Part 3

Having mastered the "three," you may try the "half double three," which is a "three" and the first part of another one. This sounds easy, but it is not so, for the reason that all your force will be exhausted by the time you have made a good tail to your figure. The "double three" is more difficult still, for the same reason. Now that you have learned the outside edge, you should do the "eight" in the proper way, namely, by making the second circle on _outside_ instead of inside edge.

When you can do "outside edge," "eight," and "three," the best way to learn more difficult figures is to go to the corner of the pond where the best skaters practice, and, watch them. You will thus learn more than a whole book can teach you. Practice and attention to a few simple rules are the only roads to success: (1) When skating on one foot keep the other foot well back, with the toes turned out, and the heel close to that of the other foot; (2) keep your head up--there is no need to look down at the ice; (3) keep your elbows down; (4) straighten the knee after striking out, and keep it straight. Remember that when you are once in motion you increase your speed or alter your direction by simply throwing the weight of your body in the direction you wish to move.

MY BEAUTIFUL CHILD.

BY A. L. A. SMITH.

The sun rides in through the golden gates Of the east with a wealth of light, And the smiles of gold on valley and wold Are smiles from his countenance bright. The flowers and hedges are dashed with dew, And the birds with tuneful throats Are flooding the air with melody rare, In liquid silvery notes.

My beautiful child, may you go forth Like the sun with a wealth of light, And purer than gold on valley and wold Be the smiles from your spirit bright! Drop words as bright and kind as the dew, And vie with the woodland throng; From the heart's deep well let praises swell In showers of grateful song.

THE LITTLE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER.

ADAPTED FROM CHARLES DICKENS.

BY MRS. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON.

Near the small town of Millbank, and just outside the great city of London, there is a little street called Church Street, and a little square called Smith Square, and where this street and square come together there is a row of houses, rented very cheap, and in one of them lived the little girl whose story I shall try to tell you.

She was about fourteen years old at the time I speak of, and her real name was Fanny Cleaver; but her back was so weak, one of her short legs being shorter than the other, and she was so very little--not having grown any since she was seven years old--that she had given herself the name of Jenny Wren, and by this name every one knew her. The queer little figure, as it hopped about, and the queer but not ugly little face, with its bright gray eyes, made her seem wonderfully like the cheerful, quick, tiny brown bird whose name she had chosen.

Jenny's mother was dead, and Jenny's father was a drunkard. If you do not know what misery comes into a home, whether it is a rich or humble one, when the father has the evil habit of drink, then you can hardly understand what a great trouble little Jenny had to bear, and all alone, too, for her bright mind, her true heart, and her skillful little hands were all the friends Jenny had. What could such a little creature do? She printed the words "Room to Let" with a stubbed pen on a piece of white card-board, and hung it in the window; and it had not hung there many hours before there came a knock at the door. The door flew open by a spring which had been touched inside. Across the narrow entry the parlor door stood open, and showed Jenny Wren sitting in a low, old-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of work-bench before it. Jenny looked at the handsome young lady standing on the door-step.

"I can't get up," said she, "because my back's bad and my legs are queer, but I'm the person of the house, miss, and won't you come in?"

"You have a room to let?" said the young lady. "My name is Lizzie Hexam, and I want to hire a room."

"Um-m," said Jenny; she was pressing bits of card-board between her teeth. "Take a seat--but would you please to shut the door first? I can't do it very well myself, because my back's so bad and my legs are so queer."

Lizzie Hexam closed the door, and sat down. She looked kindly at the very little creature, who went on with her work a few moments in silence, gumming together with a camel's-hair brush pieces of card-board and thin wood, which had first been cut out in different shapes. There were scissors and small sharp knives, and bright scraps of velvet, silks, and ribbon, lying on the bench.

"You can't tell me the name of my trade, I'll be bound," said the little creature, with a quick bird-like glance at her visitor.

"You make pincushions?"

