Chapter 20

HEADS OFF! JAEL AND MASTER JOHN. FAREWELL. FRIEND IN NEED. A FREE PARDON.

The worst of it was, I caught such a very bad cold, I gave more trouble than ever; besides Grandmamma having rheumatism in her back with the draught up the back stairs, and nothing on but her night things and the watchman's rattle. I knew I deserved to be punished, but I did not think my punishment would have been such a terrible one.

I hoped it might have been lessons, or even, perhaps, not having the Rushlight again, but I did not think Grandmamma would think of hurting the Sunflowers.

She waited till I was well enough to go out, and I really began to think she was going to be kind enough to forgive me, with a free forgiveness. But that day she called me to her, and spoke very seriously, and said, that to punish me for my misconduct, and to try and cure me of the babyish nonsense I gave way to about things, she had decided to have all the Sunflowers destroyed at once, and not to have any seed sown for new ones, any more. The gardener was to do it next morning, and I was to be there to see. She hoped it would make me remember the occasion, and teach me better sense for the future.

I should have begged and prayed, but it is no use begging and praying to Grandmamma; Jael attends more to that. There was no comfort anywhere, except in thinking that Margery would be at home in two days, and that I could pour out all my sorrow to her.

As I went crying down the passage I met Jael.

"What's the matter now?" said she.

"Grandmamma's going to have all the Sunflowers killed," I sobbed. "Oh, I wish I'd never gone to look at them with the Rushlight!"

"That's how it is," said Jael sagely, "folks always wishes they'd done different when it's too late. But don't sob your heart out that fashion, Miss Grace. Come into the pantry and I'll give you a bit of cake."

"Thank you, dear Jael, you're very kind, but I don't think I _could_ eat cake. Oh Jael, dear Jael! Do you think she would spare one, just one?"

"That she wouldn't, Miss Grace, so you needn't trouble your head about it. When your Grandmamma's made up her mind, there's no one ever I saw can move her, unless it be Dr. Brown. Besides, the missus has never much mattered those Sunflowers. They were your mamma's fancy, and she'd as many whims as you have, and put your Grandmamma about a good deal. She was always at your papa to be doing this and that to the place 'Wasting good money' as your Grandmamma said. Your papa was a very easy gentleman. He wanted to please his wife, and he wanted to please his mother. Deary me! I remember his coming to me in this very pantry--I don't know if it would be more than three months afore they were both taken--and, standing there, as it might be you, Miss Grace, and saying--'Jael,' he says, 'this window looks out on the yard,' he says; 'do you ever smell anything, Jael? You are here a good deal.' 'Master John,' I says, 'I thank my Maker, my nose never troubles me; but if it did' I says, 'I hope I know better than to set _my_self up to smell more than my neighbors.'--'To be sure, to be sure,' he says, looking round in a foolish kind of a way at the sink. Then he says, 'Jael, do you ever taste anything in the water? My wife thinks there's something wrong with the well.' 'Master John,' I says, 'with all respect to your good lady, she disturbs her mind a deal too much with books. An ounce of ex-perience, I say, is worth a pound of book learning; and I'll tell you what my father said to them parties that goes round stirring up stinks, when they were for meddling with his farm yard. "Let wells alone," he says, "and muck heaps likewise." And my father passed three-score years and ten, Master John, and died where he was born.' Well-a-day! I see your poor Pa now. He stood and looked as puzzled as a bee in a bottle. Then he says--'Well, Jael, my wife says Sunflowers are good against fevers; and there's no harm in sowing some.' Which he did that very afternoon, she standing by him, with her hand on his shoulder; but, bless ye, my dear! they were took long before the seeds was up. Your mother was a pretty woman, I'll say that for her. You'd never have thought it, to look at her, that she was so fond of poking in dirty places."

"Jael!" I said, "Mamma was right about the smells in the back yard. Margery and I hold our noses"--"you'd a deal better hold your tongues," interrupted Jael.

"We do, Jael, we do, because I don't like mustard plasters on my throat, and when the back yard smells a good deal, my throat is always sore. But oh, Jael! If Sunflowers are good for smells, don't you think we might tell Grandmamma, and she would let us have them for that?"

