"Here's Job!" "Here's Job!" shouted every one at once; and before Seph could make up his mind what to do, fifteen or twenty boys and girls in masks began to caper around him. As soon as he did collect his scattered wits, however, he decided to play that he was dumb, and refused to speak. That made them laugh, and shortly they left him to greet another arrival.
Nobody, indeed, seemed to have the least suspicion who he really was. They'd "neber cotch him to let dem know, needer," Seph ruminated. He guessed he'd "cut his eye-teeth, an' knew what he was 'bout. When dar was mince-pies 'round, an' stuffed chicken, an' heaps ob good things, jes' lebe him alone."
"But," as the old saying has it, "there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." Before supper-time could draw near, there was a little catastrophe awaiting Seph that he had not counted on.
It arose from the fact that there was a meeting at the church that evening which the Deacon and Mrs. Potter attended, their way lying directly past the school-house. Who ever could have supposed that curiosity would have prompted the two good old people to look in and see what the young folks were about, even though they did not approve of such goings on?
But in the mean time Seph enjoyed himself amazingly. He watched the table longingly; he listened to the fiddle, and danced until he was out of breath; he played chase the squirrel, and had capital fun for an hour or more; then the end was at hand.
While standing in the middle of the floor, hesitating what to take part in next, he happened to notice a face outside one of the windows, and it did not take him more than the thousandth part of a second to recognize the Deacon looking straight at him. It was a tremendous moment, and Seph could almost feel the wool on the top of his head uncurl and rise right up under his hat.
His first impulse was to make a rush for the door. When he crossed the entry door-sill, however, he stubbed one foot, and fell, and the Deacon's hand was on him before he could recover himself.
He led Seph down the road, Mrs. Potter following close behind and pleading for mercy, as mothers do.
But in a moment the mask fell off, and the Deacon, amazed, let go his hold.
"What—!"
Seph did not wait to hear anything more, but ran into the bushes, then leaped over a fence, and ran at his best speed across an acre or two of ploughed ground.
"By golly!" he gasped, dropping down at last exhausted. "I reckon I's glad I'm black dis yere time, anyhow!"
Sorely disappointed, however, he skulked back to the barn, and there another misfortune overtook him—his own clothes had disappeared.
For a moment or two this startling discovery was too much for his intellect to grasp. He searched here and there desperately, overturned the hay, upset a barrel of oats, frightened the hens from their roosts, and got the horse to neighing. Then, scared and bewildered, he rushed outside, undecided what to do.
Surprise, however, awaited him here again. In a moment he saw himself—or at least somebody, with a black face and his clothes on—steal out from the wood-shed near by, and hurry down to the road.
If he wasn't himself, who in de world was he? dat's what he'd like to know.
But in about three minutes, when he saw the mysterious personage and the Deacon meet unexpectedly near a great tree that stood in the yard, he was never so glad in his life to be in some other fellow's clothes.
Seph ran over to the wood-shed, climbed up the ladder to the chamber above, and began to disrobe himself of Job's clothes in a hurry. He had got them all off, when the personage came scrambling up the ladder also, and the two confronted each other in the straggling moonbeams that found their way through a cobwebbed window.
"What yer gwine to do wid my clothes on, Job Potter?" Seph asked, wrathfully.
"Nothin'. Pa's spoilt it all! He fust thought that you was me, and then that I was you. There's no goin' to the party, anyway."
Seph dropped down on the floor, and let out the laugh that had been tickling him several times during the evening.
"It am all on account ob de Deacon bein' so onreasonable," he said. "We's had a perdicament for sartin."
It is not difficult to recognize, even under their funny disguises, the dogs that are performing this little comedy. Even if their faces were completely hidden, the Highland bonnet and the shepherd's plaid on the back of the bench would betray them. They are Scotch shepherd dogs, or collies. Both are young, and are in the early stages of their education. They are learning to know their master's voice and to understand his wishes.
To sit up on its hind-legs, with a cap on its head and a pipe in its mouth, must certainly be very trying even to a good-tempered dog. The cap is very heavy and uncomfortable, and the pipe has not the least bit of bone flavor about it. But the dog that holds the pipe and the dog that wears the good wife's sun-bonnet know, or at least are learning to know, that what their master bids them do must be done, if possible.
There is a very serious side to the life of a shepherd's dog in the Scottish Highlands, to which this merry masquerading forms a pleasant contrast. Day after day he must accompany the shepherd and his flock, and keep watch over the straying sheep upon the mountain-side.
When the faithful colly has thoroughly learned his business, he may have a chance to win other prizes besides his daily food and his master's friendship; for in Scotland prizes are often given to the dog that proves himself the best in a "field trial."
A flock of sheep is turned out upon a mountain-side, and in a distant part of it a "pen" is made with hurdles just large enough to hold the flock. An opening just wide enough for one sheep to pass in, at a time, is left. The shepherds in turn send their dogs out, and the dog that can drive all the sheep into the pen in the shortest time wins the prize. Each shepherd "works" his own dog, that is, he directs it with his voice, but is not allowed to help his dog in turning the sheep.
