Mount Pleasant Academy, Sing Sing, New York.
I have taken Young People from the beginning, and I like it very much. Some of the other boys in this school take it, and they all think it is the best paper published. We all like "The Moral Pirates" the best of all the stories, and "Toby Tyler" the next. We have not had very good coasting nor skating lately, on account of the weather, but if it grows cold, and snows some more, we will have it.
I am collecting stamps, but all my duplicates are easy ones, and I have not enough to exchange yet.
I think the editor must work pretty hard to make the paper so nice for us to read.
Now I must stop writing, and study my Bible lesson.
Louis F. R.
Warrensburg, Missouri.
One week ago I had a letter to the Post-office Box nearly finished, and we were very happy, but just as night was coming on, mamma got a telegram from Colorado, nine hundred and ninety miles away, saying that our dear papa had died that morning. How dark the world did look! I used to write to him in mamma's letters, and he would write to me and my little brother about little tame bears and antelopes, and the funny prairie-dogs, and how high the mountains looked with their white caps of snow. He was so far across the mountains that the rivers ran toward the Pacific. Papa was shot and mortally wounded by some Mexicans. He was brought home to be buried, which was a great comfort to mamma.
Mamma likes the historical stories in Young People, and she hunts up more about the principal characters mentioned, and tells me about them. Was the "tiny tot" in the story of Prince Charlie the Duke of York, after whom the State and city of New York was named?
Harry D. S.
Yes, the "tiny tot" was the Duke of York, and on the death of his brother became James II., King of England. The name of New York city was changed from New Amsterdam to New York in 1664, Charles II. having, in violation of all national courtesy, granted the colony of New Netherlands to his brother James, then Duke of York.