Chapter L: M. D (1)

STORIES ABOUT DOGS.

A Newfoundland dog belonging to a gentleman in Edinburgh was in the habit of receiving a penny each day from his master, which he always took to a baker's shop and bought a loaf of bread for himself. One day a bad penny was given him by a gentleman by way of frolic. Dandie ran off with it to the baker's, as usual, but was refused a loaf. The poor dog waited a moment, as if considering what to do; he then returned to the house of the gentleman who had given him the bad coin; and when the servant opened the door, he laid it at her feet and walked away with an air of contempt.

Some dogs are fond of music, while others seem not to be affected by it in the slightest degree. These two anecdotes are related by the author of a recent volume. He is speaking of a friend: "As soon as the lamp is lighted and placed on the sitting-room table, a large dog of the water-spaniel breed usually jumps up and curls himself around the lamp. He never upsets it, but remains perfectly still. Now, my friend is very musical, but during the time the piano is being played the dog remains perfectly unmoved, until a particular piece is played. He will not take the slightest notice of loud or soft pieces, neither sentimental nor comic, but instantly the old tune entitled 'Drops of Brandy' is played, he invariably raises his head and begins to howl most piteously, relapsing into his usual state of lethargy as soon as this tune is stopped. My friend cannot account for this action of the dog in any way, nor can we learn from any source the reason of its dislike.

"Again, the wife of a hotel-keeper, lately deceased, possessed a pet lap-dog which delighted in listening to its mistress playing on the piano; if the usual hour for her daily practice passed by, the dog would grow impatient, snap and bark, and be perfectly uneasy until the lady consented to gratify its wishes by sitting down to the instrument and playing a few tunes. During this operation the dog would sit motionless on a chair by her side; and when the music was ended, he would jump down, quite satisfied for that day."

A CHILD'S PRAYER.

Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me;
Bless thy little lamb to-night;
Through the darkness be thou near me,
Keep me safe till morning light.

Through the day thy hand hath led me,
And I thank thee for thy care;
Thou hast warmed and fed and clothed me,
Listen to my evening prayer.

JOHN STOCKS AND "THE BISON."

One winter afternoon, as Archy Douglas sat studying his lessons, Mrs. Falkoner, the housekeeper, came to invite him to have tea in her room. While they were at the table, they heard the kitchen bell ring, at which Mrs. Falkoner seemed surprised, for she said the weather would incline few people to leave their own firesides.

It turned out, however, to be a visitor for Mrs. Falkoner herself, for in a few minutes one of the servants came to say a person who called himself John Stocks wanted to see her, and John presented himself in the doorway without further delay.

An active man, with the look, at first sight, of the mate of a ship, he stood gently stamping the snow off his boots on the door mat, laughing in a low tone, as if he was very much pleased to see the worthy Mrs. Falkoner, and was enjoying her stare of astonishment to the full.

"Dear bless me, John, is it really you?" said Mrs. Falkoner, almost running to meet him. "Whatever wind has blown you here?"

"No wind at all, Mary; nought but the snow," he said, laughing: but correcting himself, he added, "Ah, well, there was a wind, after all, for we're fairly drifted up a few miles t'other side of the Junction; and so I got leave to run over and see you: not often I get the chance--is it, now?"

All this time he had been taking off his outer coat; and when he was fairly in the room, Archy found he was a young man, certainly not more than thirty. He had crisp black hair, a bold, manly face, very red with exposure to the weather, and at the same time expressive of great determination of character. But one peculiarity about his face was, that though so young, his forehead was not only scarred and lined, but round his eyes and about his mouth it was puckered and wrinkled to a most extraordinary degree. Archy felt a great curiosity about him, but was not long left in doubt, for Mrs. Falkoner took care to make her visitor known to the young gentleman as her youngest half brother and an engine-driver on the main line.

A remarkably quiet man did John Stocks seem in regard to general conversation; he said very little about the weather, and less about things going on in the great world, and anything he did say on these topics had almost to be coaxed out of him. However, he evidently took great delight in giving all the family news, even to the most minute particular.

"Of course you've heard," he said, warming one hand at the fire, "that Bob's come home from America. Then that old Thompson has given up the shop."

"Yes; so I heard," said Mrs. Falkoner, pouring out another cup of tea, not appearing to take very great interest in them. "No accidents on your line lately, I hope."

"Not much," was the answer, and he again went back to the family news. "Jenny's got a baby," he said, suddenly, with great glee, as if this piece of news was far before any other.

This intelligence at least was news to Mrs. Falkoner, and she listened to all he had to say about it with great interest.

But when Mrs. Falkoner was called away for a few minutes, it became necessary for Archy to entertain the visitor till her return.

Of course Archy had many questions to put about the railway and the engines, and dangers and catastrophes. John was excessively civil, and on this subject was full of intelligence; but when he was asked if his own engine had broken down in the snow, he became quite horrified, if not indignant.