"She'll not, Miss Grace," said Jael, "so don't worry on. They're ragged things at the best, and all they're good for is to fatten fowls; and I shall tell Gardener he may cut their heads off and throw 'em to the poultry, before he roots up the rest."

I could not bear to hear her, so I went out to bid the Sunflowers good bye.

I held their dear rough stems, rough with nice little white hairs, and I knew how easily their poor heads would cut off, there is so much pith inside the stems.

I kissed all their dear faces one after another. They are very nice to kiss, especially in the sun, for then they smell honey-sweet, like blue Scabious, and lots of flowers that have not much scent, but only smell as if bees would like them. I kissed them once round for myself, and then once for Margery, for I knew how sorry she would be.

And it was whilst I was holding S. George of England's face in my two hands, kissing him for Margery, that I saw the Dignotion on my middle finger nail.

A Gift, a Beau, _A Friend!_--

And then it flashed into my mind, all in a moment--"There can be no friend to me and the Sunflowers, except Dr. Brown, for Jael says he is the only person who ever changes Grandmamma's mind."

I dawdled that night when I could not make up my mind about going out with the Rushlight, but I did not wait one minute now. I climbed over the garden wall into the road, and ran as hard as I could run up to the top of the hill, where lived a man--I mean where Dr. Brown lived.

Now, I know that he is the kindest person that ever could be. I told him everything, and he asked particularly about my throat and the smells. Then he looked graver than I ever saw him, and said, "Listen, little woman; you must look out for spots on your little finger-nails. You're going away for a bit, till I've doctored these smells. Don't turn your eyes into saucers. Margery shall go with you; I wish I could turn ye both into flowers and plant ye out in a field for three months! but you are not to give me any trouble by turning home-sick, do you hear? I shall have trouble enough with Grandmamma, though I am joint guardian with her (your dear mother's doing, that!), and have some voice in the disposal of your fates. Now, if I save the Sunflowers, will you promise me not to cry to come home again till I send for you?"

"Shall you be able to change her mind, to let us have Sunflowers sown for next year, too?

"Yes!"

"Then I promise."

I could have danced for joy. The only thing that made me feel uncomfortable was having to tell Dr. Brown about the spot on my middle finger-nail. He would ask all about it, and so I let out about Johnson's Dictionary and the Dignotions, and Brown's Vulgar Errors, and I was afraid Margery would say I had been very silly, and let a cat out of a bag.

I hope he was not vexed about his vulgar errors. He only laughed till he nearly tumbled off his chair.

I never did have a spot on my journey-to-go nail, but we went away all the same; so I suppose Dignotions do not always tell true.

When Grandmamma forgave me, and told me she would spare the Sunflowers this time, as Dr. Brown had begged them off, she said--"And Dr. Brown assures me, Grace, that when you are stronger you will have more sense. I am sure I hope he is right."

I hope so, too!

TINY'S TRICKS AND TOBY'S TRICKS.

TINY.

"Oh Toby, my dear old Toby, you portly and princely Pug!

"You know it's bad for you to lie in the fender:--Father says that's what makes you so fat--and I want you to come and sit with me on the Kurdistan rug.

"Put your lovely black nose in my lap, and I'll count your great velvet wrinkles, and comfort you with kisses.

"If you'll only keep out of the fender--Father says you'll have a fit if you don't!--and give good advice to your poor Little Missis.

"Father says you are the wisest creature he knows, and you are but eight years old, and three months ago I was six.

"And yet mother says I'm the silliest little girl that she ever met with, because I am always picking up tricks.

"She does not know where I learnt to stand on one leg (unless it was from a goose), but it has made one of my shoulders stick out more than the other.

"It wasn't the goose who taught me to whistle up and down stairs. I learnt that last holidays from my brother.

"The baker's man taught me to put my tongue in my cheek when I'm writing copies, for I saw him do it when he was receipting a bill.

"And I learn't to wrinkle my forehead, and squeeze up my eyes, and make faces with my lips by imitating the strange doctor who attended us when we were ill.

"It was Brother Jack himself who showed me that the way to squint is to look at both sides of your nose.

