people do not injure the hare, for fear of hindering the good influence of the moon.