A shepherd who was watching his flock on a dark night saw them suddenly break away in all directions. Calling up his dog, he gave chase; but the sheep were wild, and he could not turn them. Soon they were all out of sight. He wandered over the mountain all night, but no trace of them could he find, until just at daybreak he came upon them, collected together—there were seven hundred of them—and there, keeping watch and ward over them, was his faithful dog. It had spent the night in gathering them together, and as they were too tired to walk home, the faithful animal sat down and waited until his master should find them at daybreak.
The dogs in the picture are the old shepherd's playmates now. They will soon be his most faithful friends and servants. Perhaps they may be the means of saving his life, for many and many a life has been saved by the intelligence and devotion of these humble creatures.
At last the brave and hardy shepherd will grow old, and the day will come when his sheep will miss him upon the mountain-side. His body is borne to its last resting-place in the peaceful old church-yard, and the neighbors all along the valley come to drop a tear upon his grave. But when all have gone their way sorrowfully, there remains one mourner who will not quit the mound of earth that covers his dear friend and master. It is no one; it is nothing; it is but a poor, ignorant, unreasoning, faithful—dog.
Hoary old winter provides some glorious sports for young limbs, but there come days of fierce snow and rain, or cold, howling winds, when he that ventures out for pleasure is more brave than wise. Books and in-door games then claim attention; but after a whole day, or perhaps two, spent in-doors, they lose their attraction.
Young minds and bodies grow restless and weary. There is no inclination for reading, or study, or play. The blood that only the other day was rushing through the youngster's veins with such force that he jumped and yelled with delight at he knew not what, is now almost as stagnant as a pool of water in a long drought.
It was exercise that made him glad and happy out-of-doors; exercise will make him contented and able to enjoy his book and his games in-doors.
For good in-door exercise there is nothing like a gymnasium. This is fortunate, for every house has a gymnasium in it, if its owners only knew it. It may sound like a strange statement, but it is true. Every bedroom is a gymnasium.
It is convenient to call this piece of furniture a chair; but if you call the room a gymnasium, you may call this chair a pair of parallel bars and a trapeze. If it is a light chair, and the ceiling is high, you may call it an Indian club and a pair of dumb-bells also if you like. That bed is a horizontal bar; so is the ledge over the door. The wall is an upright bar, and the pillow a sand-bag. When you are sleepy at night, you go to your bedroom; when you awake in the morning and spring out of bed, you find yourself in your gymnasium.
When you are only a little way dressed, try this exercise on your parallel bars: Turn your chair over so that it may rest upon its front legs and the front edge of the seat. Grasp the hind-legs, one in each hand, and with your legs stretched out, and your weight resting on the toes, lower your body until your chest is on a level with the legs of the chair; then push yourself up again by straightening your arms. Do this, without letting go the legs of the chair, two or three times. This will be as many as you will want to try at first, and you must never tire yourself. After several days' practice you will find you can do it a dozen times without any special fatigue, and you will also find that your arms are getting larger and harder.
When you can do this first exercise easily, get another chair, and place the two back to back, and about eighteen inches apart. Stand between them, and grasp the chairs, one with each hand; hold your arms straight, and lift your feet off the floor. Now lower yourself by bending your arms; dip down between the chairs as far as you can, and raise yourself up again without putting your feet to the floor. This exercise is rather harder than the other, and at first you will not be able to make more than perhaps two or three dips, but you will be astonished to find with how few days' practice you will be able to make twelve dips, and soon twenty or more. This is a capital exercise for the chest and arms; and because you are not going to be a lumberman or a wrestler you need not think you are wasting time by developing your muscles.
One of the greatest poets this country has produced, and one of the most able editors of any country, the late William Cullen Bryant, practiced this exercise every morning, and kept it up until his eighty-fourth year. What a wonderful old man! But we shall hear more of him soon.
Now for a bed exercise. Grasp the foot-board with the hands close together, and the fingers on the side nearest the body. Bring your elbows together, and leaning forward upon them so that they support your body, balance yourself upon your hands, and go forward until your face almost touches the bedclothes, and your legs are parallel with the floor. This is not easy; but after you have practiced the chair exercises well, you will soon be able to do this several times, and even bring your feet almost down to the floor and return to your balancing position without touching the floor.
One of the fittings of a gymnasium is a "horizontal bar." This you will find in your gymnasium in the ledge over the door. Open the door, and take hold of the ledge, and see how many times you can draw your chin up to the ledge. Not many times at first, you will find. But it is a capital exercise to bring up the biceps, as the muscle in the front of the arm above the elbow is called. Mr. Bryant used to do this exercise on the ledge over the door, and pulled himself up so many times without resting that he could not keep count of them. And he was not a light boy or girl, but an old gentleman of eighty years.