"And then, Toby--would you believe it?--he turned round last holidays and said--'Look here, Tiny, if the wind changes when you're making that face it'll stay there, and remember you can't squint properly and keep your eye on the weathercock at the same time to see how it blows.'

"But boys are so mean!--and I catch stammering from his school friend--'_Tut-tut-tut-tut-Tom_,' as we call him--but I soon leave it off when he goes.

"I did not learn stooping and poking out my chin from any one; it came of itself. It is so hard to sit up; but mother says that much my worst trick.

"Is biting my finger nails; and I've bitten them nearly all down to the quick.

"She says if I don't lose these tricks, and leave off learning fresh ones, I shall never grow up like our pretty great-great-grandmamma.

"Do you know her, dear Toby? I don't think you do. I don't think you ever look at pictures, intelligent as you are!

"It's the big portrait, by Romney, of a beautiful lady, sitting beautifully up, with her beautiful hands lying in her lap.

"Looking over her shoulder, out of lovely eyes, with a sweet smile on her lips, in the old brocade Mother keeps in the chest, and a pretty lace cap.

"I should very much like to be like her when I grow up to that age; Mother says she was twenty-six.

"And of course I know she would not have looked so nice in her picture if she'd squinted, and wrinkled her forehead, and had one shoulder out, and her tongue in her cheek, and a round back, and her chin poked, and her fingers all swollen with biting;--but, oh, Toby, you clever Pug! how am I to get rid of my tricks?

"That is, if I must give them up; but it seems so hard to get into disgrace.

"For doing what comes natural to one, with one's own eyes and legs, and fingers, and face."

TOBY.

"Remove your arms from my neck, Little Missis--I feel unusually apoplectic--and let me take two or three turns on the rug.

"Whilst I turn the matter over in my mind, for never was there so puzzled a pug!

"I am, as your respected Father truly observes, a most talented creature.

"And as to fit subjects for family portraits and personal appearance--from the top of my massive brow to the tip of my curly tail, I believe myself to be perfect in every feature.

"And when my ears are just joined over my forehead like a black velvet cap, I'm reckoned the living likeness of a late eminent divine and once popular preacher.

"Did your great-great-grandmamma ever take a prize at a show? But let that pass--the real question is this:

"How is it that what I am most highly commended for, should in your case be taken amiss?

"Why am I reckoned the best and cleverest of dogs? Because I've picked up tricks so quickly ever since I was a pup.

"And if I couldn't wrinkle my forehead and poke out my chin, and grimace at the judges, do you suppose I should ever have been--Class Pug. First Prize--Champion and Gold Cup?

"We have one thing in common--I do _not_ find it easy to sit up.

"But I learned it, and so will you. I can't imagine worse manners than to put one's tongue in one's cheek; as a rule, I hang mine gracefully out on one side.

"And I've no doubt it's a mistake to gnaw your fingers. I gnawed a good deal in my puppyhood, but chewing my paws is a trick that I never tried.

"How you stand on one leg I cannot imagine; with my figure it's all I can do to stand upon four.

"I balance biscuit on my nose. Do you? I jump through a hoop (an atrocious trick, my dear, after one's first youth--and a full meal!)--I bark three cheers for the Queen, and I shut the dining-room door.

"I lie flat on the floor at the word of command--In short, I've as many tricks as you have, and every one of them counts to my credit;

"Whilst yours--so you say--only bring you into disgrace, which I could not have thought possible if you had not said it.

"Indeed--but for the length of my experience and the solidity of my judgment--this would tempt me to think your mamma a very foolish person, and to advise you to disobey her; but I do _not_, Little Missis, for I know

"That if you belong to good and kind people, it is well to let them train you up in the way in which they think you should go.

"Your excellent parents trained me to tricks; and very senseless some of them seemed, I must say:

"But I've lived to be proud of what I've been taught; and glad too that I learned to obey.

"For, depend upon it, if you never do as you're told till you know the reason why, or till you find that you must;

"You are much less of a Prize Pug than you might have been if you'd taken good government on trust."

* * * * *

"Take me back to your arms, Little Missis, I feel cooler, and calmer in my mind.

"Yes, there can be no doubt about it. You must do what your mother tells you, for you know that she's wise and kind.

