Robbie Lee D.
Buffalo, New York.
I am a little boy four years old. My name is Clifford, but when any one calls me, they say Chippy. I have two brothers and a sister Bessie. We have a mamma kitty that is ours, and she has a family of six kittycats. She takes five of them away every evening, and leaves one there. We don't know where she goes to, but she comes back to get ready to go again. She pays no attention to the one she leaves. We are all good little boys, I and my brothers; never play in the dirt to get ourselves dirty, and yet we are never clean. We try awfully hard. Do you know why? We play circus in the barn. There are no horses there. We jump over the barrels and in the barrels, pull on a long rope, and do lots of tricks. Our grandma made us a clown's suit. She took white cloth, and cut out big flowers and animals out of some more cloth, then took some flour and water and pasted and sewed them all on the white cloth. It covers us over; and we have a big cap just like it. We have a circus, when the people will come; the people are Clinton and Emma and Winnie. My mamma sent me to Sunday-school to-day, but I did not get my Golden Text. All the other children said theirs, but I know a nice one that my auntie sent me in a little letter, "Little children, love one another." I like to say that every time; then I don't have to learn another. Please hurry up and put this into a little paper, so I can see how it looks. My mamma is writing this for me; but I can write, but nobody can read it, so I guess you couldn't, for I make little lines all over, and then put little round marks all over. I knew you wanted to hear from me, because I wanted to write to you; and mamma reads the little letters to me out of your nice paper every Sunday afternoon.
Chippy H.
I know another little man about your age whose name is Clifford, and what do you think they call him? Tupper. He gave himself this name when he was learning to talk. Chippy is a very pretty pet name for a boy. I would like to go to your circus, but, dear, if I were your Sunday-school teacher, I think I would coax such a big and clever boy as you to learn the Golden Text every week. Don't you think you can do so if you try?
A dear child who lives in Titusville, Pennsylvania, incloses a verse which she made up herself about her dog Bruno. Here it is:
| One Sunday morn the sky was blue, |
| August the first, in Eighty-two, |
| A little dog, both round and fat, |
| Was brought to us, small as a rat. |
| Old mother Gyp, so proud and wise, |
| Smiled upon it with loving eyes. |
| The dog is mine; I named it Bruno; |
| But mother said to name it Uno. |
| I said, "Oh no," and got my ball. |
| The dog is mine; and that is all. |
Minnie J. B.