"What, master, broke down?" he said. "Not a bit o't. I'd back the old Bison against a drift twice as heavy. But, d'ye see, when you comes and finds an engine and seven wagons o' minerals, and another engine, and wagons besides that all ahead o' ye, and stuck fast, why, I says, ye must give in. There ain't no use expecting yer engine to drive _through_ 'em, so must lie by till all's cleared, which won't be for five hours at least."

"How is it that the line's blocked up now?" asked Archy. "There has been no more snow all day."

"Ay, that's true, master," said the engine-driver. "But d'ye see, a mile from the Junction there's a bit of heavy cutting, with a steep sloping bank on either side. Now, this afternoon there was a slip; most all the snow drifted there, and part of the bank itself fell in, and so there is a block-up. As I said afore, the mineral train, she comes up first, and she sticks fast, and then we has to follow, as a matter in course. But had my old Bison been afront, he'd have done differently, I make no doubt."

"Is your engine a much stronger one?" said Archy, greatly amused to hear how funny it was to call a train she, while he called the engine he, and by an animal's name, too.

"It's not that he's stronger, sir, but he's got more go in him, has the Bison. He's an extraordinary plucky engine. I've seen him do wonderful things when Mat Whitelaw was driver, and me stoker to 'em. I'll just tell you one on 'em, and then ye can judge what sort o' stuff the Bison's made o'. It was one day in summer, some two years ago; we had just taken in water at the junction, and were about to run back to couple on the coaches, when an engine passed us tearing along at a tremendous speed on the other line o' rail, but, mark me, without a driver or stoker, or aught else on it. I thought my mate was mad, when he got up steam, and off in the same direction; but in a moment I saw what he was up to. The Bison was going in the chase. 'See to the brake, John,' was all Mat said, when off we were after the runaway at full speed. It seemed to me nought but a wild-goose chase; for, d'ye see, master, we were on another line o' rails altogether. But Mat knew what he was about, and it was my place to do his bidding. I was always proud o' the old Bison before that morning, but I never knew till then what a good engine was, and what was depending on it.

"You would have thought he fairly snorted to his work, going at the rate o' forty miles an hour we were, and at last we got abreast o' the runaway engine, and could have passed him, but that would have been useless. There wasn't another driver on the whole line would have thought of the thing so quickly as Mat did, nor could have regulated the speed so nicely to a moment. The two different engines were running just opposite each other on the two different lines, the runaway being a good deal worn out now, and going much slower than at first, when Mat he says to me, hoarsely, 'Jump across. It'll be safer if I stick here to hold the regulator; but I'll go, if you'd rather stay.' I had such confidence in Mat Whitelaw, that I could trust my life with him before any mortal man; and the instant he gave the word, I jumped, and did it safe. We each put on our brakes, and took breath, and desperately hot we both were, I can assure you."

"Were you not terribly afraid?" said Archy, who had been almost breathless during the recital.

"I can't say that we were," said John, coolly; "but I'll tell you I was frightened enough the next moment, when Mat looked at his watch, and sees that the down express was due in a few minutes on his line. I believe that Mat thought more o' the passengers that might be smashed, and the risk for the Bison, than o' his own safety. He said it would never do to reverse the engines now; but if we kept on, he thought there might yet be time to run into the siding at the nearest station. So on we went once more at increased speed, straight on ahead, though it was like running into the very face of the danger. The telegraph had been hard at work, and the station people had been laying their heads together, and they were at the points. So, when they heard the whistle, and saw Mat putting on the brake, they at once opened the points,--not a moment too soon, I can tell you,--and in he ran into the siding. Now, what Mat did, sir, was what I call about equal to most generals in war, and as great a benefit to society."

"He must be a brave fellow," said Archy; "and I hope you were both rewarded for it."

"The company behaved very handsome," was the answer. "Mat got on to the Great Western line at once; but the worst of it is, he and I are parted, and the old Bison; he felt his loss as much, if not more than me."

Mrs. Falkoner, who had come in during the latter part of the story, now said,--

"But tell the young gentleman what you did your own self, and what the company thought of your conduct."

"Tuts, Mary," he answered; "I did nought extraordinary; there ain't a man in the service but could have done the same, had they known old Bison as well as I did."

"I should like to hear it, John," said Archy, who was standing ready to leave the brother and sister alone.

"Well, 'cept it be to tell you how I got to be driver of the Bison myself, it's not worth the listening to. When Mat left, Bill Jones got to be my mate--the worst driver on the line; at least he couldn't manage the Bison. He did not understand that engine one bit, and was constantly getting into trouble, till I was driven almost wild. Bill would say, 'Bison, indeed! he ought to be called Donkey; it would suit his kicking ways better.' It was quite true he kicked, but he never did it with Mat on him, and went along the rails as smooth as oil. Well, at one part o' the line, there is a gradual long incline, and one day we were just putting on more steam to run up, when we sees at the top two or three coaches coming tearing down straight upon us. We knew there was a heavy excursion train on ahead, and we had been going rather slow on that account, and this was some of the coaches that had got uncoupled from the rest. Well, Bill, my mate, no sooner saw it coming, than says he, 'Jump for your life!' and out he went. But I knew what a quick engine the Bison was, and, moreover, I saw our guard had noticed the danger, too, and would work with me; so I reversed the engine, and ran back, until the coaches came up to us, but did no further damage save giving us a bit of a shake as they struck on the old Bison; and so we drove them afore us right up to the station. Bill was killed, as might have been expected, for he had no faith in the Bison whatever; and so the company, they came to see I understood that engine, and they made me driver o' him from that time."