Now try a trapeze exercise, or something very like what is done on a trapeze. Sit on the chair, and place your right hand on the back of it, and with the left hand grasp the seat between your legs. Raise yourself a little by your arms, and pass your right leg through your arms to where the left is, and the left leg through to where the right was. You will then find yourself with your face to the back of the chair. Rest in that position for a few seconds, but without releasing your grasp of the chair, and then pass your legs back to their original position. This is an excellent exercise for the back and legs and arms, and though gymnastics are out of place in the sitting-room, it is a good trick to do when, as sometimes happens, some one is talking about and showing feats of strength.
In many gymnasiums there are striking-bags, filled with sawdust or sand, and hung from above by a cord. The cord is not necessary. One of the pillows of your bed will do just as well as a hanging bag. Throw it up to the ceiling, and as it comes down strike it up again, first with one hand and then with the other, and see how long you can keep it in the air. This pillow fighting is a good and not at all dangerous exercise. Pillow never hits back.
Although nothing has been said about girls doing these exercises, they are all suitable for girls, especially if done before they have finished dressing. Girls must have tumbled hair some time, and what better time than before they have combed it in the morning? Girls do not care much about foot-ball and base-ball, but they do like to have nice figures, and to be strong and healthy, and they will find no better way of becoming so than by practicing these and similar exercises.
Neither girls nor boys should try to do very much at first. Regular practice is very much better than hard work one day, and none at all the next three days. As soon as you feel tired, leave off. That is a sign that you have done enough. Fifteen minutes' exercise every morning will soon tell its tale in strong and lissom limbs and a feeling of health.
Some day you will go to a gymnasium fitted with bars and ladders and poles, and you will find yourself quite at home there. And that will be because your home gymnasium is not so very different from the public one, after all.
A week after their happy holiday, Jenny was once more living alone with only her "bad child," for Lizzie had been engaged to go and nurse a sick man away in the east part of the city of London, and had given up her place in the seaman's outfitter to do it.
The sick man was very ill indeed, and it would be days, and might be weeks, before Lizzie could come back.
Early one foggy evening, when Lizzie had been two or three weeks away, old Mr. Riah came to Church Street and the home of the little dolls' dressmaker. Jenny expected him. He could see her through the window by the light of the candle, sitting in her low chair with her bonnet tied on, waiting for him.
"Good-evening, godmother," said the little creature, opening the door in answer to his knock.
"Are you ready, Cinderella, my dear?"
Jenny laughed, locked the door on the outside, and put the key in her pocket. It was a big key for such a little person, and Mr. Riah offered to carry it.
"No, no, no," said Jenny; "I'll carry it myself. I'm awfully lopsided, you know, and it helps to keep me even. I'll tell you a secret, godmother; I wear my pocket on my high side on purpose."
He took her hand within his arm, and she worked her little crutch along briskly with the other. She had already given him her basket, with a doll in it in evening toilet, to carry, and so they set out through the fog toward London.
When they reached the great city they turned into one of the principal streets, and with the pressure of her little hand on his arm she turned him to the brilliantly lighted toy-shop window. There were dolls of all sizes, with black hair, with white hair, brown hair, and yellow hair, straight hair and curly hair and crimped hair; dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, for presentation at court, for going to balls, for going out driving, for going out on horseback, for going out walking, for going to get married, for going to help other dolls to get married, for all the gay events of life.
"Pretty! pretty! pretty!" said Mr. Riah, clapping his hands lightly. "You have done it very daintily, Cinderella."
"Glad you like them," said Jenny, pleased and proud, her hair sparkling like spun crystal through the gas-lighted fog. "But the fun is when I make the great ladies try my dresses on. It's the hardest work I have to do, too."
"How do you mean?"
"Bless you, godmother, I have to scud about town at all hours to do it. When I sit at my bench cutting out and sewing, that's easy; but the trying on!—that's work."
"How trying on?" asked Mr. Riah, still puzzled.
"Why, godmother, look here. There's a Drawing-room, or a grand day in the Park, or a show, or a fête, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I look about. When I see a great lady dressed in the height of the fashion, I say, 'You'll do, my dear,' and I take particular notice of her, and run home and cut her out and baste her. Then another day I come scudding back to try on, and then I take very particular notice of her indeed. Sometimes she looks at me as she thought, 'How that child stares!' and sometimes she seems to like it and sometimes she don't, but more times she does than she don't; and all the time I'm saying to myself, 'I must hollow out a bit here, I must slope away there'; and you see I'm making a perfect slave of her. Evening parties are the hardest for me, because there's only a doorway for a full view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages and the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night. But there I have 'em just the same. There was Lady Belinda Whitrose. One night when she came out of her carriage to go in to a party I said, 'You'll do,' and I ran straight home, and cut her out and basted her, and then I hurried back and waited behind the men that called the carriages. Very bad night it was, too. At last they called, 'Lady Belinda Whitrose's carriage!' and didn't I make her try on, and take pains about it too, before she got seated. That's Lady Belinda hanging up by the waist—and much too near the gas-light for a wax one—with her toes turned in."