Jenny nodded. "What else do I make, miss?"

"Pen-wipers?"

"Ha! ha! What else? Oh, you'll never guess," laughed Jenny.

"You do something with straw, but I don't know what," said Lizzie, pointing to one corner of the bench.

"Well done!" cried Jenny. "Now I'll tell you. I only make pincushions and pen-wipers to use up my waste, but my straw really does belong to my business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?"

"Bonnets?" said Lizzie, after thinking a moment.

"Yes. Fine ladies' bonnets," Jenny said, with a proud nod. "Dolls. I'm a dolls' dressmaker." She put her tiny hand in a very small apron pocket and drew out a card. "There," said she, "read that."

Lizzie took the card, which looked like this:

_Miss Jenny Wren,_ _Dolls' Dressmaker._ _Dolls attended at their own residences._

"I hope it's a good business," said Lizzie, smiling at the little creature.

"No. Poorly paid," said Jenny. "And I'm often pressed for time. I had a doll married last week, and was obliged to work all night to get her ready in time, and it's not good for me, on account of my back being so bad and my legs so queer. And they don't take care of their clothes, and they want new fashions every month. One doll I work for has three daughters. Bless you! she's enough to ruin her husband."

Here Jenny laughed, and gave such a sharp look at Lizzie, and hitched her little chin, as if her eyes and chin worked together by the pulling of a wire.

"Are you always so busy?" Lizzie asked, looking with wonder at the small fingers cutting, gumming, and stitching so fast.

"Oh, busier," said Jenny, tossing her head. "I'm slack just now. I finished a large order for mourning clothes the day before yesterday. The doll I worked for had lost a canary-bird, and she wanted very deep mourning." She laid down her work, and reached for a crutch that leaned against the bench. "Come," said she, "I'll show you the room. It's not large, but it's nice, and very cheap."

They went up a small and narrow staircase, and Jenny threw open a small door, and with one step down they were in a little box of a room, but it was neat as wax, and had one white-curtained window just over the front door. Lizzie hired the room at once, and then followed her queer little landlady down into the parlor again.

"Are you alone all day?" said Lizzie. "Don't any of the children in this street--"

"Oh, don't!" said Jenny, with a little cry, as if the word had pricked her. "Don't talk to me of children! I can't bear children! Oh, I know their tricks and their manners!" She said this with an angry shake of her tiny right fist close before her eyes. "Always running about and screeching, they are; always playing and fighting; always skip-skip-skipping on the walk, and chalking it for their games. And that's not all"--shaking her little fist as before. "They go a-calling names through a person's key-hole, and imitating a person's back and legs. Oh, I'll tell you what I'd do to punish 'em if I could. There's doors under the church in the square, black doors leading into dark vaults. I'd like to open one of those doors, and cram 'em all in; and then I'd lock the door, and blow in pepper through the key-hole."

The little creature stopped, quite out of breath.

"Blow in pepper!" said Lizzie. "Why should you do that?"

"To set 'em snee-ee-eezing, and make their eyes water; and then I'd mock 'em through the key-hole, just as they mock a person through a person's key-hole. No; no children for me. Give _me_ grown-ups."

From all this the little dressmaker's new lodger could very well understand that the children of the street, who were strong and well, and could romp and play merrily all day, had not been as thoughtful and kind as they might have been to little Jenny Wren, whose life was so unlike and so much braver than theirs.

In a few days the two girls had become warm friends. Lizzie, who was eighteen years old, earned her living by working in a seamen's outfitter; that is, a shop where sailors' clothes are made. During the daytime Lizzie was away at her work, and Jenny sat at her little work-bench at home, except when she had to peg away on her little crutch to the milliners', or the doll shops, or to the house of some customer for whom she had dressed a doll. At night-fall, when her work was done, the dolls' dressmaker would lean back in her little low arm-chair, with her arms crossed, and sing in a sweet, thoughtful voice, and wait for Lizzie, who at about the same time would come out of her shop in Millbank, and hurry along in the sunset by the river-side until she came to Church Street, and the small house, and the small housekeeper who loved her so much.