Archy now bade the worthy engine-driver good night, saying that he should always take a greater interest in engines than ever before, and that he should have liked very much to have seen such a famous one as the Bison.

John Stocks evidently took this speech as a personal compliment, and, in consequence, bade Archy a friendly good by, saying, as he did so, "that people nowadays talked of nothing but ships and extraordinary guns, and what not, but to his mind a good engine was before them all."

MRS. GEORGE CUPPLES.

THE CHILDREN'S SONG.

Merrily sang the children, as their mother softly played;
With eager, outstretched faces a pretty group they made;
Their clear and bird-like voices ran loudly through the air,
Till "Baby" heard the music, and crept from stair to stair,
That she might join the singers, and in their gladness share.

Dear, merry little warblers! I love to hear you, too;
Your fresh, unworldly feelings, your hearts so fond and true,
Give to your songs a sweetness that no other strains possess;
They soothe the harassed spirit when troubles thickly press,
And evoke the warm petition, "O GOD, OUR CHILDREN BLESS!"

PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS.

How earnest Kate and Constance and Brother Willy look,
Counting up varied treasures, ship, bat and doll and book!

The three are very busy, and very happy too,
Trying to mend up old things to look almost like new.

The book was rather shabby, but Kate with paste and thread
Has made it firm and tidy, and rubbed it clean with bread.

And now, ere she resigns it, she lingers, glancing o'er
The pretty picture pages and well-known lines once more.

Constance has dressed the dolly--you see how nice it looks--
And all its things are fastened with little strings or hooks.

The ship with clean new rigging--Will's work--they eye with pride,
And they have quite a drawerful of other things beside--

Boxes of beads and sweeties, and many a top and ball,
Saved for the coming Christmas; and who's to have them all?

Not their own merry playmates, bright girl and happy lad,
Who'll meet for winter pastime like them well fed and clad.

No; children in close alleys, or the large workhouse near,
Our little friends--obeying Christ's words--will please and cheer.

And their own Christmas pleasures will seem more glad and sweet
For knowing such poor neighbors enjoy for once a treat.

QUE.

He was a wee bit of a boy to carry the United States mail on his back, seven miles, every day. He was only eleven years old, and as long, to an inch, as the mail bag, which was just three feet and eleven inches long. When he went along the road, you would sometimes see him, and sometimes the bag; that was as you happened to be on this or the other side of him. Many persons' hard hearts have been made to open a crevice, at sight of the little fellow, to let a little jet of pity spirt out for him. But "The Point" ran out three miles and a half to the south of the county road and the stage coach, and the nearest coach post-office; and because it was only a small point, and sparsely settled, it couldn't afford a horse for the short distance; and because it was a short distance, no man, or boy, who was able to do a full day's work, would break into it to walk the seven miles; and because it was seven miles, no one who was not well could walk so far every day, and the year round. So it happened that the job was up for bids one spring, and the person who would carry the mail from Gingoo to the Point for the smallest amount of money, was to have it for a year.

One woman offered to carry it for eighty dollars; another for seventy; one big boy offered for sixty-five; he'd make the girls at home do the work, he said,--they hadn't anything else to do,--and he would give them each a new ribbon to pay for it: and between you and me, I am very glad that that boy didn't get the job.

Without saying a word to his family about it, Que made up his mind that he would carry the mail himself. When the others sent in their bids he sent in his, for fifty dollars. _So_ it happened that Que was mail-carrier. He was so little and bow-legged, that there were not many things that he could do; for instance, he couldn't run. His head and feet were very large, and his arms and intermediate body very small; therefore he could dream and wonder what he should do when he grew up, and walk (with care) as much as he pleased, but was not a favorite among the boys in playing games.

Of course he was not baptized into the name Que, but was called, by his parents and the christening minister, John Quincy Adams Pond, Jr.; named for his father, you see. They began to call him Que before he was out of his babyhood; for they had one boy named John Lee, but as they always called him Lee, they entirely forgot that fact till after the ceremony of Que's christening. And they really weren't much to blame, for they had nine other boys, and poor memories; and though both are misfortunes, they can't be helped. To avoid mixing their two Johns, they called one Lee and the other Que.

Que looked upon seven miles a day as no walk at all, and upon fifty dollars a year as a fortune, and upon "United States mail-carrier" as a title little below "Hon." or "Esq." He had hoped, all his life, that he should, some fine day, have a right to one or the other of these titles. Probably the fact that his name already ended with a "Jr." excited his ambition in that particular direction. Money and dignity seemed to Que the two things most to be desired in life, unless I might add a small family.

