Slate Mills, Virginia.

A long time ago I wrote a letter for Young People, but was afraid it would be dropped into the waste-basket, and did not send it. Since that time I have read so many letters from boys and girls that I thought you might put mine in your good little paper. I think it is so nice to have a paper where we young folks can talk to each other. I am thirteen years old, and live among the mountains of Virginia. We have a grand view of the Blue Ridge from our house, and a small stream flows at the foot of the cliffs near us. We boys have splendid times in the summer, fishing and swimming, and we have had good skating this cold winter. I have caught a great many rabbits, and sometimes a 'possum gets into the trap. One of the colored boys caught about twenty-five musk-rats last summer and fall. We sell the skins to the country store, and generally get powder, shot, and fish-hooks in exchange.

The big snow that we have had this winter has been very destructive to the game. It has been very hard on the partridges, for it gives the hawks such a good chance to pick them up, as they can see the birds so far on the snow. I have seen some rabbits that were shot lately, and they were very poor and lean. I expect many of them starved to death. The deep snow was so unusual in this part of the country that we got tired looking at the white fields. But we had some good sleigh-rides, and lots of fun coasting. The snow was so heavy on the trees and bushes, and especially on the pines and other evergreens, that it bowed them over so that they had a very singular appearance, particularly in the moonlight, and one could imagine the shapes of animals, people, etc.

I must tell you old Uncle Joe's experience. He is an old colored man that we all think a great deal of. He is very small, not bigger than I am, and is very superstitious, and imagines he can see all sorts of things at night, especially when he has been listening to ghost stories at the store.

Uncle Joe started home rather late one night, and I expect the stories had been more weird than usual. While passing through a lonely glen, just as the moon came up over the tree-tops, the old man began to see sights. No doubt the bushes, trees, and rocks had a queer look, and all kinds of queer things put in an appearance. If all the curiosities he thinks he saw could have been got together, Joe would have had quite a respectable menagerie. Uncle Joe insists upon it that he saw them all, and at first sight would have turned back, but he had gone so far into the show that when he turned around "it looked wus behind than it did befo," so he kept right on, and "he don't know how he ebber got home." He said "he could hardly keep his hat on, his har ris up so," notwithstanding he had two cotton handkerchiefs, a pair of socks, and some other things, in his hat.

We all laughed heartily at the poor old man, and asked him if any of the ghosts spoke to him or molested him in any way. "Now, honey," he would say, "you can jest have your jokes wid de old niggah, but sure as you're born, dem was sure enough ghostzes wot I seed—ghostzes of people, ghostzes of animals, and varmints, and elephants, and all sich."

The next night quite a lot of us went to the glen to see if the show was still on exhibition, or, like other affairs of the kind, had flitted in the night. But sure enough we could make out some resemblance to various animals, but not quite so plain as Uncle Joe made them out. Papa went with us, and he made a sketch of the old man travelling through the dark hollow.

Ernest C. P.

Brooklyn, New York.

Dear Mr. Harper,—I'm in an awful fix. I don't believe Jimmy Brown felt any worse or any more discouraged with life after his father laid him across that old chair than I do now.

I hear grown-up people talk about writing to the papers when things go wrong, so I'm going to try it, though that's the way I got into trouble.

First of all, we children had scarlet fever. It didn't hurt much; but mamma kept us shut up in two rooms for five weeks, and of course we had to do something.

After fixing my stamp-book all up, I had about twenty duplicates, so I wrote to Young People requesting exchanges. A day or two after, I was greatly delighted when a dozen letters were handed me, all containing stamps. I went over them, selected what I wanted, and returned the rest, with those asked for. In about four days all my duplicates were gone; still the letters and stamps kept coming from far and near. Hardly anybody sent anything I wanted, so I had to send dozens upon dozens of replies, containing stamps.

Now my income is just twenty-five cents a week; and when it came to paying postage on from five to ten letters a day, at three cents each, I couldn't find any rule in my arithmetic to make it come out right.

Now that I am going to school, and haven't much time to write, there has a fresh lot started in from Omaha, San Francisco, Denver, and a lot more of those places with uncivilized names.

I'm an awful slow writer—the perspiration just rolls off me doing this—and it will take me a month to answer them all, as I have only Saturday; and papa shakes his head, and says things will be twice as bad when the mails begin to arrive from Europe, Asia, and Africa, not to mention all the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans; and mamma sighs, and says if I keep the stamps so long, people will think I am dishonest, and when I am nominated for President of the United States, all these things will be brought against me.

Now I want to say, Mr. Harper, that I think all this is a good deal your fault. If you hadn't sent your paper all over creation, I'd never have had all this trouble, and I wish you'd please stop printing so many copies, for with no Saturdays and no pocket-money, a boy might 'most as well be dead; and if the Hottentots and all the rest begin sending stamps, I shall be ready to go with Jimmy Brown and his dog and monkey.

Sorrowfully yours,
Percy L. McDermott.

New York City.

I contribute to the Young Chemists' Club a very pretty experiment, called the Alaska Landscape: Dissolve one pound of nitrate of lead in one gallon of water; filter; then drop in four ounces of muriate of ammonia. Stand it in a place where it will not be disturbed, as it can not be moved without injury.