"Well, Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie," Jenny would say, breaking off in her song, "what's the news out-of-doors?"

"And what's the news in-doors?" Lizzie would answer, laying her gentle hand on the bright hair, which grew very long and thick and wavy on the head of the little dolls' dressmaker. Then they would have tea together, Lizzie spreading the cloth on the low work-bench, because Jenny could sit at that more easily than at the table, and while they ate they would talk over the day and its work. After supper, Lizzie would move Jenny, chair and all, so that she could look out over the square and into the evening sky, and then sit down beside her. Sometimes a visitor would drop in, perhaps one of Jenny's patrons who took an interest in her, or who had an order to give the little dressmaker.

"This is what I call the best time of the whole day," said Jenny one night, when they were sitting in the pleasant twilight; and then she continued, in a soft, low tone, "I wonder, Lizzie, how it happens that sometimes when I am working here, all alone, in the summer-time, I smell flowers. It isn't a flowery place, you know--it's anything but that. And yet as I sit at work I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses until I think I see them in great heaps--bushels of them around me on the floor--and I put down my hand and expect to make them rustle. I smell the white and the pink May in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among, for I've seen very few flowers indeed in my life, my Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie."

"You must find it very pleasant, my dear Jenny."

"So I think when it comes. And the birds I hear! Oh!" cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking up, "how they sing!"

As Jenny talked in this way, with her hand raised, and her eyes wide and bright, she looked quite beautiful, Lizzie thought. They sat silent for some moments, until they heard a shaky, shuffling step on the sidewalk.

Then Jenny spoke in such a different voice. "That's my child coming home, and my child's a bad, troublesome child."

Jenny was speaking of her drunken father. She always called him her child. It seemed as if the little creature felt that the name "father" would in some way be wronged and spoiled in her own thoughts if she gave it to the poor wretch who stumbled over the door-sill where they sat. The name "child" seemed to give her a sort of patience to bear her trouble.

"I would rather you didn't see my child," Jenny said; and Lizzie rose and went up stairs.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

Little correspondents the wide world round have sent the missives which greet our young readers this week. Some of the letters have been a long while in reaching their destination, and others are from friends not far away. We are sure that every letter will be eagerly read, not excepting the doleful one from a new contributor, which bright eyes will discover tucked snugly in among epistles from more fortunate writers.

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ROCKLANDS, ROCKHAMPTON, QUEENSLAND.

I live in Central Queensland, and have never seen a letter in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE from this colony. Our home is in the bush; the trees about here are gum, box, and ironbark. They give hardly any shade, as the leaves hang straight down. There is a lagoon in front of our house. My brother and I want to make a canoe, but we can not procure back numbers of YOUNG PEOPLE here? If any young reader would send us a copy of No. 26, Vol. I., we would in return send some native seeds or colonial stamps.

It is very hot here, and we hardly ever see frost. Our orange-trees are now loaded with blossoms. We have several hundred pine-apples. I have a little garden of my own, and raise pumpkins, cabbages, rock-melons, beans, and lettuces. My brother is ten, and I am eight and a half years old. We recite lessons to mamma.

We often go riding, and we call our ponies Pip and King Pippin. We have been building a suspension-bridge over a little dam, of saplings and fencing wire. It gave us hard work for several weeks, and papa says it developed our muscles finely.

BERTIE WILKINSON.

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ALEXANDRIA COUNTY, VIRGINIA.

I wish to tell all the little folks, like myself, who read YOUNG PEOPLE, of our home near the capital of the United States. From the heights near our house we have a beautiful view of the cities of Georgetown and Washington; and when the day is fair we can see Sugarloaf Mountain, away up the Potomac River, and down the river to Alexandria and Mount Vernon, the former home of our great General Washington.