"You must take as much pains to _lose your_ tricks as I took to _learn mine_, long ago;

"And we may all live to see you yet--'Class Young Lady. First Prize. Gold Medal--of a Show.'"

TINY.

"Oh, Toby, my dear old Toby, you wise and wonderful Pug!

"Don't struggle off yet, stay on my knee for a bit, you'll be much hotter in the fender, and I want to give you a great, big hug.

"What are you turning round and round for? you'll make yourself giddy, Toby. If you're looking for your tail, it is there, all right.

"You can't see it for yourself because you're so fat, and because it is curled so tight.

"I daresay you could play with it, like Kitty, when you were a pup, but it must be a long time now since you've seen it.

"It's rather rude of you, Mr. Pug, to lie down with your back to me, and a grunt, but I know you don't mean it.

"I wanted to hug you, Toby, because I do thank you for giving me such good advice, and I know every word of it's true.

"I mean to try hard to follow it, and I'll tell you what I shall do.

"Nurse wants to put bitter stuff on the tips of my fingers, to cure me of biting them, and now I think I shall let her.

"I know they're not fit to be seen, but she says they would soon become better.

"I mean to keep my hands behind my back a good deal till they're well, and to hold my head up, and turn out my toes; and every time I give way to one of my tricks, I shall go and stand (_on both legs_) before the picture, and confess it to great-great-grand-mamma.

"Just fancy if I've no tricks left this time next year, Toby! Won't that show how clever we are?

"I for trying so hard to do what I'm told, and you for being so wise that people will say--'That sensible pug cured that silly little girl when not even her mother could mend her.'

"----Ah! Bad Dog! Where are you slinking off to?--Oh, Toby, darling! do, _do_ take a little of your own good advice, and try to cure yourself of lying in the fender!"

THE OWL IN THE IVY BUSH.

OR, THE CHILDREN'S BIRD OF WISDOM.

INTRODUCTION.

"Hoot toots, man, yon's a queer bird!"

--_Bonnie Scotland._

I am an Owl; a very fluffy one, in spite of all that that Bad Boy pulled out! I live in an Ivy Bush. Children are nothing to me, naturally, so it seems strange that I should begin, at my time of life, to observe their little ways and their humors, and to give them good advice.

And yet it is so. I am the Friend of Young People. In my flight abroad I watch them. As I sit meditating in my Ivy Bush, it is their little matters which I turn over in my fluffy head. I have established a letter box for their communications at the Hole in the Tree. No other address will find me.

It is well known that I am a Bird of Wisdom. I am also an Observing Bird; and though my young friends may think I see less than I do, because of my blinking, and because I detest that vulgar glare of bright light without which some persons do not seem able to see what goes on around them, I would have children to know that if I can blink on occasion, and am not apt to let every starer read my counsel in my eyes, I am wide awake all the same. I am on the look-out when it's so dark that other folk can't see an inch before their noses, and (a word to the foolish and naughty!) I can see what is doing behind my back. And Wiseacre, Observer, and Wide-awake--I am the Children's Owl.

Before I open my mouth on their little affairs, before even I open my letters (if there are any waiting for me) I will explain how it came about that I am the Children's Owl.

It is all owing to that little girl; the one with the fluffy hair and the wise eyes. As an Observer I have noticed that not only I, but other people, seem to do what she wants, and as a Wiseacre I have reflected upon it as strange, because her temper is as soft and fluffy as her hair (which mine is not), and she always seems ready to give way to others (which is never my case--if I can help it). On the occasion I am about to speak of, I could _not_ help it.

It was last summer that that Bad Boy caught me, and squeezed me into a wicker cage. Little did I think I should ever live to be so poked out, and rummaged, and torn to shreds by such a thing as a boy! I bit him, but he got me into the cage and put a cloth over it. Then he took me to his father, who took me to the front door of the house, where he is coachman and gardener, and asked for Little Miss to come out and see the new pet Tom had caught for her.

"It's a nasty tempered brute, but she's such a one for taming things," said the coachman, whipping off the cloth to show me to the housemaid, and letting in a glare of light that irritated me to frenzy. I flew at the housemaid, and she flew into the house. Then I rolled over and growled and hissed under my beak, and tried to hide my eyes in my feathers.