The little doll in evening toilet in Jenny's basket had been ordered for a rich banker's little daughter; and when they went into the shop, Jenny took it out herself, and wouldn't let the rather pert young man behind the counter touch it.
"Give me a box, young man," said she, with the little hitch of her eyes and chin, and the sharp old look on her tiny face; and when he obeyed, with a sly wink at old Mr. Riah, she cut him short with: "Mind your tricks and your manners, young man. Now tie this up, so, and find out if there's any change to be made in the ladies' wardrobe, and I'll take the order when I come again, and I'll take my pay now."
Jenny had an errand into the city the very next day, and when it was done she went to St. Mary Axe to call on Mr. Riah. She found him standing on the door-step of the yellow house, with a clumsy black bag in his hand. Something in the way he looked up and down the street before he saw her put a quick suspicion in Jenny's keen little mind. In the front window, drawing down the blind, stood the foxy-faced young man, with his mouth stretched as if he laughed, but his eyes squinted as if he did not feel merry at all.
"Boh! you're a beast," exclaimed Jenny, shaking her small fist at him. "I knew it. Well, godmother"—stopping in front of him, with her head on one side, and looking like an owl and wren in one—"so the wolf's been too much for you, and you're thrown on the world?"
"It seems so, Jenny," the old man answered.
"Sudden, ain't it, godmother?"
"Rather." He stepped down into the street, and they moved on together slowly.
"Where are you going to seek your fortune?"
The old man smiled at this question, but Jenny saw that he looked about him as if he had lost his way in life.
"Come," said she, "the best thing you can do now, at any rate, godmother, is to come right home with me. There's nobody there but my bad child, and Lizzie's room's empty."
Mr. Riah had been asked by his employer to help do a mean and wicked thing, and because he would not do it he had been turned instantly from his place. But he had a little money, and could accept the little dressmaker's offer, for a time at least, without making her any poorer; so he went with her willingly, and was as pleased as she.
Now when Jenny had started on her errand into the city she had left her drunken father in the house, where he had promised to stay. But he didn't often keep such promises, or indeed any promises at all, and this time he took some coin he had managed to hide away, and crawled out through the window, and went into the city, and to places where drink could be had.
As Jenny and Mr. Riah were coming up the street toward Westminster Bridge, they met four men carrying a strange bundle between them. Mr. Riah would have passed, but Jenny stopped.
"Oh, let me see what it is! Let us make haste and look, godmother." She broke away, and with one quick look, "Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen, he belongs to me!" she cried, and threw up her little trembling hands.
"Belongs to you!" exclaimed one of them.
"Oh yes. Tell them, godmother, he's my child. Oh, my poor bad boy! And he doesn't know me! Oh, what shall I do?" wildly beating her hands together.
She leaned again over the wretched, ragged figure, and Mr. Riah whispered to the men who held it: "It's her drunken father. She calls him her child, and she has taken care of him ever since she can remember."
"He is dead," they answered, looking at her with eyes full of pity! One of them spread a covering over him, and as they walked on, the little dolls' dressmaker followed, hiding her face in Mr. Riah's coat. The men carried their burden home, and it was put down in the parlor.
Many dolls had to be gayly dressed before Jenny could get money enough to buy the last garments he would ever wear for her father. As old Mr. Riah sat by helping in such ways as he could, he wondered whether she understood that the dead man had been really her father.
"It's so hard to bring up a child well, godmother," she said, as her needle flew along the little seams, "when you have to work, work, work all day! When my child was out of work, I couldn't keep him always near me. He got fretful and nervous, and I had to let him go into the streets. But he never did well out of sight. How often that happens with children! But how can I say what I might have turned out to be myself if my back hadn't been so bad and my legs so queer?" The little dressmaker went on: "I had nothing to do but work. I couldn't play, and it turned out the worse for him."
"Not for him alone, Jenny."
"Well, I don't know, godmother. Perhaps if I could have played with him— He suffered a great deal, poor child, and I called him names." She shook her head over her work, and tears fell on it, but her needle never stopped for a moment.
And so, talking and weeping and working, the brave little creature had at last dressed dolls enough to pay for all that was needed for the dead father who had so long been her "troublesome child."
"I must have a cry before I can cheer up for good," said little Jenny, coming in from the funeral, a day or two later, "for a child is a child, after all, you know."
She went away by herself, and sunset had faded into evening before she came down and made the tea. Her eyes were red, but she pattered her little crutch across the floor as briskly as ever, and when tea was over, she spread out a quantity of bright silks and lace and beads upon her work bench, and began to work just as usual.
"Cinderella, dear child, will you never rest?"
"Cutting out a pattern isn't much work, godmother," said Jenny, her little scissors snipping into tissue-paper.
A knock was heard at the door, and Mr. Riah rose and opened it.