Now, we will leave Que's antecedents behind, and go on to his life while he carried the mail; and a very queer little life it was, as you will say when you get to the end of it, though I don't know when that will be, for Que isn't there himself yet. The mail contract was from July 1, 1860, to July 1, 1861, and if your mathematics are in good running order, you will see that that was just a year.

July 1, 1860, was as fine a day in Gingoo as any day in the year; and Que was in as high spirits as on any day in the course of his life. Unfortunately the mail coach reached Gingoo exactly at forty minutes past eleven, unless the driver got drunk or fell asleep, which happened about two hundred and forty days in the year. But whether sober, drunk, or asleep, the four coach horses always stood before Gingoo office door by twelve o'clock at latest.

It makes no difference to you or to me when the coach stood there; but it made a great deal of difference to Que, for twelve o'clock on the finest day in the year, and that day the first of July, is apt to be rather warm; and in the year 1860 it was _very_ warm. Nevertheless, at quarter past twelve, Que started with the bag. I, happening to be at the right side of him, saw only the bag start with Que.

Perhaps you don't see why Que should have started right in the heat of the day; but if you had been Que, and could have heard all the Pointers clamoring for their mail, you would have started just when Que did. The mail-bag was made of very dark leather, and drew the sun tremendously. Now, as Que had on a pair of light linen pants and a little gray lined coat, of course he ought to have walked between the bag and the sun; but not being a scientific boy, he didn't think of that, and slung the bag over his sunny shoulder, and from that height it trailed to the ground.

Que walked on as fast as he could, trying not to think too much of the heat and the weight; but the peculiar odor that the sun brought from the leather bag was blown up his nose, and down his throat, and into his ears, by a strong south wind that blew, and before Que had time to think whether he had better or better not, he was lying fast asleep by the side of the road, on the grass; rather he was lying on the mail-bag, and that was lying on the grass. Why didn't he fall on the other side? For two reasons; first, he was attracted mail-bag way by the sleepy odor before spoken of; and secondly, the weight was all that way, and as he began to sleep before he began to drop, of course the bag was his natural bed when he did drop.

The Point road was lonesome, and it must have been quite an hour before any one came that way. Then a man and two horses, and a cart loaded high with laths, were seen coming over the hill; that is, they would have been seen, if Que hadn't been asleep just then.

"Hollo! what's all this?" said the driver when he got opposite the bag and Que.

"All this" neither stirred nor spoke.

"Whoa! whoa, there!" called the driver to his horses.

Now, if Que had been taking only a light, after-dinner nap, he would have been wide awake as soon as the cart stopped; for the hill was a long one, and the rumbling had been as long, and merely from lack of that lullaby, a well-conditioned boy should have wakened at once. But Que didn't.

"I declare," said the driver, "if it ain't that bran new mail-boy!" Thereupon he went up and looked at him; but not being of a magnetic temperament, he didn't wake Que that way.

"Bless the chick, if he isn't dead asleep," continued the driver, talking to himself. This driver had a habit of talking to himself, for he said, "then he was always sure of having somebody worth talking to."

"Now, won't those Pointers growl for their mail, when it is a couple of hours late? The first day, too! Que'll catch it." Then he gave Que a little roll, so that he rolled from the bag over into the grass.

"Well, I always _was_ a good-natured fellow. Guess I'll take his bag along for him, and save him the scolding."

So the driver threw the bag on top of the load of laths, and left the bag-boy to sleep it out.

When Que had slept half an hour longer, he started up, staring wide awake.

"I've been asleep," said Que; and so he had.

"My bag's been and gone," continued Que; and so it had.

But he was a bright boy, and all the brighter, perhaps, for having just been asleep; so he looked round, which is a very good thing to do when you get into trouble, and the very thing that half the people in the world never think to do.

"There are tracks in the grass; and there is a cart-track in the dust, and it had two horses, and these foot-tracks went back to it. Why, the lath man must have taken it;" and so he had.

Que started towards the Point as fast as he could go, and consequently, when he got there, which was just fifty minutes after the bag got there, he had no breath left to ask any questions about it. Still he panted on to the post-office.

"Who are you?" asked the postmaster.

"I'm--a--bag," gasped Que.

"Bag of wind!" said the postmaster, emphatically.

"A--mail--bag!" said Que.

"Humph! So you're the new mail boy--are you? Send your bag down by express, and came yourself by accommodation--didn't you?"

"The lath man's got it; where is he?" Que had recovered his breath a little by this time.

"I don't know anything about the lath man," growled the postmaster.

But when Que began to cry, which he did at once, the postmaster couldn't stand that, for he had no children of his own, and his feelings, consequently, weren't hardened; so he dragged the bag from a corner, and threw it on Que's back.

"There, take your bag, and go home, and don't be two hours late the first day, next time." He didn't stop to think that there cannot be two first days to the same thing. Que didn't stop to think of it, either, but started homewards as fast as his bow-legs would let him. I think he approximated more nearly to running, that day, than he ever had done in his life before.

Que's nine brothers treated him with great respect, when he got home. The family had been to tea, but each one had saved some part of his supper for Que; so, though he had an indigestible mixture, there was plenty of it,--while it lasted.