"Little Miss won't tame me," I muttered.

She did not try long. When she heard of me she came running out, the wind blowing her fluffy hair about her face, and the sun shining on it. Fluffed out by the wind, and changing color in the light and shade, the hair down her back is not entirely unlike the feathers of my own, though less sober perhaps in its tints. Like mine it makes a small head look large, and as she has big wise eyes, I have seen creatures less like an owl than Little Miss. Her voice is not so hoarse as mine. It is clear and soft, as I heard when she spoke:

"Oh, _how_ good of you! And how good of Tom! I do so love owls. I always get Mary to put the silver owl by me at luncheon, though I am not allowed to eat pepper. And I have a brown owl, a china one, sitting on a book for a letter weight. He came from Germany. And Captain Barton gave me an owl pencil-case on my birthday, because I liked hearing about his real owl, but, oh, I never hoped I should have a real owl of my own. It _was_ kind of Tom."

To hear that Bad Boy called kind was too much for endurance, and I let them see how savage I felt. If the wicker work had not been very strong the cage would not have held me.

"He's a tartar," said the coachman.

"Oh, no, Williams!" said Little Miss, "he's only frightened by the light. Give me the cloth, please."

"Take care, Miss. He'll bite you," cried the coachman, as she put the cloth over the cage, and then over her own head.

"No, he won't! I don't mind his snapping and hissing. I want him to see me, and know me. Then perhaps he'll get to like me, and be tame, and sit on the nursery clock and look wise. Captain Barton's owl used to sit on his clock. Poor fellow! Dear old owlie! Don't growl, my owl. Can you hoot, darling? I should like to hear you hoot."

Sometimes as I sit in my ivy bush, and the moon shines on the spiders' webs and reminds me of the threads of her hair, on a mild, sleepy night, if there's nothing stirring but the ivy boughs; sitting, I say, blinking between a dream and a doze, I fancy I see her face close to mine, as it was that day with the wicker work between. Our eyes looking at each other, and our fluffiness mixed up by the wind. Then I try to remember all the kind things she said to me to coax me to leave my ivy bush, and go to live on the nursery clock. But I can't remember half. I was in such a rage at the time, and when you are in a rage you miss a good deal, and forget a good deal.

I know that at last she left off talking to me, and I could see her wise eyes swimming in tears. Then she left me alone under the cloth.

"Well, Miss," said the coachman, "you don't make much of him, do ye? He's a Tartar, Miss, I'm afraid."

"I think, Williams, that he's too old. Captain Barton's owl was a little owlet when he first got him. I shall never tame this one, Williams, and I never was so disappointed in all my life. Captain Barton said he kept an owl to keep himself good and wise, because nobody could be foolish in the face of an owl sitting on his clock. He says both his godfathers are dead, and he has taken his owl for his godfather. These are his jokes, Williams, but I had set my heart on having an owl on the nursery clock. I do think I have never wished so much for anything in the world as that Tom's owl would be our Bird of Wisdom. But he never will. He will never let me tame him. He wants to be a wild owl all his life. I love him very much, and I should like him to have what he wants, and not be miserable. Please thank Tom very much, and please ask him to let him go."

"I'm sorry I brought him, Miss, to trouble you," said the coachman. "But Tom won't let him go. He'd a lot of trouble catching him, and if he's no good to you, Tom'll be glad of him to stuff. He's got some glass eyes out of a stuffed fox the moths ate, and he's bent on stuffing an owl, is Tom. The eyes would be too big for a pheasant, but they'll look well enough in an owl, he thinks."

My hearing is very acute, and not a word of that Bad Boy's brutal intentions was lost on me. I shrunk among my feathers and shivered with despair; but when I heard the voice of Little Miss I rounded my ear once more.

"No, Williams, no! He must not be stuffed. Oh, please beg Tom to come to me. Perhaps I can give him something to persuade him not. If he must stuff an owl, please, please let him stuff a strange owl. One I haven't made friends with. Not this one. He is very wild, but he is very lovely and soft, and I do so want him to be let go."

"Well, Miss, I'll send Tom and you can settle it with him. All I say, he's a Tartar, and stuffing's too good for him."

