Part 4

I am eleven years old. My uncle gave me your paper for my birthday present, and I think it was a nice present. I have always read the letters in Our Post-office Box, and I thought I would write one too. I notice that all the little girls tell about their pets. I have a little turtle for my pet. It likes to eat flies; it will take them in its mouth, and eat them fast. My turtle is very small. Mamma said that I must take it back to the river, because it might die. Our schools are all out now, and I passed for the C. Grammar. We have a great many canaries, and I have a beautiful Java finch: it has a bright red bill, and it says tat, tat, all the day long. Good-by.

WINNIE S.

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PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

I am very fond of pets, and have nine canaries, six of which I raised myself. Any little girl or boy may do the same, with care and patience. Mamma has two goldfinches. One of them she brought from Europe last summer. I don't like Europe as well as I do America. I was very homesick while I was in those countries where no English is spoken. I could not even find out what I wanted to eat by looking at the bills of fare. We are going soon to my grandma's beautiful country home near Niagara Falls, where I expect to be very happy.

KATHARINE H.

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CONWAY, MASSACHUSETTS.

I am a little girl six years old. I live in a house where my great-grandpapa lived. There are high hills here, and a pretty little brook, and it has speckled trout in it; and we live in the shadow of big trees that my great-uncles planted when they were little boys. The birds come and sing in the trees, and little red squirrels chase each other through them, and bring nuts and eat them in the trees. My uncle says, when he was a little boy, and lived here, a red squirrel with a bushy white tail lived in these same trees, and he tried to catch it in a trap, but could not. I hope I will see one some time. I have two little kittens and a pet lamb. The lamb goes to the pasture now, but at night comes and bleats for us to feed him. And when it is almost dark, a whip-poor-will comes and sings to us. The laurel is now in bloom on the hills, and is both pink and white, and is very pretty. We sent some of it in a box to Chicago. I went a mile to school, and studied reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic, but the school is closed now. My uncle sends me HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE. It comes on Tuesdays, and I like it very much. I am glad when Tuesday comes. I enjoy the Toby Tyler stories, and read them the first thing. I like to read about Jimmy Brown. He is a naughty boy but very funny. My mamma says I must not like the naughty boys, and I will try not to, but I read about them.

FLORENCE R. H.

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OXFORD, INDIANA.

I am a little girl eleven years old. My birthday was on the 23d of May; I received several nice presents. I have two little brothers. Johnnie, the oldest, is five years, and Norman is eleven months old, the dearest and sweetest little baby, I think, that ever was. I go to school in the winter, but we do not have summer school. I am sorry, for I love to go to school. We have Sunday-school half a mile from here. I think we live in a very nice place. A small grove is north of the house and barn, and Big Pine Creek is on the east. I often go fishing. The creek has been pretty high several times this spring and summer, almost a quarter of a mile wide just east of the house. My grandma gave me a little canary. His name is Billy; he is a great pet, and a very sweet singer, and also a great fighter. He will bite our fingers, and look very savage; and when he sings he nearly always gets under his swing, and makes it go with his head, and thus keeps time with it.

ZUA E. T.

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GERMANTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA.

I am a little girl of thirteen, and my brother and I take HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, and have done so for nearly two years. I think "Mr. Stubbs's Brother" is very nice, but I think "Toby Tyler" was better. I am now staying at my cousin's, and we thought it would be very nice to write to you. I have lived in America for only six years, as I was born on the island of St. Thomas, in the West Indies, where we had no winter, and I never saw snow until I came here. I thought it came down in great lumps, and I was very much surprised to see it falling in flakes. I have a dear little sister six years old whose name is Annie, but we call her Pansy, Nannie, or any other pet name we choose. She had a kitten, which she named Tabby, and when we moved, papa put him in a bag and sent him to the other house, but the next day he ran away. I am having the volume of 1881 bound, so as not to lose any of the numbers.

ELIZA M. S.

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A quart of pins, hair-pins, and needles was lately found in the nest of a mouse when some workmen tore down the piazza of an old hotel in Massachusetts. So that accounts for some of the pins which are always disappearing. They were taken away by a foolish little mouse, and could not have made a very soft bed for her family.

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LOUIE LE B.--We will lay your little friend's pretty poem aside until cold weather comes round again. Thank you for sending it.

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C. Y. P. R. U.