"Did you have a good time, Que?"

"Was it fun?"

"Did you get anything for it?"

"Did you get tired?"

"Going to keep it up?"

"Can't I go next time?"

"Do you like it?"

"Did you see any boys?"

"Anybody give you a lift?"

How all together the questions did come! But the confusion of them saved Que from the trouble of answering the nine boys, and as soon as there was a lull, his father said,--

"You were gone some time, sir; I hope you didn't stop to play on the road?"

"O, no, sir," said Que. "I haven't played at all;" which was very true, you know.

"Did there seem to be many letters?" asked his mother; and be it understood, that she asked quite as much because Que looked as if the bag had been heavy, as from feminine curiosity.

"Didn't notice, ma'am; the bag wasn't very heavy;" and it wasn't, except on his conscience, and he knew his mother didn't mean that, at all.

For several weeks after that everything went on smoothly enough. Que had a pretty good time, and found it some fun, and felt that he was getting something for it, and didn't get very tired, and kept it up, and never took any of his brothers with him, and liked the business, and saw a good many boys, and got a large number of "lifts" from hay-carts and wagons, and particularly from the lath man. So, in course of time, all the brothers' questions were satisfactorily answered.

It is a way that the world has, to let you trip once, and then run on smooth ground some time, before it puts another snag in your way; and it made no exception in Que's favor. His drab clothes kept clean a long time, in spite of the leather bag, and washed well when they were not clean. The Gingoo postmaster took a fancy to him, and the Point post master refrained from tormenting him. The mails were not unbearably heavy nor the month of July remarkably hot after the first. Que had a good appetite for his supper, and plenty of supper to show it on, and slept long and heavily every night and a part of every morning, and thought that the world was a pretty good kind of place, after all. But that was only because he hadn't come to the second snag yet.

One day, in the first end of August, a wind sprang up. It wasn't a very uncommonly high wind, only no one was expecting it, because the days had been muggy, and that made every one say, "Why, what a high wind there is to-day!"

You and I can't tell why the wind should have gone on rising through the forenoon; but we can guess, which will answer our purpose just as well; for you know it is but little more than that that your father and his friends, and father's father and his friends, do, when they meet together and "express opinions."

_I_ guess that the wind rose higher through the forenoon because, as soon as it began to play about in the morning, it caught the whisper of people's surprise, and thought it would take the hint, and blow them up a little.

"What a dickens of a wind!" said Que, when he stood, or tried to stand, on top of the hill with his bag.

Que had learned all the easy ways of carrying that bag long ago; of strapping it in a little roll over his shoulders when it wasn't very full; of carrying it on his head when it had enough inside to balance just right, and of strapping it round his body when it had nothing in it. But, as the days had been all stormless alike, he had been obliged to adapt himself only to the conditions of the bag, and not at all to the state of the weather.

As the masculine mind is capable of taking in only one idea at a time, as soon as Que put his mind to the state of the weather, it drew itself away from the manner of carrying the bag.

"Wish I had something between me and the wind," sighed he.

Just then the wind blew off his hat, to teach him the polite order of mentioning two persons, of whom himself was one.

Que followed after it as fast as he could, and let the bag drop beside him, and by chance it hung from his neck to the windward side.

The wind blew very strong.

"I do declare," said he, "I shouldn't wonder a bit if the wind blew me away."

Que was a truthful boy; but he did wonder very much when he found, two seconds afterwards, that the wind _was_ blowing him away. But he didn't wonder at all, when he lay, a minute later, against a huge apple tree; partly because people generally get through wondering when they are at the end of anything, but mostly because the blow stunned Que, so that he didn't know anything for an hour.

When he gradually came to himself, he didn't know where he was. Then a little wind shook a green apple down on his nose, and he concluded that he was under an apple tree; which was quite correct.

Then he looked about to see whether he was in the United States or not; he saw the five juniper trees that had been standing in a row, half a mile from his father's house, ever since he could remember, and concluded that he must be; wherein he was again quite correct.

Then he wondered if any one would come for him, for he felt so stiff and sore that he thought he never could go home alone.

"They'll come for me, _I_ know; for if I've had a gale they must have had one; and if they have had one they'll know that I've had one. Of course they'll come."

Que felt round for his mail-bag, and got his head on it, and waited. While he was lying there it occurred to him that the people down in the village wouldn't have been walking about with bags broader than themselves to windward of them, and mightn't have felt the breeze as he did; so his last reasoning wasn't correct at all.

"I'll bet they didn't feel it a bit!" thought Que; and by this time he was so fully in possession of his original faculties, that his reasoning was quite correct again. No one else had felt the gale.

Que put his head on the bag and thought that his end had come, and so cried himself to sleep.

His family had not felt the gale very heavily; but when tea-time came, and Que didn't, they felt that; and when darkness came, and Que didn't, they felt that; and when a report came, with a growl, from the Point that they wanted their mail, Que's father started out with a lantern to find it.

Que, having finished his nap, felt better, and tried to get up; but his ankle didn't want to move; and when he tried again it actually wouldn't move; so he lay down again to wait and watch. When he saw the lantern go by, he called, and his father came.