Whether she bribed Tom, or persuaded him, I don't know, but Little Miss got her way, and that Bad Boy let me go, and I went back to my Ivy Bush.

OWLHOOT I.

"What can't be cured must be endured."

--_Old Proverb._

It was the wish to see Little Miss once more that led my wings past her nursery window; besides, I had a curiosity to look at the clock.

It is an eight-day clock, in a handsome case, and would, undoubtedly, have been a becoming perch for a bird of my dignified appearance, but I will not describe it to-day. Nor will I speak of my meditations as I sit in my Ivy Bush like any other common owl, and reflect that if I had not had my own way, but had listened to Little Miss, I might have sat on an Eight-day Clock, and been godfather to the children. It is not seemly for an owl to doubt his own wisdom, but as I have taken upon me, for the sake of Little Miss, to be a child's counsellor, I will just observe, in passing, that though it is very satisfactory at the time to get your own way, you may live to wish that you had taken other folk's advice instead.

From that nursery I have taken flight to others. I sail by the windows, and throw a searching eye through these bars which are, I believe, placed there to keep top-heavy babies from tumbling out. Sometimes I peer down the chimney. From the nook of a wall or the hollow of a tree, I overlook the children's gardens and playgrounds. I have an eye to several schools, and I fancy (though I may be wrong) that I should look well seated on the top of an easel--just above the black-board, with a piece of chalk in my feathery foot.

Not that I have any notion of playing schoolmaster, or even of advising schoolmasters and parents how to make their children good and wise. I am the Children's Owl--their very own--and all my good advice is intended to help them to improve themselves.

It is wonderful how children _do_ sometimes improve! I knew a fine little fellow, much made of by his family and friends, who used to be so peevish about all the little ups and downs of life, and had such a lamentable whine in his voice when he was thwarted in any trifle, that if you had heard without seeing him, you'd have sworn that the most miserable wretch in the world was bewailing the worst of catastrophes with failing breath. And all the while there was not a handsomer, healthier, better fed, better bred, better dressed, and more dearly loved, little boy in all the parish. When you might have thought, by the sound of it, that some starving skeleton of a creature was moaning for a bit of bread, the young gentleman was only sobbing through the soap and lifting his voice above the towels, because Nurse would wash his fair and rosy cheeks. And when cries like those of one vanquished in battle and begging and praying for his life, rang through the hall and up the front stairs, it proved to be nothing worse than Master Jack imploring his friends to "_please, please_," and "_do, do_," let him stay out to run in a final "go as you please" race with the young Browns (who dine a quarter of an hour later), instead of going in promptly when the gong sounded for luncheon.

Now the other day I peeped into a bedroom of that little boy's home. The sun was up, and so was Jack, but one of his numerous Aunts was not. She was in bed with a headache, and to this her pale face, her eyes shunning the light like my own, and her hair restlessly tossed over the pillow bore witness. When a knock came on the bedroom door, she started with pain, but lay down again and cried--"Come in!"

The door opened, but no one came in; and outside the voices of the little boy and his nurse were audible.

"I want to show her my new coat."

"You can't, Master Jack. Your Aunt's got a dreadful headache, and can't be disturbed."

No peevish complaints from Jack: only a deep sigh.

"I'm very sorry about her headache; and I'm very very sorry about my coat. For I am going out, and it will never be so new again."

His aunt spoke feebly.

"Nurse, I must see his coat. Let him come in."

Enter Jack.

It was his first manly suit, and he was trying hard for a manly soul beneath it, as a brave boy should. He came in very gently, but with conscious pride glowing in his rosy cheeks and out of his shining eyes. His cheeks were very red, for a step in life is a warming thing, and so is a cloth suit when you've been used to frocks.

It was a bottle-green coat, with large mother-o'-pearl buttons and three coachman's capes; and there were leggings to match. The beaver hat, too, was new, and becomingly cocked, as he stood by his Aunt's bedside and smiled.

"What a fine coat, Jack!"

"Made by a tailor, Auntie Julie. Real pockets!"

"You don't say so!"

He nodded.

"Leggings too!" and he stuck up one leg at a sudden right angle on to the bed; a rash proceeding, but the boy has a straight little figure, and with a hop or two he kept his balance.