A FEAST IN TAHITI.--We are sometimes ready to imagine that we know better how to decorate our houses and dinner tables than the people do who live in the far-off East. But Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming, who was invited to a feast in Tahiti, has given a very beautiful description of the style of entertainment. It would be hard to find anything prettier:

"Good Queen Pomare had lately died, and the islanders were in mourning for her. At the same time they were welcoming her successor, King Ariiane, with demonstrations of joy. He was making a royal progress over his domains, and stopping at Paea, he and his suite dined in the town-hall. Dinner was laid for three hundred guests. At one end was a table where the chiefs had prepared to entertain the royal party, and other tables had been spread by the families of the neighborhood for themselves and their friends. The building was decorated with palms and tree-ferns, and festooned all over with deep fringe made of hybiscus fibre dyed either yellow or white. There must have been miles of this fringe wreathed about the hall.

"On sitting down, the table seemed to have a series of white marble vases arranged along the centre. On looking closely, these vases turned out to be lumps of the thick, fleshy stalk of the banana near the root. They were of the purest white. In them were stuck branches of the thorny wild lemon-tree, and on each thorn were fastened bunches of gay artificial flowers, either made of colored leaves, or of the silken white fibre of the arrow-root, or of bamboo fibre. From some of the banana vases floated silvery plumes of aerial film like fairy ribbons. This was the snowy reva-reva, extracted from young cocoa-palm leaves. The worker who produces this lovely gossamer keeps a split stick stuck in the ground at her side; into its cleft she fastens one end of each ribbon as she peels it. It is so very light and soft that but for this precaution the first faint puff of air would blow it away.

"When the feast was at an end, the guests adorned their hats with these graceful plumes, and with the pretty, fanciful flowers. Then everybody adjourned to the grassy shore, and seated there, they watched the golden moon rising above the calm sea, while companies of glee-singers filled the air with soft, sweet music."

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We would call the attention of the C. Y. P. R. U. this week to the article on "St. Elizabeth of Thuringia," by Mrs. Helen S. Conant, and to "Sea-Anemones," by Miss Sarah Cooper. The boys will learn how to help the ducks and fishes to an easier life in shady ponds by reading Mr. Allan Forman's article entitled "Trapping Torups."

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Correct answers to puzzles have been received from Louis H. Hirsh, Max L., Helen Gardner, Mary Smith, Leonie Foster, Arthur and Freddie, A. E. Cressingham, Cortland F. Bishop, John P. Todd, Lina Sparks, "North Star," Lucy Meade, Carl Buckner, William Dick, "Eureka," Carrie B. Kunkel, Russel B. Beals, E. L. Barnes, Edgar Seeman, Bessie Hyde, Emma Nusbaum, F. Harris, William F. Harris, Blanche Foster, Kitty C., E. N. H., L. R. S., Lucy A. Morse, Harry Beck, Beryl Abbott, Ethel Cox, Florence Cox, Mamie England, Marion, Addie Goodnow, "Fidelis," L. D. and F. G., Kate Marshall, and Charlie Lamprey.

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PUZZLES FROM YOUNG CONTRIBUTORS.

No. 1.

RHOMBOID.

Across.--1. A girl's name. 2. A receptacle for oil. 3. A sort of cloth. 4. A crime. 5. A Spanish title.

Down.--1. A letter. 2. To proceed. 3. To pinch. 4. A girl's name. 5. Withers. 6. To ascend. 7. A Spanish title. 8. A negative. 9. A letter.

EDGAR SEEMAN.

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No. 2.

DOUBLE ACROSTIC.

1. Part of a door. 2. Not fit. 3. A sort of engraving. 4. A soft sound.

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No. 3.

THREE ENIGMAS.

1.

My first is in slate, but not in book. My second is in cry, but not in crook. My third is in man, but not in lady. My fourth is in fade, but not in die. My fifth is in Maggie, but not in Sadie. My sixth is in crow, but not in cry. My seventh is in crag, but not in rock. My eighth is in plug, but not in sock. My ninth is in rent, also in lease. My whole is a place of peace.

S. BIRDIE DORMAN.

2.

First is in left, but not in right. Second is in quarrel, but not in fight. Third is in whip, but not in flog. Fourth is in haze, but not in fog. Fifth is in fair, but not in just. Sixth is in blast, but not in gust. Seventh is in grieve, but not in pain. Eighth is in profit, but not in gain. Ninth is in sharp, but not in keen. Whole is a famous English Queen.

EMPIRE CITY.

3.