"What are you doing here, sir?"

"Nothing," said Que.

"Get up, then."

"I can't," said Que.

"You've been asleep, sir."

"Yes, sir," said Que.

"What have you done with the mail-bag?"

"It is the mail-bag that's done with me," said Que.

Then his father took him by the collar, and stood him up, and saw at once what was the matter. Que had sprained his ankle.

It seemed to Que, during the next four weeks, as if that ankle never would heal; but it did at last, and John Lee, who had carried the mail in the mean time, was loath to give the job to Que again. He felt for Que through his pain, but charged him one twelfth of fifty dollars for doing his work a month, and would like to do it a while longer.

There isn't much more to tell of Que as a mail-boy. The end of the year found him the possessor of forty-five dollars and five shillings.

The next year the Point afforded a horse, and Que took the mail on the horse's back; the year following they had a horse and wagon, and Que drove that; when they have a railway I have no doubt Que will be a conductor; and when the mail is blown through a tunnel, Que, of course, will blow it.

Even the second snag, you see, needn't lay you a dead weight on the earth.

MARY B. HARRIS.

WHAT THE CLOCK SAYS.

The clock's loud tick
Says, "Time flies quick."
"Listen," says the chime;
"Make the most of time,
For remember, young and old,
Minutes are like grains of gold;
Spend them wisely, spend them well,
For their worth can no man tell."

THE SNOW-FALL.

Old Winter comes forth in his robe of white,
He sends the sweet flowers far out of sight,
He robs the trees of their green leaves quite,
And freezes the pond and the river;
He has spoiled the butterfly's pretty nest,
And ordered the birds not to build their nest,
And banished the frog to a four months' rest,
And makes all the children shiver.

Yet he does some good with his icy tread,
For he keeps the corn-seeds warm in their bed,
He dries up the damp which the rain had spread,
And renders the air more healthy;
He taught the boys to slide, and he flung
Rich Christmas gifts o'er the old and young,
And when cries for food from the poor were wrung,
He opened the purse of the wealthy.

We like the Spring with its fine fresh air;
We like the Summer with flowers so fair;
We like the fruits we in Autumn share,
And we like, too, old Winter's greeting:
His touch is cold, but his heart is warm;
So, though he brings to us snow and storm,
We look with a smile on his well-known form,
And ours is a gladsome meeting.

[Decoration]

STITCHING AND TEACHING.

Will had had the croup. Then the measles took possession of him, and lastly, the whooping-cough, finding him well swept and garnished, entered in, and shook and throttled him in a manner quite deplorable.

His convalescence, however, was relieved of its monotony by a headlong fall from a step ladder in the library, whereby he sprained his wrist, to say nothing of the mischief that he made, in his descent, amid the ink, books, and papers.

Treading on a pin in the sewing-room was another diversion in his favor, giving him, for a while, a daily looking forward to bandages and poultices, and an opportunity to weigh the advantages of obedience in case he should ever again wish, and be forbidden, to jump out of bed and run barefoot amid the dressmaker's shreds in search of his top.

Now, all this is no uncommon experience for a small boy. I simply mention it by way of apology for introducing Will in an unamiable mood. One regrets to have one's friends make an unfavorable first impression.

This was Will's first morning at school since his recovery. He found that the boys had gone on in their Latin, had gone on in their French, leaving him far behind; they had got into decimals, and he way back pages; they had a new writing-master, and wrote with their faces turned a new way, to the great disgust of Will. They had had a botany excursion to Blue Hills, which he had lost. He was down at the foot of the class, and at the end of the morning he had made up his desperate mind to remain there forever. It was no use for a fellow to try to put through such a pile of back lessons.

He came stamping up stairs, kicked at the nursery door, slung in his bag of books, and stood on the threshold, pouting and glaring angrily at his sister Emily.

Emily sat in the window opposite, the sunlight sifting through the flickering ivy leaves on to her golden hair and fair sweet face. She was singing over her sewing as Will made his noisy entrance. She looked up at the scowling boy in the doorway, her pale cheeks flushing with surprise and then with pity.

"What's the matter?" she asked, gently.

"Matter?" roared Will; "I guess you'd ask, if you knew how old 'Crit' had been cramming the fellows, and me nowhere. I'll--run away to sea, or somewheres. I'm not going to _stand_ it."

Will bounced his hand down so hard on a tea-poy, two little terra cotta shepherdesses bounded up from it, knocked their heads together, and fell clattering to the floor.

"O, Will," cried Emily, rising up with a scared face, and dropping her pretty work-basket, "don't talk so. You are tired now, and everything troubles you, because you have been sick so long. By and by, when you are a little stronger, you will feel differently. Don't think about the back lessons. Just try to be glad you are well enough to go to school again, and be with the boys."

"O, don't preach!" persisted Will, gruffly.

With the cloud still hanging over his handsome face, he shook himself away from the caressing hand which was laid upon his shoulder, as if to hold him back from running away to the great, pitiless sea.