This game is played as follows: Take as many small pieces of card-board as there are players, and number them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on. Then place them all on the table and shuffle them together. Let each player draw a card. The one who draws the highest number is the manager of the game.
The manager lays the plaque before him on the table, and directs all the players to stand with their faces to the wall. He then takes the pieces of card bearing the numbers, and places one upon each picture—one on the Black Knight in the centre, one on the White Cat, one on the Skylark, and so on. Each player must now choose a number. When all have chosen, the manager announces who has hit on the number representing the White Cat.
Now the White Cat is supposed to be a Princess in disguise, and it is the duty of the Black Prince to rescue her. But if a boy selects the number representing the Princess, he can select any little girl who is playing, and exchange tickets, saying to her, "You shall be my Princess." In the same way, if a little girl selects the number which represents the Black Knight, she changes tickets with any little boy, saying, "You shall be my Black Knight."
When this is arranged, the Princess takes her position on one side of the room, and the Knight on the other, and all the players march three times round the room, each imitating the sound of the animal his number represents. Then they draw themselves up in line in front of the Princess, and facing the Black Knight. The latter takes a handkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, and throws it toward the Princess.
If he can throw it over the heads of the other players so that the Princess can catch it, then she is released, and all the others have to pay a forfeit, but it is the object of the other players to try to catch the ball without moving from their places. If one catches it, he is released, and so it goes on until either the Princess catches the ball or all of the other players catch it. Then if she and the Knight are left all alone, they both have to pay forfeits, which are cried in the usual manner.
Can it be possible that we have already reached the last day of January? One month of this bright new year has flitted away. You have had time to get used to writing 1882 on your school exercises, and time, we fear, to forget some of the good resolutions it seems so natural to make in the beginning of a year. Well, here is a chance for another start. If any boy is a loiterer, or careless, or passionate, if any girl is untidy or disobliging, begin to fight the bad habits now. February will bring us into the final month of winter.
Will some of our little window-gardeners write to the Postmistress and tell her about the callas that are opening their beautiful cup-like flowers, and the hyacinths that are filling their rooms with fragrance? There will be a snug little corner for plant-lovers in Our Post-office Box during the whole of the next month.
New York City.
I saw in No. 114 an article on sponges, in which you said that sponges were cultivated in Europe. One day as I was passing through Fulton Street I saw in a show case something labelled "cultivated sponge." With your piece fresh in my memory, and having also a great curiosity to see how it looked, I entered the store—a large drug house near William Street—and inquired about it, and they kindly told me that the sponge was raised at Cedar Key, Florida, and that it was of seven months' growth; also that it had been cut and planted without being taken out of the water. The sponge measured seven inches in depth and eight inches across. Thinking that some of your young readers would like to see such a curiosity, I write this letter.
Alfred M.
West Chester, Pennsylvania.
I am a little boy eight years old, and my uncle has been sending me Young People for a long time. I have read letters that little boys have written for your paper, and thought I would like to write and tell them about my pet squirrel. Its name is Shell-bark. I named it that because it eats so many nuts. My papa and I were in the woods one day, and saw a little squirrel pop its head out of a hole, so we threw a handkerchief over the hole, and caught it. It is very tame now, but it has had a sore nose from trying to get out of its cage, and the only way I could get to grease it was by giving him a shell-bark, and when he poked his nose out to get it, I greased it with cold cream. I believe that is all I have to say.
Robert F. W.
Do you not think you would feel happier if you were to set that cage door open, and give the captive, although he is so tame, the choice between liberty and confinement? It is squirrel nature to love the wide woods, and I am afraid, notwithstanding your generous providing, he would prefer the old trees and scanty fare to the prettiest cage and plenty. If you do keep him for a pet, then ask papa to let you have a cage for him so large that you could turn a somersault in it.
New York City.
I wonder if you would mind having at least one girl who has sympathy for Augusta C. about cats? I do not say I hate cats, yet I do not like them much. I think there are many nobler pets. We board, consequently I have no pets; but I have had them. Last year we went on a pleasure-trip to California, and staid eight months, going by sea via Panama, and coming home by land. I would like to know if Wiggles when drawn with a lead pencil are acceptable, and on what kind of paper. I am fourteen years old, and go to the public school.
Marie B.
Wiggles may be drawn with a lead-pencil, and on any kind of paper which is convenient. They should be sent as promptly as possible.
Chestnut Ridge, New York.
I have read your nice paper for a year, and I like it very much. Last winter we were snowed in for a week, and could not drive out at all. The men had to take shovels and shovel the roads, and were two or three days doing it. The people would drive over the worst of the drifts, and then turn back when they got where the roads were good, for fear of finding worse drifts. I had a pet bird named Dickie. I often used to let him come out of the cage, and fly around the room. I did so one day, and forgot him when I went out-doors. I came back to look for him, but I could not find a feather. I don't know whether the cat caught him or what happened to him, but we never found him again.