"My dear Jack, they are grand. How warm they must keep your legs!"

He shook his beaver hat.

"No. They only tickles. That's what they do."

There was a pause. His Aunt remembered the old peevish ways. She did not want to encourage him to discard his winter leggings, and was doubtful what to say. But in a moment more his eyes shone, and his face took that effulgent expression which some children have when they are resolved upon being good.

"--_and as I can't shake off the tickle, I have to bear it_," added the little gentleman.

I call him the little gentleman advisedly. There is no stronger sign of high breeding in young people, than a cheerful endurance of the rubs of life. A temper that fits one's fate, a spirit that rises with the occasion. It is this kind of courage which the Gentlemen of England have shown from time immemorial, through peace and war, by land and sea, in every country and climate of the habitable globe. Jack is a child of that Empire on which the sun never sets, and if he live he is like to have larger opportunities of bearing discomfort than was afforded by the wooly worry of his bottle-green leggings. I am in good hopes that he will not be found wanting.

Some such thoughts, I believe, occurred to his Aunt.

"That's right, Jack. What a man you are!"

The rosy cheeks became carmine, and Jack flung himself upon his Aunt, and kissed her with resounding smacks.

A somewhat wrecked appearance which she presented after this boisterous hug, recalled the headache to his mind, and as he settled the beaver hat, which had gone astray, he said ruefully--

"Is your headache _very_ bad, Auntie Julie!"

"Rather bad, Jack. _And as I can't shake it off, I have to bear it._"

He went away on tiptoe, and it was only after he had carefully and gently closed the bedroom door behind him, that he departed by leaps and bounds to show himself in his bottle-green coat and capes, and white buttons and leggings to match, and beaver hat to boot, first to the young Browns, and after that to the General Public.

As an Observer, I may say that it was a sight worth seeing; and as a Bird of some wisdom, I prophesy well of that boy.

OWLHOOT II.

"Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling."

--_The Raven._

"Taffy was a thief."--_Old Song._

I find the following letters at the Hole in the Tree.

"X LINES, SOUTH CAMP, ALDERSHOT.

"SIR,--You speak with great feeling of that elevated position (I allude, of course, to the top of the eight-day clock), which circumstances led you somewhat hastily to decline. It would undoubtedly have become you, and less cannot be said for such a situation as the summit of an easel, overlooking the black-board, in an establishment for the education of youth. Meanwhile it may interest you to hear of a bird (not of your wisdom, but with parts, and a respectable appearance) who secured a somewhat similar seat in adopting that kind of home which you would not. It was in driving through a wood at some little distance from the above address that we found a wounded crow, and brought him home to our hut. He became a member of the family, and received the name of Slyboots, for reasons with which it is unnecessary to trouble you. He was made very welcome in the drawing-room, but he preferred the kitchen. The kitchen is a brick room detached from the wooden hut. It was once, in fact, an armorer's shop, and has since been converted to a kitchen. The floor is rudely laid, and the bricks gape here and there. A barrack fender guards the fire-place, and a barrack poker reposes in the fender. It is a very ponderous poker of unusual size and the commonest appearance, but with a massive knob at the upper end which was wont to project far and high above the hearth. It was to this seat that Slyboots elevated himself by his own choice, and became the Kitchen Crow. Here he spent hours watching the cook, and taking tit-bits behind her back. He ate what he could (more, I fear, than he ought), and hid the rest in holes and corners. The genial neighborhood of the oven caused him no inconvenience. His glossy coat, being already as black as a coal, was not damaged by a certain grimeyness which is undoubtedly characteristic of the (late) armorer's shop, of which the chimney is an inveterate smoker. Companies of his relatives constantly enter the camp by ways over which the sentries have no control (the Balloon Brigade being not yet even in the clouds); but Slyboots showed no disposition to join them. They flaunt and forage in the Lines, they inspect the ashpits and cookhouses, they wheel and manoeuvre on the parades, but Slyboots sat serene upon his poker. He had a cook-house all to himself.... He died. We must all die; but we need not all die of repletion, which, I fear, was his case. He buried his last meal between two bricks in the kitchen floor, and covered it very tidily with a bit of newspaper. The poker is vacant. Sir, I was bred to the sword and not to the pen, but I have a foolish desire for literary fame. I should be better pleased to be in print than to be promoted--for that matter one seems as near as the other--and my wife agrees with me. She is of a literary turn, and has helped me in the composition of this, but we both fear that the story having no moral you will not admit it into your Owlhoots. But if your wisdom could supply this, or your kindness overlook the defect, it would afford great consolation to a bereaved family to have printed a biography of the dear deceased. For we were greatly attached to him, though he preferred the cook. I can at any rate give you my word as a man of honor that these incidents are true, though, out of soldierly modesty, I will not trouble you with my name, but with much respect subscribe myself by that of

