Clarkstown, New York.
We thought we would like to tell about our pets. We each have a rabbit. One is black with a white breast, and the other two are white and gray. We give them apple-wood, and they peel the bark off so clean! We have two cats, both gray. One of them is very old; we call her Kitty Gray. The other is a kitten, and is named Christopher. He will run up my dress to fetch a piece of bread which I hold as high as I can. We have eight bantams; one of them is blind. We ourselves write a paper called "The Monthly Budget"; we compose it all. We like Young People very much. I am ten. Robert is eight, and Pauline is five. We can all read.
Marianne W.
Send me a copy of your "Budget," please. I would like to have a peep at it.
Huntington, West Virginia.
The boiler in a flour mill here blew up the other day. It lifted the large chimney away up in the air, and that came down with an awful crash. When the boiler blew up it shook all the houses near it. It blew the large water tank that was on the roof clear up into the air. Pieces of the boiler and engine were blown across the street. Some bricks and large pieces of timber were blown over the street, and burst in the side of a house. There was a real large barrel factory that caught fire here, and the fire-engine worked from seven until eleven o'clock, but could not stop it, it had got under headway so much. It rained almost every day in the next week, but the fire kept on smoking. We have good teachers at our day school. I am ten years old, and study spelling, reading, arithmetic, grammar, and geography.
Charlie A. P.
What an exciting time you have had between the explosion and the fire! I am afraid you boys enjoyed the fun more than you thought about the calamities.
Not long ago I saw an explosion of a different kind. Some boys were playing marbles near my house, and a quarrel had arisen. One little man jumped up, shook his fist at another, and with blazing eyes said, "You just get me mad, now, and see what I'll do!" He looked as though he might turn into a torpedo on the spot. It made me think of a Bible verse which I like very much: "Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." I fear the angry boy had not learned that verse by heart, if, indeed, he had ever heard of it.