Mr. Lossing, the gentleman who sometimes writes for Harper's Young People, lives only a little way from us. He is a very intelligent person. His stories are very interesting, especially his history. I have also been very much interested in Mr. Otis's stories. I think that "Toby Tyler" is better than "Tim and Tip."
Mollie B. P.
Poor little birdie! You could not even have the sad comfort of a funeral for him. I fear the cat could have told what became of him; but she acted, if it was she who was the culprit, according to her nature. If you ever have so docile a pet again, you will surely not forget him when he is outside the shelter of his cage.
In No. 119 we will insert the January report of Miss E. A. Fanshawe, treasurer of the Endowment Fund for Young People's Cot in St. Mary's Free Hospital, New York. The cot for which our readers are contributing is to be placed in Holy Innocents' Ward, and one of the kind ladies who takes care of the little children there, in compliance with a number of requests, has sent us a letter telling how Santa Claus visited the hospital on Christmas. Although Christmas is over, you will all be glad to read her account of the pleasure which came to these sufferers:
St. Mary's Hospital, New York.
Some of you have asked how our little ones spent Christmas-day, and I am very glad to tell you of their happiness. When Christmas-eve came, they were in great excitement, wondering whether Santa Claus found the letters that they had put in the chimney, and whether each one would get what he or she had asked for. As bed-time drew near, we noticed on the part of those who had been up a remarkable desire to get to bed, and, when there, some very unsuccessful attempts at getting to sleep. Seven o'clock found them all quiet, and stockings fastened at the foot of each crib.
By five o'clock the next morning the girls were sitting up in their beds, with the contents of their stockings before them. Now you want to know what they found in those stockings. First, Santa Claus had put in a big orange, then a cornucopia of candy, and then—he had really brought them what they asked for in their letter; if it were too large to go in their stocking, he had put it on the foot of their bed, and on the top of all was a horn. At six they sang their carols. After breakfast all hastened to obtain their horns, and for a while there was a great deal of noise; several had never had a horn before, but they needed no instruction as to how to use it. Between their toys and "playing party" with their candy and oranges, the morning passed quickly away. In the afternoon they had a happy hour with their fathers and friends, telling them of all that Santa Claus had brought, and when bed-time came they were very tired little heads that rested once more on their pillows, and with the oft-repeated wish that "Santa Claus would come again to-night," they were soon fast asleep.
But there was still another treat in store for them. The Christmas tree was on the following Thursday; and a very happy group assembled on that day, not in the ward which you heard about in the last letter, but in the reception-rooms, which are as large as the ward, and could accommodate all the patients. It would take too long to enumerate all that wonderful tree had upon it, so I must leave you to picture it for yourselves, for without doubt you have all seen just such a one, and had some of the pretty things from its branches. It will be enough to tell you that the boys were made happy by soldier caps, guns, and swords, so that with the drum Santa Claus brought they can have a grand parade. And the girls have plenty of dolls to nurse and care for, for although apparently quite rosy and healthy when they came off the tree, yet the very next morning I heard that they were suffering from various diseases, so that the bed, which also was on the tree, was constantly being remade for a new patient as soon as one was pronounced "well enough to sit up." And frequent doses of medicine and pills were administered; these last were the tiniest little round candies, and after many attempts at persuading her child to swallow, the mother would often take one herself to show how easily it was done. While some nurse, the older ones, who have work-boxes, make garments for their tiny patients. Thus the happiness brought by their Christmas gifts will linger with these little ones for many a day, cheering and shortening their weary hours of suffering.
S.
Will the contributors to the Cot Fund kindly observe that money for this purpose is to be sent to Miss E. Augusta Fanshawe, No. 43 New Street, New York City, and not to Messrs. Harper & Brothers.
Medway, Massachusetts.
I have thought for a long time that I would like to write and tell about my two black dolls, Ned and Dinah. They were sent to me for a Christmas present when I was four years old. They came in the cars all alone from Portland, Maine, tied in a little chair. The night they arrived I had gone to bed, and mamma set them up on the piano so that I might see them the first thing when I got up in the morning. At first I was afraid of them; but I soon got over that, and have always loved them the best of all my dolls. I have taken Harper's Young People from the first, and like it better and better. I think Jimmy Brown's stories are very funny.
Mary S. M.
East Liverpool, Ohio.
I live on the banks of the Ohio River, and in a town where they make a great deal of white-ware. Nearly all the little girls and boys that write have pets. I have none except my dolls, and I have five of them. One of them I have not named; could you tell me a nice name for it? The little girls around here have doll parties just for their dolls.
Edna S.
The best thing about doll parties is the fun the dolls' mammas always have on such occasions. Perhaps some little girl will help you name your baby; and when you write again, ask your papa to tell you something about the manufacture of the ware you speak of, so that you can describe it for the little readers of Our Post-office Box.
Washington, D. C.
I have never written to a paper before, but this one is so nice that I must write one letter to it.
Whenever any little girls write and say they wish we would send them some toys or money for the poor children who have nothing, I want to do it very much; but all the toys we have are wanted, and there are no broken ones to fix up and send.