SLYBOOTS."

The gallant officer is too modest. This biography is not only true but brief, and these are rare merits in a memoir. As to the moral--it is not far to seek. Dear children, for whom I hoot! avoid greediness. If Slyboots had eaten tit-bits in moderation, he might be sitting on the poker to this day. I have great pleasure in making his brief career public to the satisfaction of his gallant friend, and I should be glad to hear that the latter had got his step by the same post as his Owlhoot.

The second letter is much farther from literary excellence than the first. I fear this little boy plays truant from school as well as taking apples which do not belong to him. It is high time that he learnt to spell, and also to observe the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_. From not being well grounded on these two points, many boys have lost good situations in life when they grew up to be men.

"deer mister howl,--as you say you see behind your bak i spose its you told varmer jones of me for theres a tree with a whole in it just behind the orchurd he wolloped I shameful and I'll have no more of his apples they be a deal sowerer than yud think though they look so red, but do you call yourself a childerns friend and tell tails i dont i can tell you.

TOM TURNIP."

[PUBLISHER'S NOTE. Mrs. Ewing did not live to complete "The Owl in the Ivy Bush." This, and "Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks" were first published after her death.]

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_Roberts Brothers Juvenile Books._

DEAR DAUGHTER DOROTHY.

_BY MISS A. G. PLYMPTON._

With seven illustrations by the author. Small 4to. Cloth.

PRICE, $1.00.

"The child is father of the man,"--so Wordsworth sang; and here is a jolly story of a little girl who was her father's mother in a very real way. There were hard lines for him; and she was fruitful of devices to help him along, even having an auction of the pretty things that had been given her from time to time, and realizing a neat little sum. Then her father was accused of peculation; and she, sweetly ignorant of the ways of justice, went to the judge and labored with him, to no effect, though he was wondrous kind. Then in court she gave just the wrong evidence, because it showed how poor her father was, and so established a presumption of his great necessity and desperation. But the _Deus ex machina_--the wicked partner--arrived at the right moment, and owned up, and the good father was cleared, and little Daughter Dorothy was made glad. But this meagre summary gives but a poor idea of the ins and outs of this charming story, and no idea of the happy way in which it is told.--_Christian Register._

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

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LOUISA M. ALCOTT'S WRITINGS.

_Miss Alcott is really a benefactor of households_--H H

_Miss Alcott has a faculty of entering into the lives and feelings of children that is conspicuously wanting in most writers who address them, and to this cause, to the consciousness among her readers that they are hearing about people like themselves, instead of abstract qualities labelled with names, the popularity of her books is due_--MRS SARAH J HALE

_Dear Aunt Jo! You are embalmed in the thoughts and loves of thousands of little men and women_--EXCHANGE

Little Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy With illustrations 16mo $1.50

Hospital Sketches, and Camp and Fireside Stories With illustrations 16mo 1.50

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A Modern Mephistopheles, and A Whisper in the Dark 16mo 1.50

Silver Pitchers, and Independence A Centennial Love Story 16mo 1.25

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Little Women Series Comprising Little Women Little Men Eight Cousins Under the Lilacs An Old Fashioned Girl Jo's Boys Rose in Bloom Jack and Jill 8 large 16mo volumes in a handsome box 12.00

Miss Alcott's novels in uniform binding in sets Moods Work Hospital Sketches A Modern Mephistopheles and A Whisper in the Dark 4 volumes 16mo 6.00

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_Boston, Mass._

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