MEMORIAL FLOWERS.
BY M. M.
Blue violets open their saintly eyes,
Red columbines bend and sway,
White star-flowers twinkle in beds of moss,
And, blooming, they seem to say,
"We bring you the red and the white and the blue
To welcome Memorial-day."
So gather them, children, at earliest dawn,
While yet they are fresh with dew,
And we'll scatter them over the sacred mounds
Where slumber our soldiers true;
For we'll give them only the colors they loved—
The red and the white and the blue.
HOW JONATHAN BEWITCHED THE CHICKENS.
BY MARY HICKS.
"Hurrah! hurrah! Now for a long play-day; the school-master's a witch, and we are free;" and some twenty boys came flocking and tumbling out of the school-house door, and went swarming up the street. Not much like the boys of to-day, except for the noise, were these twenty youngsters of nearly two centuries ago, who skipped and ran up the streets of Boston, dressed in their long square-skirted coats, small-clothes, long stockings, and low shoes with their cherished buckles of silver or brass. And very different from to-day were the streets through which they passed as they flocked homeward talking of the master.
"He'll have naught to do but learn of the Black Man now; they do say he rides his ferule and bunch of twigs high up in the air, like Mistress Hibbins used her broom-stick," cried William Bartholomew, the sneak of the school.
"He best have been switching thee with it, then," cried Jonathan Winthrop. "Thou never hast thy share of the whippings—does he, mates?" and frank-faced Jonathan turned to his companions.