We have only one pet—a pussy. Her name is Black Beauty, because she is black all over, except a white breastpin. In the country where we were this summer there were seven kittens. My little sister and I fed them, and played with them nearly all day. One of them was very gentle. I have often swung it over my shoulder by its tail, and never but once saw it get angry.
I love dolls very dearly, and play with them often. We have eight dolls in our house, and made them three presents apiece Christmas. It is a great deal of fun to make presents for them, and play that they can see and hear us.
I have only three big dolls myself, and one is a great curiosity. She was fourteen years old last September—two years older than I am. Her name is Clara Georgiana.
I have a sweet, cunning little baby, whose name is Anna Aldora. One of her arms is off, and the other is coming.
My best doll is Louise Elizabeth, a fine young lady.
Emily N.
We wish you would promise yourself that you will not swing poor kitty by her tail again; it must be disagreeable and even painful to her, and we are sure you do not wish to hurt one of your pets.
Could not you spare one of your eight dolls for some little convalescent in a hospital, or some girl who has no playthings to amuse herself with? Perhaps, dear, if you choose one of the prettiest, and send her away, you will be surprised to find that the giving it away has made you very happy. You remember Mrs. Lillie's story of "Marjorie's New-Year's Eve," don't you? We know, for we have proved by trying, that the only way to get real enjoyment is to deny ourselves for others.
Orange, New Jersey.
Christmas morning, when we all rushed to the pretty tree, with its bright lights and presents, my little brother Clarence's stocking was squirming around, and out popped a wee black head with two bright eyes, and there was a puppy, all black but its brown feet and two brown spots over its cute little eyes. It weighed one and a half pounds, and is so spry and sweet! I know it has made us more pleasure than all the rest Santa Claus brought us, for we all love it so much! Brother named it Penny right away. If the milk-man does not bring us good fresh milk, Penny will not touch it. Mamma says the milk inspectors ought to have such a "taster."
I wonder if any of the little girls know how to make light, spongy-bread without yeast? Just use flour and water; some call it salt-rising, and some milk-rising, but it can be made nice without milk.
We are always glad when Young People comes.
Nora M. H.
Will not Nora ask her mamma to send Our Post-office Box the precise receipt for this bread?
Walhalla, South Carolina.
Happy New Year! In reading the letters published in Young People I have never seen one from here. May not one of the girls write? Our little town nestles at the very feet of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Those who live near the mountains can imagine how lovely a view they present. Last night it snowed, and they look prettier than ever. We have two very good colleges here, male and female. I go to the one, and brother to the other. I love our dear president, Dr. S. Tell Marie Louise Usher I wish I had something to offer in exchange for her deer horns; also, to write again, for I enjoy her letters. Have the girls and boys many pets? I have four. I love dogs, but not cats. As this is my first time, I will write no more.
Kitty.
Fulton, Tennessee.
I live on the Mississippi River, and we can see boats from our house. I think your little paper is so nice. I love to hear the boats coming, because I then know that my paper will soon arrive. I have two of the loveliest puppies you ever saw. Their names are Blanche and Ruby. They are pure white. I have also two cats—Paul Myrick and Susie Silver. Susie hardly ever comes home. One day mamma and myself heard a mouse in the wood-box, and we caught her and put her in the box. She caught the mouse in a hurry. I got a nice Bible on Christmas, with my name on it, and a large wax doll too. I have seven dolls now. Good-by.
A. L. M.
Oswego, Kansas.
This is the first time I have written to this paper, and I would like to tell about Christmas. There was a Christmas tree here; I got a few presents, but not many. I have not any pets to speak of. I am staying at my grandmother's now, and go to school, and read in a Fourth Reader, and I am nine years of age.
Clinton D.
The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.—An allusion was made in this column a few weeks ago to the long sleep of Rip Van Winkle, whose story is told by Washington Irving. Rip was the village good-for-nothing, a kind-hearted fellow, who had the bad habit of drinking to excess, and who spent hours in lounging about with his dog and gun when he ought to have been earning food for his family. It was little wonder that Dame Van Winkle scolded and stormed.
Rip's home was in a nook of the Catskill Mountains. One day he wandered off in search of game. He met some queer old fellows playing at nine-pins, and they left their keg of liquor where Rip could taste it, while they gravely rolled their balls about. Rip took several tastes, and finally fell asleep.
He supposed that he had slept only one night; but when he awakened, stiff and sore, and made his way down the hills to the settlement, tradition says that he had slept no less than twenty years. His wife was dead. His old comrades were gone. His little girl had a chubby child of her own in her arms. The war of the Revolution had been fought. The face of the world had changed.
Now the Postmistress wants to tell you something very curious about this legend of Rip Van Winkle. Like many other myths, it is found, in different forms, in far-away countries and remote periods. The Greeks had something like it in the exquisite story of the shepherd Endymion; but Endymion did not grow old and gray in his slumbers, as Rip did. In Scandinavian mythology there is a legend of Siegfrid lying sound asleep, but awaiting, a call to fight when his country shall need him. In Bohemia three miners are supposed to be dreaming in the heart of the lonely hills. But the most picturesque of all the stories is the one I am about to tell you of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. It is also very ancient.
