We wish to say to the boys and girls who are sending requests for exchange to the Post-office Box that they must never expect to see their offer printed in Young People the week after it is sent. This is impossible. We know it takes more patience than boys usually possess to wait three or four weeks, or even longer, as many of you do, before your offer appears, but there are so many of you that the delay is unavoidable. We have received a large number of letters recently from boys and girls wishing to exchange only to a certain date, when they would leave home for the country. Those letters we have been unable to print, as they could not possibly appear in time to suit the convenience of the exchangers.
We hope our correspondents will notice this explanation, and endeavor to wait with more patience for the appearance of their letters of exchange.
Courtland, New York.
I thought I would write to ask the readers of Harper's Young People if they remember the story of "Coachy," in No. 50 of Vol. I. Well, I am little Bessie Rathbun, but that is not all my name. I am eleven years old. I want all the little readers to know that "Coachy" was a real true story. I am at the farm now. Our farm is called Locust Hill, and is just a little bit over a mile from the village. I have lots of "Coachy" hens now, but none that I love quite as well as my pet that Mr. Beck killed.
I have a little kitten that has spots all over it like freckles, so I call it Toby Tyler. I have lots of other pets that I will write about some other time.
Bessie Rathbun H.
Lake Eutis, Florida.
I live on the banks of a beautiful lake in Florida. I go in bathing, and I have a boat of my own, and go out boating and fishing, and catch lots of fish. Sometimes we catch a turtle. There are lots of land turtles here, but the people call them gophers, and the real gophers they call salamanders. They look like a rat. They dig holes in the ground with their fore-feet, and they bite off the roots of the orange-trees. That kills the trees. There are lots of oranges and pine-apples growing here. We never have any snow, and we hardly ever see ice. The land is very sandy. It is almost all covered with woods, and there is a lot of moss.
I went out alligator-hunting with a man. He shot eight times at one alligator without hitting him. I am nine years old.
Charlie K. S.