We have a beautiful oak grove just back of our house, and a dear little owl lived there for several years. When we children played in the grove, laughing and shouting, he would come out of the hole in the side of the old oak-tree, and listen as if he were wondering what all the noise was about. When we moved back here last spring, the little owl was gone. A family of pretty little red squirrels had taken his place, and I guess they drove him out to seek a home somewhere else. The little usurpers seem very happy in their new home. We often see them playing and skipping about, and as we never molest them, they have grown quite tame, but we all wish the little owl would come back too. He used to do some funny things.

One night mamma went into the parlor, and was very much surprised to find all her beautiful ferns pulled out of the vase. As none of the children had done it, she didn't know what to think. She re-arranged them all nicely in the vase, but on going into the parlor in the morning, found them all scattered over the floor again. She was more surprised than ever, when, on looking up, there sat the little owl on one of the picture-frames, looking as wise as possible out of his great big eyes. He had come down the chimney, mamma thinks. She took him down, and after giving him a good talking to for his badness, carried him out to the grove, and letting him go, away he flew up to his nice warm nest in the old oak-tree again.

I am eleven years old, and have four sisters and two brothers, so you see "we are seven." We have a nice school near by, and last month my teacher gave me the highest number (100) on the roll of honor for deportment and perfect lessons.

I will be so much obliged if you publish my true story of the little owl, for I think it will please those who live in the large cities, and never have a chance of seeing the beautiful country, and the great oak-trees.

ELIZABETH T. S.

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HEIDELBERG, GERMANY.

I have been in Europe for a year and a half. I have been in England and Holland much of the time. I can speak German, and often I play with German children. When I was in Paris I often played with Mr. De Lesseps's children, and I think the picture of them which appeared in YOUNG PEOPLE is very good. Heidelberg is a very pretty little town surrounded by mountains. I went up the Rhine in a steamboat. It is a beautiful river, and has mountains on both sides, and on these mountains I counted more than sixty castles. I do not like Paris so well as I do New York city, which is my home. The best treat I have every week is the coming of my YOUNG PEOPLE. For my birthday, I got from mamma a lovely paint-box with eighteen paints and black and white chalk. I am very busy making my Christmas presents. I hope this will be printed, for I wrote once before, and the letter was not published. Now I must say good-by, wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

MARY M.

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PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA.

I am a little girl six years old. My name is Susie. Papa read to me Etta M.'s letter, and I think a nice name for her doll would be Pansy. I have three dollies; one is named Nellie and one Julia and one Alice. I like HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE very much, and my sister Mary, who is eight years old, reads it to Bessie and me. Bessie is four years old. I like "Toby Tyler" best. I got papa to write this for me.

SUSIE L.

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You all remember the letter from Lydia Hargreaves and Lulu Ruckstuhl, which appeared in Our Post-office Box No. 111. Here is an acknowledgment of your answer to that appeal:

DEAR "YOUNG PEOPLE,"--We know you are all anxiously waiting to hear about the Christmas tree at the Home for the Innocents, so we will try and write a nice long letter, and thank you for the many gifts that we have received--for we did receive a great many gifts; we had no idea when we wrote that there were so many kind little boys and girls who read the paper. Monday morning we went out early to the Home, and found some kind ladies, and together with them we dressed the tree with the ornaments you had sent; then around under it we placed the dolls and toys and books. The tree was beautiful, and although the room was small, it showed off very well. In the afternoon the children came marching in, singing "Onward, Christian soldiers." They have two or three little boys that sing so sweetly. But they could hardly finish their song, so eager were they in watching the tree. After a short prayer, the children were each asked, "Now, what will you have?"

After the children were supplied--and there was an abundance, as you were all so liberal; even the little ones in their nurses' arms had their arms full of dolls--Sister Emily, who is the matron, and has another small school where she teaches poor children--took some of the toys, and fixed a tree for them. These poor little children were dumb when they saw the tree. One little girl, when they handed her a doll, said, "Oh, dolly! dolly!" and she did not look at anything else the whole evening but her doll. I wonder if you were all as happy on Christmas as that little girl. I hope so.