In the days of the Emperor Diocletian the Christians at Ephesus were persecuted. All who refused to worship idols were condemned to death.
Maximian, Malchus, Marcian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantine were seven young men of noble birth. They said they would never deny their Lord and Master Jesus Christ. The Emperor gave them a few days to consider their course, telling them that they would certainly be executed unless they obeyed him. They divided their goods among the poor, and retired together to a cave in Mount Celion, where they fell asleep.
Diocletian hunted for them everywhere, but they could not be found. He blocked up with great stones the mouth of the very cavern in which they were, thinking that if they were hidden in its recesses they would not escape his wrath, but would die of hunger.
More than two centuries passed away. Then, according to tradition, an Ephesian building a stable on the side of Mount Celion took a fancy to the big stones in the cave's mouth. He carried them away, daylight poured in, the sounds of the outside world penetrated the silence, and the Seven Sleepers rubbed their eyes, awoke, and felt hungry. It was to them as though they had slept but one day.
Malchus went into the city to buy some food. Everything was strange to him. Everywhere, on houses and temples, he saw the sign of the cross. He heard men using Christ's name. When he went into a baker's shop to buy a loaf, and offered in payment a coin more than two hundred years old, the people stared, and the baker, who happened to be a coin collector, wanted to know where he had discovered so great a treasure. And Malchus, bewildered and confused, was taken before the Governor and the Bishop, and to them he told simply how he and his friends had gone to hide from danger, and how they had fallen asleep, and had just awakened. Then he led the great men and the crowd who followed them to the place where his six companions were impatiently waiting for him to return.
There they were, young, beautiful and blooming. But they were in a world which they did not know, and which did not know them, so the beautiful story says that God kindly took them to Himself before long in the sweet sleep which has no waking on earth.
Washington, D. C.
Dear Postmistress,—I read a letter in Young People, from St. Clair, Michigan, in which a little girl asks you for a name for a club of five, and some suggestions as to pleasant work, and I thought I would write to you about the club I belong to. There are five of us, and our name is the "T. J. G.'s." It was a profound secret for a long time what T. J. G. meant; but one of the girls forgot, and let it slip out. We fined her five cents; and now I suppose I may tell you—The Jolly Girls. Our badge is a bow of garnet ribbon, with a tiny bell fastened to it. We meet every Friday evening, and spend two or three hours in reading and conversation. Some one reads aloud. Our last book was Dr. Gilbert's Daughters. If any one is absent, she must pay a penny into the club fund. We are saving our money to buy books. During the holidays we had a little party, and invited eighteen of our friends. We had dancing and refreshments, and one of the city papers complimented our entertainment very highly. I am nine years old. I have had Young People from the first number. I like fairy stories better than any other kind. Washington looked like fairy-land on Christmas. My mother says that it is the most beautiful city in the world except Paris.
M. Josephine C.
As I have just been reading Dr. Gilbert's Daughters myself, I can imagine what a pleasant time you five T. J. G.'s have had over the troubles of May and Fay. There is a great deal of poetry in fairy stories, and I suppose that is why most people are so very fond of them. I think your badge is very pretty and unique, and I wish other girls and boys who belong to little clubs and circles would write and tell me about them.
C. Y. P. R. U. means Chautauqua Young People's Reading Union, and the papers prepared for the select reading of its members, and published in Harper's Young People from week to week, are recommended and approved by the Rev. Dr. J. H. Vincent, president of the parent society which bears the familiar and now celebrated name of Chautauqua. We state this for the benefit of some of our new subscribers, who do not understand the five mystic letters at the head of this column.
We would call the special attention of the C. Y. P. R. U. to a most interesting article on music, by Mrs. John Lillie, entitled "About Crotchets and Quavers"; and to "Home Gymnastics for Stormy Days," wherein Sherwood Ryse explains to the boys and girls how they may keep their muscles exercised and their cheeks rosy even though confined in-doors by bad weather. They will also be interested in the account of the sheep-dogs of the Scottish Highlands given under the title of "The Shepherd's Friends"; and in Mr. J. M. Murphy's account of "A Deer Hunt in the Rocky Mountains," the incidents of which were drawn from the practical experience of this well-known hunter.
Correct answers to puzzles have been received from "The Two Orphans," John Fred Hilton, C. A., Mabel B. Canon, Mary E. White, M. F. Tomes, Willie Volckhausen, "Lodestar," Wilfred J. Vrooman, George A. Simpson, Patchie Clark, Nellie J. Flagler, John Phelan, Frank Van Dorn, Ella Banks, Louie Price, Helena Sanders, George Hicks, Jennie May Ridgway, "Queen Bess," Richard W. Coutts.