"Asy! asy, now!"

This was Kathleen, the nurse, calling out in cautioning tones to Will, who had jerked against the tray she was carrying causing the two saucers of strawberries to click together sharply, and the buttered rolls to slip over the edge of the plate.

"You're tired with the school, poor craythur, an' no wonder at that same. Larnin's murtherin', bad luck to it! I tried it mysel oncet, a moonth or so, avenin's. It's myself was watchin' for ye, Master Will, and when ye came round the corner I had this bit sup arl ready for ye. 'The crame--quick--Bridget!' says I, and then I ran away up the two flights with it; and barrin' the joggle you give it, it's in foine, tip-top orther an' priservation arl tegither, bless your little sowl!"

Kathleen set out the crisp little rolls and the great crimson berries in the most tempting way she could devise, and went off, bobbing her head with satisfaction to see the children place themselves at table, and partake of her well-timed lunch.

Will, as an atonement for the ungentle way in which he had come in upon his sister after school, offered her the nicest plate of berries, and insisted that she should take the crispiest roll. He suddenly remembered that Emily, too, had had whooping-cough and measles at the same time, and quite as badly as himself. But, then, she had not sprained her wrist or lamed her foot; so it was no wonder her temper had not suffered. Besides, it was expected of girls not to make a fuss.

In view of these last circumstances, he suppressed the apology he was about to make for his late unpleasant remarks.

"It never will do to give up too much to girls," he reasoned, draining the last drop of cream from the pitcher.

"Your grandmamma is coming over from Brookline this afternoon in the carriage, to take the two of you home with her to spind the night."

This was Kathleen back again at the nursery door, and wiping her face with her apron as she unburdened herself of this forgotten bit of news.

"You won't run away to sea now," besought Emily, with imploring eyes.

"Maybe I mightn't," shouted Will, tossing up his cap in glee at this unexpected prospect of fun.

It was now only the middle of the long summer day. Such a tiresome journey as the sun had to go before it rolled quite away in the west! Will longed to give it a push, and to hurry up the clock to strike five, the hour when they should be on their way to beautiful Brookline.

Impatient little Will! Emily kindly helped him to get through with the lagging time. At her suggestion, he played ball a while on the lawn, while from time to time she nodded encouragingly to him through the open window. By and by the ball bounded up into a spout, cuddling down among some soft old maple leaves, where Will could not see it. Thereupon Will came into the house in a great pet, storming about till he was persuaded to sit on the floor and paste pictures in his scrap-book.

This quiet occupation did not amuse him long. His fingers, his chin, his cheeks, his curls even soon became stiff with mucilage. Mucilage on his trouser knees, mucilage on his jacket elbows--in fact, mucilage everywhere on and around him.

Emily, after having, with great painstaking, washed her brother and all the surrounding furniture, proposed that he should study a Latin lesson. The book soon went down with a bang. "Because," as Will sulkily explained to his sighing sister, "it made his head buzz."

Emily gently suggested a French lesson as a corrective of this unpleasant "buzz." The remedy soon proved to be a failure. The French book came down more noisily than the Latin book.

Emily laid aside her drawing in despair. It was such a relief to hear Kathleen's heavy step in the entry, and to remember it was time now for Will to be dressed for dinner!

Poor Kathleen had a thankless task before her. Master Will required a great deal of preparation. His curls were gummed and tangled; his fingers were inky, and suspiciously pitchy.

"You've been climbin' unknownst up that pine tree again, an' you a told not to?" questioned Kathleen, examining the fingers keenly.

"Hush up, and go ahead!" was Will's rude answer.

"How _can_ you speak so?" reproved Emily, turning round upon Will, while she tied back her hair with a band of blue ribbon.

"Fie, fie, sir!" cried displeased Kathleen, "going ahead" with great energy, her mouth pursed up in disapproval of Master Will's manners, while she washed, and combed, and curled, and took off and put on his apparel.

"Where's your stockings, Master Will,--the blue stripes?"

"Dunno."

Will sat in a low chair, his stubby bare feet stuck out before him, and his two hands actively employed as fly-catchers. Suddenly he remembered having amused himself the day before in oiling his sled runners, using the striped stockings for wipers; but he did not trouble Kathleen just then with the tidings. The blue-striped stockings were not found. Then came a difficulty with his new boots.

"Aow! they pinch!"

"Where, sir?"

Master Will, not being able to say exactly where, was left to get used to the new boots as well as he could.

"Now see, here's your new suit; an' be careful with it, mind--careful as iver was. It's me afternoon out; and if ye go tearin' the cloos on ye, ye'll jist mind thim yersel, or else go in tatthers wid yer grandmamma."

This speech had no more wholesome effect on Will than to cause him to stick out his tongue at Emily, while Kathleen, standing behind him, arranged his buttons and his drapery generally.

"Now, if you could only be as good as you're purty," exclaimed Kathleen, wheeling Will suddenly round before his tongue was quite in place again, "you'd do well enough."

With a few finishing touches to Emily's sash ribbon, Kathleen went off to make her own gorgeous toilet for her afternoon out.