My first is in mica, but not in stone. My second is in meat, but not in bone. My third is in mice, but not in rats. My fourth is in rugs, but not in mats. My fifth is in might, but not in power. My sixth is in lilac, but not in flower. My seventh is in wrapped, but not in furled. My whole belongs to the great New World.

R. B. BEALES.

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ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN No. 140.

No. 1.

Ice-cream. Needle-work. Dough-nut. Eglantine. Pot-pourri. Elf. Nubia. Dimples. Easy-chair. Narcotic. Caramel. Eyrie. Dogstar. Albatross. Youth. Independence-day.

No. 2.

Croquet. Denmark. Locust. Strawberry.

No. 3.

C Y S A H A B O A A P T C H A R M Y O U N G S P A I N A R T A N N T I E M G N

No. 4.

Washington.

No. 5.

S I G N I L L E G L E E N E E D

No. 6.

S E G A R E V E R Y G E L I D A R I S E R Y D E R

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[_For Exchanges, see 2d and 3d pages of cover._]

The words generally will indicate the suitable action. (1) Clap hands smartly. (2) Strike right arm and elbow downwards, with fist clenched. (3) Tap with right hand from the elbow. (4) Pull hand over hand, as on a rope. (5) Strike with both hands from the right shoulder obliquely, as if cutting down a tree.

THE SPARROW AND THE BEETLE.

The sparrow and the beetle met one day in the summer, when the strawberries and raspberries were ripe, and the kitchen-garden was full of flourishing vegetables.

"Good-morning. You are early abroad," said the sparrow. "Pray where may you have been?"

"I have been where I advise you to go," answered the beetle--"into the kitchen-garden, where I found all manner of delicious leaves just suited to my taste, and where I saw red, white, and black currants, fine raspberries, pease, and strawberries."

"Oh!" said the sparrow, with a severe look; "then you take me to be as great a thief as the snail and yourself. I wonder you are not ashamed of plundering the master's garden, and injuring his plants and vegetables."

"I don't do much injury," said the beetle. "Creatures must live. I take little."

"Perhaps not," returned the sparrow, "if there were only yourself to consider; but just count up your children, and your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren, to say nothing of the innumerable beetles of your own generation. I wonder you dare to confess your pillaging propensities."

The beetle began to feel nervous; he looked right and left, but the sparrow's eye was upon him.

"I must do my duty," said the sparrow, sternly. "I am here to protect my master's plants. As it happens, I can serve him and my little ones also, who are waiting for their breakfast."

So saying, he seized upon the hapless beetle, and put an end to him. But as he was about to fly home, a cat, who had been watching from the boughs of a neighboring plum-tree, appeared in sight. The sparrow dropped his prey, and remained fascinated to the spot, his eyes fixed on the cat, who came nearer and nearer.

"Is it for you," said she, "to deprive an innocent insect of his life, and to accuse him of robbery, when I have seen you and the blackbirds eating away at the cherries in this very orchard? It is of no use to deny the fact," she added, as the sparrow feebly attempted to speak. "I know my duty, and it is to rid my master of thieves."

So saying, she pounced upon the unfortunate sparrow, and was carrying him home to her kitten, when the gamekeeper, who had his eye upon her on account of the numerous hares and rabbits that she had made away with, levelled his gun at her, and fired with such good effect that she fell dead.

Now the moral of this tale is that those who would punish the faults of others should be careful to see whether they themselves are blameless, or they may find that retribution awaits them even in the moment when they think they are going to triumph.

THE LITTLE MAID FOR ME.

BY A. L. A. SMITH.

I know a little maiden, Whom I always see arrayed in Silks and ribbons, but she is a spoiled and petted little elf; For she never helps her mother, or her sister, or her brother, But, forgetting all around her, lives entirely for herself: So she simpers, and she sighs, And she mopes, and she cries, And knows not where the happy hours flee. Now let me tell you privately, my darling little friends, She's as miserable as miserable can be, And I fear she's not the little maid for me.

But I know another maiden, Whom I've often seen arrayed in Silks and ribbons, but not always: she's a prudent little elf; And she always helps her mother, and her sister, and her brother, And lives for all around her, quite regardless of herself: So she laughs and she sings, And the hours on happy wings, Shower gladness round her pathway as they flee. Now need I tell you privately, my darling little friends, She's as happy as a little maid can be? This is surely just the little maid for me.

End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Young People, July 25, 1882, by Various