Well, you have made me feel a strong desire to go to quaint old Nantucket. Don't you think the good home cooking must have tasted very delicious to hungry sailors who had been used to sea fare during long and tedious voyages? And how happy must dear little girls have been when, climbing to the lookout, they saw in the distance their fathers' ships coming in! How they must have hurried down to tell mother, and what a joyful troop must have been at the wharf to welcome the bronzed and bearded man when once more he set foot on his native land!
Brick Church, New Jersey.
I am eleven years of age, and have been receiving Harper's Young People as a present for nearly two years. I think it is one of the nicest Christmas presents I ever had given to me, and I enjoy the stories, puzzles, and Post-office Box very much. As school opened last Monday, I thought I would wind up my holidays by sending you fifty cents of my own for Young People's Cot, and hope it may help a little to do some poor sick child good.
I had a real good time during vacation, and among other things, my brothers and sisters and I (there are six of us all—steps and stairs, mamma says) made a collection of caterpillars, putting them in boxes with covers of glass, so that we could watch them. We fed them with cabbage leaves and turnip-tops. Did you know some caterpillars were cannibals? We caught some very pretty green ones with black stripes and yellow horns, and they soon attached themselves to the side of the box by two threads, and after a day or so their skins came off, and they turned into cocoons. It was just after they hung themselves up that the other caterpillars attacked them, and kept them company until they had eaten them all up. Wasn't it awful?
We have lots of butterflies now, but I scarcely think so much of them since I know how they behaved in their youth. But my uncle Jim says they are regenerated, and I suppose that takes the bad out.
Hoping, dear Postmistress, that you had a pleasant time this summer. I am your little friend,
Effie W. R.
You were well employed in watching the caterpillars. That is the best way to study natural history, not depending on books only, but taking notice for yourself of the ways and habits of insects and birds.
Shelton, Nebraska.
I thought that I must write to you because all the other little girls and boys do. I take Harper's Young People and The Pansy, and like them both. I have a pet pig, and I call her Peggy. She is an orphan; I raised her on a bottle. I once had a pet kitty. I would put a shawl around her and rock her, and she would go to sleep. Papa has a horse that I can ride. I can ride sideways on a gallop without a saddle. My home is on a farm with my papa and mamma, and I am their only child. We had a hail-storm here in July which destroyed the wheat for many miles around. I attended the Grand Army Reunion at Grand Island, Nebraska.
Louie L.