Clara A. H.
Kiss Arthur for me, please. Tell mamma the Postmistress thinks little Clara must be a clever little helper.
Colorado Springs, Colorado.
We came here from Vermont because papa was sick, and we have been in Colorado about two years. We can see a good many mountains from this place. Pike's Peak is the highest, and Cameron's Cone is a mountain next to Pike's Peak. There is also a mountain called Mount Garfield, which was named for President Garfield soon after he was shot.
I have three little boats, and I sail them in the irrigating ditches. I haven't any pets, but am trying to tame some gophers which live under a little store-house on our grounds. They are something like chipmunks, but not so pretty. Sometimes we see and hear a robin, and it makes us very happy, because it seems like home; and when I am gathering flowers I now and then find a dandelion, and we are all glad to see it, for the same reason. We find beautiful flowers here; lupins are the most common just now, and there are some flowers much like the buttercups we used to see at home.
My birthday was the 5th of May. I was eight years old. I had some nice presents—Tom Brown's School-Days, and a scrap-book made by the directions in Harper's Young People No. 122, a beautiful two-bladed knife, and a birthday cake with nine candles on it—one for each year, and one to grow on. Mamma took me to Manitou for a birthday treat; and if I did not think it would make my letter too long, I would like to tell you about Manitou. It is right at the foot of Pike's Peak, and there are mineral springs there bubbling up out of stone basins, and wonderful cañons leading into the mountains in every direction, in which beautiful flowers grow, and there is a large cave with more than seventy rooms in it. We pass the famous "Garden of the Gods" in going there.
I made a cross-word enigma, which I send you. Please print my letter.
Edward Dana S.
I hope you will succeed in taming the gophers. What a delightful birthday you had! It will help you to be happy all the year. Perhaps some little reader may be puzzled to know what an irrigating ditch means. It is a ditch dug for the purpose of holding water which is brought to it from some river or lake. By means of little sluice-gates this water is turned over the meadows or pastures, which would otherwise be dry and parched. In parts of our country where the climate is dry, and rain seldom falls, or falls only in what is called the rainy season, farmers have to irrigate their ground in this way.
Plainfield, New Jersey.
I thought I would write you about our little chickens without a mother; she died when the chickens were ten days old. We put them in a big box with a feather duster, and brought them in by the fire; they all cuddled under the duster, and are doing beautifully, and are growing big and fat. If any boys or girls have young chickens that have lost their mother, they should put them in a warm place with a feather duster. I think Young People is lovely.