Little Bertha R. always calls the paper HARPER'S YOUNG FAMILY. We think you are the nicest family we ever heard of. If some little boy or girl does not find his or her name below, please don't feel slighted, for we have tried to put all the names down, and you may be sure your package was received and appreciated by some poor child.

Wishing you a Happy New Year, we are yours lovingly,

LULU G. and LYDIA B. LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY.

Packages were received from Harper & Brothers; Susie Benedict; Fred and Arthur D.; Alice Paige; Maud Duling; Grace Stephens; Fanny Young; Maggie Buch; Annie Lewis; Morril Dunn; Eva Cunningham; Rose Ella Carhart; W. and A. Burke; John and Daisy Cunningham; Lottie, Warren, and Alice Lockwood; Rona R. and "Little Gertrude"; Justin, Tommy, and Isaac Andersen; Jennie and Annie Petman; Willie H. Hazard; Helen McCoy; "Aunt Edna"; Kenneth Murdock; Dolly; May and Tom Barron: Mollie, Effie, and Myrtle Bakewell; Josie Ulmer; L. V. H.; Maud and Lillie Hench; L. H. S. and T. B. S.; Carrie; Nora and Bell; Nellie Portis; Jessie Whitehurst; Daisy; Mortimer Hambem; Louisa L. Tatten; Willie Needham; Mrs. Annie J. Post and Charlie J. Post; Louis Bryant, a check for $1; an unknown friend, $1; Winnifred and Mac Allen; Mrs. T. A. C.; Murray Boyer; Charlie and Willie Patrick; and a package from Canada.

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NUKHONUYO.

The readers of YOUNG PEOPLE would like to hear of my pets. I am five years old, and have two birds (linnets), Tommy and Mrs. Tommy, a white rabbit called Snowball, which is very cunning, and my gray kitty is named Baby Rose. My dollies are a great delight to me. Their names are Daisy, Rosa Posa, and Bessy Bright-Eyes, who is married to Boy Blue, and has a family of five children.

ETHEL MCP.

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FORT OMAHA, NEBRASKA.

I have a little antelope, which my cousin sent to me from Wyoming when it was two weeks old. We had to feed him from a bottle for a long time. He would drink only when the milk was in the bottle. But one day I did not give him anything to drink till night; then I brought out a pan of milk for him, and he tried to drink, but he did not know how, though he soon found out, and it was funny to see him. He would put his nose in and try to eat it, but it couldn't be eaten. He is now a large antelope, and when you touch him he will turn and run after you, and if you don't get on the fence or behind a tree, he will butt you. Sometimes the dogs come in and get after him, and then he will run up to the window and make a noise, so that we will come out and drive the dogs away. When we are at dinner he will come up to the window and lick it and ask to be fed. His tongue is black, and his horns are two inches long, but they hurt when they hit you. His color is a grayish-brown. He sheds his hair every year, and it gets thicker, so that he will be warm for winter.

FRANK C. S.

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WINSTED, CONNECTICUT.

I am a little girl eleven years old. I go to school, but it rains so hard that I could not go to-day. I think Miss Augusta would change her mind about hating cats if she could see mine. He is a large gray one, and weighs ten and one-half pounds. He is very gentle, and I can handle him as I would a baby. When I take him up, he puts both fore-paws each side of my face, and feels it very gently, and he never sticks in his claws. I know he loves me dearly. I have a little sister eight years old. Her name is Gertie. My cousin lives with us, and his name is Wheaton. I take _Our Little Ones_, and my sister takes the _Nursery_, and my cousin takes HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.

I forgot to tell you all about my cat. When he is hungry, he does not mew, like most cats, but lies down and rolls over, and if we do not notice him, he lies on his back, and waits for us to see him.

ALICE E. D.

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