The dinner was next to be gotten through with. But that was not an unpleasant hour to Will. After dinner the children were permitted by their mother to amuse themselves under the shadow of the great elm behind the house. She knew that with Emily this permission simply meant liberty to sit quietly beneath the overhanging branches, gazing dreamily over the soft summer landscape, or listening to the sweet sounds that stirred the air around and above her. But with Will it might be more broadly interpreted into leave for frequent raids over fences and through bars for butterflies and beetles, or any luckless rover that strayed along. So she explained to her son in this wise:--

"Will, dear, remember that your grandmamma is coming for you, and you must not soil or tear your clothes by running about. Play quietly in the shade. The time will not be long now."

"Yes, mum."

Such implicit obedience as this "Yes, mum" implied! In fact, there was the promise in it of every one of the cardinal virtues.

The two children then went away through the long hall, whose doors stood wide open in the warm summer afternoon, and Will, dragging along the slower-footed Emily, hurried on to the elm tree.

"Don't pull so, Will; I shall drop my basket, and my spool and thimble will roll away."

"What do you want to bother with work for this beautiful afternoon?" inquired Will, slackening his pace.

"I promised mamma I would try and finish it this week," said Emily, "and I like to keep my word."

"I thought the machine sewed."

"So it does; but mamma says I must learn just the same as if there were no machines."

"Well, I'm glad I'm not a girl, to sit pricking my fingers, and jabbing needles in and out all day."

Patience was not one of Will's virtues.

How lovely it was out under the elm! The sweet-scented grass was warm with the afternoon sun, and musical with the chirp and hum of its insect homes. The bees fluttered in and out over mamma's rose garden, and all the air was filled with the delicate fragrance of the roses.

Emily, seated on the great gnarled elm roots, drank in all the sweet scents and sounds, her forgotten work-basket lying overturned in the grass before her. Will spread himself out at full length on the ground, and kept his eyes open for chippers and spiders, and all the busy little things that crept, or leaped, or flitted around him. Now and then the afternoon hush was broken by the faintly tinkling bells of a horse-car turning some distant corner, the rumbling of a heavy team going over the dusty turnpike, or the voices of the belfry clocks calling the hour to each other from the steeples of the neighboring city.

Master Will, however, soon became tired of this quiet. He scrambled up, and wandering away into the rose garden, lifted caressingly to his cheek the beautiful pink blossoms which leaned towards him from amid the green leaves. He was looking for a choice little bud to fasten in Emily's hair; and when he found it, he came whistling out into the clear grassy spaces again, a little bird in a bough overhead tilting, and twittering, and eying him askance.

Will rushed up to Emily, and hung the bud in her ear; he rearranged it in the blue ribbon of her hair, so that it nodded sleepily over her nose; he dropped it, as if it were a tiny pink egg, in the soft golden moss of curls which he upturned on his sister's head. Then he threw it away, and stamped on it; for Emily had drawn a book from her pocket, and deep in some fairy under-world story, was unmindful of his roses and his pains.

He ran recklessly away into the rose garden; he caught a bumblebee; he pursued a daddy long-leg with the watering-pot, going deeper and deeper all the time among the briery branches. The crashing of the stems caused Emily to come up from fairy-land a moment.

"Have a care, Will, dear. The roses have thorns. You may tear your nice jacket."

Crash, crash! rip, rip! The rose trees are dragging at Will with their prickly fingers. With great effort he burst away from them, and rushed out, with no worse mischance than a rent in his trousers.

"Aw! aw! aw!"

All the little knolls seemed to take up Will's sorrowful cry, and repeat it.

"You must not tear or soil your clothes."

Every cricket in the grass seemed to be screaming these words of his mother, and here was her luckless son with two green spots on his stockings, and a grievous rent in his new pantaloons.

It was Kathleen's afternoon out; she had warned him, and there was no help in that direction. He looked mournfully over his shoulder at the damages with a vague idea that he had perhaps some undeveloped capacity for mending.

"Couldn't you pin it up nicely?" he inquired, in most insinuating tones, of Emily, whose eye just then met his.

Emily burst into a merry laugh.

Will was mute with indignation, and tingling to his finger's ends, with this untimely mirth. His flashing eyes asked if this were a time for jesting.

"Come here, Willy, boy, and you'll see how nicely I'll sew it, not pin it. Never fret about it, dear; I will explain to mamma that you were really not so much in fault. It was only rather a mistake to get in so far among the bushes. If you had been chasing the cat, or turning somersets, she might, perhaps, be vexed; but poh! she will excuse this."

Will, unseen by Emily, wiped away with his thumb one big tear after another out of the corner of his eye.

"She is a good sister, anyhow, and I am a mean fellow ever to get mad with her, and say rude things to her," he said to himself, as Emily darned, and chatted, and bade him be of good cheer.

"My stockings, too, sister. There's a great green grass stain on both of them, and grandmamma expects us to be _so_ nice."

Will coughed to choke down a sob.

"Perhaps you may have time to change them, Will. I will help you. But we must get the pantaloons all nicely done first."