Vacation has come to many of you by this time. You have said good-by to school and teachers, and have laid aside lessons and slates for a while. Be out-doors all you can in these bright summer days, and lay in a good stock of health for future use when the play spell is over.
We think you will all be pleased with the feast Our Post-office Box gives you in this Fourth-of-July number.
Orworth, Kansas.
Have you ever seen a Kansas dug-out? If you have not, I will write you a description of one. In the first place, a hole is dug in the ground four or five feet deep, and walled up with limestone or sandstone about six feet high, and covered with a dirt roof. They make these dirt roofs by putting a log lengthwise of the building, and laying poles crosswise; then they cover the poles with sunflowers, and place hay next, and on top of that usually a foot or more of dirt. They usually have earth floors, and sometimes there isn't a solitary window. I have seen dug-outs built of sod. Wouldn't you like to live in such a house, where it is a common thing for mice to tumble into the water bucket? The Wiggle I send is a picture of the dug-out we used to live in when we first came here. Will you please give it to the Wiggle master?
We had a beautiful sunset not very long ago. It was grand. It had been raining, and it slacked up as the sun was going down. Off in the north-west there were some very black clouds; one of them looked like a whale's back, another like a volcano in action. In a few minutes they changed shape, and the best idea I can give of them is a lot of giants contending together. The clouds seemed to come clear to the ground. Papa said he never saw anything like it before. The most beautiful of all was the rainbow. There was at first a perfect arch, with rays of glory coming from the centre. In a few minutes there was a reflected rainbow. All the time that the rainbows lasted there was a very peculiar light, which I can't describe.
Papa and I are alone here, and I have to do the cooking. We will begin to harvest next week. I am to have fifty cents per day for cooking. I hope my letter is not too long to be published.
Theodore G. B.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I am a little boy nine years old. Papa takes Harper's Young People for my sister and me, and we like it very much. I have had the pneumonia, and have been kept in the house two weeks, but that is not so bad as it is for the little boy I read about in Our Post-office Box who had to stay in the house two months, and can not walk yet. I feel so sorry for him! I have a pet cat, and I love it very dearly.
Ruliff Y. L. H.